Of Treasons Born Read online

  One of the men whispered, “Rotten crap for food.”

  Mr. Chief said, “Button it, Thurgood.”

  The “rotten crap” they ate was far better than the rotten crap Maja had served, though York thought it wise to keep that opinion to himself.

  York had left his civilian clothes in a heap next to the bunk, but when he returned to his cell they were gone.

  “You won’t need those anymore,” Mr. Chief told him.

  York’s days turned into a monotonous grind of sleeping and staring at the walls of his cell. The daily trip to the showers broke up the monotony a bit. Each morning, Mr. Chief marched them up there just before the second-watch rush—York wasn’t sure what second watch meant—and he learned quickly that he had a half-minute under chem wash to scrub down, then one minute of warm water to rinse off. But since he was low man on the shit list, they made him shower first, and “warm” didn’t apply to anything that came out of the spigot. The other four prisoners showered after him, which got them lukewarm water. York learned that part of their responsibility as prisoners was to warm up the showers for second watch.

  His third day in the cell, Sturpik marched up to the showers with them but wasn’t present when they went up to the mess hall. When they assembled for lunch, York learned he’d been released and returned to duty.

  At regular intervals, a speaker somewhere in the cellblock came to life, and a voice announced something to do with the ship, usually with a string of words that meant absolutely nothing to York. In the middle of York’s fourth day in the cell, he was waiting for the march to the mess hall for lunch—anything to break up the monotony—when the speaker came to life.

  Up-transition in ten minutes and counting. All hands stand by.

  It was the first time York understood anything that came out of the speaker. He’d heard of transition; it had something to do with traveling as fast as light—or faster, or something like that—and he wondered if it would make him sick or something. He noted the time on a small digital clock above the door to his cell, but he needn’t have bothered. The speaker gave a five-minute warning, then a one-minute warning, then a countdown from ten seconds. When the speaker said zero, York felt an odd little flutter crawl up the back of his spine, but that was all. He shrugged it off and continued his wait for lunch.

  The next day, after the morning shower, Mr. Chief pulled York aside while he locked up the other three prisoners. He gave York khaki coveralls with his last name stenciled above the left breast pocket. The word PRISONER was not stenciled on the back of the coveralls. “Put that on,” he said. “You ain’t a prisoner no more.”

  York said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Chief,” and started stripping down.

  “You don’t call me Mr. Chief. You call me just plain Chief, or Chief Zhako.”

  When York had finished putting on the new coveralls, Zhako clipped an ID card to his chest. York glanced at it and saw his own picture prominent on its surface. His reading skills were limited, but he knew enough to make out the details of his own identity. Beneath his picture were bright-red letters that said UNCONFIRMED.

  “It’s got a DNA trigger in it,” Zhako said. “Touch it with a finger.”

  York reached up and tapped it lightly, and the word UNCONFIRMED disappeared.

  Zhako said, “It needs to make contact with your skin to get a sample and confirm your identity. If anyone else touches it, it goes inactive and unconfirmed until you touch it again.”

  Zhako spun about. “Follow me.”

  Chief Zhako led him down steep ladders to two floors below the cellblock, which surprised York. The cellblock was located so far down in the ship he’d assumed they were as low as they could get. Zhako stopped outside a funny-shaped, open plast door and turned to York. He lowered his voice and said, “Listen to me, kid. Nobody but me, the master chief, the captain, and the XO know what you did as a civilian. And if you keep your mouth shut and work hard, no one ever needs to know. On the other side of this hatch, you get to start over, a second chance, so be sure you do something with that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t call me sir.”

  York kept his mouth shut and didn’t say anything.

  Zhako nodded once and turned back to the “hatch”—York was beginning to realize he’d have to learn a whole new language. He followed Zhako through the hatch into a long, narrow corridor that curved slowly to the right. The curve was quite shallow, but the room was long enough that he couldn’t see where it ended. Several groups of men and women were busy at one thing or another. They walked past one group that had some sort of apparatus disassembled, with tools and mechanical parts spread out on the floor. York spotted Sturpik in another group, though he didn’t acknowledge York as they passed him. York noticed several small, round hatches spaced about five meters apart in the wall on his left, and they appeared to extend the entire, unknown length of the curved room. One group of five people paused and looked their way as York and Zhako approached. A woman stepped forward, wiping her hands on a greasy rag.

  She said to Zhako, “So this is Ballin?”

  Her eyes settled on York and he saw no kindness there.

  Zhako said, “Spacer Apprentice York Ballin, this is Petty Officer Straight, your new boss. From now on, you do what she says.”

  She leaned close to York and said, “And you do it when I say, and how I say.”

  York wasn’t sure if he should call her ma’am, or sir, or what, so he kept his mouth shut as Zhako marched away and the woman and her four companions gathered around him. Straight introduced her crew. A girl named Zamekis appeared to be in her late teens, and a fellow named Marko seemed to be the oldest among them, with a man named Stark and a woman named Durlling both of ages somewhere between the two. All of them had some sort of insignia on their sleeves, where York’s sleeves were bare khaki.

  “Marko,” Straight said. “Tell Spacer Apprentice Ballin what he just became.”

  The older fellow stepped forward. He gave York a kindly smile and said, “Come here, Ballin.”

  He turned and walked over to one of the round hatches in the curved wall, so York followed him. He slapped the wall next to the hatch and said, “This here is Dauntless’s inner hull.”

  York asked, “Dauntless?”

  Marko frowned. “You don’t know the name of your ship?”

  Straight said, “He was pressed into service. Probably picked up in a sweep of undesirables.”

  Marko nodded; that seemed to satisfy him and the others. He held out his hands in a broad gesture. “You’re now part of the crew of Dauntless, an imperial medium cruiser, and as I said”—he slapped the wall again—“this is her inner hull, and this hatch leads to one of the pods on the outer hull. You know what a pod gunner is?”

  York shook his head. “No—” He’d almost finished by saying sir.

  “Well, kid,” Marko continued, “a pod gunner is almost the lowest form of life on ship. But you know what’s lower than a pod gunner?”

  York shook his head again.

  Marko grinned. “Us. We’re lower-deck pod gunners, and that makes us even lower. But there is one thing that’s lower than a lower-deck pod gunner, and that would be an apprentice lower-deck pod gunner. We only got one of them. Care to guess who that might be?”

  York said, “Me?” It came out in a squeak.

  Marko nodded. “You got that right, kid. You’re so low, you’re lower than the lowest. But when we’re done with you, you’re gonna be a lower-deck pod gunner.”

  Straight said, “Give the kid his first weapon.”

  Marko picked up a bucket of water and a sponge and handed them to York.

  Straight said, “Dirt’s your biggest enemy, Ballin. So take no prisoners.”

  He asked, “What should I clean?”

  Straight grinned. “Everything.”

  York got down on
his hands and knees and started scrubbing the floor.

  Straight and her crew broke for lunch, and while someone always complained about the food, York thought it quite good. After lunch, he went back to scrubbing the floor. They broke for dinner, then York followed them to the bunk room, and while the rest of them played cards or lounged about through the evening, Straight put him to work scrubbing the floor there. At the end of his first day as the lowest of the low, he was ready to drop into bed. He could barely keep his eyes open as they pointed him to a square, boxy recess in the bunk room.

  “There’s your coffin,” Straight said.

  At the look on his face, she grinned. “Pod gunners don’t get a real bunk on a ship this size. You get a stacked coffin and stim-sleep. Hope you aren’t claustrophobic.”

  York laid down in the coffin, it cycled closed, and he felt it moving as the ship’s systems stored him somewhere. And then he dreamed: about Cracky and Ten-Ten, about Maja and Toll, and the man who brought him to them. And in all of his dreams, a shadowy image of his mother hovered in the background. He tried to see through the haze of the dream, hoping to recall her face, but she remained wrapped in dark shadows.

  When he awoke, he sat up and slammed his nose into the top of the coffin. He tasted blood streaming out of his nose as the lid opened to a room full of bright lights and Straight’s crew.

  “Ah, kid,” Marko said, helping him stand, holding a somewhat clean rag to his nose. “We all made that mistake at one time or another. You’ll catch on.”

  York scrubbed a lot of floors, though he learned they weren’t called floors on a ship, they were decks. And the walls weren’t walls, they were bulkheads, just like doors were hatches and rooms weren’t rooms: big rooms were decks, like Hangar Deck, and Pod Deck, and Lower Pod Deck. Then he learned that some rooms were rooms, like the Engine Room. And some doors were doors, not hatches, like those on the officers’ staterooms. It left him quite confused.

  “Hey, kid.”

  On his hands and knees scrubbing the deck, York craned his neck to look up. Sturpik stood over him. York rose to his knees and said, “What can I do for you?”

  Sturpik leaned close to him. “Watch out for Straight. She’s a mean bitch, and snotty, and she ain’t doing her job.”

  York hadn’t formed an opinion of Straight one way or another. “What do you mean she ain’t doing her job?”

  Sturpik gave York’s bucket a nudge with his toe. “She’s supposed to be training you. You call this training? What are you learning you didn’t already know?”

  York couldn’t deny the truth of that. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”

  Sturpik shrugged and rolled his head from side to side. “You got more options than you think, kid. When you get some time off, look me up.”

  Sturpik was right. York had done nothing but scrub decks for days now. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid. Us gunners, we gotta stick together.”

  Sturpik wandered away, and York went back to scrubbing the deck.

  For ten days, York scrubbed decks from the moment he climbed out of his coffin until the moment he climbed back into it. Then one day after evening mess, as he picked up his bucket, Straight said, “Belay that, Ballin. XO wants you to start learning the regs.”

  “XO?” York asked.

  “Executive officer.”

  York returned the bucket to the maintenance closet and reported back to Straight. She and seven other petty officers shared a small bunk room where they slept in real bunks, not coffins. She had York sit next to her on her bunk, handed him a small reader, and said, “Read the first paragraph out loud and tell me what you think it means.”

  York looked at the jumble of symbols on the screen, and his gut tightened with fear. The first word he recognized. “The …” And the next few words. “naval … code of …” The next word was long, with a few characters he didn’t recognize. “Uh …”

  He noticed several of Straight’s roommates had paused and were looking his way.

  Straight’s eyes narrowed and she said, “You can read, can’t you?”

  York said, “Uh … a little.”

  “Ah, shit!” Straight said as she raised both hands and rubbed the sides of her temples.

  After that, York’s evenings were spent learning to read and write, with The Naval Code of Regulations as his primary lesson book.

  Chapter 3:

  Gotta Do Favors

  York came up out of stim-sleep to the sound of a loud horn blaring an irritating burp. The lights in his coffin flashed to full brightness, and a disembodied male voice said, “Watch Condition Red. All hands, this is not a drill. Repeat: This is not a drill. Battle stations.”

  No one had told York about battle stations, but any idiot could figure out it wasn’t good. As the rookie in Straight’s crew, he was assigned the top bunk, which meant he had to wait longest for his coffin to cycle out of storage. He waited while the horn continued to blare and the male voice repeated the call to battle stations. Then his coffin suddenly cycled into the bunk room and his reflexes took over. He’d practiced this move a dozen times now and was getting reasonably good at it. He sat up and at the same time killed the grav field in his bunk, let the deck gravity start him into a fall toward the deck. By hooking one hand on the edge of his bunk, he spun himself so he landed on his feet like a veteran, almost. He followed the others as they ran out of the bunk room. And now what?

  He stood there in his underwear, watching people rush about. Everyone had some purpose or destination to get to, everyone but him. Marko and Straight dropped into seats at a large console nearby. Marko glanced over his shoulder at York and said, “Get to your battle station, goddammit!”

  York said, “What’s a battle station?”

  At that, Straight looked over her shoulder and said, “Ah, shit!”

  That seemed to be the only thing she ever said regarding York. Her face screwed up into an angry scowl as she said, “Get over here.”

  York hotfooted it across the deck. She slapped him in the back of the head, pointed to the deck, and said, “Sit down against the console and stay there.”

  York dropped to the deck and pulled his knees up to his chest.

  When the loud horn stopped blaring, York closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the sounds around him. He heard the slap of booted feet crossing the deck at a run, heard a shout here, a grunt there, the clatter and whine of some mechanism being activated. But one by one, the sounds died and an oppressive silence settled over the ship.

  A woman’s voice echoed around them coming from a speaker somewhere—York had learned it was called allship. She identified herself as the captain, said something that York didn’t understand, then the silence returned and nothing happened for what felt like the longest time.

  York started as a vibration rippled through the deck where he sat, and the air echoed with a sound like a deep bass drum. It was repeated five more times.

  “Stay calm, kid,” Marko said. “That’s our main transition batteries echoing through the hull. That means we’re throwing shit at them, which is better than them throwing shit at us.”

  “Who is ‘them’?” York asked. “Who are we fighting?”

  “Feddies,” Marko said, and glanced his way. The look on York’s face must have prompted him to say more. “Warships of the Federal Directorate of the Republic of Syndon—feddies.”

  “What for?”

  Straight gave him an odd look, and Marko said, “Don’t know. War’s been going on since before I was born, probably be killing each other long after I’m dead.”

  York wasn’t sure what to think of that, and in the silence that followed he found he was holding his breath, had to force himself to breathe, but not overdo it. He heard the bass drum sound again several times, more silence, more drums, then a long, drawn-out silence. Then a voice ove
r allship, “Stand down to Watch Condition Yellow. All clear.”

  Marko leaned back from the console in front of him and let out a long sigh. He looked at Straight and said, “Did you forget to assign the kid a station?”

  Straight glanced down at York, a sour look on her face. She said it again, “Ah, shit.”

  “Don’t get mad at the kid,” Marko said. “It wasn’t his fault.”

  “We aren’t that far out,” Straight said. “I didn’t think we’d get into it yet.”

  She stood and said to York, “Come with me.”

  He jumped to his feet and followed her. She led him to a console with an empty seat. “This is your duty station. Any watch condition other than green—I don’t care if it’s yellow, red, or as brown as the shit in your pants—you run like hell to this seat, you sit down, you strap in, and you don’t touch nothing.”

  She turned around and marched away, leaving him standing there. He wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but there was no question Straight was not happy with him.

  Seated at the empty console during his free time, York struggled with the regs, which is what the veteran spacers called The Naval Code of Regulations. Too many of the words were big and long, and he had to sound them out carefully, never sure if he did it right. But after a month of sweating over the words during every moment of free time, he was getting better.

  “Hi, kid.”

  He’d been so focused on the small reader screen he hadn’t seen Sturpik approach. Next to the older man stood a younger fellow York guessed was probably in his late teens. He had blond hair cut in a buzz cut and a pimply face.

  “This here’s Tomlin,” Sturpik said, introducing Pimply Face. “Tomlin, meet Spacer Apprentice York Ballin.”

  Tomlin stuck his hand out and York shook it.