“The three condemned,” he said, “and their partner Engineer Thuc, operated a gambling ring for months, preying openly on the crew ofIllustrious. There is no record that any notice was taken of this, or that anyone registered a complaint. Their activity led by degrees to theft, treason, and the murder of two officers, including the captain of this ship.”
He looked into the camera and tried to imagine the scene in the mess, the crew standing braced behind their tables, watching the proceedings on the video walls. The mess, where the gamblers had plundered their comrades every night.
“All the deaths could have been prevented,” Martinez said, “if a proper report of their activities had been made, and action taken. For some reason, everyone, even the victims, chose to keep silence.
“Perhaps the crew has not been properly encouraged to report wrongdoing to their officers. I would like to change that.”
He took a deep breath. “I want to assure the ship’s company that my door is now open to any reports the crew may wish to make. Any crew will be admitted to see their captain, on any matter they consider important.” He glanced at the line of officers behind and to one side of him. “I trust that my officers will be similarly receptive.” They shifted uneasily in their line.
He faced the camera again. “When Captain Fletcher executed Engineer Thuc, he said it was for the honor of the ship. He was right. Our ship’s honor was being daily dragged through the mud by a criminal gang.Illustrious ‘s honor is far from restored, but I’ll bedamned if I see it degraded any further.”
Martinez paused, wondering if he hadn’t said enough, or if he’d said too much.
He took his eyes off the camera, then looked at the crew standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridor outside the airlock.
“Dismissed,” he said.
The crew broke ranks and shuffled away as the band began a slow, dirgelike rendition of “Our Thoughts Are Ever Guided by the Praxis,” normally a brisk marching tune. Michi stepped up to him, drawing her gloves off her fingers.
“You’ve let yourself in for it,” she said.
“I hope not,” Martinez said.
“Every recruit coming to you with his problems. Every slacker on the ship asking you for money or time off.” She shook her head. “You’ll be buried in them.”
“Maybe, but I’ll share,” Martinez said, with another glance at his officers. Michi grinned and marched away. Chandra, standing behind her, began to follow, then hesitated and approached Martinez.
“You just made the ship yours,” she said. “Treat her well.”
At the words, Martinez felt, somewhere behind his breastbone, a slow unfolding of pride.
“Thank you.” He glanced around him, then leaned closer to Chandra. “I enjoyed your exercise in creative writing, by the way.”
She didn’t look the least embarrassed. “I thought I caught his style rather well.”
“Too many adverbs,” Martinez said. “I pruned them back.”
The night before, he’d looked at the prisoners’ personnel files and brought them up to date. While he had the files open, he’d decided to go into Chandra’s file and remove the poisonous fitness report that Fletcher had written for her.
In the end Martinez had decided the report simply wasn’t worthy of Fletcher. He didn’t want Fletcher’s last act to be the slagging of an officer against whom he’d had a grudge.
Opening the file, Martinez was surprised to find that someone else had already rewritten the report. The report now emphasized Chandra’s mastery of all aspects of her profession and the captain’s admiration for her talents and personality. Where Fletcher’s conclusion had read, “Promotion is not indicated,” the line was now “Promotion is enthusiastically indicated.”
Martinez had removed the word “enthusiastically.” And then he’d removed the extra user privileges he’d given Chandra before she got it into her head to rewrite anything else.
The Naxids took their parting shot at Chenforce the next day, four hundred missiles tearing into the system on their tail.
Because Michi had destroyed the wormhole stations that would have tracked Chenforce, the missiles weren’t able to make last second corrections and had to do their own searching. Because targeting took time, the missiles weren’t able to fly as fast as they had at Arkhan-Dohg. From the instant Chenforce first felt the touch of the targeting lasers, the squadron had nearly twenty-six minutes to prepare their response. Batteries of countermissiles were launched and every defensive weapon was deployed.
Chenforce performed flawlessly. Countermissiles destroyed most of the incoming warheads on the approach, and the rest were targeted by lasers and antiproton beams before they could close with the squadron. The closest was killed nearly two minutes out. The mood in Command throughout the combat was clinical. Even the applause at the destruction of the last incoming missile was restrained.
That was the last Chenforce heard from the Naxids. The squadron passed through one more enemy-controlled system without finding anything to shoot at, and then entered the nearly barren Enan-dal system through Wormhole 1.
Last they heard, both the station at Enan-dal Wormhole 1 and the station at Wormhole 2 were still controlled by the loyalists.
Martinez, suited and watching his displays, sat in Command while communications lasers pulsed queries to each station.
Wormhole Station 1 did not reply, which argued that the Naxids had occupied it. Michi sent a message informing them that they would be destroyed if they didn’t respond, and as if in answer, a lifeboat, presumably with the station crew aboard, broke from the station and began a high-gravity sprint toward the wormhole. Michi ordered both the station and the lifeboat destroyed, as either could conceivably track the squadron for a barrage of missiles.
It would take ten hours for Michi’s message to reach Station 2, and nearly ten hours for any response to return. After the first few hours, when it was clear that no Naxid force was lurking behind the system’s swollen red sun, Michi reduced the squadron to a lower level of alert, and Martinez left Command with suspense still humming in his nerves.
The squadron had been out of communication for nearly four months, and during that time the cause for which they fought could have died. The Naxids could have won a crushing victory over the remnants of the Home Fleet, or the loyalist cause simply collapsed in the wake of the fall of Zanshaa. It was a matter of conjecture whether Chenforce would have a home to return to.
Martinez was in Command at the earliest possible hour that he could expect a reply from Wormhole Station 2. It was early in the morning, before his usual hour for rising, and he clutched a cup of coffee in one hand, sipping as he listened to the routine chatter.
“Message from Station Two, my lord!” The joy in Acting Lieutenant Qing’s voice was answered by a leap of Martinez’s heart. “The message is in the proper code for the day. Decoding now…”
A pale Daimong face, set in a frozen expression of horrified surprise, appeared on Martinez’s displays.
“Welcome to Enan-dal, Lady Michi,” the Daimong said. “I am Warrant Officer Kassup of the Exploration Service. We have been told to await you. Word of your arrival has already been sent to the Fleet. I am sending a digest of the latest news, and I will forward your mail and any instructions from the Fleet as soon as they arrive.”
Martinez felt the easing of a tension he didn’t know he had. He half listened to Michi’s polite reply, then waited for a moment to see if she had any orders for him. She didn’t.
Michi finished the report of her raid, with its account of the battles at Protipanu, Arkhan-Dohg, and Alekas, its lists of casualties, the status of her seven ships, the totals of enemy ships destroyed, the description of the ring’s destruction at Bai-do, plus the details of the deaths of Captain Fletcher, two lieutenants, and four petty officers. The report was wrapped in several layers of cipher and sent to the Fleet Control Board by way of Station 2.