Once a Hero

  Dettin saw them, finally, and stopped short in his closing remarks. "Uh . . . sir . . . ?"

  Commander Atarin, Esmay finally recognized as he moved out of the dimness back there and into the light. "I presume you'd be willing to give the same briefing to senior officers?"

  A shiver of apprehension ran down her backbone. She couldn't tell if he was angry, or amused; she didn't know whether to apologize or explain. Both were bad ideas, her family heritage reminded her. "Of course, sir." She choked back the automatic qualifiers: if she wasn't really qualified, why was she showing off to the ensigns?

  "If I could have a word . . ." he murmured, his glance raking the ensigns, who immediately began scrambling from their seats to leave by the other entrance.

  "Of course, sir." Esmay retrieved her display cube from the projector, and came down from the dais. Major Pitak was not one of the officers there, and she didn't recognize any of the others besides Atarin. They gazed at the departing ensigns with the kind of neutral expression which she interpreted as trouble on the half-shell and bubbling from the broiler. Atarin said nothing more until the ensigns had gone.

  "Very clearly explained, I thought," he said then. Esmay did not relax; from his tone he might have been discussing a textbook, and she wasn't sure whether she was being considered the textbook's author or its topic. "I was impressed with your analysis of your own errors."

  Textbook case of junior officer putting feet clumsily in mouth, then.

  "Just how badly was that nav computer damaged?"

  A factual question she could answer. "It had taken direct fire—we'd replaced components from storage, but we couldn't get the microjump functions within 80 percent of normal function."

  One of the other officers spoke up. "Couldn't you have used components from the weapons board? There's duplication in some of that, if I recall. "

  "Yes, sir, there is. But we didn't want to risk having any delay in target acquisition or getting a firing solution."

  "Umm. So you were skip-jumping with a faulty system . . . a bit risky, wasn't it?"

  Esmay could think of no real answer but a shrug; one did not offer shrugs. "Somewhat risky, yes sir." It had been terrifying at the time, as the confidence intervals broadened and she had had to feel her way from one jump to the next. Instinct, she had been well taught, made a lousy guide to navigation in space.

  "When I read the Board of Inquiry report," Atarin said, "I didn't notice that they acknowledged the difficulty with the nav computer. I presume you mentioned it."

  "It was in the record, sir," Esmay said. She had not dwelt on the difficulties it presented; it would have been whining, making excuses.

  "Yes. Well, Lieutenant Suiza, I think you'd better expect an invitation to the senior tactics discussion group. I quite realize that you aren't a senior analyst—but I doubt we can resist having a firsthand account of so . . . striking . . . an engagement."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you might want to check the orientation of your illustration eight . . . I think you've got the axes rotated ninety degrees . . . unless there was a reason for that."

  "Yes, sir."

  With a nod, Atarin led the other officers out. Esmay felt like falling into one of the seats and shaking for a half hour, but Dettin was peeking in at her, obviously hoping to chat.

  * * *

  "So you don't think she's rousing the ensigns to any sort of . . . undesirable activity?"

  "No, sir. You know how ensigns are: they'll go after anyone with real experience to talk about. They love gory stories, and that's what they were hoping for. Instead, she gave them a perfectly straightforward account, as unexciting as possible, of an innately thrilling engagement. Absolutely no self-puffery at all, and no attempt to romanticize Commander Serrano, either. I've invited her to address the senior tactics discussion group—she'll get more intelligent questions there, but I suspect she'll answer them as well."

  "I don't want to make her into some sort of hero," Admiral Dossignal said. "It will rile our touchy captain. Too much attention—"

  "Sir, with all due respect, she is a hero. She has not sought attention; from her record she never did. But she saved Serrano's ship—and Xavier—and we can't pretend it didn't happen. Letting her discuss it in professional terms is the best way to ensure that it doesn't become an unprofessional topic."

  "I suppose. When is she speaking? I'd like to be there."

  "The meeting after next. We have that continuing education required lecture next time."

  * * *

  When Esmay reported to duty the next day, Major Pitak said, "I hear you had an interesting evening. How does it feel to have an overflow audience? Ever thought of being an entertainer?"

  The nightmares that had kept her awake most of the night put an edge in Esmay's voice. "I wish they hadn't asked me!" Pitak's eyebrows rose. "Sorry," Esmay said. "I just . . . would rather put it behind me."

  Pitak grinned sourly. "Oh, it's behind you, all right—just as a thruster's behind a pod, pushing it ever onward. Face it, Suiza, you're not going to be an anonymous member of the pack ever again."

  Just like my father, Esmay thought. She couldn't think of anything to say.

  "Listen to me," Pitak said. "You don't have to convince me that you're not a glory-hound. I doubt anyone who's ever served with you or commanded you thinks you're a glory-hound. But it's like anything else—if you stand in the rain, you get wet, and if you do something spectacular, you get noticed. Face it. Deal with it. And by the way, did you finish with that cube on hull specs of minesweepers?"

  "Yes, sir," Esmay said, handing it over, and hoping the topic had turned for good.

  "I hear you're on the schedule for the senior tactics discussion group," Pitak said. Esmay managed not to sigh or groan. "If you've got any data on the hull damage to Serrano's ship, I'd like to hear about it. Also the Benignity assault carrier that blew in orbit . . . mines, I think it was . . . it would be helpful to know a little more about that. The mines and the hull both. I realize you weren't in the system for long afterwards, but perhaps . . ."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Not that it's tactics proper, but data inform tactics, or should. I expect Commander Serrano made use of everything she knew about H&A."

  Forewarned by this exchange, Esmay was not surprised to be buttonholed by other senior officers in the days that followed. Each suggested particular areas she might want to cover in her talk, pertaining to that officer's specialty. She delved into the ship's databanks in every spare moment, trying to find answers, and anticipate other questions. Amazing how connected everything was . . . she had known the obvious for years, how the relative mass of Benignity and Fleet ships governed their chosen modes of action, but she'd never noticed how every detail, every subsystem, served the same aims.

  Even recruitment policy, which she had not really thought of as related to tactics at all. If you threw massive ships in large numbers into an offensive war, seeking conquest, you expected heavy losses . . . and needed large numbers of troops, both space and surface. Widespread conscription, especially from the long-conquered worlds, met that need for loyal soldiers. Recent conquests supplied a conscripted civilian work force for low-level, labor-intensive industries. A force primarily defensive, like the Familias Regular Space Service, manning smaller ships with more bells and whistles, preserved its civilian economic base by not removing too many young workers into the military. Hence hereditary military families who did not directly enter the political hierarchy.

  Fascinating, once she thought about it this way. She couldn't help thinking what widespread rejuvenation would do to this structure, stable over the past hundred or more years. Then she surprised herself when she anticipated the next set of hull specs on Benignity killer-escorts . . . on their choice of hull thickness for assault carriers. How had she known? Her father's brusque You're a Suiza! overrode the automatic thought that she must have seen it before somewhere, she couldn't possibly be smart enough to guess right.


  By the time of her second presentation, she felt stuffed with new knowledge barely digested. She'd checked her illustrative displays (yes, number eight had been rotated ninety degrees from the standard references) and assembled what she hoped were enough background references.

  CHAPTER TEN

  "Looks like you came prepared," Major Pitak said, as Esmay lugged her carryall of cubes and printouts into the assigned conference room. This was a large hall in the Technical Schools wing, T-1, its raked seating curved around a small stage.

  "I hope so, sir," Esmay said. She could think of two dozen more cubes she might need, if someone asked one of the less likely questions. She had come early, hoping for a few minutes alone to set up, but Pitak, Commander Seveche, and Commander Atarin were already there. Her chain of command, she realized.

  "Would you like any help with your displays?" Atarin asked. "The remote changer in this room hangs up sometimes."

  "That would be helpful, yes, sir. The first are all set up on this cube—" she held it out. "But I've got additional visuals if the group asks particular questions."

  "Fine, then. I've asked Ensign Serrano to make himself available—I'll call him in."

  Serrano. She hadn't met him yet, and after what she'd said at dinner, no one had gossiped more about him in her presence. She hadn't wanted to seek him out. What could she have said? I saved your aunt's life; your grandmother talked to me; let's be friends? No. But she had been curious.

  Her first thought when he walked in was that he had the look of a Serrano: dark, compact, springy in motion, someone whose entire ancestry was spangled with stars, someone whose family expected their offspring to become admirals, or at least in contention. Her second was that he seemed impossibly young to bear the weight of such ambition. If he had not worn ensign's insignia, she'd have guessed him to be about sixteen, and in the prep school.

  She had known there were young Serranos, of course, even before she got to the Koskiusko. They could not be hatched out full-grown as officers of some intermediate grade. They had to be born, and grow, like anyone else. But she had never seen it happen, and the discovery of a young Serrano—younger than she was—disturbed her.

  "Lieutenant Suiza, this is Ensign Serrano." The glint in his dark eyes looked very familiar.

  "Sir," he said formally, and twitched as if he would have bowed in other circumstances. "I'm supposed to keep your displays straightened out." Generations of command had seeped into his voice, but it was still expressive.

  "Very well," Esmay said. She handed over the cube with her main displays, and rummaged in the carryall. "That one's got the displays that I know I'll need—and here, this is the outline. They're in order, but in case someone wants to see a previous display, these are the numbers I'll be calling for. Now these—" she gave him another three cubes, "—these have illustrations I might need if someone brings up particular points. I'm afraid you'll have to use the cube index . . . I didn't know I'd have any assistance, so there's no hardcopy listing. I'll tell you which cube, and then the index code."

  "Fine, sir. I can handle that." She had no doubt he could.

  Other officers were arriving, greeting each other. Ensign Serrano took her cubes and went off somewhere—Esmay hoped to a projection booth—while she organized the rest of her references. The room filled, but arriving officers left a little group of seats in front as if they'd had stars painted on them. In a way, they did . . . the admirals and the captain came in together, chatting amiably. Admiral Dossignal nodded at her; he seemed even taller next to Captain Hakin. On the captain's other side, Admiral Livadhi fiddled with his chair controls, and Admiral Uppanos, commander of the branch hospital, leaned toward his own aide with some comment. Atarin stood to introduce Esmay; with the admirals' arrival, the meeting started.

  Esmay began with the same background material. No one made comments, at least not that she could hear. All her displays projected right-side-up and correctly oriented . . . she had checked them repeatedly, but she'd had a nagging fear. This time, her recent research in mind, she added what she had learned about the Benignity's methods, about the implications of Fleet protocols. Heads nodded; she recognized an alert interest far beyond the ensigns' hunger for exciting stories.

  When the questions began, she found herself exhilarated by the quality of thought they implied. These were people who saw the connections she had only just found, who had been looking for them, who were hungry for more data, more insights. She answered as best she could, referencing everything she said. They nodded, and asked more questions. She called for visuals, trusting that the Serrano ensign would get the right ones in the right order. He did, as if he were reading her mind.

  "So the yacht didn't actually get involved in the battle? Aside from that one killer-escort?"

  "No, sir. I have only secondhand knowledge of this, but it's my understanding that the yacht had only minimal shields. It had been used primarily to suggest the presence of other armed vessels, and would not have fired if the Benignity vessel hadn't put itself in such a perfect situation."

  "It can only have confused them briefly," a lieutenant commander mused from near the back. "If they had accurate scans, the mass data would show—"

  "But I wanted to ask about that ore-carrier," someone else interrupted. "Why did Serrano have it leave the . . . what was it? Zalbod?"

  "It's my understanding that she didn't, sir. The miners themselves decided to join in—"

  "And it shouldn't have got that far, not with the specs you've shown. How did they get it moving so fast?"

  Esmay had no answer for that, but someone else in Drive & Maneuver did. A brisk debate began between members of the D&M unit . . . Esmay had never been attracted to the theory and practice of space-drive design, but she could follow much of what they said. If this equipment could be reconfigured it would give a 32 percent increase in effective acceleration . . . .

  "They'd still arrive too late to do any good, but that's within the performance you're reporting. I wonder which of them thought it up . . ."

  "If that's what they did," another D&M officer said. "For all we know, they cooked up something unique."

  Esmay snorted, surprising herself and startling them all into staring at her. "Sorry, sir," she said. "Fact is, they cooked up a considerable brew, and I heard about the aftermath." Scuttlebutt said that Lord Thornbuckle's daughter had been dumped naked in a two-man rockhopper pod . . . supposedly undamaged . . . and the pod jettisoned by mistake into the weapons-crowded space between the ore-carrier and Xavier. Esmay doubted it was an accident . . . but the girl had survived.

  Brows raised, the officer said, "I wonder . . . if they added a chemical rocket component . . . that might have given them a bit of extra push."

  The talk went on. They wanted to know every detail of the damage to Despite from the mutiny: what weapons had been used, and what bulkheads had been damaged? What about fires? What about controls, the environmental system failsafes, the computers? The admirals, who had sat quietly listening to the questions of their subordinates, started asking questions of their own.

  Esmay found herself saying "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know that," more often than she liked. She had not had time to examine the spalling caused by projectile hand weapons . . . to assess the effect of sonics on plumbing connections . . .

  "Forensics . . ." she started to say once, and stopped short at their expressions.

  "Forensics cares about evidence of wrongdoing," Major Pitak said, as if that were a moral flaw. "They don't know diddly about materials . . . they come asking us what it means if something's lost a millimeter of its surface."

  "That's not entirely fair," another officer said. "There's that little fellow in the lab back on Sturry . . . I've gone to him a few times asking about wiring problems."

  "But in general—"

  "In general yes. Now, Lieutenant, did you happen to notice whether the bulkhead damage you mentioned in the crew compartments caused any longitudinal variation in artificial gravi
ty readings?"

  She had not. She hadn't noticed a lot of things, in the middle of the battle, but no one was scolding her. They were galloping on, like headstrong horses, from one person's curiosity to another's. Arguments erupted, subsided, and began again with new questions.

  Esmay wondered how long it would go on. She was exhausted; she was sure they had run over the scheduled meeting time—not that anyone was going to tell the captain and senior officers to vacate the place. Finally Atarin stood, and the conversation died.

  "We're running late; we need to wrap this up. Lieutenant, I think I speak for all of us when I say that this was a fascinating presentation—a very competent briefing. You must have done a lot of background work."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "It's rare to find a young officer so aware of the way things fit together."

  "Sir, several other officers asked questions ahead of time, which sent me in the right directions."

  "Even so. A good job, and we thank you." The others nodded; Esmay was sure the expressions held genuine respect. She wondered why it surprised her—why her surprise made her feel faintly guilty. The admirals and the captain left first, then the others trailed away, still talking among themselves. Finally they were all gone, the last of them trailing out the door. Esmay sagged.

  "That was impressive, Lieutenant," Ensign Serrano said as he handed her the stack of cubes. "And you kept track of which display went with which question."

  "And you handled them perfectly," Esmay said. "It can't have been easy, when I had to skip from one cube to another."

  "Not that difficult—you managed to slide in those volume numbers every time. You certainly surprised them."

  "Them?"

  "Your audience. Shouldn't have—they had recordings of the talk you gave the juniors. This was just fleshed out, the grown-up version."

  Was this impertinence? Or genuine admiration? Esmay wasn't sure. "Thanks," she said, and turned away. She would worry about it tomorrow, when Major Pitak would no doubt keep her busy enough that she wouldn't really have time. The young Serrano gave her a cheerful nod before taking himself off somewhere.