Martinez looked at the image of Alikhan in his sleeve display. “I’d like you to go virtual and look at a file. You aren’t to show this to anyone. I want you to look at it closely and see what conclusions you can draw.”
“A file, my lord?”
Martinez told him what was in it. Alikhan’s eyes widened.
“Very good, my lord,” he said.
Martinez then paged Dalkeith and told her that she was in charge of the upcoming drill. “Find something in the files involving two squadrons maneuvering against each other—the sort of thing Do-faq would pick. Give your people some practice, because Do-faq intends that you command in tomorrow morning’s fleet maneuver.”
One of the advantages of having an unimaginative premiere, Martinez observed, was that nothing seemed to surprise her. Or perhaps all things surprised her equally.
“Very well, lord elcap,” she said.
Martinez’s left arm had grown very tired of being held aloft in the heavy gravity, and when the chameleon weave of the sleeve display shifted to its normal dark green, Martinez thankfully lowered the arm to his side. He would be more comfortable in an acceleration couch, but the couches were all in public areas, and he wanted the privacy of his own cabin. The scent of tomato and oil wafted toward him from his table, where the remains of his supper waited to be cleared during the next moment of standard gravity. Soft light glowed on the dark wood paneling that had been installed byCorona ‘s previous captain.
That captain, Fahd Tarafah, had been one of the Fleet’s most extreme football fanatics, and had gone so far as to paintCorona ‘s hull the lawn green of a football pitch, complete with a white midfield stripe running the length of the ship and a motif of soccer balls bouncing down the ship’s flanks. Tarafah’s cabin had previously been decorated with sports memorabilia, trophies, pictures of his winning teams and of Tarafah with famous players, along with a muddied pair of athletic shoes preserved by rare gases under a glass bowl.
Tarafah, his winning team, and most of his officers and crew had been captured in the opening moments of the Naxid rebellion, leaving Martinez in command ofCorona. Martinez could only hope that wherever Tarafah was, he was taking comfort in the fact that the Coronas, in their last moments of freedom, had beaten theBombardment of Beijing four goals to one.
Tarafah’s pictures and other personal effects had been cleared away and sent to Tarafah’s family, but Martinez hadn’t had time to replace any of them with objects personal to himself. The bare walls now had a desolate look, relieved only by a picture Alikhan had copied from a news report, framed, and mounted: the picture showed Martinez addressing the Convocation, the supreme legislative body of the empire, after he’d been awarded the Golden Orb for savingCorona from the rebels.
His great moment in history. It had been all downslope from there.
The final moments of the Battle of Magaria were frozen in the display over his head, an abstract display of blips, traces, heading and speed indicators, all marred by the deadly radio blooms of antimatter explosions. Martinez shifted the display’s t-axis to the beginning of the battle and ran the display again. Caroline Sula intruded again on his thoughts, and he found himself unable to concentrate.
Perhaps Sula had sent him a message. He checked and discovered that she had, one that had been three days crossing the empty space between them.
Anticipation sang through him as he called up the video.
Absurd, he told himself. He hardly knew her.
Sula appeared in the air before him. He paused for a moment in appreciation of her pale, translucent complexion, the pale gold hair and brilliant green eyes, elements of a staggering beauty marred only slightly, at this moment, by signs of weariness and pain. And the brain hidden under that remarkable exterior was at least as remarkable as her looks—Caroline Sula had won a First, had scored highest of all candidates in her year for the lieutenants’ exams, and had then gone on to blow up five enemy ships at the Battle of Magaria.
Still, it wasn’t her mind that Martinez was admiring at the moment. Simply gazing at her was like being hit in the groin with a velvet hammer.
Sula looked at him and spoke. “Another nineteen days of deceleration before we reach—” And then there was the annoying white flash, with the Fleet symbol, that indicated censorship, before Sula appeared again, apparently undisturbed by the interruption. “Everyone’s tired. Nobody on this ship bathes nearly enough, and that includes me.
“I’m sorry to hear about your misadventures on the exercise. Working up a new crew can’t be any fun.” Her lips twitched in a suggestive smile, a flash of sharp white teeth. “I’m sorry not to be there to help you whip them into shape.” The smile faded, and she shrugged. “Still, I’m sure you’ll manage it. I have confidence in your ability to warp all others to your imperious will.”
Well, Martinez thought,that was good. At least hesupposed it was good.
Sometimes Sula’s choice of phrase was too ambiguous for his tastes.
“Still,” she went on, “you can’t be enjoying yourself, not when every other captain in the Fleet is jealous of you and will pounce on your least misstep. I hope you have at least a few friends on board.”
Her expression changed subtly, a mask falling into place behind her eyes. “And speaking of friends, an old acquaintance of ours has been given the task of censoring these messages. That would be Sublieutenant Lord Jeremy Foote, who I believe you encountered when he was a mere cadet. So if any pieces of these messages are missing, for instance—” Martinez laughed at the appearance of a white space, knowing that Sula was deliberately filling the air either with military secrets or candid, scatological judgments of superior officers. The long empty moment ended, and Sula returned wearing another of her ambiguous smiles. “—then you’ll know it was due to the intervention of a friend.” Sula raised her hand to wave farewell, then winced. “The burn is better,” she added, “thanks for asking. But sometimes I move too suddenly, and the little bastardbites. ”
The orange End Transmission symbol filled the air.
Jeremy Foote,Martinez thought. A big blond oaf with a cowlick, a rich boy whose arrogance and assumption of privilege skated the line of insubordination and contempt. Martinez had loathed him on first meeting him, and subsequent acquaintance hadn’t improved Martinez’s opinion.
Foote hadn’t bothered with the lieutenants’ exams in which Sula had scored her First—that sort of work was beneath the dignity of a Foote. He’d been promoted straight into theBombardment of Delhi by its captain, his yachtsman uncle, and no doubt subsequent promotions were assured by other relations and friends in the service. Perhaps Foote had suffered a setback when the yachtsman uncle had died along with half his crew, but Martinez doubted that Foote’s star would fade for very long. The higher-ranking Peers looked after each other very well.
At least Sula seemed as fond of Lord Jeremy as was Martinez, a fact in which he could take comfort.
He squirreled Sula’s message away in a file that could be opened only with his captain’s key, then told the software he would reply. He looked at the camera and donned what he thought of as his official face, the imperturbable mask of a commander.
“You can only imagine my delight on learning that it was Lieutenant Foote who censors your messages,” he said. “I know, of course, that my superior rank means that he can’t censorme, and that he won’t seethis message unless you show it to him.
“Permission to do this is now granted. As you know, I now command a squadron that is being sent on…” He paused for deliberate effect. “A hazardous mission. I’ve recently reviewed the records of the battle at Magaria, including the records made by your pinnace. As I may soon be leading ships into combat myself, I’m interested in your assessment of that action.”