27

Kyle had read the pages and pages of text, across hundreds of design and engineering articles, in which Castle Federation warship designers justified, excused, and allowed for the green space atrium they insisted on installing on their ships.

It served as a reserve source of oxygen. It added a clean feel to the air that no artificial filters could replicate. It was necessary for the crew’s morale.

Most of these arguments had some degree of truth to them, but he suspect it all boiled down to one key factor those articles carefully didn’t mention: tradition.

The colony ship Guinevere that had carried the first colonists on their two-year Alcubierre-Stetson drive voyage to the Castle system had been built around an atrium to keep the colonists sane, so all large ships built by Castle and her daughter systems would have an atrium.

The new Avalon’s atrium was smaller than some he’d seen, but was still a forty meter wide, ten meter tall, and hundred meter long green space in the heart of the warship. Most of the maintenance was done by the crew on a volunteer basis, which had never stopped the atrium on any ship he’d served on being perfectly arranged and maintained.

He took a moment to take a deep breath of the air. Surrounded by trees and greenery, there was definitely something fresher about the air in the atrium. He was probably going to need the energy.

Peng had asked to meet him here, near the small, tree-shrouded, shrine tucked away in one corner for the crew’s Stellar Spiritualists. The single largest ‘religion’ both on Castle and in the Federation, despite its lack of formal structure, always had a similar shrine Federation warships.

While the Navy followed a policy of almost always approving requests for space for worship, most of the Federation’s largest religious groups tended to setup shrines in the atriums. The volunteers shaped the trees and greenery to conceal them from the main open areas, but everyone always knew where to find the Spiritualists, the Wiccans, the Christians or the Buddhists. Smaller groups might have spaces as well, but those four were almost always present on a Federation warship.

“Captain,” Wa greeted him, the Master Sergeant materializing out of the bushes with a suddenness that shocked him. “Thank you for coming.”

“What’s this about?” he asked, but she shook her head and gestured for him to follow her.

Hidden behind the trees was a small auditorium, assembled from Navy-issue furniture and a few specific pieces brought in by the Spiritualists themselves. At the center was a slowly rotating hologram of the galaxy, a view onto the stars the Spiritualists venerated. They didn’t, as he understood it, worship the stars. They just recognized the stars as both the natural beginning and the natural end of all life.

Kyle didn’t pretend to understand it. What he did recognize was that the dozen non-coms and junior officers waiting in the auditorium had all served aboard the battlecruiser Thermopylae.

Waiting at the front was Chief Hammond, in a wheelchair and wrapped in a full-torso medical cast. He nodded slightly to Peng and turned his ever-stolid gaze on his Captain.

“With the com restrictions, there isn’t much reliable news making it through the ship,” he said hoarsely. “But rumors spread regardless, and I guess we needed to hear it from you, Captain. Thermopylae… was she lost?”

“I’ll have to talk to the department heads,” Kyle noted, trying to marshal his thoughts and emotions. “News should be getting through – especially to the senior NCOs.”

He sighed and took one of the nearest seats. From the expressions around him, they all guessed what he had to say now.

“The Commonwealth raided Midori,” he told them gently. “Another one of Walkingstick’s attritional attacks, though on a larger scale than the rest. The Alliance lost four ships – and yes, Thermopylae was one of them.

“There were survivors,” he continued. “I will make certain that the list is propagated.” He shook his head.

“I hadn’t considered that impact of the coms restrictions,” Kyle admitted. “I’ll make arrangements – news will make it out.”

“It’s an intentional part of Level Two restrictions, boss,” Hammond pointed out. “Information that doesn’t make it onto Avalon can’t be betrayed by someone on Avalon.”

“I know,” the Captain agreed. “But while we may need delays or to limit information, data that is reaching us should be distributed. I’m sorry,” he told them. “I can’t tell you if your friends aboard Thermopylae are among the survivors, but I will make sure you can find out as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, sir,” Peng said softly. Her gaze went to the series of candles around the hologram of the galaxy. “We suspected. But with the lives of friends… we wanted to know. We will light a candle for the fallen.”

Kyle bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. He’d put word in a few ears himself. The Stellar Spiritualists weren’t the only ones with lost friends, and there’d be more than one candle lit once the news spread.

“In short, sir, ma’am, we have completely failed to find any evidence of the spy,” Barsamian reported calmly. The young Lieutenant Major sat at attention in the chair in Solace’s office, and Kyle watched her with some amusement.

The focus of the Major’s attention was mostly on him, as the recipient of the report, but her gaze kept drifting to Solace. It was a nervous twitch he normally saw in inexperienced male officers… usually dealing with Commander Pendez, who tended to disable young male brains.

“I have to admit,” he said after a moment, focusing his attention on the matter on hand, “that having someone who’s tried to kill both myself and Stanford aboard and not having the slightest clue who they are makes me… twitchy.”

“I’d suggest we could upgrade the security on your quarters, sir, but…” the dark-skinned Ship’s Marshal shrugged. “Your quarters, the Admiral’s, the CAG’s and the XOs are the most secure on the ship. Unless you want me to provide guards on your quarters and a twenty-four-hour MP escort, I’m not sure what else we can do, sir.”

Kyle grimaced. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the level of distance a Captain required as it was – adding an armed guard to that did not sound appealing.

“I doubt we’re likely to see armed assassins in the corridors,” he said mildly. “We’ll pass on the guards for now. Let me know if anything breaks, Major.”

“I will, sir. With your permission?”

“Of course, be on your way,” Kyle ordered cheerfully.

With a nod to Kyle and a nod that was almost a slight bow to Solace, the Ship’s Marshal bowed out of Solace’s office.

“I think our young Lieutenant Major has a bit of a crush on you, Commander Solace,” Kyle told his exec with a brilliant grin.

“Wait, what?” Solace demanded, her cheeks flushing. It was a good look on her dark skin, and Kyle’s smile widened.

“Either that, or she thinks you’re the assassin, and it didn’t seem like that kind of distracted look,” he pointed out.

The flush was even brighter.

“There’s nothing wrong with a crush,” his XO managed to say levelly, “so long as no violation of the chain of command or anything else inappropriate occurs.”

Kyle laughed aloud. Solace’s responding smile was good to see, and it helped loosen some of the tension that filled the office after Barsamian’s briefing.

“She’s married, Mira,” Kyle told her. “Her wife is an accountant on New Bombay, all she’s going to do is look. But she’s definitely looking.”

Solace shook her head repressively at him.

“In less relaxing news, though,” he continued quietly, “I realized we – as in you and I, specifically – missed something when we went to CI Two.”

“Void,” she cursed. “We went through the whole process, sir. What did I miss?”

“I said ‘we,’ Mira,” Kyle pointed out, “and I meant it. As two of our three NCOs pointed out to me today, there’s currently no news getting to the crew about anything going on outside Avalon’s hull.”

“Starless Void,” Solace repeated.

“There is an intentional security factor involved,” he continued, “but we do have an obligation to let our people have some idea what’s going on. Not least,” he concluded sadly, “to let them know about lost ships and fallen friends.”

Solace sighed. That hit her as hard as it had hit him.

“I’m sorry, sir, it didn’t occur to me.”

“It’s my mistake as well, Solace,” Kyle told her. “I’m more concerned about fixing it than laying blame anyways. I want you to sit down with Sanchez and put together a plan for a daily news update to the crew – you and she will review and approve what news we can release considering we may well have a Commonwealth spy on board.”

“Delegating dealing with Sanchez, I see?” his XO pointed out.

“The woman is convinced I was promoted to the level of my incompetence,” he told her. “She’s rather more bitter than I would prefer, and since I have such high-quality minions to fob her off on…”

“If she thinks you’re incompetent, she might be the last one left on the ship,” Solace observed.

“She’s not wrong about my inexperience,” Kyle noted. “If I’d spent longer as an XO, I might have realized we had to do something to keep our people informed when we went dark.”

“I have spent longer as an XO,” Solace replied. “I didn’t think of it.

“Don’t worry sir – I’ll deal with it.”

“I’ll consider this one a personal favor, Mira,” he said quietly. “She’s starting to be very uncomfortable to work with.”

“Have you raised it with the Admiral?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “But… if she doesn’t shape up, I will. For now we’re a long way away from a replacement Chief of Staff, so I’ll play nice.

“For now.”