Once a Hero

  "Yes," Esmay said. She'd already shown she was ignorant; she might as well learn what she could.

  "Here, then." Up on the gate display came a blurry view of something large; the view sharpened, leaped nearer, and finally stabilized as the biggest and most unlikely excuse for a ship Esmay had ever seen. It looked like the unfortunate mating of an office building with a bulk-cargo tank and some sort of clamshell array. "Those funny-looking things are on the main repair bays," the sergeant said helpfully. "They've got 'em open now, testing. As you can see, an escort can fit all the way in, and even most patrols . . . then the ports swing down . . ."

  That opening was the size of an escort? Esmay revised her assumptions about size upward steeply. Not just an office building, but—she realized that the array of lights beyond a rounded bulge was another "office building." It looked nothing like the DSR stats she'd seen at the Academy six years before. The two DSRs they'd been shown designs of had been built like clusters of grapes, with a single cylindrical repair bay running through the cluster. When she said that, the sergeant grinned.

  "Koskiusko wasn't commissioned then," the sergeant said. "She's new—and she's not the same as she was, either. Here—I'll show you a design plot."

  This came up in the three standard views, plus an angled one similar to that Esmay had seen. In design, the DSR still looked like several disparate (but large) components had been squashed together. Five blunt arms ran out from a central core: that was the "office building" part. Two adjacent arms had the clamshell arrangements on them. Behind those trailed great oblong shapes labeled "drive test cradle." The arm adjacent to neither "main repair bay" had the tanklike object—larger, Esmay realized, than any tank she'd seen—stuck on its end like a bulbous nose. Without the tank, it would have looked like an orbital station specialized for some industrial process.

  "What is that tank?" she asked, fascinated by this impossible oddity.

  "Dunno, sir. That was added about three years ago, maybe two years after she was commissioned. Ah—here's your pod." The display blinked out, then reappeared as a status line; Esmay heard the clunk as the pod docked, then the whistling of an airlock cycling. Finally the status light turned green, and the sergeant opened the hatch. "Good luck, sir. Hope you enjoy your tour."

  Esmay found the pod unsettling. It had no artificial gravity; she had to strap into the passenger racks and hang there facing a ring of ports. The pilot wore an EVA suit; his helmet hung on a drop-ring just above him, suggesting that the EVA suit was more sense than worry. Through the pod's wide ports she could see entirely too much of Sierra Station and its docked vessels, barnacles on a floating wheel. Station navigation beacons and standing lights played over them, glittering from the faceted hulls of pressurized bulk cargo tanks, gleaming from brightly colored commercial liners, and scarcely revealing the matte-dark hulls of Fleet vessels, except for pricks of light reflected from shield and weapons fittings. Beyond, a starfield with no planets distinguishable. Sierra System had them, but not out here, where the station served primarily outsystem transport. Sudden acceleration bumped Esmay against the rack, and then ceased; her stomach lagged behind, then lurched forward.

  "Bag's on the overhead, if you need it," the pilot said. Esmay gulped and kept her last meal firmly in place. "We're over there—" The pod pilot nodded to the forward port. A tangle of lights that diverged as they came nearer. Suddenly a glare as a searchlight from one arm flared across another, revealing the hull surface to be lumpy and dark . . . and big. Esmay could not get used to the scale.

  "Passenger pod docking access is near the hub," the pilot said. "That gives passengers the easiest access to personnel lifts and most admin offices. Cargo shuttles and special cargo pods dock near the inventory bays for the specific cargo. Minimizes interior traffic." He leaned forward and prodded the control panel; deceleration shoved Esmay against the straps. Closer . . . closer . . . she glanced up to the overhead port, and saw the vast bulk of the DSR blocking out most of the starfield—then all of it.

  Exiting the pod into the passenger bay, Esmay stepped across the red stripes that signaled where the ship formally began (something that had no relation to its architecture) and saluted the colors painted on the opposite bulkhead.

  "Ah . . . Lieutenant Suiza." The sergeant at the dock entry looked back and forth from her ID to her face several times. "Uh . . . welcome home, sir. The captain left word he wanted to see you when you came aboard . . . shall I call ahead?"

  Esmay had thought she'd have time to put her duffel away first, but captains had their perks. "Thank you," she said. "Can you tell me my bunk assignment?"

  "Yes, sir. You've got number 14 in the junior officers section of T-2, 'cross ship from where we are now. This is the base of T-4. Do you want someone to take your duffel down?"

  She didn't want anyone messing with her things. "No, thanks. I'll just stick it in a temp locker for now."

  "It's no trouble, Lieutenant. The temp lockers are out of your way to the captain's office anyway . . ."

  She also didn't want to start with a reputation for being difficult. "Thanks, then." She handed over the duffel, and accepted the sergeant's directions to the captain's office . . . turn left out that hatch, take the second lift up five levels to Deck Nine, then left out of the lift and follow the signs.

  The wide curving corridor matched the size of the ship; it belonged on an orbital station, not a warship. Esmay passed the first bank of lift tubes; the signs made it clear she was on Deck Four, which on an ordinary ship would be Main, not that any ordinary ship would have signs. At the second bank of tubes, she stepped in and watched the numbers flash by. Eighteen decks . . . what could they find to put on eighteen decks?

  She stepped out of the lift tube on Deck Nine. Here the wide curving corridor that went around the core had the gray tile she associated with Main Deck in ordinary ships. Across from the lift tube openings a corridor led away, she supposed down one of the arms . . . T-5, said the sign on the overhead. A clerk sat at a desk in an open bay to one side. Esmay introduced herself.

  "Ah. Lieutenant Suiza. Yes, sir, the captain wanted to see you right away. Captain Vladis Julian Hakin, sir. Just let me buzz the captain . . ." Esmay could not hear any signal, but the clerk nodded. "Go along in, sir. Third on your left."

  This captain had had a wooden door substituted for the standard steel hatch; this was not unusual. It was somewhat unusual for it to be closed when a visitor had been announced. Esmay knocked.

  "Come in," came a growl from the other side. She opened the door and entered, to find herself facing the top of a gray head. The captain's office had been carpeted in deep green, and paneled in wood veneer. The Familias seal hung on the bulkhead behind the captain's desk on one side, and a framed copy of some document—probably his commission, though she couldn't see it—on the other.

  "Ah . . . Lieutenant Suiza." That seemed to be the greeting of the day. In Captain Hakin's tone of voice, it sounded more like a curse than a greeting. "I hear they consider you quite the hero on Altiplano." Definitely a curse. The distinction between on Altiplano and here in the real world might have been printed in red with less emphasis.

  "Local interest, sir," Esmay said. "That's all."

  "I'm glad you realize that," Captain Hakin said. He looked up suddenly, as if hoping to catch her in some incriminating expression. Esmay met his gaze calmly; she had expected repercussions from the awards ceremony, that was only natural. His glance flicked down to her uniform, where the silver and gold ribbon was not on the row allotted to non-Fleet decorations. By law, she was entitled to wear major awards from any political system within the Familias Regnant; by custom, no one did unless on a diplomatic assignment where failure to wear a locally awarded decoration might insult the giver. Junior officers, in particular, wore no personal awards except when in full dress uniform. So Esmay had the S&S, the ships-and-service ribbons appropriate to her past service, including the two decorations awarded Despite's crew for the recent engagement—
and, incongruously, the Ship Efficiency Award won under the late Captain Hearne. Traitor Hearne might have been, but her ship had topped the sector in the IG's inspection.

  "Yes, sir," Esmay said, when his gaze flicked back to hers.

  "Some captains would be concerned about a junior officer who had been involved in a mutiny, no matter how . . . er . . . warranted the action was later shown to be."

  "I'm sure that's true, sir," Esmay said, unruffled. She had dealt with this sort of thing all her life. "There must be some officers who remain concerned even after a court has considered the matter in detail. I can assure the captain that I will not overreact to such concern, if anyone expresses it."

  Hakin stared. What had he thought, that she'd turn red and bluster, trying to justify herself? She had stood before a court; she had been exonerated of all charges; she need do nothing but live out her innocence.

  "You seem very sure of yourself, Lieutenant," Hakin said finally. "How do you know that I am not one of those so concerned?"

  Idiot, thought Esmay. His determination to prick her had overcome his good sense. No answer she could give would entirely ease the tension he had created. She chose bluntness. "Is the captain concerned?"

  A long sigh, through pursed lips. "About many things, Lieutenant, of which your potential for mutiny is only one minute particle. I have been assured, by those who are supposed to know, that the public reports of your court-martial were in fact accurate . . . that there is no suspicion of your having conspired to mutiny ahead of your captain's treacherous act." He waited; Esmay could think of nothing helpful to say, and kept quiet. "I shall expect your loyalty, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, sir," Esmay said. That she could do.

  "And have you no corresponding concern that your next captain might also be a traitor? That I might be in the pay of some enemy?"

  She had not let herself think about that; the effort pushed her response into exclamation. "No, sir! Captain Hearne must have been an aberration—"

  "And the others as well? You're happier than I, if you can believe that, Lieutenant."

  Now what was he getting at?

  "We've had investigators all over every ship in the Fleet—and that's reassuring only to those who think the investigators can't be bent. A mess of trouble that Serrano woman caused."

  Esmay opened her mouth to defend Heris Serrano, and realized it would do no good. If Hakin seriously believed that Serrano had "caused trouble" by unmasking traitors and saving the Familias from invasion, she couldn't change his mind. She could only ruin her own reputation.

  "Not that she isn't a brilliant commander," Hakin went on, as if she had said something. "I suppose Fleet must count itself lucky to have her back on active status . . . if we do get into a war." He looked at Esmay again. "I'm told Admiral Vida Serrano is pleased with you . . . I suppose she would be, since you saved her niece's neck."

  That, too, was unanswerable. Esmay wished he would get to the point, if his point was not merely to needle her, trying to get some sort of reaction.

  "I hope you don't have a swelled head from all the attention, Lieutenant. Or some kind of psychological trauma from the strain of the court-martial, which I've been warned is sometimes the case, even with a favorable verdict." From his expression, he would want some kind of answer this time.

  "No, sir." Esmay said.

  "Good. I'm sure you're aware that this is a time of crisis for both the Fleet and the Familias. No one knows quite what to expect . . . except that on this ship, I expect everyone to attend to duty. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Very good, Lieutenant; I'll see you from time to time as the mess rotations come around." He dismissed her with a nod, and Esmay went out trying to suppress a resentment that she knew would do her no good. No one lasted long in any service with a "why me?" attitude; she wasn't to blame for the things held against her, but what was new about that? In the history of the universe, Papa Stefan had taught them all, life was unfair more often than not . . . life wasn't about fair. What it was about had filled more than one evening with explosive argument . . . Esmay tried not to think about it more than necessary.

  She handed her order chip to the clerk in the front office. "What's my duty assignment, do you know?" He glanced at it and shook his head. "That's the 14th Heavy Maintenance Yard, Lieutenant: Admiral Dossignal's command. You'll need to report to his Admin section . . . here—" He sketched out a route on her compad. "Just keep going clockwise around the core, and you'll come to it at the base of T-3."

  "Is the bridge on this deck?" asked Esmay, gesturing to the color-coded deck tiles.

  "No, sir. The bridge is up on 17; this ship's too big for the usual color-codes. There is a system, but it's not standard. We call this command deck because all the commands have their headquarters units here. That's just for convenience, really; it cuts down the transit time." Esmay could imagine that in a ship this size any hand-carried message could take awhile to arrive. She had never been on a ship where the captain's office and the bridge were not near each other.

  On her way around the core, she passed another obvious headquarters, this one with a neat sign informing her that it was the Sector 14 Training Command, Admiral Livadhi commanding. Underneath were smaller signs: Senior Technical Schools Admin Office, Senior Technical Schools Assessment, Support Systems. She walked on, past the base of another wing, this one labeled T-2. That was where she would be living, but she didn't have time to explore it now. On and on . . . and there ahead she saw a large banner proclaiming Fourteenth Heavy Maintenance Yard: The Scrap Will Rise Again. Below that, smaller signs directed the ignorant to the administrative offices. There, a bright-eyed pivot-major sent her directly to the admiral's chief of staff, Commander Atarin. He greeted Esmay's appearance in a matter-of-fact way she found reassuring. He had already read her report on the inventory aboard the supply ship, and seemed far more interested in that than her past.

  "We've been trying to nail our supplier on these leaky adhesive tubes for a couple of years," he said. "But we couldn't prove that the supplies were damaged before we got here. I'm glad old Scorry—the XO on that supply ship—thought of having you go over the stock on your way here. We may finally get some leverage on them."

  "Yes, sir."

  "How much experience do you have with inventory control?"

  "None, sir," Esmay said. Her record cube, she knew, was on the XO's desk, but he might not have had time to look at it.

  "I'm impressed, then, especially that you caught those fasteners. Most people give up after fifty or sixty items. Or assume the computer will catch it. It's supposed to, of course—there's supposed to be automatic labeling, right from the manufacturing machinery. Zero-error, they keep claiming. Never have seen zero errors, though." He grinned at her. "Of course, it could be someone from the IG's office, putting little tests in our path, to see if we're alert."

  That possibility hadn't occurred to Esmay, though sabotage had. But he hadn't been on Despite.

  "Of course, it could also be enemy action," he said. She hoped he hadn't seen that on her face. "But I'd rather believe in stupidity than malice." He looked down at his desk display. "Now let's see . . . your last duty was on a patrol craft—your emphasis on your last few cruises was scan technology. Frankly, we have plenty of scan tech experts aboard now, all more experienced than you in the field. It would do you good to branch out, get some expertise in other ship systems—" He looked up as if expecting her to disagree.

  "Fine, sir," Esmay said. She hoped it was fine. She knew she needed to learn about other systems, but was he just determined to keep her away from scan, because scan was political?

  "Good." He smiled again, and nodded. "I expect most of you juniors think DSR is a bad assignment, but you'll discover that there's no better way to learn what really keeps ships operational. No ordinary ship deals with as many problems as we do, from hull to electronics. If you take advantage of it, this tour can teach you a lot."

  Esmay relaxed. S
he recognized someone happily astride his favorite hobby horse. "Yes, sir," she said, and wondered if he would go on.

  "Personally, I think every officer should have a tour on a DSR. Then we wouldn't have people coming up with bright ideas—even installing bright ideas—that they should know wouldn't work." He reined himself in with a visible effort. "Well. I'm going to assign you to H&A first—Hull and Architecture, that is. You'll find it a lot more complicated than your basic course at the academy."

  "I expect so, sir," Esmay said.

  "You'll be working with Major Pitak; she's on Deck Eight, portside main, aft third of T-4 . . . you can ask someone from there. Had time to stow your gear yet?"

  "No, sir."

  "Mmm. Well, technically you're not on duty until tomorrow, but—"

  "I'll go see Major Pitak, sir."

  "Good. Now, the admiral will want to meet you, but he's tied up right now in a meeting, and I don't expect he'll be free until tomorrow or the next day. Check back with me, and I'll set it up. You might want to take a look at the command structure here—it's more complex than you'd find in most assignments."

  "Yes, sir."

  Not only the command structure was complex, Esmay discovered. She headed clockwise from T-3, where the 14th Heavy Maintenance had its administrative offices, to T-4, sure that she had now caught on to the Koskiusko's peculiar structure. At the hub end of T-4, she found an array of personnel and cargo transport tubes, and took the personnel lift down to the eighth deck. There she faced an axial passage wide enough for three horsemen abreast, and plunged into it, looking for the third crosswise passage. She passed one administrative office after another, each occupied by busy clerks: Communications Systems, Weapons Systems, Remote Imaging Systems . . . but nothing labeled Hull and Architecture. Finally she stopped and asked.