“Yes . . . sir.” Esmay thought about that. It was an efficient way of separating lazy and careless from diligent and careful, but she wondered what other tricks Major Pitak had waiting. It would, she thought, be some exam. “Thank you, sir, for explaining.”
Pitak looked at her oddly. “Thank you for passing the test, Lieutenant—or hadn’t you figured that out yet?”
She hadn’t, and now she felt stupid. “No, sir.” Stupid, gauche . . . she felt her ears burning and hoped the glow didn’t come through her hair.
“A one-track mind, I wonder, or . . . of course you are a dropsquirt.” That in a thoughtful voice with no edge to it.
“Dropsquirt?” Esmay hadn’t heard that before, though it sounded pejorative.
“Sorry. DSR vessels develop their own local slang . . . almost a local dialect, though we try not to be too impenetrable. It means Personnel of Planetary Origin, the official term . . . someone squirted into deepspace work from a drop—a gravity well. And someone junior, which is when you can really tell the difference. One doesn’t expect dropsquirts to get all the nuances of Fleet social structure right away . . . when did you join, Suiza?”
“Prep school, sir.” Esmay thought of the years she’d been in a Fleet environment. Two in prep school, four in the Academy, a tour as ensign, and two assignments as jig. If she hadn’t caught on by now, would she ever? She’d thought she had—her fitness reports always commented on her quiet, mannerly demeanor. What was she doing wrong, besides getting involved in mutinies?
“Hmm. Technical track, most of the way.” Pitak gave her a long look. “You know, Suiza, we technical types have a reputation for being a little dense in some things. Wouldn’t surprise me if you are too. That doesn’t bother me, and won’t cause you as much trouble here as it would on a warship. But since you are not from a Fleet family, you might want to think about opening your sensors to a little wider band. Just a suggestion—not an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Esmay said. She felt a little dizzy. What was she doing wrong? What was so obvious? She knew she didn’t have an accent any more; she had tried so hard . . . but Major Pitak had moved to her process chart.
“To get you up to speed in H&A, you’re going to have to take a couple of quick courses. Right now all we have is a minor little plate repair job for an escort—it’ll be done before you’re through with the tapes, and you’ll be more use to us then. How are you with tools? Ever done metal fabrication? Ceramics or plastics molding?”
“No, sir.”
“Mmm. All right, then. Take these tapes down to Training, and run through them as many times as it takes. Then come back here, and I’ll set you up with some instructors. You’ve got to know how a process is supposed to be done before you can supervise it.”
That made perfect sense, and Esmay had never minded learning new things. “Yes, sir,” she said, accepting a thick stack of tapes for the machines.
“We’ll probably be out on deployment before you’re through with the tapes,” Pitak said. “Take what time you need.” Then she shook her head. “Sorry—you’re naturally thorough—I don’t have to warn you against rushing through them.”
“Sir.” Esmay backed out, with very mixed feelings. One side of her mind felt ruffled and itchy; another part felt soothed and confident.
Scheduling sessions in Training took longer than she had expected. The techs in charge of the banks of machines explained. “A DSR needs more specialties than any other kind of ship. And we have to know everything—all the old stuff, and all the new stuff, and anything someone’s come up with to make repair easier. Our people are always retraining. The rest of Fleet just thinks it retrains, with its predictable little drills every so many days. But we’ll get you in, Lieutenant, don’t worry. And Major Pitak knows what the situation is—she’s not going to blame you.”
Nonetheless, it would be three standard days before Esmay could get a machine, and then only on third shift.
“Do you have anything similar that I could go over on my cube reader?” she asked. The tech ran the tape titles through his scanner.
“Yes, but this is really technical stuff, Lieutenant—what I have on cube is much more basic. The intermediate stuff’s all been checked out—in fact, it’s overdue.”
“I’ll take the basic,” Esmay said. “A good review for me.” She took the cubes, and gave the tech her tapes, to be held for her session. Back in her quarters, she inserted the first cube. An hour later, she was very glad she hadn’t been able to get time on the machines right away. The basic level cube was already past her. She sat back, blinking, and realized she’d have to take it in short doses.
Almost lunchtime. She wasn’t really hungry, but she did feel stiff and stale. What she wanted was exercise. She changed to shorts and padded shoes, and followed the directions (in this case identical) given by the ship’s schematics and Major Pitak’s cube to the junior officers’ workout area.
Aside from being bigger, it was much like the exercise compartments she’d seen on other ships. Rows of machines for exercising this or that group of muscles, enclosed spaces for pair games played on a small court, a large open space with mats for tumbling and unarmed combat practice. Half a dozen or so junior officers occupied various machines, and two were sparring on the mats. She checked the charts. At this time of the cycle, only a few machines were reserved; she could use almost anything. Esmay avoided the riding simulators, and climbed onto something said to simulate cross-country walking on snow. She had no desire to walk on real snow—she had done that—but it was better than pretending to ride horses by sitting on an arrangement of pistons and levers.
She had just begun to work up her heart rate when someone called her name. She looked around. It was one of the ensigns from her table . . . Custis? No, Dettin, the blond with the scrape, now healed.
“I just wondered if you’d talk to our tactics study group about the Xavier affair,” he asked. “Not necessarily your own role, though of course we’d like to hear it, but just how you saw the battle as a whole.”
“I didn’t see the battle as a whole,” Esmay said. “We got there late, as you may have heard.”
“Late?” His brow furrowed. Could he really be this ignorant.
“The ship I was on was captained by a—” it was extraordinarily hard to say “traitor” right out loud to a youngster like this. “Captain Hearne left the Xavier system before the battle,” she said. She didn’t know why she said it that way; she had not cared that much for Captain Hearne. “It was only after the—” mutiny was another hard word to say, but this time she got it out. “Only after the mutiny, when all the officers senior had died, that I took the ship back.”
She did not expect the look on his face, the expression of someone who has just seen impossible dreams fulfilled. “You—that’s like something out of Silver Stars.”
“Silver stars?”
“You know—the adventure game series.”
Shock knocked out her control. “It was nothing like an adventure game!”
He was oblivious. “No, but in the eighth series, when that young lord had to overcome the wicked prince and then lead the ships in battle . . .”
“It’s not a game,” Esmay said firmly, but with less heat. “People get killed for real.”
“I know that,” he said, looking annoyed. “But in the game—”
“I’m sorry,” Esmay said, “I don’t play adventure games.” I only fight wars, she wanted to say, but didn’t.
“But will you talk to our tactics group?”
She thought it over. Perhaps she could make clear the difference between game and reality. “Yes,” she said. “But I’ll have to check my schedule. When do you meet?”