Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) (37 page)

Something bugged him. He frowned, thinking about it. He’d just said something nice about Draper, and Command Squad’s marines would repeat those words to others when they could. He knew Captain Pantillo had regarded him well, and Trace had complete faith in the Captain’s judgement on matters where he was sure to know better than her. So why hadn’t
his
reputation on
Phoenix
done any better, with those two in his corner? His sims were always excellent, and the few times he’d had to take evasive action in scenarios not unlike what Lieutenant Draper had just performed, he’d done equally well. He’d thought it was just the ever lingering suspicion of his family name, and the conditions of his promotion. But now as he thought about it, knowing this much more about how reputations on ships worked, something did not add up.

He blinked the uplink icon, and established a private link to Trace.
“Trace, a question,”
he formulated silently.

“Shoot,”
she said.

“Did Commander Huang say bad things about me when I wasn’t there?”
Because then it would all make sense. Huang had always smiled and made nice in person, but even off-duty Erik had never gotten anything from her beyond the polite front. It had always puzzled him, because he was usually pretty good at making friends. Had he missed this possibility all along? Had
that
been a large part of the reason why in all his three years on
Phoenix
, he’d never managed to make much of a dent in ship-wide suspicions of his ability?

“She was a bitch,”
Trace replied. Erik shook his head in disbelief at his own stupidity. How hadn’t he seen it?
“I spoke to the Captain about it, and he had a word with her. It settled down after that, but she’d still stick in the knife from time to time, passive-aggressive like. You never guessed?”

“No,”
Erik admitted.
“Just occurred to me now.”

“My guess is jealousy,”
said Trace.
“Which is dumb, because it’s not like her family was poor. Some people are just fucked up. I’m sorry, I probably should have told you, but somehow it never came up. We’ve been busy.”

“Yes we have,”
Erik agreed. It dazed him, to realise that someone he’d looked up to had actually hated him. And worse, no one had told him she’d been snarking behind his back. Obviously it hadn’t been too bad, or the Captain would have pulled her into line. But she had a long history with Pantillo, and it was personal between them, as friends and wartime comrades. It hurt to know that he truly had been the outsider, just as he’d feared. And that Pantillo would still probably have stuck with Huang rather than him, if he’d had to choose. And that yes, the Captain had certainly picked him because of his family name, whatever his other talents.

That much was obvious now, in observing what had transpired since the Captain’s death. The Debogande name had helped keep
Phoenix
alive, had almost certainly contributed to the offer of pardon they’d just refused, had gotten them a shuttle off Homeworld, and possibly a stay of execution in the Shiwon prisoner cells. The Captain had suspected bad things were coming if he continued down his track of supporting Worlder causes, and so he’d needed political cover. Lucky for him, the only son of Alice Debogande had turned out to be an excellent warship pilot and a reasonable Fleet officer, a fortuitous turn that the Captain hadn’t been able to ignore. Yes the Captain wouldn’t have picked him if he wasn’t up to the job, and that job, on Pantillo’s ship, came with obscenely high standards. That was some comfort, at least. The rest of it, far less so.

And what else had he missed? Little events he wasn’t privy to? Small conversations between old friends Pantillo and Huang, where the former knew the latter had a thing against their new LC, but hadn’t told her with sufficient force to keep it to herself? Down-talking the ship’s third-shift commander should have earned Huang a bloody mark for indulging, good friend or not. But self-evidently the Captain hadn’t given her one, because the down-talking hadn’t stopped. And he felt like an idiot, because not only had he completely missed Huang’s attitude, but now he was even wondering if he’d missed other things about the Captain, this man he’d idolised and thought could do no wrong. A man who had gotten himself killed pursuing what Erik now knew to be a hopeless cause, and had given friends special treatment where it had interfered with good operational order on his ship.

“Hey,”
Trace formulated.
Erik looked, and found her watching him with mild concern.
“I was worried Huang would step off Europa’s ramp on Joma Station when the old crew and volunteers turned up.”

Erik smiled faintly.
“You too, huh?”

“Yes. I was worried because I figured I might have to toss her out an airlock.”
Erik frowned at her.
“We can’t afford command problems at the top. Some of the crew probably would figure she should be in charge. If she asserted her rank, and rallied those crew, I’d have had to kill her.”

Erik blinked.
“You’re serious.”

Trace had never looked more serious.
“She’d split the crew, and she’s not a team player, not with you at least. It would have been a disaster. I’m not about to allow that any more than I’d allow Phoenix to be violently boarded. We need our best commander in charge. Not just our best pilot, but our best commander. That’s you, on both counts. I knew Huang a lot better than you did, and I knew her a lot better than I knew you, at the time. Now that I know both, I’m telling you — I’m damn glad it’s you here and not her. And she’s damn lucky she didn’t change her mind and come out on Europa with those others, because she wouldn’t have conceded to take second-place behind you, and I would have insisted. Violently, if necessary.”

“Do me a favour,”
Erik said with feeling.
“Don’t ever not be on my side.”
Such support was welcome, but also a little scary.

“But that’s probably why she abandoned us in the first place,”
Trace added.
“Aside from her family reasons. She didn’t like you, and she knew I didn’t like her much, mostly because of shit like that. I told her once that I found her behaviour completely unprofessional. She ignored me, and we left it at that.”

That was something, at least. Knowing that he met Trace’s standards, while Huang hadn’t, made him feel considerably better. And of course Trace had confronted Huang about it. ‘Unprofessional’ was about the worst thing Trace could say of anyone in uniform.
“Why didn’t the Captain pull her up?”

Trace’s expression softened a little.
“He wasn’t a perfect man, Erik. He was a great man, a leader, a warrior, a compassionate visionary. And I loved him like a father. But not perfect, no.”

“Well,”
Erik sighed.
“I suppose it’s a part of the progression to adulthood. When the children realise their parents aren’t perfect.”

“I knew that about my real father when I was five,”
Trace said sombrely.

“Was it that bad?”
Erik asked.

Trace said nothing for a moment, gazing silently past him. Then she took a deep breath.
“Come on, nearly there. Let’s hope the froggies like your aftershave.”

The tavalai cruiser was called
Gabriladova
, a radolima-class cruiser, bigger than most and while not the performance equal of an ibranakala-class, dangerous enough to any who cared to tangle. Her four companions were far more collectively than Erik wanted to poke with a stick, but
Makimakala
had offered safety and hospitality, and no one on
Phoenix
had ever heard of tavalai violating such an offer once given, whatever Trace’s misgivings.

Tif docked PH-4 at
Gabriladova
’s midships, the cruiser’s grapples held wide and unable to clamp on the unfamiliar shuttle hull. Staff Sergeant Kono went first, then the rest of First Section, then Trace and Erik. It took a bit longer using the airlock, and they all equalised with yawns and nose-holding. Then came the tavalai air as the doors opened — it was thick and wet, considerably warmer than humans were used to, and Erik felt himself sweating almost immediately. Midships was not so different from
Phoenix
, a zero-G space of cargo nets and vast, ascending handholds and trooper berths where karasai would gather in orderly rows prior to boarding. Awaiting them were those karasai, full armour and weapons, menacing and unfriendly as they floated in various cover positions about the entry airlock.

Trace and several of Command Squad hit suit thrust with just enough force to interpose themselves between the tavalai and their Lieutenant Commander, startling the closed space with bursts of white propellant. But no guns were raised.

“Weapons,”
said the lead karasai’s translator speaker, harsh and metallic.
“Armour good. But no weapons.”

“No deal,” said Trace, as her own speaker translated that to equally harsh Togiri.

“This tavalai system.
” The karasai wore no helmets either, their wide heads adorned instead with headset apparatus that incorporated the eyes like blinders on a horse.
“This tavalai fleet. You come here, you show respect. You visit our ship, you know our rules.”

“We are here within the hospitality of Dobruta vessel
Makimakala
,” Trace retorted. “We respect their rules. Not yours.”

The tavalai commander’s eyes and nostrils flared, a deep, offended breath taken. That expression was plain enough to read.
“Dobruta have no command here. This is tavalai fleet, not some ***.”
As the translator mangled that last word. Perhaps it was programmed to be polite.

“Major,”
Erik uplinked to her.
“You can’t defend me here. If they want us dead, we’re dead, we knew that when we came.”
As she considered the karasai, stare unblinking. No doubt these karasai also knew who she was.
“Maybe Captain Pram can talk them into helping us. Killing that base is going to be damn hard without help, and our own Fleet just ruled themselves out.”

For a moment he thought she was going to defy him. And he recalled her words again, berating him for not promoting himself to captain, at which rank he’d leave no doubt as to who was in charge, even here, off-ship in dangerous circumstances. She could never have defied the Captain, were he here — only interpreted his orders and given strong advice. But a fellow-ranked 0-4? Hell of a time to make a point, Major.

Trace nodded shortly, and gestured to a lower-ranked karasai, then half-turned to present the massive Koshaim rifle racked on her back. Safer that he collect it, that meant, rather than her reaching for it amidst all this hair-trigger suspicion. The rest of Command Squad followed, and were carefully disarmed of primary and secondary weapons. Erik knew for a fact that Staff Sergeant Kono had an extra pistol hidden in there somewhere, but surrounded by so many armed tavalai, good luck accessing it in a crisis.

The karasai gestured them on, and Kono went first with Private Terez, then Trace with Erik, with Rolonde and Kumar guarding the rear. The second section of four stayed behind to guard the shuttle berth. They accessed the rotating crew cylinder through the central spine like any FTL ship, riding the handline along the narrow rotating tube until a waiting karasai blocked the way, gesturing with his rifle down one moving exit.

The way down was guarded at each level, another heavily armed and armoured karasai gesturing the way as gravity grew heavier until they reached the main deck. Then down a heavy-duty corridor, all exposed steel and hard-worn, doors to adjoining rooms sealed shut along the way.

“Back-Quarter,”
Trace identified it on uplink.
“Karasai quarters.”
Like on a human warship, tavalai marines had the back-quarter of the crew cylinder to themselves. Only
Gabriladova
was a heavy cruiser, not a combat carrier, and had only a quarter the karasai complement that
Makimakala
did.

When they emerged into Assembly, that complement looked big enough. As on
Phoenix
, Assembly stored vertical rows of karasai armour suits built into an open-framed super-structure. Walkways and ladders turned it into a giant maze, broken at various levels by repair platforms, loading bays and armament storage. And now, standing in the vertical walls of alcoves where armour suits were currently absent, were a great gathering of tavalai.

Erik stared up as more karasai marked a spot on the floor between the two walls, where the visiting humans should stand. Here on the level immediately above, where he had to crane his neck back to look at them, were a line of tavalai spacer officers, staring down at them imperiously. Five of them… probably the captains of each of these five tavalai fleet ships, Erik thought.

Trace, he noted, was looking up and behind with a marine’s concern for her surroundings… he looked back, and saw the next level up and opposite also had senior tavalai officers. Their leader, he recognised — it was Captain Pram, in spacer jumpsuit and no armour. Pram saw him looking, but gave no acknowledgement. He looked deadly serious, and the tension was nearly as thick as the humid tavalai air.

“This stinks,”
Trace formulated, looking back and forth at the two opposing sides above her.
“Just so you know.”
There were lots of guns here, and not just among the karasai.

“I heard you the first time,”
Erik formulated back.

“Are we on trial?”
Rolonde wondered. It had that look about it — the tavalai gathered above, considering the guilty humans on the floor below them.

“You,”
said the translator speaker of one of the five tavalai captains.
“You are Captain?”
Looking at Erik. As far as one could tell, with tavalai.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Debogande,” Erik replied with a frown. Surely Captain Pram had told them that already? “Of the carrier
UFS Phoenix
.”

The tavalai’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“Not a captain? Only a lieutenant commander?”
Mocking him, Erik thought.