Of course, Chenforce was composed of crews that had already won a victory, on the day of the rebellion, in the vicious battle waged at point-blank range with antiproton beams by ships mostly in dock. It gave the crews a certain grim esprit, and a confidence that whatever they encountered next, it couldn’t be as bad as what they’d already overcome.
Chenforce also employed the new looser tactical formations that Martinez had developed, and with apparent success. Do-faq, Michi Chen confided, had sent her a complete recording of the experiments he had conducted, and she’d begun experimenting with them on her own.
Buoyed by this expression of confidence, Martinez created a more elaborate experiment for the following day. Chenforce again performed well. The third day there was no exercise, since Captain Fletcher chose the day for a personnel inspection so comprehensive that it took most of the day. Martinez, who was not under Fletcher’s command, was not subject to the captain’s keen eye; but that night, with his meal, he received a report from Alikhan, who had been present when his own compartment was visited by the captain.
“The lord captain’s quite an enthusiast for musters and inspections, my lord,” Alikhan said. “Illustriousis given a full inspection every six or seven days, and one department or other is mustered and examined on a daily basis.”
“Does the lord captain find much?” Martinez said.
“A surprising amount, my lord. Dust in corners, untidy personal gear, bits of his murals getting chipped off…he’s very thorough.”
“I imagine the chipped murals must annoy him.”
Alikhan was quite expressionless. “He keeps a painter on his staff, my lord, to make repairs.”
“Upholding his dignity,”Martinez muttered to himself.
Alikhan raised an eyebrow. “My lord?”
“Nothing,” Martinez said.
The fourth day, after another successful exercise, Martinez was the supper guest of the wardroom. The lieutenants were eager for a description ofCorona ‘s escape from the Naxids on the day of the rebellion, and of the Battle of Hone-bar, and Martinez—who’d had a degree of experience in these anecdotes by now—obliged. Fulvia Kazakov, with a new pair of ivory chopsticks thrust through the knot of hair behind her head, was a meticulous hostess, satisfying her lieutenants’ curiosity without giving Martinez the sense he was being overwhelmed by a pack of eager juniors. Chandra Prasad, to Martinez’s surprise, was quiet—he remembered her as boisterous in gatherings. When he permitted himself to look at her, he saw her studying him with her long dark eyes.
Toward the end of the supper, Chandra received a page from Lord Captain Fletcher, and quietly excused herself. There followed a moment of awkward silence, in which the lieutenants scrupulously avoided one another’s eyes, and then the conversation continued.
When he and Chandra had met, Martinez reflected later, they had shared the same problem: neither had any patronage in the Fleet. Martinez had found himself benefactors in the Chens, but he suspected Chandra hadn’t found anyone to take this role—no one, perhaps, except Senior Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher.
While there was no outright regulation against relations between a captain and one of his officers, service custom was dead against it. Aside from concerns about sexual exploitation, everyone dreaded a captain who played favorites among his subordinates, and a sexual relationship was favoritism of a particularly tangled kind. If an officer couldn’t do without companionship for the length of a voyage, he or she was usually at liberty to bring a comely servant on board for the purpose.
Well, Martinez thought charitably, perhaps it was love.
He decided to forego video and wrote letters to Terza daily. In order that she might know what to expect at her destination he wrote his reminiscences of Laredo, whereEnsenada was bound, along with descriptions of his parents, their homes, and the history of his family. He hadn’t seen Laredo in nearly twelve years, but the memories rose to his mind with surprising clarity: the summer home Buena Vista on the lower slopes of the Sierra Oriente, surrounded by the maples that turned to flame in the autumn; the palace of white and chocolate marble in the capital, with its water gardens; and the tall fieldstone home set in the subtropical delta of the Rio Hondo, where the family spent its winters, and its magnificent alley of massive, twisted live oaks on which Martinez climbed as a child. His father, an exuberant man with a collection of custom aircraft and cars, and his mother, who read romantic poetry aloud to the family at night.
The letters, transformed to digital images, took days to reach Terza through the wormhole relays, but once she started receiving them she began responding in kind. Through her neat calligraphy he learned of her harp teacher Mr. Giulio, with his sharp nose and heavy knuckles; the pyramid-shaped Chen villa in the Hone Reach, built by the first Chen to reach convocate rank; and her reaction to an old Koskinen drama, a recording of which she’d found onEnsenada. She spoke of her pregnancy and the changes that were embracing her body.
Martinez pictured her on the love seat in her room, bent over a notebook with her hair thrown back over her shoulders and a calligraphy pen in her long, graceful hand.
He wrote that he missed her, and that she shouldn’t be concerned if his letters suddenly stopped for a while. That didn’t mean a battle, necessarily, that just meant he was busy or the squadron was moving.
He wroteLove, Gareth at the end of his letters, and found that the words didn’t seem awkward. He was surprised at that, and then, as one letter followed another, the surprise began to fade.
Martinez finally rated a dinner with the captain, though this was in the context of Lady Michi and her entire staff being invited to dine. The murals in the captain’s suite had actually been painted on, instead of being mounted like wallpaper. Fletcher was a gracious host, and kept up a flow of light conversation for the entire evening. Chandra Prasad was not in evidence.
Martinez dined with Michi regularly, and was a frequent guest of the wardroom. He began to feel that he should return this hospitality, and received the squadcom’s permission to useDaffodil. He invited Lady Michi, and then the lieutenants, and finally the lieutenants along with their captain. Espinosa and Ayutano stood by the docking port with white gloves to help the guests onto the yacht. All but the captain praised Perry’s cooking, but even Fletcher praised the wine, the vintages that had actually been shipped from the Chen cellars by Terza, and which Martinez had blindly loaded aboard without even looking at the labels.
After thatDaffodil became a kind of club for the younger officers. Martinez frequently invited them for drinks or games, events where they wouldn’t have to wear full dress. Despite the informality Martinez made a point of never being alone there with Chandra, or indeed with any female crew member.
Illustriousfell into routine. The Naxids seemed unaccountably tardy in seizing the capital that had been abandoned to their mercy. When Martinez had first come aboard, the Naxids had been expected any day. But the days rolled past, and the Naxids refused to show themselves.Illustrious went on with its series of drills and musters and inspections. Martinez suggested to Lady Michi that the number of drills be cut back: he didn’t want the crouchbacks to overtrain and lose their edge. She agreed, and a drill was now scheduled for every third day.
Still the Naxids didn’t come. Martinez could feel boredom twitching at his nerve ends. One day he encountered Lord Captain Fletcher in the corridor, walking with Chandra. Martinez braced in salute.
“Ah, Hoddy,” Fletcher said amiably. “I call you Hoddy.”
“My lord?”
Fletcher waved a hand in a vaguely beneficent gesture. “You are Hoddy. Hoddy I call you, and Hoddy you shall be.”