First Casualty (30 page)

“What is it?” Mattim snapped.

She told him.

It was worse than he thought.

Thirteen

The Admiral dismissed the reorganized bridge with a wave. “I'll spend any battle we may have in my day cabin. I'll need a secure communications lead direct to my office. I'm having to be my own intelligence officer.”

“Yes, sir,” Mattim said. At least the admiral's staff was small. He'd only had to roust out Guns to make way for the new chief of staff. “I'll move the stations in there.” Ding quickly started the riggers tearing out what they'd just put in.

The sortie orders were given just as diffidently—a wave of the hand and a “Get us moving.”

Mattim doubted that was the Navy way, but he was too new to know for sure. He glanced at the chief of staff. “Repeat Admiral Hennessy's orders,” he said. “They worked fine.” Mattim told comm to do so... and to keep the old message files with the last admiral's orders handy. He suspected they'd get a lot of use.

Once the
Sheffield
was on its course for Gamma jump, Mattim left the bridge to do a second set of inspections. He was especially uncomfortable about the last delivery from the armory. The
Sheffield
was not designed for that kind of load; he'd post a 24-hour watch on it. He never thought as a captain he'd be glad to be quit of his own bridge. Today he was.

* * * *

Ding shrugged as the captain beat her to an excuse to get off the bridge. He didn't look any more comfortable sharing space with Admiral Whitebred than she was. She spent the time double-checking what she had already triple-checked. It was, after all, the Navy way and the best way she knew of to stay alive in space. Once the work crew reported the admiral's stations were on line, she checked them out and dismissed the chief and his party. She was about to follow them when the admiral cleared his throat. “Could you demonstrate this to me?”

The Navy joked that every kid reporting for boot camp knew how to operate an admiral's battle station; it looked just like a game station. Ding's dad had plopped her down before a standard Navy-issue station on her sixth birthday. It was nothing like a regular education or game station. She'd spent the last thirty years figuring out how to squeeze the last ounce of data from each modified and updated version. No way could she tell him in five minutes what she'd spent a lifetime learning.

So she showed him how to turn it on. As she toured him through the most obvious features, he stood behind her. When his hands began making circles on the back of her shoulders, she decided he'd seen enough, tapped the help symbol, and stood up. “That ought to take care of any questions you have.”

“Doesn't look that different from my first information station at corporate, ten years ago.” Ding would bet a month's pay he was wrong. She kept her mouth shut and headed for the door.
What did I think I saw in that empty bag of space?

“Colin, could I have a moment to discuss our mission?”

She paused, wanting very much to be gone. But she'd learned at her father's knee that an admiral's request was an order. She turned; he was pacing back and forth at a comfortable distance.

“This may take a while. Why don't you sit down?” He waved distractedly at the couch. So long as he kept his distance, the couch should be fine. She settled in.

“We've got a tough assignment ahead of us,” he said, still pacing. “This war is gobbling up resources.” He paused. “Financially, it's a disaster.”

“And it's killing a lot of people, too,” Ding added.

“Yes. Yes, of course. And it's only going to get worse. What we need is a strike that brings everyone to their senses. We can win this war in an afternoon if we cut through the crap.”

Ding's study of military history told her such things sometimes happened. More often, a coup de main was full of surprises. Whitebred had stopped pacing and was suddenly on the couch beside her. His hand settled on her knee. In her black dress at the dinner party, that had been disconcerting. In her shipboard jumpsuit, it was damn distasteful.

“I need to know that when the time comes my orders will be followed to the letter. Will they?”

That hand was wandering her thigh. She tried to chuckle like her old man would have; it came out off-key. “We're not shopkeepers, Admiral. When you give an order, we obey,” she quoted her dad. “Assuming, of course, the order is legal.”

Now why had she added that? That orders were lawful was a bedrock assumption that went without saying.

“Of course, of course,” Whitebred mumbled, “but if we pull off the endgame for this war, that will set us all up for life. We can write our own tickets.” His other arm had slipped unnoticed over the back of the couch. Now it was very noticed as it slid down to rest on her shoulder. She didn't have much thigh left that the other hand hadn't covered. “There won't be anything you can't have, if you play along with me.” While his hands held her like a toy, his eyes were focused far beyond her.

He wants my body, but will he even know it's mea
month ago, Whitebred had been magnetic. But in the last month, she'd followed a real captain to the end of the galaxy and back.

Horatio was offering her a door into his life. All it would cost was her soul. A month ago she'd never seen a ship fought, a crew led quite the way this strange merchant captain handled his command. A month ago, the unknown of Horatio's world had sounded pretty damn good against the known of her own.

But not now. Now she understood why her dad had toughed the Navy out for forty years. Now she knew what all the waiting and training was for. She'd fought and lived and opened up the galaxy. Damn, it had been terrifying— and fun! His hand was at the zipper of her jumpsuit. If she did nothing much longer—but there was no question what she would do. In one smooth motion, she fended his hand away from her neck and stood.

“Thanks for your thoughts, Admiral, but I've got a ship to run.” She didn't look back, nor did she rush, striding calmly, an officer returning to her duty. At the door, she couldn't avoid a glance back. The man—and the emphasis was on the male part of the word—did indeed look frustrated. She left him.

Smoothly, she plugged herself back into the routine, moving from station to station, observing, checking. Only at Sandy's station did she pause. “Trouble?” the jump master asked, nodding in the general direction of the admiral's door.

“Nothing a big girl can't handle. But the young middies might bear watching.”

“Even the one with a black belt?” Sandy's eyes sparkled.

“But think of all the paperwork if she busts his arm.” Both women chuckled. But that did leave Ding with a problem. Did she tell the captain that Whitebred was out to win the war in an afternoon? How could she tell him that without also telling him the admiral had the morals of a tomcat and was on the prowl? While she liked the captain's style and wanted to see how he solved most problems, how he'd react to the new admiral sexually harassing his XO was not on her short list of ways to spend an evening before battle. She'd let this one slide unless something more came of it.

* * * *

Mary got exactly twelve hours to mount out a platoon for ship duty. Half of that she lost waiting for battalion to ship someone over to hold her pass. She was not amused.

The corps had its own way of moving an armed mob from point A to point B. It was a part of the manual Mary had been a tad too busy to read. They sent her the lieutenant to help her out.

It was embarrassing to have him salute her first.

“Congratulations, Captain.”

“I'm no captain.” Mary tossed off his salute.

“You are now. Admiral who wanted you insisted we cut your promotion papers.”

Interesting, but that didn't answer half her questions. “What do we take, fancy uniforms or antitank rockets?”

“Supply is doing a standard thirty-day package for you. Everyone takes their personal weapons and gear. The rest, brigade takes care of.”

Four hours later, as she strapped herself into a troop module hooked to a tug, Mary was glad she hadn't had to do more. The air smelled of antiseptic; the tug had snuck in to take out casualties. Now it was taking her to a whole new kind of war.

As they sealed the hatches, Mary glanced at the troops of Company A, first platoon. Most of the old vets were already asleep. Even the replacements were headed in that direction. With a shrug for tomorrow, Mary leaned back and joined them.

* * * *

“Damn, where did they get that bunch, off a chain gang?” Thor had put on the main screen and feed from the camera on the quarterdeck. The bridge watched as the marines came aboard.

“More like these are the rocks the chain gang couldn't crack,” Sandy chuckled.

Mattim had to agree, they looked like pretty hard cases.

* * * *

The armor was well worn and the personal weapons handled with casual, deadly familiarity. The exec had stopped her constant roving from station to station to watch the show from behind the captain's chair. “Interesting,” she muttered.

“Yes?” Mattim asked.

“Not one marine rendered proper honors on boarding, saluting the flag painted on the aft bulkhead and the JOOD.”

'They seemed kind of busy.” Mattim smiled sourly.

“Yes sir, marines usually are, but the line beasts play a game with us. Just how sloppy a salute can they get away with? At least, the old hands do. I'd bet money not a single one of them is more than six months out of boot camp. Even the sergeants.”

Before Mattim could add that to the muddle of his thoughts about a new admiral, a mission to nowhere, and the damn contents of his weapons magazine, the door to the admiral's quarters opened. “Captain,” the chief of staff said with a grin, “the admiral would like to talk to you, your exec, and your jump navigator.”

“Now we find out,” Mattim muttered.

The admiral stood beside the work table in his quarters, its display zoomed to just the two suns. No sooner had they reached him than the admiral began. “Today we win the war.”

Mattim had heard that enthusiasm before. “Today we make a mint” was usually followed by going bust. He didn't mind management losing money. He would mind very much this management hotshot losing lives. Especially those in his crew.

The admiral seemed disappointed that the three of them took the news with blank faces. “I can now tell you that I have uncovered the reason why the colonials have fought so hard for this worthless system.” The slight tilt of the chief of staff's head suggested who had really made the discovery. The admiral didn't notice. Indeed, he no longer seemed to notice anything. Mattim knew this kind of “briefing.” It wasn't to tell you anything; it was to let the speaker glory in the noise of his own voice. Today Mattim could not allow himself the luxury of zoning out; this man controlled a loaded and cocked battle squadron.

“Between these two suns is a jump point, trapped when the native caught the wanderer. That jump point will take us straight to Wardhaven, the most industrialized planet the rebels hold. In the next week, we will cut the heart out of colonial power. They will have to surrender unconditionally.”

The admiral wasn't finished, but Sandy's eyes were locked on the table, studying the two suns, balancing then-gravity, trying to figure out where they held their hostage jump point. She shook her head slowly. Mattim could hear her saying to herself, “It's gonna be a bitch.”

Now Mattim knew why the
Maggie
was the flagship. There was no better jump navigator in explored space than Sandy. And the bombs in his magazines were for show only. He knew the rules the colonials fought by; he'd had to wait often enough while a planet negotiated its surrender with the fleet in orbit. To the colonials, checkmate was enough.

This admiral wasn't so dumb after all.

The admiral's speech was slowing down. Even he could see that his announcement had gotten their full attention. “So, Captain Abeeb, you will take the
Sheffield
through the jump point with the battle squadron right behind you. We'll have the colonials by the balls.”

Mattim turned the order into a question and handed it to Sandy. “Can you find that jump point?”

She eyed the plot. “It's gonna be a bitch. We'll have to take it slow.”

“We'll go as slow as you want,” the admiral cut in before Mattim could answer. Well, rank has its privileges, and new rank usually takes a little extra. Mattim was in a very good mood. With luck, he'd be back to the Red Flag Line before New Year's. Trailed by more encouraging babble from the admiral, Mattim led his people back to the bridge. There was a general cheer when he passed the mission outline to the crew.

At Sandy's request the squadron spread out in echelon as it began the dive toward the suns. Still, they were less than fifty million kilometers out before Sandy got the faintest hint of a gravity distortion near the center of gravity between the two suns. The fleet decelerated for another day. Most ships closed in on the flag, but Sandy asked and got the
Sendai
and
Jeanne d'arc
to hold station as the long arm of her gravity-anomaly detector. At ten million klicks, she shook her head. “Matt, I've got a good fix—rather, good fixes. That beggar jumps around like the proverbial Mexican jumping bean. It's the bitch of all bitches.”