At that size, the stranger was a heavy destroyer or light cruiser—and there were only two or three systems in the entire cluster that could have built her. Others might have bought her, but…
The ident code didn’t really alleviate her fear. She was the Ypres Sanctuary Security Flotilla Ship Banshee, flagship of one of the several different fleets run by the disparate factions in that not-particularly-unified star system.
“Conviction, are you seeing what I’m seeing on the ID code?” she asked. “What’s the Ypres Sanctuary flagship doing out here?”
“Same thing we are,” Zoric’s voice replied grimly. “Showing the flag and demonstrating the ability to project power. Of course, we’re doing it for Redward and they’re doing it for faction number four of a system that could only challenge Redward if they all worked together.”
“Threat status?” Kira asked.
“We treat her like a freighter,” the carrier commander replied. “Except more so. If I could think of a way to make it really look like we don’t give them credit, I’d do it.”
Kira chuckled.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she told Zoric, realizing it was an open channel. Her little drill wasn’t going to work nearly as well if the deck crew knew she was coming.
“For now, keep an eye on her and otherwise ignore her?”
“Exactly. And hopefully, she’ll return the favor. No one wants to throw down out here, not with real pirates in play. Plus, Ypres Sanctuary doesn’t want to throw down with Redward. Period.”
Kira apparently needed to do more research on Ypres. She’d registered that it was divided into five different factions—nations, really, by another name—but she hadn’t realized that those factions could field real warships.
For now, the patrol was just about up, and that meant it was time to give the retrieval deck white hairs.
“This is Conviction, standing by for automatic control,” Zoric’s voice said in Kira’s headware as she lined the Hoplite up. “I have you on the line, Basketball. Vectors are green, contact in thirty seconds. I request control.”
“Negative, Conviction,” Kira said calmly as she edged the fighter towards the retrieval deck. “It’s surprise-drill time. Prep the retrieval deck for manual landing.”
There wasn’t really much to prep. Mostly, it was just retracting a bunch of the tools and robot arms that ship control could fly her around—but that she wouldn’t know the positions of.
“Are you fucking insane?” Zoric demanded. Headware meant the conversation was taking place ten times faster than they could have actually spoken, but they still only had so much time.
“Standard training protocol calls for a pilot to carry out a minimum one manual landing drill per month. Carrier crew should be ready for manual landing drill at any time,” Kira said sweetly. “I have the ball, Conviction. Bay entrance in ten.”
They were well past the point where Zoric should have been arguing with her. Kira had full faith in her ability to manually land the Hoplite in a retrieval bay that hadn’t been prepared for the maneuver.
If Zoric had that faith, on the other hand, the mercenary officer was entirely out of line. Kira would never have trusted any of her pilots to make that landing without clearing the landing bay, no matter how many times she’d seen them do it.
It was an unnecessary risk—and Zoric clearly agreed.
Kira slammed her velocity even further down as she drifted into the retrieval bay. The various robot arms were pulling against the walls as she did so, vastly expanding the space she had to work with.
“Landing pad is transfer four,” Zoric’s voice said grimly in her ear. “If you hit my ship…”
“Commander, I haven’t hit a ship in a hundred manual landings,” Kira replied. “I can’t speak to random robot arms, but I can guarantee I won’t hit the carrier.”
Grim or not, that got a chuckle from the mercenary as Kira dropped a blinking icon above the transfer pad. A final adjustment on the Harringtons brought the Hoplite to a perfect stop, two meters above the platform.
A tiny push from the coils delivered the nova fighter to the ground, and Kira exhaled heavily.
“Conviction, I have contact,” she told Zoric. “All systems green, surrendering control to retrieval bay systems.”
“All right. You didn’t hit my carrier, but that was still insane,” Zoric replied. “And it made a point to our Yprian friend. So, I’ll consider letting this slide, this time.”
“Good. Make sure your crews are trained for it next time,” Kira told her. “I want to run all of my pilots through manual landing drills before we reach New Ontario.”
The dead silence on the channel was enough answer for Kira to know that she was going to have a problem.
20
Mbeki was waiting for Kira in her office. Even before he opened his mouth, Kira was glad that Hoffman had warned her that Banderas was going to cause trouble.
“What kind of stunt did you just pull?” he demanded. “Zoric is spitting nails.”
“I carried out a manual landing drill,” Kira said calmly. She walked past him and took a seat in her chair. The coffee machine was already humming, and moving the chair over to sit by it was easy enough.
She took the first of the two cups the machine prepared and leaned back in her chair, studying the still-standing Mbeki.
“A manual landing drill?” Mbeki said, ignoring the second cup of coffee. “That’s stupid and irresponsible. This isn’t an Apollon warship, Demirci.”
“No, but my nova fighters will keep Apollon standards,” she replied. “And my contract with Conviction says they’ll support me in doing so.”
“Your standards are insane,” he told her. “Your people are bullying poor Banderas mercilessly. She’s a damn fine pilot, but you’re treating her like she just stepped into a nova fighter for the first time.”
“I’m treating her like she’s a damn fine pilot, actually,” Kira countered softly. “She’s facing the same training and drills as the rest of my people. Which, among other things, means she’ll be making a manual landing before we reach New Ontario. I’ll talk to her about setting up some simulated runs, but its easier than most people assume.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Mbeki snarled. “You are not doing manual landing drills on my deck.”
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not your fucking deck, isn’t it?” Kira snapped back, her hackles finally up. She wasn’t sure if this was him being angry at her rejecting him or honestly thinking she was overdoing it, but she didn’t care.
If nothing else, she was angry at him for making her need to reject him. She knew it was unfair, but it was still true.
“It’s Conviction’s deck, and my contract says Conviction’s crew will help me with all reasonable drills and training exercises. So long as Asjes and Banderas fly for me, they’ll meet my standards. If they don’t want to meet my standards, they can bloody well quit and go back to flying for you.
“But if that’s what it comes down to, Commander Mbeki, it’s going to become very clear, very quickly, who the actual professionals on this ship are.”
“This is not the goddamn Apollon military,” he barked.
“No. But Memorial Squadron is going to be just as damn good as the Apollon military,” she told him. “And if you want your squadron to be rusty hangar queens, that’s fine. But my people will fly with the best.
“Banderas signed a contract that she’d fly with me until we returned to Blueward. She’s welcome to buy it out, but she does not get to run crying to Daddy to try to get me to change my ways.”
Kira shook her head at Mbeki.
“My squadron flies my way, Commander,” she concluded. “I fly my way and I don’t ask them to do anything I can’t or won’t.”
She grinned coldly.
“You’re welcome to admit to your people that you don’t expect that much of them. I’d recommend against it, though. Being told they’re second place is always bad for morale.”
>
“You don’t have a blank damn transfer, Demirci,” Mbeki replied warningly. “Conviction doesn’t need you or your people. Cause enough trouble and you’ll be looking for a new berth.”
“The Syntactic Cluster doesn’t give me the impression that those will be hard to find,” she pointed out. “Get out of my office, Mbeki. Unless you have something actually constructive to discuss?”
Kira knew what the next step had to be, if there was a next step. The only real question in her mind was whether Conviction’s hierarchy was sufficiently functional for things to get bounced up that high and get a response.
She was deep into customizing a scenario for her pilots that, purely coincidentally, involved them defending an unarmed carrier against the unexpected arrival of an aggressive forty-five kilocubic destroyer, when her headware chimed with a message.
The message arrived with what the ASDF had called flag priority, meaning it came from a superior officer and required immediate response. There was only one person aboard Conviction that her headware would recognize as a superior officer.
Estanza’s message was short and to the point:
My office. Now.
She saved the simulation and finished her coffee. It seemed that if she raised enough of a stink, Conviction’s hermit of a Captain did actually appear.
Straightforward enough. So far, at least.
Mbeki was already there when Kira arrived, sitting in one of two chairs positioned facing Estanza across the wooden desk. There was no bottle visible on the desk, but the faint smell of alcohol lingered in the room—and she doubted the amber liquid in the glass the Captain was holding was apple juice.
“Have a seat, Commander Demirci,” Estanza told her. “I’m presuming you can guess why we’re having this meeting.”
“Enough so that I’m surprised Commander Zoric isn’t here,” she admitted.
“Commander Zoric decided to read the contract before shoving her foot in her mouth,” Estanza said bluntly. “She has raised concerns with me but also conceded that the contract says she will help you with your drills.”
“Your insane drills,” Mbeki interjected. “Every time we carry out a manual landing, there is a clear and actual threat to this ship. They’re best reserved for emergencies, not some kind of misguided attempt at showing off.”
Estanza coughed and Kira realized that the other Commander might not have picked his battles correctly.
“Do you mean to tell me, Commander Mbeki, that you don’t think you could reliably land on the retrieval deck without risking damaging the carrier?” Estanza asked dryly. “That seems rather…confessional, doesn’t it?”
“Of course I could,” Mbeki snapped. “But it’s a risk every time.”
“Not if your pilots are as good as they’re supposed to be,” the old man replied. “In fact, I believe your training when you first reported aboard included a very similar set of drills to what Commander Demirci is suggesting.”
Mbeki was silent.
“On the other hand”—Estanza turned to Kira, his gaze managing to be both sharp and strangely dull—“surprising the retrieval deck with a manual landing drill is dangerous. Even a minor impact with the tools could have caused significant expenses in repairs to Conviction—expenses I would have expected you to bear, Commander.”
“Had I managed to damage the deck, I would have expected to pay for those repairs,” Kira agreed sweetly. “Of course, Waldroup was aware of the drill. I expected her to have things under control.”
Estanza started to chuckle but it turned into a coughing fit. With both Commanders watching him in concern, he took a large swallow of his drink.
If the drink was what Kira thought it was, that probably wouldn’t have helped her with the coughing.
“I don’t approve of bullying or overwork as a training method,” he told Kira. “I’m not hearing good things from the pilots seconded from Mbeki’s squadron. That, Commander Demirci, does concern me.”
“I’m not asking them to do anything the rest of my pilots aren’t doing,” she told him. “I don’t think my people are bullying them, but I can certainly lean on them if that is a concern.
“If Asjes and Banderas feel overburdened, I am prepared to let them buy out their contracts.”
“A compromise, I think,” Estanza told her. “If one of my pilots decides they can’t live up to your training regimen, I will accept that as you having made a good-faith effort to deploy your full strength and won’t dock your contract pay for being a fighter short.
“If, that is, you freely release them from their contract.”
The only reason Kira had put in any kind of contract buyout was to reduce her risk of coming up short on her own contract requirement. She nodded her agreement.
“That’s fair, sir,” she conceded, with an aside glance at Mbeki. It looked like her two temps had ended being almost more trouble than they were worth—and that a lot of people had been carrying complaints up the ladder.
“As for you, Mbeki”—Estanza’s gaze turned on the other Squadron Commander—“I shouldn’t need to remind you of this, but it seems I must: Memorial Squadron doesn’t report to you. You have command authority as Commander, Nova Group, but the daily operations and training of Commander Demirci’s squadron are outside your authority.
“You should not be complaining to me about her training program without having proven allegations. Am I clear?”
The black man bowed his head in acknowledgement.
“Good. Mbeki, go see to your squadron. Demirci? Remain a moment, please.”
All Kira really wanted was to get out of that alcohol-scented room and get back to work, but she nodded her agreement anyway.
Until she ended the contract, John Estanza was her boss. The only boss she had out there.
21
As Mbeki left, Estanza made a small gesture with his hand that sent the now-unused chair sliding across the office into a cupboard in the wall. That left Kira alone on the other side of his desk, and his strange dull gaze focused on her.
It was weird to her. She was reasonably sure that Estanza was drunk. There was whisky in the glass in his hand, his eyes were visibly unfocused, and yet…
“You two are going to cause this ship more problems than you can possibly imagine,” he told her. “The last thing I can afford, Commander Demirci, is for the fighter-jock soap opera to impact the smooth operation of this ship.”
“The soap opera?” Kira asked carefully.
“You know exactly what I mean, Demirci,” Estanza said. “I am not as old as Jay Moranis was, but believe me when I say I’ve seen this dance a thousand times. Your emotions and personal affairs are impeding your judgment.”
“Are you kidding me?” she snapped. “The closest I’ve come to letting emotions get involved is when I kicked Mbeki out of my office. Are you going to accuse me of showing off now?”
“When my squadron commanders are both radiating romantic and sexual frustration and I have this kind of dick-measuring contest going on, what do you expect me to think, Commander?” Estanza asked bluntly. “Too many emotions are getting involved here, and it’s complicating the operation of my carrier.
“I won’t tolerate it.”
“Then talk to your boy Mbeki,” Kira replied. “If the hormone-addled idiot had bothered to listen to me before going running to you, this situation would already have been resolved. Instead, he ‘let personal affairs’ impede his judgment, so we end up here.
“If this is how the man handles rejection, I’m not sure I would trust him in command of a nova fighter, let alone a full squadron of them!”
She wasn’t sure just what Daniel Mbeki had said to Estanza before she’d shown up—and it clearly hadn’t succeeded in tilting Estanza’s opinion of the actual facts of the situation—but she was so very done with the other squadron commander’s crap.
Estanza studied her in silence, a posture that reminded Kira of nothing so much as a slightly bemused Apollon eagle. Then he dr
ained his glass and stood up in the same gesture.
“Stay right there,” he instructed her as she began to rise.
With his back to her, Estanza crossed to the bar and poured two glasses of whisky. Returning to his desk, he slid the second across to her.
“Drink, Demirci,” he told her. “I believe you that Daniel screwed up. I’ll talk to him. The man should know better and does know better.”
She took the glass of whisky and sipped carefully, waiting for Estanza to get to his point.
“I’ve known Daniel Mbeki for a long damn time,” Estanza said quietly. “Twenty years. I think he overestimates how long I had Conviction before he came aboard—easy enough, since he was one of the last of the original crew to sign on.
“He’s also one of the last of the original crew left. I’ve watched that man grow from a twenty-year-old with nova wings and a brand-new prosthesis to a man I trust at my right hand, in command of the most valuable combat squadron for fifty light-years in any direction.”
“Who apparently can’t handle rejection,” Kira replied snippily, then paused. “Wait, prosthesis?”
“Several, technically,” Estanza confirmed. “He was partially crushed by an idiot tech on a flight deck twenty-two days into his active service at Sorvedo. His left leg and arm are artificial, and a chunk of his ribcage is artificially reinforced.
“The Patrol medically discharged him with a generous pension, but he wanted to fly and I was looking to fill some unexpected holes in my roster.” The old man shrugged. “I picked up three people with nova pilot wings on Sorvedo that week. Mbeki was the best of them. His prosthetics are near-perfect replacements, after all.”
“So, he’ll listen to you, is what I’m hearing,” Kira said. “You can talk him up all you want, sir, but the man just tried to start a fight with my squadron because of his ‘personal matters.’ My enthusiasm is limited.”
Conviction (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 1) Page 12