The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1) Read online

  “That was so good, wasn’t it?” she said, as they sauntered back to the transit node. “I love Shoutings. I hope they'll both be very happy.”

  “I hope so too,” said Josie. “It’ll be difficult being apart though.”

  “Eh? Why would they be apart?”

  “I noticed he had a merchant navy stripe on his jacket,” Josie explained. “And she didn’t. Distance can be a killer for a relationship.”

  Celene frowned. “Oh. Well, perhaps she’s merchant navy too. Maybe she just wasn’t wearing her stripe.”

  “She didn’t look like a sailor to me.”

  “How can you say something like that? Sailors come in all sizes and shapes! How can you tell?”

  Josie considered. “The mad gleam in the eye?”

  Celene grinned. “Point taken.”

  They reached the transit node, where several other people were now waiting. Celene ploughed on with her earlier thought. “I don’t think it necessarily matters if he’s merchant navy and she isn’t. I mean, don’t they say ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’! If they still want to be together, after spending so much time apart, then it’s a sure sign their love must be true.”

  Josie eyed her friend. “Underneath all that worldly, materialistic froth you're just an incurable romantic, aren’t you?”

  Celene grinned. “If you tell anyone that, I shall deny it completely!”

  “Here’s our ride.”

  A carriage had pulled up. They clambered aboard. Unusually it was quite full, and it wasn’t possible to have a deep conversation as they were whisked along to the academy.

  When they reached their destination it was dark. Delaney Military Academy loomed above them, gigantic and forbidding. Like the majority of older buildings on Courage, it was deeply functional, but there were still angles that blocked the remaining gloomy light and provided patches of engulfing dark. The sentry on the door looked pointedly at her perscomp as they entered. Josie felt a pang of guilt. Celene, naturally, just ignored the woman.

  They signed in. The corridors were virtually deserted. They strolled along them silently, but companionably, each lost in thought. Celene, inevitably, was the one who broke the silence.

  “Josie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you ever thought you might meet someone very special one day, fall in love, and end up Shouting for them?”

  Josie stopped herself from reaching up to twirl a lock of her hair. “I’ve never really thought about it,” she admitted at last. “I suppose so.”

  “You suppose so? Wow, I used to dream about it all the time when I was younger!”

  “What do you mean when you were younger? You’re still younger.”

  Celene grinned. “Very funny. No come on, I’m serious for once. What about it Jose? Wouldn’t you like to Shout for someone one day?”

  Josie shrugged. “Well, I’ve not had much time for that kind of thing. Life has been very full these last few years, what with relocating and all the legal stuff with citizenship. Then there were the aptitude tests, applying for the academy, exams…there’s not been much room for anything else.”

  “It’s important though Jose. You have to make time for love, or one day you wake up very old and very alone and find out it’s way too late.”

  Josie gave her a hard stare. “Celene, that was suspiciously intense for you.”

  “OK, OK, I heard that line on a vidplay last week and it made an impression on me, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true!”

  “Well maybe it is, but I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you should force. I mean, I’d rather never Shout for someone than Shout for the wrong person.”

  Celene looked nonplussed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true too.”

  This was all too serious. Josie felt suddenly impish. “Does that mean you might add it to your list of ‘quotes that impress’?”

  Celene grinned again. “Well, I suppose it will have to do,” she said slowly, joining in, “until you come up with something that’s REALLY profound.”

  And that got them both giggling all the way back to their dorm.

  Chapter 4.

  Admiral Jack Courage’s personal residence, Courage asteroid.

  The door to the apartment he shared with his widowed sister was a particularly solid barrier, and not just in the physical sense.

  It was a very nondescript door, a plain impassive solid brick of grey plastisteel, undecorated and unadorned. There was not a single aspect of it that was not thoroughly functional. It was, in short, typically Belter. A tiny electronic display at eye level announced that it was currently locked, magnetically sealed and airtight. It patently did not indicate whether the apartment was occupied or not, as was the latest fashion.

  The heavy emphasis on functionality was not, in itself, a problem for Admiral Jack Courage. Extensive security on personal homes was a common cultural affectation in the Asteroid Belt. It was a throwback to the early days when the fear of sudden and lethal exposure to hard vacuum was entirely justified, what with all the cobbled together and make-do equipment. The last few generations had loosened up as life had gotten easier, but the more conventional and traditional still hid themselves behind multiple locks and magnetic seals.

  And there were few folk more conventional or traditional than Rose Courage.

  No, what Jack Courage was more worried about was the consequences of his sister’s obsession with security. She was always damaging the front door locks while overenthusiastically testing them. One day she forgot her access codes, and on another she had taken sudden fright at an imaginary intruder. In both cases she had insisted that all of the locks were changed. A costly exercise – particularly as she had forgotten to inform him she had done it.

  He pushed the visitor alert button, and then pressed his perscomp against the door’s release mechanism. There was a soft pop and it swung open. Well that was a good start. The first boundary had been crossed.

  The tiny air lock room beyond was decidedly the worse for wear. The lights flickered and the tiling was scuffed and shabby. He had offered to have it redecorated many times, but somehow, someway, there never seemed to be a sufficient time slot available that was convenient for both of them. Besides, they could never agree on a design or a colour scheme.

  Only by closing the outer door behind him was he able to open the second inner door into the main living area. It was another safety feature of course, ensuring that a sudden breach in one area would not mean a catastrophic atmospheric loss in the next. Another largely redundant throwback to the early years. He remembered the day the automatic airlock system had stopped working, and there had been a series of heated rows with Rose that had lasted a week, with blame being spread liberally on door manufacturers, building contractors, the government and, naturally, him.

  The main living area behind the air lock was a contradiction, the cleanest mess that could be imagined. Like most Belter living areas, it was small, compact, and very crowded. In spite of its modest size, there were no less than seven chairs, so many that it was impossible to walk directly through the room. One had to manoeuvre around them in a succession of straight and sideways motions. All of the chairs were covered in vidscrolls and odd pieces of textiles.

  One side of the room had rows of real wooden beams. Courage Asteroid produced its own artificial wood now, but family lore had it that this particular shelving had been brought all the way from old Earth. It might be true. They had certainly been in the room as long as he could remember, and you could just glimpse them in the background of an old vidgraph of his grandparents that was lying around somewhere. He could not imagine how his ancestors had ever been able to afford such a thing. At the time something so heavy and bulky would have cost a fortune to import. The beams ran both vertically and horizontally, intersecting to form a latticework of little recesses. Every one was filled with trinkets of some kind. Some had half a dozen.

  Jack hesitated from moving anything from the chairs so that he would b
e able to sit down. All of the vidscrolls and the half-made clothing were ‘vital’ and were ‘just about to be worked on’. Rose would have a fit if any of them went missing, and would positively insist on finding the offending article. She would not stop until the missing item was in her hand, even if everything else in the apartment had to be rearranged in the process.

  Inevitably the newly found item would be back in the maelstrom within an hour.

  The controlled chaos of four-fifths of the living area of their shared space was a constant affront to Jack Courage’s logical mind. Admittedly there was a definite order to it all, but it was an order that only Rose Courage completely understood. He would have loved to tidy the communal side of the apartment up, and he had even volunteered to do so on several occasions. He was sure Rose would be much better off if everything that was not being immediately worked on could be neatly stored away. And to be fair Rose agreed, but just like the air lock door, it was a job they never quite got around to doing.

  A querulous voice came from deep in the apartment.

  “Jack? Is that you?”

  “Yes Rose.”

  “Jack?”

  He raised his voice higher. “Hello Rose. Yes, it’s me.”

  There was a series of thumps as Rose stamped into the room. She was a tall, austere woman with hair that was prematurely greying and thinning. Her most distinctive feature were her eyes. Dark rings under almost met thick eyebrows above, creating the impression of two dark wells, with a deep tinge of sorrow at their bottom. Life had not been easy for Rose Courage. Widowed early, childless, a succession of missteps resulting in a string of failed careers - it had all made her bitter, but she nonetheless remained indomitable and unbowed. She irritated and uplifted him in equal measure.

  She was, as always, immaculately dressed. It never ceased to amaze Jack Courage how she managed to do that. Clothing had become probably her major concern in life. Not so much the wearing of it – she very much favoured traditional styles, severe and functional – but its production, characteristics and history. Over the years she had become a major authority on the subject. On the wall just behind where she was stood he could glimpse the signed doctorate in textiles she had received two years ago.

  “Where have you been Jack? I’ve been waiting for hours.”

  “It’s not been that long sis…”

  “You’ve not been at that museum again have you? I’ve told you before. You waste far too much of your time there. Staring at the past…a man of your talents! You should be looking to the future instead.”

  Jack inwardly grimaced, and tuned out. He had heard this argument a hundred times before. Rose's suggestions were impractical, even if he had been inclined to any of them, but he knew he couldn’t win any argument. He knew he could be worn down by Rose’s emotion, but she wouldn’t be swayed by his reason. Eventually for the sake of peace he would agree with her, all the while hoping she would forget about the point under discussion. Fortunately she usually did.

  "Have you contacted the Admiralty?"

  Jack pursed his lips. "Not recently, but I respond to their regular status requests. They know my situation. If they need me they’ll be in touch."

  "You need to keep on reminding them."

  Somehow he held back a sigh. "Sis, that might look like barracking. It wouldn't go down at all..."

  "Oh Jack, you should be more forceful! You are one of the best commanders in the middle solar system, and they have you here kicking your heels on half-pay."

  "That's very flattering sister mine, but unfortunately even if it were true, there's a difference between being a good commander and being a successful one."

  "You need to let go of Verdrag."

  "I have, but a lot of other people haven't."

  She turned away and began to make a cup of coffee. Naturally she did not offer him one. "It's ridiculous the way people behave these days. No logic or reason at all. It's all smoke and image. I despair." She pointed the now full cup at him. “We are bearers of a worthy name Jack, the same as the asteroid of our birth, and the one we both owe our absolute loyalty to.”

  “I’m very aware of that Rose.”

  “It’s why I reverted to using my maiden name after Bill died.”

  “I know. You’ve told me before.”

  “Well I’m telling you again, as you seem to have forgotten!”

  “All right.” That came out harder than he intended.

  Rose sniffed. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  She flounced out. The room was suddenly very still.

  He sat down and looked around. That ornament was new. The belt thing Rose had been working on had come on a bit. He leaned back. He leaned forward. He heard Rose moving around. He heard a door shutting. He toyed with turning the vidscreen on, and had just decided to risk it, when his perscomp gave a sudden ping, announcing an incoming message.

  Like most people, he strapped his personal computer onto his forearm. It made it easily accessible and difficult to lose. He raised his left arm to eye level and saw it was a text only message. That was curious. Most messages were vids – people preferred to interact with an actual human image, and memory space was hardly a problem for low thermal range magnetic polymer based computers. Intrigued at the social anomaly, he pressed the accept button. What he saw caused him to sit up straight.

  It was a message from Virtue Confederation High Command.

  What could they possibly want to talk to him for? They hadn’t communicated with him since the court-martial. Well, nothing of any substance anyway. Surely this could not be another “pension clarification” notice! Excited, and more than a little intrigued, he pressed ‘accept’, read the opening two lines, and almost bounced to his feet.

  It was an official notification offering him a commission. And not just any commission either, it was for an active field command.

  Quickly he paged down the simple text message, but the only further details were that it would be a ‘detached’ command, and that he was to see Coordinator Wentworth in the morning, when he ‘would be appraised fully’. That was an odd turn of phrase. Why give him a command, and then not tell him what it was? Were they worried about security? They couldn’t think he would blab to the press. Many admirals had serious ego problems – it was all too easy for the desirable trait of self-confidence to morph into megalomania - but they must know he was not one of them. Whatever else they thought about him, they surely knew he was not a self-publicist.

  Rose didn’t much care for that aspect of his character.

  Thinking quickly, he checked back on the source history of the message. It had been forwarded from the Courage High Admiralty, which was logical. He was a Courage Asteroid national and therefore the Courage Asteroid authorities would at the least have been notified of an intention to offer him a commission. It was quite likely the request had originated from Courage High Admiralty itself. If another Admiralty had sponsored the operation, they would have insisted on one of their own having the command.

  He pondered. It was possible that Virtue Confederation High Command had initiated the request and then simply asked the Courage High Admiralty to assign one of their admirals to command it. Courage was easily the biggest and most important of the five provincial Admiralties that made up the Virtue Confederation’s combined naval might. Not only were there more Courage admirals to choose from, more importantly Courage Asteroid had greater political pull to get them appointed. If there was a juicy command going it would almost certainly go to a Courager, unless one of the other Admiralties had some overwhelming vested interest that made them fight hard for it. Or be prepared to pull in a lot of favours.

  He had to get up and pace, which wasn't easy in the crowded room. The problem was there were too many factors to consider. Why a detached command for instance? It implied a level of trust in his judgement that they had not shown since, well, since THAT had happened. By definition detached commands would be distant from higher authorities. He would not have superior
officers watching and critiquing his every move. Which in some ways was excellent - he knew he wasn’t good at fighting political battles.

  Of course, every decision he made would still be pulled to pieces later on.

  On the negative side, a detached command would be smaller and probably short of high quality units. And it would be in some backwater, where the chances of recognition and promotion would be small. Conversely, the chances of censure if something went wrong would be bound to be much greater. After all, there would be no one else to blame. He stumbled against one of the chairs and nearly fell over.

  Rubbing his leg he tried to find space to move up and down. He couldn’t think without pacing. He glanced at the message again. On balance this probably wouldn’t be a choice assignment – detached commands rarely were. As far as he was concerned, the Virtue Confederation navy frittered away far too much of its strength on unimportant tasks. They would insist on pursuing all manner of objectives that made no military sense. Maybe this was one of those assignments. An expedition designed to placate public opinion, or feed some political adventurer’s ego, or even to accommodate a businessman’s pet project. It would either be a waste of time or an assignment they were sure would fail, and therefore a scapegoat would be needed to lead it.

  He sighed. Being set up for professional ruin was all too possible, given the fractured nature of his relationship with his superiors. Some bright spark in the Virtue Strategy Board might have put his name forward as the perfect opportunity to satisfy some demand and at the same time get rid of him in the most efficient way – by having him crash and burn. The failure of the mission and the possibility that a great many other people would be badly affected too, maybe even injured or killed, wouldn’t have been much of a considering factor.

  He managed to turn around in the kitchen. Yes. Odds on that would be it. This would be an assignment full of traps, if not one huge, massive trap. The frightening thing was he knew that it didn’t matter. A field command was a field command. It was what he had been trained to do, what he enjoyed doing, and in all modesty what he was very good at doing, in spite of what some people thought. He had proved himself on active service many times. Humility might be a fine virtue, but honesty was a better one.