No Honor in Death (4 page)

"You are?" Dunmoore asked her.

"Luttrell, ship's surgeon," she replied in a surprisingly deep alto, "Sir".  For some reason, Siobhan got the impression that Luttrell dearly wanted to continue her sentence by asking, "and you?"  She could almost see the surgeon bite her tongue.  Turning towards the younger man, an Ensign who looked like he was fresh out of the Academy, almost young enough to be Luttrell's son, Siobhan asked, "You?"

"Ensign Sanghvi, sir, junior navigator."  His face was red with shame and he looked like he'd rather be reaming out plasma conduits under full sail than stand here explaining why he was gambling with his seniors.  He was good looking, in a boyish way, with his mop of chestnut hair, and large, sensitive brown eyes.

The third officer, a large, bald, dark-skinned man who kept licking his thick lips was perspiring heavily.

"You?"

He bobbed his shiny, bullet-shaped head several times, lips working furiously.  "Lieutenant Rossum, sir.  Purser."

Dunmoore let the silence deepen as she stared at them.

"For some reason I cannot begin to identify," she growled, "I thought this was a warship, not some cheap, rat-infested floating casino.  In all my years of service, I have
never
seen such a disgusting, filthy wardroom.  If I didn't know better, I'd have you all arrested for impersonating commissioned officers of the Commonwealth Navy.  Right now, I'm not sure whether to arrest you or make you clean this pig-sty with a toothbrush."  Before she lost what remained of her temper, Siobhan growled, "Clean this place up.  Do it yourselves.  Do not make the wardroom steward do it.  Then get yourselves cleaned up.  I will decide what to do with your sorry asses later."  Then she turned on her heels and stomped out.

Luttrell glanced at her companions and grunted.  "We've got a live one, laddies, and no mistake.  Something tells me she subscribes to the hard-assed school of command, and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks.  It'll be an interesting change, if nothing else."

"Gods above," Rossum wiped his forehead with a thick handkerchief, "hard-assed could get us all in deep trouble, Viv."

"I wouldn't worry too much, chums.  She'll be wanting to look good, like all skippers.  Turning over rocks to see what's wiggling underneath ain't gonna do it.  So long as we keep the past as buried as it gets."

The hatch to the Captain's cabin opened at Siobhan's touch and she stepped gingerly over the threshold.  It was bare save for the permanent fixtures: bed, desk, computer terminal, closet and washroom.  And the two small boxes containing her personal effects.  At least those had made it to their proper destination.  But bare as the cabin was, she could still feel the traces of Commander Forenza's occupation, a dampening presence just like the dullness she'd felt in every other part of the ship.

Siobhan and Forenza had been classmates at the Academy, and lifelong enemies.  That Forenza had finally met her downfall was small consolation to Siobhan.  Most likely her family connections would ensure she didn't suffer for her misdeeds.  The true story of her dismissal would probably never be known.  Earthers protected each other.  The only thing Siobhan knew for sure was if she failed to pick up the pieces left by Forenza's habitual self-indulgence and scheming, she'd be the one paying the price.

Engineering was as silent as the proverbial grave.  The main fusion reactor pulsed dully, its energies damped with the ship at anchor.  She knew the matter/anti-matter reactors in the  nacelles would be dark and silent, dead without the highly volatile fuel.

A short, stocky woman wearing coveralls stamped with a Lieutenant-Commander's two and a half stripes emerged from the Chief Engineer's office.  She glanced at Dunmoore in surprise and came to attention.

"Chief Engineer Tiner, sir."  Her small dark eyes darted around the engine room, looking everywhere except at Siobhan.  Tiner had a seamed, weathered face topped by an unruly mop of iron gray hair.

"Commander Dunmoore." Siobhan replied.

"Yes, sir.  New Captain, sir."

"Ah, finally someone who was aware I was expected aboard," Dunmoore replied with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  She immediately regretted her tone when she saw the Engineer flinch.  Siobhan forced herself to smile and took a gentler tone.  "Why don't we tour the engine room, Mister Tiner.  You can brief me on the ship's status."

Within minutes, Siobhan's heart began to sink.  The
Stingray
was in bad shape and deteriorating fast.

"Why the long list of repairs?"  The Captain's voice was loud in the silent engine room.  Before she could reply, Siobhan continued, her volatile temper gaining the upper hand.  "Most of these problems you can fix yourself.  All you need is to request the necessary parts.  The ship has been in port for some time now.  Did you do
anything
to put her back to rights?"

"Ah,"  Tiner floundered under the intense stare, "yes sir, we did a few minor fixes, but there - ah - was some question whether we would be decommissioned, sir."

"As you can deduce, this ship will remain in service.  Therefore, I suggest you start work, and the sooner the better.  I expect my Chief Engineer to keep the ship running, not running for excuses."

"Ah, yes sir, but -"

"That will be all, Mister Tiner."

When the Chief Engineer returned to the privacy of her office, she found herself shaking uncontrollably, as if Dunmoore had jolted her with a live feed from the reactor.  It didn't matter that she'd had no choice under Captain Forenza.  The ship was in a lousy state and Tiner knew it.  She ran a thick, callused hand through her hair and sighed.  How she was going to get out of this mess with her career intact, she did not know.

By the time Siobhan returned to her cabin, she felt a pounding migraine grow behind her eyes.  Pushing it aside as best she could, she turned on the intercom.

"Captain to bridge."

"Bridge," Devall's languid voice replied. "OOW."

"Mister Devall, send out an immediate recall for all crewmembers currently ashore. Leave is cancelled as of this moment.  No one is to leave the ship unless it's on business.  And track down the First Officer."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"I want a status report in two hours.  Captain out."

Without bothering to unpack her bags, Siobhan Dunmoore carefully lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.  But wishing didn't make the migraine disappear, no more than it made the
Stingray
disappear.

On any other vessel, the arrival of a new captain meant a masthead to keel scrubbing, the full manning of the harbour watch and a proper side party to greet her.  Instead, she saw a warship all but abandoned by people who had stopped caring.  Whoever had logged her message had kept the information a closely guarded secret, knowing the blame would fall elsewhere.

THREE

The intercom woke Dunmoore from a restless nap.  She sat up too quickly, triggering a wave of nausea and she retched miserably, fighting to keep down the bitter, half-digested remains of breakfast.

"Captain, the First Officer has reported aboard.  He's on his way to your quarters.  Seven crewmembers are still unaccounted for."

"Good.  Advise the shore patrol to arrest the missing people and deliver them to our airlock.  Let me know when they've been handed over.  And ask the Cox'n to stand by.  I'll see him after I speak with the First Officer."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Captain, out."

With an effort of will, Siobhan arranged her uniform.  Then, she carefully sat behind her desk and waited.  The wait wasn't very long.

"Come," she called out when the doorbell chimed.

A stocky, powerful looking man in his late thirties stepped into her cabin and came to attention in front of her desk.  His square face was dominated by dark, hooded eyes that stared at her warily.  He seemed older than Siobhan but as tired and discouraged as she felt.

"Lieutenant-Commander Pushkin reporting to the Captain as ordered."  The First Officer saluted stiffly.  His tone was clipped, his words precise, but he sounded strained.  "I apologize I wasn't aboard when you arrived."

Dunmoore returned the salute.  "Sit down, Mister Pushkin."

"I wasn't aware you'd be arriving this morning, sir."

"I sent a message to the ship yesterday, when the courier docked.  It has been logged in."

"The message wasn't passed on to me, sir."  Pushkin's eyes held a dangerous glint. 
Bingo
, Dunmoore thought. "But I'll make sure whoever forgot to tell me, won't forget again."

"I hope you enjoyed your shore leave," Siobhan replied, her voice still controlled, but nonetheless hard.  "From what I've seen it'll be a long time before anyone steps off the ship again."

Pushkin's nostrils flared.  "It wasn't much of a leave, sir."

Siobhan arched her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"I was on ship's business, sir."

Dunmoore's voice took on a honey-sweet tone which masked her growing irritation.  "Then pray tell why were you logged out as being on leave?"

"It was nothing."  Pushkin looked past her shoulder at the porthole, his jaw working furiously.

"Nothing," she replied in a soft tone, eyes narrowed, "kept my First Officer from carrying out his duties aboard this ship?"

Pushkin suddenly rose and turned angrily towards the door.  "If you must know, Captain, I was getting one of our crew out of jail dirtside."

For a moment, Siobhan was speechless, robbed of her anger by his words and the intense bitterness in his voice.  "Why?"

He whirled around to face her.  "One of ours was about to get shafted by the local cops.  They don't exactly adore the Navy dirtside, war or no war.  If I hadn't gone down myself, Able Spacer Bertram would be facing two to five for assault and battery."

"Did he do it?"

Pushkin laughed bitterly.  "Does it matter, Captain?  But you wouldn't understand, would you?  Simple spacers getting pegged as fall guys for whatever crime they can pin on him.  Just as long as it doesn't touch your precious reputation."

"Dammit!" Siobhan voice lashed out, "that was uncalled for, Mister Pushkin, and as much of an insubordinate attitude as I'll tolerate on my ship now or ever.  I'm as concerned for the welfare of my crew as you are.  Judging by what I've seen so far, probably more." Red spots danced in front of her eyes.  She breathed in deeply and sat down, eyes blazing.

"I'll let the matter pass.  How you dealt with problems before now was your privilege as First Officer.  What concerns me more is this run-down, damn-near unserviceable ship with what looks like an unserviceable crew sitting in bloody space dock doing nothing whatsoever to regain space worthiness."

To Siobhan's surprise, Pushkin shrugged, his clenched fists loosening their death grip.  "This ship hasn't exactly been a priority with Battle-Group staff, Captain.  Nobody told us what was going to happen, and rumours of decommissioning her were in the air.  Until Command decided what to do with the ship, there wasn't any point in wasting effort."  He sounded almost defiant.

Siobhan didn't know what angered her more.  Pushkin's dismissal of his responsibilities, or his implicit admission that no one gave a damn about the
Stingray
, not even her First Officer.

"Mister Pushkin, rumours of decommissioning do not excuse the lack of care I've seen.  Spacers who don't give a damn any more are evidence of a lack of proper
leadership
, notwithstanding your commendable efforts to protect one of ours from rough justice dirtside."

"With all due respect,
sir
," Pushkin interrupted, his tone bordering again on insolence and contempt, "you know nothing about the
Stingray
."

Siobhan slammed her hand on the desk's smooth surface, the sound echoing like the report of a gun.  She ignored the pain coursing up her arm.

"Mister Pushkin, you will not interrupt me."  Face white with anger at her loss of control, she breathed in deeply, struggling to recover her composure.  Her eyes met Pushkin's again.  The First Officer, in his agitation, had let his guard slip and Siobhan read his bitterness, a living, writhing thing, fighting to take over.  The venom in his expression shook her enough to bring back her self-control.

"Very well, Mister Pushkin."  Her voice was calm, relaxed, though her eyes still held his with the full force of her will.  "Let's start this over again.  I have been given command of the
Stingray
and my brief is to get her back into the war, notwithstanding anything that may have happened up to the moment I stepped aboard.  This ship will sail for the line in one week.  I am prepared to do what I must to make this happen.  You, the First Officer, will be part of the solution, or you will find other employment.  Understood?"

Face tight, Pushkin replied, "Aye aye, sir."

"I wish to speak with all the officers in the wardroom, which had better be clean by now, in half an hour."

"Aye, aye, sir.  Will that be all?"

"For now, Mister Pushkin.  Dismissed."

He saluted Dunmoore with stiff precision, eyes filled with anger and humiliation.  When he was gone, she sighed and slumped back in her chair, massaging her temples.  The interview had gone as badly as she had feared.  Though he deserved her anger, he was also, until she relieved him, her right hand, the man who would turn her orders into action.  One thing was clear by now.  This was the unhappiest ship she had ever seen.  Siobhan touched her desk terminal's screen.

"Computer, access authorization Dunmoore, Captain's logs for the last six months."

"The Captain's logs are unavailable," the computer's soothing, plain voice replied.

"Why?"

"Under Article 115.1, the Captain's logs have been impounded by the Disciplinary Board, pending resolution of charges against Commander Forenza."

"Damn!"

"Please rephrase the question."

"Disregard," Siobhan smiled briefly at the computer's mistake. "Display ship's logs for the last cruise."

"Under Article 115.1, the ship's logs have been impounded by the Disciplinary Board, pending resolution of charges against Commander Forenza."

In frustration, Siobhan hit the keypad, switching the terminal off.  If the Forenza family still had as many connections within the Navy, those logs would vanish forever, no matter the outcome of Helen Forenza's hearing.  The only way she would discover why her ship was in such a lousy state and why the crew's morale and pride were in tatters was through her crew.

Siobhan got up, intending to work off her frustration by pacing the small cabin, but she forgot her migraine.  She reached the toilet just in time.

In her misery, she didn't hear the first ring of the door chimes.  When the sound finally registered, she climbed to her feet and glanced at herself in the mirror.  If she had looked bad this morning, she looked ghastly now.  Quickly rinsing out her mouth with water, she adjusted her uniform and returned to her desk.

"Come."

The hatch whispered open and a thick-set slab of a man stepped in.  His close-cropped blond hair contrasted neatly with the short grey beard surrounding a battered, homely face.  Intelligent, pale brown eyes shone under thick brows, framing a flattened nose.   His shipboard uniform was clean and well-pressed, but the short tunic strained over a muscular chest.    The sleeves of the tunic bore the starburst and crossed anchors of a Chief Petty Officer Second Class.  Five years had wrought many changes on the man, but his coarse features still registered the smug satisfaction Siobhan knew so well.  She rose, a smile breaking through her gloom.

There is a God after all.

"Cox'n reporting to the Captain as ordered, sir," Chief Guthren saluted, a tentative grin emerging from the beard.

"It's been a long time, Chief."  Siobhan felt unexpected warmth in the pit of her stomach. Five years and a whole lifetime ago, a younger woman, not yet worn out by strain and fatigue, had taken command of a small scout ship.  The powers that had decreed a maverick Lieutenant named Siobhan Dunmoore would take her first step up the ladder of command had also given her a senior petty officer under a suspended threat of court-martial as Cox'n.  Guthren.

"Aye," Guthren relaxed, smiling with genuine affection now, "a long time.  You're looking well, skipper.  An' your stripes suit you.  Not before time, either."

"Still a silver-tongued bastard."  Guthren, dependable, loyal and a true friend.  Someone to watch her back aboard this treacherous ship.  "Sit, Chief.  Sorry I can't offer you a celebratory libation."

Guthren shrugged.  "All ye have to do is breathe in deeply.  With the booze sloshing around this tub, I figure a body could get a good hangover without the joy of oblivion."

"That bad?"

The Chief's eyes roamed the cabin, briefly touching the ancient ship's clock on the sideboard, one of the Captain's few personal belongings that had survived all these years.  Its face bore the outline sketch of a gaunt knight on horseback, holding a long, thin lance.  The clock was a gift from the crew of that scout ship, presented by Petty Officer Guthren to the skipper on the day the old
Don Quixote
was decommissioned and sent to a fiery grave.  The
Don
had been a happy ship, a family.  He grimaced, facing Siobhan again.

"Bad ain't the word, skipper.  I came aboard last week, the day the old skipper walked down the gangplank, to replace a drunken idiot of a cox'n.  With any luck, he'll finish the war in a psych ward dirtside.  Man had a lot of ghosts riding him, not least the ghost of Captain Forenza.  Whole ship is filled with those ghosts.  What crew ain't drunk is catatonic.  Tried to kick some sense into the non-coms, but they were past the point of caring.  Just waiting for a transfer, waiting for the crew to be broken up.  Officers, well..." he shrugged.  "Spent the last few days getting settled and digging up some dirt on this here tub.  No joy on the grapevine.  People don't want to talk.  When I found out you were coming in as skipper, I figured I'd better wait before really tearing into things.  No point in sorting out the non-coms if the officers aren't gonna play."  His smile came back.  "Though now that you're aboard, skipper, we can turn this thing back into a warship."

Siobhan tried to match his smile.  Guthren's presence aboard did much to lift her spirits, but his words dampened most of that.  The Cox'n was a man of the old school.  Tough, hard-nosed, brutal if necessary, but honest.  And loyal, she reminded herself.  That counted for so much.

"We will, Chief."  She sighed.  "We will."

Guthren frowned briefly.  He remembered Dunmoore as a fire-breathing damn-the-torpedoes kind of officer, one of those who would win the war for the Commonwealth.  There was little of the old Dunmoore in the face of the tired, worn-out woman sitting across from him.  Except in the eyes.  They still burned somewhere deep within.

"What have you been up to lately?" Siobhan asked, massaging her temples.  Wanting to discuss anything but the
Stingray

"This and that, skipper.  I got my Chief Third stripes thanks to you after we left the
Don Quixote
,"  they didn't exactly leave the scout ship, more like scuttled it into a star, "and spent two years as Cox'n on the
Shantung
corvette.  Then they had me posted as company commander at boot camp, Fleet School Wyvern.  Not exactly my first choice.  I tried out for the special ops group and made it through training.  Spent six months with a team out on -" he paused, suddenly embarrassed.  "Anyways, from there it was a quick jump to Chief Second and a posting here."

"A good way to spend a war, Chief."

"Aye.  Heard that you had a good run too, 'specially on Sigma Noctae Colony.  Spec Ops Command use that one as a training problem," he beamed proudly.  "A one-woman strike."  His face hardened quickly however.  "Anyways, I figure we both learned enough in the last while to take this bunch on and kick some serious butt.  I'm ready to start the moment I walk out of here."