Running With Argentine (4 page)

An
Obscure Uninhabited

Star
System

Security
Officer Lieutenant José Stark also served as the ship’s Weapons Officer.

As such, his General Quarters station was on the bridge. He
was ready to power up the ship’s weapons at a moment’s notice but was smart
enough not to do so. It was probably a good idea to reduce their energy
emissions in every way possible.

The lieutenant was a hard man and he knew it. He accepted
that about himself and never give a second thought to trying to change. He’d
grown up hard, having to fight for everything in his life. Whether it was food
to stay alive or an education for a better future, he’d earned everything he’d
ever acquired.

His superiors had seen that toughness and thought him a
natural for security work.

In the People’s Republic security work meant that you served
as the private army of the political commissars.

Not that this bothered him; it was an unfair world and you
grabbed what you could out of it. Still, there was a lust for violence in many
of his peers that he didn’t share. He wouldn’t shy away from it – never that –
but he certainly wasn’t averse to using brains rather than brawn. It was that
intelligence that had allowed him to also excel as a weapons officer.

Those duties were keeping him focused on the enemy ships,
but the Security Officer’s side of his duties had him concerned about something
different.

The People’s Republic was crumbling faster than anyone knew.

As a security officer he had access to back channels
communications. He knew that not only planetary systems were going dark; the
rumor was that some entire fleets that had been reported lost had actually
defected. It was a known fact that individual ships had bugged out here or
there.

He had always been unwaveringly loyal to his immediate
superior, Political Officer Ernest J. Bloomington. He had never once in his
entire career done a single thing that could be considered disloyal. He
reported everything to his boss but wasn’t surprised at the man’s stoicism and
lack of alarm. Political ideologues can be blinded by their beliefs and
Political Officer Bloomington believed that the People’s Republic was
indestructible.

His loyalty to Bloomington wasn’t anything unusual. It was
loyalty and control of power like this that kept the political commissars in
power. The ships’ crews knew this, of course. That’s why disobedience was so
uncommon in the fleet. It’s also why the recent reports had him concerned.

ΔΔΔ

Argentine was
kicked back in his cabin. Chief West occupied another chair and they were both
quietly contemplating the situation.

It had been two days now and the Pelican was still lying
doggo in the asteroid field. The enemy fleet was still in the system and the
only excitement had been caused by two additional ships that had joined it.

“How long is this going to last?” the chief asked while
sitting anxiously on the edge of his seat.

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” responded Argentine. “We
have no idea what that fleet is doing here or where it’s headed. Until the
situation changes there’s not much for us to do.”

The chief mumbled something… He was obviously distracted.

“How are your resource collections going?” Argentine asked.
“Do we have enough of what we need yet?”

“More or less,” he said distractedly. And then, in a
stronger voice, “The extraction team knows at the first sign of recall to drop
their equipment and immediately head back to the ship.”

As quarrelsome as the chief could be, Argentine knew him to
be an officer that took good care of his people. God help anyone that pissed
him off and was from another department, but he took good care of his own.

In the silence that followed, Argentine found his mind
wandering to a favorite daydream…

Somewhere in his childhood past, after his father had left
but before his mother had died, he’d seen a holovid that was still a vivid
memory. He couldn’t remember the plot or even the name of the production, but what
had stayed with him was the life the main character had eventually built for
himself.

On a small remote moon, he had built a cabin in the wooded
mountains close to a small lake. Argentine couldn’t remember if he was totally
alone or not (at that age, women weren’t very much on his mind), but he
absolutely knew that the guy was insulated from the world.

His own private refuge hidden away from the insanity of the
universe.

Argentine wanted that.

The one thought that had kept him going when the full force
of the disillusionment with the People’s Republic had set in, was the thought
of building that cabin. It was a promise he had made to himself. It was a
promise he recommitted himself to every time some new insanity that was beyond
his control crept into his life…

He just hoped the Vilanese fleet didn’t prematurely end that
dream.

Just then there was a knock on the cabin’s door.

He shared a glance with the Chief and electronically opened
it. Argentine hid his shock well. The chief, not so much.

Security Officer José Stark walked into the cabin.

ΔΔΔ

“What can we do
for you, Lieutenant Stark?” Argentine said once they were all seated.

“I’ve come to discuss your plans,” he said.

“Our plans for what?” asked the chief.

The lieutenant just stared at the two men and then finally
said, “You said it yourself Chief, something’s got to give. I want to know what
you plan to do when that something starts giving.”

Argentine was startled. “Do you have our cabins bugged?” he
asked.

“Of course,” came the reply. “I’m security. I know
everything that goes on in this ship.”

“We’ve done nothing treasonous,” the chief blurted out.
“Anything we’ve said was just in jest. We are loyal servants of the Republic…”
His voice faded out as he realized the lieutenant was shaking his head.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said. “There’s
something I need to tell you and then we need to have a conversation.”

Argentine could tell that the chief was just as confused as
he was but they didn’t really have any choice, did they? If the security
officer wanted to talk, then they’d talk.

Seeing that he had their attention the lieutenant continued,
“Political Officer Bloomington has made a decision. He has decided that we must
get the word out about the Vilanese ships. He wants the Captain to make a run
for it.”

“That’s suicide!” Chief West exclaimed. “There’s no way they
wouldn’t catch us.”

“Actually they give us a 2% chance.”

“And the Captain will go along with this?” Argentine asked.

“What do you think?” the lieutenant responded.

“Holy mother!” the chief exclaimed as he leaned back in his
chair.

“When is this going to happen?” Argentine persisted.

“The Captain convinced him to recover the extraction team
and its equipment first. I expect him to be calling us to General Quarters in a
couple of hours.”

After another few moments of silence Argentine asked the
obvious question…

“Why are you telling us this?”

“Because there’s something else you don’t know,” he said.
“There may not be any Republic left to warn. At the last two message drops
there were no ship’s communications for the Captain.”

“That can’t be right! I’ve had messages from the Fleet
Paymaster’s Office!”

“Yes, I know… I’m the one that forged them.”

“The fleet always puts out communications, even if it’s just
a confirmation of standing orders. There should’ve been something waiting for
us,” Argentine spoke his thoughts out loud.

“Exactly,” said the Lieutenant. “In a couple of hours we’re
going to be ordered to commit suicide on the 2% chance that we can warn a
Republic that probably doesn’t exist anymore.

“I’m not thinking it’s necessarily a good day to die. How
about you?”

An
Obscure Uninhabited

Star
System

Argentine was
still having trouble getting his mind wrapped around the idea that Lieutenant
José Stark was an ally, or at least not an enemy… perhaps an ally of mutual
convenience?

“Lieutenant, are you trying to tell us that you and your
security team would back us if we refused orders?” he asked.

“Oh hell no!” he responded. “We’ll have to do something
about my squad, but I’ll back you – and that’s all you need.”

To say that this was an easy conversation would be
misleading. In the People’s Republic the commissar’s security teams were always
looked upon with distrust. In all the time that he’d known him Argentine had
never had any reason to suspect that Lieutenant José Stark was anything but
totally loyal to the People’s Republic.

“Look, Lieutenant Stark…”

“I think it’s probably better if you started calling me
José,” the lieutenant interrupted with a thin smile. Argentine couldn’t help
but note that it was the first smile he’d ever seen on the man’s face.

“Okay, fair enough… José. We can be friends if you want. I
just…”

The smile disappeared. “No. Stop right there. We’re not
friends; we just need each other right now. As soon as I can find a safe way
out of this mess, I’m out of here.”

“Then what’s with the first names?”

“Just because we’re not friends doesn’t mean we can’t be
friendly, does it?” he asked deadpan.

This brought Argentine up short… but since the lieutenant
was only echoing his own thoughts…

 “Just what is it you think we should do?” he finally asked.

“I have no idea; that’s not my department. I just don’t want
to throw my life away for a government that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You want us to take over the ship,” Chief West said. He was
verbalizing what they’d been afraid to put into words.

“Well, I don’t think Political Officer Bloomington or
Captain Kerry are going to run away with us, do you?”

“If you want to create a mutiny why don’t you just take over
the ship yourself? You’re the one with the squad of armed thugs… er, I mean
troops.”

The lieutenant sighed.

“First of all, I wouldn’t trust my people to do anything
outside of their training.
Thugs
is probably not a bad way to describe
them; I don’t think they collectively have three brain cells to rub together.

“More importantly, I don’t know the first thing about
running a ship. I don’t have any desire to be a captain, or build a rebel army…
I just want to live out my life.

“The spiral arm is a big place, and I’m thinking it wouldn’t
be too hard for a man to find a place to start over again. Besides, I’ve always
wondered what’s out there.”

Argentine was startled to realize that the lieutenant was
repeating some of the things that he and the chief had talked about.

“You really have been listening in on our conversations,” he
said.

He just smiled again.

ΔΔΔ

Lieutenant
Stark left to go make arrangements for his men.

Argentine and Chief West were left to make a decision that
would certainly affect the rest of their lives – no matter how long or short
that might be.

“Okay, so let’s say we take the ship. Where will we go?”
Argentine asked.

“Go that way,” the chief said while pointing at a wall. “Or
that way, I don’t care. Let’s just get out of here.”

“But how can we survive?” Argentine asked again. “Without an
infrastructure to resupply us, without a government to pay us, how would we
support ourselves or even keep the crew?”

“Rory and I can keep the engines going, at least for a
while,” the chief said.

“You think Rory would stick with you?”

“Oh yeah. He’s is a good man. I’d be shocked if he wanted to
split up the team.”

“Who else do we need?”

“Well, if we want to have any hope of slipping away
unnoticed and not leaving a trail that anyone can follow, I think we’d better
have Sami on our side,” the chief mused.

“I’m sure that there are others that will come with us, at
least at first. But those two are the only ones I say we can really trust.”

Argentine grunted.

“Do you really think we can trust Lieutenant Stark?”

“I don’t think we have any choice. He could be listening to
us right now for all I know, but even if he hadn’t approached us… Would you
really want to follow the political officer?”

Suddenly Argentine had another thought, “Just what are we
going to do with Bloomington and Kerry?”

There was an uncomfortable silence between them.

Argentine answered his own question, “We’ll find a nice
populated planet and drop them off. Anyone else on the crew that wants to jump
ship and go their own way can do so. Frankly, I don’t know why anybody would
want to stick around. We still haven’t figured out how can support ourselves.”

“I might have some ideas on that too,” said the chief.

Argentine looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Unless I miss my guess… gold, platinum, and palladium are
going to be valuable metals on any planet we want to trade with.”

Argentine frowned. “But then we’ll still have the problem of
needing to remanufacture our bad electronic components.”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty for that. And it doesn’t take very
much to fix them, anyway.”

“But then why have we been…” Argentine had started to object
but then caught himself.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and said, “I take it you’ve
been thinking about this for a while?”

“It never hurts to be prepared,” responded the chief.

ΔΔΔ

“Okay,” she said.

Once the chief had left to go talk to Rory, Argentine had
commed Sami and asked her to join him in his cabin.

On a larger ship this might have raised eyebrows but the
Pelican was barely big enough to find room for meetings, let alone have a
private conversation.

“Don’t you want to know where we’re going or what the
long-term plan is?”

Argentine had barely explained that the Captain was getting
ready to order a suicide run, and that they were getting ready to make a run of
their own, when she’d agreed.

“Not really,” she said. “I’d be surprised if you’ve had time
to figure it out yet.”

“Well, that’s probably more true than you know. But don’t
you need to think it through? Once we commit there’s not going to be any
backing out. You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure. I have faith in you and the chief. Besides,
anyone that has x-ray vision probably has other powers too. I feel safe.”

Argentine wasn’t sure what that last part meant but now
wasn’t the time to question it.

Just then the General Quarters alarm sounded.