[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Read online

  “That would have made life difficult,” John agreed. “And Turner?”

  “He forced her into assisting him,” Hadfield said. He sounded disgusted, unsurprisingly. “But we will have to verify that for ourselves.”

  “We’ll hold the Captain’s Mast tomorrow,” John decided. He knew it would be nothing more than a formality, now that Cole had - reluctantly - confessed. “Check Turner, then we can decide her fate tomorrow too.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Hadfield said.

  Chapter Twelve

  “This is a travesty of justice,” Cole moaned, as he waited in the tiny compartment. “You shouldn't be doing this to me.”

  “The prisoner will be silent,” Percy said, without looking at Cole. The man was pathetic; easily old enough to be Percy’s father, he’d wasted his career and dragged down a young and impressionable crewwoman. “The prisoner will have a chance to plead his case before the commanding officer.”

  He scowled, inwardly, as Cole subsided into dark mutterings. The Royal Marines might serve as the navy’s police, at least onboard ship, but it wasn't a role he enjoyed. Breaking up fist fights among the crew was one thing; marching a crewman to face his commanding officer and an almost-certain death penalty was quite another. But who else was there to do the job? Besides, he'd seen the transcripts from the interrogations. Frank Cole was as guilty as sin.

  His radio bleeped. “Bring the prisoner into the court,” Hadfield ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Percy said.

  He nodded to Private Hardesty, standing on the other side of Cole, and took Cole’s arm. Hardesty took the other one and together they frogmarched Cole through the hatch and into the wardroom. Cole moaned as they entered the compartment, perhaps realising for the first time that his life was about to come to an end. The Captain was sitting at the far end of the room, flanked by his XO and a Lieutenant-Commander Percy didn’t recognise, while a handful of crewmen - witnesses - were seated to one side. Philip Richards was standing next to the prisoner’s chair, which stood alone in the centre of the room. Percy nodded politely to him, then forced Cole to sit and cuffed him to the chair. Once the task was done, he withdrew to the rear of the compartment.

  “This Captain’s Mast is now in session,” the Captain said. “Lieutenant-Commander Howard will read the charges, then detail the evidence against the suspect.”

  The Lieutenant-Commander rose to his feet. “Engineering Officer Frank Cole is charged with theft of military supplies, falsification of maintenance reports, corruption of a junior officer, directly sabotaging HMS Warspite and indirectly causing injuries to nine crewmen, including two that may result in said crewmen being permanently beached.”

  He took a breath, then continued. “Frank Cole recorded a number of components as having been replaced on schedule, when - in reality - the older components were left in place while the newer components were sold to civilian shipping interests. His name on the maintenance reports was enough to warrant an investigation, which turned up further evidence of his activities. Frank Cole, during the nine months he was assigned to HMS Warspite, sold over five hundred thousand pounds worth of military-grade equipment. In doing so, he was directly responsible for the power failure we suffered a day ago.”

  There was a long pause. “Mr. Richards,” the Captain said. “Does your client wish to enter a plea?”

  Percy winced, inwardly. He was no legal expert, but it was clear that the whole case was open and shut. Cole’s evidence alone, given under the influence of truth drugs, was more than enough to convict him. And, given the disaster he had caused, the Captain had ample grounds to hang him in front of his former comrades. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if there was any point in holding the Captain’s Mast.

  “My client does not wish to enter a plea,” Richards said.

  No surprises there, Percy thought. What would be the point?

  He looked at Cole’s head, feeling an odd burst of pity. What could Cole say that could do anything more than annoy the Captain, who was standing in judgement? This was no harmless prank that had gotten out of hand, no case of spacers drinking themselves into a stupor when they were off-duty ... there could be no excuse that justified Cole’s actions. He hadn't been blackmailed into submission, or forced to hand over the components on pain of death, or anything else that might serve as an excuse. He’d just wanted money.

  My father was always loyal to the Navy, he thought. Even when the Navy beached him, he was loyal to it and remained a reservist. And in the end, he died for it.

  “All rise,” the Captain said, after a brief conversation with the XO. “Mr. Cole. This court finds you guilty. You will be taken from this place and hung in front of your former comrades, the men and women you betrayed, unless you wish to choose another form of execution. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

  Hadfield cleared his throat. “Remove the prisoner,” he ordered.

  Percy stepped forward, released Cole from the restraints and manhandled him towards the hatch. The condemned man seemed in shock, unable to believe he’d just been sentenced to death; Percy couldn't help wondering just how he’d thought he’d be able to escape justice, let alone punishment. He’d signed a lie into the maintenance logs, using his own name. There was no way he could have escaped detection indefinitely.

  Perhaps he planned to jump ship before we met our original departure date, Percy thought, ruefully. Plenty of people got lost on Earth after the bombs fell.

  He shoved Cole into the small cell, then turned and walked to the second holding compartment. Lillian Turner was sitting inside, her hands cuffed behind her back and her pale face streaked with tears. She wasn't much older than Penny, Percy saw, and she was staring down the barrel of a death sentence. He couldn't help feeling a flicker of pity, even though it was something he knew he should avoid. Pretty girls had been used to smuggle IEDs up to British soldiers in the past, relying on the troops being reluctant to shoot at young ladies or children. It had worked too, he recalled. The Sergeants who’d supervised their first live-fire exercise had told them that such tactics had dissuaded the West from doing anything more than punitive strikes in the Third World.

  “Bring in the second prisoner,” Hadfield ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” Percy said.

  He helped Lillian Turner to her feet, then escorted her down the corridor and into the wardroom.

  ***

  John studied Lillian Turner as she was cuffed to the chair, thinking hard. She was a victim as much as a victimiser, used and manipulated by Frank Cole to ensure his little deception lasted longer than the time it would take for his work to be rechecked. What should have been a decent working relationship had become something darker, something poisonous ... whatever else could be said about Cole, he decided, he’d been a master manipulator.

  But Lillian Turner couldn't be allowed to get away with everything, either.

  Poor bitch, he thought, as the Marine retreated to the rear of the room. It was easy to condemn someone like her for being weak-minded, yet he knew it was often hard to blend into the crew. What are we going to do with her?

  “Lieutenant-Commander Howard will read the charges,” he said. “Begin.”

  Howard rose to his feet. “Engineering Officer Lillian Turner is charged with theft of military supplies, falsification of maintenance reports, directly sabotaging HMS Warspite and indirectly causing injuries to nine crewmen, including two that may result in said crewmen being permanently beached.”

  Almost the exact same charges we threw at Cole, John thought.

  He leaned forward as Howard sat down. “Mr. Richards,” he said. “Does your client wish to enter a plea?”

  “My client does,” Richards said. He’d spent more time with Lillian Turner than with Cole, although John couldn't blame him. Cole stood condemned out of his own mouth. “My client, inexperienced in the ways of the world, allowed her superior, Frank Cole, to manipulate her into a compromising position, then blackmail her into s
ubmission. She believed, from the very bottom of her heart, that any attempt to reveal her situation would destroy her life. It did not seem as though there was any way to escape.”

  He paused, dramatically. “My client acknowledges that she made mistakes and became involved in criminal activities,” he added. “However, she is also determined to make up for her mistakes and serve the Royal Navy well in the future.”

  John considered it. Legally, he didn't have to condemn Lillian Turner to death. It might be questioned, when the Board of Inquiry was finally held, but it wouldn't be held against him. She was young, she had had a good record before Cole had managed to lure her into his clutches ... and she did have promise. But, on the other hand, justice had to be seen to be done. Lillian Turner would certainly have no future on Warspite. Even if someone didn't stick a knife in her, she would never be trusted again.

  He rose to his feet, carefully formulating his words. “Lillian Turner,” he said. “The charges against you are serious. You could be executed for your crimes. Do you understand me?”

  Lillian Turner nodded, once. She didn't say a word.

  “However, you have also been a victim,” John continued. “Accordingly, we will offer you a choice. You will be held in the brig until we reach our destination, whereupon you will be transferred to Clarke III to serve as the Colony Governor sees fit. You will be, to all intents and purposes, an indentured labourer. Your future status will depend upon how hard you work; no matter what happens, you may never be allowed to leave the colony.

  “Alternatively, you will be held in the brig until we return to Earth, whereupon you will be transferred to Colchester Military Detention Centre for a period of not less than ten years,” he added. “Once you have completed your sentence, you will be dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy, with a black mark on your record that will ensure you will no longer find work in space. Your future will no longer be our problem.”

  He studied her for a long moment. Life on a newborn colony would be hard, particularly a colony on such an inhospitable world. But it would be better than life in the Colchester Glasshouse. It was considered one of the least pleasant prisons in the world, certainly for its guests who were long-term residents. Only the Luna Penal Facility, on the dark side of the moon, was regarded as tougher and thoroughly escape-proof.

  “You will be held in the brig until we reach Clarke III,” he concluded. “You will be provided with reading materials concerning the planet and future colony plans. At that moment, you will have to decide where you want to go. I suggest you think carefully about your future, then make up your mind.”

  He looked at the Marines. “Remove the prisoner,” he ordered. “The court is now dismissed.”

  Lillian Turner was marched out of the cell, her face dripping with fresh tears. John watched as she left, then turned his attention to Richards. The older officer was looking down at the deck, his face pale and wan. John understood, although it wasn't something he could say in public. Being a defender was never fun, particularly when there was no chance of actually winning the case. The role was nothing more than a meaningless formality, intended more for the Board of Inquiry than anything else.

  “Please inform me of how Mr. Cole would like to meet his maker,” John said, once everyone else had left the room.

  “Old age, probably,” Richards said. He smiled, humourlessly. “There are drugs that simulate the aging process, sir, if one takes them with proper medical attention.”

  “Perhaps not something anyone wants to think about,” John said, ruefully. There was no shortage of treatments for extending one’s life - several asteroid colonies had even pioneered genetically-engineered children they swore would live for over a thousand years - but he’d never heard of anyone wanting to speed up their aging. “Are you all right?”

  “I have been better, sir,” Richards said. “You went out on a limb for Lillian Turner, I noted.”

  “Yes,” John said, flatly.

  The Board of Inquiry would question his decision, he knew. It was what they did. If he’d been willing to execute one of his crew, they would ask, why hadn’t he been willing to execute his partner-in-crime? But, in the end, Lillian Turner had been seduced, lured to the dark side so carefully that she hadn't realised the danger until it was far too late. John sometimes wondered what he would have done, if he’d been manipulated into a compromising position. It was easy to say he would go to his superiors and confess, but in reality it was never so easy to do the right thing.

  And my superiors would have been looking for someone to blame, he thought. They might blame me too, even though I confessed.

  “I think she deserves a chance,” he said, firmly. “Besides, being on Clarke isn't going to be that different from being in the Glasshouse.”

  “Worse food,” Richards said, at once. “I dare say you can't feed prisoners on the slop colonists get to eat, during their first months on the hellhole.”

  John smiled. “True,” he said. “Let me know about Mr. Cole. I’ll be in my office.”

  He walked back to his cabin, called for a cup of tea from Midshipwoman Powell, then started to write out the formal report while the whole affair was still fresh in his mind. The Board of Inquiry would be interested in his immediate reactions, as well as his later reflections. He was midway through the report when there was a chime at the hatch. When it opened, Richards stepped into the cabin.

  “Captain,” he said. “Mr. Cole has requested that he be executed by being spaced.”

  John blinked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir,” Richards said. He held up a datapad. “I have his signed request here.”

  “I see,” John said. Spacers were superstitions, sometimes, about having their bodies left in space. Being killed on active service, their bodies blown to bits or completely vaporised, was one thing, and being buried in space was quite another, but deliberately choosing to dive into the darkness of space to die was something else. “Did he have any other last requests?”

  “He recorded a pair of messages for his closest relatives,” Richards informed him. “But I don’t think there was anything else.”

  John glanced at the chronometer hanging on the bulkhead. “The sentence will be carried out in one hour,” he said, finally. Thankfully, repairing the damage Cole had caused hadn't taken as long as he’d feared. “We’ll get underway immediately afterwards.”

  “Yes, sir,” Richards said.

  “If he’s religious, see if there's someone who shares his faith who will spend the last hour with him,” John said. Fleet carriers carried a dedicated chaplain, but Warspite was too small to carry unnecessary crewmen. “And then do what you can to prepare him for death.”

  “Aye, sir,” Richards said.

  John couldn't help wondering, as the minutes ticked down to the moment of execution, why Cole had chosen to die in space. Was it a final act of love for the interplanetary void or a gesture of pointless defiance, aimed at John and the rest of the crew? Spacing wasn't the only method of execution he could have chosen, but it was the only one with superstitious connotations. In a way, it was a form of suicide, the abandonment of everything that kept humanity alive in the interstellar void.

  He could have overruled Cole, he knew. Regulations allowed him considerable leeway. He could have ordered him hung, or executed through lethal injection. But it was well to honour Cole’s last request.

  When the time came, he walked down to the main airlock and stood by the hatch as Cole was marched down, his hands bound behind his back, and pushed into the small chamber. His eyes were flickering from face to face, as if he’d expected a last-minute reprieve, but John knew there would be none. There was no way to excuse Cole’s actions without undermining shipboard discipline - and, unlike Lillian Turner, Cole couldn't be dumped on Clarke. He was too manipulative a bastard to be let loose among the colonists.

  Behind him, Lillian Turner stood, her face pale. John felt a flicker of pity, which he savagely suppressed. She needed
to see Frank Cole die, both as a warning and proof she’d finally escaped his grip. But watching him die wouldn't be easy for her. She stood between two Marines, looking tiny compared to them, and watched.

  Poor bitch, John thought, again.

  “Frank Cole,” he said, once the Marines had stepped backwards. “You have been found guilty of the charges laid against you. For those charges, you are sentenced to death. Do you have anything you wish to say before sentence is carried out?”

  Cole glared at him, but said nothing.

  John reached for the control panel and tapped his override into the system, then closed the hatch. It rolled closed slowly, cutting off his view of the older man as he stood there. John wondered, in a moment of insight, if Cole had intended to force John to execute him personally, rather than leave it to the Marines. But in the end, it hardly mattered.

  “May God have mercy on your soul,” John said.