Change of Command

Chapter Twenty-One

“Mutiny!” Hobart Conselline glared at the face on the screen. “What do you mean, mutiny?”

“Copper Mountain, milord. Mutineers have taken it over, the whole system—”

Copper Mountain was a long way away—Hobart had no idea how far, exactly, but far enough. A training base, wasn’t it? Probably a bunch of disgruntled trainees, and nothing to worry about. “Who’s in charge?”

“Milord?”

He was surrounded by idiots. “Who is in charge of Copper Mountain? The base there?” A blank look, followed by a confused gabble about Main Base and Camp This and Island Something. “Never mind—just put a cordon around it.”

“A cordon, milord?”

Did he have to explain everything? And these were supposed to be military personnel. “Cut them off,” he said firmly. “Blockade or cordon or whatever you people call it. Just isolate them, and they’ll run out of supplies soon enough.”

A different face appeared, this one somewhat older. “Speaker, you do not understand. The mutiny began at Copper Mountain, but the mutineers now control the entire system—they have the orbital station, and the system defenses—we know at least ten warships are involved. That’s enough to mount an attack on any other orbital station, or even one of the more lightly defended planets.”

“But why would they do that?”

“We don’t know, Lord Conselline, and not knowing their plans we must take what precautions we can to protect the most vulnerable population centers—”

“Damn them! I want to know who they represent! I want to know now!”

“Milord, the first thing is to secure—”

“I’ll wager it’s the Barracloughs—or the Serranos—”

The face on the screen seemed to stiffen. “We have no information—”

“Well, find out. I’ll expect a report immediately.” He shut off his unit, and swung his chair around so fast he banged his knee on his desk and caught his breath. Blast them. Smug, condescending . . . all they wanted was to feather their own nests, anyway. He sensed, as he always did, the vast sticky web of someone else’s conspiracy, someone else’s malice and opposition. It was unfair . . . why couldn’t they see that he was only trying to make things better for the real Familias Regnant, that mental image of hard-working beneficent lords and ladies, and hard-working appreciative lesser families and workers, for whom he was grinding himself to nothing between two stones? Why did they always have to argue, talk back, bicker, complain? If they would only do what he told them, at once and without argument, the government could move smoothly, quickly, responding to whatever crises came up.

But no. They let personal ambition, mere selfishness and silly pride, get in the way . . . They were sabotaging his effort to save the Familias Regnant. Tears stung his eyes, and he blinked them away. It was tempting to resign, and let them find out what a muddle—what a disastrous quicksand pit—they’d be in without him. He’d certainly done his part; he’d earned respite. But no—he would do his duty, as he had always done it. He would uproot the lazy, conniving schemers who laughed at him behind his back, and save the realm in spite of itself.

He placed his own call . . . he would not work through that lemon-faced Poisson . . . and demanded of the man’s secretary a word with his Minister of Defense.

“A terrible thing,” he was saying even as his face slid into pickup range.

“Don’t you start,” Hobart said. “I’m getting no help out of the Grand Admiral’s office—”

“They’re upset—you know, Lord Conselline, the Grand Admiral was a mere one-star before the other flag officers were sent away—”

“Don’t make excuses, Ed! Mutinies don’t come out of nowhere. I want to know who’s responsible for this outrage. Names, dates, the whole drill. Heads will roll, do you hear me, Ed?”

“Absolutely, Lord Conselline. As soon as I know anything, I’ll report—”

“I have enemies, you know,” Hobart said. “There are those who would like to embarrass me. I could name names . . .”

“In the Fleet, milord?”

“Not exactly, though I understand that the Serranos were quite close to Lord Thornbuckle and his daughter. Weren’t they involved in her rescue, that flagrant misuse of government resources?”

“Yes, milord, but no Serranos have so far been identified as crew members of any of the vessels involved. In fact, a large group of them were attending a social function—”

“A flagrant alibi,” Hobart said. “Suspicious by its very nature.”

“Uh . . . it was a betrothal party, I understand. Milord, Fleet asked my permission to cancel the order removing rejuvenated flag officers from active duty, and of course I gave it—”

“Why?”

The man looked at him blankly. “Because we need them, milord. With part of the Fleet in mutiny, we need loyal officers, and especially the command structure—”

“How do you know they’re loyal? How do you know they didn’t engineer this mutiny just to be put back in the cushy jobs they had before?”

“Lord Conselline, there is no evidence—”

“If you’re going to argue, Ed—” Hobart began, feeling himself growing hotter by the moment.

“Milord, I’m not arguing, I’m only telling you what the facts are as we know them.”

“And you don’t know anything worth knowing!” Hobart cut the connection, started to whirl his chair, and stopped just short of banging his leg again. He was surrounded by complete incompetents. He had made that man. He had taught him, shaped him, and brought him into the government, and this—this was his reward. Insubordination, incompetence . . .

He could fire him, of course. But whom could he appoint in his place? None of them had lived up to his hopes for them. Instead of working with him, supporting him, helping him, they all acted like spoiled prima donnas. Could he find anyone better?

“Goonar—wake up, man!” Goonar rolled over and glared at his cousin.

“It is my off watch. The ship is now in pieces. Go away.”

“Goonar, listen—we just sucked a priority one report—”

“Is Laisa crazy? If we go sucking Fleet data, they’ll—”

“There’s a mutiny, Goonar.”

“Mutiny?”

“Ten ships they know of, all in the Copper Mountain system. Who knows how many elsewhere.”

“Open mutiny?” He was wide awake now, his stomach in a cold knot.

“That’s what it said. A ship sent down LACs to a prison downside, brought up a bunch of dangerous criminals, used them to break the orbital station, got control of communications and systemwide defenses, and has declared that system to be part of the Society of Natural Men.”

“And who is that when it’s at home?” It sounded like nothing he’d ever heard of. Natural men? What did they do, run around naked and eat raw fish?

“My guess is it’s some of those bloodthirsty lot who hung around with Admiral Lepescu. Remember the bald man who got blind drunk and wanted to show us trophies that time, after the fight in the bar? And what Kaim told us?”

“Lepescu’s dead,” Goonar said.

“Meanness isn’t, just because one mean man dies.” Basil shifted his shoulders restlessly. “I wonder if Kaim’s all right, or if he’s mixed up in this some way.”

“He’d have told us . . . family . . .”

“Can you see real conspirators confiding in Kaim? He’s so sure he can’t be fooled, he’s like the man holding his wallet and showing pickpockets where it is. I’d hate to have a Terakian involved, even by accident.”

“I’m more concerned about the rest of the family. Mutiny in Fleet’s going to play hob with shipping schedules, ours included. Things were unsettled enough before.”

“Which is why I woke you up. We’re playing skip—the-loop with the Terakian Harvest, and Laisa says we’re almost in tightbeam range.”

“We don’t have to tube over, do we?” Goonar asked. He hated ship-to-ship transfer tubes worse than being woken out of a sound sleep.

“No. Or rather, you don’t; I do. But they want to talk to you.”

Goonar groaned, but rolled out of the bunk, and rubbed his head vigorously. He was not any good fresh out of sleep; he could have smacked Basil just for looking so brisk and awake.

On the bridge of Flavor, Laisa grinned at him. “Exciting times, Goonar.”

“I never prayed for excitement,” he growled. He just wanted to live his life in peace, he thought, holding the memory of dinner around the table on Caskadar . . . the mellow lamplight, the smell of the food, the children’s sweet piping voices. He sighed, and linked in to Harvest’s com officer.

“Your analysis, Goonar?”

How was he supposed to have an analysis when he was barely awake? Yet though he could barely speak, he could feel the little rolls moving in his brain, the numbers flickering past, faster and faster.

“What’s your cargo?”

“Class D. Tungsten shell casings in the number four hold, conformable explosives in number three, the rest unremarkable.”

“All of it.” They never wanted to tell you all of it, but it was the little things which might turn a profit projection on its head.

“High-fashion software to eight destinations, plumbing supplies—plastic joints, mostly, but also some flapper valves, and a gross of solar-powered pumps, a cube of stuffed dates, and two bales of synthesilk, undyed.”

Goonar knew from experience that the dates and the synthesilk wouldn’t be on the manifest. Crew’s personal possessions, not for sale . . . except at a profit. “Fine—and your destinations and route?”

That came in a long string, directly into his deskcomp.

He looked at it and let the little gears and rollers in his head have their way. Then, just as Basil—suited up—waved at him from the bridge entrance, he had it.

“Xavier.”

“What? That’s not on our list at all!”

“I know . . . but I’ll bet they need your Class D, and they’re listed as a priority destination in the Fleet directive of last week. Nobody wants to go out there.”

“Neither do I!”

“Yes, you do. It’s a long way in the wrong direction from Copper Mountain. Nothing to attract mutineers: no ships to grab, no weapons factories to raid, no rich commerce to prey on. There’s a Fleet presence, but after what happened, it’ll be the most loyal crews they have. It’s an ag world, livestock breeders, minimal hard-goods manufacturing. Also Xavier’s still rebuilding—they’ll take the plumbing supplies, too. They use a lot of synthesilk, and they have their own dyers. After that go to Rotterdam; they’re also agricultural, and they have a little cross-trade with Xavier.”

“What about the high-fashion software? It’s only salable in a skinny window.”

“Tube it to us, and I’ll send it on by the next one we meet, when things are more settled.”

“If they ever are. Fine, then. Godspeed.”

At Chinglin Station, the censorious commander found orders taking him in one direction, while his very relieved companions had orders directing them to other ships. Barin and Esmay took the opportunity to stop by a dessert stand in the concourse that led from civilian docking lounges to the Fleet gate where they were to join the R.S.S. Rosa Gloria. They had less than two hours of time alone, with “alone” defined generously, but it was a great improvement on a suite full of Serranos or the watchful eye of the major.

“It’s like Rondin and Gillian,” Esmay said, swinging her feet against the counter. She felt like a child, sitting on this tall stool and spooning up ice cream. “Old family quarrels and all.”

“You mean Romeo and Juliet,” Barin said. “Shakespeare, very old.”

“No, I don’t,” Esmay said. “I mean Rondin and Gillian. Who are Romeo and Juliet?”

“You must have heard of it; maybe the names changed in your version. Montagues and Capulets, traditional enemies. Duels and banishment and finally they died.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Yes, they did. She took a potion that made her look dead, and he thought she was dead, and killed himself, and then she found him and killed herself.” Barin took another spoonful of ice cream. “Tragic but stupid. He could have asked a doctor, though my teacher said they didn’t have doctors back when the story was first told.”

“Not Rondin,” Esmay said. “I met him.”

Barin stared. “You’re talking about real people?”

“Of course. Rondin Escandera and Gillian Portobello. Their fathers had quarrelled years before, and forbade them to marry.”

“Why?”

“The quarrel? I don’t know. I never heard, being a girl. I think my father knew, though. It was all very exciting . . . Rondin rode across our land to get to Gillian, because her father had sent her to my great-grandmother to wash Rondin out of her head, he said. That’s where I met her; I was a child, and she was a young woman. Then one night Rondin came and she went out the window.”

“How did he know where she’d gone?”

“Everyone knew—her father made no secret of it.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“Oh, Barin, I was nine . . . ten, maybe. I knew nothing about beauty. She was a grownup who talked to me, that’s all I knew.”

“So what happened?”

“Oh, her father came and yelled at my father, and wanted to yell at my great-grandmother; my grandfather and uncle yelled at him—there was a lot of yelling, and I hid out in my room most of the time, so no one would ask me any awkward questions.”

“Ask you—what did you know?”

Esmay grinned. “I was the one who’d carried the messages back and forth. Nobody paid much attention to a scrawny nine-year-old who was already known to be fond of walking the hills alone. Gillian was nice to me; I’d have done more for her than carry a note a few miles. And I knew where they’d gone. My great-grandmother tried to talk Gillian out of it, said it would be a disgrace for them both, but finally gave them permission to live far in the south, on our land, as—there is no word, in this language, but—they are under Suiza protection, but also under Suiza law. They do not own the land.”

“Are they happy?”

“I don’t know. After the yelling died down, I heard no more about them. But my point was that we are like that, our families opposed to our marriage, and we also must choose to lose our familes or each other.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“Nor I, you.”

“It’s not fair to blame you for what some ancestor of yours did—”

“If they did,” they said in unison.

“For all they know,” Esmay said, “I’m actually the last living heir of that family, whatever its name was. Maybe they should be cheering me on, instead of hating me.”

“They don’t hate you. They’re just confused. It’s all Personnel’s fault anyway.” He reached out and touched her hair, a touch so light she could hardly feel it. Even that was risky in public; she felt her face going hot.

“Personnel’s fault?”

“Well, if they hadn’t put the rejuved admirals out of work, Grandmother wouldn’t have been bored in the family archives. Imagine what it must have taken to get her to look at a row of children’s books.”

Esmay couldn’t help giggling. “After she’d sat on the porch—is there a porch?”

“Oh, yes. She sat on the porch and looked at the lake, I’ll bet. Then she took a walk. Then she read the newsflashes, and then she thought she should do something useful and improving . . .”

“Like read children’s books.” It was hard to imagine the redoubtable Admiral Serrano reading children’s books. She must have been very bored indeed.

“I don’t want to read children’s books . . .” Barin gave her a long look.

“No . . .” She stared into the ice cream, trying not to blush again. She knew exactly what he wanted, and what she wanted.

“Esmay . . . everything’s against us—both families, the mutiny, maybe a war, the whole universe doesn’t want us to get married. They’re so sure they know why we shouldn’t, what we should do to be happy ten or twenty or fifty years from now. But I want to marry you. Do you still want to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s do it. In spite of them, in spite of the mutiny, in spite of good common sense . . . let’s do it.”

A rush of warm glowing joy suffused her, banishing embarrassment. “Yes. Oh, yes! But how?”

“If nothing else we’ll hold hands over a candle, but we have an hour—maybe more—before the ship gets here. If we don’t waste it—”

“Let’s go.”

When they looked on the board, the Rosa Gloria was seventy-two minutes from undocking. Seventy-two minutes. Finding a magistrate with the authority to perform the ceremony took thirty-three of them. Persuading him to do it—both of them talking, proving their identification, showing all the paperwork—took another twenty-six. Thirteen minutes left . . . they stood hand in hand, and the magistrate rattled through the legal requirements as fast as possible, then added something Esmay presumed was a blessing in his religion, though not in hers. Signing and stamping and sealing the various documents took another eight minutes, and they were both racing back to the Fleet side of the station as fast as they could.

“We’re crazy,” Barin said, after they’d signed through Fleet Gate. His hand felt as if it were welded to hers.

“I love you,” Esmay said. “I—rats, it’s gone yellow—”

“Come on.” Hand in hand, they ran for it, stride and stride, as faces turned toward them; people stared, someone yelled—she didn’t care. They hit the far end of the access tube just as the light turned red, and a very disgusted petty-major held her fist on the controls to let them in.

“Welcome aboard sir . . . sirs.” Her tone would have preserved fish for a century.

Behind her was a major; Esmay got her hand untangled from Barin’s, and they both saluted.

“Jig Serrano and Lieutenant Suiza, I presume?”

“Yes, sir.” She hadn’t had time to think about whether she wanted to change her name.

“You cut it rather close, didn’t you? We almost had you down as possible mutineers.”

“Us?” Barin said. He sounded outraged.

“You,” the major said. “We’re treating no-shows that way—what did you expect?”

“Sir, we need to report a change of status.”

His brows went up. “We?”

“We,” Barin said firmly.

“I assume you mean a change of status that could affect billeting,” the major said. He rolled his eyes. “All right. For now, we’re assigning transient officers half-shift duties. You’ll be on second shift, second half for now. Let’s see—Lieutenant Suiza, we’ll be meeting Navarino when the battle group is formed, and you’ll be rejoining her—she’s in jump transit right now. Jig Serrano, you were about to leave Gyrfalcon, but the ship you were assigned to has gone over to the mutineers, so your assignment’s still up in the air.”

“Goshawk went over?”

“So I hear.”

“But it wasn’t anywhere near Copper Mountain—”

“Serrano, I don’t know any more than I’ve said. For now, you can wait for your chance at Admin and the captain in the junior officers’ mess.”

“Yes, sir.”

The junior officers’ mess was a buzzing hive of ensigns, jigs and lieutenants, who were much more interested in the latest news than in personal matters. Once they found that Barin and Esmay had not spent the two hours onstation watching newsvids, they went back to rehashing Fleet gossip. Barin and Esmay were able to sit together in a corner of the room, shoulder just touching shoulder, as they watched the status board for their turn to report to the captain.

“You’ve what?” Captain Atherton said.

“Got married, sir,” Esmay said. As senior, she had made the announcement.

“But—but you didn’t tell anyone.”

“No, sir.” Never mind that her CO, and Barin’s, were perfectly aware of the engagement.

“Your paperwork’s not even complete.”

“No, sir.” She didn’t explain about that, either, or the unlikelihood that it would be complete any time in the foreseeable future.

“You know this could be voided by Personnel—”

“Yes, sir.” She heard the stubborn tone in her own voice. Personnel could void what it wanted, but in her heart she was married, and nothing could change that.

“Why—no, never mind why. Because you’re both idiots with dung for brains, pulling a stunt at a time like this.”

“That’s why, sir,” Esmay ventured. “Things keep happening and we wanted—”

“This is not a romance storycube, Lieutenant. This is a warship in time of war. I don’t care if you two are in love or if someone spiked your cocktail . . . we don’t have time for this. You shouldn’t even be on the same ship.”

Esmay stole a glance at Barin, who stole a glance back. They hadn’t been on the same ship when they weren’t married, since the Koskiusko.

“Why couldn’t you just have had mad passionate sex and gotten over it? Why did you have to get married?” Atherton turned to Barin. “Do you have any idea what your grandmother’s going to do to me when she finds out?”

“It’s not your fault, sir.” Barin looked a little grim, and Esmay knew what he was thinking. It wasn’t the captain of this ship who would bear the brunt of Admiral Serrano’s anger.

“No, it’s not, but she’ll blame me for not stopping it. You—” He stopped in mid-bellow. “You’re not laughing, are you?”

“No, sir,” they said.

“Good. Because while this entire situation is so bad that laughter is the only sane response, I don’t like to be laughed at, and I’m not laughing, so you can’t laugh with me.” He shook his head at them. “This happens in every crisis we have. I don’t know what it is about youngsters—and you, Lieutenant Suiza, are really too old for that category—but every time there’s a military crisis, a bunch of you decide to leap into the sack, and a few of those leap into marriage. It must be some atavistic quirk from the childhood of humankind.”

“It’s not like that. We didn’t rush into it. We’d waited, and waited, and filled out paperwork, and argued with our families—” Esmay knew she was saying too much, but for once she couldn’t stop.

“And then Grandmother came up with something really awful—” Barin added. Esmay shot him a warning look.

“And then the news of the mutiny came in, and everyone was rushing around—”

“Mmm-hmm. And you got married because your personal happiness was more important than anything else.”

“As important as,” Barin said. “Sir, I don’t see how being miserable makes us more efficient, and right then we were miserable not being married, and being apart.”

“So you’ll function better if you’re together?”

“I think so,” Barin said.

“Good. Prove it. I see you’re on second shift, second. We’re certainly crowded enough to make sharing a cabin during your sleep rotation reasonable. But the first time one of you is groggy on duty, I swear I’ll space you both. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you will both inform your families immediately, while we’re still within range of the system ansible. We’ll be in jump transit before a reply comes, no doubt, but at least you’ll have told them. You have one hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re letting them bunk together?” the exec asked. He had overheard enough.

“It saves time. They’d get together somehow if we put them on alternating shifts with shifting bunk assignments . . . this way they don’t waste any time or energy hunting each other down. My guess is, from their records, that they’ll be just as efficient as anyone else.”

“The Serrano family won’t be happy.”

“Well . . . as they said, it’s not my fault. I didn’t arrange it, or sanction it; it was done when I got them. Besides, I’m not a Serrano.” His face relaxed for a moment into a reminiscent smile. “Back when I was an ensign on Claremont, and she was commanding, Vida Serrano chewed me out for spending too much time with my girlfriend. Said I’d outgrow the silly chit. Well, I’ve been married twenty-eight years now to that ‘little chit,’ and the day I outgrow Sal, I’ll be dead. It’s only justice that her grandson falls in love with someone she thinks is unsuitable—though how she could object to Lieutenant Suiza is beyond me. Maybe these two will be understanding of one of my kids someday.”

The compartment was predictably cramped, with a second narrow bunk rigged above the first, and they would share it with four other officers. It was their space only during their assigned sleep shift. But they were alone, with a locked door between them and the rest of the universe. For now, that made all the difference.

“Sorry about the hurry,” Barin said, into Esmay’s ear.

“Hmmm?”

“The beautiful dress Brun was having designed for you. And the ring I’d ordered. And a ceremony you would recognize . . .”

“We can do that later, if we have the chance. I’d rather have this.” This engaged both of them more than adequately for some time.

“Still . . .” Barin said, coming up for air at last.

Esmay poked a finger in his ribs. “Don’t . . . distract me.”