The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Fourteen

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Ted said, once the halting explanation had come to an end. “You’ve been having an illicit relationship since Alien-1, you’ve continued with the relationship ever since returning to Earth… and you are now being blackmailed. Correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Schneider said.

“You absolute idiot,” Ted said.

He shook his head in disbelief. Everyone knew that the regulations on sexual relations onboard ship were skirted more than anyone cared to admit, but there were limits. A relation between two people of different ranks would always suffer from a power imbalance, raising the prospect of coercion and naked force being used to push someone into bed. How could a relationship develop properly when one party could punish the other at will? And that, he knew, didn’t even take into consideration the damage it would do to morale.

Everyone would be looking at Schneider’s past decisions now, hunting for any signs of favouritism he might have shown towards his lover. She’d survived when so many others had died, Ted knew. Had she been deliberately kept out of the line of battle? And how many others had died when she should have died? He might have done nothing to help or hinder her career and it would still be disastrous to both of them. They should both be thrown into the brig, pending an investigation and court martial, followed by dishonourable discharge.

“It’s at times like this,” Ted continued, “that I wish we’d kept the lash, rather than rum and sodomy. What the hell were you two thinking?”

Rose Labara met his eyes evenly. “We were thinking we were about to die,” she said, simply. “We did not believe there would be any future for either of us.”

Ted understood. He’d almost crawled into a bottle when it seemed the aliens had them trapped in a dead end. Schneider and Rose had found what solace they could in each other’s arms — and if it had stopped there, it would probably have gone completely unnoticed. But instead, they’d kept up the affair and finally run into real trouble. Someone was using their affair as a weapon against Ark Royal and her crew.

“There may not be,” he said, bluntly. He silently awarded them both points for coming forward, even at the cost of their careers. “I doubt either of you can look forward to a comfortable life in future.”

“Yes, sir,” Schneider said. Oddly, he sounded a little relieved. “We will face whatever judgement you choose to mete out.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ted said, dryly. “I’m going to call the Captain and Major Parnell. The latter, in particular, has some counter-intelligence experience. You are going to sit down with him and go through everything that happened, right from the start, in the hopes of locating whoever is trying to blackmail you. Once this affair is finished…”

He paused, meeting their eyes. “Once this matter is finished, I will make my decision concerning your future,” he warned. “I suggest you don’t try to hold anything back.”

“Yes, sir,” they said, together.

“I can’t afford to take either of you off active duty and toss you into the brig, no matter how much you deserve it,” Ted added. “However, I will expect you to remember just how much trouble you’re in and refrain from doing anything that might arouse suspicion. You will not meet in private for any reason. Do you understand me?”

The two lovers exchanged glances, then nodded reluctantly. Ted was old enough to be Schneider’s father — barely — but he wasn’t so old he’d forgotten what it was like to be in love. They had to have developed feelings for one another or they wouldn’t have stayed together after their first return to Earth. Being told they could not see one another would hurt.

But they could have done a great deal of damage if they’d been caught earlier, he thought, crossly. He had never been one to care about what his crew did on their time off — he knew standards had slipped a great deal while Ark Royal had floated uselessly in the Naval Reserve — but this was different. This could have seriously damaged his ship’s reputation.

He considered his options, briefly. It was the Captain who would have the final responsibility for deciding their fate — or it would have been, if the two pilots hadn’t been mixed up in blackmail and espionage. Fitzwilliam could have punished them how he saw fit and the Admiralty would not have objected, not when they were reluctant to cast doubt on a Captain’s role as master of his ship. But with intelligence staffers mixed up in the whole affair… Ted knew they might be offered amnesty in exchange for cooperation. Or they might be put in front of a court martial board afterwards anyway, no matter what they did.

“Dismissed,” he said, quietly. “I expect you to inform me the moment they get in touch with you. And don’t fuck up.”

He watched them leave, then tapped his console and called both Fitzwilliam and Major Parnell to his office. The Marine had a nasty scar running down the side of his face that hadn’t been there before, Ted noted, but he didn’t ask any questions. Everyone, even the Marines, had been suffering badly from emotional whiplash since the return to Earth. They’d probably resorted to boxing matches to keep their skills up.

“We have a problem,” he said, bluntly. He recorded all conversations in his office, thankfully. “You need to listen to this.”

Captain Fitzwilliam said nothing until the recording came to an end, then swore. “Someone is trying to blackmail one of my crewmen?”

“Yes,” Ted said, shortly. It was a particularly nasty case, he had to admit. Schneider wasn’t the only one at risk. His family — and his lover — would also be imperilled if the recordings were released. “And they may have more complex motives than money.”

“It is a pity we don’t have the original recording,” Parnell observed. “It would be informative to have some idea of just where they were filmed.”

“That raises another set of questions,” Ted agreed. “What are we dealing with here?”

Parnell considered it slowly. “I think they’re right and its someone international,” he said. “A spy — probably more than one — is on the ship.”

“Wonderful,” Ted said. “We have three foreign ambassadors, thirty-two foreign support staff of various ranks and a handful of others.”

“But the spy might be a British crewman,” Parnell said. “Although in that case approaching Schneider and applying blackmail might be unnecessary.”

He shook his shaved head. “They will need something they believe Schneider can get for them,” he added. “Otherwise there would be no point in playing the blackmail card too soon.”

“Those stupid idiots,” Fitzwilliam said. “What the hell were they thinking?”

“That they didn’t have long to live,” Parnell said, quietly.

He looked down at the deck, thinking hard. “With your permission, Captain, I would like to bring a couple of other Marines into the loop and start working on ways to catch the spy,” he said. “He’ll have to make contact with Schneider at some point or the whole affair will be worse than useless. When he does, we’ll have an opportunity to catch him and cart him off for interrogation.”

“Which will open a whole new can of worms if the spy is on an ambassador’s staff,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. “They have diplomatic immunity.”

“Diplomatic immunity is not a licence to spy,” Parnell countered. “We might not be able to try the spy and throw him out the airlock, but we could put him in the brig until we returned to Earth.”

Ted nodded. “We need to know why they’re doing this,” he said, softly. “What do they have in mind?”

“Sabotage the ship?” Parnell suggested. “Or perhaps make it impossible to come to terms with the aliens?”

“They’d have to be out of their minds,” Fitzwilliam said. “The war is on the verge of being lost!”

“Some people rarely believe that disaster, even a lost war with an alien race, can touch them,” Parnell said. “That’s why the Barbary States sometimes send raiders over to Europe, even though they can expect massive retaliation from orbit. Their leaders are so secure in their own power they think nothing and no one can touch them.”

“…Idiots,” Fitzwilliam said. He smiled, suddenly. “Although I know a number of aristocrats who act like that, I suppose.”

He met Ted’s eyes. “What do we do with them?”

“I’d suggest offering a honourable discharge in exchange for cooperation,” Parnell said. He held up a hand before Fitzwilliam could say a word. “I know you will want to throw the book at them, Captain, but we don’t want to discourage others from coming forward.”

“I see,” Fitzwilliam said. “But if we’re not going to tell anyone about this… affair, Major, how will they know we were merciful?”

“Some details may be released later, once everyone is safety dispersed,” Parnell said. “And I would caution you against believing that something will remain secret indefinitely. This affair certainly did not.”

“True,” Ted said. He looked at Fitzwilliam. “A honourable discharge?”

Fitzwilliam nodded, once.

As a child — back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, according to Percy — Kurt had stolen some money from his mother. He’d had a good reason at the time, he’d thought, but guilt had overwhelmed him almost at once. Eventually, he’d returned the money and made a full confession. His mother had been furious and confined him to the house for the next month, but he’d felt better after admitting his guilt. He’d done something wrong and knew it, no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise.

He felt much the same, now, as they made their way to the gallery. It was far from private, he knew, but it was rare for pilots to eat outside Pilot Country. He knew his life had been irreparably damaged, that he might have dragged down Rose and his children too, yet he felt better for having confessed. The die had been cast and now he could think clearly again. He led the way into the compartment, took a large cup of coffee from the dispenser and sat down at a table on the far side of the room. Rose sat, facing him, a second later.

“That was very brave,” she said.

Kurt snorted. Bravery was one of the defining traits of starfighter pilots, along with a reckless disregard for danger or official flying regulations. Most of them were written by desk jockeys and pasty-faced bureaucrats, none of whom had any real experience flying starfighters. Flying a starfighter into the teeth of alien fire took real nerve. But he’d never really done anything that risked his family before.

“I suppose,” he said, finally. He wanted to hug her, to tell her that it would be all right, but he knew he could do neither. “And I’m sorry.”

Rose pointed a finger at him, like the barrel of a gun. “Stop apologising for everything,” she said, tartly. “I made my own decisions.”

Kurt took a sip of his coffee, grimaced at the taste and then took another sip. “Yes, but I’m the one being blackmailed,” he said. “That makes it my fault.”

“I think you’re the most vulnerable,” Rose pointed out. “You have a family — and the higher rank. I could just have told them to piss off.”

She was right, Kurt knew. If she’d been willing to throw him under a bus, she could have claimed he’d pushed her into sex, promising promotion as a reward. It was quite likely it would have worked too. Senior officers were expected to handle themselves better than their juniors.

He jumped as a hand fell on his shoulder. When he looked up, he found himself staring into the eyes of Major Parnell. The Marine looked… emotionless, no pity or anger in his eyes.

“You’re nicked, my lad,” the Marine said. “We need to talk.”

“Yes, sir,” Kurt said. He looked at Rose. “Go put them through another training simulation.”

He allowed the Marine to lead him through the ship’s corridors and into Marine Country, where he was unceremoniously pushed into a small room. There was nothing inside, but a metal desk, a pair of chairs and a water cooler. The table was completely bare.

“Sit,” Parnell ordered. He strode around the desk and sat facing Kurt. “I said sit.”

Kurt sat. The chair was thoroughly uncomfortable.

“You’re in a right spot of bother,” Parnell said, bluntly. “The good news is that the Admiral and the Captain have agreed that you and your… lover will be offered a honourable discharge at the end of the deployment. Once discharged, any footage your friends might have of the pair of you will become about as worthless as a standard piece of voyeuristic crap.”

“Oh,” Kurt said. Having footage of a civilian caught in sexual acts on the datanet would be embarrassing for the victim, but hardly newsworthy. It was more than he’d dared hope for, which probably meant it came with a price. “And what is the catch?”

Parnell smiled. It didn’t touch his eyes. “The bad news is that you’ll be expected to do everything in your power to help us identify the people trying to blackmail you,” he said. “And I mean everything.”

He tapped the table. “I wish you’d brought this to us before we left Earth,” he added. “We could have followed up leads right there and then. Instead… we will only be able to focus on this ship and crew. Tracking down the people behind your friends will be tricky.”

“Yes, sir,” Kurt said.

“I know you probably weren’t thinking too clearly,” Parnell added. He jabbed a finger at Kurt to make his point. “You’d just been shocked badly. However, this is the time to think clearly. We are going to go over everything.”

He settled back in his chair. “You’re not under arrest,” he warned. “However, I am obliged to warn you of several things. This conversation will be recorded and it will be entered into the official investigative log. Should you be caught in a lie, it will be held against you when the Admiralty and MI5 consider your position. My very strong advice would be to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth.”

He paused. “I suggest you pour yourself a glass of water,” he added. “This could take quite some time.”

Kurt nodded and obeyed. When he returned to his chair, Parnell had a datapad open in front of him and was skimming the pages, clearly looking for questions to ask. Or was he just pretending to be distracted? It was impossible to tell.

“First question, then,” Parnell said. “Precisely what happened on the day you were told that someone else had footage of your sex life?”

Kurt braced himself, then went through the entire story. Parnell was a good interrogator, he rapidly discovered; every time he was unsure about a detail, he asked questions until it was clarified to the best of Kurt’s ability. Kurt hadn’t realised how much he’d seen or heard until Parnell teased it out of him, although much of what he hadn’t realised he’d forgotten was largely useless. Fred’s identity was still a complete mystery.

“It sounds like a professional,” Parnell said. “Did you hear an accent?”

“No, sir,” Kurt said.

“Definitely a professional,” Parnell said. “You probably wouldn’t have noticed an accent if he worked his tones to sound like you. Chances are his face was the result of some cosmetic surgery too. He’d change again as soon as he left Luna City, making it impossible to track him down.”

Kurt swore. “Is it hopeless then?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Parnell said. “Where was the footage taken?”

“I think it was in Sin City,” Kurt said.

Parnell lifted his eyebrows. “And what were you doing in Sin City?”

Kurt glared at him. “What do people normally do in Sin City?”

“They don’t normally bring their partners,” Parnell pointed out.

“We wanted to share a hotel room without having to be discreet,” Kurt said. It had been a fine weekend, marred only by the fact they’d had to split up to return to the Academy. And by the fact the hotel manager kept offering to send a girl — or a boy — up to their room. “You know their reputation for secrecy.”

Parnell snorted. “That is a joke, right?”

“…Yes,” Kurt said.

“Tell me,” Parnell ordered. “How do you know the footage was shot in Sin City?”

Kurt took a breath. “It was the hotel room,” he said, firmly. “It wasn’t my office or quarters at Luna Academy.”

“There are — there were — no shortage of intelligence officers prowling through Sin City,” Parnell muttered. He glared down at the desk, then looked up. “How long did you spend there?”

“A weekend,” Kurt said. “We booked in Friday evening and left Sunday, mid-afternoon.”

“And where else did you go?” Parnell asked. “Or did you just stay there?”

“Yes,” Kurt said. They’d been reluctant to go anywhere else, knowing they might be seen by someone else from the Academy. “We ordered room service and stayed together.”

“She must really like you,” Parnell said. “Of course, losing Sin City means following up that angle of investigation won’t be easy.”

Kurt cursed. The aliens, deliberately or otherwise, had destroyed Sin City. Anyone who might have been involved in planting cameras in hotel rooms was probably dead.

“Maybe they did it deliberately,” he mused. “What if the blackmailers are working for the aliens?”

Parnell shrugged. “It seems unlikely,” he said. “They wouldn’t need to blow up Sin City to cover their tracks. All it would take is a knife in the back.”

He stood. “We’ll be doing this again tomorrow,” he added. “I suggest you make sure you free up some time on your schedule. We will be going over this time and time again until they actually get in touch.”

Kurt nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, sir,” he said.