Elizabeth Moon: Once a Hero

As usual, many people helped with the details. Tim Bashor, Major U.S. Marine Corps, retired, and presently an exemplary bookstore owner, offered innumerable good suggestions on how to cause trouble aboard a large ship. If you think that part of the book makes sense, it’s thanks largely to him. Richard Moon, Malcolm McLean, and Michael Byrd also helped out on specific details. Judy Glaister kept me from making a worse hash of the role of nurses in therapy. Any mistakes are my own (I don’t need help to make mistakes . . . ). R.S.M. provided the medical texts; the Tuesday Lunch & Ice Skating Club approved the ship design (approved may not be the right word for “collapsed in helpless giggles”). Consultants for various bits who would prefer not to be named include the ubiquitous M.M. and E.M. and T.B.

Esmay Suiza had done her best to clean up before reporting as ordered to the admiral aboard her flagship, but the mutiny and the following battle had left her little time. She had showered, and run her uniform through the cycler, but it wasn’t her dress uniform—the fight aboard Despite had put holes through interior bulkheads and started innumerable small fires, including one in the junior officers’ storage compartment. She herself, though clean, had not slept well in . . . however many days it had been. She knew her eyes were bloodshot and sticky with fatigue; her hands trembled. She had the stomach-clenching feeling that her best wasn’t good enough.

Admiral Serrano looked like an older edition of Captain Serrano, the same compact trim frame, the same bronze skin. Here the dark hair was streaked silver, and a few lines marked the broad forehead, but she gave an impression of crackling energy held just in check.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Suiza reporting, sir.” At least her voice didn’t shake. Those few days of command had ironed out the uneasy flutter she used to struggle against.

“Have a seat, Lieutenant.” The admiral had no expression Esmay could read. She sat in the appointed chair, glad that her knees held and she made it a controlled descent. When she was down safely, the admiral nodded, and went on. “I have reviewed your summary of events aboard Despite . It seems to have been a very . . . difficult . . . time.”

“Yes, sir.” That was safe. In a world of danger, that was always safe; so she had been taught in the Academy and her first ship postings. But her memory reminded her that it wasn’t always true, that a “Yes, sir,” to Captain Hearne had been treason, and a “Yes, sir,” to Major Dovir had been mutiny.

“You do understand, Lieutenant, that it is mandatory for all officers participating in a mutiny to stand before a court to justify their actions?” That in a voice almost gentle, as if she were a child. She would never be a child again.

“Yes, sir,” she said, grateful for the gentleness even though she knew it would do her no lasting good. “We—I—have to take responsibility.”

“That’s right. And you, because you are the senior surviving officer, and the one who ended up in command of the ship, will bear the brunt of this investigation and the court.” The admiral paused, looking at her with that quiet, expressionless face; Esmay felt cold inside. They had to have a scapegoat, is that what it meant? She would be to blame for the whole thing, even though she hadn’t even known, at first—even though the senior officers—now dead—had tried to keep the youngsters out of it? Panic filled in a quick sketch of her future: dismissed, disgraced, thrown out of Fleet and forced to return home. She wanted to argue that it wasn’t fair, but she knew better. Fairness wasn’t the issue here. The survival of ships, which depended on the absolute obedience of all to the captain . . . that was the issue.

“I understand,” she said finally. She almost understood.

“I won’t tell you that such a court is merely a formality, even in a case like this,” the admiral said. “A court is never a mere formality. Things always come out in courts to the detriment of everyone concerned—things that might not matter ordinarily. But in this case, I don’t want you to panic. It is clear from your report, and that of other personnel—” Which, Esmay hoped, might mean the admiral’s niece, “—that you did not instigate the mutiny, and that there is a reasonable probability that the mutiny will be held to be justified.” The knot in Esmay’s stomach loosened slightly. “Obviously, it is necessary to remove you from command of Despite .”

Esmay felt her face heating, more relief than embarrassment. She was so tired of having to figure out how to ask the senior NCOs what to do next without violating protocol. “Of course, sir,” she said, with a little more enthusiasm than she meant to show. The admiral actually smiled now.

“Frankly, I’m surprised that a jig could take over Despite and handle her in battle—let alone get off the decisive shot. That was good work, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.” She felt herself going even redder, and embarrassment overcame reticence. “Actually, it was the crew—’specially Master Chief Vesec—they knew what to do.”

“They always do,” the admiral said. “But you had the sense to let them, and the guts to come back. You’re young; you made mistakes of course—” Esmay thought of their first attempt to join the fight, the way she’d insisted on too high an insertion velocity and forced them to blow past. She hadn’t known then about the glitch in the nav computer, but that was no excuse. The admiral went on, recapturing her attention. “But I believe you have the root of the matter in you. Stand your court, take your medicine, whatever it is, and—good luck to you, Lieutenant Suiza.” The admiral stood; Esmay scrambled up to shake the hand extended to her. She was being dismissed; she didn’t know where she was going or what would happen next, but—but she felt a warm glow where the cold knot had been.

As the escort outside made clear, where she was going was a quarantined section of officers’ country on the flagship. Peli and the few other junior officers were already there, stowing their duffels in the lockers and looking glum.

“Well, she didn’t eat you alive,” Peli said. “I suppose my turn’s coming. What’s she like?”

“A Serrano,” Esmay said. That should be enough; she wasn’t about to discuss an admiral’s character on board a ship. “There’s a court coming—but you know that.” They had not so much talked about it, as touched the subject and flinched away.

“At the moment,” Peli said, “I’m just as glad you had the seniority and not me. Though we’re all in trouble.”

She had been glad to lay down command, but just for a moment she wanted it back, so she could tell Peli to be quiet. And so she would have something to do. It took only a minute or two to stow her own meager duffel in the compartment she’d been assigned, and only another to wonder how much the officer evicted from it would resent having to double up with someone else. Then she was faced with blank walls—or an empty passage—or the cluster of fellow mutineers in the tiny wardroom which was all the common space they would have until the admiral decreed otherwise. Esmay lay back on her bunk and wished she could turn off the relentless playback in her head, that kept showing her the same gruesome scenes over and over and over. Why did they seem worse each time?

“Of course they’re listening,” Peli said. Esmay paused in the wardroom entrance; four of the others were there, listening to Peli. He looked up, his glance including her in the conversation. “We have to assume they’re monitoring everything we say and do.”