The Oncoming Storm (17 page)

He settled back and looked at Fran, taking in the signs of someone who had been worked to breaking point. Her hands twitched constantly, her eyes kept flashing from side to side and she looked . . . worn. He couldn’t help wondering if he should book a hotel room and implore her to actually sleep for a few short hours, perhaps with the help of a sedative. But he knew she’d kick him somewhere painful if he even dared hint she should take a break.

“I only just arrived,” he said, once the waiter was out of earshot. They’d have more hope of keeping their conversation private in one of the louder bars further down the strip. “How long have you been here?”

“Years,” Fran said. She eyed her drink, but made no move to take a sip. “Or at least it feels that way. I think it’s been round eleven months.”

William felt a shiver of alarm. “You think?”

“I try to forget it,” Fran said. “Defiant is not a happy ship.”

“I see,” William said, after a moment. “But you’re her XO, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Fran said. She tapped her uniform meaningfully, drawing his attention to the silver badge on her shoulder. “Only one XO and that’s me.”

She sighed. “And a whole fucking pile of shit on my shoulders,” she added. “You want my advice? Run. Run far.”

“I don’t think that’s an option,” William said. He took a breath. “Fran . . . what’s happening here?”

Fran sipped her drink. She was already marginally drunk, William realized, or she wouldn’t have let anything slip. The Fran Higgins he remembered had been a paragon of efficiency and emotional control. If she was turning to liquor . . . it wasn’t a good sign. Defiant—a superdreadnought—was definitely not a happy ship.

“We were a good squadron when we were assigned to Cadiz,” Fran said mournfully. “The commodore might have been a political appointee, but he was a good man; the captain had years in the service, plenty of time to know what to do himself and what to leave to me. I thought a deployment to Cadiz would allow us plenty of time to train and exercise for the war. But I was wrong.”

She shook her head. “It’s all fucked up, William,” she added. “Like I said, take your ship and run.”

“I can’t do that,” William said. “What’s wrong?”

Fran laughed, bitterly. “Where do I even start?”

She shrugged. “No training exercises,” she said. “Half the crew on shore leave at any one time. Shore Patrolmen getting into trouble because they don’t have the sense to stay out of shit. The captain spending most of his time on the planet’s surface; the commodore kissing up to the admiral rather than sticking up for his crews. I can’t run regular maintenance cycles and the ship is practically unserviceable. We’re fucked if we have to get into a fight without at least a week to prepare for action.”

William blanched. “It’s that bad?”

“It’s worse,” Fran said. She took a long swallow, finishing her glass, then waved to the waiter. “Another!”

“Water would be better,” William said, quickly.

“You’re not the boss of me any longer,” Fran thundered. “You didn’t try to screw me. The captain is certainly trying to screw me.”

Her voice slurred for a long moment, then recovered. “If someone inspects the ship, I’m screwed,” she said with heavy satisfaction. “I will take the blame.”

She wouldn’t take the blame alone, William knew, at least if regulations were honored and the IG carried out the inspection. The buck stopped with the vessel’s commanding officer. But if the captain and the admiral carried out the inspection, it might be possible to blame Fran . . . assuming no one took a close look at the reports. And, with Fran a nobody, politically speaking, it might just be shoved under the rug.

“Shit,” he said.

“Yeah,” Fran agreed. “Shit.”

She met his eyes. “You have no idea just how many problems we’ve had,” she said darkly. “One of the Shore Patrolmen walked out an airlock, another was beaten halfway to death by someone—we still don’t know who. Exercises would help the crew pull back together, but I’m not even allowed to run them. Apparently, they cost too much money.”

William winced. Naval bases had a specific budget each year. If there was a shortfall, canceling training exercises seemed an excellent way to save funds. But it was a false saving. Troops and starship crews who had no time to exercise tended to lose competency alarmingly fast. If they had to go into battle, they’d be screwed.

He placed his hand on top of the drink when the waiter placed it on the table. “Is 7th Fleet combat capable?”

Fran surprised him by laughing, hysterically. “I doubt there’s a single ship in the fleet that can move under her own power,” she said. “The superdreadnoughts certainly can’t without some hasty repair work.”

William hoped—desperately—she was exaggerating. If she was correct, 7th Fleet was effectively a sitting duck. Cadiz had some planet-side defenses, but hardly enough to make a real difference if the Theocracy came knocking. Besides, the locals would definitely rise up against the occupation force—and move from the frying pan into the fire. The Commonwealth meant well, even though it had blundered badly. Theocratic rule would be far worse.

He took a long look at her, feeling pity intermingled with rage. The Fran Higgins he’d known had been a capable officer, not a drunken wreck. She deserved better. Hell, the crews on the fleet’s starships deserved better too. They were wasting away because their commanders were more interested in partying than actually carrying out their duties.

If any of her subordinates saw her like this, he knew they’d lose all respect for her.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Have you not filed a complaint?”

“Nine of us did,” Fran said. “We never heard anything back from the IG.”

William swore under his breath. Admiral Morrison might well be able to prevent a formal complaint from ever leaving the system, assuming he had a crony or two in charge of the StarCom. But he couldn’t move against the complainers without ensuring they had their chance to face a court-martial board. Instead, he seemed to have just left matters as they were. It wasn’t a smart way to behave.

He signaled the waiter. “I understand you have rooms upstairs,” he said. He placed his credit chip on the table. “I want one of those rooms and a sober-up injection, now.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. He took the chip with practiced ease, then stepped back. “If you will come with me . . .”

William helped a protesting Fran to her feet, then half carried her through the door and up a flight of stairs. One of the doors on the next floor was open, revealing a naked man and a girl kneeling in front of him, sucking his penis. William was silently grateful he didn’t recognize him, even though he had to be a fairly senior officer. He knew, intellectually, that his superiors had sexual drives too, but he didn’t want to think about it. Thankfully, Captain Falcone didn’t seem to be interested in patronizing bars or brothels.

The room was larger than he’d expected, certainly larger than any room in a more average brothel. He positioned Fran on the bed, took the injector from the waiter, and pressed it against her neck. She glared daggers at him as the injection shot into her system, then stumbled to her feet and into the toilet. Moments later, he heard the sound of vomiting as the alcohol left her bloodstream, along with everything she’d eaten over the past few hours. He waited as patiently as he could until she walked back into the bedroom, looking murderous.

“You’re a bastard,” she said as she sat down on the bed and removed her jacket. Her uniform was badly stained. “You could at least have let me go back to the shuttle before I took the injection . . .”

“Friends don’t let friends fly shuttles while drunk,” William pointed out. “Besides, I dread to imagine what would happen to your service record if you were found drunk and disorderly.”

“Under the circumstances,” Fran said, “that wouldn’t be a problem.”

She placed her head in her hands, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, William,” she said, refusing to look up. “You shouldn’t have seen me like that.”

“I’m glad you still have some dignity left,” William said gently. “Besides, I can’t chew you out any longer.”

“I suppose not,” Fran said. She paused. “How much did I tell you?”

“Enough to worry me,” William said. How much had she drunk? Short-term memory loss wasn’t normally a problem. “Is your captain really leaving everything in your hands?”

Fran looked down at the grubby floor. “Yes,” she said, finally. “But I don’t even begin to have the tools to fix this mess.”

William, for the first time in far too long, found himself completely at a loss. He’d prepared himself on the assumption he would be doing most of the work on Lightning, an assumption that had rapidly proven false. But Fran . . . Fran definitely seemed to be doing most of the work, without the crew or authority that would make it possible. He honestly had no idea how to proceed. There were ways to handle a misbehaving crewman, even to manipulate a tyrannical commanding officer, but this . . . ?

The IG needs to come here, he thought numbly. Like most officers, he hated the Inspectorate General, viewing them as a bunch of useless bureaucrats or desk jockeys who didn’t have the slightest idea of how things really worked, but they were needed now. This isn’t one ship, this is the entire goddamned fleet.

He looked at her. She shouldn’t go back to her ship, not in such a state.

“Tell me,” he said. “How long until you’re due back on Defiant?”

“Two days,” Fran said. “But I should go back earlier.”

William let out a sigh of relief. “You can stay here and sleep,” he said, firmly. “I want you going back to the ship in tip-top condition.”

“For what?” Fran asked, bitterly. “I can’t make it all better.”

“You can try,” William said. “And besides, you owe it to yourself.”

He thought briefly about telling her about the pirate attack and the worrying pattern behind it, but then decided it could wait.

“I’ll get you a sedative,” he said, instead. “You can sleep here until you wake up naturally.”

Fran objected loudly. William understood—he hated the idea of being sedated too, even with someone he trusted in the room—but there was no choice. In her state, Fran was unlikely to sleep very well without chemical aid. He keyed the console, requesting a sedative, then cast his eye down the list of other options. Some of them were truly alarming; others were merely amusing. What sort of commanding officer would want a pair of leather handcuffs?

Maybe one who has dreams of whipping crewmen, he thought. It was understandable. There were quite a few crewmen he’d met who might have benefited from a whipping. Or maybe one who’s just a sadist.

He picked up the sedative when it arrived, then held it up in front of her. “Lie down,” he ordered, firmly. “You’re about to go to sleep.”

Fran sighed. “I feel like a failure,” she said. Her tone was so bitter that William almost insisted she see a counselor, but he thought better of it. Few officers would gladly visit someone who could have them removed from duty with a word. “I’ve failed the crew . . .”

“You’ll have a chance to make it better,” William promised. The captain wanted his impressions of the situation on the ground. She’d get more than she ever expected, particularly once he started looking up other friends attached to 7th Fleet. “And you can’t fight for your crews without a good night’s sleep.”

He pressed the tab against her arm, then sat back and watched as she fell into slumber. Her face relaxed until she was almost the younger officer he remembered, before she’d been assigned to Admiral Morrison’s command. He felt a spark of bitter hatred, even though he’d never met the man. What could have gone so badly wrong that it would cripple a woman he’d once known to be a good officer?

And not just her, he told himself. Whatever rot started here has spread through the entire fleet. If the Theocracy comes knocking . . .

He shuddered. If half of what Fran had said was true, the thought was far from comforting.

Kat waited until her steward had served her XO and Davidson steaming mugs of coffee, taking another cup for herself as well, then leaned forward, placing her hands on her desk.

“The situation looks bad,” she said. “Just how bad is it?”

“Disastrous,” the two men said, together.

They exchanged surprised looks, then Davidson motioned for the XO to continue.

“I spoke to several other officers I know,” William said. “All of them agreed that 7th Fleet is in no condition for a fight. The average superdreadnought is at forty percent efficiency, which may be an optimistic assessment. It’s a little better for some of the smaller ships, as they still have useful work to do, but not that much better. The list of problems seems endless.”

Kat nodded, slowly. A cruiser could expect to serve as anything from an independent scouting platform to a convoy escort or colony guardship. No sane CO would risk allowing his ship to decline too far, knowing he might have to switch tasks at any moment. But superdreadnoughts spent far too much of their time near fleet bases, close to shore leave facilities for officers and crew alike. It took a strong-minded commander to keep his crew at peak efficiency when the temptations of the nearby planet were so strong.

The XO sighed. “Overall,” he added, “it seems likely that a mere squadron of superdreadnoughts could best 7th Fleet if they attacked tomorrow.”

He ran his hand through his graying hair. “Some of the officers I spoke with have been attempting to do something about the problem, but they haven’t been able to get any response from the Admiralty. And Admiral Morrison keeps pooh-poohing their concerns. A handful of officers who pushed it too far, apparently, were relieved for cause and assigned to asteroid bases in the sector. None of them were sent home for court martial.”

“Because a court martial would have required open discussion of just what was happening on Cadiz,” Kat said, thoughtfully. “Instead . . . their careers were destroyed.”

She cursed under her breath. Her trust fund ensured she didn’t have to work a day in her life if she wanted to resign herself to an eternity of lazy luxury. But no one outside the aristocracy had that option, even a senior naval officer. The officers would have noted what happened to others who questioned too loudly and shut up, despite the growing risk of attack. They wouldn’t want to see their careers blighted too.