It was ridiculous to command them not to talk about their accomplishments. They would talk in wardrooms over dinner, in drawing rooms over cocktails, and drunkenly in bars. They would boast of their time with Chenforce, of their service under Michi Chen and Martinez, of their own prowess.
They would not let the memory of Chenforce die.
Martinez had also made a point of giving his lecture while the servants were still putting plates on the tables, thus ensuring that the enlisted would also carry their full measure of indignation throughout the Fleet.
There were certain things that Tork could not do. He could not put a number of Peers of the empire under surveillance to make sure they weren’t speaking of their wartime experience, nor punish them when they did. He couldn’t follow the hundreds of enlisted as they moved through the expanded Fleet, or prosecute them en masse, or even discharge them. They too would carry the legend of Chenforce wherever they went.
Sometimes, Martinez reflected, the best way to sabotage a superior was to follow his orders in the most perfectly literal way.
Martinez’s dinner with his officers was the first of several social events after the long, brutal deceleration finally ended, with Chenforce diving through the rings of a gas giant gorgeous with velvet-soft clouds of purple and green, then shaping a new course at a far more moderate deceleration.Illustrious andConfidence wouldn’t have to part from the rest of Chenforce for three more days, and during that time there was constant visitation back and forth. Michi played host to a reception for the captains during which, through heroic effort, Martinez and Sula managed not to exchange a single word. Sula invited Michi to a dinner in her honor, and since Martinez hadn’t been invited to accompany, he in turn invited his former captains from Squadron 31. He gave them much the same speech he had given his lieutenants, and with much the same effect.
The final day, Michi gave a farewell dinner for the captains of Cruiser Squadron 9, in which she thanked them for their loyalty, their courage, and their friendship, and raised a glass to their next meeting. Martinez, who sat at the far end of the table quivering with the barely suppressed impulse to deliver another tirade on the subject of Tork’s order, thought he saw a tear glimmering in her eye.
IllustriousandConfidence set a new course and began their acceleration toward Naxas Wormhole 1 en route to Magaria and Zanshaa. Martinez braced for the inevitable, which came two days later when Michi invited him and Sula to supper.
Michi and Martinez met Sula at the airlock, where a guard of honor rendered the proper formalities as Sula stepped ontoIllustrious. She wore full dress, the dark green of the tunic a subdued reflection of the emerald green of her eyes. The sight took Martinez’s breath away.
Sula faced the squadcom and braced; Michi shook her hand and welcomed her aboard. A tall, bushy-haired orderly hovered behind her right shoulder, a young man Martinez would have been inclined to dismiss if it weren’t for the ribbon of the Medal of Valor on his breast. He was taken off to be a guest of the petty officers’ mess, and Martinez and Sula followed Michi up a companionway to her quarters.
“Interesting decor,” Sula said, eyeing one of the trompe l’oeil archways in the corridor.
“All installed by Captain Fletcher,” Martinez said. “The artist is still aboard.”
He figured she wouldn’t rip his head off if he stuck to the facts.
“That was a Vigo vase in that still life,” Sula remarked.
Michi glanced over her shoulder. “Are you interested in porcelain, Lady Sula?”
Which led to a discourse that took them to the dining room and into the first cocktail. Sula had a mixture of fruit juices, and the others Kyowan and Spacey. Martinez, standing with tingling tongue and feigned nonchalance by the drinks cart, felt Sula’s clinical glance burn like ice on his skin.
Michi turned to Sula. “Lady Sula, I was wondering if I could review the moment in the battle when you moved your squadron to engage the enemy heavies. I have some questions about how you knew which of the enemy to choose as your particular target.”
Sula explained. Illustration would make the explanation more comprehensible, so the party moved to Michi’s office, where they could use the holographic display built into her desk. The tension drawn between Martinez and Sula began to ebb as they reexperienced the fantastic degree of coordination they had felt in the battle, the balance of movement and fire, subtlety and force. Sula’s pale skin glowed. Her eyes danced. She looked at him and smiled. Martinez returned the gaze and found that his laughter matched hers.
The party moved back to the dining room and continued the battle while plates, bottles, and napkins were deployed on the table like ships of war. Michi and Martinez described the Battle of Protipanu, and Martinez talked about Hone-bar. Diagrams were drawn in gravy. Sula recounted her adventures on the ground in Zanshaa.
“Weren’t you afraid of dealing with the cliquemen?” Michi asked.
Sula seemed to calculate her answer for a half second or so. “Not really. I’d known people like them on Spannan, where I grew up, and—” There was another moment of calculation. “Well,” she said, “it’s like with everyone else. You have to calculate your common interests.”
Michi seemed dubious. “Weren’t you afraid that they’d betray you and…well, just take everything?”
Sula calculated again, then grinned. “Unlike good Peers like Lord Tork?”
Martinez burst into laughter. Michi’s laughter was more strained.
Still, Martinez thought, Sula wasn’t being completely candid about something. He wondered what it was.
The scent of coffee floated through the room. The conversation went on well past the tail end of dinner, well into the second pot of coffee. During the long course of the conversation, and with Sula’s agreement, Martinez told her honor guard to stand down—she could leave the ship informally, with no inconvenience. When she thanked Michi, rose, and collected her hat and gloves from Vandervalk, Martinez offered to accompany her to the airlock.
“If you’ll page Macnamara to meet me there.”
Martinez did so. He walked with Sula into the corridor. It was late and nearly deserted; most crew were asleep. Their heels rapped on Fletcher’s polychrome tiles.
Suddenly Martinez was afraid to speak. He was possessed of the certainty that if he opened his mouth, he’d spoil everything, all the intimacy that he and Sula had just rediscovered, and then the two would have no choice but to be enemies forever.
Sula was less shy. She gazed straightforward as she spoke, her eyes not meeting his. “I’ve decided to forgive you,” she said.
“Forgive me?” Martinez couldn’t help himself. “It was you who dumped me, remember?”
Her voice was flat. “You should have had more persistence.”
She came to the companion and dropped quickly down the stair to the deck below. Martinez followed, his heart throbbing.
“You were very insistent,” he said.
“I was upset.”
“But why?”
That seemed the point. He had asked her to marry him, and she had refused him—with anger—and marched off into the Zanshaa night.
Sula stopped, turned, looked at him. He could see the muscles strained in her throat.
“I’m not good at relationships,” she said. “I was afraid, and you wouldn’t let mebe afraid. By the time I got over the fright, you were engaged to Terza Chen.”
“My brother arranged that without telling me.” He hesitated, then spoke. “I called you all night.”
She stared at him for a blank second, then reeled as if he’d struck her.