Fear God and Dread Naught Read Free Page B

she launched herself into a series of calisthenics that - she hoped - would burn up a little energy.  She couldn't help feeling flabby after a month of inactivity, even though she’d tried hard to keep up with her exercise routines.  Not knowing what was going to happen to her was the worst.
     
    But I would do it again , she told herself, firmly.  Whatever the price, I would do it again.
     
    The thought made her scowl.  Thanks to the unnamed officers, she’d gone through the whole deployment, from her assignment to Vanguard to her ship’s return to Sol, and she knew she would do the same thing twice, even despite knowing it might see her put in front of a wall and shot.  It was hard to be sure how many lives she’d saved, but she knew that Captain Blake - wherever he was now - wouldn't have saved anyone .  She wondered, idly, if Captain Blake was currently bad-mouthing her to the Admiralty or if he'd taken advantage of the opportunity to quietly resign.  It was what she would have done, in his place.
     
    And he lost a ship to something that might well be termed a mutiny , she thought, darkly.  He won’t get another command .
     
    She smiled at the thought as she felt sweat running down her back.  Captain Blake hadn't been a monster, not like the legendary Captain Bligh, but she didn't regret her actions.  Blake had frozen up in combat, something that could easily have gotten the entire ship destroyed before he recovered himself or his superiors ordered him removed from command.  She might have pitied him, once upon a time, if he’d simply resigned when he realised he had a problem, but he’d stayed in the command chair.  And his reluctance to admit his own weakness had nearly cost him the ship.  It had certainly cost him his command - and any hope of flag rank.
     
    There was a tap on the hatch.  Susan straightened up, glanced down at her sweat-stained underwear, then shrugged as she tapped the switch to open the hatch.  There was no point in trying to be modest, not in a prison suite.  She would have been astonished if there weren't pick-ups scattered all over the compartment, monitoring her every move.  She’d rarely had any real privacy since she’d joined the navy - she’d certainly never had a private cabin until she’d been promoted to lieutenant - but it galled her.  She was, at base, a prisoner.
     
    The hatch hissed open, revealing a grim-faced military policeman.  Susan turned to face him, absently admiring the man’s professionalism.  But then, Titan Base had to be heaven when redcaps normally spent their days wrestling drunken squaddies in garrison towns or rooting spacers out of spaceport bars an hour before their shuttles were due to leave.  Susan might be in hot water, but she was neither drunk nor dangerous.  And even if she did decide to escape, getting off Titan Base would be damn near impossible.  No one had escaped since the base had been founded, over a century ago.
     
    “Onarina,” the redcap said.  He didn't address her by rank.  They never did.  “You have been ordered to meet a visitor in thirty minutes.  Shit, shower and then knock on the hatch for relief.”
     
    He turned without waiting for an acknowledgement and strode out of the chamber, the hatch hissing closed behind him.  Susan frowned, thinking hard.  A visitor?  The representative she’d requested?  Or a government lawyer coming to lay down the law?  It was nice to think that her friends or family would be clamouring to see her, but she knew it was extremely unlikely.  Her civilian friends - and her father - wouldn't be permitted on Titan Base, while her military friends had probably been advised to have as little contact with her as possible until her fate was decided.  She'd done everything she could to ensure that the blame could only fall on her, but she knew - all too well - that others would probably be smeared too.  A single person turning on her would have been enough to keep her