Chapter 52
Jim Vassilakos
Unfortunately, being a ship’s captain wasn’t as glamorous as portrayed on the viewy. Even documentaries focused on those harrowing moments of life and death, but most of the time, it was mainly logistics. There was all sorts of paperwork; I thought about the word as I thumbed my approval for a transfer of miscellaneous foodstuffs. How did people do this back when paperwork was done using actual paper? My suspicion was that there was a lot less of it. Only a paperless society could generate this much paperwork.
<Beep>
A priority message appeared from some agency I’d never heard of, the IHC-CoJ. It was blinking red, so I focused on it and blinked, and the full header appeared. Imperial High Court for the County of Jewell.
We have received your preliminary petition for an expedited hearing entertaining your request for an investigation into the policing practices of the Heron Public Security Service as relates to the Imperial Navy and the incident of 120-1114, which involved the attempted arrest of the requesting party, Captain Plankwell of the 213th Fleet, Imperial Navy.
There was more, of course, but that was the essential element, and there was a signature line down at the bottom. I had to sign if I still wanted this to go forward.
(Does Gus sign it?)
I went back to my requisitions and transfer orders.
Ah, finally the document I’ve been waiting for. It was the schedule for the exploration pod replacement, projected to take… several weeks? I squinted. No, not several… seven. Seven weeks?!
(How does Gus react in terms of his thoughts, words, and/or actions?)
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
Seven weeks?!
I paged through the schedule and thought some sharp words about General Products and whoever designed this ship. It was a frelling modular ship, for Cleon’s sake! How does it take seven weeks to plug in a new module? If we were repairing the battle damaged pod, I could understand, but this was a simple swap. There would still be testing, of course, but no repairs should be necessary. I peered at a few of the checklists and made notes about where I thought I might be able to push them to accelerate their timetable. Then I checked the schedule for the fusion barbettes. Firing tests were planned for this coming Senday.
For the next few hours, I burrowed into the minutiae of paperwork I could have been doing from the privacy of my quarters. The problem with that idea, however, was that my bed was there, and after spending half my sleep period yanking weeds out of the recesses of Reggie’s brain, it would be too tempting.
I thought about the way his eyes narrowed when I first entered the palace dining room, almost as though he was trying to remember who I was. Maybe he’d sensed we’d been all too close for a time, as I rifled through his memories, looking for anything about these eyes of God, i.e. psionic orbs.
“I heard it came from Beck’s World,” one of his fellow clergy by the name of Shish confided to him several decades earlier, so long ago he’d practically forgotten.
I’d spent some time on Beck’s World, brushing up on my Gvegh thanks to some unusually cooperative Vargr POWs, so though I could have ripped this memory out by its roots as soon as I latched onto it, I couldn’t resist taking a little peek before doing so.
“Where did you hear this?” Reggie had asked.
“Oh, don’t quiz me about my sources and methods,” old Shiish said. He was a little bitter, Reggie would later theorize, bitter about having never been invited to join the High Council of the Supreme Stoners. “All I can tell you is they keep sending the most fervent of our fellowship there to search for more.”
“More? There are more of these… eyes of God?”
“Defintely not maybe,” Shiish replied before becoming uncharacteristically laconic. He’d said too much, and now he regretted it, Reggie had surmised, or perhaps they’re testing me, the thought blowing through his brain like a chill wind. It doesn’t matter. If the universe will reveal itself, I will bear witness, and if not, so be it.
There’s an Ancients site at Beck’s Worlds, Josefeen had sent, since we'd been linked at the time.
I know, I’d replied. I knew, at least, it was suspected to be from the time of the Ancients. I went on a tour of one of the upper levels and came away with a severe migraine.
“Sir,” Commander Nizlich said.
I turned my head so fast I almost sprained my neck. I hadn’t realized she was on the bridge. She must have just entered. Had I been dozing?
“Do you want me at the Captain’s Mast?” she asked.
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
“Do you vant me at the Captain’s Mast?” she asked.
I glanced at my schedule. Nizlich was saving me again, as I was supposed to be there in five minutes. Where? Oh, what did it matter? How was I going to get anywhere on this ship in five minutes?
“Yes, please, Commander,” I said, removing my earbuds. “I’d appreciate your insights on the crew under review.”
Several new faces were on the bridge by this point, so I checked the duty roster and selected the Tactical Actions Officer, Lt. Erik Gurukar, to take over while I was at the Mast. Aside from being the TAO, he was also the SBO (Senior Bridge Officer), but, of course, having never been introduced, I had no idea which one of these strange faces belonged to him. There was, however, a very easy way to find out.
“SBO, you have the Conn.” I got up from the command chair.
“Aye aye, sir,” a young man said. “I have the Conn.” He approached with his shoulders back and chin high, his blond hair cut high and tight like he was moonlighting as a marine. As per my general instructions, he held back his salute.
I nodded to Stefani, and as we exited the bridge, I motioned for her to lead the way. Presumably we'd be doing this somewhere near the brig, which was about as far aft as you could get without being inside some part of the jump drive. However, instead of leading me back to one of the main corridors, she simply walked to the nearest iris valve, and we entered what was essentially a suite of offices. Moments later, I found myself following her into a small conference room, one where the conference table had been shortened and turned sideways, creating what was effectively a desk. Two seats were there, both of them empty.
I looked at Nizlich as we sat but kept my psi shield up. I didn’t need to add the private thoughts of my first officer to the swirl of other peoples’ memories in my brain.
“Demicredit for your thoughts, Sauerkraut?”
“Make an example of them,” she said, crossing her arms, “and there vill be fewer disciplinary issues going forvard. Pity ve don’t have a general mess in vhich to hold court before the entire crew.”
I’d been on ships where Captain’s Mast was held in the central mess hall, but the Element Class had been designed with numerous small galleys so each department could eat together. This arrangement was supposed to enhance team-building by making each department into a sort of family, but the consequence was that there was no one room where the entire crew or even a sizable percentage of it could gather. Indeed, the largest conference room on the Jaqueline could only hold about thirty out of a crew of nearly five hundred sophonts. Add to that the pod crews and Marines, and the total compliment came to well over a thousand, so thirty was what... three percent?
Yet as a fighter jock, I’d preferred the distributed arrangement. Departmental galleys did improve team-building, and there was some actual choice about what to eat, even a little bit of friendly competition to see which department could produce the best chow. And there was a seldom-mentioned downside of the unified mess, which was that if it suffered a surprise hull breach, such as by a suckerpunch from some pirate or terrorist, there could be a massive number of casualties.
Sidara entered the room carrying her ubiquitous data slate and came to attention.
“Lt. Sidara, reporting as ordered."
(Does Gus say anything?)
Next came our elderly Senior Master Chief, who might have been mistaken for some nice, old grandmother if not for the burn-scar covering half her face as well as the mirrored shade over one eye socket.
“SMC Kaashukapiaki reporting, sirs. The accused are just outside. Do you want to do this all at once or separate?”
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
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Jim Vassilakos
Conrad Rader
So let me know if Gus wants them all at once or in two groups of three.
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Jim Vassilakos
“Lt. Sidara, reporting as ordered.”
“At ease,” Nizlich said after a short pause. Meanwhile, I picked up the slate in front of me and used my thumbprint to log in.
I pulled up the reports of the fire, the crew records, and their service jackets in case I needed to look at anything in particular. I knew that at least some of them had ingested psychotropics, but I was more interested to see if any of them would fess up. Just on the surface, they were all guilty of behavior unbecoming of Navy personnel. Impaired judgment would be a mitigating factor in their sentencing, but there was also the decision to ingest before the more serious crimes took place. I has pretty sure it was all property damage, and I looked for any casualty reports. We in the Navy did hurt and kill, but we preferred it occur under orders rather than freelancing.
As I located what looked like some medical reports, our elderly Senior Master Chief entered the room. I might have mistaken her for someone’s nice, old grandmother if not for the burn-scar covering half her face as well as the mirrored shade over one eye socket.
“SMC Kaashukapiaki reporting, sirs. The accused are just outside. Do you want to do this all at once or separate?”
“Remind me, Lieutenant. How many are we talking here?”
“Six,” Sidara replied.
“Two groups of three,” I told the SMC.
Punishments could include brig time, confinement to quarters, pay penalties, reduction in rank, and cashiering. Technically, corporeal punishment was also available, but I was hopeful none of the offenses would rise to that degree. I was leaning towards pay penalties to offset the expenditures towards repairs, as well as suspension of leave privileges. If I cashiered them, I would remand them to HPSS for local punishment as well, but judging by my own experience, I wasn't about to send any more Navy into that particular hellhole. The accused being Vargr also raised the issue of the xenophobic response.
“Are we in need of disciplinary examples?” I murmured to Stefani as the Senior Master Chief turned and left.
“Alvays.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to rule through fear.
The Senior Master Chief re-entered the room with three of the detainees, all of them Vargr. Petty Officer Faeng, who sat beside me on the shuttle ride down to Plankwell Naval Base, was among them. He was the one who’d exclaimed how lucky I was to be descended from the great Olav hault-Plankwell, the one sophont responsible for the killing of more Vargr than any other single non-Vargr in all of Vargr history — granted, that was merely a guess — and now here he was before me again, no doubt hoping for leniency.
“Salute,” the SMC said to her enlistees. They saluted, albeit not quite in unison.
“Uncover,” she said, and they removed their caps.
“Report.”
They took turns stating their name and rank, each ending with “reporting as ordered, sirs.” Then Sidara read the charges, which were identical for all. “Violation of Articles 116-112a and 108-53.” The first was for drunken rioting, and I was pretty sure the second had something to do with the destruction of civilian property, especially while whoring. “How do you plead?”
“Innocent,” said the first. “Mostly innocent. Partially innocent.”
“I swear to Cleon and Olav — hell, sir,” said the second, “I’ll even swear to Erzikh Dhadh — I did not commit arson.”
“None of us did, sir,” Faeng said. “We were all… intoxicated. That part’s true. And there was a fight. It was a fight, not a riot. At least, it started out that way. If you’ll bring the other guys in, they can tell you what they remember. But none of us started that fire.”
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
“Silence,” I said.
I drew open my psychic curtain and looked carefully at each in turn.
Mr. Partially Innocent remembered it all as a series of disjointed segments in time, tossed around in his canine brain like chunks of meat in a blender, such was the power of the skuubi snacks.
“They ain’t workin’!” he’d yelled at one point. It was dim and loud, and there was a vargr woman dancing in front of them completely unclothed, her fur no doubt soaked in synthetic pheromones. Or maybe they were the real thing.
“It’ll work.” Ghoerrg replied. “Just be cool, dog.” The actual word he used was ghaekh, which meant sleek, but in this context, it meant cool; i.e., don’t overreact.
Ghoerrg, whoever he was, wasn’t among the three who were presently before me. Maybe he was in the next group.
“Who sold you this shit?” Mr. Innocent has asked Ghoerrg. “Whoever it was, you got robbed.”
“No, dog, they were a gift.”
“A gift? By who?”
“By a friend.”
“Well, you can tell your friend he’s a lightweight.”
“She,” Ghoerrg corrected.
“She?”
How many seconds had passed? I was pretty sure I’d been staring at him for way too long.
“How did you come to be intoxicated?” I asked, breaking the silence.
Their story was that Ghoerrg went to the restroom and came back with six — count them, six — skuubi snacks. Some lady Vargr had been there, a little cutie who he’d presumed was one of the dancers, given her minimal attire. She asked him if he wanted to have some fun, and of course, he said yes. Who wouldn’t? Next thing he knows, she hands him six skuubis for him and his friends.
“So some mysterious woman slipped you a Mickey,” Commander Nizlich summarized, then pursed her lips. “Shocking.”
I was pretty sure she wasn’t buying it.
“We had no idea how powerful they were,” Mr. Innocent went on, semi-truthfully — they’d been warned, but they hadn’t listened. The rest of what came out of his mouth, however, were pure lies. In the mind of the one standing next to him, the one who’d just sworn on the names of Cleon, Olav, and some ancient Vargr hero, I could picture Ghoerrg telling them, “They came from a friend.”
“Who?” they all wanted to know.
They’d just come down on the shuttle, all of them together, which meant Ghoerrg had been hiding these skuubis in a secret compartment inside his bionic leg for how long?
“How long you’ve been holding?” Faeng asked him directly, holding a knife in one paw and a fork in the other. They were at some restaurant.
“How many you got there, dog?” Mr. Innocent asked.
“We get one each,” Ghoerrg said.
“One each? That’s way more than six.”
“I don’t get one?” Kaar said. He was human, the same guy who’d called himself a Trevera on the shuttle. (See Chapter 19.)
“You can have one if you want,” Ghoerrg replied, “but I don’t know if they even work on humans.”
“That’s ghaekh,” he said, obviously trying to say it was okay but using the word in the wrong context. “I’ll be the designated soberite.”
The rest of them chowed down their skuubis, one each. The plan was they’d go into the club and wait for them to take effect, but then…
“C’mon, dog!” Mr. Innocent snarled. It was Faeng’s memory this time. “Just admit! These crap skubbis you got from some she-chimp you’ve probably been tongue-lashing…”
“Who said anything about a she-chimp?”
“So wait? You got these from one of us?” One of us meant Vargr. There were only so many Vargr crew members and even fewer Vargr females. “You didn’t get these from Manda, did you?”
Bingo!
“I’m not answering that.”
“Hahahahaha!” Vargr laughter actually sounded a bit different from that of humans, but that was the gist.
“Manda is what… half my weight? Half! No wonder this shit is lame! Give me another or it’s fuenrag time!” He was basically threatening to take it.
“She said to give it an hour.” Ghoerrg reiterated, but under pressure from the others, he ended up handing over the bag, and they all had a second helping. One of them, Kfoerrgh, even had a third.
“How did you end up fighting?” I asked, once their story about the phony mystery lady was out of the way.
“It was these jarheads that were badmouthing the Jaqueline, sir,” Mr. Innocent lied again.
It started because the seventh member of their group, Spacehand Kaar, was catching flak from another group of Vargr, the reason being that he was taking a front row seat, and the dancer was giving him extra attention being that he was the only human directly in front of the stage.
“What are you doing here, Chimp!?” someone barked from directly behind him.
That’s where it started, one moment staring at Grade A, prime choice, tongue-wagging succulence and the next catching the toothy glares of a group of angry Vargr marines.
“It’s cool, you guys!” To his credit, Spacehand Kaar tried to diffuse the situation. “I’ll go! Okay? You can have my seat.”
“Oh, hell no!” Mr. Innocent stood up.
“He’s our shaggi,” Ghoerrg said. A shaggi was a human friend or perhaps even a mascot, someone a Vargr could supposedly trust through thick and thin.
“Yeah, piss off!” Kfoerrgh had snarled, although his words came out so slurred it was pretty obvious he was in no condition to fight.
“Who are you telling to piss off, Navy?!”
From there it was claws to muzzles, but to hear them tell it, these marines were angry not because a human was occupying a prime piece of real estate and therefore getting all the female attention, but because they had supposedly smeared the honor of our ship as well as my own personal honor.
“They called you a Veukh Nga,” Mr. Innocent lied. “That’s an insult, sir, and as your crew, there was no way we could let it pass.”
“That’s right,” the second one said. He’d been the one to come up with this whole bullshit story. “They insulted you, sir, and as your crew, we had to respond.”
Faeng, too, nodded as well but said nothing. Please, spacegods, let this work.
(Let me know if Gus will continue with “How were you not responsible for the rest of them?” or if you’d prefer he say something else.)
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
“I’ve heard enough!” I snarled in Gvegh, using the packmaster imperative.
All three stared at me wide-eyed like I’d hit the desk with a hammer. Even Nizlich stared, unsure what I’d said but impressed with the effect it was having. Only the SMC kept her expression unchanged.
“Chief,” I said, switching to Anglic, “take these three out and bring in the other group. Let’s see if their story holds.”
“Aye aye sir.”
She marched them out and brought in the second group, ordering them to salute, uncover and report just as the previous three had done. The first, Spacehand Naerroen, was spectacularly nervous. By contrast, Kfoerrgh, the one who had three skubbis, barely registered a pulse. Then there was Ghoerrg, who was supposedly the one who’d procured the drugs from some mysterious, scantily clad woman.
They all held up the same story, but I sensed a great deal of unease from Naerroen.
“This could get us all thrown out of the service,” he’d told the others while they were whispering to each other in the brig. “Lying to our Captain’s face is way worse than anything we did in that club.” But he kept to the script, his loyalty to the group outweighing his prudence. As for the arson, however, as far as I could tell he was completely mystified as to how it started.
“I hate fire,” he testified. “It’s every spacer’s worst enemy. Why would any of us start one? It doesn’t make sense.”
Kfoerrgh nodded in agreement but then admitted he had no idea what he’d done, as he couldn’t remember anything once the fight started.
“You don’t remember anything?” Nizlich asked.
“I remember us getting into it with the marines, but after that….” He shook his head. The skuubis had apparently gone into overdrive with the surge in adrenaline, and for some reason he’d decided to tear his clothes off and get up on the stage. Then he spread his arms and jumped naked into a random group of marines who up until that moment had merely been watching the fight as opposed to participating.
“It was probably those damn Zhos,” said the last one. This was Ghoerrg, the one who’d procured the skuubis both in reality as well as in this fantasy story they’d concocted about some mystery woman in order to save Lt. Shepherd from getting pulled into the whole mess. “We may have been targeted. Sir,” he continued. “I admit, it’s entirely my fault for letting this happen. It was my decision to accept the narcotics from what turned out to be a… uh, well… I don’t know what she was… at minimum, a highly disreputable individual.”
A highly non-existent, disreputable individual. No doubt, the Starport Authority and HPSS tried to identify this imaginary person. I hadn’t read their report, but I didn’t really need to when I could just look into the minds of the accused.
“This whole thing is your fault,” Ghoerrg told Mr. Innocent back in the brig. “If we’d waited a full hour like Manda said to…”
“The fight would have happened anyway,” Faeng interjected, trying to diffuse their argument.
“Yeah, but it didn’t turn into a full-on brawl until doofus here took a swan dive into those other marines.”
Kfoerrgh only vaguely remembered that part. His memories were like little shards of glass from a shattered window, and even those were mostly hallucinations. For example, he’d thought he’d seen Lt. Jaamzon. She’d floated over and talked to him while he, in his mind, at least, was crowd-surfing. He’d heard she’d just died, but at that moment, for whatever reason, he didn’t find it strange that she was right there floating next to him.
“The Captain’s a good guy,” she said as he was getting pummeled. “Tell him I said Hi.”
His memories from the club were all like that, weird little splinters of impossibility. By the time he came back to reality, he was already in the brig with the others, all of them in the same cell, quietly plotting strategy.
“If we’re going to lie about the skuubis,” Thork had whispered, “then we might as well lie about how it all started. We can tell the Captain we were defending his honor.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Naerroen retorted. “Once he talks to Kaar, he’ll know exactly what happened.”
“Why would he talk to Kaar? Nobody but us even knows Kaar was there.”
“Unless he made an incident report or just stuck around to answer questions,” Faeng conjectured.
“Even Kaar’s not that dumb,” Thork replied, although the fact that he’d tricked Kaar into proclaiming himself a Trevera didn’t exactly support this assessment.
“I say we go for it,” Kfoerrgh said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Court martial,” Naerroen replied. “Either that or the worst duty you can imagine.”
But Kfoerrgh had it in the back of his mind that I was a good guy and there was really nothing to fear. Everything would play out however it was meant to be, and no matter the outcome, he’d have a great story for his future cubs.
Nizlich kicked me under the table, and I too came back to reality. They were all staring at me, even the Senior Master Chief. What was the last thing anyone had said? Something about the Zhodani, I was pretty sure. They wanted me to think they’d been targeted by this non-existent mystery lady.
(Looks like that psi-drug is still working. Let me know if Gus will go ahead with what you wrote in your last post: “Disgraceful. I am dismayed at your credulence, your inability to discern, and your poor decision making…” or if you’d rather go in another direction given the additional information. Also, I’m not sure what you meant by “let’s say it’s close enough for fusion guns”.)
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
Jim Vassilakos
“Bring the others in,” I said in my calm command tone, one that previous subordinates had occasionally mistaken for disinterest. “I’ll do sentencing with all present.”
Stefani was right insofar as we needed to make an example of them, but there were other considerations as well. I needed to be seen as judicious and fair in my dealings with the crew. If I came down too hard, it would be more difficult to establish command authority. It helped that they were aware they screwed up, so I was pretty certain they wouldn’t complain about the punishment for the fighting, and not assuming guilt with respect to the arson would be viewed as taking their side against the planetary authorities, who seemed to have it in for the Navy.
The SMC brought the rest of them in and lined them all up shoulder to shoulder.
“With respect to the intoxication as well as the fight, I find your actions disgraceful,” I told them, “and I am dismayed at your credulence, your inability to discern, and your poor decision-making capabilities. But I am not surprised. We are the Navy. If you knew how to make good decisions for yourself, you’d be somewhere else. You are all confined to the ship for the next two jumps. All shore leave credits are forfeited. You will work your normal duty shifts. You will all pick up extra half-shifts working in the medical bays looking after your crewmates when they come back from shore leave or cleaning up after them as the case may be. You will attend and complete re-education classes in shore leave protocol, identifying harmful substances and interservice cordial relations.”
I stood up and marshalled my Gvegh.
“You will not steal my honor by fighting for me. You know not where my honor lies. If you wish it, challenge me and see.”
I was pretty sure none of them were that hopped-up, but if they wanted to be my pack, I needed to put them in their place. As expected, none of them said a word. I’d just smacked them on their snouts, and I hadn’t even gotten to the arson.
I slowly walked around the table and stood in front of Faeng.
“You, I had hopes in. And this is how you repay my confidence?”
I could feel his sense of shame, but it wasn’t over the intoxication or even the fight. What he was most ashamed about what this lie in which he’d participated, but it was ultimately for a good cause, to save Manda from suffering a possible demotion, and looking him straight in the eyes, I couldn’t help but sense how he was inwardly torn. She was, after all, the ship’s Chief Technical Officer, and if her part in this were to come to light, she might lose that position, and that would be a terrible thing, as the other Vargr on the ship saw how far she’d gone and believed they could go far as well. If she went down in flames, they’d all have less faith in the Navy as well as less faith in themselves.
“As to the arson,” I said, turning away from him, “I am not convinced that the planetary authorities have given enough investigative resolve to determine the source, so I am unlikely to charge you for that particular episode. At this time,” I added, looking at them sharply. “You are all on parole for a standard year, pending completion of the punishment detail. Screw up again, and my very limited patience will be exhausted. Chief, they are dismissed.”
As they headed to the door, I said, “Wait. Kfoerrgh, report to Medical for a full toxicity scan. I am interested in exactly what it is that turned you into idiotic vapchata.”
“Aye aye, sir,” he replied. “And happy birthday, sir.” And then they were gone.
“Vapchata?” Stefani asked, genuinely curious.
“A fast-prey chaser,” I said.
She looked at me, still confused.
(Feel free to have the last word, which will close out this chapter.)
Conrad Rader
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Jim Vassilakos
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13jLs0jyM-t72A3JKSyEIVJ0gjaajztpT/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113687616933633107445&rtpof=true&sd=true
PLEASE REMEMBER to change "EDITING" to "SUGGESTING" (near the upper right-hand corner) before doing any edits.
Jim Vassilakos
Conrad Rader
Is there anything Gus wants to do prior to his dinner with Maz? Also, does he invite any other crew members to the dinner?
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