For once Sh'aarl't and Bishop honestly commiserated with Sten instead of harassing him. Being an IP was a fate—not worse than death but pretty similar.
Sten's fears were correct. He had been selected to remain at Flight Training School as an instructor. Orders had even been cut at naval personnel.
But somehow those orders were canceled before they reached Sten. Other, quite specific orders were dictated—from, as the covering fax to the school's commandant said, "highest levels."
The commandant protested—until someone advised him that those "highest levels" were on Prime World itself!
The biggest difference between the army and the navy, Sten thought, was that the navy was a lot more polite.
Army orders bluntly grabbed a crunchie and told him where to be and what to do and when to do it. Or else.
Naval orders, on the other hand...
You, Commander Sten, are requested and ordered, at the pleasure of the Eternal Emperor, to take charge of Tac-Div Y47L, now being commissioned at the Imperial Port of Soward.
You are further requested and ordered to proceed with TacDiv Y47L for duties which shall be assigned to you in and around the Caltor System.
You will report to and serve under Fleet Admiral X. R. van Doorman, 23rd Fleet.
More detailed instructions will be provided you at a later date.
Saved. Saved by the God of Many Names.
Sten paused only long enough to find out that the Caltor System was part of the Fringe Worlds, which would put him very close to the Tahn and where the action would start, before he whooped in joy and went looking for his friends.
He was going to kiss Sh'aarl't.
Hell, he felt good enough to kiss Bishop.
Graduation from Phase Two was very different from the last day in Selection.
The graduates threw the chief IP into the school's fountain. When the school commandant protested mildly, they threw him in as well.
The two elderly officers sat in the armpit-deep purple-dyed water and watched the cavorting around them. Finally the commandant turned to his chief.
"You would think, after all these years, that they could find something more original to do than just pitch us here again."
The chief IP was busily wringing out his hat and didn't answer.
Sh'aarl't, Bishop, and Sten bade leaky farewells, vowing to write, to get together once a year, and all the rest of the bushwa service people promise and never do.
Sh'aarl't was still awaiting orders. Bishop's orders were exactly what he wanted—pushing a large, unarmed transport around the sky from one unknown and therefore peaceful system to another.
Sten wondered if he would ever see either of them again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There was no pomp and there was carefully no ceremony when Lady Atago transferred her command from the battleship Forez to the infinitely smaller Zhenya.
Admiral Deska had spent a good portion of his military career studying his superior. She despised the frills and displays of military recognition. All that she required was that one do exactly as she indicated without hesitation. She became very thoughtful about any icing upon that requirement.
Despite their size, the Zhenya and her sisterships were a major tech miracle for the Tahn. The design and development of the ships would have cost even the Imperial naval R&D staff a good percentage of its budget.
The Zhenya was intended for mine warfare of the most sophisticated kind, a type of combat that the Imperial Navy had given little attention.
It had been a very long time since the Empire had fought a war with an equal. Even the brutal Mueller Wars were, ultimately, a limited uprising. Mines were used in positional warfare to deny passage to the enemy or to provide stationary security for one's own positions. They could also be laid to interdict the enemy's own ship lanes. Mines simply hadn't seemed relevant to the navy strategists.
The other reason for the navy's lack of interest in mine warfare was its unromantic nature. A mine was a heavy clunk of metal that just sat there until something made it go bang, generally long after the minelayer had departed. Mine experts didn't wear long white scarves or get many hero medals, even though mines, in space, on land, or in water, were one of the most deadly and cost-efficient ways of destroying the enemy.
The Tahn were less interested in glamour than in any and every method of winning a war. The Zhenya was one of the keys to their future.
Sophisticated space mines, of a kind never seen before, could be laid with impossible speed by the
Zhenya. Each mine was basically an atomic torpedo that was immediately alerted to any ship in its vicinity. A "friendly" ship would be transmitting on its Identification-Friend or Foe com line, and the mine would read the code and ignore that ship. An enemy ship or one not transmitting the current code to the mine would find a very different reaction. The mine—and any other mines within range—would activate and home on the enemy ship. With thousands of mines in any one field, even the most heavily armed Imperial battleship would be doomed.
The Tahn had also solved another problem. Space warfare, even one with established battle lines, was very mobile and its conditions changed rapidly. Retreating or attacking through one's own minefield could be lethal, even if the mine had identified the oncoming ship as friendly. It still was a large chunk of debris to encounter at speed. And if battle conditions changed, the minefield might have to be abandoned—it took a lot of time and caution to sweep a field and then re-lay it.
The Zhenya could retrieve and redeploy mines almost as fast as it could lay them. It was an interesting way to be able to create, define, or modify the field that the enemy would be forced to fight on—in theory.
The Zhenya-class ships had yet to be proved. In the Tahn's haste to add the ships to their combat fleets, there had been many failures—all ending with the deaths of the entire crew.
Deska was confident that all the problems with the Zhenya and her sister ships had been solved, but not so confident that he felt safe risking the Lady Atago's life. He explained this to her, and she listened with seeming interest. She thought for a moment.
"Assemble the crew," she said finally.
Although it was a small crew, gathered together they filled the Zhenya's mess hall. The Lady Atago waited quietly until everyone was available and then began to speak.
"Our task today," she said, "is to prove the worth of the Zhenya. On our success, much is dependent. You understand this, do you not?"
No one said a word. The audience barely breathed. But there was a stiffening of attention.
"Previous trials have ended in disappointment," she continued. "This is why I am with you today. If you die, I die. It is therefore required that every one of you perform his individual task to his supreme abilities."
She swept the room with her never changing eyes of absolute zero.
"It goes without saying," she hammered home, "that if there is a failure today, it would be best for any of you not to be among the few survivors."
She dropped her eyes and flicked at a crumb left on the otherwise spotless mess table in front of her. The crew was dismissed.
The drone tacship drove toward the Zhenya at full power. Between the robot and the minelayer hung a cluster of the newly developed mines. Lady Atago stood behind the mine control screen, watching closely.