Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“Yes, sir.”

A long pause. “Lieutenant, you’re either crazy or lucky or blessed by some combination of deities I never heard of. The officers with you confirm this story?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. I presume you need a little time to . . . eat . . . or something. We’ve got a scratch mess set up; my clerk’ll direct you. Give me a time to read these orders, then I’ll want a complete report, down to each breath you took, and from the others as well. You can have an hour.”

Pitak was waiting for her outside. “ Where have you been?”

Esmay was too tired to smooth it out for her. “Crossing the outside of the ship during the fighting, the jump, and FTL flight. Thanks, by the way, to whoever turned on the repair bay lights. We were having problems up until then.”

Pitak’s brows went up. “Well. Somehow I suspect I’m losing you permanently for Hull and Architecture. I’ll take you down for what passes for food. Where’s the admiral?”

“In T-1, as far as I know—he was hurt, but alive. The captain was gassed, and maybe dying, when we left.”

“And here we are, hijacked like any fatbellied trader, going someplace we don’t know and into trouble we can only imagine. Much good our escorts did us!”

Esmay found a toilet, then food . . . basic mush, but it was hot and the temporary cook had spiced it with something that gave it an actual flavor. She had expected to feel better after eating, but the warmth in her belly made her sleepy instead; she felt she could sleep standing up, and maybe even walking. It made no sense . . . she woke with her cheek on the table. Major Pitak was a few feet away, talking on the com. Esmay struggled to get her head up as Pitak came back.

“You need sleep,” she said. “I talked to Commander Jarles, and he said what with the jump and all he’ll need longer to assess the admiral’s orders. You’re going down for a half-shift at least.”

Esmay would have argued, but when she pushed herself up, her head swam. Pitak found her an empty space in a nearby corridor, in a row of other sleeping forms, and before she knew it Esmay was asleep on the hard deck. No dreams troubled that sleep, and she woke clearheaded.

She made her way around the other sleepers, found a working toilet and shower—it was hard to believe that with all the emergencies they still had enough extra water to use for showering, but she needed it. Then she went back to Commander Jarles’s office, where she found Commander Bowry dictating his own report of their experiences.

He grinned at her, but kept talking. “—Then the lights came on, which made it easier to find our way to T-3 and the overhead access . . . whatever those openings are really called . . . Anyway, once back inside the ship, we found normal gravity, and our suit instruments began working again.” He turned off the recorder. “Did you fall in a heap, too? I did, and I’ve just talked to Seska and Frees aboard Wraith —they said they’d barely gotten aboard when they couldn’t stay awake. Scared hell out of their crew.”

“Maybe it was being outside the FTL shields,” Esmay said.

“Maybe. Maybe it was having had a long and interesting day. You know, you’re really good at this kind of stuff—how’d you get stuck in a DSR, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“That mutiny, probably. I’d guess they didn’t want any of those involved where they’d get into similar trouble, and since I ended up commanding, they sent me as far away as possible.”

“Where you promptly found a use for your newly acquired expertise. Yah. They might as well put you back in command track; you’re a lightning rod.”

“I was technical track before. Scan.”

“You?” He shook his head. “Your advisor messed up; you’re a natural, and I don’t say that lightly. Put in for transfer.”

“That’s what my boss here said once. Major Pitak, in Hull and Architecture.”

“Believe it.”

She almost did. From someone like this, a seasoned veteran who had observed her . . . maybe it was true, and maybe she was not just lucky, but good at it.

Commander Jarles came out of his inner office. “Lieutenant Suiza—glad you’re here.” He sounded much more cordial than the day—was it day?—before. “Hope you’re rested, both of you. Captain Seska says he’s staying aboard Wraith , but Lt. Commander Frees is coming to liaise with us on a plan to retake the Koskiusko and fight off any attempted boarding. Lieutenant Suiza, Admiral Dossignal seems to have a lot of faith in you.”

Esmay couldn’t think what to say— Yes, sir seemed a bit too pushy—but Bowry spoke up.

“Considering that she saved the captain’s life, and later the admiral’s, I’d say he had reason.”

“I suppose.” He looked down at the files in his hand. “He wanted you to take over all security for T-3 and T-4, and said you had helped develop a plan to trap a Bloodhorde ship. Frankly, with the admiral out of communication, I’m not comfortable putting that much responsibility on a junior officer I don’t know very well. I’ve consulted with Major Pitak, who gives you a favorable review, but I’m not sure.”

“Got a plan yet?” came a voice from the door. That was Frees, whom rest and food had restored to an almost bouncy quality. “Captain Seska sends his regards, and says he’s got a guess how long we’ll be in FTL flight.” He waited a moment for that to sink in, then waved a data cube. “Nothing wrong with Wraith ’s nav computers, though she couldn’t give us any scan data. But from where we were, there are four primary mapped routes that we know—and know the Bloodhorde knows. They’re on all the standard references. Two we can pretty much dismiss; they won’t go back where they attacked us, because they can figure that our ships will be out there looking for them. In the same way, they won’t backjump where you came from, because they don’t know if there were more Fleet ships there. But there’s Caskadian, which has a direct route into Bloodhorde space at Hawkhead. And Vollander, which is offset to most routes, and a long jump to Bloodhorde space . . . but direct, and a long way from any Fleet pickets.”

“Put it up on the screen,” Jarles said. Frees complied, and they stared at the tangle of lines, thicker or thinner with flux values, edged with colors that told which political entities were known to use those routes.

“ Wraith ’s onboard systems say we went through the first jump point some 43 hours ago. We need someone from Drives and Maneuver to give us the figures on this ship’s FTL drive, and then we might know which route we’re on, and when we might drop out.”

“How long are they for regular travel?”

“Caskadian should be about 122 hours, maybe longer given the slow insertion and assuming the same exit. Vollander would be about 236 hours.”

“Long jumps—longer than we made coming in. I’d expect them to go for the short one, with so few of them aboard.”

“Now on the connecting lines—how does this ship handle series jumps?”

“It doesn’t. Or rather, in theory it can, and we did coming out after you, but usually there’s a pause of several hours for recalibration between jumps.”

“Besides,” Esmay said. “They’ll want to get more of their people aboard. The intruders have been working as hard as we have—without relief, and shorthanded.”

“So we’ve got roughly sixty hours before you think we’ll come out of jump, and until then all we have to cope with is the ones aboard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain Seska wants to know how far the repairs on Wraith can get by then,” Frees said.

Commander Jarles shrugged. “We have no access to the main inventory stores—and we can’t move anything from SpecMat while we’re in FTL. I suppose Major Pitak will know about the structural repairs—” Esmay decided this was no time to tell him that nothing was going to come from SpecMat by the exterior transport system until it was rebuilt.