Chapter 3
The Cordoba Spaceforce is a department of the Cordoba Combine. Its members are combine employees; however, like all military forces throughout history, the Spaceforce and their exspatios have developed a subculture with their own political and cultural norms.
The Armed Forces of the Pamplona Sector, Part 3
Location: CSFS James Bond, Cordoba Space
Standard Date: 01 18 630
Lieutenant Commander Tanya Cordoba-Davis took the steps leading to the bridge two at a time. It wasn’t hard. The Double O7 was running at point seven gee to conserve H. The hatch to the bridge was open. Tanya grabbed a handhold and entered the bridge at the sedate, stately pace suitable for the executive officer on a Cordoba Spaceforce warship.
Commander Lars Hedlund looked up and lifted an eyebrow. “Running in the corridors again, XO?” He was about average in height, with straight black hair and brown skin. There was just a touch of epicanthic fold to his eyes, which were a startling green.
“Aye, Skipper,” Tanya said, automatically using her anatomical control to suppress the blush. The skipper wouldn’t care, but it was a habit by now.
“Is it the genetic mods or is there something to be excited about?” He was referring to the genetic mods that gave Tanya higher than normal energy levels. Tanya could stay up and fully operational for upwards of seventy-two standard hours, more if she needed to. She averaged three and a half hours a night of sleep and was stronger than an unmodified human. The skipper had some mods, but he wasn’t a Cordoba connection and his parents, while stockholders, weren’t overly wealthy.
“Well, the rear B sail runner is back up to full readiness. And Cook says we are having Morland lambfish with asparagus and hollandaise sauce for dinner.” Tanya glanced at the main display that was showing the star field with an overlay of the ship routes and icons for the known jump points in the Aegean Cluster. She gave Lieutenant Christine Sanders who had the watch a nod, then turned back to the skipper.
“So it’s the genetic mods.”
Now it was Tanya’s turn to lift an eyebrow.
The skipper continued. “You can eat helping after helping of Cook’s hollandaise without worrying about it going to your gut. I just look at it and gain five pounds.”
“With all due respect, Skipper, I have never seen you just look at Cook’s asparagus and hollandaise.”
“XOs who point out their skipper’s lack of character have short and grisly careers, Tanya.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Tanya said, but in her case it wasn’t true, and they both knew it. Tanya was a Cordoba-Davis, a grand stockholder in her own right. While another officer might find her career on the rocks because she was too open about criticizing her seniors, Tanya wouldn’t. That fact had made her very reticent about acknowledging Commander Lars Hedlund’s character flaws until she got to know him. She didn’t want to trade on her family name and tended to bend over backwards to avoid it. That was something that the skipper and her personal aide were working on correcting lately.
“Christine, you have the con,” Commander Hedlund said. He hooked his thumb at the bridge hatch, and Tanya followed him out.
∞ ∞ ∞
A few minutes later, in the captain’s cabin, Tanya sat in the chair across from his and looked at the picture of James Bond behind the skipper’s desk. The old movie series and the books they were based on were the basis of the ship’s name. In the centuries since the loss of Earth, the distinction between fictional heroes like James Bond and real ones like Audie Murphy were blurred. Only scholars knew or cared, and even scholars weren’t sure in cases like Hector and Agamemnon.
This was a small room compared to what might be seen on a station or a planet, four meters by six, with a bed that was, at the moment, folded up into the wall. Hero-class cruisers were light on amenities.
The skipper’s face grew pensive. “I know you don’t like to trade on your family, Tanya, but I’m hearing some pretty troubling rumors.”
“About what, Skipper?”
“A possible shakeup on the Board.” Board, in this case, referred to the Board of Directors of the Cordoba Combine. The Cordoba Combine was effectively the government of much of the Pamplona Sector. It was run by a board of directors who were selected by the stockholders. Once the board was selected, it appointed the combine officers and officials. Election of board members happened when a board member retired or died and—very occasionally—when enough people with enough stock asked for a general stockholders’ meeting. There were rumbles over the past two and a half standard years that there was going to be such a request, with the requisite proxies filed, but nothing had happened yet.
“My mother doesn’t think so, Skipper, but Dad is less confident. Isabella insists that nothing is going to happen, but she is so focused on the family investments that I don’t think she pays much more attention to politics than I do.” Tanya’s sister Isabella went into the family business with a will and was her mother’s fair-haired girl.
“Pay some attention, Tanya. When we hit port, send some letters. The fleet needs to know what’s going on.”
“The Admiralty . . .” Tanya started, but the skipper shook his head. Tanya’s father was one of the Admiralty Board, one of what the fleet referred to as stockholder admirals. Grand stockholders who went to the academy, then shot up the ranks, often with no experience at all on warships and who effectively controlled the spaceforce. They were the standard connection between the military and the civilian oversight, and the fact that the skipper didn’t seem to trust them was worrying.
The skipper shook his head again. “Nothing against your father, Tanya. I respect him, and his work in the appropriations office has done good things for the spaceforce. Still, the stockholder admirals are holding back. At least, that’s what I’m hearing from the space-going admirals. The Drakes are fishing in a number of places and the stockholders don’t want to hear about it.”
The Drake Combine was the other major player in the Pamplona Sector. It was actually larger than the Cordoba Combine, but more dispersed, and that meant that its spaceforce needed to cover more territory, be in more places at once. The advantage of the Cordoba Combine’s internal jump routes was all that kept the Drakes at bay.
The Drakes were usually forced to go farther and send orders farther to coordinate. That let the Cordoba Combine get ships into position to respond to Drake incursions more quickly, and that was crucial in the recent battle of Conner Chain.
“Do you really—” Tanya stopped herself. She knew the skipper was worried about the Drakes making a try for control of the Pamplona Sector. For that matter, Tanya was worried about it. The last of the trade wars was forty-three standard years ago, when the Drake and Cordoba Combines defeated the Ferguson Group and divided up its routes.
“Yes, I do. Because I don’t think the Drake’s pseudo-royalty system is stable. They need to fight us or they will come apart from internal dissension.”
Location: DSFS Brass Hind, Drake Space
Standard Date: 01 18 630
Flash mist rolled from the vap into Third Officer Rosalyn Flatt’s mouth and throat, then into her lungs, and the world became more intense. Colors were brighter and sounds crisper. The scratch on her quarter’s wall stood out in high relief. Rosalyn could feel the wings flapping as a vibration in the grav intensity. There was a hiccup, and she checked the readouts. That was a catch in amidships C wing. It was cycling fine, then it would skip a cycle. The comp was running slow. It always did when she was flashing. She was in her quarters and used her interface to hook into the computer. The captain was off duty and Second Officer Andrew Watson had the watch.
Flash, a derivative of the thon plant, was a powerful euphoric and moderately powerful hallucinogen. It acted by increasing synaptic sensitivity and shortening synaptic response time. Depending on personal body chemistry, a user might feel ghostly touches, hear voices, have false memories, see things, or all of the above. To the observer, the flash user shows signs of delusional paranoia, but flash generally made the user feel capable, sharp, and clear. The world became more intense and connections, especially threats, that were obscure became obvious. People on flash also had response times that were as much as fifty percent faster than when not using. There were, in fact, recorded cases where the use of flash led to new and innovative solutions.
Along with her noting of the hiccup in amidships C, Rosalyn realized that First Officer Jason Smythe was out to get her. It wasn’t just that he was always watching her. That was a common response of men and more than a few women since she had turned thirteen. Her five foot two inch body was shapely and supple. She stretched now, like a cat, enjoying the feel of muscles across muscles, sliding smoothly beneath her warm tan skin.
No, there was something else about Jason Smythe. He wasn’t after a roll in the sheets. He was out to destroy her, not just to get laid. He resented her intelligence and her ability. Her mere existence proved his inferiority and he couldn’t stand that. In a moment of flash clarity, she knew that she had to get him before he got her.
∞ ∞ ∞
Sir Jason Smythe looked on as Rating First Tom Tucker used his interface to control the bot that was on the hull, working on the amidships C wing. There was a valve that was sticking as the magnetic bearing weakened on the back stroke, if the timing hit just wrong. In space, magnetic bearings were standard. Anything else tended to vacuum-weld parts. In this case, the magnetic field was weaker than it should have been and out of balance, so the rotator shifted to touch the cup. It wasn’t much of a touch, but at a hundred rotations a second it was enough to cause a flutter and over time would wear away the joint and cause worse problems.
“Watch that,” Jason said. The crew was sloppy and he had to keep an eye on them. He’d been tempted to do the repair himself, but that wasn’t an officer’s job.
Tucker muttered something that Jason chose not to hear and made an adjustment. Jason was a belted knight in the Drake Combine, which was more social rank than anyone else on this tub. Even Captain Hickam was only an esquire. That gave Jason a special responsibility to make sure that the lower orders were kept on their toes.
He thought about Rosalyn Flatt. The third officer was a cute little number, blond and blue eyed, just the way he liked them, and he figured that with a little more pressure she would yield readily enough. It wasn’t like she had any other options, him being who he was, and her being a half-caste and born on the wrong side of the blanket to boot.
“Caste” had nothing to do with ancient India or any other Earth nation. But for generations the upper echelons of the Drake Combine had been availing themselves of genetic mods. While still fertile with normal humans, they were—Jason was convinced—clearly superior. Yes, a few more “accidental” touches and Rosalyn would get the message. But these things needed to be done carefully.
That was half the fun.
“All right, Tucker. Bring in the droid and see that it’s put in the queue for maintenance.”
Three Hours Later
Rosalyn took a last hit of flash and headed for the bridge. The Brass Ass had a long, narrow structure, little more than girders separating three sail nodes. The hull held atmosphere from bow to stern, but not much more. It had algae tanks for oxygen, but no other hydroponics. It carried the food the crew ate and would off load waste when they got back to a port. The waste was valuable feedstocks for the hydroponics of many stations. The three sail nodes held the sail rigging and the quarters for the crew. The bridge was in the forward section of the ship, a design decision that had much to do with status and little to do with practicality. With the Hind underway, Rosalyn had to climb in a full standard gravity from her quarters in the stern sail nodule to the bridge located in the bow nodule. Rosalyn was in good shape and it wasn’t that hard for her, but it was irritating that Captain Hickam insisted that she report to the bridge for her watch, rather than simply having her use the interface in her quarters.
Suddenly, in another moment of flash clarity, Rosalyn knew that Smythe was responsible for that, as well as the rest of the hassles she put up with. It was all part of his desire to kick dirt on her, to keep her from realizing that it was she, not he, who was superior.
And there he was, the slimy bastard. Standing on the landing of the midship node, waiting with a smirk on his face. What was he doing here anyway? His quarters were in the forward nodule.
Another moment of clarity. He was going to touch her. She could feel it even before she reached him. His slimy paws on her hips, on her ass, on her . . . Rosalyn. She slowed and his grin widened. And it was just all too much.
She sped back up. As she was starting to pass him and he was reaching for her, she struck.
Absent the flash, his reflexes would have been measurably faster than hers. But she was flying and, besides, his reflexes weren’t that much faster.
∞ ∞ ∞
Jason Smythe was expecting to grab a quick feel as Rosalyn passed him on the ladder. The last thing he expected was a blow to his diaphragm before he even touched her. It took him by surprise, and for a moment he was stunned.
Then he reacted. He tried at first for a restraining hold and a nerve pinch, but she was faster than he realized. She got out of the way of his grasping hands and hit him in the nose. It was supposed to be a killing blow, but he managed to shift his head enough so that the angle was off and the blow just smashed his nose to the side. Blood sprayed the landing and covered his lower face.
Now he was furious. He bellowed in pain and rage. He didn’t know or care why she struck. The uppity bitch was going to pay.
∞ ∞ ∞
Second Officer Andrew Watson was coming down the ladder to return to his quarters. He wasn’t supposed to, but he usually left the bridge at the end of his shift even if Rosalyn wasn’t there yet. The captain would be drunk in his quarters by then and that asshole Smythe would never notice. He heard the bellow and leapt down the ladder. What he saw was Rosalyn, who was five foot two, fighting Smythe, who was six foot four. What he assumed was that Smythe got impatient and decided that with his social rank he could rape her without consequences. Andrew wasn’t going to stand for that. He went for the big man.
∞ ∞ ∞
Smythe sensed the help arriving and backed away to give Andrew room. Then the stupid bastard came at him. Smythe was incapable of imagining why Andrew would be attacking him. It never even occurred to him that Andrew might think Smythe was in the wrong. That left just one option. Mutiny. It was a coordinated attack. He swung Andrew between himself and Rosalyn, and opened his interface.
“Mutiny!” He dumped Andrew and Rosalyn’s IDs into the interface with shoot on sight orders attached. The ship’s computer, an intelligent system but not an artificial brain, had a set of protocols for mutiny, but there were fail-safes built in. As long as the captain was alive, only he could officially declare mutiny.
∞ ∞ ∞
Captain Hickam was alive. He wasn’t even unconscious. He was just very drunk. He was looking at the image of his wife and trying not to imagine what she was doing while he was out here.
The alert was transmitted to him and so was the second one, when Andrew Watson accused Smythe of attempted rape. Hickam was drunk and confused and put a hold on any action by the ship’s automatics while he thought things through.
∞ ∞ ∞
Rosalyn was on fire. Between the flash and the adrenaline, the world around her was slowed. She stepped back and let Andrew fight Smythe. She got on her interface and called Lieutenant Quinton Williams, the commander of the ten-man exspatio force on the Brass Ass. He was a crook from way back, but a smart crook, and he had no loyalty at all to the Drake Combine.
∞ ∞ ∞
Quinton Williams’ link came alive with Rosalyn’s data dump, and he had a decision to make. He didn’t really trust Rosalyn, but he had wanted out of the Drake Spaceforce almost since the day he joined. He quickly came to realize that even for someone who served well and faithfully, first lieutenant was about as high as someone not titled could go. And it was almost impossible to get a title for service to the Combine, even if it was the stock scenario in holo cubes.
Fuck it, he thought. Let’s kick some ass.
He got on the link and started giving orders.
∞ ∞ ∞
Back on the landing at midship node, Smythe blocked a blow by Andrew, who missed a beat due to the shock at the accusation of mutiny. Andrew was strong and fast, even reasonably bright, but he wasn’t that much of a multitasker. He had excellent reflexes and was better trained in martial arts than Smythe ever bothered to become, but for vital seconds he was running on pure reflex. His higher functions were distracted by the fact that somehow he was on the wrong side of a mutiny.
It cost him. He was in the wrong position to respond to Smythe’s elbow strike and was unable to avoid it.
It grazed his right temple and he never even saw the throat strike that crushed his larynx and, minutes later, would end his life. He hit Smythe twice more, crippling blows, but he was already dead when they landed.
Absent an emergency tracheotomy, which Rosalyn didn’t provide. She decided that he was much more useful as a martyr than as competition for command.
Instead of making any effort to save Andrew, Rosalyn used the time Andrew was distracting Smythe to try to find a weapon. It was surprisingly difficult. The Brass Ass wasn’t a frigate from the first age of sail, with belaying pins everywhere. It was a jump-capable spaceship that used drones for much of the work. Lines were tied down, but they were tied down by computer clamps that were hidden behind wall panels. Where was a monkey wrench when you needed one?
As it turned out, she didn’t need one. Andrew’s last blow brought Smythe to one knee, facing away from her. Rosalyn spun, bringing her right boot heel to the back of Smythe’s neck just between the skull and the top vertebrae. It wasn’t a killing blow, but it did render him unconscious.
That was good, because Rosalyn realized that she didn’t want to kill Smythe until she was sure she had the captain. The Drake Combine didn’t trust its spaceforce, especially the enlisted ranks, so command devolved to the highest surviving commissioned officer, but not the enlisted personnel. That meant that Rosalyn needed to be the ranking commissioned officer.
She ran through the list even as she dragged the unconscious Smythe to the nearest airlock. Captain Hickam, drunk in his quarters . . . he would need to die last. First Officer Smythe, now in an airlock. Second Officer Watson—she looked at Andrew—Second Officer Watson was dead. Quinton Williams was an officer, but exspatio, not spaceforce. The engineering officer, John Boyle, was a warrant officer, not commissioned, so as the computer saw things, not in line of command.
Rosalyn opened up a comm channel to Williams. “Quinton, I can’t do the deed,” she sent, careful of the words even on the secure channel. “Smythe killed Watson and he’s unconscious in airlock 2C.” She paused. She must be extra careful here. “You know the programming in the ship’s comp. You know the protocols.”
What she was referring to was the fact that the person who killed the captain—or, for that matter, any officer—could not be placed in that slot. Someone else would have to kill Hickam, and she would have to arrest and court martial that person. Either that, or hold them for trial as soon as they got back to a Drake base. In fact, it would be better if she could get to the computer without having killed anyone, at least before she assumed command.
The ship’s computer was a large computer and extensively programmed with a lot of protocols, but it wasn’t an artificial brain, so it lacked the consciousness to realize that she was running the mutiny. As long as she didn’t actually kill anyone and arrested those who had, it would treat her as a loyal little Drake minion. Especially since she was from a good family.
∞ ∞ ∞
Williams considered. He did understand the protocols, and the smart move would be to have Downing do it. But Quinton Williams was, in his way, an honorable man. He couldn’t, when all was said and done, put one of his men in that sort of jeopardy. If it was to be done, he would have to do it. Nodding his head sharply, he headed for the captain’s quarters.
He used his interface to announce himself and the captain’s hatch opened.
“What the hell is going on, Williams?” Captain Hickam asked.
“It’s all rather complicated, sir,” Quinton said. “It started when Lieutenant Commander Smythe decided to have his way with Lieutenant Flatt.” Williams was speaking to the recorders and the expert system as much as to the captain. After all, what Hickam thought was about to become completely irrelevant. He was walking across the captain’s cabin even as he spoke.
Captain Hickam shook his head in befuddled disappointment. “I hope she isn’t expecting me to do anything to Smythe. His family is very important on New Florida.”
“No, Captain,” Williams said calmly. “No one is expecting you to take any action.” By the time he finished the sentence, he was standing right next to the captain, who nodded in drunken relief.
Quinton Williams, in a carefully measured strike, hit the captain in the side of the head. It was a touch too measured. The captain was stunned, but not unconscious. Quinton hit him again, a bit harder. He then pulled the necklace from the captain’s neck and stuck it in his pocket. Everyone—well, all the officers anyway—knew about the captain’s pendant and the private rutters that it held. This would be his insurance. Rosalyn would want it.
Quinton lifted the captain in a fireman’s carry and headed for the 1B airlock. Then he sent Downing instructions.
∞ ∞ ∞
Joe Downing got the orders and headed for the 2C airlock. He passed Lieutenant Flatt on the ladder, but he didn’t know what was going on.
Spaceforce uniforms in the Drake combine were white with blue and gold trim. It made blood easy to see and identify. Exspatio uniforms were black with gold and red trim. They didn’t show blood hardly at all. Both uniforms were based on the old heavy spacesuits, so they had fabric folds at the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, ankles, and wrists to mimic the air containment folds of the old heavy suits. But that made no impression on Joe, in comparison to the blood spatter that marked the body and right side of the lieutenant’s suit.
Joe reached the airlock and, against Lt. William’s orders, looked in. His orders were to cycle the airlock without looking, but Joe wasn’t as dumb as people thought. He looked and wished he hadn’t. If he had cycled the airlock without looking, he would just be obeying orders and he wouldn’t be at fault for anything except for failing to check. Now, cycling the airlock would be murder . . . and he almost didn’t do it. But while the LT would take care of him if he obeyed the orders, there was no way that Spaceforce bastard Smythe would protect him if he didn’t. Joe pushed the button and the lock cycled, sending Lieutenant Commander Sir Jason Smythe, belted knight of the Drake Combine, sailing gently into the void. The cycled lock had very little air left in it when the outer door opened, so it was only a gentle shove that lasted until he got far enough out to be picked up by the wings.
By that time, Captain Hickam was in space as well, and Lieutenant JG Rosalyn Flatt reported to the captain’s cabin and found him gone.
∞ ∞ ∞
On her own authority, Rosalyn used ship systems to determine the locations of Captain Hickam and First Officer Smythe. She also reported the death of Andrew Watson to the ship’s computer, making a full and truthful report of the incidents leading to this situation. Well, almost full. She failed to mention her communications to Quinton Williams, and when asked she honestly responded that she told no one to harm Captain Hickam, First Officer Smythe, or Second Officer Watson.
She hadn’t, not in so many words.
Given the emergency, she took command and ordered the arrest of Quinton Williams and Joe Downing.
Rosalyn now owned her own ship. But Rosalyn was no sheep of a trader and the Brass was no cargo ship. No. Rosalyn would hunt merchants.