Conduct Unbecoming

by Nina M. Osier

Captain Rik Boehmer is the first Human, the first native of the colony on Luna to which his ancestors fled from the Protectorate’s compulsory amalgamation of species, to leave that colony and enter military service. For this his people have ostracized him, allowing him to come home only for the purpose of fathering children in order to conserve the precious "pure Human" genes his body carries.

Now the Humans have a plan, and they’re ready to take back their world at any cost. So Rik Boehmer, caught squarely between his duty to his comrades and his love for his young family on Luna, has some hellishly difficult choices to make.

Science Fiction, Adventure, Futuristic Romance

ISBN 1-59431-115-3

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.



CHAPTER ONE

“What happened? Anja, where’s Rik?”

Commodore (Retired) Thanta Orwell stirred experimentally in the sickbay bed, and squinted against impossibly bright lighting. The last place she remembered being was dark, and the H’cpt had kept her there for what seemed like a long, long time.

“Commodore, how are you feeling?”

It wasn’t the voice she wanted to hear. It belonged, apparently, to a woman in a medical uniform—a woman who had pink skin, a flat-boned face, and gentle hands.

Hands that pressed Thanta down again when she tried to sit up. That was foolish, because she felt fine. Just a little disoriented, maybe, after something had knocked her cold—something she didn’t remember.

“I’m okay,” she said testily. “Anja! Where is Rik?”

Commander Anja Britton, executive officer of the Protectorate Defense Forces starship Solomons, leaned against the nearest bulkhead and held her arms folded just below her breasts. It was a posture Thanta Orwell had seen Anja Britton use many times before—always when the Patriarca native was trying to carry off a bluff.

Anja couldn’t be doing that now. She had no reason, no reason at all, for wanting to deceive Orwell…did she?

“The captain took your place, Commodore.” The medic, who must be largely Charonese if her appearance was anything to go by, answered when Britton didn’t. Tartly, as if she found the silence exasperating. “That’s how he got you away from the H’cpt.”

“What?” Now Thanta did sit up—glaring at the medic as she did so, almost daring the woman to force her down again. This time her head didn’t spin. “Commander Britton. Where’s Captain Boehmer? And where in hell is the new ambassador? Report, dammit! Now!”

* * *

It couldn’t be true. The ruling principle of Anja Britton’s life was, “Thou shalt accept reality and deal with it, no matter what that means!” Yet this time, she couldn’t believe her own memories had happened.

She stared for a moment longer at Commodore Orwell, who’d been her captain in tours of duty gone by. A captain whom Anja both respected and liked; a captain for whom she would, if anyone asked her, have been willing to take considerable personal risk. But hazard Rik Boehmer’s life to protect Thanta Orwell’s? That Anja would not have done, not under any circumstances.

Which made no difference now. Anja moved to the commodore’s bedside, and she sat down there. She said quietly, “Backup’s not here yet, Commodore. The Solomons is alone. I’m not sure why the H’cpt decided to hold you, after you called us and requested an early pickup—but Rik offered to take your place when he tried to open hostage negotiations and he got ignored. The H’cpt started paying attention then, and they accepted. So they’ve got him now. I’m waiting for the new ambassador and the amalgamation team to get here before I do anything else, because that’s what Rik ordered me to do.” She paused, staring into the older woman’s eyes with angry intensity. Then she demanded, “What went wrong down there? What did they want from you, and what are they doing to Rik now that you’re safe and he’s the one they’ve got instead?”

* * *

Orwell failed to flinch under Britton’s accusing stare. That wasn’t surprising, of course, if you considered that not so many years ago Orwell was captain to Britton’s conn lieutenant—but most people reacted quite differently when Anja decided to glare at them. Patriarca’s children tended to be a pugnacious lot, and a first-generation amalgam like Anja was apt to have both a bad temper and a parsec-wide stubborn streak to go with it.

Thanta Orwell, whose ancestors amalgamated into the Protectorate generations ago, had thirty-five years of starship service to help her face Anja down. She also had memories of Anja as a junior officer, and before that as the scared (although still decidedly contentious!) kid whom Rik Boehmer took in hand during the evacuation of survivors from what was left of Patriarca after the rebels were through there.

The H’cpt weren’t the first species to decide that they would take almost any risk rather than submit to amalgamation, once they learned what the Protectorate required of its members. The rebels of Patriarca were willing to do whatever it took to cleanse their planet of youngsters like Anja Britton, after all; and there had been movements like theirs on other worlds. But the H’cpt panicked much earlier in the process—and that was Thanta Orwell’s fault. This was her mission, her first as a diplomat. A solo diplomat, to a culture on the verge of entering into its initial covenant. Orwell didn’t yet know exactly how she had failed, but she knew for sure it had happened.

“Have you had any contact with the H’cpt since Rik went down there?” she demanded of Anja Britton. “And how long is it going to be until help gets here?”

Before Rik’s executive officer could reply to either question, the comm whistled. A disembodied voice wanted to know, “Commander Britton? Is Commodore Orwell available yet? There’s a H’cpt who wants to speak with her.”

“Tell her, him, or it to go ahead,” Anja said into the small silence that followed, after she glanced first at the medic—who nodded reluctantly—and then at Orwell.

“Thanta,” said someone whose voice the commodore recognized easily, after months of living among the H’cpt. They were beings who used single names and avoided addressing others by titles, and she’d adapted to their ways out of courtesy.

“Yes, H’rck. I’m listening.”

“The man who offered to replace you as our messenger is on the flying boat that he used to come here. You may retrieve him now. Good-bye, Thanta. I will not see you again, I think.”

“H’rck! Wait!” Thanta found her voice, frantically. Lack of dignity didn’t matter right now. “Communications. Get him back! Immediately!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. No response.” From the bridge, from decks above sickbay, came the apologetic reply.

“Britton to ops,” Anja snapped, stepping into the situation with confidence now that she knew what needed to be done. “Get a tractor beam on the captain’s shuttle, and bring it on board. Stat!”

“Aye, Commander.” There was a pause, an endless several minutes during which a small craft on the H’cpt planet’s surface was lifted through layers of atmosphere to intercept the starship’s orbit. Then, “We’ve got it on board. But there are no life signs.”

“Oh, no.” Thanta drew in a horrified breath. She knew, now, what kind of message the H’cpt were sending to the Protectorate’s leaders—and what her own fate would have been, if her friend hadn’t replaced her.