The Oncoming Storm (5 page)

Kat couldn’t help feeling a little out of her depth as they rode the intership car towards the bridge. Lightning was smaller than Thunderous, the battle cruiser she’d served on as XO, but Thunderous had been in service for several years before she’d assumed her post. The responsibilities of serving as a starship’s first commanding officer were different, she knew, from merely taking over command from a previous captain. If nothing else, there was no prior history for her to study.

Her XO was definitely older than she was, she knew. According to a very brief skim of his files through her implant—it was rude to access implants in polite company, let alone use them in conversation—he was old enough to be her father, maybe even her grandfather if he started early. That wasn’t a surprise—her real father was older still—but there was something about him that suggested age. He’d clearly not had the rejuvenation treatments from a very early age, she noted, instead deliberately trying to look old and distinguished. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with his general fitness, she was sure, but he was mentally old.

And he didn’t seem to like her.

Kat had grown up in a sheltered estate, but she wasn’t naive. She had learned, from a very early age, that there were people who would suck up to her purely because of her family connections while hiding their contempt behind bland smiles. One of the very few practical lessons Kat had had from her mother was how to determine what someone really felt about her, a harder task than it seemed. Anyone who was anyone on Tyre had implants to help disguise their emotions if they feared revealing more than they wanted in front of prying eyes. It took careful perception to tell when someone was trying to hide their feelings—and that, she had learned, suggested that they had something to hide.

The XO seemed . . . distrusting, almost disdainful. His attempt to hide it was good, but not good enough. Kat wondered, bitterly, just what he felt about her. Had he thought he would win command for himself . . . or had he thought Kat was far too inexperienced to take command of a heavy cruiser? He would be right, she had to admit, if he thought the latter. She knew she wasn’t ready to take command of anything larger than a destroyer, not yet . . .

There was a ding as the hatch opened, revealing the bridge. Kat stopped and stared, allowing her gaze to move from station to station. The captain’s chair sat in the center of the compartment, surrounded by a semitranslucent orbital display that showed the shipyard surrounding Lightning. Only half of the consoles were staffed, she noted, which didn’t surprise her. No one expected to be attacked here, in the heart of the Commonwealth’s defenses. Tyre was surrounded by enough firepower to make even fanatics think twice about risking an attack.

But we can’t take that for granted, she reminded herself. The Theocracy is a whole multi–star system of fanatics.

Kat kept her face impassive as she took a closer look. Several of the unmanned consoles were clearly not installed yet, a handful of technicians working frantically to link them into the starship’s datanet. The private console beside the captain’s chair was blank. It looked as though the bridge was far from ready for action. She made a mental note to review all the reports closely, despite knowing they should be left for the XO. She needed to know what was going on. Surprises, in the military, were rarely nice.

“Captain on the bridge,” the XO said.

There was a rustle as the crew stood and saluted. For a long moment, Kat enjoyed the sensation, knowing that she would never step onto her bridge for the first time again. And then she reached for the piece of paper in her uniform jacket, slowly pulling it out and unfurling it. That too, she knew, was part of the ceremony. She couldn’t take another step onto the bridge without asserting her authority.

“Captain Katherine Falcone,” she read. She had memorized the words already, but she had to appear to read from the parchment. “You are ordered to assume command of HMS Lightning and serve as her Captain, Mistress under God. Fail in this charge at your peril. By order of Grand Admiral Tobias Vaughn, First Space Lord.”

There was a long pause. She allowed the moment to stretch out, then turned to her XO.

“Mr. XO,” she said, “I assume command.”

The XO’s face remained impassive. “I stand relieved,” he said.

Kat let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. There was only ever one source of authority onboard a starship, one person who held command. As long as he’d been the senior officer, William McElney had been the acknowledged commander of the starship, even once Kat had come onboard. But now . . . she was the commanding officer. The final responsibility was hers. She felt the full weight of command settling around her shoulders and fought to keep her face impassive. Independent command was the ambition of every commissioned officer in the Navy, but it could also break her. The buck would stop with her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Please make a note in the log of the date and time I assumed command.”

He nodded and then saluted. That too was tradition.

Kat felt her cheeks heat up as a smattering of applause ran through the bridge.

She took a breath. Some officers wrote speeches for when they assumed command. Kat hadn’t bothered, as she had honestly never expected to be granted her own command for at least another five years, if she were lucky. Besides, the speeches had always struck her as pretentious. The crew would have more than enough opportunity to formulate an opinion of their commander without being forced to sit through a tedious address.

“Return to your duties,” she ordered.

She watched them sit down, their backs a little straighter now they knew their captain was watching them. The memory of her first days as a commissioned officer warmed her as she walked over to the command chair, passing through the insubstantial hologram, and sat down. It felt good, soft enough for her to relax, hard enough to ensure she wouldn’t fall asleep. That wasn’t a shooting offense, but any junior officer unlucky enough to fall asleep while on watch would rapidly start wishing it was.

Her XO stood behind Kat as she touched her console with a finger, activating the system and linking directly into the starship’s datanet. The automated command systems buzzed around her, displaying the Lightning’s current location and plotting courses automatically to prospective destinations. Not, she knew, that she would trust the systems completely. One rule of AI was that true AIs always went insane shortly after being brought to life, and nothing lesser could hope to replace the human element from starship command. But without the automated systems, the ship’s efficiency would be cut in half.

She resisted the temptation to play with the system any further. Instead, she rose to her feet and passed command to the tactical officer, Lieutenant Commander Christopher John Roach. He was a young man, younger than she was, but a nasty scar ran down the left side of his face, and he’d chosen to shave his head completely as well. Kat made a mental note to review his file too, and then motioned for her XO to follow her into her Ready Room. Inside, she stopped dead. The compartment was dirty as hell, the deck covered in pieces of paper, datapads, and several coffee mugs. It didn’t look remotely ready for any commanding officer.

“I’ve been using it as an office,” the XO admitted. “There was no time to clean up.”

Kat felt an odd flash of irritation, which she forced down sharply. The XO was entirely correct. He needed to stay near the bridge and he needed an office, a place to work without disturbing the bridge crew. Using the Ready Room—her Ready Room—was the logical solution. But it still gnawed at her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She hesitated, then said what she knew she had to say. “Keep using it until we are ready for deployment.”

“I believe a steward has been assigned to you,” the XO said. “She will clean the room once she arrives.”

Kat nodded, reluctantly. A steward was something she’d managed to avoid, even though she was entitled to one as an aristocrat. But there was no point in declining one now.

She picked a pile of datapads off a chair, wondering why anyone needed so many, then placed them on the desk and sat down.

“So,” she said, once her XO had found a place to sit, “tell me about my starship.”

“Come,” Kat ordered as the door bleeped.

She barely looked up from her datapad until she heard someone clearing his throat in front of her. The sound made her look up to see a short, bald man standing there, wearing the gray shipboard uniform of the Royal Marine Corps. Kat found herself smiling openly as she rose to her feet and walked around the desk to envelop him in a hug. It had been far too long since she’d seen her old friend and former lover.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, remembering when they’d first met. “Time and the Marine Corps have been good to you.”

Captain Patrick James Davidson—he would be given a courtesy promotion to colonel while onboard ship—hugged her back, then let her go. Kat understood, even though it hurt a little; they were no longer lovers, while he was—technically—her subordinate. Marines had a great deal of independence, but not from their starship’s commander.

“I was promoted, eventually,” Davidson said. He grinned toothily. One of his front teeth had been knocked out on deployment and he’d never bothered to have it replaced. “They must have grown sick of scraping the barrel for officers to promote ahead of me.”

“Something always rises to the top,” Kat agreed. She walked back the table and sat down, then smiled at him. “Thank you for accepting this posting.”

“Ah, it was a choice between this ship or another hellworld,” Davidson said. He suddenly stood to attention. “Colonel Patrick James Davidson and crew reporting for duty, Captain!”

“Welcome onboard,” Kat said dryly. She waved at the seat behind him. “Take a seat, Pat, and put off the formality.”

Davidson sat, but still remained ramrod straight. Kat smiled to herself. Even when they’d been on shore leave, free of all other demands on their time, he had been unmistakably a marine. She had half expected him to loosen up with the promotion and added responsibility, but he still seemed as tough and determined as ever. But then marines were only ever promoted from the ranks. None of them graduated from OCS without experience as an infantryman first.

“It’s been years,” she said. “What have you been doing?”

“Spent a great deal of time on MacKinnon’s World,” Davidson said. “The locals voted for annexation and they’re generally happy, but there’s a small bunch of resistors who have been making everyone else miserable. They could have had an island of their own, if that was what they wanted, but instead they started to attack settlements and so-called collaborators.”

Kat nodded, unsurprised. “And you managed to hunt them down?”

“Gave them a damn good thrashing, the one time they fought a pitched battle,” Davidson said. “We ensured the local security forces got enough breathing space to make certain they had time to rebuild, train, and take the offensive. But it will be years before all support for the insurgents fades away into nothingness.”

He shrugged and then met her eyes. “Did you pull strings to get me onboard?”

Kat didn’t want to admit to anything, but she knew she couldn’t lie to him. “My father pulled strings,” she admitted. “Far too many strings.”

“I was due to assume command of a company anyway,” Davidson assured her. “I’m not too disappointed by the way things have turned out.”

And few people know we were lovers, Kat thought. None of the crew from HMS Thomas had been assigned to Lightning. As far as anyone knew, she and Davidson might have crossed paths, but they were hardly close. But if someone had good reason to think strings had been pulled, they might deduce the truth. And then who knew what they would think?

She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Can we talk freely?”

“Of course,” Davidson said.

Kat nodded. Captains couldn’t talk to anyone about their doubts or fears, not when it was important never to show weakness in front of their junior officers. The only person on the ship who came close to them in terms of authority and position was the Marine commander, who had similar tasks and responsibilities. They could talk to each other openly, if they developed a good working relationship. By that standard, she knew, Davidson and herself were probably far too close. They’d been lovers, after all.

He’d seen her naked and vulnerable. He wouldn’t put her on a pedestal.

“I don’t think some of my officers like or trust me,” she said, reluctantly. It had taken her time to unbend enough to really talk to new friends once she’d joined the Navy. Back home, anything said was almost certain to be used against her at some later date. “And I feel overwhelmed.”

She waved a hand at the datapads on the desk. Three days after her arrival, the compartment had been cleaned, but there were still an enormous amount of files to read and paperwork to sign. Normally, a commanding officer would have much more lead time before assuming her post, enough time to read the files for herself and decide how she wanted to proceed. Kat had the uncomfortable feeling that she was falling behind, no matter what she did. It was one hell of a struggle to force herself to read just one more file . . . and then another . . . and then another.

“You are young for your post,” Davidson pointed out. His eyes sharpened. “Did you pull strings to gain promotion?

“My father did,” Kat said. She’d liked Davidson from the start because he’d never treated her any differently, even after learning who her father was. But then, marines from the aristocracy tended to assume false names when they entered boot camp. Everyone started at the bottom and worked their way up. “He has . . . concerns.”

She hadn’t really wanted to talk about it, but the whole story came tumbling out. Davidson listened, carefully, as she outlined her father’s fears, then the steps he was taking to try to obtain some hard data. By the time she was finished, Davidson was frowning, an expression she knew meant trouble. He’d only looked like that once before in her presence, after one of his fellow marines had screwed up badly. It was a fearsome sight.