Renegade (8 page)

“Interesting,” said Dale.

“I’m sure. I’m so sorry to hear about your Captain, both of you…” and his eyes narrowed at Dale. “You’re Erik’s security?” So he knew something was up, Erik thought with relief.

“Something like that.”

“And I’m sure as a marine officer you’re thrilled to be made into a bodyguard?” With a smile.

“Well you know sir,” said Dale, with a sideways look at Erik. “Some people need more looking after than others.”

Thani laughed. “And it had to be someone with your natural class and refinement, of course.”

“He hasn’t tried to hump my sisters’ legs yet,” Erik conceded. “Which is more than I’d expected.” Dale gave Erik a look that promised amusing things to come, of the kind that only marines would find funny.

“I’m sure you’re doing a fine job, Lieutenant,” said Thani.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir. LC, will you need anything else?”

“No Lieutenant,” said Erik. “Try not to kill or impregnate anyone while you’re waiting.”

“No promises LC,” said Dale as he left.

“Wow,” said Thani after he’d gone. “A
real
tough guy, huh? Not like the wannabes around here.”

“Total pain in the ass,” said Erik, taking the seat Thani indicated. “But a hell of a marine. One of the best.”

“And little Major Thakur orders men like him around with no problems?” asked Thani, sitting behind his desk.

Erik smiled. “She doesn’t even raise her voice. There was a Sergeant on the last port call, tougher guy even than Lieutenant Dale, he got rowdy with a couple of girls in a bar, too much alcohol, the girls were upset. The Major heard about it, had a quiet word to him when he got in. She said he’d made her unhappy. That’s it. Poor guy nearly cried, didn’t touch a drink the rest of the stop. Found the girls from that night and apologised, the works.”

Thani nodded slowly. “And now I hear she’s gone and leaned on her Kulina superiors to lean on Fleet HQ.”

“Seems that way,” said Erik. “What can you tell me about it?” As a staffer entered with some tea, which both men accepted with thanks.

Thani sipped, and pursed his lips. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let me tell you this. When Fleet is about to do something big, generally I’ll hear about it first. I’ve got staff who keep track of Fleet, they’ve got contacts inside, a lot of them are ex-Fleet.”

“A lot of this whole building,” Erik agreed.

Thani nodded. “Exactly. Spacer Congress is a giant Fleet echo chamber. Whenever Fleet makes a noise, this place rings like a bell. So usually, if they were about to do something stupid, which Fleet will too frequently do… something like put their greatest war hero under arrest on charges no sane person could believe… we’d usually hear about that in advance. Not exactly what was going to happen, mind you. We’d just get wind that
something
was about to happen — there’d be secret meetings, odd comings and goings, Admirals rescheduling Committee appearances, etcetera. And we’d all look at each other and say, ‘something’s up.’

“This one? Nothing.”

Erik frowned. “So what does that mean?”

“It means that they decided to court-martial Captain Pantillo with very little warning, and very little deliberation. It means that only a very few people knew about it in advance, and the way that Fleet works, you know which people they’d have been.”

“The Big Three,” said Erik.

Thani nodded. “Because the only part of the command pyramid that can make executive decisions with no deliberation is the very top part. Fleet Admirals Ishmael and Anjo, and Supreme Commander Chankow. That’s it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Erik. “Fleet deliberates on
everything.
It’s a fucking bureaucratic mess, no one wants to make command decisions on anything politically controversial because all the top commanders are into politics themselves. If they’re going to railroad the Captain, they’ll want to make damn sure they’ve got a base of support behind them, and that means all kinds of meetings and number crunching, the kind of thing you’d hear about.”

“So here’s the thing,” said Thani, very seriously. “The Tanok Offensive. We heard rumblings about that two years in advance. Didn’t know what it was, of course, though some of us guessed.”

“Right,” said Erik, “well it takes years to plan a big offensive.”

“But then there was the Sherin Offensive. And we didn’t hear boo about that. It just fell out of the sky on our laps, and that was just as big.”

The Sherin Offensive was forty-two years ago, but Erik had studied it well. “Yeah, but that was to relieve pressure on the chah'nas flank after they got whacked at Pou-duk. We had no time to plan.”

“Sure,” said Thani. “It came from a non-human source.”

“Well no, we still had to do most of the planning ourselves…”

“Yes, but the motivation to do so came from a non-human source. In that case, the chah'nas.”

Erik stared at him for a long moment. “Are you saying that… that the Captain was court-martialled at the say-so of our
allies
?”

“No,” Thani said carefully. “I’m saying this. Whenever something happens in Fleet HQ, that Spacer Congress doesn’t get a whiff of in advance, it’s come from outside. I’m
not
saying that aliens commanded it. I’m just saying that it has to
do
with aliens. Fleet HQ often doesn’t deliberate on that at all. That’s one for very High Command only. That’s my guess.”

“Well,” said Erik after a long pause. “I’m not sure that helps me very much. No idea
what
to do with aliens?”

Thani shook his head, and sipped tea. “Erik, there’s peace coming now. That scares a lot of people as bad as war did. Some of them worse, because war’s all they’ve known. They’re used to war. War made them powerful. Lots of people are about to be downsized. Not all of them are thrilled about it.”

“Well Fleet will still be powerful. All those colonies will need patrolling, and worlds occupying. Takes a lot of ships. Army units too.”

“Yes,” said Thani. “And a lot of those ships are chah'nas technology, or alo technology. They call it the Triumvirate War because there’s three of us, in one big alliance. Now I see chah'nas every second day, but I’ll see an alo maybe once a year. There aren’t many people in humanity who know more about that alliance than me, but I’ll let you know this for free — most of us really don’t know what the alo are up to, or why they joined this alliance in the first place.

“Chah'nas, sure. They want their empire back. It’s not the most wonderful motivation, but it suits our purposes — the tavalai used to be their administrators in the old chah'nas empire, but they got uppity. Chah'nas want the tavalai back in their box. Chah'nas are complicated, but their motives usually aren’t. Alo…?” He shrugged expansively. “How much of the tech we use every day actually came from alo originally, and
they
gave to the chah'nas? Nobody knows. Alo are a damn sight smarter than chah'nas, smart enough they’ve got everyone else doing their fighting for them.

“There’s so much going on outside of human space that no one knows about, Erik. Stuff I can’t speculate upon with you because it would cost me my job and land me in prison. We’ve been in space twelve hundred years — with FTL, anyway. The first three hundred of that we were stuck in a small corner of krim space, fighting for our lives. Then we took krim space. Now we’ve taken half of tavalai space, and some of sard and kaal. There’s still a lot out there beyond the Spiral boundaries, all the way through the inner reaches. Those places have had sentient, spacefaring civilisation for fifty thousand years at least. More, if you count the Ancients. We’re just the kids out here, the newcomers. All these older species might have learned we’re damn tough to beat in a war, but they still think they can play us for fools, and they might be right.

“You’ve been understandably preoccupied with the war. But here in this office, I spend much of my days thinking and worrying about all that other stuff beyond our reach. And to me, it looks like Captain Pantillo got screwed over because he got in the way of something between Fleet HQ, and some other alien race we’ve got dealings with… and trust me, there’s a lot more of them than just chah'nas, alo or kuhsi. That’s all I can tell you.”

T
race found
her marines on the beach, playing volleyball, swimming and surfing, or lazing on the sand with food and drink. She strolled from the cab, sidearm and details in her small pack — being out of uniform was an inconvenience that way, she couldn’t wear the gun openly. But she felt safe enough here, on a lightly-trafficked road with a line of shops and cafes… despite the car along the parking line with two people in it, plainly watching.

Her guys didn’t recognise her immediately — there were about twenty, less than ten percent of the
Phoenix
company, all buff and lean in their swimwear, and drawing no few looks from the civvies around them. Then Carville saw her, sitting up from the sand by the volleyball game, about to call out but she shushed him with a finger to her lips, and took a seat beside him and three others.

“Hey Major,” said Carville, genuinely pleased to see her. “Didn’t recognise you in civvies, nice look.” She wore tight swimshorts and a short top over a bikini top. Dress for female officers around those she commanded wasn’t quite as simple as for male officers, and this was as much skin as seemed wise, on a beach, trying to blend in.

“Thanks Benji,” she said. “You look like you’ve been looking after yourself this shore leave, I’m impressed.”

Private ‘Benji’ Carville grinned, delighted as they all were when she used their nicknames. He was Alpha Second Squad, like were they all. “Well I may have had one too many last night,” he admitted. “But only one.”

“PT this morning?” she pressed.

“Sir yes sir!” said Kaur, and they laughed.

“Three klicks run on soft sand and full workout,” Carville assured her. “You’d have been proud.”

“I’m always proud Benji. I don’t know if I believe you, but I’m always proud.” More laughter.

“You here for the day Major?” Aram asked hopefully.

“Couple of hours,” she said. Truthfully, she
could
have spent more R&R time with them — they weren’t always drinking and being rowdy. But those that weren’t, tended to be the same ones, and if she spent all her down time with the same guys, the others would feel aggrieved.

“Any news on the Captain?” asked Kaur. She’d had to order them to go to the beach, have fun, and keep doing all the usual things they’d do on downtime. Because they were all upset, and when marines got upset, sometimes people got hurt. That was the last thing anyone needed now, the Captain least of all, so Trace had ordered them all to continue recreation as usual, no exceptions, and she’d tell them when anything changed.

“Nothing more than you’ve heard,” she told them. “Commander Huang’s down from
Phoenix
now, she’s in talks with HQ.”

“She’s got family contacts in HQ doesn’t she?” Aram pressed.

Trace nodded. They all looked so hopeful. But she made it a rule to always tell them straight, on anything that might affect their safety. “Honestly, I don’t hold much hope for Commander Huang. She’s a great commander, but that family she has at the top levels is a liability in this situation. I spoke to her briefly, and I got a distinct lack of urgency from her.”

“She’s ditching us?” said Carville, eyes darkening. “She’s ditching the Captain?”

“She’s caught between this family and blood family,” Trace corrected firmly. “Don’t judge her, it’s not her fault. But don’t expect much either. The one who
has
been raising holy hell is the LC.”

“Debogande?” said Kaur. “Seriously?”

Trace nodded. “He went to see his Great Uncle Gialidis this morning.” Eyes widened, everyone knew who
that
was. “Dale told me, said the LC was real serious, and real pissed. And just now Huang called me, told me to tell the LC to cool it a bit, apparently HQ’s getting jumpy. Huang told the LC to cool it herself, the LC told her it was a family visit and mind her own business.”

Surprised laughs from the marines. The standard assumption with LC Debogande was of an okay officer who couldn’t be much special because he couldn’t possibly deserve the post. Certainly no one thought he was the guy who came out swinging when the bigwigs pushed them in a corner. Most marines thought Debogande
was
a bigwig, he sure shined his shoes like one.

“So here’s the thing,” Trace continued. “I want us to start moving back to
Phoenix
. We’re being watched, for one thing.”

“That car in the parking line?” said Carville. “Yeah, there’s always one. There was a guy in the bar last night, another at a restaurant.”

“Exactly. I don’t want anyone getting paranoid, they might just be checking that nobody’s witness tampering before the trial. But I feel vulnerable down here, and I’ve requested to the Commander we start moving back to
Phoenix
before someone starts some incident, creates more trouble, etcetera. If they’re trying to stitch the Captain up, they might try to stitch us all up, we just don’t know what this is yet.”

Grim nods. “When?”

“Tomorrow. Commander’s arranging it.”

“What about
Phoenix
crew?”

“I’m not sure,” Trace admitted. “Not my area. But something similar seems wise. I’m sure the LC agrees with me. The Commander, not so much.”

“Yeah but Major,” said Aram. “I don’t like leaving the Captain alone down here. It’s a bad look.”

“There’s nothing we can do for him here,” Trace said firmly. “This isn’t our environment. It’s in the hands of the bigwigs now, and if any of us have to testify at the court-martial, they can fly us back. Until then, the best we can do is avoid making extra trouble.”

Reluctant nods. “You want us to tell the others?”

“Just rotate everyone else back through here,” said Trace, finding a comfortable seat on the sand. “Nothing suspicious for our watching friends. I’ll tell them myself.”