Elizabeth Moon: Once a Hero

“That’s standard,” Esmay said. “Even in normal situations.” One of her own stomach-clenching fears was that the forensic teams sent to Despite would find out that she talked in her sleep. She didn’t know, but if she had, and if she had talked during those nightmares . . .

“Yes, but now they’re paying attention,” Peli said.

“Well, we didn’t do anything wrong.” That was Arphan, a mere ensign. “We weren’t traitors, and we didn’t lead the mutiny either. So I don’t see where they can do anything to us.”

“Not to you, no,” Peli said, with an edge of contempt. “From this, if from nothing else, ensigns are safe. Although you could die of fright facing the court.”

“Why should I face a court?” Arphan, like Esmay, had come to the Academy from a non-Service family. Unlike Esmay, he had come from an influential non-Service Family, with friends who held Seats in Council, and expected family clout to get him out of things.

“Regulations,” Peli said crisply. “You were a commissioned officer serving aboard a vessel on which a mutiny occurred: you will stand before a court.” Esmay didn’t mind Peli’s brutal directness so much when it was aimed at someone else, but she knew he’d be at her soon enough. “But don’t worry,” Peli went on. “You’re unlikely to spend very long at hard labor. Esmay and I, on the other hand—” he looked up at her and smiled, a tight unhappy smile. “Esmay and I are the senior surviving officers. Questions will be asked. If they decide to make an example, we are the ones to be made an example of. Jigs are an eminently expendable class.”

Arphan looked at both of them, and then, without another word, squeezed past two of the others, and Esmay at the door.

“Avoiding contamination,” Liam said cheerfully. He was another jig, junior to Peli but part of Peli’s “expendable class.”

“Just as well,” Peli said. “I don’t like whiners. D’you know, he wanted me to press the admiral for damage payments to replace a ruined uniform?”

Esmay could not help thinking what the necessary replacements were going to do to her small savings.

“And he’s rich,” Liam said. Liam Livadhi, Service to the core and for many generations, on both sides of the family. He could afford to sound cheerful; he probably had a dozen cousins who had just outgrown whatever uniforms he needed.

“Speaking of the court,” Esmay made herself say. “What are the uniform protocols?”

“Uniforms!” Peli glared at her. “You too?”

“For the court, Peli, not for display!” It came out sharper than she intended, and he blinked in surprise.

“Oh. Right.” She could practically see the little wheels flickering behind his eyes, calculating, remembering. “I don’t really know; the only things I’ve seen were those cubes back in the Academy, in military law classes. And that was usually just the last day, the verdict. I don’t know if they wore dress the whole time.”

“The thing is,” Esmay said, “if we need new uniforms made, we have to have time for it.” Officers’ dress uniforms, unlike regular duty uniforms, were handmade by licensed tailors. She did not want to appear before a court in something non-regulation.

“Good point. There wasn’t much left of the stuff in that compartment, so we have to assume that all our dress uniforms were damaged.” He looked up at her. “You’ll have to ask about it, Esmay; you’re still the senior.”

“Not any more.” Even as she said it, she knew she was, for this purpose. Peli didn’t quite sneer, but he didn’t offer to help out, either.

“On this, you are the one. Sorry, Es’, but you have to.”

Asking about the uniforms brought her to the notice of the paper-pushers again. As captain—even for those few days—she had the responsibility to sign off on all the innumerable forms required.

“Not the death letters,” Lieutenant Commander Hosri said. “The admiral felt that the families would prefer to have those signed by a more senior officer who could better explain the circumstances.” Esmay had completely forgotten that duty: the captain must write to the family of any crew members who died while assigned to the ship. She felt herself blushing. “And there are other major reports which the admiral feels should be deferred until Forensics has completed its examination. But you left a lot of routine stuff undone, Suiza.”

“Yes, sir,” Esmay said, her heart sinking again. When could she have done it? How could she have known? The excuses raced through her mind and out again: no excuses were enough.

“Have your officers fill out these forms—” he handed her a sheaf of them. “Turn them in, completed and countersigned by you, within forty-eight hours, and I’ll forward them to the admiral’s staff for approval. If approved, that will authorize officers to arrange for replacements of uniforms—and yes, that will include Fleet authorization to forward measurements to registered tailors, so they can get started. Now, we need to deal with the basic reports that should have been filed, or ready to file, at the time when you were relieved of command of Despite .”

The junior officers were not delighted with the forms; some of them procrastinated, and Esmay found herself having to nag them to finish the paperwork by the deadline. “None too early,” grunted Hosri’s senior clerk, when Esmay brought the reports in. He glanced at the clock. “What’d you do, wait until the last minute?”

She said nothing; she didn’t like this clerk, and she had had to work with him for two straight shifts on the incomplete reports Hosri thought she should do. Just let it be over with, she told herself, even though she knew that the reports were the least of her problems. While she worked on those, the other young officers faced daily sessions with investigators determined to find out exactly how it was that a R.S.S. patrol ship had been captained by a traitor, and then embroiled in mutiny. Her turn would come next.

Forensics had swarmed over the Despite , stripping the records from the automatic surveillance equipment, searching every compartment, questioning every survivor, examining all the bodies in the ship’s morgue. Esmay could only imagine that search, from the questions they asked each day. First with no visual cues at all, when they asked her to explain, moment by moment, where she had been and what she had seen, heard, and done when Captain Hearne took the ship away from Xavier. Later, with a 3-D display of the ship, they led her through it again. Exactly where had she been? Facing which way? When she said she saw Captain Hearne the last time, where was Hearne, and what had she been doing?

Esmay had never been good at this sort of thing. She found out quickly that she had apparently perjured herself already: she could not, from where she remembered she’d been sitting, have seen Lt. Commander Forrester come out of the cross-corridor the way she’d said. It was, the interrogator pointed out, physically impossible to see around corners without special instruments. Had she had any? No. But her specialty had been scan. Was she sure she had not rigged something up? And again here—lines of her earlier testimony moved down the monitor alongside the image of the ship. Could she explain how she had gotten from her own quarters back here all the way forward and down two decks in only fifteen seconds? Because there was a clear picture of her—she recognized herself with familiar distaste—in the access corridor to the forward portside battery at 18:30:15, when she had insisted she was in her own quarters for the 18:30 duty report.

Esmay had no idea, and said so. She had made a habit of being in her quarters for that duty report; it had meant that she didn’t have to linger in the junior officers’ wardroom and join the day’s gossip, or make her report with the others. Surely she would have done so even more readily with the rumors then sweeping the ship. She didn’t like rumors; rumors got you in trouble. People fought over rumors and then were in more trouble. She hadn’t known that Captain Hearne was a traitor—of course she hadn’t—but she had had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she had tried not to think about it.