Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“Good job, Lieutenant,” said one of the bomb squad. “Glad you figured out it was safe for me to come back.”

“Me, too,” Esmay said, then hooked herself to the transfer line and pushed away.

By the time she had clambered out of her EVA suit, she felt like collapsing in a heap on the deck. The undersuit clung to her nastily; she hated having to stand around in it while the chief in charge of suits examined and checked off the condition of the one she turned in. After one glance, she ignored the big mirror at the end of the bay; her hair looked like dirty felt glued to her head.

Showered and properly dressed once more, she headed to the compartment number waiting in her message bin. T-1, Deck 9, number 30 . . . that was in the administrative area of the Senior Technical Schools, down the passage from Admiral Livadhi’s office.

The conference, when she got there, consisted of Captain Hakin, Admiral Dossignal, Admiral Livadhi, Commander Seveche and Major Pitak from Hull and Architecture, and two lieutenant commanders she did not know. One wore the insignia of the 14th Heavy Maintenance, with the collar flashes of weapons systems; the other, also with weapons collar marks, wore the armband of ship’s crew. The captain spoke first.

“Well, Lieutenant . . . glad your guess about the mine’s programming turned out to be right. At least as far as you were concerned.”

“Me, too, sir.” Esmay hoped the edge in the captain’s voice had as much to do with the situation as with her.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had time to figure out how we’re going to evacuate Wraith and repair her without triggering the mine’s recognition program?”

“No, sir.” He was definitely displeased with her; that frosty glare could mean nothing else.

“What I’d like to know is how much time delay is built into that program,” said Commander Seveche, after a quick glance at Dossignal. “Would they have sent it open-ended, or would they have built in a hard delay, for just this situation?”

Eyes shifted to Esmay but she had nothing to say. Shrugging was inadvisable in the midst of that much brass, so she simply didn’t say anything.

“Do we have any Bloodhorde analysts aboard?” asked Dossignal, looking at Admiral Livadhi.

“Not really, Sy. They pulled the best for some sort of policy/strategic planning thing back at Rockhouse, and the next best is on the flagship with Admiral Gourache. I’ve got an instructor for the tactics course, but his specialty is Benignity history. He’s hitting the databanks . . .”

“Abandoning Wraith is not an option,” the captain said. “The admiral’s made it clear that we’re not to give the Bloodhorde any chance at advanced technology, and even stripped, that hull has too many goodies to let fall into the hands of the Bloodhorde, or even a random pirate. If she can’t be repaired well enough to get her back to safety—”

“She can be,” Admiral Dossignal said. “This is exactly the kind of damage we’re equipped to repair. The only question is how to do it safely, without risking the integrity of this ship.” He glanced at Commander Seveche, who took over.

“We have to repair that hull breach, and reset the engines, or she won’t make jump again . . . and that means working all around that mine, even if we don’t stick her into the repair bay. I’d like to hear from the weapons experts.”

The captain nodded, and the crew weapons officer spoke. “Given the kind of mine, there are several approaches we can use, depending on the amount of damage tolerable on Wraith . . .”

“ Wraith ’s already got enough damage—” Pitak sounded outraged. Dossignal held up his hand and she subsided.

“We realize you want to minimize any further damage, but there’s a trade-off between speed and safety here. We can get the remnants of Wraith in to repair faster if some additional damage is acceptable; if not, we’re looking at a long period of preparation in an already damaged ship—dangerous time, for both the workers and both ships—to attempt something which may not be possible.”

“Explain what procedures you might use,” the captain said.

“Ideally, we’d detach the mine, enfold it in a foam-mold casing, and set it off at a safe distance. However, we—Lt. Commander Wyche and I—believe that there’s considerable risk of detonating the mine if we try to detach it. So the next best thing is a foam bed both interior—behind the hull where it’s attached—and on the exterior. Here the problem is how much of the interior needs to be foamed. And that homing signal we suspect, though that depends on which kind it is.”

“How long before you can set it off?”

“That depends on what H&A tells us.” He turned to Commander Seveche. “Will we need to foambed the interior as well? How much additional damage would such a mine cause?” With a gesture, Seveche passed the question to Pitak.

Pitak scowled; Esmay recognized thought in progress. “There’s already so much damage forward—we’re going to have to replace most of the structure anyway. On the other hand, it’s stretching our resources, especially if we expect an attack. Do you think it’s an aimed charge, or just a straightforward blow-em-up?”

He shook his head. “If they went to the trouble of hand-placing this thing, I’d bet on a directed charge, probably with substantial penetrating power. It’s definitely a hull-cracker.”

Someone down the table stirred. “But if they wanted to disable the DSR, wouldn’t the charge be directed outwards?”

“Not necessarily,” Pitak said. “An explosion of that magnitude, in the repair bay, could be expected to damage sensitive equipment—certainly enough to keep us from withdrawing Wraith and closing the bay.” She paused, and no one interrupted. “Sorry, but I think you’d better foambed the interior, at least these compartments—” She called up a display, and highlighted some of the forward compartments. “If we can possibly save these: seventeen A, eighteen A and B, and twenty-three A, it’ll save us considerable time on the repairs.”

“Then—with the precautions we need to protect personnel—we’re talking 96 hours to foambed those compartments and the exterior—”

“Why the exterior?” asked someone else.

“Because we don’t want pieces flying around hitting us,” Pitak said. “Or the rest of Wraith .”

“And I’ll need additional squads,” he said. “The more people, the faster it’ll go. As long as they’re not working in close, it should be safe enough.”

“Unless it has a fixed delay of some kind—”

“Unless stars sprout horns . . . sure, that’d kill us all, but there’s no way to know but go.”

“Very well, commander,” the captain said. “I presume damage control would have personnel trained to spray a foam bed?”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Hakin turned to his exec. “Make sure he gets what he needs. Major Pitak, can H&A do anything to expedite this?”

Pitak nodded. “Yes, sir. With the captain’s permission, I have construction crews standing by to widen access to the compartments that must be foamed; they’ve been clearing debris already—”

“I thought we pulled everyone out,” the captain said.

“We did, sir, but when tactical analysis concluded that the mine had its programming set for our internal bay, I sent them back over.”

“Very well. Keep me informed.” With that, the captain rose; everyone stood as he left. Pitak beckoned to Esmay.

“Lieutenant, you’re not ready to direct a crew in this kind of situation; I want you to hold down the office—be my communications link. I’m going over myself.”