FWSS Ishaq, berthed on Space Battle Station SBS-44, in orbit around Jascaria
The command training simulation had been a complete and utter shambles. A simple sim, but Captain Constanza had managed to make a complete mess of it, ignoring her staff, short-circuiting the chain of command, and overriding her subordinates until the whole debacle ground to an embarrassed and disastrous conclusion.
Michael, along with every other spacer in Ishaq’s flag combat data center, did his best to melt into the background. In full view of all present, Captain Constanza was flaying the man she held responsible for the shambles, her second in command and Ishaq’s executive officer, Commander Jack Morrissen.
Michael watched in horrified fascination as Constanza tore Morrissen to shreds-in public, in front of Ishaq’s officers, and without restraint. The public humiliation of Ishaq’s second most senior officer was an appalling sight.
Constanza might be captain in command and supreme under God and all that, Michael thought, but he would not have blamed Morrissen if he had strangled her on the spot. Nobody watching would. Thankfully, Constanza’s second in command was too smart to do anything. Silent and unmoving, he refused to respond in any way. Michael watched as Morrissen weathered the storm. In the end, something must have told Constanza that she had better call a halt as, with a final spray at Morrissen, she stalked out of the combat data center.
Michael could only stand there, wondering just what sort of ship he had been posted to.
Michael lay in his bunk for a long time. His earlier optimism had all but evaporated. Sleep eluded him. He cursed. Not sleeping was beginning to become a habit.
His mind churned through all the complexities and unknowns facing him. The worst and most immediate of his concerns was Ishaq herself. In one short week, he had seen more than enough to convince him that it was a ship in trouble.
Outwardly Ishaq was the very embodiment of the Federation’s awesome wealth and technology. She was big, she was impressive, and she radiated raw power, but to Michael, form had triumphed over substance. Michael could see past the ship itself and did not like what he saw: carelessly stowed equipment, safety racks short of gear, untidy compartments, more dust and dirt than he had ever seen in any Fleet unit, large or small. But worst of all was the crew. Their attitude, with some honorable exceptions such as Leading Spacer Petrovic, largely ranged from sullen through uncooperative to downright hostile. As for the officers, Michael was even more confused; without exception, they acted as though all were well, as though this were how Federated Worlds warships were supposed to be. And Michael was under no illusions that he was going to be voted Ishaq’s most popular officer. So far, he had been given the cold shoulder by almost everyone he had met; the resentment, the envy, the bitterness were all too obvious.
The more he thought about things, the more he felt alone and the more his thoughts kept turning back to Anna. With a few short breaks-largely the product of adolescent stupidity and mostly his fault-he and Anna had been together throughout their time at Space Fleet College. Despite the relentless pressures of college life, the bond had deepened to the point where Michael believed with all his heart that Anna was the one for him. He liked to think that she felt the same way about him.
But even if she did, there was a fly in the ointment. There always was, of course.
There was the old adage: Space Fleet College made relationships for Fleet to break. Michael knew it was an adage founded on years of bitter experience. In his case, it was beginning to look dangerously prescient. He and Anna had seen little of each other since graduation. No surprises there; the chances of two frontline heavy cruisers being in the same port at the same time were vanishingly small. He knew. He had done the math.
True, the chances of his arranging leave at the same time as Anna were better, but they still were not good. If he and Anna were lucky, they might spend a month a year together until they got senior enough to pull staff jobs ashore, but that happy state of affairs was a long, long way off, and even a month a year did not allow for random acts of stupidity by those Hammer dickheads. God only knew what they were up to. Knowing the Hammers, anything was possible.
The thought of what the Hammers might do if they cut loose made his heart skip a beat. Much as he hated the Hammers-and he did with relentless, cold-burning intensity-the thought of facing the murdering swine again was almost too much to bear. The bowel-churning fear he had felt working with Matti Bienefelt outside the light scout 387 to fix battle damage, all the while knowing that there was nothing but hard vacuum between him and an oncoming Hammer rail-gun salvo, had been seared into his memory. The pain he had felt as 387’s battle dead left the ship after the Battle of Hell’s Moons was with him for life. Did he want to go through all that again? Did he really want to be a Fleet officer? Maybe he should quit. He could marry Anna and set up a home while she pursued her Fleet career. After all, Dad had always hinted that there was a place for him in the family flame-tree business, so a job would not be a problem.
For an instant he was tempted, but it was only for an instant.
“Bugger that,” he muttered. Flame-tree salesman. Christ! What a depressing thought. Salesman or Fleet officer? He snorted. That was no contest. Besides, he had a debt to settle with the Hammer. The thought of what he might have to go through to settle that debt made him feel physically sick. Still, the debt would be settled in full. The ghosts of 387’s dead crew would not settle for anything less.
Even as he repeated a promise already made countless times, something deep inside, something cold and dangerous, started to pull him down into darkness. Abruptly, the urge to curl up and shut out the world and all its fear and pain started to overwhelm him.
Panic engulfed him; Michael started to slide over the edge into the black pit of depression. For a moment he let himself go, unwilling to stop the fall, but then his training kicked in, the routines ground into him by the combat trauma counselors after the Battle of Hell’s Moons taking over. Slowly, he pushed the tide of hopelessness back. Bit by bit, he recovered his mental balance; it took another ten long, hardfought minutes to bring a racing heart and heaving lungs back under control. Shakily, Michael took a deep breath, almost defeated by the sheer physical effort it had taken to claw his way back to normal. Well, as normal as he could be under the circumstances, he thought wryly, if a flat, sick tiredness was normal.
Michael pulled up the holopix of his last visit with Anna. He knew full well that the sight of her would do nothing to help his mood, but he did not care. Then there she was, and for the umpteenth time Michael marveled at her beauty, wondered at the luck that had made him the man she wanted in her life. Well, he reminded himself, so he hoped.
Anna’s face was beyond striking. It was breathtaking. Dominated by large green eyes, her geneering-enhanced face drew its classic beauty from every one of Old Earth’s major gene pools. The mix of Asian, Chinese, African, and European bloodlines had produced a result that was all of them and none of them at the same time. Michael forgot everything as he stared at a face the color of dark honey, his whole being falling helplessly into eyes framed from above by fine black hair cut unfashionably short at the sides and set wide over sharply defined pink-dusted cheekbones.
No two ways about it; Anna Cheung was some work of art.
Michael commed his neuronics to stop the holopix. If he watched any longer, he would feel even worse than he already did. With a heartfelt prayer that things would work out for the two of them, he turned over, determined this time to get to sleep.