by David Weber
Of course, I did have that time as the Kitty’s acting XO in Monica until Ansten got back on his feet, didn’t I? she thought around a familiar flicker of pain for Hexapuma and all the friends who’d died with her. That has to count for something.
No doubt it did, but she cherished no illusions about her ability to emulate a ship handler like Aivars Terekhov or Duchess Harrington. Which made it no less important to demonstrate—to herself, as well as her ship’s company—that she was at least competent in that respect.
Charles Ward’s light code flashed bright green as the big support ship settled into exact position, and Ginger looked back at her com display.
“Rig foresail for transit.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” Lawson replied. “Rigging foresail…now.”
The CW’s impeller wedge dropped abruptly to half strength as her forward nodes reconfigured to produce a circular disk of focused gravitation over three hundred kilometers in diameter.
“Stand by to rig aftersail on my mark,” Ginger murmured as Charles Ward continued to creep forward under the power of her after impellers.
A new readout appeared as that steady motion slid the rigged Warshawski sail steadily deeper into the focused funnel of hyper-space that was the gateway to Talbott. The readout danced rapidly higher as the sail began drawing power from the tortured gravity waves twisting eternally through the Junction, and Ginger watched them carefully. She knew she had a window of almost thirty seconds, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be sloppy, or—
The dancing numbers crossed the threshold. The foresail was now drawing sufficient power to provide movement, and she nodded sharply at Lawson.
“Rig aftersail now!”
“Rigging aftersail, aye, Captain.”
Whatever demons might be following Kumanosuke Lawson around, he ran his department like a precision chronometer, and Charles Ward twitched ever so slightly as her impeller wedge disappeared entirely and a second Warshawski sail sprung to life at the far end of her hull.
The transition from impeller to sail was one of the trickier maneuvers with which a helmswoman had to deal, but Angelina Dreyfus’ skilled hands gentled the big support ship through the conversion with barely a quiver. She held the ship rock-steady, and Ginger’s fingers tightened on her chair arm as a familiar queasiness assailed her. Few people ever really adjusted to the sensation of crossing the wall between n-space and hyperspace, and her stomach seemed to have more trouble with it than most. The fact that the gradient was so much steeper in a junction transit only made that worse, but at least it would be over soon, she reminded herself as she concentrated on maintaining her serene expression.
The maneuvering display blinked, and for an instant no human sense or chronometer had ever been able to measure, HMS Charles Ward ceased to exist. In theory, it wasn’t truly instantaneous, although no one had ever been able to confirm that theory experimentally. Ginger wasn’t hugely interested in “theory,” however, and she concentrated on controlling her nausea as her ship snapped—whether “instantaneously” or not—across better than six light-centuries in that fragment of time no one could measure.
That nausea spiked abruptly, but then it eased once more, vanishing with the transit energy radiating from Charles Ward’s sails, almost as quickly, and she sighed in relief.
“Transit complete,” Chief Dreyfus reported.
“Thank you. That was well executed,” Ginger replied, watching the numbers spiral downward once more. “Engineering, reconfigure to impeller.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Reconfiguring to impeller now.”
Charles Ward folded her wings back into her impeller wedge and moved forward more rapidly, accelerating steadily away from the terminus in the wake of the cruiser which had preceded her.
* * *
“Can I get you anything else, Ma’am?” Jared Pallavicini inquired. “More coffee?”
“No, Jared, I think we’re fine,” Ginger replied. “Just leave us the Glenlivet and the glasses, and we’ll take it from there.” She smiled. “I promise I’ll buzz you if something else occurs to me.”
“Of course, Ma’am.” Pallavicini produced the required glasses, gave each a ceremonial swipe with a spotless napkin, and placed them precisely on the table, flanking the whiskey bottle. Then he withdrew, closing the pantry door behind him, and Ginger heard a chuckle from the far side of the table.
“What?” she asked, looking at her guest.
“You’re making progress with him,” Sinead Terekhov replied. “I don’t think he offered you more Alfredo sauce more than twice!”
“Don’t you go picking on Jared,” Ginger told her with a twinkle. “And for God’s sake don’t say anything about more food where he might hear you! Sying-ni’s done wonders with him, and I don’t want you undoing her good work!”
“Not for anything in the world,” Sinead reassured her, and they smiled at each other as Ginger uncapped the bottle and poured. Then they sat back, glasses in hand, at the table in the dining cabin which seemed much larger with only the two of them.
“That’s good,” Sinead said, sipping from her glass.
“I can’t really claim a very discerning palate where whiskey and wines are concerned,” Ginger admitted. “I know I really liked Glenlivet when Captain Terekhov introduced me to it, though.” She shook her head with a bittersweet smile of memory. “I wasn’t the only one in the Kitty’s wardroom who decided to stock up when I got the chance. Didn’t realize how much it cost, though!”
“I wouldn’t necessarily call Aivars’ palate ‘discerning,’” Sinead said, after a moment. “But he does have good instincts—in most things, not just wines or liqueurs. And when he makes up his mind about something—or someone—he doesn’t look back or second-guess himself.”
“I know what you mean. The Captain—well, Commodore, I suppose—isn’t exactly what anyone might call wishy-washy.” Ginger smiled, but the smile faded and her gaze turned a little troubled.
“What?” Sinead asked as the brief silence drew out, and Ginger shook herself.
“Oh, I’m just wondering—maybe worrying a little—over how he’s going to react to the entire notion of our being allied to Haven.” She looked her guest in the eye. “He never actually talked about it, Sinead, but I looked up the official record on Hyacinth. I know what happened to so many of his people, and how badly he was hurt himself. And he tried to hide it in Nuncio, but I knew…When he found out the ‘pirates’ were renegade StateSec ships, I knew how it hit him. I don’t know if he ever realized I did, but Ansten FitzGerald and I both knew.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sinead said quietly. “And I wish I could tell you how he’s likely to react. Oh, I know how he’ll react intellectually! He’s a very smart man, my husband, and only an idiot would think this was anything other than the best news we’ve had since the Battle of Spindle. But emotionally…that’s likely to be harder. And it may be even harder when he finds out how many of our friends—not just all the people on Hexapuma, but people like Peter Patterson and his wife—we’ve lost.” She inhaled deeply and shook her head. “I think he’d actually laid the ghosts of Hyacinth after Monica, but now…”
“Well, if anything’s likely to help him deal with all that, it would probably be seeing you.” Ginger smiled again, more broadly. “That portrait he keeps in his cabin is nice, but I suspect it’s not quite as nice as having the original in hugging range.”
“Oh, not simply hugging range, dear girl!” Sinead said with a wicked chuckle, and Ginger laughed.
“The truth is,” she said after a moment, “that I’m really pleased to have you aboard, and I’m looking forward to the Commodore’s reaction when you just turn up. He needs something to shake up his routine, you know. But I can’t help thinking you’d have been more comfortable on one of the personnel transports.”
“Nonsense!” Sinead sipped more whiskey. “They pack you into one of those things like canned peas! And that’s especially true now. If I was aboard one of
those transports, I’d probably be sharing a single state room with at least one other anxious wife.” She shuddered delicately. “No, thank you! I’ve done that in the past. Besides, you and your officers are far better company than I’d find over there. I especially like Dr. Massarelli, and young Paula is a sweetheart!”
“Well, I wish you’d at least let me move you into better quarters,” Ginger protested. “We’ve got more space aboard the CW than any other ship I’ve ever served in, Sinead! For that matter, I have an entire additional sleeping cabin right here. It’s got to be more comfortable than the bunks down there in Snotty Row!”
“I am not yet feeble,” Sinead replied with a grin, “and I’m not going to bounce you—or one of your other officers—out of your quarters. It was kind enough of you to offer me a lift in the first place. Besides,” her grin faded, “Paula needs the company.”
And that, Ginger reflected, was entirely true.
She’d never imagined, when Sinead Terekhov told her she’d been granted priority for naval transport and that she’d like to accompany Charles Ward to Talbott, that she’d choose to make the voyage in the quarters normally assigned to the ship’s midshipmen. For that matter, she was reasonably certain Sinead hadn’t considered that possibility…until she arrived onboard and discovered that Paula Rafferty was all alone down there.
“I won’t pretend I’m not grateful for the way you’re…looking after her, Sinead,” she said, after a moment. “I’m not too sure how happy the Commodore’s going to be with me when he finds out I let you travel in steerage, though!”
“You just leave Aivars to me.” Sinead’s smile returned. “Besides, he’ll understand.”
“You’re probably right about that.” Ginger shook her head, gazing down into her whiskey glass. “I think he tries to hide it sometimes, but he always seems to be able to spot anyone under his command who’s in trouble. Don’t get me wrong, Ansten FitzGerald stayed on top of everything that happened to any of the Kitty’s people. But it just always seemed that whenever I looked up, the Commodore was always…I don’t know. He was just always there, whenever anyone needed him.”
“That’s Aivars’ way,” Sinead said. “And…there’s probably another reason it seemed that way to you, dear.”
Ginger’s eyes snapped up from her glass, meeting Sinead’s across the table, and her mouth opened. But Sinead held up her hand before she could speak.
“Ginger,” she said gently, “I don’t for one instant believe anything remotely improper ever happened between you and Aivars. One of the very few immutable certainties of this universe is my husband’s fidelity. But ever since his return to active service, he’s had an even greater tendency to…mentor, let’s say, promising young officers. Especially promising young female officers.”
Ginger had closed her mouth again, but her eyes were still distressed, and Sinead shook her head.
“I’ve known Aivars Terekhov for the next best thing to fifty T-years, and because of that, I know he’d never allow favoritism to color his actions or his decisions. But I come from a Navy family myself,” she said with, Ginger reflected, massive understatement, “and I also know he understands a senior officer’s responsibility to groom, train, and support promising junior officers. He’d do that for anyone he thought was as good at her—or his—job as you are. But there’s a reason he’s especially supportive of his female junior officers. A reason which applies rather strongly in your own case, I suspect.”
“A reason?” Ginger repeated when the older woman paused.
“Yes.” Sinead’s eyes softened. “You look a great deal like me, Ginger. But you look even more like Anastasia.”
“Anastasia?”
“Our daughter,” Sinead said quietly, and Ginger stiffened.
“Nastyen’ka was never interested in the Navy, unnatural child that she was,” Sinead continued with a wistful smile. “She was interested in planets, and she begged, pleaded, and pestered until she got her way. She was a little too much like both her parents in that respect, I think. But about the time Aivars returned to active service after the Battle of Hancock, she was accepted into the Sphinx Forestry Service’s intern program. I never saw her happier in her life! And then, about a year later, she fell from a crown oak during a treecat rescue mission and her counter-grav failed to activate.”
Ginger inhaled sharply, and Sinead nodded.
“She suffered catastrophic brain trauma,” she said in a steady voice. “The SFS airlifted her out immediately, but she was gone by the time they reached the trauma unit. If she’d lived, she’d be about a year younger than you are now.”
“I never…” Ginger shook her head, and Sinead reached across the table to lay one hand on her forearm.
“Ginger, Aivars would have recognized the qualities which make you the officer you are even if you’d been male, two meters tall, and covered with hair! And I am not telling you he values you because you remind him of Nastyen’ka. I’m simply saying he sees an echo of her in every promising young woman he meets, and that because you look so much like her, he probably sees that echo even more strongly in your case. And one of the reasons I’m telling you this is that I do, too. Neither of us thinks you’re a replacement for our daughter, and both of us value you for who you are, but I think it’s right for you to know about her. And perhaps it’ll help you understand why I’m perfectly content down in ‘Snotty Row’ with young Paula. She’s a Queen’s officer, not a child, but she’s also young woman who’s lost her entire family. If she needs a non-Navy shoulder to cry on, just a bit, I have one that’s perfectly serviceable.”
* * *
Well, well, well, Rufino Chernyshev thought. Isn’t that interesting?
He pursed his lips, whistling softly for several seconds as he considered the message which had just reached him through the covert channel to “Manticore” Dennis Harahap had set up for Tomasz Szponder and the Free Thought Crusade.
A part of him felt almost guilty, he realized. That was probably inevitable—to really succeed at this sort of thing, an operator had to be able to genuinely empathize with the people he was manipulating—but what he mostly felt was intense satisfaction.
He gazed at his display for another few seconds, then nodded and opened a window to post a memo and keyed his microphone live.
“Confirm receipt,” he said, watching the words appear. “Assure them support will be there within twenty-four hours either side of their proposed execution date.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“Shuman Central Control, this is Victor-Lima-One-Seven-Seven. Request final docking clearance.”
“Hold one, Victor-Lima,” the thoroughly bored traffic controller aboard the Donald Ulysses and Rosa Aileen Shuman Space Station (more commonly—and not especially affectionately—known as Dumber Ass, from its initials), the Swallow System’s primary space station, replied. “Checking the boards.”
“Roger, Shuman Central. Victor-Lima-One-Seven-Seven copies. Holding at the approach beacon.”
The controller brought up her schedule, and flight VL177 blinked a bright, authorized green. Well, of course it did. VL177 was a Tallulah mining shuttle, and Tallulah’s shuttles and courier boats and freighters—and the armed sting ships of Tallulah Security Enterprises, based right here on Dumber Ass—went wherever the hell they liked and did whatever the hell they wanted, although why a mining shuttle was coming up from Swallow was an interesting question.
Probably down for some major overhaul, she thought. Damned things may not be configured for atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean they can’t handle it if they have to. And if they go slow enough!
“Victor-Lima-One-Seven-Seven, Shuman Central. I have you on the schedule. You are cleared to dock at the Alpha-Tango-Seven beacon. Confirm copy.”
“Shuman Central, Victor-Lima-One-Seven-Seven copies cleared to approach on docking beacon Alpha-Tango-Seven. Initiating thrust.”
“Confirmed, Victor-Lima. Have a nice visit,” the controller said and watched
her radar as the bulky shuttle’s reaction thrusters—impeller wedges were banned this close to the station—sent it towards its assigned docking bay.
* * *
“Well, so far so—” the shuttle pilot began.
“Don’t say it!” the purple-haired woman in the copilot’s seat cut him off sharply. He looked at her, one eyebrow quirked, and Staff Sergeant Rachel Lamprecht, Solarian League Marines (retired) shook her head. “You don’t go around jinxing perfectly good operations that way,” she told him severely. “I thought we’d taught you people that, Truman?”
“Guess I forgot,” Truman Rodriguez replied with a casual air that fooled neither of them. “And, by the way. If I forgot to mention it before we lifted, thanks for coming along.”
“De nada,” Lamprecht said, waving one hand.
Rodriguez nodded and turned back to his controls. She might have waved it off, but he hoped she knew how much he’d meant it. Unlike him, the only dog Lamprecht—or, for that matter, Laszlo Hiratasuka and Alexandra Mikhailov—had in this fight was their decades-long friendship for Vincent Frugoni. That was something a Swallowan could understand—even an adopted Swallowan like Rodriguez—but it still wasn’t her fight.
It was Truman Rodriguez’s fight, though. He was as much an immigrant to Swallow as Vincent Frugoni and Sandra Allenby, and his job as a Tallulah Resource Extraction Enterprises pilot paid remarkably well, for the Swallow System. But he’d been assigned to this star system for over thirty T-years. He had a wife, four kids, and an extended family which included Floyd Allenby.
And I’ve seen what something like Tallulah means for my kids and my grandkids, however good it may look for me, he thought grimly. No freaking way is that happening to my girls!
“Docking collar in fifteen minutes, Vinnie,” he said into his mike. Then glanced over his shoulder at his flight engineer.