Satisfaction
De Frees leaned back, sighing. He had done everything the Admiral had asked, but it was a bust. As the daughter of the last head of JAG, Duvalier knew procedure as well as he did, and she had assured that her subordinates did their jobs well. There were only three points of attack, and none would bear much fruit.
She had extended the Addenda a bit by having a specific drinking establishment aboard her ship, but that was actually to the good; a place where the rank was left at the door, and people could discuss their mission as just people rather than superior and subordinate actually made her crew more efficient. He had studied the records of her tactical department, and the Ensign that was the A-TAC had been the author of a lot of what had earned her ship praise during their last voyage, because she had been able to talk to her superiors as if they were a group of midshipmen together. Her handling of the midshipmen had carried that on, and the fact that one was now assigned as commander of one of the LACs spoke volumes about her and the senior officers aboard.
Allowing Dollaryde to set up a small full scale brewery might have been at the edge of the Addenda's allowance, but he knew from experience at the JAG office that if the crew of a ship could not get something within the regs, there were more than enough people who would supply it illegally. Having all of the supply of alcohol from one source that was constantly monitored and tested for quality had shot that problem in the foot from the start. The minor problems the ship had at the start of both cruises with illicit drugs had been stopped cold with little furor.
That left only attacking the Captain's authority aboard her own ship. Did she have the right to set aside charges as given by the officer on the scene in Engineer Dollaryde's case? And did she had the authority to set aside an Article 9 physical attack in Ms Dollaryde's case? JAG tended to be wary when the term 'Captain's authority' came up in such a situation. Legally, she was the ultimate authority aboard her own ship, and only a court of inquiry could decide she was wrong.
When Admiral Collingwood had demanded this investigation, such a court had been held into the matter of Captain Duvalier's actions before his departure. Being again, the daughter of a former head of JAG, she had anticipated this. Her investigators and herself, along with her Engineering officer, had delivered statements about the events leading up to Cathcart's arrest and the disposition of the two Dollaryde cases along with all files from all officers and noncoms connected to it. Oddly enough, she had not charged Cathcart for the attempted assault on her, and after meeting her, and several quiet calm acrimonious meetings, he had understood why.
She hadn't wanted the man shot, which an Article 9 against him would have made almost automatic. Rather she had wanted him broken from the ranks. In every one of the charges leveled against the subordinates, she had suggested that they be allowed to resign. But in O'Conner and Cathcart's cases, she had suggested they be forced to go through a court martial. She held her officers to a higher ideal than enlisted men. In fact in her dealings with De Frees, she had come across as someone who felt pity; she honestly did not understand why De Frees was still trying to crucify two of her enlisted personnel pushed beyond their limits by the actions of the accused. Or why the questions he had told his party to use tried to paint her and her crew as bigots. The court of inquiry into their actions had fully borne out her contentions and not even the best lawyer in JAG was going to break that case.
He remembered the statements by the accused; the sanctimonious attitude of Cathcart, the stolid obviously rehearsed recitation by O'Conner. Then the statements taken here aboard. No one seemed to hold animosity against the defendants beyond their actions. Both Dollarydes' freely admitted their actions, and Fengniao's only comment about what had happened between her and Krueger had been she made an assumption, she had been wrong, and that she had since apologized to the officer.
He shook his head, and closed down his computer. What he needed right now, was a drink.
Rebecca didn't remember the dispatches until they were almost a week along on the trip. Os had commented upon them, and she had gone through the small lock box that had been sent over. Among all of the electronic communications were slim envelopes for the Dollarydes, and one for herself from Matthew, her own lawyer. It was rare for anything like it to be sent via a dispatch boat; they primarily delivered electronic correspondence. Old fashioned paper was reserved for very important documents. One of them bore the seal and return address of a law firm in her own Barony, the other another law firm based in Sedlow, Jinhua Kiel's. She looked at the dispatches, and was surprised to see one from her own Majordomo.
She opened the dispatch, then, prompted by Wesley's request, the envelope. She opened it, reading, a gamin grin spreading across her face. She tapped her intercom. "Do we have a location on the Dollarydes?"
She rode the lift down, then walked aft toward Pri-fly. Right before she got there she pulled off her beret, and stepped into the renamed HexenBrau. Dollaryde was at the piano, his usual spot. He was playing as the Twins accompanied by Ensign Konagawa sang 'Travelin' Soldier'.
She started to walk toward them when suddenly someone began shouting furiously in German. She looked to the side. Midshipman Krueger was standing glaring at Commander De Frees. "You deceiving creature that thinks it's human! How dare you suggest that!"
"I don't know what you mean-"
"And you lie so efficiently as well!"
"Midshipman, stand down." Rebecca said softly. The young man spun, facing her. "This, this, vurm suggested that the only reason Fengniao wasn't charged under Article 9 was because she offered me sexual favors!"
"That is not what I said, Midshipman." De Frees emphasized the rank.
"Oh no?" Krueger glared back at him. "She is attractive, is that why you let her hurt you so badly? HOW AM I TO TAKE THAT?"
The compartment fell silent. De Frees stood slowly. "I would suggest you back off, mister. Before I have you charged!"
Krueger leaned across the table, and screamed in German.
"Krueger! I said stand down!" Rebecca snapped.
De Frees glared at him. "If we were back in Manticore, I'd demand satisfaction!"
"And I would meet you!"
"That is quite-" Rebecca stopped, her eyes suddenly gleaming. "A dueling challenge has been given. Did everyone hear it?"
De Frees looked at her stunned. "You cannot seriously mean-" He was drowned out by a roar from the crowd.
Rebecca looked around. "Then it shall be settled before we reach Inferno."
"Under regulations, an officer serving in JAG on an investigation cannot be challenged to a duel for doing his duty, Captain!"
"And making insulting comments about someone you are investigating is part of your duty?" She asked mildly. "Challenge has been given and accepted publicly. As the one challenged, you have choice of weapons, Mr. Krueger-"
"Because he lied about what I said?" De Frees glared at the younger man. "I did say she was attractive, but I never suggested sexual favors!"
"It was implied in your tone!"
Rebecca turned back to face them, and everyone who knew her temper took an uneasy step back. "Under the Merchant Cruiser Addenda, we are allowed to deal with this on board, Commander. The Admiralty may decide after the fact that I have overstepped my bounds, however I should note before you open your mouth again, that this is the only noncombatant compartment that has full time surveillance and recording. We have, on occasions, used such in Captain's masts for defaulters who said something... unwise here. If we do not have this duel, I will order those records transferred to a chip, and if Mr Krueger is correct about your tone, you will be charged for Conduct Unbecoming, Commander. I just felt this way all of the aggression can be released in one shot, as it were."
She turned to the bar. "Boozer, call the Master At Arms. His men are to escort Mr. De Frees and Midshipman Krueger to the Marine gym. Contact Midshipman Kramer, have her and any personnel she feels necessary to ready the weapons for a duel using the Sidemore rules for the Code Duello." Behind her four rather beefy ratings came in at double time." She motioned toward him. "Follow your instructions, gentlemen."
"Wait!" De Frees looked around. "Midshipman, what I said was wrong, and if you believe my tone suggested something more, I apologize."
"You owe her an apology as well." The young man jerked his thumb toward the piano. When De Frees started to move around the man, Krueger held up his hand. "I think from here."
De Frees looked to the captain, but she had not stopped the Midshipman, so he assumed she would agree. He repeated the apology loud enough that Fengniao nodded coldly.
"Mister Krueger?"
"I feel, captain, that he still needs a lesson in manners. I will not withdraw my challenge."
"Very well. Take them both to the gym for their duel."
"What!" De Frees screamed.
"They were willing to accept your apology. However, under the Sidemore Rules for the Code, either party can still demand that the duel go forth." Rebecca motioned, and the two men were escorted out. "Well," she said brightly. "That was unpleasant. I actually came to deliver this." She walked across to the piano, handing the envelopes to Dollaryde. "All I have to add, is congratulations, Francis." She raised her voice. "His first month's sales have been met by the public back home demanding more. My majordomo, and our Lawyers are finalizing the arrangements to expand his brewery area by twenty hectares."
Dollaryde handed the envelopes to the girls, then grinned. "We had hoped you might come down Captain. Do you remember what today is?"
"October 14th." She froze. Oh she was going to kill Oscelli!
"Your birthday, Captain." He held up his hands at the cheers. "And here is something I obtained from our Sidemore contingent." He played a riff from Scotland the Brave, then the trio sang.
"When you were two or three
your parents would always see
that you had a party on your birthday.
"But now you're older and more mature-"
They paused, and all three snickered as if it were a joke.
"At least we are pretty sure,
there's no need to treat you like a baby.
"Cause no one gives a crap, about
your birthday anymore
no, it's not important.
"And if you want the truth
it's only a good excuse
For your crew to all get drunk together.
"Now I'm sure that you'd agree
your brain starts to atrophy
each time that you celebrate your birthday
"Unfortunately I must remind you...
"The best part of life's...behind you
soon you will throw your final party
"You're teeth will rot, your hair fall out
and sex will merely
refer to your gender only...
"So raise a toast with me
a toast to senility
oh please have a happy crappy birthday."
The crew watched, waiting for the hammer to fall. Rebecca watched them for a long moment. "I hope you didn't tell the wardroom about this. Phillip Zachary sings like a crow." She winced as Zachary stood, saluting her with his stein.
Then the crew in the compartment shouted wishes of a long life as they cheered and applauded.
CODE DUELLO: SIDEMORE RULES
The captain walked into the gym, seeing De Frees standing like an animal caught in the headlights of an approaching ground car. Krueger stood a few meters away, both being guarded by two of the Ship's policemen. Stacy and Marvin Slater, the warrant officer commanding SRNLAC Fubuki had spread a rather alarming array of cutlery along a table.
Stacy turned at the Captain's arrival. "Challenged party, Captain?" She asked at attention.
"Mr Krueger."
The young woman turned enough to face him without dropping out of attention. "As the challenged, you choose the weapons, sir."
"I would not face him with a blade. It would be unfair. Guns."
"Yes sir." She opened a small wooden case, and turned displaying the weapons. Compared to a modern pulser or even dueling pistol, they were odd. The frames were made of brass except for the barrel and cylinder, with carved curving wooden grips bolted to the frame. Then she took them out, handed one to Slater, and each picked up a paper tube from another wooden box.
"I am curious, Midshipman. Explain what you are doing." Duvalier requested.
"Yes, Ma'am. These are replicas of weapons used during the War Between the States in North America circa 1861 to 65 CE. They are Colt Pattern M1861 Naval pistols. They were designed to fire a 9mm 5.2 gram lead ball at 305 meters per second, for an effective range of one hundred fifty meters. These," she held up the paper tube, "were an innovation for a pistol at the time. The waxed paper holds both powder charge and ball, and the paper acts both as wadding to keep the pressure in, and stops the accidental firing of all cylinders which sometimes occurred."
She set the hammer to half-cock, allowing the cylinder to spin freely, then tore the paper with her teeth, upending the tube into a chamber, stuffed the paper and ball into the cylinder. She moved it to center below the ramming arm, and pressed it down.
As she spoke, both she and Slater continued to load. "This is a single action weapon; the hammer must be drawn fully back manually to activate the trigger for each shot. The original weapons had a small copper cap which ignited the powder. However instead there have insulated pressure igniters set at the rear of the cylinder which fires the powder charge."
She finished loading, then, holding the weapon with her left hand, used her right thumb to hold the hammer as her index finger pulled the trigger, allowing the hammer to gently settle forward. She looked to Slater, who held the other weapon already loaded out to her. She set both in the carrying case, turned, and walked over to stand in the center of the gym. "Gentlemen, if you would?" Krueger stalked over, and De Frees moved to face him. Slater had picked up a pair of belts with holsters attached to them, and came over. "Gentlemen, please put on your belts."
"Belt? Why a belt?" De Frees held it as if he'd never seen anything like it before.
"In a duel using firearms on Sidemore, we use the ancient Old West format. You place the weapon in the holster, stand ten meters apart, draw and fire." Krueger had already slung the belt around his waist, pulled the tongue of the belt through, and was tying the holster's bottom to his leg. De Frees watched, and repeated the actions. He noticed that unlike a military holster which held the weapon up tightly to the hip, these hung lower, closer to where the hand would hang naturally at a man's side. Slater helped him tie off the holster because, as the man commented, speed was everything, and friction might cause the holster to ride up with the weapon and slow him down.
For De Frees, it was a nightmare. The captain was allowing this to get back at him for the way his team had asked their questions. Her report would no doubt whitewash the entire affair when his body was sent home. He found himself choosing one of the weapons, and he was surprised, since it was much heavier than a pulser, and even heavier than a standard 10mm dueling pistol. He was confused when Slater handed him a pair of clear goggles and headphones that were common on a firing range, with the comment that it would protect his eyes and ears; the man is going to kill me, and he's worried about eye or ear damage? He was then led to a mark on the mat that had what looked like a spatter of blood. Not very calming.
"When you are ready, gentlemen?"
He looked wildly at Kramer. He had seen duels before on Manticore. No admonitions about whether it was necessary? No instructions as to when you may fire? Krueger merely nodded, which didn't help. "I don't understand."
Stacey turned to him. "When whichever of the two parties decides he can draw and fire without his opponent's reply, he does so, sir, and can fire as long as he has ammunition."
De Frees looked back at the young man facing him. How can he be so calm? We could both die right here! Krueger merely looked at him, patiently. Finally he couldn't take it any more. He lifting his hand, the butt of the revolver feeling so right in his hand, and he lifted it. As he did, Krueger also drew. With a cry, De Frees pointed the weapon, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. This is a single action weapon; the hammer must be drawn fully back manually to activate the trigger she had said. His thumb reached up, and he pulled the hammer back, hearing it click as there was a booming sound and something hit him in the chest. He aimed, and it still wouldn't fire! He thumbed the hammer again, hearing it click a second time as a second boom was followed by another impact. He aimed, and fired as Krueger got off his third shot. He saw a splotch of red on the young man's chest, and waited.
Krueger looked down the barrel of the weapon, then lowered it. Wait, he should be dead or down! I should be dead. He hit me three times! He lowered the weapon, his other hand coming up to touch the wound. His fingers were red, but it didn't hurt. He'd heard that with serious wounds you might not feel it until later, but- They were red, but it wasn't blood red. It was more like...A smell came from his fingers, and he lifted them.
Paint.
Krueger touched where his own shot had struck. "Well placed, Commander. Considering what was happening, I must commend your aim." He turned, rolling the weapon over his thumb to hand it butt first to Slater.
"You knew." De Frees whispered. "You knew it was with paint balls and let me think I was going to die?" His voice almost reached the level of a shout at the last three words.
"Of course, commander." He looked at the Captain. "We can't very well have my crew killing each other. That is why I specified the Sidemore Rules when I ordered the duel."
"Oh, you-" De Frees wanted to scream, but pictured how he must have looked on the way down, and his fumbling with the gun during the duel itself. Suddenly he began to chuckle. "As a lesson in manners, I think it was a bit extreme, captain. But this mode of dueling would, I think, have some in Manticore cheering."
STALKING HER PREY
Witch Maiden came over the hyper wall. Far ahead was the star, and if the captain had not known which one it was, it would just have been another light in the sky.
Most older Navy's gravitic detectors would detect a translation from hyperspace within 30 light minutes, and the newest Manticoran ones within fifty. Coming in here had been done with malicious aforethought. Even assuming recon drones of Manticoran design, they should be unnoticed. With the FTL capability of her drones, it meant she would have a time lag delay, but only 75 seconds, not as many minutes.
But even though Sollie military recon drones were short-sighted and legged, you couldn't assume the same for member planets inside the League. As had been discovered during the first Haven war, and again at New Tuscany, the League military sometimes used systems that were not as good as had been seen in Solarian merchant ships. If all the rumors about the Mesans were true, it was better to expect them to be as good as her own.
The ship merely sat there with the 14 KPS they had brought over the wall with them as the drones approached the hyper limit 65 LM away. They were up to almost 100,000 KPS, a third of light speed when they reached 55 LMs distant from the primary, and went silent. The crew waited, CIC watching the take and passing it to Tactical where Abigail and Jessica Riyal worked alongside the two enlisted gunners.
Almost three hours passed before a contact blossomed on the tactical screen. "Detected a reconnaissance array right on the hyper limit. Not a standard drone, ma'am." Hughes reported from CIC where Lieutenant Zachary and Midshipman Stanhope were doing the same as Carruthers and Riyal. "It's similar to the ones the old People's Republic emplaced along the frontier before the first war."
"And the prison?"
"If they are under ECOMCON, we won't know for another half hour, ma'am." The term meant the occupants were not broadcasting anything that could be detected, requiring them to get a visual. Duvalier nodded to herself. "Keep going."
"Understood, skipper."
The planet, which while the site of the prison had never been named, was in orbit almost directly before her ship, half a light minute inside the hyper limit. but the prison was gone. It wasn't in the orbit it should have been, geosynchronous to the planet. Unlike most orbits, an orbit at that altitude would not degrade enough to cause it to deorbit for centuries!
She had put her crew on Alert condition three, and sent the remainder to dinner with instructions that those on watch would be replaced as people returned so everyone would have a good meal and some down time. Watch on and watch off was straining, but could be kept up for weeks if necessary. As she ate, she pondered the missing station. It hadn't been destroyed, or at least not recently, because no matter how efficient a nuclear warhead could be, there would be debris from a 32 megaton station almost nine kilometers across. Or a cloud of radiation from the shattered remains. That would have been detectable for over a year, and according to the last Frontier fleet patrol out of the Maya Sector; that had been here less than a year before, the station had been there.
Dismantling it was a possibility, but why would someone have done so? The original structure had been almost 300 years old, and there was nothing in the design schematics she had pulled up to explain what made it valuable even as salvage.
Her intercom buzzed, and she stopped stroking Irene to tap the button. "Captain."
"Hyper transit on the limit, ma'am. From the size, I'm calling it a dispatch boat. Now proceeding insystem at 560KPS."
"Have the closer recon drones pursue. Leave the others to sweep the system." She switched off, pecked the cat on the nose, and returned to the bridge.
"Found the Prison, skipper." Zachary reported from tactical. "That dispatch boat led us right to it. It's been moved closer to the star. 2.1 light minutes closer." His fingers danced over the keyboard. "But how and why?"
She took her seat, bringing up her displays. Why move it? As close as it had been to the hyper limit, a slaver could pop in, drop it's cargo, and be out in less than an hour and a half. She brought up the schematic again. It had been designed from an old orbital fortress design; spherical sidewalls, but limited mobility; less than 10G, enough to avoid falling from orbit, but it would have taken years to... "They must have brought in a couple of tugs. They could fit in the cargo hold of a freighter."
"All right, skipper, that explains how. But why?"
"Let's say you were the captain of a destroyer, and you're making your patrol rounds. You see a ship docked to the station. What do you do?"
"Investigate."
"And of course, if you happen to be a Sollie, you either come in loaded for Kodiak Max, or with your hand out for a bribe. Whatever they are doing, they may not like either option." She mused, checking the schematic further. "The prison has missiles and lasers. But the weapons are about where Grayson was before the Alliance. Contact nukes, slow and short ranged. A modern pirate could take their fire without even flinching. We could handle it in our sleep, and kill them even with the missiles we started the war with from beyond their range."
"Now have three contacts other than the prison. Two dispatch boats, and a freighter." He tapped in some commands. "The freighter is definitely Antilles class."
She looked at the tactical display for a long moment. Then tapped the all station intercom. "Senior officers report to CIC. Lieutenant Huggins, report to CIC."