"Do you want them removed?" Honor asked quietly.
"Ma'am, there's nothing I'd like better," Tschu said frankly, "but I think it would be the wrong move. What I've got to do is get them off their butts and keep them there, and make sure everyone knows I did it."
"I see." Honor nodded in agreement, pleased by Tschu's response.
"The problem is that some of my senior petty officers aren't getting the job done. My problem children are careful not try any crap whenever an officer's around, but the watch logs tell me they're giving plenty of trouble when we're not there. The worst problem's Impeller One, the drive room chief on first watch doesn't have the guts to face the troublemakers down without commissioned support, but the situations almost as bad on third watch." The engineer paused, then shook his head. "In a way, I understand why the chiefs in question are running scared," he admitted. "Engineering can be a dangerous place, and to be perfectly honest, I think at least the two I've already mentioned are capable of arranging 'accidents' for someone who ticks them off."
"Anyone who arranges an 'accident' in my ship will wish to heaven he or she had never been born," Honor said grimly.
"I know, and you'll only get them after I'm through with them," Tschu said. "But until they actually try something, all I can do is warn them, and I don't think they really believe me. Worse, the two senior chiefs who seem to be caving in don't think they believe it, either."
"So what do you want to do about them?"
"Well, Ma'am..." Tschu glanced at Cardones, who nodded, then drew a deep breath. "What I want to do, Ma'am, is relieve both senior chiefs I've mentioned. I'll find some crap assignment for them, one that will both keep them out of other peoples hair and make it clear to their people that they've been removed for lack of performance. But I'm already one senior chief short of establishment. If I boot them, I'll have to replace 'em with someone with the guts to do the job, and I'm fresh out of people with the seniority and attitude for it."
"I see," Honor repeated, and her mind flickered over options. Given the rush with which her ships had been manned, they were stretched tight for personnel, and Tschu was right about his lack of senior petty officers. Nor did anyone else have equivalent personnel to spare the engineer.
"What about Harkness?" she asked Cardones after a moment.
"I thought about him, Ma'am. One thing I know for sure is that he wouldn't take any crap off anyone, and only a lunatic would push him. The problem is that Scotty needs him. He may technically be a missile tech, but he's also the best small-craft flight engineer we've got. He's not only keeping the pinnaces on-line, but spending a lot of his time on loan to the LAC squadrons, as well. If we pull him from Flight Ops, we're going to leave an awful big hole in that department."
"Point taken," Honor murmured, and looked back at Tschu. "I assume, Harry, that since you're making this proposal you have candidates of your own in mind?"
"Yes, Ma'am, but none of them have the seniority for the jobs. That's my problem. CPO Riley's already holding down a chief of the watch's slot in Damage Control Central, and I figure I can bump him to senior chief and give him Impeller One on third watch. But that still leaves me needing someone for first watch, which is the real hot spot, plus a replacement for Riley in DCC. I've got two people in mind, but they're actually on their first deployments. I know they can handle the responsibility and do the job, but they're both only second-class techs."
"You want to put a second-class tech in a senior chiefs slot?" Honor asked in a very careful voice, and Tschu nodded.
"I know it sounds crazy, Ma'am, but my watch bills are awful fragile. I've already made a lot of assignments based on capability, not grade, because it was the only way to get the job done, but there's a limit to how much readjusting I can do without actually making the problem worse. If we bump the people I'm thinking about, it'll do the least overall damage to my assignments."
"You don't have anyone senior you think could handle the slots?"
"No, Ma'am. Not really. Oh, I've got some really good people down there, I'm not trying to say they're all, or even most, a problem. But we're spread so thin, and spread out so widely, that, like Chief Riley, the ones with the necessary experience and, ah, intestinal fortitude are already in essential spots. I can't pull one of them without making another hole, and I don't have anyone to replace them with to plug the holes."
"I see. Exactly which second classes are we talking about here?"
"Power Tech Maxwell and Electronics Tech Lewis, Ma'am," Cardones put in, keying his memo board and glancing down at it. "Both have first-rate marks from school, both have performed in exemplary fashion since coming aboard, and both of them are a bit old for their rates. That's because they only enlisted after the war started," he added by way of explanation. "Maxwell's a drive specialist; he was merchant service-trained, a drive room chief with the D&O Line, and he really just needed the Navy course for certification. He's good, Ma'am, really good. Lewis is a gravitics specialist. She doesn't have any prior experience, but I've taken a hard look at her record since coming aboard. She's solid, and Chief Riley speaks very highly of her, especially as a troubleshooter. Harry wants her to replace Riley in DCC and Maxwell for Impeller One. Frankly, I think they'd do very well in those slots, but neither one of them is anywhere near having the seniority to justify it to BuPers."
"The Exec's right there, Ma'am," Tschu said, "but they're both really good, and they both have backbones. Neither one of them would back down from the bad apples."
Honor rocked her chair back again and glanced at Nimitz and Samantha without really seeing them while she considered. The problem, as neither Cardones nor Tschu needed to tell her, was that she couldn't just take two second-class ratings and make them acting senior chiefs. If they were going to discharge their duties, they not only deserved the official grade to go with them, they needed it. There would be resentment enough from people they'd been jumped over, whatever happened; if they didn't receive the imprimatur of the rockers which normally went with the job, their moral authority would be suspect. But if Honor gave them those rockers, she'd have to be able to justify her actions.
The captain of a Queen's ship had broad authority to promote in the course of a deployment. Such promotions were "acting" until the deployment's end, as the one she'd given Aubrey Wanderman. But their confirmation by BuPers at deployments end was almost automatic, with only the most cursory inspection of the individuals record and efficiency ratings, on the theory that a captain was competent to judge her peoples suitability for promotion.
Yet if Honor jumped a technician second class clear to senior chief, BuPers was going to ask some very tough questions. Some captains had been known to play the favoritism game, and that sort of sudden elevation was unheard of. She'd have to be able to justify it by the results she obtained, and that justification had better be strong. Worse, the only way BuPers could rectify any mistake on her part would be to reduce Maxwell and Lewis to what it considered appropriate rates, which would equate to demotion for cause. It wouldn't be called that in their personnel jackets, but that demotion would follow them for the remainder of their careers. Any officer who ever read those jackets would be likely to assume they had been promoted out of favoritism, and they'd have to work far harder than anyone else to prove they hadn't.