A Call to Duty Read online

  “About what you’d expect,” Travis said, taking the quad from her. “Com agreed it was their line, but said it was running along our bulkhead and through aft fire control’s junction box, so that made it either our problem or AFC’s.”

  “And AFC of course said it was ours?”

  “And Chief Craddock said it was theirs.” Travis turned back to Bowen. “How does it look?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Bowen said. She had the quad partially disassembled, with the pieces neatly lined up on one of the tac strips beside the tool rack. “I’ll know one way or another in half an hour.”

  “You might as well head back,” Esterle said. “Leave the chief alone too long and he’s likely to fall asleep. Embarrassing if some officer got lost and happened to wander by.”

  “Like that’s going to happen,” Bowen added. “Go on, Long. I’ll have Esterle deliver if I get it working.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, as Craddock and Travis were running their check on the other newly installed components, Esterle arrived with the quad in her hand and a self-satisfied look on her face. Craddock took it with a grunted thanks and headed back into the crawlspace.

  “I told you she could fix it,” Esterle said, peering down the passageway after the chief. “Anything else I can do while I’m here?”

  Travis peered into the crawlspace, making sure Esterle couldn’t see his face and this newest moral dilemma.

  Yes, Esterle had assured them Bowen could rebuild the quad. The problem was that the quad she’d just handed him wasn’t the same one he’d given Bowen. The other had had a scratch on the casing where a screwdriver had missed its mark. This one didn’t have that scratch.

  Probably it was just another of Atherton’s private stash. But if it wasn’t . . .

  Travis exhaled slowly. He had no proof, he reminded himself firmly, or even a solid hint that anything illegal had happened. Quads were probably the most common single component present in Vanguard’s electronics, used everywhere from the automatic cooking systems in the galley to the cryogenic cooling system for the battlecruiser’s heavy axial laser. And while regulations frowned on different divisions swapping parts and equipment, it wasn’t considered an actionable offense.

  “Long?” Esterle prompted. “Wake up, buddy. You need anything else?”

  “No,” Travis said. “You can head back. We’re fine.”

  “We are gathered here today,” Breakwater intoned toward the cameras, “to inaugurate the latest addition to the Manticoran Patrol and Rescue Service, and to celebrate a new era in the ongoing saga that truly is the Star Kingdom of Manticore.”

  Floating at the far end of the group crowded into the bridge of the brand-new sloop HMS Phobos, positioned as far from the cameras as it was possible to be, Winterfall gripped the handhold beside him, trying to look as serious, noble, and historical as everyone else.

  Trying with even more fervor not to throw up.

  He’d done some research on the whole zero-gee thing in the two days since Breakwater had announced that Phobos was finally ready and informed Winterfall that he would be joining the rest of the Committee for the commissioning ceremony. He’d read about the effects of free-fall, both physiological and psychological, and had assumed he was adequately prepared.

  He hadn’t been. Not even close.

  He clenched his teeth, silently telling his stomach and inner ear that he was not, in fact, falling helplessly to his death, but was hundreds of kilometers above Manticore and as safe as if he was in his own home.

  His inner ear didn’t believe him. His stomach certainly didn’t.

  Across the bridge, Breakwater was still droning on about Phobos and the new era the sloop was ushering in for MPARS and how much safer the Star Kingdom’s citizens were now. After the Exchequer would come Defense Minister Dapplelake, and First Lord Cazenestro would probably have a few words to say, as well.

  Winterfall could only hope that the rest of the assembled dignitaries weren’t also planning to give speeches. If they were, this was going to be a long afternoon, because practically everyone who’d had a hand in the project was here, King Michael himself being the sole exception.

  He focused across Phobos’s bridge, at Dapplelake standing—hovering, rather—straight and tall beside Cazenestro and Locatelli. It was easy to understand why Breakwater had wanted all of his people present. After all, this was the culmination of the Committee for Military Sanity’s sole reason for existence, not to mention a personal triumph for Breakwater himself. The Chancellor had succeeded in performing the remarkable mathematical feat of subtracting one ship from Dapplelake’s RMN and adding two ships to his own MPARS.

  Breakwater’s motives were clear. What bothered Winterfall was the fact that Dapplelake had also sent him a personal note requesting his presence.

  Which was odd. Not to mention suspicious.

  Because the Defense Minister wasn’t just being a good loser. Not Dapplelake. He was a man who knew his enemies, never forgave them, and never, ever turned his back on them.

  Winterfall’s impromptu speech at that first meeting with King Michael had apparently tipped the balance in Breakwater’s favor. That had to have put Winterfall’s name on Dapplelake’s enemies’ list.

  And yet, Dapplelake had wanted him here.

  Was there something going behind the scenes? Some problem with Phobos, maybe? Or could it be something more long-term, something that Dapplelake expected might happen during the sloops’ probationary period?

  Maybe it was simpler. The price tag and completion time for two sloops had been way higher than Breakwater’s conservative projections, higher even than Dapplelake’s own experts’ more somber and realistic numbers. Neither Dapplelake nor Cazenestro had said anything about it, but it was possible they were simply holding that particular big gun in reserve for use at a more advantageous time. In that case, maybe the Defense Minister had wanted Winterfall here to make sure all of them were on record as the instigators of this particular financial fiasco.

  Winterfall squared his shoulders, his rebellious stomach momentarily forgotten. If Dapplelake thought he could take them all down, he was sadly mistaken. What Breakwater and the others did was up to them; but Winterfall, at least, was not going to simply curl up and slink away for the minister’s convenience.

  He’d had a taste of power and prestige. People knew who he was, and not just the men and women in the Lords who informed him which way he was supposed to vote on a particular bill. He was somebody.

  And he was damned if he would give all of that up without a fight.

  Breakwater was introducing Phobos’s new captain and executive officer. Again reminding his stomach to behave, Winterfall returned his attention to the proceedings.

  The speeches and posturing were finally over, and the last of Phobos’s guest dignitaries had shuttled back to Manticore.

  Time to get the show on the road.

  Commander Sophia Ouvrard gave a quick look at the displays as she strapped herself into her command station. Her XO, Lieutenant Commander Armand Creutz, seemed to have everything set and ready to go, from the impellers to Phobos’s galley and everything in between. All that was lacking was an official order; and once Ouvrard spoke those magic words the sloop and her one hundred thirty-member crew would be on their way to Manticore-B and the Unicorn Asteroid Belt that was to be their new home for the next eight months.

  Ouvrard scowled as she gave the displays a second, more careful look. Phobos’s systems had all been checked out, and the sloop had successfully carried out preliminary maneuvers around Manticore. On paper, at least, she seemed good to go.

  But official checkmarks meant zip, especially with a ship as bizarrely designed as this one. Over thirty equipment anomalies had already been logged, none of them fatal but all of them troubling to one degree or another. The fact that Phobos’s sister sloop, Deimos, was still being worked on without an official expected completion date was another source of concern, especially since the two ships had
originally been scheduled to be launched together.

  But at the end of the day, none of that apparently mattered. The Defense Minister, Parliament, and the King had all decreed that Phobos was ready to be put into service. And for the moment, at least, Phobos in service meant she was under the care and authority of Commander Sophia Ouvrard.

  It was an honor and, in these waning days of the RMN, an increasingly rare privilege. With the Navy slowly hemorrhaging ships, and with all eight of the remaining battlecruisers poised to go to the same chopping block that had claimed Mars, command positions were evaporating like the morning mist. Ouvrard would never get a chance like this again, and even though it had meant switching from the Navy to MPARS, she had no regrets for that decision. She had a ship, now—her very own ship—and come quirks or flaws, high water or hell itself, she and Phobos were going to make a name for themselves.

  “Station reports?” she called.

  “All divisions report ready,” Creutz confirmed. “Crew and equipment showing green.”

  Ouvrard grimaced. Her crew. One hundred and thirty officers and enlisted, the full complement the designers had calculated for a ship this size. Many of them had already been MPARS personnel, but nearly half of them, like Ouvrard herself, had been pulled from the RMN’s ranks.

  Meanwhile, virtually every Navy ship was running light, with anywhere up to a third of their personnel simply not there.

  It was one more poke in the eye from Chancellor Breakwater. He didn’t give a mouse’s rear if the Navy went begging as long as he got the manpower he wanted.

  There had, she knew, been talk of taking some of the money that had theoretically been saved by this conversion and shifting it over to Casey-Rosewood and the Academy to try to bolster the ranks. Mars’s former captain, in fact, had been sent to Casey-Rosewood to help with that buildup.

  Personally, Ouvrard would believe it when she saw it.

  Though if she was feeling cynical she might also note that a fully-crewed battlecruiser was supposed to have around five hundred officers and crew, while Phobos and Deimos combined would have just over half that number. Converting all the battlecruisers would double the total number of ships, but would simultaneously halve the total number of crew. If the conversions themselves didn’t put the Navy out of business, maybe the diminishing numbers of needed spacers would.

  Maybe that was the whole idea. Either way, taking the opportunity to move over to MPARS had clearly been her best career move.

  Still, she was going to miss the Navy.

  “Captain?” Creutz prompted.

  Ouvrard drew herself up in her station. Captain. “Take us out of orbit, XO,” she ordered. “Lay in a course for Manticore-B and the Gamma Sector of the Unicorn Belt.”

  “Another glorious day in the Royal Manticoran Navy,” Tully Atherton intoned with obvious satisfaction as he set his dinner tray down beside Travis’s and worked his ample Sphinxian butt onto the bench. “A taste of paradise—” he sniffed experimentally “—with just a hint of lubricating oil thrown in for flavor.”

  “You’re in a good mood tonight,” Esterle commented as she turned her slab of beef over with her fork to check its underside. Travis still hadn’t figured out what she was hoping—or fearing—to find, but her quirks did make meal times more entertaining. “You win the jousting tournament or something?”

  “Sadly, the finals had to be postponed,” Atherton said. “Kelly’s entry got swiped.”

  “You’re kidding,” Esterle said, frowning. “Who swipes a cleaning remote?”

  “His chief,” Atherton said dryly. “They had to get something out of one of the feed lines for Laser One and Kelly’s was closest to hand. Of course, they had to rip off the lance mounts to get it in. No, I was talking about the fact that the Star Kingdom’s first new ship since Casey has just taken off into the wild black . . . and it’s MPARS’s, not ours.”

  Across the table, Spacer First Class Stacy Yarrow gave a snort. “You mean that Phobos nightmare? If that’s what they’re calling a ship these days, MPARS can have it.”

  “It has impellers, a hull, and a crew,” Atherton pointed out. “I think that’s the legal definition of a ship.”

  “It’s a corpse,” Yarrow said flatly. “Half a corpse, and the writing’s on the wall. Breakwater’s going to take us all out, piece by piece, ship by ship. You wait—they’ll be ordering Vanguard savaged next.”

  “Easy, girl,” Atherton soothed. “There’s enough risk of indigestion with this slop without encouraging it.”

  “He’s right,” Esterle agreed, checking the underside of her potato slab. “Don’t worry, they’ll never take us down. Not while Captain Davison and XO Bertinelli are standing tall and vigilant on the bridge.”

  “Only because Davison wants to retire in peace, and Bertinelli wants a ship of his very own while the Navy still has some,” Yarrow grumbled.

  “I didn’t say they were standing on the line for us,” Esterle said. “It still adds up to job security.”

  “Well, that’s different,” Craddock’s voice came from behind them.

  Travis turned to see the chief walking toward them, his gait a little tentative in the half-gee that was maintained in this part of Vanguard’s spin section. He must have just come from the zero-gee core of the ship, and didn’t quite have his grav legs yet.

  “What’s different, Chief?” Atherton asked.

  “Esterle using the word job,” Craddock said, eyeing Atherton suspiciously. Officers and petty officers tended to use that look with Atherton, Travis had noted, ever since his run-in with the bosun and his subsequent demotion. Travis didn’t know if Craddock’s look had any specifics to it, or whether it was just there on general principles. “Didn’t know any of you knew the meaning of the term.”

  “I’ve read about it,” Esterle offered. “Never thought it sounded like something a nice girl should get involved in.”

  “Well, you’re getting involved in it tomorrow,” Craddock said. “All of you.”

  There was a quick mutual exchange of glances around the table. “The new vane has come in?” Yarrow asked.

  “It’s in, it’s tractored to the hull, and it’s being checked over as we speak,” Craddock confirmed. “And tomorrow you sorry excuses for RMN spacers are going to go EVA and swap it out with that useless Two-Three.”

  “That’s great,” Esterle said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “I don’t suppose we’re also getting the collation and analysis gear that’ll actually make a full array useful?”

  “Hey, be thankful we got this much,” Craddock said sourly. “Aft Weapons is still waiting on that replacement autocannon they’ve been promised for the past eight months.”

  “Bully for Aft Weapons,” Atherton said. “I presume it’s pure coincidence that we’re getting a new vane at the same time they’re busy sweeping up the debris from the Mars project and looking for parts they didn’t use?”

  “I didn’t ask, and I suggest you do likewise,” Craddock said. “Like Esterle says, we still have a lot on our wish list, and looking less than falling-over-drunk with gratitude is likely to put us behind Aft Weapons and Data Tracking on BuEng’s priority list. Hell, we might even end up behind the wardroom ice cream machine. So be grateful.”

  “Oh, we’re grateful, Chief,” Yarrow assured him. “Don’t we look grateful?”

  “You look ecstatically grateful,” Craddock said acidly. “Just make sure you’re looking grateful in airlock five at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow ready to suit up and go for a walk.” Still moving carefully, he headed off toward the petty officers’ mess.

  “I guess a new vane’s something,” Esterle said. “Personally, I’d rather have a second analyzer up and running.”

  “Glass half full, Esterle,” Yarrow advised.

  “Maybe it’s a sign of things to come,” Atherton offered hopefully. “Maybe they really did free up enough money with the Mars thing to start making up the equipment shortfalls everywhere else.”

  Ya
rrow snorted. “That’s not what I heard,” she said. “I heard Phobos and Deimos are on their way to costing more than if they’d just built a couple of new corvettes from the keel up. And that includes having to buy new impeller rings from the League.”

  “I guess we’ll see when the dust settles,” Atherton said. He speared a bite of beef, popped it into his mouth, then waved the empty fork at Travis. “You’re being awfully quiet, Long,” he said around the mouthful. “Treecat got your tongue?”

  “I was thinking that Esterle’s right about another analyzer being a higher priority than a new vane,” Travis said. “I was also wondering what the chief meant by us being behind the wardroom ice cream machine.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Yarrow said with a sniff. “One of the control components burned out, that’s all. But you know how officers like their little perks.”

  “Ah.” Travis looked at Esterle. She was studiously attacking her meal, and seemed to be making a point of not looking back at him. “It wouldn’t have been a quad, would it?”

  “I didn’t ask,” Yarrow said, peering closely at him. “Why? Is it important?”

  “Probably not,” Travis murmured. No proof, he reminded himself. No proof. “Just curious.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The team was assembled precisely at oh-eight-hundred the next morning. Forty minutes later, they were in their EVA suits and had done all the proper equipment checks, and the power systems to the section of hull where they would be working had been tagged off. Fifteen minutes after that, having double-checked everything himself, Craddock declared them ready to move out.

  Only to discover that the new vane wasn’t ready for deployment. Apparently, there was some snag in the sampler module and the electronics techs were still working on it.

  Craddock’s immediate and profanity-sprinkled argument was that his people were the gravitics techs, and that if anyone should be working on the vane it was them. But the complaint fell on deliberately deaf ears. The electronics techs were as bored with the daily routine as everyone else aboard Vanguard, and working on a gravitics vane was a big step up from swapping out hexes and quads and rebuilding balky interface circuits. Besides which, their CPO pointed out, the vane had been delivered to them, and until they released it to Gravitics it was theirs to play with.