Of Treasons Born (13 page)

One of the female prostitutes caught York's eye and gave him an inviting look. She was quite beautiful, very voluptuous, but for some reason she just didn't appeal to him. He caught himself looking across the table at Sissy. The first time York had met her, he'd thought she had a hard look about her, but at some point that impression had disappeared. He liked the way she wore her hair in a buzz cut on one side, and over the ear on the other.

He suddenly realized she was watching him look at her. He looked away quickly, stood, and carried his beer to the bar. It was still half full, but he needed an excuse to get away from the table. He leaned against the bar and tried to muster some excitement for the prostitute.

“Ballin,” Sissy said as she came up and leaned against the bar next to him. “Why were you staring at me?”

“I wasn't staring at you,” he lied. “I was just thinking.”

The place was crowded and noisy, and they were oddly alone in the middle of a lot of marines. She took her elbows off the bar and turned to face him. “Look at me.”

He turned to face her, and for the first time realized he was now taller by several centimeters.

“Have you ever been with a real girl?” she asked.

He stumbled over his words, “Well … ya … of course—”

“No,” she said, stepping forward, standing uncomfortably close to him. “A real girl. A
girl
girl, not a
prostitute
girl. Someone who expects to have as good a time as you.”

“I … uh … well—”

“That's what I thought.” She closed the gap between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and enjoyed every second as their tongues fought a very pleasant little war. It wasn't like any kiss he'd ever had before. It was hot and passionate, but it also meant something.

When they separated, she looked him in the eyes and said, “I'm no whore.”

It hurt that she assumed he might think that. “I never thought of you that way.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I just had to be sure. Anyway, I have to do something to get you to stop staring at my ass and my tits.”

He shrugged. “I like your ass and your tits.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You'd better. Come with me.”

She led him up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, they paid an attendant for a private room. York thoroughly enjoyed taking her clothes off little by little, and they spent the next three days in bed. Sissy was quite instructive.

Chapter 13:

Homework?

York learned that the navy was quite tolerant about relationships between spacers, recognizing that they couldn't send people out among the stars for months at a time and expect them to remain celibate. There was even a clause in the regs stating that
healthy relationships were not discouraged
. The powers that be disapproved only if there was a serious discrepancy in rank and one party was subordinate to the other in the chain of command. Sissy's and York's watch rotations frequently kept them apart, but they spent every moment they could find together, and York learned that there was so much more to the act of sex than what he got from a whore. York took a little ribbing from Zamekis, Stark, and Durlling, but it was all in fun, and they seemed to be happy for him.

He started taking an interest in the ship as a whole. He'd spent his first year just trying to survive Sturpik and Tomlin, his second trying to become the best lower-deck pod gunner he could, hadn't really considered anything beyond the next meal and a place to sleep. But now he wondered why they had gone to Cathan, and before that Arman'Tigh. And he also wondered about the why of it all. When he asked Marko a few questions, the older man glanced around nervously and said, “Be careful, York. Every ship has a couple Admiralty Intelligence agents working under cover. And you don't want anyone from AI reporting back that you're questioning why we're fighting this war. Mess with AI and they'll charge you with treason. That's a convenient way for them assholes to get rid of someone asking questions they don't want asked.”

Surprised that Marko had taken that meaning from his questions, York said, “No, I didn't mean that.”

Marko's paranoia did make York wonder why the older man was so fearful of AI. And it occurred to him that he never had heard a reason for the war itself. No one had ever claimed that the Federals were fundamentally evil, or that they intended to conquer the empire and enslave its citizens. But while he wondered about that, he took Marko's warning to heart and kept his thoughts to himself.

“I meant, why did we go to Cathan?” he said. “And why did we go to Arman'Tigh? And where are we going now, and what's the purpose of the mission?”

Marko turned to a terminal and pulled up
shipnet
, which was available from just about any screen. He showed York where the bridge crew regularly posted unclassified information about the ship's course, heading, and next destination. At the moment, they were on the way to a destination on the front lines to rendezvous with the rest of the Seventh Fleet, though the details of the mission were classified.

“You mean this has been here all along?” York asked.

Marko smiled and nodded. “It's about time you got your head out of your ass.”

York looked at their destination, which was listed as nothing more than a meaningless string of numbers and symbols. “What's that mean?”

“Those are interstellar coordinates.”

“How do I figure that stuff out?”

Marko pointed him to a couple of books on interstellar navigation in the ship's library, and others that gave information on basic ship's systems and operations. The books on ship's systems were interesting, but York struggled with the navigation books, understood nothing, and finally gave up. A few days later, Marko asked, “How'd you like the books?”

York grimaced. “The navigation stuff is way over my head.”

“Over my head, too,” Marko said. “But I'll talk to Pallaver. Maybe he can give you a few pointers.”

Pallaver took a keen interest in York's curiosity, sat him down, and helped him wade through several pages of one of the navigation texts—then, to York's horror, gave him a homework assignment. York didn't want to do homework; he wanted to spend his spare time with Sissy. But Pallaver's mind was set: York had shown an interest in interstellar navigation, and Pallaver was damn well going to make sure he learned it.

“I don't get it,” he told Sissy, lying beside her in his coffin, tracing a finger along the curve of her bare hip. When they'd come back from that first shore leave together, they'd both tried to squeeze into York's gunner's coffin to get a little privacy, and they'd discovered that the coffin automatically adjusted to the size of its occupant—or in their case, occupants. The coffin did not restrict their activities in the least.

“Don't get what?” she asked.

“Why Pallaver's so interested in teaching me navigation.”

She rolled toward him, and looking at her breasts he almost forgot the question he'd asked. “They do it to all of us,” she said. “Look at me. I just turned sixteen so I'm an adult, and they're still making me take lessons.”

“I am looking at you,” he said, leering at her breasts.

She whacked him in the side of the head. “Talk to me, not my tits.”

He reluctantly looked her in the eyes. “Okay, they still make you take lessons. But my first year they didn't make me do anything but scrub decks and drill in the simulators.”

“That's because we thought you weren't going to make it, what with your record and a couple of bad mistakes you made after you joined us.” With her finger, she traced one of the lash scars on his shoulder. “And then you shaped up, and we learned that maybe your mistakes were because of a certain bad influence on ship, and now you've been trouble-free and done your job for more than a year.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I do my job, so why does Pallaver need to teach me all this crap?”

“It's in the regs,” she said. “Something about encouraging our continuing education. I think all ship's officers are stuck with it—NCOs included.”

York wasn't that interested in the topic of conversation, and using extremely unfair means, he managed to distract Sissy and focus her on other activities. But later he did look it up in the regs, which stated clearly that it was the responsibility of all senior personnel to continue the education of the junior members of the crew. During their next session, Pallaver even admitted that somehow Jarwith had heard of York's interest, and the lieutenant's enthusiasm for York's training had come directly from her.

They rendezvoused with the Seventh Fleet near Turnham's Cluster, a heavily disputed group of stars all within a few light-years of one another and possessing several occupied planets. Pallaver gathered all his gunner crews together in the main mess, where Jarwith and Thorow briefed them on the coming mission—though Thorow did most of the talking with Jarwith looking on.

“This is going to be a big one,” he said. “We've been quietly assembling all of Seventh Fleet, and in the next day or two, we'll number over two hundred. We think we'll have the Federals outnumbered, but don't get overconfident. Captain Jarwith and I both think this is going to be a nasty one.”

York noticed that Jarwith's eyes had settled on him with an almost vacant stare, and that made him uncomfortable. He looked away from her and focused on Thorow's words.

“With this many ships involved, friendly-fire casualties are inevitable, but try to keep that to a minimum. Stay calm, listen to your station commanders, don't shoot without an allocated target, and shoot straight.”

As the briefing broke up, York glanced Jarwith's way. Her eyes followed him as he left the mess hall.

For the first engagement at Turnham's Cluster, there was no sudden screech from the alert klaxon, no blaring voice from allship, and no scramble to battle stations. The Imperial Seventh Fleet had assembled one light-year from the opposing force. They could detect transition wakes to a distance of about five light-years, so there'd be no surprises on either side. That morning, York and the gunners took their rotation in the mess hall and ate a leisurely but tense breakfast, with none of the usual teasing and banter. Then they climbed into their pods to wait.

Jarwith gave a little speech on allship, spoke of loyalty to the grand empire and the need for a decisive victory. Shortly after that, they up-transited, driving hard toward the enemy fleet.

York put a navigation summary in the corner of one of his screens. Because of Pallaver's tutelage, he now knew how to interpret it properly. At two thousand lights, they'd traverse the distance to the opposing fleet in just under four hours. On his screen, he saw the green blips of a dozen ships they'd left behind in sublight, spread out over a tenth of a light-year to give them a large baseline for their transition scanners. With the fleet blind while in transition, their comrades who remained behind could upfeed targeting information. Every tenth light-year, a dozen ships down-transited to provide more accurate data in the upfeed, while those farther behind, who were no longer needed for that, up-transited to catch up with the main body.

At a half light-year, they still hadn't encountered any opposition, and even with nothing happening, the stress wore on them all. Straight's voice came over York's headset. “Per section's orders, we're administering a low-dose kikker to all of you.”

As the drugs flowed through his system, York felt a rush of adrenaline that did nothing to calm his fear.

At a quarter light-year, one of the imperial ships on York's screens blossomed into a white-hot ball of thermonuclear fire. A tense voice on allship said,
“
We've run into a cluster of seeker mines, so stay alert.
”

York tensed and waited. An enemy blip appeared on his screens, allocated to Zamekis and Stark. They both fired, didn't get a kill but diverted it.

Another imperial ship exploded, the gunners took out a few more targets, then allship announced, “
We're clear of the minefield.
” York saw it on his navigational summary from the upfeed a second before allship said, “
Approaching enemy pickets. Gunners watch for transition rounds from their main batteries.
”

The upfeed gave
Dauntless
a targeting solution on one of the pickets, and the ship's hull thrummed with the boom of its main batteries. Unallocated targets appeared on York's screens, nothing close to
Dauntless
. He tracked the pod gunner rounds from other ships in the fleet. One zinged close to
Dauntless
, flashed red as it was allocated to York. He locked a target designator on it and fired. His round killed it, but it wouldn't count for a chevron at gunner's blood since it was friendly fire. By then, most of
Dauntless
's gunners were occupied with targets and York had another bogie to worry about.

They down-transited at a hundred million kilometers from the enemy fleet, split into five strike forces with one going straight at the Federals, while the other four fanned out in an attempt to flank and englobe them.
Dauntless
was assigned to one of the flanking flotillas. They swung wide, but as they approached the enemy ships, York's screens filled with targets, with one or two always allocated to him.

His gut tightened with fear, and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth so hard. He examined that fear as he fired another round—missed the target, but Stark took it out.
What did he fear?
he wondered.
Was it death?
He thought about that while he locked a designator on another incoming round. Death didn't hold much sway over him, and he realized the thing he dreaded most was letting down his comrades. And there was a piece of him that found the constant threat of death exhilarating, that found the next incoming transition torpedo a thrilling challenge.

A stronger dose of kikker washed through his system—someone must have decided he needed it. It put his nerves on edge, and he clenched his teeth even harder, but it helped him focus.

The day turned into a grueling test of endurance,
Dauntless
's hull pinging regularly with the sound of smaller rounds that made it in to her plast shields, her main batteries thrumming like large drums. There seemed no end to the targets on his screens. Then the fleet withdrew and a strange calm settled over the ship.

When York climbed out of his pod, he learned that Stark had been killed. A fragment from a round had punched a hole in his pod shielding, took off most of his head.

After four days of on-and-off fighting, Turnham's Cluster was declared a grand victory for the imperial forces. They'd lost thirty ships with all hands, while they estimated the enemy fleet had lost more than seventy. When York asked about survivors from the ships that had been destroyed, Straight shook her head and said, “Ten-megatonne transition torpedo blows just off a ship's bow, there ain't no survivors.”

They withdrew a few light-years, then down-transited in the middle of interstellar space. The most seriously wounded were transferred to a hospital ship, while those
Dauntless
's medical staff could handle remained to be treated in her sick bay.

Since the gunners didn't have anything to do, they were assigned to assist engineering on damage control. There was quite a bit of minor damage that needed repairing, and York spent several days crawling over
Dauntless
's outer hull in a vac suit, became quite adept at moving about in zero-G.

Three days after the last engagement at Turnham's Cluster, they buried the dead in space.
For them, it's over. For us, it goes on
. York noticed that Durlling's eyes were red and puffy, and when it was time to bury Stark, her eyes teared up. He asked Zamekis about it, and she told him that Durlling and Stark had been an item. Luckily, York and Sissy were on the same watch rotation, so they spent the nights together in York's coffin.

That night they up-transited, headed back toward the central empire. York had gotten two kills at Turnham's Cluster, and they cut another full chevron into his arm.