Mutineer (15 page)

“Unstep the mainmast and report back instanter, sir,” she repeated to ensure she’d heard correctly. “Aye, sir.” She went back out onto the hull, still wondering at the purpose, but relayed the order to her men.

They set about the complex task, first furling the mesh sails and taking them down to be stored in the sail locker, then lowering the long, bulky yards for storage as well. Though there was no gravity, the sails and yards still had mass and controlling them, each tens of meters long, was grueling. Following the yards, the men had to release and coil the rigging, both standing and running — hundreds of meters of cable that secured and braced the mast and yards to the hull and each other. And finally the mast itself, where they had to unlock and lower each of the telescoping segments carefully into the one below it and, at last, unlock the base of the mast to let it hinge back onto the hull and lock into place.

All told, it took the twenty-two men of her division over an hour to complete the process. Alexis watched them through every step, lending a hand where she could and ensuring that no step was overlooked. She could see the men were moving slower and more carefully than they normally would, their backs painful from the flogging the day before.

When the last clamp was in place around the now folded mast, she returned to the quarterdeck.

“The mainmast is unstepped, sir,” she reported.

Neals consulted his tablet. “Your men are slow, Carew. Unhappily so.” He frowned. “Please step the mainmast and set all plain sail. Report back here when it’s done.”

“Aye, sir.” She left the quarterdeck and went out onto the hull once more, relaying the order to her men. She could see their shoulders slump even through the bulky vacsuits as they, too, came to understand the reason for Neals’ orders.

The flogging wasn’t enough for the bastard, was it?
She clenched her jaw, furious.
No, he’d make them work the day after, reopening the cuts from the lash let their sweat from the effort add to the sting.

Alexis watched as the bulky mast was raised again and extended, the rigging made fast and the yards hoisted up, before the sails were brought out. All plain sail, he’d ordered — main, top, topgallant, and royal sails sent up the mast, made fast to their yards and let go. Even the sight of the sails glowing with azure light and sparks of white as they were charged and filled with the
darkspace
winds to pull the ship along couldn’t alleviate her anger.

“Mainmast stepped and all plain sail, sir,” she announced, restraining the urge to slide the airlock hatch closed with as much force as she could muster.

“Far too slow, Carew,” Neals said, not bothering to look up from his tablet. “Again, if you please.”

Alexis closed her eyes and slumped under the stream of hot water. She’d be using most of her water allotment for this shower, but felt the need to wash away the last several hours. Neals had kept her division working throughout their watch and on into the next, never letting up — the only respites they’d had were brief trips into the sail locker to charge the air and water in their suits and then return to the masts.

As soon as she’d realized the captain’s purpose, Alexis had joined in the work, lending a hand wherever she could to lessen the load on the men of her division. Always rushing from the mast to the quarterdeck hatch when they were nearly done, so that she could report to Neals as quickly as possible. She truly had no idea whether they were completing the tasks faster or slower each time, for Neals never said — he responded to each of her reports with a grunt and, “Again and faster, if you please.”

When he finally ordered them back inside after stepping the mast for the last time and furling the topgallant and royal, the men collapsed onto the benches in the sail locker. Alexis slumped against the wall next to the inner hatch, for, by tradition, officers stood in the locker while the men sat, in recognition of their hard work. She didn’t even have the strength to feel moved when Nabb elbowed his neighbor to slide down the bench and motioned for her to join them. She simply sat gratefully and pondered that the men she commanded were so much more her familiars than the officers who were her peers.

“Two lads left behind to die soes we’d not lose time — and what was all this about, then?”

“Enough, Nabb,” Alexis said quietly.

“Can’t take no more,” Isom moaned, doubled over to rest his head on his knees. “I’m just a bloody clark!”

“No clark you! Yer in the Navy now!”

“Neals’ Navy! Which’re a damn sight harder than t’other one!”

Alexis stood and resumed her place by the inner hatch. Her legs were a bit weak, but she felt it best to be clear she was speaking as an officer.

“Look, you lot, I know a good whinge is a spacer’s natural right—” She glanced at the pressure gauges. Once all of the suits were recharged with air and ready for an emergency, they’d be going back into the ship, which gave her little time. “— and you’ve far more cause than most or ever, but watch your tongues. Give no one cause to call you out for it.”

“Sorry, sir,” Nabb said. “And you lot mark her, too. Best t’be still on this boat.”

The sharp trilling of a bosun’s whistle sounded from the speakers in the head and broke her out of her reverie.

All hands?
she wondered as she shut off the water and hurriedly grabbed a towel. She quickly rung most of the water from her hair and tried to dry it as much as she could in the few moments she could spare, then threw on a new uniform and grabbed up the pile of her vacsuit and the sweat-soaked uniform she’d worn Outside. What could Neals possibly want now?

She dumped her vacsuit and uniform in a corner of her berth and tied her wet hair back in a ponytail before hurrying to the companionway and up to the mess deck where the men were assembling. She’d come up forward and the space in front of her was blocked by the broad backs of the assembled men.

“Make a lane!” she yelled.

The crew moved to either side, clearing a space for her to hurry down the length of the deck to where the officers were grouped aft. She was beginning to count herself lucky that Neals hadn’t arrived yet when he stepped through the aft hatch and glared at her.

“Good of you to join us, Carew,” he said as she took her place in line with the other midshipmen.

Neals was in a vacsuit and carrying his helmet, which surprised her because he very rarely left the interior of the ship, relying on the officers and bosun to see to things on the hull.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, taking her place.

Neals handed his suit helmet to Lieutenant Dorsett. “As you’re here, call your division forward.”

Alexis swallowed heavily, dreading what he might have in store for them now, and stepped forward. “Port watch, main topmen, up front with you!”

“I’ve just been out to inspect the state of my rigging, Mister Carew, and what do you suppose it is I’ve found?”

“I could not say, sir.”

“I found the port-four gasket on the topgallant left untied, Mister Carew! That is what I have found!”

Alexis clenched her jaw. She wanted to scream at him.
Work them for nigh seven hours and then go looking for aught to complain of? A single bloody gasket left undone?

“Who was responsible for that gasket, Carew? Name the man for me, please.”

Alexis froze.
He’s looking to flog one of them again — he’ll not be satisfied until a man dies there before him.

“The name, Carew!”

She glanced toward the men and caught his eye. Isom, the little legal clark, caught up by the Press and who should be spending his days reading judges’ decisions instead of hauling on lines in the depths of
darkspace
. He knew it, as well, she saw in his face. He paled and might have fallen if the men to either side hadn’t grabbed his arms and steadied him.
No, I’ll not give you another of my lads.

“The responsibility is mine, sir,” she said.

Neals’ eyes narrowed.

“They were in my charge. I knew they were tired,” she continued, “and I should have checked the work, sir. The fault lies with me. I am sorry.”
Confine me to my berth, stop my pay … dismiss me from the Service, if you like, you bastard, but I’ll not play this game for you.

Neals blinked as though confused by what she’d said. “Sorry?”

“I apologize, sir, for my inattention.”

The captain was silent for a long moment, then, “Beg.”

Alexis wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “Sir?”

“Beg, Carew. You wish to apologize, to be forgiven your lapse? Then beg for it.”

Her world seemed to have narrowed to her and the captain. She was dimly aware of the assembled crew and a low muttering. She sighed — it was a small price to pay, she supposed, but still it galled her. She might be new to the Navy, but she did know that officers should not be treated so.

“Sir, I … I apologize for my lapse and beg you to forgive it.”

Neals narrowed his eyes and she saw his lips twitch. “From your knees, Carew.”

She heard a gasp and Lieutenant Williard stepped toward the captain, saying something about officers and honor but she couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Neals.

“She has no honor, lieutenant! She’s a jumped-up little bint who’s no place here!”

“No,” Alexis said softly.

Neals spun back to her. “What did you say?”

“No, sir, I will not kneel. I admit my fault in not noticing the gasket. I will even beg your forgiveness for it.” She shook her head. “I will kneel to my Queen, sir, and to no other.”

“Are you refusing to obey my orders?”

“I believe no Queen’s Officer would obey such an order, sir.” She knew it would be too much, going too far, but the words came from her mouth as though of their own accord. “And no honorable man would give it.”

There was silence for a moment. Neals’ face grew very still and then he smiled.

“Mister Youngs!”

“Aye, sir?” the purser called.

“You have the ship’s muster book?”

“Aye, sir.” He pulled his tablet from pocket and looked to the captain expectantly.

Alexis close her eyes, almost feeling relief. The tension ebbed out of her.
And here it comes, dismissed.
She’d be put ashore at the next port and have to make her own way home to Dalthus. Her grandfather would be quite disappointed in her … or perhaps not, after he’d heard the details. She felt a twinge of guilt at abandoning her men, but they might get on better without her. If she were not there as a focus for Neals’ ire … he’d still be a brutal, cruel bastard, but her lads might catch less of it.

“Carew is disrated. Mark it accordingly.”

Alexis’ eyes sprang open and her blood ran cold.

“Sir!” Williard called out and shouts sounded from the assembled men.

“Arms!” Lieutenant Blowse shouted and his marines drew their sidearms. The men stilled, but there was a low current of muttering.

Alexis was dimly aware of what was occurring around her, but she focused on the captain’s words.
Disrated? Could he really?

Disrating was something she’d heard of happening to the petty officers — the bosun, the warrants, and master’s mates who came up from the ranks of spacers. To be disrated was to be demoted back to the crew, it was not something that happened to officers who held a commission. Midshipmen, however, lived in an odd, middle-ground — being officers-in-training and not holding commissions from Admiralty. They were, in fact, on par with the master’s mates in some respects.

He can,
she thought.
And I’ve turned sixteen, so there’s not even that to keep me off the crew.

She’d expected to be dismissed and have to leave the Navy. She had not expected to be sent into the crew as a common spacer. She had no real objection to it — she’d originally tried to join as a common spacer before Captain Grantham of
Merlin
had brought her aboard as midshipman — but not on this ship.

Not on
Hermione.

Neals was speaking again and she stared at him in shock, the words not truly registering.

“And as you’ve been good enough to admit the untied gasket was your fault …” He smiled. “Mister Maslin, rig a grating and send for your cat, if you please.”

* * * * *

Alexis was moving as though in a dream.

She was peripherally aware of the sounds and movement around her — more shouts from the assembled men, Neals’ voice and that of Lieutenant Blowse barking out commands, Williard saying something to the captain and being shouted down, and, lastly, the bosun’s mates upending a grating and affixing it to a column — but she seemed unable to move or speak. Which was quite odd, because she
was
moving. Stepping away from the other officers —
not ‘other’ now, I suppose
— and towards the men. She heard a voice which sounded quite like her own, which was even odder, as she was certain she was entirely unable to speak.

“
Nabb!
Broady! Scholer! Back to your places the lot of you and mind your tongues! Don’t you dare disappoint me, lads, or I’ll know the reason why!”

Is this really happening?
How on earth had things gone so wrong so quickly? Though she probably should have expected this or something like it. Neals had made it clear from the moment she’d come aboard that he hated her and thought she had no place on a Queen’s Ship.

Her vision seemed to have narrowed to the rigged grating and it was drawing closer, though she had no conscious awareness of walking toward it. The thought entered her head that she would not be dragged to her place screaming as Isom had been. She thought of Nabb, stepping forward first to “show the lads how it’s done,” his disdain for the man who’d ordered it clear in his every movement. And of Robert Alan — the first man she’d ever seen flogged aboard
Merlin —
who, for whatever else he might have been, had stepped forward and grasped the grating with an almost casual indifference.

I must do no less.

She looked down and found her hands already at the collar of her jumpsuit, but trembling and shaking so that she was unable to make them grasp the fastenings. She heard the bosun speak and realized that he was right beside her.

“Leave that, Mister Carew,” he said, his voice soft and not unkind. “We’ll cut the back and … and leave you what decency there is aboard this …”

“Thank you, Mister Maslin.” Her voice, at least, sounded steady to her, though she wasn’t at all certain where the words were coming from. “I do find myself altogether unable.”

She tried to raise her hands to the grating’s corners, but found her arms were too weak. Two bosun’s mates took her wrists gently and raised them. She almost laughed when the straps they’d attached to each corner wouldn’t reach and they had to reattach them lower on the grating.

“Thank you,” she heard herself whisper, absurdly, and one of them looked at her in surprise, then quickly away unable to meet her eyes. “It’s not your fault, Lain — nor yours, Hayer. Do as you’re ordered.”

She felt someone close behind her and she flinched as cold metal touched her neck just under her collar. It ran down her spine, sending a shiver through her and she heard the hiss of tearing cloth. She heard Neals was saying something and then the bosun, but she didn’t understand them. All of her attention seemed focused on the white thermoplastic of the grating directly in front of her.

Then came the whistle of something moving fast through the air and a loud
crack
. An endless moment, in which she thought to herself,
This must be another nightmare. It can’t truly be happening.
And lines of fire flashed across her bare back.