“The main stations will have operational logs,” Suli said as she understood. “Those ships will be on secret business, but the stations will store the flight logs, and record everywhere they’ve been.”
Erik nodded. “A good look at the logs should do it.”
Trace raised an eyebrow. “You want to hit a station and grab their top secret logs by force?”
“If it tells me whether the parren are already at this moon or not, yes. If they’re not, there’s no way anyone else is, given they’d have to go through House Harmony space to get there.”
“So who’s the lucky station?” Kaspowitz asked.
“Find me one,” Erik told him. “You and De Marchi. Then plot a course, and Draper can burn us there. Tell me when you’ve got the candidate.”
Exhaustion or no exhaustion, Erik forced himself to his quarters, changed, popped an energy drink, then made for the gym. A full red was enforced, meaning the treadmill was offlimits in case a sudden move sent a runner over the rail, so Erik did a rowing machine instead, then lifted weights. The weights bar was on rails, so even when Phoenix leaped sideways, twice, he had only to grab the bar to stay in position. He was pretty sure he could navigate the gym in a full red without getting injured, but crewmembers stayed close regardless, a spacer always just happening to be taking a break alongside as he was lifting.
Trace arrived as he moved to a punching bag, and held it for him as she gave her full report on Phoenix Company readiness. Erik listened, pleased to have the rhythm of his combination strikes, to keep him focused. Trace’s report ended, concise and brief as usual.
“I’ve got them prepping for a facility assault,” she told him. “It’s Echo and Delta’s turn. Any clues yet on what it might be?”
“Navigation’s working on it,” Erik puffed, relaxing his shoulders, pulling his chin in before punches. It always made a spacer work harder on form, to have a marine watching. Particularly this marine. “Something with enough traffic data to give us the best chance of finding something. Something FTL traffic would visit. A military station would be ideal.”
“And the odds that the deepynines would be using that as bait? Guessing we’d go there?”
She had no business asking that question. It was beyond her purview. Erik was used to it, and not in a good way. “How about you do your damn job, and go where you’re told?” he retorted, and hit the bag harder. “Leave the thinking to us.”
He couldn’t officially punish her for consistently overstepping the mark in questioning his orders, and that made the frustration worse. Any punishment would be bad for morale, as whatever respect he’d gained on this cruise, she had more. And besides, procedural punishment would be as useful as throwing rocks at a kaal — there was nothing he could do to her, no extra duty, no physical deprivation, that was worse than what she already did to herself every day.
“This is about Lisbeth,” Trace said bluntly, as intimidated by his dressing-down as a crocodile confronted with a yapping poodle. “Styx says she’s safe. Why not accept that you can’t change her fate regardless, and presume Styx is right, rather than taking out your anger on me?”
Erik swung hard for the portion of bag that her face was resting on. She pulled her head back just in time, as his fist made a loud bang on the canvas before her nose. She made no more response than that, but her eyes registered alarm, even shock. That was a first. Erik felt a fierce satisfaction, and leaned in close so no one else could hear.
“It’s your fault she’s even out here,” he snarled, with genuine fury. “God help you if she’s dead.”
Thirty minutes later, Trace had her armour suit hooked into the D-rig, a high three levels up in the maze of steel gantries above rim-floor in Assembly. About her was the usual chaos of activity, marines working on their armour, stacked vertically in ascending rows of storage bays and G-restraints. She stood with the chestplate cracked, the hood high above her head, helmet off and testing the resistance as the D-rig grabbed her suit’s limbs with sensor-bundled straps, and pulled. Displays rippled realtime as she took the arms through their range of motion, showing her where various actuators weren’t responding as they should.
Private Zale assisted her, taking notes and feeding corrections into the master override, before Trace would try again. To her right along the gantry, she glimpsed a marine standing to quick attention as someone approached.
“Hey Smiley,” Trace called loudly above the noise of nearby powertools. “Take a break for five minutes, huh?” Zale glanced, and saw Commander Shahaim coming toward them.
“Sure thing Major,” he said, and unhooked himself from the harness that was essential for everyone working above rim-level, particularly when Phoenix was jumping around like this. He nodded briefly to Shahaim, said “Commander”, then went to the neighbouring berth to help someone else.
“Private,” Shahaim acknowledged as he left, then grasped a rail before Trace, and hooked an elbow about the D-rig frame. “Trace, you wanted to see me?” And she glanced down at the armour. “Is this the one you used on Kamala?”
Trace had known Suli Shahaim for as long as she’d known anyone on Phoenix. She’d been Lieutenant Shahaim for that time, Captain Pantillo’s ever-reliable Helm, the old-navy term spacers insisted on using for ‘co-pilot’. Shahaim’s reputation was impeccable, and she was known as one of the most personable officers on the ship. Yet she was rarely seen down here in Assembly, because Shahaim was as spacer as they came, a Fleet officer from a long line of Fleet officers, and while her expertise was legendary, it was all ships, stations and performance specifications. Trace doubted Shahaim would even recognise the cover of a marine field manual, let alone its contents, and while she liked and respected Shahaim, she couldn’t claim to know her particularly well.
“No,” Trace answered, “that one’s nearly trashed, will take more time to fix than we’ve got. It was a spare anyway — this is my original, the one that crashed in the lake on Stoya.”
The respect in Shahaim’s eyes was strong. “Almost like there’s a war on, huh?” It was what they’d said to each other, jokingly, during the actual Triumvirate War. Now, supposedly, that war was over, but Phoenix was deeper in the stew than ever.
Trace disliked smalltalk almost as much as she disliked bars, karaoke and dancing. “I’m concerned about the Captain’s state of mind,” she said bluntly. “The situation with Lisbeth has him rattled.”
Shahaim regarded her coolly, and with a faint disbelief. Her thick, dark eyebrows and large nose gave her expression a sharpness when she did that, much unlike her usual friendly calm. “That’s understandable.”
“I’m concerned he’s not handling it well.” The nearby power tool stopped, to be replaced by yells and instruction, and a crash from further down. There was no danger of being overheard. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s handling it brilliantly,” Shahaim replied. There was no mistaking the coldness in her tone now. Phoenix leaped sideways once more, and Shahaim swung on her grip, barely noticing. “Why do you think he’s not?”
“I was in the gym just now, giving him my report. I asked him about the chances the deepynines might be staking out the facility we end up going to. He told me to mind my own business.”
“As is his right.”
“It’s a command discussion,” said Trace, frowning. “We exchange views freely, in case someone has missed something or has a better idea.”
“And what do you think are the odds that you, a marine officer, would have an idea regarding spacer strategy that we might have missed?” Shahaim looked about at the echoing gantries and racked armour. “When you’ve been in here all rotation, while we’ve been in the bridge, breathing this stuff until it gets into our sweat and blood?”
“A one percent chance is still worth discussing. Professionals cover every possibility.”
“And the Captain is juggling a dozen things you’re not. I’ve never been captain, but I’m close. You have to compartmentalise your thinking
. You focus on one thing, then the other. When he’s in the gym, he’s finished his strategic thinking. That’s why he has us, his bridge crew. Gym is a time to unwind a little, think on something else. Having a relative ignoramus interrupt those thoughts to insist that she should also get to stick her unwelcome opinion in could be somewhat annoying, yes.”
“He’s never had that difficulty in the past,” Trace said stubbornly. “His multi-tasking is exceptional, Pantillo always said so.”
“And Pantillo was right.”
“I told him I thought he wasn’t handling the situation well with Lisbeth, that he should accept what Styx told him because there wasn’t any other option.” Trace could have dressed it up to make herself look better, less harsh, more nurturing. But she hated people who dressed up circumstance to make themselves look better most of all. “He was on the punching bag, took a swing at my head.” Shahaim blinked. “Would have connected if I hadn’t dodged. No one else saw, it looked like he was just hitting the bag.”
“I’m surprised it took him this long,” said Shahaim. “Anyone else would have swung at you months ago.”
“Assaulted his marine commander without warning? What if he’d connected? He’s not a small guy.”
“Then Lieutenant Dale would have command of Phoenix Company, and the Captain would have an impediment to his command removed.”
It took a lot more than a strongly worded disagreement to make Trace upset. The combat reflexes kicked in, and the calm settled as though she were climbing a cliff on the Rejara Phirta Range without a rope. She prided herself on making sensible decisions when others were panicking, or responding in unconstructively emotional ways. But even so, being accused by the ship’s Commander of being an impediment to the Captain’s command was a bit strong.
“How am I an impediment to the Captain’s command?”
Shahaim nearly rolled her eyes. “Trace,” she said, with a heavy emphasis to show that she wasn’t losing her temper either, but rather making a deliberately strong point. First names disappeared when it got more serious, to be replaced with ranks, and Shahaim was the senior officer here. “You pissed him off so much he nearly took your head off. Think about it. Just once, use whatever passes for emotional empathy in that thick marine skull of yours and think. He’s going through a very tough patch, and he could use some support and understanding instead of your constant badgering.”
“My constant badgering is a large part of what’s gotten him to his current level of effectiveness.”
“Yes, and as a tool to prepare him for the dangers that lay ahead, that was priceless. You’ve done a good job with him, and neither I nor any of the other officers could have done it. But we’re here now. This isn’t school anymore. You’re not the instructor now, and he’s not the pupil — this is the real world, and you’re his marine commander, not his mother. You’re going to have to let him go.”
Trace thought about that, as Phoenix dodged again, a slower, more gradual gravitational slide that sent them both swinging. She half-winced at Shahaim, not liking that implication. “You think I’m overly protective?”
“Listen junior,” said Shahaim with all the wry certainty of a much older woman, “I’ve got kids. You don’t. They need to be taught, and then at some point they need to make their own decisions. You think you’re helping them by trying to guide them past that point, but you’re not. You’re interfering.
“What we have on this ship is a command inversion — we lost our two senior officers and left the most junior command officer in charge. He shouldn’t be in charge in normal circumstances, but these circumstances are far from normal. He finds himself elevated to command when there are all these other officers with much more experience and prestige than him, all looking down on him and judging him, but they can’t take command because none of them has his skillset, not even me.
“And then he’s got you, the great Major Thakur herself, and you were the one holding us all together after Captain Pantillo died. And Erik needs you, and he valued your input on him personally, however rough it was. He loves you, Trace. Not in that way maybe, but because he’s a nice guy, and he gets emotionally engaged with the people closest to him, and that’s certainly you. And so now, it hurts all the more when you get on his case, because you make it entirely clear that the respect he has for you is not reciprocated.”
“I think he could eventually be a better captain than even Pantillo,” Trace retorted. “And Pantillo was the best Fleet had. I’ve told him so.”
“With respect,” Shahaim said edgily, “that’s not your judgement to make. You’re a marine. Your opinion of spacers is worth the same as my opinion of marines — nothing.”
“The fundamentals of command are the same across all services. And Erik still has a lot to learn — he’s only had three years in combat prior to this whole mess.”
“And he’s now getting more experience in a month than a lot of line captains saw in years. Trace, you consider yourself to be the ultimate professional. Most of the time, you are. So I’ve got one suggestion for you only. Do your damn job, and let the Captain do his. Agreed?”
Trace wrinkled her nose. “Fine. But he’s not handling the Lisbeth situation well at all. And that dysfunction could get us all killed. You’ve warned me off it, and that’s your prerogative as Commander. But it’s on you now. And I’ll hold you to it.”
Shahaim snorted. “If it gets us all killed, you won’t be holding me to anything.” She unhooked her grip on the D-rig, and turned to begin progress back down the gantryway. “We’re all at the mercy of those above us, Trace. Even the best commanders are human, everyone makes mistakes, and people will die because of it. You can’t change it. Not even Pantillo could.”
Trace reactivated her screen, and fired up the idling suit once more. “Some of us accept that,” she said with steel in her voice. “Others refuse.”
16
Kaspowitz and De Marchi identified a primary station facility by looking over recorded logs of Brehn System the last time Phoenix passed through, when traffic had been moving and talking freely. The facility in question had not been identifying itself then or now, but the movement of several ships to and fro had been unmistakable, and now required a nine hour burn at point six of a G to reach it.
That meant no more rotational Gs, as the cylinder stopped and gravity switched to the rearward G-wall as thrust gave Phoenix an arcing trajectory toward its new destination. Erik pulled the mattress off his now-vertical bunk, reattached the bed net between bunk and wall screen on the attachments provided, and slept from sheer exhaustion. Once he awoke to find himself floating, held down only by the bednet, and checked Scan… but the bridge feed told him Draper had cut thrust only to check on a nearby ship that was proving to be a frightened insystemer, hiding from the lethal dark shapes that now prowled this system. Soon the rumble of engines resumed, and as the light Gs pressed him down once more, Erik fell back into dreamless sleep.
He’d ordered bridge shift-change delayed nearly two hours behind the rest of the ship, to allow second-shift to finish their manoeuvre. It gave him two hours more sleep, and he woke thirty minutes early, forwent the shower that was now impossible to use, and did star jumps and shadow boxing standing on the wall of his quarters to get the blood flowing. A spacer opened his door, now above him, and dropped Erik some breakfast — an easy catch in barely half-a-G — and he sat crosslegged to eat, and sip coffee from the thermos, and reviewed Rooke’s repairs.
The cylinder breach had opened Phoenix’s crew section to vacuum from D Bulkhead to H, with minor leaks in three surrounding sections, quickly sealed by the automated sealant that ran through the ship’s very walls. Fifteen crew had been in the worst area, all had made fast escapes as damage response coordinated local depressurisation to allow them out without sending the rest of the ship to vacuum. Five of those were now in Medbay for observation with mild hypoxia, and another thirty crew had had to shift from the adjoining sections — Romki among them, Erik was now
hearing. The angle of impact on that rounded part of the hull had deflected damage away from the main ship, so at least fragmentation had been limited.
The second round had struck just aft of Midships, where the engine endcap formed the front of Phoenix’s engine section. That had been a much harder strike, but again not as hard as it could have been, and the structural requirements of vessel design made that one of the strongest parts of the ship. Rooke was concerned about minor perforations and feeder systems damage, and Engineering were rushing to make adjustments to systems configurations to take the load off damaged portions. The danger now, Rooke opined in his latest report, compiled while Erik was sleeping, was that when Phoenix went max thrust once more, a subsystems malfunction could cascade to larger systems, leading to engine overload, meaning either a cutoff or a fatal explosion. Pursued by deepynine warships, either result would be the end of them. He’d fix what he could, but it would take a full dock overhaul and repair to handle both this and their ongoing issues with the jump lines. Bottom line, if Phoenix had to run at full power again, in its current state, there was a one in three chance they’d blow up and die.
That ruled out running, at least until they could be guaranteed the deepynines weren’t going to chase.
A further search on personal logs showed him that little Skah had been admitted to Medbay after those last manoeuvres. That was upsetting — pilots were always at risk of harming their own crew, in the knowledge that if they didn’t, everyone would die. But having it happen to Skah was another matter.
Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4) Page 23