No Man's Space 1: Starship Encounter (6 page)

“The engines aren’t working, sir.” Stuart, one of my engineers, shook his head and stepped back from the North Star’s bridge controls. “I wouldn’t count on going anywhere. We’ll be able to change direction, but only barely.”

My engineers had taken control of the bridge. Captain O’Keeffe generally gave us some leeway to upgrade the systems and fix things when they broke, but naval men don’t like engineers nearby. For the first time in her history, the North Star had a majority of engineers on the bridge. I’d have enjoyed the historical moment, but we were stuck in the middle of space, moving slowly in a random direction.

If we wanted to go somewhere, we needed to stop and perform repairs. We needed some of our own ships to escort us to protect the North Star in case the Cassocks wanted to move to round 2.

“Send a note to the Admiralty, then,” I told Stuart. “Tell them that we’re having a party and that several of their captains are invited. Don’t mention the broken frigates, though. They don’t like losing ships even if they never belonged to us.”

Stuart continued diagnosing the ship and typing into several panels. Like most of my men, he used manual keyboards instead of neural controls. Neural controls might be faster, but Freudian slips are too frequent when you’re typing code.

“The communications systems aren’t working either,” Stuart said. “Sorry, sir, but we’re lame, deaf, and mute. Won’t be a nice trip home.”

At least the Admiralty wouldn’t strip command from me to vest it on one of their own. If we talked to our superiors, they’d prefer to give Banner the chance to prove his worth. They would’ve claimed that an inexperienced lieutenant was fitter to command than an engineer. Who knows? Maybe they were right. I wasn’t going to risk handing over command, though. This was my chance, and I was going to use it.

We couldn’t go back home aboard a ship that could barely fly. We’d eventually call the Cassocks’ attention, and they’d come to finish what they’d already started when they first boarded the North Star. Our radar systems weren’t capable of detecting Cassock ships. I wasn’t going to risk flying several weeks through hostile territory if we couldn’t ask for help. We’d been fully manned when the enemy had boarded us, and we’d barely managed against five frigates. It had been a lucky streak. We weren’t going to succeed twice using the same strategy.

Banner had stayed silent for most of the initial diagnoses, but he cleared his throat and joined us. He disliked that engineers had invaded the bridge, a symbol of the naval chain of command. He resented that my seniority had given me command, but he wasn’t annoyed enough to dispute anything yet.

He’d eventually defy my rule, though. Rich and entitled kids never know when to stop claiming that everything belongs to them.

“Shouldn’t we reduce our speed to perform repairs?” Banner asked. Purposefully or not, he omitted calling me
sir
even though I was the acting captain. I wasn’t going to impose it, though. He was fine as long as he followed my orders. “If we keep flying, we’re drawing attention to ourselves.”

“Stopping just where we’ve been attacked?” I said. “I’d rather not.”

Banner glanced at me, pressed his lips together to avoid being insubordinate, and looked down. His stomach was revolting with the thought of following my orders. I could almost hear its sounds.

“Scan the neighborhood for nearby ports, bases, or neutral colonies,” I said. “We need to fix the ship before going anywhere, but I’m not stopping in open space. We can pay for the repairs, but we can’t wait long.”

Stuart nodded and loaded the holographic star charts. He gestured at them and filtered out stars and uninhabited systems, then changed the colors depending on the regions’ allegiances. We were in the middle of nowhere, with only one friendly port within a couple of days’ range.

We could risk going to several other ports, but I didn’t want to turn the engines on more than necessary to adjust our direction. If we were lucky, a two-day trip would only require an initial boost, and then minor readjustments throughout the trip. Thank God that there’s no friction in space.

Some of the lower crew had been emptying the ship of friendly and enemy corpses. The North Star had been manned by hundreds of hands, and several hundred men had boarded us. We had to take care of the corpses, bid them farewell according to their religions, and either incinerate them, put them through cryo, or dump them into space. We didn’t have enough space in the fridge to keep a thousand corpses, and dumping them into space would be like leaving a trail behind for all Cassocks to follow. I didn’t like incinerating men without their permission, but there wasn’t much we could do.

“Corpses, corpses, and more corpses.” York pulled another Cassock corpse’s feet and could barely lift them. He addressed Kozinski, who dragged a different Cassock with each hand. “You realize this is your fault, right?”

“I ain’t done nothin’!” Kozinski stopped by York and observed him struggling with his corpse.

“You weren’t civilized enough,” York insisted. “You can’t ask dumb questions when the lieutenant asks about our engineering knowledge. We would’ve learned to shortcut and disable engines, nice and easy. And now we’ve had to do the grunt work, first with a hammer, and now dragging dead men. We won’t earn no promotions if we act like mules.”

“How are you goin’ to shortcut if you don’t know no engineerin’?” Kozinski said.

“We could’ve learned!” York pulled the Cassock’s foot and roared with the effort, but it didn’t move. “Can’t be difficult to cut some cables, mix them up, and paint them with a different color, can it?”

Kozinski dragged his corpses out, returned and dragged York’s effortlessly. They continued arguing about civilization and about
shortcutting
cables. I wasn’t going to let them get close to any wires or motherboards. Sooner or later, those two were going to think that engineering was about smashing things.

Banner looked at the scene disapprovingly. He wasn’t going to earn the crew’s respect or their loyalty if he kept staring at them like animals. They were forced to follow him and they wouldn’t rebel, but they’d work a thousand times better if they trusted their leaders.

Stuart had finished filtering nearby spaceports. One of our own bases, the Aurora port, was located a couple of days away into open space, and a few others were farther away, although in the direction of Earth. Pity that it would’ve taken over a week to get to any of them. I didn’t want to fly openly while undermanned and with limited engine power. If the Cassocks arrived, we needed to be able to run away.

“We’ll have to settle for Aurora,” I said, selecting it in the hologram. A small screen appeared with information about the port’s governor and random economic facts that nobody cared about. Why did interface engineers always end up coding silly tools that nobody used and only looked well in pictures? I would’ve objected to coding anything that wasn’t functional.

Oh, wait. Maybe
that’s
why I’d spent years locked in my engineering lab instead of being allowed on the bridge. I should keep my objections to myself.

Banner pointed at some of the farther ports closer to Earth. “We’ll get reinforcements and spare parts sooner if we go to these ports. And they’re in friendly space, not in the middle of no man’s land.”

“I’d rather not fly blindly for a week,” I said. “We were boarded while O’Keeffe was in charge, and I don’t want this to happen again. We don’t have enough men to fight even if we detect the Cassocks before they attack us.”

“The Navy’s regulations have emergency protocols.” Banner placed both hands behind him and kept his back straight. Didn’t he end up with a sore back after posing all day? “We should head for a friendly spaceport that will simplify a rescue mission. Don’t you think we should save nine days of extra travel to our rescue ships?”

“Not if I’m risking the Star,” I said.

Rescue ships would come fully armed; the North Star didn’t have enough defenses. If the Admiralty wanted us to get closer to Earth, we could always repair the North Star in the nearest port and fly back later on. We’d lose four days of travel, but we’d run less risks.

The Cassocks had bought some of their tech from their new masters in Japan. They flew faster ships than us, and I didn’t even know how they’d dodged our radars. The dangers of flying through space aboard a broken ship were much greater than landing on a port. If we were attacked in space, we were dead. If we reached a port, we’d hold the siege better. And it wasn’t like the Cassocks were going to attack the Aurora Port while we stayed there. They hadn’t attacked any of our ports for years.

Banner stepped forward to try to intimidate me. “I must insist,” Banner said. “The government was close to abandoning Aurora a couple of years ago. They’re still open because we couldn’t convince the governor. They won’t have any of our spare parts. I cannot allow us to head into deeper space.”

Was it a threat?

“Are you questioning my command, Banner?” I said.

“I’m stating the regulations of the Navy, Wood,” he replied.

“Regulations will be of no use if we’re dead when we get home,” I said. “Or would you have preferred us to stay here without impersonating the enemy while you spent a long holiday aboard one of the Cassock frigates?”

“We aren’t in mortal danger anymore.” Banner gulped but maintained his dark and hostile eyes fixed on me. “I have to repeat my views: your strategy goes against the Laws of Space and the Navy’s internal rules.”

Wow. I’d expected him to use his first chance to seize command, but I hadn’t expected him to be so dumb about it. The men had fought with me; they’d boarded five ships and taken them. They trusted my leadership, but Banner hadn’t earned their trust yet. If he’d really wanted command, he should’ve waited for me to mess up, not resort to quoting the rules. The men would never back a mutiny based on silly rules. And, honestly, he wasn’t going to get command from me through any other means.

“And are you planning to do something about it, Mr. Banner?”

Flanagan, who’d spent most of our conversation pacing around the bridge, walked behind Banner and let out a low growl.

Banner jumped away and glanced at Flanagan several times in case he planned to harm him. He looked defiantly at him, then at me as if I’d been behind Flanagan’s behavior. “I don’t plan to start a mutiny, if that’s what you expected.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s all I needed to hear.”

Banner asked for permission to leave the bridge and darted for the door. Flanagan was quite satisfied that the second in command wasn’t going to be of any trouble.

I wasn’t too sure about it. If I was wounded or incapacitated, Banner would follow his instincts and get the men killed within hours. We lacked the necessary men to repair our ship quickly, and our only remaining midshipmen lacked the experience to be of any use.

The North Star wouldn’t be safe until we repaired her and flew her back home. Banner would have more than enough chances to blame me for everything I did wrong.

“Sir,” Stuart said. “I’ve increased our short-range communications, and we’ve reached Aurora. I’m getting interferences, but the readings are very strange.”

Indeed. The readings showed the classic patterns from artificially caused interferences. They’d either undergone a recent attack or they were scared of being heard. Banner wanted to follow the rules, didn’t he? Investigating a spaceport under attack was one of the Navy’s main priorities.

We’d been boarded by Cassocks, we’d fought and captured five enemy frigates, and we’d flown out of them before their self-destruct systems had triggered. A spaceport was well-armed and easy to defend. It could be no more difficult than what we’d just done.

What else could go wrong?

“I wouldn’t have let Banner land first.” Flanagan looked out of the shuttle’s windows with worry. “He might be plotting something, sir.”

“I’ll buy you a drink if he starts a mutiny once we land,” I said.

Flanagan grumbled. “Won’t be of any use if he takes the Star away.”

Flanagan distrusted Banner, but the man was unlikely to seize command by force. At least not yet. We didn’t know the people aboard Aurora. They had informed Banner that the Cassocks blockaded them and destroyed many of the supply ships that got there. The Admiralty hadn’t heard the news because their communications were under constant attack. They were in more trouble than it seemed, but at least they hadn’t been attacked. The government would notice the lack of reports and they’d eventually send someone to check on the port. Naval bureaucracy slowed things down, but everything came to term sooner or later.

I would’ve landed first aboard the port, but the acting captain couldn’t leave the ship until we knew the port was safe. I’d sent my acting commander to check and to speak with the locals. He’d sent a brief message telling us that we could land without any problems. The North Star remained in orbit, and we’d soon make her land to perform the repairs. The landing process was slow and dangerous, so captains and officers generally stayed out of the ship while it landed.

As for Banner’s loyalty, I wouldn’t have any problems unless he’d bribed everyone aboard the port and asked them to imprison me. Banner was rich enough to buy a spaceport, but he wasn’t bright enough to realize.

Once I started the landing maneuvers, Flanagan adjusted his magnetized boots to walk out of the shuttle without losing one of his shoes. He wore magnetized gloves and clothes too so that our bodies felt a pull towards the floor. They weren’t exactly magnets; they were complementary materials with mutual attraction properties, but they didn’t interfere with the control panels.

Modern ships used rotational speeds because it allowed the men to live normally. Eating or drinking aboard a shuttle could get messy if you forgot that you didn’t have any gravity.

We landed on the port’s central hangar, which wasn’t rotating, so lacked gravity. We had to attach the shuttle to the floor so that it didn’t float away, but it simplified the approaching process because we didn’t need to match the outer deck’s rotational speed.

Port control sent us a couple of remote-controlled horizontal elevators coupled with our clothes. We entered and they pulled our clothes as if we were aboard our own shuttle. Our clothes made gravity almost equal to Earth’s, but you felt the pull around your body instead of within it.

The elevator first approached the first rotating deck following a straight line. The elevator then adjusted to the target deck’s rotational speed and reduced the artificial pull to our clothes so that the clothes’ pull seamlessly turned into the centripetal force. The rotational acceleration was slower than aboard a normal spaceship, probably to accommodate for younger and older passengers.

Flanagan’s hand instinctively went to the handle of his gun. He tensed and got ready in case someone attacked us as soon as the elevator’s doors opened.

“Are you planning to kill someone?” I asked.

“I don’t trust them,” Flanagan said, “and you’re trusting them too much, sir. I’ve seen captains kill each other to get credit for a battle, and I won’t stand aside while an acting commander kills an acting captain.”

Was he really scared that someone would kill us to get command? Considering the pox, the fevers, and the lack of proper nutrients aboard most ships, Banner was likely to substitute me a couple of times before we got back to Earth. He could wait until then and kill me in my sleep. Flanagan was taking things too seriously; we weren’t in Renaissance Italy, and Banner wasn’t one of the Borgias.

“Growing attached to me, are you?” I smirked at him.

“Don’t take me badly, sir,” he said with the hint of an irreverent smile in his face, “but it’s a matter of money. You could’ve gotten us killed with your absurd plans, but we’ve almost captured five enemy frigates with a handful of men. I’d rather serve under you, break the rules and get a share of whatever loot you capture than return safely and quickly to Earth with empty pockets. Call it luck, call it madness or call it genius. I don’t want to miss the chance to earn something. 1% of the reward for capturing five frigates is enough to retire.”

Financial loyalty? Was it simply money, or did Banner look too young to command?

Flanagan raised an eyebrow at studied me. He’d wanted to say something since we’d boarded all five frigates, and we hadn’t had the time to talk without being in front of other officers or the men. He shook his head. “Most officers don’t take first blood so nicely, sir.” He wasn’t intrigued or curious; he was trying to read me.

Flanagan didn’t say it openly, but he was talking about my social class. Nobody expects ordinary seamen to puke or faint if they see blood or death, but they expect everyone else to react badly. It turns out that not puking on Flanagan’s feet while we’d fought the Cassocks had given me bonus points. Who would’ve guessed?

Most officers came from wealthy backgrounds and usually spent their early lives surrounded by expensive food and legions of servants. Their parents didn’t let them take part in any dangerous activities, making them soft and brittle. Boys who’d lived in those environments didn’t understand the Navy until after joining, and then they realized that the naval life wasn’t for them.

My parents were not poor, but they weren’t rich either. I’d lived well, but I’d done sports, played in the mud, and scratched my knees many times when I’d fallen. Nobody could accuse me of being soft. Seeing a man die can affect you if you’re young, but life makes you tougher. Engineering didn’t toughen you up, but it didn’t soften you either.

If you ever think that engineering is for cowards, try to jump into a spacesuit and walk outside to repair a ship. The moment you look at the endless void ahead of you, you’ll understand why engineering isn’t as low-risk as everyone wants to make you think. It’s a conspiracy to pay engineering lieutenants less than normal lieutenants. We’re undervalued and nobody bothers to hide it.

My past was nobody’s business, though. I was an engineering officer, and nothing else mattered. I’d been naïve enough to join the Navy expecting promotions and an eventual post as captain, but nobody earned a promotion if they didn’t have the contacts. You first had to prove your worth, but how can you prove anything if you’re locked up in a room and fixing engines all day? Some people called our dear Navy a meritocracy. The meaning of meritocracy has evolved to: ‘
providing credible reasons to promote your best friend’s son and make everyone think that he’s the best candidate for the post
.’

I wasn’t a real officer for a reason, and I didn’t faint with the idea of attacking the enemy for a reason. Flanagan could continue with silly discussions about social classes and the officer’s softness once we’d fixed the ship.

“Don’t mean to offend,” Flanagan said when he noticed my expression. “But you’re a natural. At killing, I mean. Haven’t seen it in officers before.”

“Most officers see blood when they’re teenaged midshipmen,” I said. “Thirteen year-old boys don’t react well to many things. Is that why you’ve backed me against Banner? Because I kill people on my first day?”

Now
that’s
a weird reason to choose where to place your loyalties. Sometimes, the crew surprised me. I’d lived amongst engineers who rarely wanted to speak their opinions or decide anything unless they were talking about science or about reducing the resistance of one of our circuits. The rest of the crew judged their officers and rarely trusted them to keep them alive.

“I don’t like Banner; that’s no secret,” Flanagan said. “And didn’t you hear his girly cries for mercy when we entered the Cassock brig? He’s too green to command, too soft on the sides. You’re the lesser of two evils.”

And I’m tough and brave, and I capture Cassock frigates single-handedly, but nobody takes
that
into account. I could’ve been green for an officer, but I was an engineer. My officer’s training had taken place at a 3-week boot camp session, and I’d passed out of pity. And because engineering officers are awesome at hacking into the central servers and changing their own grades.