Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“Which is why we can’t let them do it,” Captain Hakin said. “It would take your people some time to get aboard, get control of their ship, and maybe be able to use it to defeat their other ships or destroy us . . . and in the meantime, I’d have a shipful of enemy . . . NO.”

“So the real problem is getting them off their ship without letting them onto ours,” Admiral Livadhi said. He put his fingertips together. “You know . . . there might be a way. If we could shut off the repair bay—that whole wing—”

“We could just take it apart,” Admiral Dossignal said.

“Take it apart?” Captain Hakin asked.

“Yes . . . Commander Seveche, review the original construction data and all later modifications . . . there may be a way to cut one of the repair bays loose—unobtrusively, of course—and isolate it from the rest of Koskiusko .”

In less than an hour, Seveche returned with the data ready to display; he set up the large screen and lit it.

“Here, you see: when they assembled Kos , they planned for possible changes by using temporary attachments—”

Hakin turned red. “You mean we’ve been working in a ship that’s not really held together—?”

“No, sir. It is held together, and quite well . . . but it would take only hours, not days, to detach it again. These pressure clamps . . . these connectors here . . .” Seveche pointed to them on the display. “All this can be undone fairly easily. Relatively, I mean. The seal between T-4 and the core cylinder is a large expansion joint of sorts.” He switched to another display. “As Kos was assembled, before an arm was locked on, the near end of these things were fastened to the core . . . and then the outer end to the arm. As the arms moved in to mate with the core, the corrugations compressed, giving additional safety margin to the join.”

“Yes, but—I presume you plan to stretch them out again. Do you really expect them to be sound after all this time?”

“I don’t see why not,” Seveche said. “We’ve used the same material over the same span of time, with multiple compressions and extensions, with no failure. Besides, we can have the locks on each side shut. The way the arms are made, there are airlocks on the inner end of each deck.”

“I know that, Commander,” Hakin said. He sounded annoyed. “But I’m sure they’ll notice that the inner hatches are locked, and then they’ll blast them—”

“They won’t. We can rig temporary cross-dock access . . . they don’t know what it’s supposed to look like.”

“Then when it detaches, it’ll depressurize—”

“Not if someone is there to lock the hatches.” Seveche looked to Dossignal for help.

“We’re going to take casualties, whatever we do,” Dossignal said. “To protect us from capture, you’re prepared to destroy the ship and crew. I understand that, and it may be necessary. But I believe we have a chance to save both the ship and much of its crew if we can hold out until Admiral Gourache returns. Denying the enemy the use of a ship—using it ourselves—and using what firepower Wraith has left—is the only way I see to do that. I’m sure we’ll have volunteers enough for the most hazardous of these hazardous missions.”

“We’ll have to have someone commanding each section that’s freed—with the authority to do what they must, whatever that is. Divided command would be disastrous, and we can’t be sure that communications will hold.”

“Which means we’ve got to get those people involved in planning right away—”

“I don’t like it,” Captain Hakin said. “It’s scrabble law: the whole ship is my command, and you’re proposing to break off pieces and give them an independent command. Separated, they’ll be even easier meat to the invaders—”

“Captain, we’re offering a suggestion that gets us both off the hook. Koskiusko was assembled from previously independent sections in deep space. You know that. T-4 and T-3 even had names— Piece and Meal may’ve been stupid names, but names. They might have been commissioned as ships in their own right, if Fleet had not decided to try for a unified DSR. It’s reasonable to maintain that they’re both directly under the 14th—”

“You’ll have to crew them,” Hakin said. “You’re not taking any of the crew I need to secure Kos .”

Was it capitulation? Admiral Dossignal looked at Hakin a long time.

“You know, Vladis, if it’s really going to stick in your craw, you can write a report.”

“I intend to,” Hakin looked even grimmer. “Partly to question your authority to nominate a captain for any vessel in this sector: that’s Foxworth’s job, or, at the lowest level, Gourache’s.”

“I see your point. But I’m going to do it anyway, and we can all hash it out with a Board, if not a court, later.”

Hakin shook his head. “It won’t improve the odds, and it just makes my job harder . . .”

“I don’t see how, since we’re almost certainly ridding you of most of your intruders, and one of the ships trying to attack you. Now as for crew, we have the uninjured survivors of Wraith —”

“Which will be needed to serve Wraith ’s weapons,” Livadhi said.

“Their weapons crews certainly. Since Wraith won’t be maneuvering, I don’t know about their bridge crew. I hate to waste a captain with combat experience aboard a crippled ship. We’re not overburdened with such officers.”

Commander Atarin spoke up. “Admiral, I have prepared a list of all officers and enlisted aboard with combat experience in the past three years. They’re rank-ordered by specialty and performance—not just experience—in combat.”

“Good. Let’s see . . . oh, my.”

“What?” Hakin craned his neck, trying to see.

“We have ample combat-experienced weapons specialists, because the senior weapons technical course is running. Scan . . . not much problem there. We’re short environmental systems specialists, but this should be over fast enough that it won’t be critical . . . we can have our people in self-contained gear. Communications is also short, but most scan techs are cross-trained in communications and we have plenty of scan techs. What we don’t have is ship commanders. Or rather, we have just enough: Wraith ’s captain for Wraith , and Lieutenant Commander Bowry, who’s here for a special course, to command the Bloodhorde ship.”

“I don’t suppose we’d be lucky enough to get more than one of them . . .”

“I doubt it. Why would they bring in more than one ship at a time? If they gifted us with such riches, we’d just have to find someone to take it . . . but that gets us down to fairly junior officers with very little experience of ship command in combat.” Dossignal considered telling them who, precisely, but he knew Hakin would have particular objections to Esmay Suiza.

Esmay found what might be a possible cause of the failure of the FTL drives, and took that to Major Pitak, who was overseeing the transport of the long crystal bundles from the Special Materials Fabrication Unit to T-3 and Wraith . Even bundled, they were more flexible than Esmay had expected; as she watched the special transport teams eased them along the transport track. She had known, intellectually, that all ships had such framing members . . . she had known that they had a lateral flexibility which was essential to the design. But these shivering, wriggling lengths seemed far too frail to trust lives to in deep space.

Pitak gave her a brief glance and turned back to watch. “Ah, Suiza . . . find something?”

“It’s only a possibility.”