Poor Man's Fight (42 page)

“It’s a big day for you,”
said Chaplain Corleissen.

“Yeah,” Tanner shrugged. His gaze stayed on the painting of the helmsman with Jesus at his side, one hand on the troubled youth’s shoulder. “I guess.”

The chaplain let the silence linger. He was a young officer, well-built and sharp in his dress uniform. Corleissen sat in a chair beside the couch, giving the young crewman his undivided attention.

“You know what you’re getting?”
Corleissen asked.

“Bloodstripes. Purple Heart. Silver Cross.”

“Not many non-rate crewmen going around with those,” Corleissen pointed out. “Not many servicemen in general, really.”

“Silver Cross is for gallantry.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I
s that what I did?” Tanner ventured, glancing at Corleissen. “Was that gallantry?”

Corleissen
smiled gently. His face was made to smile. “I can only assume you’ve already looked up the definition, so why don’t you tell me?”

“I killed nine people.”

“You did.”

“I’d never been in a fight before I enlisted. My
stepmother freaked out about me enlisting. She didn’t want me getting brainwashed and turned into a killer. I worried about that, too. I was afraid to hit people in basic, even when sparring. Now here I am. Killed nine people. Directly contributed to the deaths of several more. Twenty-two, all told.”

“We could talk about what they did to contribute to their own deaths,” the chaplain noted gently. “But we’ve done that, haven’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“It shouldn’t be on your shoulders, Tanner. You’re no monster. It’s good that you don’t take this lightly. But you have to consider the whole situation.”

Tanner shook his head a little. “That’s not what bothers me. I mean yeah, there’s that, but… I killed nine people.”

“Out of an entire crew who’d have
murdered you without a second thought.”

“Yeah,” Tanner huffed. “That’s kind of what I’m thinking about.” He fell silent, nudging the carpet with one foot. “You know what pirates used to do to people in the age of sail?”

“All kinds of horrible things, I’d imagine.”

The younger man nodded. “Still do that today, too. But they used to… they’d take a rope and wrap it around someone’s head, and then put a stick through the back and twist it to tighten the rope ‘til it fractured the skull. Made the victim’s eyes pop out.”
Corleissen said nothing, waiting instead for Tanner to go on. “It was called ‘woolding.’ Happened enough that they needed a word for it, y’know?”

“I suspect they learned that from the Inquisition,”
Corleissen put in finally. “I seem to remember reading about that one before.”

“Yeah,” Tanner nodded. “Think so. People do things like that in the name of religion.”

“All sorts of horrible things are done in the name of religion. Or for money, or freedom, or love. Lots of causes, good and bad.”

“Sure.” Tanner gestured to the painting of Christ and the crewman. “Is that what paintings like that are for?”

“Yes, probably,” Corleissen admitted with a bit of a scowl. “It was here when I transferred in last month. I’ve been meaning to take it down. I thought that maybe I was being a bit too cynical, though, so I hesitated… but I guess I’m not the only one who makes that connection.”

Tanner shook his head. “Not really what’s on my mind. I just… they tortured people on
Qal’at Khalil. A lot. That prince turned himself over to protect his people and the hospitals, and they said, ‘Joke’s on you, we didn’t say we wouldn’t torture people.’ Didn’t say how many people they’d murder. Or kidnap.”

“You’ve been reading about this.”

“Whole week in the hospital, two more on light duty. I’ve had time. You know how many rapes were reported out of Qal’at Khalil? Off the
Aphrodite
?”

“One would be too many, I’d think.”

“Got that right,” Tanner frowned. “I mean there are women on these pirate ships. Women who just let that slide. Don’t care. Probably even laugh about it.”

“What did you want to talk about, Tanner?”

“These people are capable of doing all that,” he said, his voice cracking. “What do you think they’d have done to me?”

“We know what they tried to do to you. And your shipmates.
We know what they did to Leone. You stopped them from doing more.”

“Huh. Yeah. My shipmates. Listen to how I ask that. I’m worried about what they’d do to
me
, not
us
.”

“It’s no crime to think about yourself.”

“I’m not so sure I did think about anyone else.”

“Bos’un Freeman might argue that. His wife might, too.
You did all you could for your shipmates. No one thinks you did anything less. Certainly not Leone’s family. I’ve spoken with them several times.”

Tanner
snorted. “Maybe. I mean obviously I didn’t want him to be hurt. Any of them. I don’t like ‘em, but…” His voice trailed off. Again, he shook his head. “I was saving my own ass.”

“No one has any illusions about that.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Tanner said to the floor. “I’ve seen this on the news. Heard ‘em say my name. Read it a few times. Not once do they talk about what a great job Tanner Malone did of saving his own ass.”

“Are you angry about that?”

“Guess not,” he shrugged. “It’s what I was doing when I enlisted in the first place.”

“You had to know
the risks when you signed up. At least on an intellectual level.”

“Yeah, but there’s knowing it intellectually, and then there’s actually facing it.”

Chaplain Corleissen allowed Tanner more silence. They’d met several times since the incident. Corleissen quickly realized that Tanner wasn’t used to living in a shell. He probably never had one before he’d arrived on
St. Jude
. Drawing him out of that shell wasn’t so hard; all anyone had to do was listen.

“I’m scared. I’m really scared.

“I had a dream last night. This morning. Whatever. There was this girl in basic, and she and I hit it off, and after basic and during weapons we spent our liberties together. She’s on
Los Angeles
now. She wrote me two months ago to say she’s got a new boyfriend. I’m not bothered by it. I’m happy for her. But I had this dream about our first night together, and then I woke up to Heifer scratching his ass and the room stinks and my ribs still hurt from where I got shot, y’know?

“I’m still
here
. I haven’t even been here all that long. All the accidents that have almost killed me have been bad enough, and being the punching bag for the crew just sucks, but those people would’ve murdered me. Maybe done worse.”

He tried to control his lower lip, going so far as to put a finger over it, but gave it up. “I’m scared. I’ve
been
scared, but now…

“And now they’re gonna pin a medal on me. Third highest medal
the Navy has, y’know?” Tanner looked at Corleissen, who gave only the slightest nod of agreement. “They had to have stupid discussions on whether pirates count as a legitimate enemy of the state. Had to have discussions about whether the Silver Cross is appropriate. If it’s too high.”

“Those discussions happen,”
Corleissen shrugged. “I wouldn’t place much stock in it.”

“I don’t. That’s not the point. They’ve got standards to maintain or whatever. I get that. I don’t care about the medal. That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“It’s the third highest medal, sir. ‘Conspicuous gallantry.’ I killed nine people and got a bunch of others killed.
Leone
died
, and all he gets is bloodstripes and a Purple Heart. So here I am scared out of my mind… and I keep thinking, if that’s what you do for the third highest medal, what’s a guy supposed to do for number one? How many people are you supposed to kill for that?”

Corleissen
didn’t respond. Kill counts weren’t the point, or even really a necessary factor, but Tanner plainly knew that. He read too much not to know better.

“I’m so scared that I’m gonna die out there and that’s gonna be it. No university. No girlfriend. Never see my parents again. Just those… just the people on my ship.

“I don’t think I belong here.”

***

“This could all be a bunch of bullshit, man!” The tall, muscular pirate with his chest bared by an open vest faced his comrades with his arms held wide. His forceful voice quieted more than a little of the muttering in the cargo bay.

“Hey!”
Lauren barked to silence the rest. “Let Turtle speak!”

The bearded man threw her a grateful nod, then turned back to the crowd. “We don’t really know anything about how
Yaomo
got pinched. You really think they released the whole story to the media?”

“We know they got her and figured out her name!” someone shouted.

Turtle waved his hands dismissively. “They might’ve blown her up and figured that out just from the wreckage. My point is, why should we assume that they know we’re here? Or anything else?”

“It doesn’t matter
what they know,” countered Casey. He stood amid the hundreds of pirates brought together for the vote. With the danger of a raid considered so imminent, there was no chance of a regular pre-voyage assembly on the other side of the planet. No one provided free booze or food this time. Every pirate not vitally needed at a ship’s station crammed into
Vengeance’s
cargo bay, and those standing watches had holocom channels open to hear the meeting and cast their vote.

“It doesn’t matter if we think they made all this up or if we think they opened up her astrogation logs and Ming’s guys spilled their guts. The point is our suppliers think this planet is compromised. The Tongs are pulling out. The independent fences are leaving. Every whore that can pay or fuck his or her way onto a ship is getting the hell out of here. Paradise is shot, Turtle. Pretty soon it’ll all just be underdeveloped real estate and a couple empty buildings.

“We’ve got to figure out where we want to go from here. We’ll figure out a new port to call home sooner or later. Right now we need to pick a course and go, and there’s no way to do that but put it to a vote.”

His gaze swept the
quieted crew. Turtle scowled darkly at him. “I’m sorry, buddy,” Casey shrugged. “I really am. I can’t keep everyone else on Paradise from pulling up stakes.”

“Well, where the hell do we go, then?” someone else called out.

“Look, we can put some specific options together for you in a bit,” Casey shrugged. “Pick a few people who want to come up with some options—“

“Jesus fuck,
Casey, you want us to form a committee?” another voice yelled. Laughter ensued. Ordinarily Casey would have laughed, too, but at the moment he was too stressed to appreciate absurdities.

“Look, you got a better idea?”
Casey snapped. “All we gotta do is come up with some options, alright? Let’s not complicate it. I suggest that we lie low for awhile until we find out if what happened with
Yaomo
makes anyone ambitious about hunting pirates.”

“Are you kidding?” Turtle scoffed. “Fuck that. Hell, if I’ve gotta be on a ship, I want to
make money, not run around with my tail between my legs.”

“He’s got a point,” said Jerry, who stood
amid the throng of pirates. Many others nodded in agreement as he continued. “A lot of us have to leave stuff behind here. Ain’t like everyone can pack up all their baggage and furniture and shit and stow it on the ship.”

Casey
opened his mouth to counter that. Setting up houses and retirement plans on a pirate planet was stupid to begin with. Before he could say such a thing, though, he caught sight of Lauren. She had a holo screen up in front of her from her computer. He couldn’t read the thing from here, but he knew a spreadsheet when he saw one.

He had
encouraged her investment in the Palace. He told her it was good to find ways to grow her money rather than piss it all away like most of their comrades always did.

She had ways to protect her investment. He knew that much, though he didn’t know details.
Lauren had some sort of bailout arrangement with her business partners who actually ran the place. She was smart. She could think like a businesswoman, rather than just another shortsighted, greedy pirate.

Only investors didn’t see the end of an investment as a finite tough break. They projected out future earnings. Any disruption of those future earnings—money they hadn’t even made yet—was in their minds money they lost.

Lauren wasn’t looking at how much money she had salvaged, Casey knew. When she looked up at him, all he saw was her anger at how much she’d been robbed.

Casey
wanted to take his ship out of harm’s way until the waters were more settled. He knew, looking in the eyes of his respected quartermaster, that he wouldn’t win that debate.