Walter Williams - Conventions of War

“The thumbprint was that of Master Engineer Thuc,” he said.

Martinez realized his mouth was open, and he closed it. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

Thuc was enormous and covered with muscle, and certainly strong enough to smash Kosinic’s head on the first try. He looked at Michi.

“So Thuc killed Kosinic,” he said. “And Fletcher found out about it somehow and executed Thuc.”

She nodded. “That seems likely.”

“He said he killed Thuc for the honor of the ship,” Martinez said. “He was very sensitive on points of rank and dignity, and maybe he thought it would be an affront to his own pride to order a formal inquiry to reveal the fact that one of his enlisted personnel killed an officer, and so he decided to handle it himself.”

Michi nodded again. “Go on.”

“But if that’s true,” Martinez said, “then who the hell killedFletcher?”

Michi gave him an odd, searching look. “Who benefits?” she said.

Irritation rasped along Martinez’s nerves. “If you’re expecting me to break down and confess,” he said, “you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Others may benefit besides you,” Michi pointed out. “For example, someone who knew that Fletcher would never favor her ambitions, but who thought you might.”

Martinez suspected that Michi’s choice of pronoun was not accidental. “Thuc might have had an accomplice,” he suggested. “An accomplice who thought he was next on Fletcher’s list.”

“Did you know,” Michi said, “that Lieutenant Prasad excelled in Torminel-style wrestling at the Doria Academy?”

“No,” Martinez said, “I didn’t. I haven’t had time to review her file.”

Even if Torminel wrestling didn’t quite allow bashing an opponent’s head in, Martinez knew it was an aggressive style that included strangulation and all sorts of unpleasant, painful joint manipulation and pressure point attacks. He could now see Chandra immobilizing Fletcher long enough to hustle him to his desk and slam his head against its sharp edge, in the process leaving her fingerprints on the underlip.

“I also see,” Michi said, “that you and Lieutenant Prasad shared a communications course some years ago.”

“That’s true. While she was there, she didn’t murder anyone that I know of.”

Michi’s lips twitched in a grim smile. “I’ll take your enthusiastic character reference under advisement. Did you notice that Captain Fletcher gave Prasad a venomous efficiency report?”

“I saw that, yes. But I know of no evidence that she was aware of it.”

“Perhaps she wanted to prevent it from being written, but was too late.” Michi tapped her fingers on her desktop. “I’d like you to inquire, as discreetly as possible, about Prasad’s movements during the watch in which Captain Fletcher was killed.”

“I can’t possibly be discreet with such an inquiry,” Martinez said. “And besides, Garcia already accounted for everyone on the ship.”

“Garcia is an enlisted man and experiences a natural diffidence when interrogating officers. An officer is best for these things.”

Martinez decided he might as well concede. He no longer knew why he was defending Chandra in any case.

“Well,” he said, “I’m interviewing the lieutenants one by one anyway. I’ll ask them about that night, but I don’t think any will give me a story different from anything they’ve already told Garcia.”

“I mess in the wardroom,” Xi said. “I could make a few inquiries as well.”

“Wemust find an answer,” Michi said.

On his way to his office, Martinez contemplated Michi’s choice of words: she had saidan answer, notthe answer.

He wondered if Michi was willing to sacrificethe answer-thereal answer-in favor ofany answer. An answer that would end the doubts and questions on the ship, that would help to unifyIllustrious under its new captain, that would put the entire incident to bed and letIllustrious, and the entire squadron, get on with their job of fighting Naxids.

It was a solution that would sacrifice an officer, that was true, but an officer who was an outsider, a provincial Peer from a provincial clan, isolated from the others who had all been handpicked by Fletcher. An officer who no one seemed to like very much anyway.

An officer who was very much like the officer he himself had been just a year ago.

He didn’t like Michi’s solution on these grounds, and on others as well. There had been three deaths, and he thought Michi was too quick to consider the first two solved. He had a sense that the deaths all had to be related in some way, though he couldn’t guess at what might connect them.

In his office he found Marsden waiting patiently with the day’s reports. Martinez called for a pot of coffee and worked steadily for an hour, until a knock on the door interrupted him. He looked up and saw Chandra in the doorway.

He tried not to envision a target symbol pinned to her chest as she stepped into the room and braced.

“Yes, Lieutenant?” he said.

“It was unfortunate that we couldn’t discuss…” Her eyes cut to Marsden, whose bald head was bent over his datapad. “…that matter we wanted to talk about at dinner today.”

“We can talk about it tomorrow,” Martinez said.

“It would be a little late.” Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “The lady squadcom had asked me to conduct my experiment tomorrow.”

She wants to find out how much you’re worth before deciding on your arrest.The bitter thought rose in Martinez’s mind before he could stop it.

He sighed. “I don’t know how I can help you, Lieutenant.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. “In order for this to be what you want, it can’t be anything standard. Eithermy standard ortheir standard, if you see what I mean. It has to be something that’s completely yours, and something that hadn’t been done before, or at least not recently.”

Her hands clenched into fists, and this time did not unclench. “I understand, my lord.” From the sound, her teeth were clenched too.

“It’s not easy, I know.” Martinez made a conciliatory gesture. “I’m sorry, but I have no useful ideas for you.” He mentally reviewed the last few days. “I don’t have useful ideas for anyone, it seems.”

Her fists still clenched, Chandra braced, executed a military turn, and marched away.

Martinez looked after her, and in a morbid part of his mind he wondered if Chandra was angry enough to kill him.

Martinez was killed the next morning, during Chandra’s maneuver. He was walking off his breakfast with a tour around the deck when Chandra’s voice echoed down the corridor from the speakers at each end. “This is a drill. General quarters. This is a drill. Now general quarters.”

Martinez responded to the call with a brisk walk to his quarters, where Alikhan helped him into his vac suit. If it hadn’t been a drill, he would have headed straight to Command at a dead run and hoped that Alikhan and the vac suit caught up with him later.

When he arrived in Command with his helmet tucked under his arm, the officer of the watch-Mersenne-stepped aside from the captain’s cage and settled himself into his usual place at the engines station. Martinez swung into his couch and called for a status report, all the while looking at his display as the various stations reported themselves ready.

The last symbol flashed, and Martinez reported to Michi thatIllustrious was at quarters. After a modest delay, caused presumably by waiting for other ships to report themselves ready, Chandra’s voice sounded in his earphones. Martinez then passed command of the ship to Kazakov in Auxiliary Command so his crew in Command could devote themselves entirely to the maneuver.