Octavia the burns series.., p.1
OCTAVIA: The Burns Series Book 4, page 1
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O C T A V I A
M.M. Holt
Dedicated to the continuing struggle against the Accord of Nations.
PART 1: SINISTRA
“Character is destiny.”
A philosopher from the Hyacinth planet.
1
HISTORIAN’S REMARKS
In the sixth month of the mission, before the trouble began, the great warship Herculaneum cruised into a remote region of the galaxy known as Ilium.
In Ilium, the Herculaneum altered its course and proceeded toward a location identified by the ship’s astronomer as the Point of Acceleration.
At the Point of Acceleration, the Herculaneum’s captain would order the chief engineer to engage the large Acceleration engines. The ship would then increase its speed to a velocity greater than that of light.
Propelled forward as this astonishing rate, the Herculaneum would cross the galaxy, traveling between the billons of stars and planets, all the way to a region on the galaxy’s far side.
The mission destination was a nine-planet solar system and a minor planet named Hyacinth. Hyacinth was the word for blue in the language of the creatures who dominated that planet at the time.
The mission, as stated in the Admiralty’s orders was as follows.
TO CAPTAIN TIBERIUS, SENATE NAVY.
YOUR MISSION
‘Greet the inhabitants of the Hyacinth planet. Prepare the leaders for our imminent arrival in the transport ships. Employ the arts of diplomacy to reassure the Hyacinth leaders of our intentions.
‘Do not reveal your mission’s true purpose. Instead, stress that you wish to form a friendship between our worlds.
‘Above all, do not alarm the Hyacinth creatures. Do not reveal your great ship to them, nor your weaponry, nor the number of your ship’s crew. Nor must you reveal your natural body forms. The sight of these will cause mistrust, panic, and terror.
‘Instead, you must adopt the form of the Hyacinth creatures themselves, in all their frailty, limitations, and irrationality. Remain in the Hyacinth-creature form, in both sexes, at all times during the voyage and on the Hyacinth planet.
‘Finally, you must also call yourselves by Hyacinth-creature names, and you must speak the Hyacinth language at all times during the mission, as well as using the Hyacinth units of measurement, as difficult as that might be. Effective, natural communication will be essential when meeting the Hyacinth leaders.
‘That is all.’
Centuries later, many historians, including myself, concluded that these last instructions caused the problems aboard the Herculaneum, and especially the disastrous actions of Second Lieutenant Sinistra.
They also led to the catastrophe that followed.
2
ON THE MORNING of the Acceleration, alone in her cabin, Second Lieutenant Sinistra woke from the sixtieth act of sleep in her life.
As usual, Lieutenant Sinistra awoke exhausted and afraid. She had experienced a terrifying nightmare. The nightmare was always the same: her childhood self, a dark silent forest, and someone stalking her through the trees—someone who intended violence.
Sinistra sat up on her berth, rubbed her Hyacinth-creature eyes, and shook the nightmare away. This morning she had to concentrate on the Acceleration above all else. But first, and to her great displeasure, she had to cope with her Hyacinth-creature body.
She had to dress this awkward arrangement of abdomen, arms, and legs. She had to touch it. She had to clean it. She had to look at it. Then, she had to endure its weaknesses, its confusing senses, its unscaled, vulnerable skin, and the torrents of strange thoughts, urges, and emotions.
Keeping her eyes closed, she breathed slowly in and out. It was better to delay her first glance at the body’s floppy limbs, its writhing fingers, useless claws, vulnerable feet, creaking joints, Hyacinth female sex organs, and its face.
Yes, the face: she especially loathed that.
‘I must endure it,’ she said to the empty cabin. ‘Hoc ferrendum est,’ she said in the singsong Hyacinth language. This must be borne. I must make the best of it. She breathed in, filling her lungs with the metallic air from the Herculaneum’s atmosphere pumps.
When she had breathed in and out three times, she began the process of preparing the body for duty. She swung her Hyacinth-creature legs over the edge of the berth and onto the deck. Then she stood up, swaying on her unreliable feet.
The body complained.
Her bizarre toes recoiled from the cold metal, squirming like worms. The armpits itched and required scratching with the pathetic claws. The knee joints cracked and wouldn’t unlock. The back spiked with pain above the ludicrous buttocks. And the digestive organs flopped in the abdomen—useless and heavy.
Next, she peeled off her sleeping uniform and stood naked. This was the worst moment of all, when the body’s watery reflection appeared in the metal bulkhead. There it was, with its yellow cranial hair; its round, shell-shaped ears; the strange curves at its waist; the pointy useless nose; the tiny mouth; the too-small teeth; the sickly, glittering blue eyes with their staring, round pupils.
Ugh! Sinistra thought. Too many colors. Too many cartilage protrusions. So many elbows, knees, ankles, and not enough girth in the neck! The skin was too vulnerable to scratches and the cold. There was not enough height and no strength worth mentioning. To move in this body was to be crippled.
Worse!
For Sinistra’s own particular Hyacinth creature body, there was so very little of what the crew regarded as pulchritudo. Beauty. Others aboard the Herculaneum strolled the passageways in perfectly symmetrical forms. Their bodies resembled statues of Hyacinth gods and Hyacinth emperors.
But not Sinistra’s Hyacinth-creature body.
I look like a sick flower, she thought, a sick yellow flower. No, not even a flower. I look like a pale shrub from the Northern Forests on the home planet. I’m a noxious shrub growing in space.
She opened her locker. Her uniform waited on its hanger. The uniform was her great consolation. It made her form almost bearable. She pulled its rich blue cloth over the awkward arms, legs, and abdomen. Then she looked at the reflection once more. This was better. She looked like a leader, calm and controlled—at least, on the outside.
She brushed some lint from her name patch. The patch read ‘Secundus Tenens Sinistra.’ Second Lieutenant Sinistra. Then she checked the reflection once more. There she was, the third in command of the Senate Navy vessel Herculaneum, a ship the size of a city. She stood as upright as her body would let her, as if she could make the name patch more prominent than herself.
The ship’s bell tolled three times in her mind. Time to go.
But before she left for the ship’s bridge, she looked at the few luxuries the Admiralty allowed her: photographs from home, each fixed flat to the bulkhead. She saw the photograph of her graduation from the naval academy; a photograph of her last command, the navy ship Drast; and a picture of her only friend in the world, Lieutenant Nim.
Nim, she thought. Can you hear me? Today is the day. Nim, are you there? But Nim never replied. Or if she did, her thoughts never made it across the depths of space from the home planet.
Have it your way, Sinistra thought. Keep me waiting.
She took a last look at her reflection, at the officer’s uniform, and the name patch. Would these be good enough for her commanding officer, First Lieutenant Flavia? Probably not. Flavia made it her special duty to find fault with Sinistra, to humiliate her, and upbraid her in front of the crew.
But I have my skills, Sinistra thought. I have my dedication. I have my service record. I have my experience. Flavia can’t deny me those. She needs me. She knows I’m indispensable.
Someone knocked at the door.
Sinistra drew a breath and called, ‘Veni!’
The cabin door opened. Private Volso of the Navy’s Marines stood saluting. His other hand was on his sidearm. Like most of the marines, Volso had been issued a Hyacinth-creature form that was tall and broad at the shoulders. He stood a full Hyacinth-creature head above Sinistra.
As Volso saluted, The Herculaneum’s sounds and smells surged through the open cabin door: the growling Acceleration engines idling astern; the odors of metal, sweat, and laundered uniforms; the faint reek of animal hide, and what Sinistra described as the scent of order that ruled the ten thousand members of the crew.
Private Volso said, ‘Third Lieutenant Cadmus’s duty, Second Lieutenant Sinistra.’
‘Only you today, Volso? Where is Sergeant Opiter Is something wrong?’
‘I don’t know, Lieutenant.’
‘Why don’t you know, Private?’
She looked at Volso’s face. The skin beneath his dark eyes was puffy. Like most of the crew, Volso had family caught in the catastrophic eruptions on the home planet. He came from the Ishank province. A long dormant volcano known as Arakan (Big Claw) had recently dumped ash and lava over the province capital.
She softened her tone. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Beg pardon, Lieutenant Sinistra,’ Volso said. ‘Marine Captain Ranant didn’t say.’
‘Well, let’s get going,’ she said, and limped from the cabin. Volso stepped aside and said, ‘Begging your pardon, Lieutenant Sinistra.’
‘What i
‘Third Lieutenant Cadmus has ordered a car for your use, if you please.’
Sinistra pictured the long walk forward to the bridge through the crowded passageways, and then inside the packed shuttle train. A car would save her at least a half hora. Today, of all the days, she should use the car.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I prefer to walk. I want to inspect the hold on the way.’
This display of extra dedication would no doubt impress First Lieutenant Flavia and Captain Tiberius.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
‘Aye, Lieutenant,’ said Volso, keeping his eyes up and away from Sinistra’s lame right foot.
There was one and a half Hyacinth horae to go until the Acceleration.
3
SINISTRA AND VOLSO entered the great passageway, the major artery from the ship’s stern to its stem, running almost ten Hyacinth milia forward. The passageway was heavy with pre-Acceleration traffic.
As the mission orders demanded, every crew member was in Hyacinth-creature form, and the sight of so many small figures made the passageway appear like a giant basilica not a ship’s thoroughfare. It was only to be expected. The passageway, like the Herculaneum itself, had been constructed for a much taller, much wider crew.
Either side of Sinistra and Volso, the engineer’s mates streamed aft to the engine deck, along with the dropship mechanics heading to the stern for one last test of the dropship fleet mountings. Technical specialists passed forward and aft, descending below decks to inspect the hull. Beside them, the stewards scoured the passageway for loose objects.
The rest of the crew hurried to their Acceleration stations. The armorer’s mates, the gunner’s mates, the surgeon’s mates, the planetographers, astronomers, marines, and the seaman from the last watch, headed fore, aft, aloft, and below, to strap themselves into harnesses for the great jolt, which the ship’s surgeon had warned could damage their Hyacinth-creature organs and crack their Hyacinth-creature spines and necks.
The crew saluted Sinistra as she limped along, touching a knuckle to their foreheads. Sinistra replied with a small smile, her one dependable expression. Some crewmen even called out encouragements to her, such as, ‘Good luck, Lieutenant,’ and ‘Won’t be long now, Lieutenant,’ as if Sinistra were commanding the ship herself, not First Lieutenant Flavia.
But despite the crew’s cheerfulness, each member was afraid. No one had experienced an Acceleration before, not even Gabinus, the chief engineer. And everyone knew that on the last mission to Hyacinth, the navy ship Parthia had exploded in this very same region of Ilium. All the Parthia crew had died in the explosion or perished in open space. And that was in their natural forms. What would happen to a crew ordered to remain in the weak, vulnerable bodies of Hyacinth creatures?
Sinistra and Volso pressed on through the crowd towards the shuttle station. After boarding the shuttle, they would reach the bridge and Lieutenant Flavia in just twenty minuta. All was going well until they passed the elevator leading to the hold. Here, Sinistra said, ‘Wait a moment, Private. I’m going to take a look.’
With Volso following her, Sinistra limped across the traffic to the passageway’s starboard side. Then she looked over the rail into the dark hold below. Under the lamplights, the master’s mates were moving the giant terraforming machinery from port to starboard.
This was bad. Sinistra had supervised the stowing of the hold herself. After several weeks with the master’s mates, she had achieved a good balance for the Acceleration. Now, not two horae before the great engines would fire, someone had ordered a change.
But who would do such a thing? And why wouldn’t they consult Sinistra first? Which senior officer could possibly be so reckless?
But Sinistra knew all too well which officer had ordered the change.
Her organs squirmed in her abdomen. The usual contest began: the contest between her duty to serve the mission and her desire to win First Lieutenant Flavia’s approval, or at the very least, to avoid Flavia’s temper.
Sinistra’s small hands squeezed the rail. Her forehead creased. Her breath came in short, shallow puffs, then stopped altogether. Her left sleeve swelled, straining the four button threads. Red flesh appeared in the cuff vents.
Volso stood beside her, his eyes on Sinistra’s sleeve.
‘Beg pardon, Lieutenant, but are you all right?’
The sleeve relaxed and the angry red flesh cooled.
In a flat, expressionless voice, Sinistra said, ‘Mutatio consilli, Privatus Volso. Descendere debemus.’ A change of plan, Private Volso. I must descend to the hold.
The ship’s bell tolled six times in Sinistra’s mind. There was only one hora to go—one hora until the great engines would fire and the Herculaneum would hurtle across the galaxy.
But first, Sinistra would have to restore the terraforming machines.
Worse!
She would be late.
4
TWENTY HYACINTH MINUTA before the Acceleration, Sinistra limped into the area known as the forward stateroom, just aft the ship’s bridge.
She was flustered. Her hands quivered, her face flushed pink, and the fold of skin beneath her left eye twitched. This was not a good beginning to the most important watch of the mission.
The marine sentries stood to attention while Sinistra pressed a finger to the skin beneath her eye and stifled the twitch. Then she closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Finally, she opened her eyes and said, ‘Aperi ianuam, Corporalis Stolo.’ Open the door, Corporal Stolo.
The lever swung back; the wheel turned. The heavy door unsealed and swung open. Warm air and the scent of electrical circuity rushed out. Sinistra drew one more breath, two breaths, and stepped over the threshold.
Inside, there was near darkness. The only illumination came from the bright rectangles of light from the display screens on the forward-bulkhead. Before each screen sat a technical specialist, each monitoring the status of the ship’s engines, exterior sensors, ballast, atmosphere, hull integrity, weapons, and heading.
Sinistra waited for her weak Hyacinth-creature eyes to adjust to the dark. Then she hobbled towards her station: the station to monitor the starboard side for rogue objects. But before she could walk more than a few passus, an imperious female voice spoke to her from the gloom.
‘Stop, Second Lieutenant Sinistra. Stop right there.’
Sinistra’s lame foot paused, dangling in the air. She settled it onto the deck and waited. This was what she had feared. She lifted her eyes to the formidable figure of First Lieutenant Flavia.
‘You are late for the watch,’ Flavia said. She spoke the singsong Hyacinth language in big round vowels, like the voice of a queen addressing her subjects.
‘Yes, Lieutenant Flavia,’ Sinistra said.
‘And this is not just any watch, is it?’
‘No, Lieutenant Flavia.’
‘In fact,’ said Flavia, looking about the bridge, inviting the crew to listen, ‘You are late to the most critical watch of the mission—the mission to Hyacinth, the mission to save our people. You are aware of that, aren’t you, Second Lieutenant Sinistra?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then how is it, Second Lieutenant, that all the rest of the bridge crew is at their stations, and yet, the Herculaneum’s third in command is late—and late after two months of drills for this very moment?’
‘Begging your pardon, First Lieutenant Flavia,’ said Sinistra. ‘Someone had commandeered the forward-aft shuttle for use re-stowing the hold.’
‘That someone was me,’ said Flavia. ‘I ordered the hold to be re-stowed. I also ordered the shuttle to be available for the purser’s sole use.’
‘Beg pardon, First Lieutenant. I was not informed.’
‘What did you say, Lieutenant?’ said Flavia. ‘I can’t understand your accent. Try again. This time, enunciate.’
First Lieutenant Flavia’s chair rested on a plinth in the centre of the bridge. Beside her sat the ship’s captain, Tiberius. Both Flavia and Tiberius had been issued Hyacinth forms modeled on Hyacinth statues observed on previous missions. The statues were those depicting Hyacinth emperors, empresses, gods, and goddesses. Lieutenant Flavia had also been issued with dark red hair, a swaying gait, a pale complexion, and vivid green eyes.
