A feral grin curved her mouth. She ignored her fellow cadet, focusing instead on broadcasting her message. "You can"t stop the signal once it"s been sent...and you have pa.s.sed that threshold by one limb yourself. Stand down, or enter fully the Room for the Dead!"
"Weapons fire from the second ship!" Jimenez squeaked. "It...Captain, the trajectories are missing us! They"re firing on the other ship, sir!"
"And lo, I followed the words of the Prophet, for the Prophet was never wrong," Ia stated on the comm link to the second ship. "Honor be upon your hides and your hands; let your nests stand strong with the wisdom displayed this day. We will continue on our way and convey this information to the Alliance Council, so that they can back up your saner decisions. Let all sentient acts be against these insurrectionists; let there be no path for them but a swift surrender, or the Door to the Room. This is a Dlmvla internal matter, we do concede. For your hands, we leave them."
Closing the channel, she gave her last set of orders for the exercise.
"Cadet Ng, order the gunners to switch to Standby. Keep an eye on both Dlmvla, but do not order any weapons fire unless we ourselves are directly attacked," Ia stated, addressing her bridge crew. "Bridge crew, tend to your stations. Repair teams are to focus on getting the FTL panels functional, and getting at least one hyperrelay back online as soon as possible. Divert all spare power to insystem thrusters, and get us the h.e.l.l out of here before they change their minds. You have your orders: Execute."
A ragged chorus of "Aye, sir!" met her commands.
Bruer shook his head slightly. "I don"t get it...How did you know there was another ship out there?"
"Careful observation leads to comprehension," Ia repeated. "Look, can you remember that last run? We made it farther than we had in the previous three; you did a good job of navigating the initial hazards. But right before the last blow that destroyed us from the starboard, we were attacked from the port. You could feel it through the way the ship jolted around us from the other side."
The overhead lights flashed in rapid-fire green. The bridge door slid open, once again admitting their chief instructor. The primary screen at every station lit up, projecting his crisply dressed image across every duty station"s primary screen, both here and across the rest of the mock starship.
"Lieutenant Commander on deck!" Ng called out, announcing Spada"s approach.
"An excellent observation, Cadet Ia," Spada said. He lifted his wrist and keyed in a few more commands on his arm unit. "However, I am curious about your choice of attack commands. Explain your reasons to your instructors and your crew."
"It"s basic xenopsychology, sir," Ia stated, lifting her chin. She knew her words were being projected around the ship, just as other Acting Captains had explained their own actions in earlier scenarios. "We could disable part of the first ship"s functionality, which is a defensive course of action, but if we actually damaged it to the point of endangering their crew, the second ship would be obligated by Dlmvlan honor-against-outsiders to take their side and destroy us, whatever information we might have carried. Using only the lasers on the first ship to disable some of their systems slowed down their attack on us, threatening them with the vulnerability of losing their shields, without threatening the integrity of their hull nearly as much as projectiles could.
"Using only the projectiles on the second ship couldn"t have harmed them beyond a little shake-up, since their own shields were still intact, but it also gave us the opportunity to force their weapons and ours to lock on to each other as the nearest, greatest threats, preventing all but a handful of missiles from actually making it through on either side." She shrugged. "Once we had their attention without having to badly damage either ship, broadcasting the mission information on an EM bandwidth made the most sense for the next step. If it"s truly that politically sensitive, it won"t reach anybody"s satellite scanners for several more years, long past the point where it could cause us problems. But the information would be out there, and it could cause the threat of political repercussions.
"If we didn"t report in on time, ships would be sent to our last known coordinates," Ia reminded the others, glancing their way. "Their sensors would pick up that broadcast as the s.p.a.ce Force scouted the system"s farthest edges, looking for lightspeed records of what happened to us. It might be several days after the fact, or even several weeks, but they would pick it up relatively soon, and they would still have the information to bludgeon the rebel faction among the Dlmvla into complying with Alliance law. You can"t stop the signal once it"s been broadcast at light."
"But that information was rated as Cla.s.sified," Jinja-Marsuu protested. "By broadcasting it, you violated the security protocols governing our mission, Cadet!"
"The mission was to get that information back to the Alliance by any means necessary," Ia countered. "Look, it"s all well and good to hold an ace up your sleeve in a poker game where the stakes are life and death, like this situation was. But if it remains up your sleeve just because you"re holding out for a royal flush when you"ve already got the makings for a full house of aces and threes, you"ll lose the hand, lose the pot, and lose everyone else"s life right along with your own."
Catching Spada"s wryly amused look, Jinja-Marsuu subsided.
"Besides," Ia said, "since we haven"t gone missing and are still potentially capable of getting out of the system under our own efforts, that means we will report back in time. If no one has to come looking for us, then no one will go looking for any lightspeed signs of what happened to us, and that means no one but those Dlmvla will find that short-range broadcast, because they won"t need to know what happened to us. At least, they won"t find it until it"s several years down the road. By then, the whole matter will no longer be important, and thus no longer an interspecies embarra.s.sment. So, yes, it was a calculated risk."
"Cadet, is that the reasoning you"d give to a Board of Inquiry convened over your violation of security protocols?" Spada asked Ia.
"Aye, sir. Technically at the moment, this is still an internal matter for the Dlmvla to handle," Ia offered. "The moment this information hits the Alliance Council hands, it becomes an interspecies incident, if the Dlmvla government in general doesn"t yet know about it. By offering the truth to the second ship, I am giving their command structure a chance to spread the information of the impending rebellion to their own people, which gives them a chance to contain it before the Alliance has to step in. By giving the Dlmvla a chance to save face by handling the matter themselves, and not seriously damaging either vessel, they will look more favorably upon the Terran Empire in future interactions with our s.p.a.ce Force.
"My methods may not have been orthodox...but orthodox wasn"t getting us out of this situation alive. I may have bent a few military protocols of the s.p.a.ce Force, Commander, but I definitely followed the political policies of the Terran United Planets, sir. We are still in the process of achieving our mission objective, because we"re still alive enough to try."
Spada studied her for a long moment, then dipped his head. "Well defended, Cadet. And technically just within the parameters of your mission. Not orthodox, as you said, but within the parameters nonetheless. Alright, Cadets," he acknowledged, switching his gaze to the viewscreen pickups. "All of you have performed well in these simulations, and you have earned a break. Fill out your practice reports on all five runs, and have them turned in by twenty hundred hours tonight.
"Once again, Cla.s.s 1252, there are five vouchers scattered throughout the ship. The clues to their whereabouts are being sent to your right secondary screens," Spada informed his cadets, both in the bridge and across the ship. "When you have finished tidying your workstations, you will report to the nearest petty officer for an inspection of your stations. If everything comes back greenlit, you will be given permission to disembark. Don"t forget to come find me in the observation cabin behind the bridge if you find a Leave voucher. Spada out."
Ia sighed and dug into her shirt pocket, pulling out a folded, tissue-thin square of paper. She held it up. "Here"s one of them, sir. Make sure this gets to Cadet Harper. He"ll know which member of his repair teams got that EM relay back online, allowing us to communicate with the enemy ships."
Lieutenant Commander Spada raised his brows. "Now, how did you get that, Cadet? And why would you give it up?"
"I promised the repair team a voucher if they did as I asked. When I make a promise, sir, I carry it through," Ia told the baffled officer, answering the second question first. "As for how I found it, I had a runny nose when we came on board, and went looking in the supply closet behind the bridge head for a fresh box of tissues. The voucher was tucked in one of the storage bins. Since it"s now a Friday, we"re the last cla.s.s on the ship before supper, and you didn"t offer any vouchers to Cla.s.s 1252 earlier in the week, I figured this one was meant for us."
"Give it to Cadet Harper and his team members yourself," Spada directed her. He toggled his arm unit. "All hands, stand down. This simulation is officially over. Cadets, you are free to search for the remaining four vouchers, but report in to the nearest petty officer to request permission to disembark by no later than seventeen hundred. I will be collecting all intact vouchers at the Deck 8 Juliett gantry. Spada out." Shutting off the link, Spada studied Ia, who was unbuckling her restraint harness. "I look forward to reading your incident reports, Cadet. Try to fill in a little more detail, this time?"
He left without waiting for her reply. The moment the bridge door slid shut behind the lieutenant commander, Bruer whistled under his breath. "You"re in for it now. That had better be a h.e.l.luva strong, airtight incident report, "Acting Captain.""
"Don"t I know it," Ia muttered. She tucked the voucher back into her shirt pocket and stood up, extricating herself from the captain"s station. "If you"ll excuse me, I have a Leave pa.s.s to deliver."
"One thing," Bruer stated, stalling her. He lifted his chin. "You said I"d be in the same situation, only with the Salik, but you also said your choices were based on xenopsychology. The Salik are nothing like the Dlmvla."
"True, and in that case, I"d advise you to shoot to cripple and kill. But make sure you don"t rush your shots," Ia told him. "You"ll have just enough time, I think, to get it right. The rebellious Dlmvla in this scenario wanted to kill us outright. The Salik would want to cripple your ship, board it forcefully, and have you and your crew for lunch. I"d suggest faking a greater level of incapacity than you actually possess, taking the time to aim manually so their sensors don"t pick up a targeting lock, and destroying their guns just after their boarding pods are launched. But then, that"s what I"d do, were I in your shoes in that situation. Trying to run would only have them leaping on you from behind."
"Maybe. But that"s presuming I ever end up in a situation like that," he countered lightly. "G.o.d willing, the Blockade will continue to hold. It has for two hundred years, after all. And it"s not like you"re a precog or anything."
"G.o.d willing, yes," Ia muttered dryly. She turned her attention to the others. "Good job under both Bruer and me, all of you."
"Yes, good job," Bruer added.
He joined Ia in waiting for the bridge petty officer to finish inspecting Jimenez"s station so that their own could be checked off as well. They exchanged a few murmurs, small talk about the day"s exercise, but otherwise waited quietly. It didn"t take long for Ia"s station to be cleared, nor for her to make her way down to where she knew Harper was located.
The ship was designed to simulate damage in the interior as well as the exterior, and she did pa.s.s a few "damaged" sectors. The Navy personnel who did the actual maintenance on the ship, playing the part of the enlisted crewmembers whom the cadets were supposed to order around, were checking over some of the "hardest hit" spots, but otherwise the ship was restoring itself to its proper shape. By the time she reached the heavily battered Engineering section, most of the various mechanisms had pulled themselves back together and petty officers were busy checking off each cadet"s duty station.
She found Cadet Harper going over some questions with a couple of his repair team members. As soon as he finished, Ia addressed him. "Thank you all for getting that comm relay set up in the last scenario, Cadet Harper." She fished the voucher out of her pocket once more, holding it up. "So, who does this go to?"
Harper grinned and held out his hand. "Me. I told you I"d see to it personally."
"It was brilliant," one of the other cadets gushed. She grinned at Harper. "He wired the handrail on the upper engine deck for an antenna, and tuned it with a jury-rigged comm board. The whole deck became the transceiver!"
"And he did it in a matter of minutes, too," the other female added, also smiling at him.
Blushing a little, Harper shrugged. "My mother works in R&D in the Special Forces on Dabin. She taught me a few tricks. I"ve had a lot of practice at improvising. I see you"re rather good at it, too, "Acting Captain" Ia. One of the petty officers down here in Engineering said that was the fastest escape a cla.s.s has ever pulled on this particular scenario. At least, in the six years he"s been a.s.signed here."
She found herself smiling at the praise. His praise. Shaking it off with a blink, Ia held out the voucher. "Here you go, then. One Leave voucher, as promised."
"Yeah, well, that"s the ironic thing," Harper told her, mouth twitching up on one side. "When I went digging for the spare comm boards...I found this."
Digging a matching tissue-thin sheet of paper out of his own shirt pocket, he held it up and shrugged. Caught off guard, Ia laughed. She wiggled the one caught between her fingers. "Okay, that is ironic. So. Who should this one go to?"
"Me, of course. You wouldn"t want to be accused of going back on your word, would you?" Harper asked, giving her a pointed look.
"No, Cadet, I would not," she agreed, holding out the folded ticket. He accepted it with his left hand, and held out the one in his right. Ia looked between it and him. "What"s that for?"
"We"re only allowed to have one per week," Harper reminded her, smiling ruefully. "If we find two, then it is our responsibility to find someone we believe worked hard enough to deserve an extra couple of hours of Leave. You pulled our fat out of the fire on that last run. I say that deserves a reward." He glanced at the other two cadets. "Wouldn"t you agree?"
Both young women nodded. Harper pushed the paper at Ia, poking her hand with it. Since refusing to accept it would risk getting it torn and rendered useless for anyone else, Ia took it from him. "Alright, then. Enjoy your Leave, Cadet."
Harper wasn"t the only one to give her a bemused look. Nodding politely to the other two, who were eyeing Ia askance, he hooked his arm around her elbow, drawing her toward the section exit. "Actually, it occurred to me that if you"ll be having a three-hour Leave and I"ll be having a three-hour Leave, we should combine said Leave and hit the town together. Between your tactical skills and my technical savvy, I figure we could divide and conquer the whole place in fifteen, twenty minutes, tops, and have plenty of time for dinner and a show. Teatro Timpani will be in town, and I think I can get us tickets to the performance. If I spring for those, will you spring for dinner?"
She had originally planned on spending her time writing contingency prophecies. Ia knew she should pa.s.s, so that she could go into town merely to print out said prophesies at the copy shop in town. They were growing used to seeing her every few weeks, requesting archival quality paper and printers for the stacks of prophetic missives that, for whatever reason, couldn"t just be shipped home or to the Afaso headquarters on a data crystal. But Meyun"s offer was undeniably appealing.
He grinned at her, handsome and charming and determined to get her to agree. "Well?"
Under the weight of that grin, Ia found herself caving. She smiled back at him. "Okay."
JANUARY 31, 2493 T.S.
DOWNTOWN SINES, PORTUGAL, WESTERN EUROPROVINCE EARTH.
Meyun Harper raised his winegla.s.s, saluting her with it. "Thank you for coming. And I"m glad you agreed to the early show. This gives us more time for dinner."
"That kind of time is an illusion," Ia murmured, sipping at her iced tea. "If we don"t pay attention to it, we"ll still risk being late."
"Spoilsport," he muttered back, sipping. "You know, I don"t think I"ve ever seen you drinking alcohol."
"Alcoholism in the family," she half lied. "I don"t want to risk it."
He raised one of his brows skeptically. "Shouldn"t that be, you"re secretly a self-control freak and you don"t want to lose command of your faculties? I have been getting to know you in the last few months."
Ia stilled, gla.s.s still pressed to her lips. She hadn"t expected such perception from him. Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, she managed a careless shrug and set her drink back down. "There"s nothing wrong with wanting to be in control of one"s self."
"Up to a point. But as they say, everything in moderation, even moderation," he countered. "I think I wouldn"t mind seeing you cut loose."
She gave him a sardonic look. "When I cut loose, Harper, people tend to die. I"d rather save that for the battlefield-and even then, I"d rather limit how many deaths I make."
"Maybe you just need to learn how to create a new kind of death." He smirked a little as he said it. At her confused look, he held up thumb and forefinger a tiny s.p.a.ce apart. "As in, a little death? Oh, come on...s.e.x? Lovemaking? o.r.g.a.s.mic release?"
Ia blushed, but shrugged. "I don"t do that. Ah...I mean, with others," she amended, blushing harder. "With myself, sure; everybody does that. It"s healthy. I just...don"t date."
That made him frown. Their server appeared with their plates of bacalhau com natas, however, so he had to hold off asking her any questions until the waiter had gone away again. Picking up his fork, Meyun poked briefly at the layers of cod, onion, potato, and cream sauce, then set it down again. He leaned forward, frowning again in confusion at her.
"What do you mean, you don"t date? Everyone dates. Terrans date, V"Dan date, the Gatsugi date...h.e.l.l, even the Salik date. They have to switch genders to date, but they do date...I think. It"s part of growing up, the whole socialization and selection of a suitable mate process."
"Well, I don"t." She ate a mouthful of her own meal, then sighed, swallowed, and set down her fork. "Look, I tried dating a little bit when I was fourteen. After I turned fifteen, I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, which was serve in the military. But military life and family life don"t always mesh so well...so I just gave up on dating. Not to mention, they don"t allow any fraternization in Basic Training. Then, when I got out of Basic and was a.s.signed to Ferrar"s Company on the Liu Ji, I was promoted up the ranks. I was a noncom within months, and that was that. Everyone I met after that point was either a superior or a subordinate."
"Yeah, but surely you found someone you could date?" he challenged her. "What about the Navy crew?"
"Fatality Forty-Nine, Fraternization, prohibits any conduct that would weaken the chain of command or impose undue influence upon a fellow soldier serving within the same command structure in the areas of personal or business life. You don"t date anyone in your own Company, and you don"t date anyone on your own ship. Unless your CO permits it, and mine didn"t," she told him. "Just as you don"t make or take loans with anyone below or above you in rank, you don"t enter into business partnerships while you"re still enrolled in the Service, and you definitely don"t copulate with anyone above or below you...and I honestly didn"t have that many who were my equal in rank. Not to mention, Ferrar believed in promotions based on merit, and those could come at any time, after any engagement."
"But you could have dated someone you saw regularly whenever your patrol wound up on a Battle Platform or a s.p.a.ce station," he said. "Didn"t anyone make a pa.s.s at you?"
He had her there. She smiled wryly. "If you don"t count the ones made over a drink...Yeah, there was one civilian. A merchanter captain and businessmeioa."
"And?" Harper prompted her.
"It didn"t go anywhere. I only ever had a couple of free hours here and there, and he wasn"t always in the same vicinity when I did. When we did meet up...it was usually just for drinks or a meal, and a bit of conversation. "Dating-Lite" as it were. I didn"t have time for anything more," she dismissed.
"Why not?" Meyun asked her. "We"ve been learning in our cla.s.ses on scheduling that most patrol ships dock for a full twenty-four hours Standard, and most people get a full eight hours of Leave."
"Not if you take the acc.u.mulated Leave option-Meyun, my family is on the backside of Terran s.p.a.ce," Ia reminded him, addressing his skeptical look. "By cutting my weekend Leaves down to the absolute minimum, I was able to build up enough acc.u.mulated hours and days to go visit them. It"s just a matter of being willing to go without in the short term in order to benefit in the long term."
He pointed at her with his fork. "You are too self-controlled, meioa-e. We"ll have to do something about that."
That made her laugh. Grinning, she dug into her meal. "Good luck. I"m very stubborn, and very goal-oriented. Nothing is going to stand in the way of me pa.s.sing through this Academy with flying colors. Literally, since my next stop will be piloting school-and I would"ve gone to piloting school first, but the cla.s.ses I wanted were booked."
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, then Meyun looked up at her again. "So...in all two years you served on the Liu Ji...only one meioa, male or female, ever made a pa.s.s at you?"
She quickly cleared her mouth with a sip of tea. "Well, I didn"t count the ones made by fellow Service personnel," Ia told him. "But then most of those were made in a bar, where anyone could make a pa.s.s at anyone else, and most were made casually, just for the fun of it. I didn"t take them seriously."
"Except for this one fellow, the civilian," Meyun reminded her. "Apparently he was the only one you did. Why him, and what happened to him? Or...is he still lurking out there among the stars as a potential date?"
"He"s not lurking anymore, trust me. His crew kidnapped, drugged, and sold me to the same crime organization that had stolen away the rest of my Company"s cadre. We"re not on speaking terms anymore." Ia smirked when he gaped at her. She lifted another forkful of cream-covered cod. "There"s a lot more to it than that, but most of it"s Cla.s.sified. So how about you? How many men or women have you dated?"
He shook his head, answering as she ate. "I don"t know, eighteen or so? If you count the casual dates, that is. The serious ones, only three girls stand out, but none of them were ultraserious. None of them were the love of my life."
Ia found herself feeling relieved at that confession, and annoyed at her relief. I have no say in who he dates, so long as the act of dating doesn"t disrupt the Future, she reminded herself. She shrugged, picking up her iced tea again. "Well, good luck mixing your military career with a personal one-seriously, I hope you do have good luck. And I do hope you get to find and keep the woman of your dreams. Just about everyone deserves happiness. We don"t always get it, but we should."
"Speaking of which, what are you doing after graduation?" he asked her as she sipped.
She choked on her drink. Coughing, Ia quickly wiped her mouth and hand with her napkin. She aimed a dirty look at the grinning man seated across from her. Voice harsh, she rasped, "That was not funny, Harper."
"Oh, yes it was!" he countered, chuckling. Picking up his own napkin, he dabbed some of the spluttered tea from the tablecloth. "It was completely worth it, just to see your face. You are normally so unflappable...I am going to enjoy this mental image of you for years to come." Lifting his free hand to his head, he tapped his temple. "Photographic memory, remember?"
"Well, the actual situation you implied won"t ever happen, Harper, so enjoy your one precious memory while it lasts," she warned him, tidying the rim of her gla.s.s. That thought disappointed and depressed her. Breathing deep, Ia forced herself to let it go, as she had let go of so many other things in her life. "I don"t have time to date. That"s all there is to it."
The happiness of a single individual is nothing, compared to the survival and prosperity of so many others. Even if that individual is me. A depressing thought, but there it was.
CHAPTER 10.
There are certain positions in the Terran military which require special levels of service. Anyone wishing to attain the rank of Lieutenant General or Vice Admiral has to have served in at least two Branches, and anyone wishing to become a General or an Admiral has to serve in at least three of them. Others require even more, such as the Council General, who is the military officer serving as liaison between the s.p.a.ce Force and the governing body of the Terran Empire...or even the position of Admiral-General, the highest-ranked military officer in charge of all four Branches, who must have served in all four.