Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“Yes, sir. It’s great. You’ve met Major Pitak—she knows so much—and we get to work on everything, once we’re out with the wave.”

“Mmm. My background’s scan technology, so I don’t know much about H&A. I expect you’ll be teaching me a lot.”

“Me, sir? I doubt it—the major’s got me working on a technical manual right now. She’ll probably tell Master Chief Sivars to take you on.”

Direct contradiction was rude, but the ensign looked too bouncy to have intended any rudeness. She was simply full of what she was doing. Esmay understood that. She turned to the jigs. Callison was pleasantly willing to discuss the less disgusting processes that kept the ship’s crew alive, and had amusing anecdotes of the sorts of things that went wrong. It had not occurred to Esmay that a few insect egg cases caught in the mud in someone’s hiking boots could hatch and cause serious problems, but apparently they had, on another ship. That story led Partrade to regale them with a story about the time an unnamed junior lieutenant transposed a few numbers and caused a massive overdraft of his ship’s account . . . everyone had been bumped up ten grades, so the whole ship was crewed—according to the computer—by officers, and the captain outranked the sector commander.

One of the many differences from home that Esmay savored was this . . . that they could talk about their assignments at dinner. On Altiplano, nothing related to one’s work could be discussed at dinner, even if all at the table were working together. She found that unnatural . . . here, a flurry of shop talk would unwind naturally into other topics.

“Are you ready for my exam?” Major Pitak asked when she reported.

“Yes, sir,” Esmay said. “But I do have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why doesn’t the ship’s schematics agree with reality—or with the schematics on your cube?”

“Excellent. How many discrepancies did you find?”

Esmay blinked. She hadn’t expected that reaction. She began to describe the discrepancies, starting at the bow and working aft. Pitak listened without comment. When she had finished, Pitak made a note on her pad.

“I believe you found them all. Good work. You asked why we have discrepancies, and that’s not a question I can answer. I suspect it’s the new AI subroutines, which actively protect data considered especially important. A software glitch, in other words, though we can’t seem to convince the Fleet systems designers that it’s a problem. They take the view that architecture, once launched, shouldn’t change . . . which is probably true for most hulls.”

Esmay thought that over. “So you create new data cubes individually when you change architecture.”

“Right. We can actually change the main system for a time—usually an hour or so before it ‘heals’ itself and repairs what it thinks is a data injury.”

“But there were two places where your data cube didn’t match the reality.”

Pitak grinned at her. “I gave you an old data cube, Lieutenant—to see if you’d really check things out. The stupid ones come back all confused, complaining that they can’t find their way by ship schematics. The clever ones check out one or two locations, then come back with a list of discrepancies between my cube and the ship schematics. Good, honest officers who aren’t afraid of work do what you did—they check everything . That’s what I want in my section . . . people who skip the details in H&A kill ships, and we’re here to save them.”

“Yes . . . sir.” Esmay thought about that. It was an efficient way of separating lazy and careless from diligent and careful, but she wondered what other tricks Major Pitak had waiting. It would, she thought, be some exam. “Thank you, sir, for explaining.”

Pitak looked at her oddly. “Thank you for passing the test, Lieutenant—or hadn’t you figured that out yet?”

She hadn’t, and now she felt stupid. “No, sir.” Stupid, gauche . . . she felt her ears burning and hoped the glow didn’t come through her hair.

“A one-track mind, I wonder, or . . . of course you are a dropsquirt.” That in a thoughtful voice with no edge to it.

“Dropsquirt?” Esmay hadn’t heard that before, though it sounded pejorative.

“Sorry. DSR vessels develop their own local slang . . . almost a local dialect, though we try not to be too impenetrable. It means Personnel of Planetary Origin, the official term . . . someone squirted into deepspace work from a drop—a gravity well. And someone junior, which is when you can really tell the difference. One doesn’t expect dropsquirts to get all the nuances of Fleet social structure right away . . . when did you join, Suiza?”

“Prep school, sir.” Esmay thought of the years she’d been in a Fleet environment. Two in prep school, four in the Academy, a tour as ensign, and two assignments as jig. If she hadn’t caught on by now, would she ever? She’d thought she had—her fitness reports always commented on her quiet, mannerly demeanor. What was she doing wrong, besides getting involved in mutinies?

“Hmm. Technical track, most of the way.” Pitak gave her a long look. “You know, Suiza, we technical types have a reputation for being a little dense in some things. Wouldn’t surprise me if you are too. That doesn’t bother me, and won’t cause you as much trouble here as it would on a warship. But since you are not from a Fleet family, you might want to think about opening your sensors to a little wider band. Just a suggestion—not an order.”

“Yes, sir,” Esmay said. She felt a little dizzy. What was she doing wrong? What was so obvious? She knew she didn’t have an accent any more; she had tried so hard . . . but Major Pitak had moved to her process chart.

“To get you up to speed in H&A, you’re going to have to take a couple of quick courses. Right now all we have is a minor little plate repair job for an escort—it’ll be done before you’re through with the tapes, and you’ll be more use to us then. How are you with tools? Ever done metal fabrication? Ceramics or plastics molding?”

“No, sir.”

“Mmm. All right, then. Take these tapes down to Training, and run through them as many times as it takes. Then come back here, and I’ll set you up with some instructors. You’ve got to know how a process is supposed to be done before you can supervise it.”

That made perfect sense, and Esmay had never minded learning new things. “Yes, sir,” she said, accepting a thick stack of tapes for the machines.

“We’ll probably be out on deployment before you’re through with the tapes,” Pitak said. “Take what time you need.” Then she shook her head. “Sorry—you’re naturally thorough—I don’t have to warn you against rushing through them.”

“Sir.” Esmay backed out, with very mixed feelings. One side of her mind felt ruffled and itchy; another part felt soothed and confident.

Scheduling sessions in Training took longer than she had expected. The techs in charge of the banks of machines explained. “A DSR needs more specialties than any other kind of ship. And we have to know everything—all the old stuff, and all the new stuff, and anything someone’s come up with to make repair easier. Our people are always retraining. The rest of Fleet just thinks it retrains, with its predictable little drills every so many days. But we’ll get you in, Lieutenant, don’t worry. And Major Pitak knows what the situation is—she’s not going to blame you.”

Nonetheless, it would be three standard days before Esmay could get a machine, and then only on third shift.

“Do you have anything similar that I could go over on my cube reader?” she asked. The tech ran the tape titles through his scanner.