“No, thank you, Captain.” But Ramona made no move to go away.
Harcourt frowned. “Well, then, I must ask that you return to quarters.”
She gave him a cold stare. “Protocol, Captain?”
Harcourt suppressed a surge of irritation. “Practicality, Commander. You would be welcome to join us for a few minutes, but then I’d have to ask you to leave anyway. We have a bridge crew of five, and five acceleration couches. After we’re under way, you’ll be welcome, if you deign… if you wish to join us. But while we’re lifting off, I must ask you to stay in your quarters, strapped into your acceleration couch, in accordance with regulations.”
She glared at him, then spun on her heel and stalked away.
Harcourt gazed after her, eyes narrowing. He should have insisted that she say, “Yes, sir,” to acknowledge that aboard ship, the captain is always the senior officer. Even a lieutenant in command of a fighter-bomber can issue orders to an admiral aboard his craft, and be sure he was within his rights and would be obeyed. Of course, the admiral might bust him back down to private later on—but if the matter was really important at the time, the lieutenant could insist on it.
Of course, the lieutenant would be a fool to try to push an admiral around, unless it were a matter of life and death.
Harcourt decided to let it pass.
He turned back to the bridge crew—just in time to see them whisking their eyes back to their screens. He smiled thinly and said, “Commence launch, Number One.”
“Yes, sir,” Grounder said. “All stations, ready?”
“Go,” said Billy.
“Go,” said Coriander.
“Go,” Lorraine said over the intercom.
“Go,” Barney echoed.
“Initiating countdown. Ten… nine… eight… seven…”
Ramona stormed back into her cabin, threw herself down onto her acceleration couch, and strapped in. How dare that idiot Harcourt order her around like an infant! She steamed, her whole body tense, then realized it was a horrible condition for lift-off, and tried to force herself to relax.
She had to establish her authority aboard this ship—had to! If she couldn’t, she might as well kiss this whole mission good-bye. She knew how closely they had to skim the planet in order to get clear pictures, and she knew as well as Harcourt how heavily-guarded the planet was. She wasn’t about to throw her whole career away because some middle-aged idiot wouldn’t listen to her, a middle-aged idiot who hadn’t even been able to win commander’s rank, and was still captain of a mere corvette, a job normally relegated to a lieutenant.
She would not be treated as a subordinate! She had fought for her rank, she had taken risks, she had endured hardship, she had brought back information under enemy fire—and she wasn’t about to let anybody stop her from bringing this mission in successfully completed, either!
Ramona decided she would have to exert her authority as soon as possible.
Ramona waited until the graveyard watch, then came up on the bridge when most of the rest of the crew were asleep. She halted, staring at Grounder, wondering if the woman were on drugs, the way she was gazing about her with a happy smile.
Everything worked now—at least, until their next battle. That was why Grounder had been gazing around her in euphoria—at all the shiny new equipment that actually functioned.
But of course, Ramona didn’t know about that.
Then Grounder saw Ramona. She started and looked up, surprised. “Good evening, Commander.”
“Good evening.” Ramona paced the bridge as though she had every right to be there, ignoring Grounder and Barney.
“Uh… begging your pardon, Commander,” Grounder said, “but I don’t think the Captain has authorized your presence on the bridge.”
“Yes, he did.” Ramona turned to confront her. “Just before we lifted off, remember? He said I’d be welcome on the bridge once we were under weigh.” And she turned her back, inspecting the meters and the screens.
Her eye lit on the velocity readout. This was a place where she could give orders with no worry about disrupting the ship. “Only cruising speed?”
Grounder stared, puzzled. Then she said, “Well… yes, sir. That’s standard operating procedure en route to a jump point.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Ramona snapped. “Full acceleration! Right away!”
“Uh-h-h-h-h…” Grounder exchanged a quick glance with Barney. “I don’t know if the power plant will take it, sir.”
“What do you mean, not take it?” Ramona was instantly angry. “I know the specs on a corvette as well as you do, Lieutenant! This tub can take full acceleration for ten hours without any trouble!”
Grounder bristled at hearing the Johnny Greene called a “tub.”
“This ship can take full acceleration for about one hour, sir. Beyond that, maybe it will and maybe it won’t—depending on how well they overhauled the engines.”
“Overhaul?” Ramona glowered. “What was the matter with them?”
“A near miss from a Kilrathi missile. Jolie shot it down fifty meters from the ship, but some of the shrapnel chewed up the insides of the engines a little.”
“Is that why you have those obscene Kilrathi monsters welded on?”
For the first time, Grounder really wondered about the woman. “I’d scarcely call them ‘obscene,’ sir. They’re machines, and they work—and I think Chief Coriander worked magic, managing to tie them in with our system.”
“Well.” Ramona’s lips curved in a nasty smile. “With four engines instead of two, you certainly shouldn’t have any trouble maintaining full acceleration from here to the jump point.”
“Nothing except the stress on the structure of the ship,” Grounder countered. “The Johnny Greene was built for only two engines; four puts in more stress than the ship will take, if it goes on longer than an hour or so.”
“Don’t try to tell me how a ship works, Lieutenant! How do you think I got to be a light commander? Just do as you’re told! Retract your scoops and hit full acceleration!”
“But the fuel supply…”
“Do it!” A very ugly gleam came into Ramona’s eye. “Are you refusing a command from a senior officer?”
Grounder’s face became a flint mask. “No, sir.”
“Then do as you’re told!”
“Full acceleration, aye!” Grounder sighed. The silly shrew would have to learn for herself.
The little ship surged ahead.
Ramona grabbed at the back of an acceleration couch and held on until the surge had passed. The little chit had done that deliberately, she knew, to try to throw her off her feet—but she had obeyed orders, so Ramona couldn’t really make an issue of it. Instead, she turned away to pace the bridge, her lips curving just a little in a smile of satisfaction. She wasn’t about to take the chance of leaving the bridge, though; if she did, that snip of a lieutenant would try to ease the acceleration down again. No, Ramona had issued an order, and she meant to see that it was obeyed.
She kept watch for two hours, watching Grounder’s face grow more and more pale, more and more strained, watched and glared until…
Until the klaxon blared, tearing at her eardrums.
Ramona slapped her hands over her ears, staring around, amazed. She adjusted to the loudness of the horn, took her hands away…
The ship lurched, then began to jolt forward in jumps.
Ramona stumbled, reaching out and catching herself against the top of a console. “Stop it, Lieutenant!”
“As you say, sir.” Grounder pulled the acceleration control down.
“Not that! I said full acceleration, damn it!”
But Grounder kept easing off. “Sir,” she said through stiff lips, “that alarm you hear is for the power plant overheating, and the shuddering you’re feeling is the strain on the ship’s skeleton that comes from four engines, not quite balanced in thrust, driving a ship that’s only designed for two. I can’t…”