Sula was quicker at math than Jarlath, and she didn’t like how the numbers were adding up either.
After two days of standing watch at a mostly deserted skyhook terminus, she received a call on her sleeve display from Captain Lord Richard Li.
“I’m calling to renew my offer of a place onDauntless,” he said. “We’re filling up the crew, and I expect we’ll be leaving station in a matter of days.” He hesitated, then added, “I haven’t heard officially yet, but the rumor is that your exam results are going to be thrown out. If you want to take the exams again, you’ll have to wait months and reapply.”
Hopeless bitterness filled Sula. “I understand,” she said. That left her with little option but to accept Lord Richard’s offer and get into the war. It was clear that those with experience in combat would have an increased chance of notice and promotion: to miss the war would be to throw her career to the winds.
Lord Richard smiled. “Before you answer yes or no, I need to tell you the rest of the bad news. I can’t take you on as a lieutenant. Lord Commander Jarlath is insisting that all crews be made up with experienced officers—he doesn’t want anyone learning on the job, not when so many lives may depend on it. I have to say that I agree with him. So if you come aboard, it will be as a pinnace pilot.” From out of Sula’s sleeve display, he gave her what he probably thought was an encouraging look.
“Iwill see that you’re promoted as soon as possible,” he said. “The next time one of my lieutenants is rotated or promoted out ofDauntless, you’ll have the place.”
That is, of course, if she survived her career as a pinnace pilot. Which, in a real shooting war, was not the surest way to bet.
Still, an appointment under a rising young officer, with the promise of promotion to come, was the best offer she was likely to get. It was certainly better than guarding a skyhook while brooding over her lost exam results.
She managed a smile. “Certainly,” she said. “Where do I sign?” At least it would get her away from the ongoing Blitsharts trial, which, with its appeals, might go on for the next decade.
Whatever task the Fleet assigned Sula lately, it assigned her a sidearm to go with it. Her first job aboardDauntless was to enslave the civilian workers. Jarlath, two days into the rebellion, had remembered with fury his experience with the dockyards—had remembered theDiscipline! Order! Obedience! he had pledged as the watchwords of his administration—and realized he neededDauntless and the capturedDestiny more than he needed the goodwill of the dockyard staff. He therefore ordered the captains to keep the civilian workers aboard, without allowing them leave or contact with their friends or families, until the work was done to the captains’ satisfaction.
Lord Richard, nearly overcome with glee at this order, placed armed guards at the personnel and cargo hatches, and told the workers that if they didn’t complete their tasks before the Fleet Commander orderedDestiny to leave the station, they would just have to come along to the war. So Sula spent half of each day mounting guard inside the cargo hatch, a sidearm on one hip as she listened to the litany of sad, desperate reasons why one person or another had to leave the ship. The endless succession of plaintive excuses wore on her patience and left her with no pity for the imprisoned workers whatever, and in the end she gave them a cold, green-eyed stare. “Odds are I’m going to die in combat,” she told them. “Why shouldn’t I take a few of you with me?” After that they avoided her.
Jarlath gave the fleet less than a day’s notice before leaving Zanshaa, an announcement that set the workers into a frenzy. Sula’s final task before leaving was to supervise workers carrying boxes of the captain’s slate tiles into storage, where they would remain until such time asDauntless found another few weeks in dock. Lord Richard seemed wistful as he watched them go by: the last captain’s tilework of asteroid material, filled with gaudy splashes of glittering pyrite, was really not to his taste, and the paneling in his cabin, in which yellow chesz wood was accented with trim of scarlet ammana paste, was not his style either.
It wasn’t long before Sula concluded that Lord Richard was a good captain. He had visited every department on the ship and spoken to everyone good-naturedly, displaying his crinkly-eyed smile. He’d had a knack for distinguishing what was important from what wasn’t, and rarely hounded his crew over the latter. All unlike her last captain, Kandinski, who tried to pretend that the crew didn’t exist except as imperfect mechanisms to keep his paneling buffed and his silver polished, and who never spoke to his crew unless issuing a rebuke.
Dauntlessmanaged to depart Zanshaa ring on schedule, with the rest of the Home Fleet. Sula found that she didn’t regret leaving Zanshaa. The capital hadn’t been lucky for her.
Not thatDauntless was shaping up to be any better.
“The Convocation wishes to know when you plan to launch your assault on Magaria.” The speaker was the elderly Senior Fleet Commander Tork, a Daimong whose long, mournful face belied the fervor that added a monotonal harshness to the chimes of his voice. Tork was the chairman of the Fleet Control Board, one of the five active or retired officers who served alongside the board’s four politicians.
Jarlath reclined on his acceleration couch aboardGlory of the Praxis, while the Fleet Control Board’s holographic images floated before his eyes. Suffering from four days’ hard acceleration, his bleached-white fur by now showing its black and gray roots, Jarlath knew he hardly presented his best face to his superiors.
“The enemy outnumbers us,” he said. “Once the Zerafan squadron joins, I’ll have fifty-four ships. Once Elkizer joins Fanaghee, she’ll have fifty-nine, and we can assume that squadrons from Naxas or Felarus will join as well.”
“You assume that Fanaghee will be able to convert all the captured squadrons to Naxid use by the time you arrive.”
“My lord,” said Jarlath, “I cannot afford to think otherwise.”
“And you also assume that she’ll be able to crew all her captured ships.”
A headache thudded dully behind Jarlath’s eyes. He had been over this with his own staff a dozen times.
“Her personnel will be overworked and overstrained, but it can be done,” he said. “If she strips much of the ring station of its personnel, she’ll have adequate fighting crews, though her damage control won’t be as efficient as ours.”
“But if she strips the ring station personnel,” Tork replied, “she won’t have enough dock workers to refit her captured ships.”
“She can bring workers up from the planet. Most of the inhabitants of Magaria are Naxids, and we have to presume they’ll sympathize with the enemy council.”
“You forget that you have the battleship squadron.”
Jarlath closed his weary eyes. “I have not forgot.”
“You have sixPraxis — class ships to the enemy’s one.” A metallic bray of triumph entered Tork’s voice. “Each battleship is the equal of a squadron!”
Then let’s send the battleships by themselves and win a glorious victory, Jarlath thought viciously, but he suppressed his anger. His weary muscles dragged his eyelids apart. “A hit by an antimatter missile will destroy a battleship as easily as it will destroy a frigate,” he said.
“You are being too cautious, my lord commander.”
Jarlath let the two-gravity acceleration drag his lips from his fangs. Enough was enough. “If your lordships give me a direct order to attack immediately,” he said, “an order inwriting, I shall of course obey.”
There was a long silence from the board members. Then Lord Chen spoke.