HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4) Read online

  “Joke?”

  “Calling ‘Nightingale’ from the boat, as though she were yours.” He looked her over and sneered. “What are you? Twelve?” He shook his head. “Nightingale’s a small ship and a smaller crew, we don’t have time for some snotty’s pranks. Now if you’re sent aboard to fill out my gunroom, you’d best get a proper uniform and insignia on and be about it.”

  Alexis flushed. Did he really think any midshipman would play such a prank coming aboard a new ship? She looked young, yes, but she was properly commissioned lieutenant, not playing at it for a lark.

  “I’m no ‘snotty’, Lieutenant Villar, but a properly commissioned lieutenant. There’s clearly some mistake and I think if we —”

  “Aye, a mistake and it’s yours.” Villar tapped his rank insignia. “We’ve our full complement of lieutenants, as you can see, and we’ve no need of some hopped-up, coreward bint, in any case.” He pointed at the hatch. “Now if you’re not here for my gunroom, get off my ship.”

  Alexis clenched her jaw and drew in a slow, deep breath. Regardless of any mix up, and she had to admit she’d be a bit put out if some other officer approached her ship that way, it was no excuse to speak so to a fellow officer. Especially as she’d been a lieutenant nearly two years now and certainly had seniority over Villar, given the date of the muster book she’d reviewed.

  “May I ask the date of your commission, Lieutenant Villar? My own is February ninth, some twenty-one months past.”

  Villar’s face flushed.

  Alexis leaned toward him, kept her voice low, and forced herself to remain calm. What she wished to do was call for the bosun and have the arrogant prat placed in irons, but there was the possibility he was in the right and properly in command, despite his attitude.

  “Lieutenant Villar, it’s clear we have conflicting orders. Only one of us is commander of Nightingale.” She held up a hand as Villar started to speak. “Should that be you, I will wish you joy and luck in your command, sir, but should Admiralty confirm it is me …” She let her voice trail off, hoping Villar would see the right of it without her having to state it bluntly. If her orders were valid and he refused to accept them, then his actions could be considered mutiny — at best, it would be an inauspicious start with his new commander. Villar’s nostrils flared and the muscles in his jaw bunched. “Perhaps we should retire to the master’s cabin and speak privately?”

  Villar looked uncertain for a moment, then sighed and nodded sharply. He turned and walked away.

  Alexis waited a moment before following. She noted the expressions on the crew’s faces. The other officer — Midshipman Spindler, she assumed, though nothing seemed certain at this point — looked confused. As for the crew, they seemed to be divided between shooting her dark looks and looking amused at the exchange they’d just witnessed.

  “Wait for me here, Isom,” she said. He’d come through the boarding tube with their baggage during her exchange with Villar. “And tell the pilot to remain alongside until we have this mess sorted out.”

  She followed after Villar on the short walk to the master’s cabin. Villar left the hatch open and she nodded to the Marine standing guard beside it as she passed. She slid the hatch shut behind her and looked around.

  Nightingale’s master’s cabin was small, as she’d expected. The whole of it was less than three meters to a side and a single compartment, not divided into a sleeping- and day-cabin as it would be on a larger ship. A cot, larger than the narrow cots found in the junior officers’ cabins, but still not very large, was still folded down against the far bulkhead. The part of the cabin nearest the hatch was taken up by a table, small as well, but still large in the cabin’s space, and a few chairs. Villar was busily clearing the table of wine bottles and plates. The rest of the cabin was no better kept — the bedclothes on the cot in disarray and uniform bits strewn about.

  Alexis pulled her tablet from her pocket. “Perhaps if we compare our orders, Lieutenant Villar, we can determine where the error is and how best to go about clearing it up.”

  Villar sat down abruptly and gestured. “Yes, let me see yours then and we’ll see where you’ve gone wrong.”

  Alexis shook her head. It was clear that Villar was trying to maintain his position as commander of Nightingale by acting the role. She wasn’t at all interested in his petty power games, she simply wanted to determine whose orders took precedent and should remain. She wished that Zariah warranted a Port Admiral they could appeal to or even that there was another, larger, Naval ship in the system.

  One with a proper captain … we could go running to like children to resolve who’ll be allowed to play with the favorite toy next. She snorted. For that’s how he’s acting, at least.

  “Something amusing … Carew, was it?”

  “Merely the absurdity of the situation.”

  “Yes, it is absurd. The war’s set everything all a-kilter.” He leaned back in his chair. “Look, then, it’s clear someone in the Core sent you out here without considering the circumstances and consequences, but it’s unthinkable for you to command Nightingale in this sector.” He ran a finger over the tabletop’s screen to bring up a document and slid it in front of Alexis. “Lieutenant Bensley received leave to return home for a family matter and left me in command. He even gave me an acting commission as lieutenant. Now, I’m sure they didn’t know about this when you set out and appear to have forgotten that we don’t have girls aboard our ships in the Fringe Fleet, so, I’m sure you see, it’s quite impossible for you to remain here at all, much less command Nightingale.”

  So that’s it, Alexis thought. Villar was Fringe Fleet through and through apparently. He was likely from a Fringe world himself and hadn’t shed the attitudes of whatever planet he’d been born on in the slightest. Which would be why he keeps mentioning the Core worlds and assumes that’s where I’m from. But what’s this nonsense of a lieutenant giving him command?

  A captain could make a midshipman an acting lieutenant, certainly, and it would most likely be confirmed by Admiralty, but a lieutenant had no such power. Villar’s “command” of Nightingale was looking more and more suspect to her.

  She frowned and looked up to meet Villar’s eyes with a raised brow. “‘Acting’?”

  Villar flushed.

  Alexis slid her own orders from her tablet to the tabletop screen and pushed them in front of Villar.

  “My own orders come directly from Admiral Cammack,” she said.

  “I’ve commanded Nightingale for eight weeks now on Lieutenant Bensley’s orders. We’ve no Port Admiral at Zariah and few enough other ships even passing through. Nightingale is the Navy in this sector — I am the Navy in this sector.”

  Alexis read over the two documents Villar had presented her. They were truly nothing more than notes from Bensley in Nightingale’s order book for Villar to continue Nightingale’s regular patrols in Bensley’s absence. There was a copy of a message Bensley had sent along with his request for leave to the effect that he was giving Villar an acting commission, but that was something he simply hadn’t had the power to do, and Alexis wondered that he’d even tried.

  With the war and being so isolated, have they just gone power-mad here?

  She reread the documents just to be sure she hadn’t missed something, but she found that she hadn’t and it only made her angrier. Angry at Villar and at the system that had created him. Now she’d not only have to deal with his disappointment at not having the command, but his resentment that she was a woman, as well.

  His and how much of the crew’s?

  She hadn’t thought to check the muster book for the crew’s home planets. Of a certainty they’d be from Fringe worlds, but some were more hidebound than others. If the crew was all like Villar … She sighed.

  And first I’ve him to deal with, and find some way I’m to rely on him as my first officer?

  Villar sat back and stared at Alexis for a moment.

  “They can’t mean to do this,” he said final
ly. “It’ll never work.”

  Alexis fought down the urge to grasp Villar by the ear, drag him to Nightingale’s gundeck, and set the gunner to introducing Villar to his daughter. “Kissing the gunner’s daughter”, or being bent over a gun and caned by the gunner, was the traditional chastisement for an impertinent midshipman, and though Villar might be a number of years too old for it, Alexis could still wish to see it done.

  She took a deep breath and restrained her temper, something she found herself having to do more and more often of late.

  “Do you accept Admiral Cammack’s orders, Mister Villar?”

  “I —”

  Alexis could see the struggle in Villar’s face and felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him instead of anger. She could well imagine how he was feeling. At twenty-four he’d have few opportunities to advance to lieutenant. A captains’ board, no matter how well he might perform, would wonder at his age and be influenced by it. Likely his one chance for advancement was to be made acting-lieutenant by his captain. A thing which simply couldn’t occur aboard a cutter commanded by a mere lieutenant.

  Bensley’s decision to overstep himself must have seemed like a godsend, and Villar must have spent these many weeks thinking his position was secure.

  Now I’ve come to bollox it all up proper. I could almost feel sympathy for him.

  “This is a mistake,” Villar said, his face still.

  “It’s no mistake.” Alexis shook her head gently. “I had the orders directly from Admiral Cammack’s hand. Surely part of you knew that Lieutenant Bensley could not do such a thing?”

  “Oh, not that.” Villar waved his hand. He sighed. “I did. I suppose I did. I mean, I hoped, but … no.” He met Alexis’ eyes. “I meant a mistake to send you here.”

  Alexis took a deep breath to settle herself. She’d never met anyone who could so quickly send her from anger to sympathy and back again.

  “Mister Villar, I assure you I’m quite capable of commanding a Queen’s ship.”

  Villar rubbed his face with his hands.

  “I know Core Fleet’s come out for the war,” Villar said. “You and Admiral Cammack and the rest, you look down on the Fringe, but these worlds out here won’t accept you. Look, then —” He leaned forward. “— there’s a reason for the way ships in the Fringe Fleet are crewed. Yes, Zariah here’s just asked for a Crown Magistrate to be appointed, but this system is quite near the Core now — they’re five generations in. There was a time, though, that they’d have nothing to do with you. It wasn’t but a generation or two ago that they’d have stoned you for being in that uniform — what with trousers on and your face uncovered.”

  “I’m from the Fringe, Mister Villar, not the Core. I was born on Dalthus.”

  Villar snorted. “Dalthus? That’s a corporate system. What’s the worst that’s happened there? I’m talking about those settlers on Man’s Fall who think darkspace is Heaven and proves God doesn’t want us using electricity? Or Al Jadiq, where the hardliners from Zariah went off to? They’ll, neither one of them, deal with a woman, you know? Lord knows Bensley and I both had enough trouble doing so ourselves — what with being kāfir to one and technology worshiping devils to the other.”

  Alexis frowned. She’d read of both worlds on the packet to Zariah, as she’d tried to familiarize herself with Nightingale’s duties. To tell the truth, she had no idea yet how she’d deal with the more political and religious worlds of the Fringe, those peoples who’d been so outcast in the Core Worlds that they’d banded together and bought their own star systems, so that they might practice their ideologies in peace.

  The New London Crown overlooked most of their practices, so long as the worlds allowed free emigration to any who wished it. Never mind that most inhabitants had no means to do so, save signing on as indentures and mortgaging years of labor for the cost of the transport.

  “Dealing with those worlds is my concern, Mister Villar.” Alexis couldn’t very well tell him she really had no idea how to go about it. Perhaps if she’d come aboard to find a first officer she felt she could rely on she might, but not as things stood with Villar now.

  “I suppose so,” Villar said. He glanced around as though waking from a trance and stood hurriedly. “I suppose, as well, I should move my things back to the midshipmen’s berth.” He frowned as he looked around the cabin.

  Alexis stood as well, watching him closely. He seemed to have resigned himself to it, but that wouldn’t mean he’d not come to resent her.

  “I’ll have my man take your things to you in your berth.” She could save him that further embarrassment, at least.

  “Thank you.” Villar cleared his throat. He glanced around, his face showing every bit of disappointment Alexis knew he must be feeling, then he stood. “Thank you, sir.”

  Alexis nodded. It was a start, she supposed, that he’d at least called her “sir”. Now she only had to make a better start with the crew.

  “I’ll spend an hour’s time here reviewing the logs,” she said, “that should give you time to have Nightingale put to rights and assemble the crew for me to read myself in.” She sighed. It wouldn’t be at all as she’d imagined it. “After which, I’ll meet with you properly, as well as Mister Spindler and the warrants.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Villar made his way to the cabin’s hatchway. He paused and turned back to her.

  “Lieutenant Carew, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “About what I said … when you came aboard, I mean … I —”

  “Mister Villar,” Alexis said quickly, “I really must apologize.”

  Alexis suspected what Villar was talking about and thought the least said about it the better. She hadn’t read herself in yet, so hadn’t been his commanding officer when he’d called her …

  What was it? “A hopped-up bint”?

  Not the first time she’d been called that, and she suspected it was closer to Villar’s true feelings than he’d admit now, but it was still better if they didn’t mention it again.

  Villar looked confused.

  “Apologize, sir?”

  “Yes, Mister Villar. I’m afraid the events of my coming aboard have gone right out of my head. It’s a complete blank.” She smiled slightly and shrugged. “The excitement of a first command, I’m sure. If anything said was at all important, I trust you’ll bring it up again after I’ve read myself in properly?”

  Villar swallowed and nodded.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “As for this … misunderstanding about Nightingale, Mister Villar, let us simply put it about the crew that there were conflicting orders and we’ve worked out what was intended. Put the whole of the fault on Admiralty, I think — they’re quick enough to take the credit for things, surely they can shoulder a bit of blame?”

  Three

  7 September, aboard HMS Nightingale, Zariah System

  Alexis stretched her back and grimaced. She’d been sitting for what seemed like hours as she met with Nightingale’s warrant officers. At least there was only the one left, Wileman, the purser, and then a second meeting with Villar.

  She’d originally planned to meet with him first — that was what was typically done. A new commander come aboard would meet with her first officer and get his opinion of the ship and crew. But after her initial meeting with the man, Alexis decided she didn’t entirely trust his judgment. She wanted to form her own opinion of the others before hearing his.

  The ceremony of reading herself in had, indeed, been nothing like she’d imagined. Villar might have struggled a bit to keep his own disappointment off his face, but he hadn’t succeeded. The assembled men had been respectful, but she’d seen their looks cut from her to Villar — some amused at his discomfiture and others angry. It appeared Villar was well-liked by some the crew and they already resented her presence.

  Isom cleared the opposite side of her table of a wineglass and replaced it with a fresh one in preparation for her next visitor.

&nb
sp; The last meeting had been with Corporal Brace of Nightingale’s Marine complement — only six of them and not rating a sergeant to command them. Brace was a typical Marine for a Queen’s ship, bluff and confident, but appeared a bit unsure when Alexis informed him that she intended to continue her practice of working out with the ship’s Marines in their unarmed combat drills. It wasn’t until she informed him that she’d been doing so since her first ship that he seemed to believe she was serious.

  Before Brace, she’d met with Nightingale’s bosun, gunner, and carpenter — Nightingale did not rate a sailing master, and the ship’s surgeon, Poulter, was off on Zariah station for some business of his own. All three were very much what she’d expect of warrants in a small ship. Young yet, but still experienced enough to gain their place, and a bit standoffish in their first meeting with their new commander. Wary of how open they could be, she surmised.

  She’d done her best to reassure them and hoped her decision to inspect Nightingale after meeting with them might go further toward that end. Some captains would inspect their new ship immediately after coming aboard, hoping to find things amiss or slack. By waiting, she hoped it was clear she expected Nightingale to be well-kept, but wasn’t going out of her way to catch them in some laxity.

  “You’ll need another bottle opened,” Isom said.

  Alexis nodded and rubbed her eyes. The courtesy of a glass, or more, of wine with each of her new officers was wearing on her as well. She’d not tried to match them glass-for-glass by any means, but she was still feeling the effects of so much wine in so little time.

  “Pussar, sar!” the Marine sentry at her hatchway called out with a rap on the hatch’s surface.

  Alexis fought a smile. That particular Marine’s accent was going to take a bit of getting used to.

  “Come through,” she answered.

  Wileman entered and Alexis suppressed her initial dislike. She thought little of ship’s pursers in general, who seemed to all be cut of the same tricksy, cheating cloth. She supposed it had something to do with the nature of the position attracting a certain sort of man.