Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back (22 page)

 “Sir…”
 “Doctor Duquesne just called me and said you were on your way up. Sit down.”

 She complied, leaning forward on the desk, “Captain, I know my limitations and abilities…”

 “So do I.” He paused. “Sub-Lieutenant, all things being equal, I would be only too glad for you to fly this mission. I mean that; you’re an excellent pilot and a good tactician – but that does not compensate for the fact that you are not physically fit.”

 “I’m fine, sir.”

 “No, you aren’t. Lieutenant Caine will fly third on this mission. That’s my decision.” She looked down at the floor, and he continued, “There comes a time in everyone’s career when they have to sit back and watch others take the risks. That’s the curse of command, Sub-Lieutenant, and one I fear I know all too well. This time you have to sit on the bridge and watch.”

 “Those shuttles are two-man, maybe you could use a co-pilot to handle the electronic warfare systems? I could find other volunteers from the security staff.”

 “Mr. Quinn is confident that they can be flown by a single pilot; I don’t see any need to risk more people than I have to.” He smiled, “And for your information, he volunteered as well.” He waved a datapad in the air, “As did fourteen other people. Including a couple I would not have considered under any circumstances. You are in extremely good company.”

 “Is there nothing I can say?”

 Marshall took a deep breath, and said, “If we’re waiting out here for longer than a couple of days I might reconsider my decision if you can pass a medical; having said that, if we’re waiting that long, the odds of the mission taking place at all won’t be promising.”

 “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t want to let you down.”

 He looked at her arm again, “There’s nothing to apologize for, Sub-Lieutenant. You were wounded in the line of duty, after all. Technically you don’t even need to be on duty; if you’d like a spot of medical leave…”

 “No, sir. I’m fit enough to continue my duties.” She glanced down at the datapad, “If there is some way I can help with the mission planning, sir…”

 “That’s the spirit.” He passed her a datapad. “Everything Cunningham and I have outlined is here. If there is anything we’ve missed, I want to know about it yesterday; I never claimed to be infallible.”

 “I’ll take a look, sir,” she replied, placing the datapad in her pocket.

 “Dismissed, then, Sub-Lieutenant.”

 She stood to attention, snapped a salute, and walked out of the office, crossing the bridge to the elevator without a word. Technically she wasn’t on duty for hours, so she punched for the officer’s quarters, pulling the datapad out of her pocket and starting to skim it. As she read, she could picture herself flying through the atmospheric layers, flying through the storms; it was a toss-up whether it was a sense of duty or simply a desire to experience that environment that was driving her on.

 The door opened, and she almost walked into Steele in the corridor; she waved a quick salute at her and wordlessly walked past, stepping into her cabin and flopping down on the bed, pushing a couple of plates off onto the floor with an outstretched arm. Settling down amid the cushions, she began to read, and was just starting to make notations when the door chimed.

 “Yes?” she said, and Zebrova walked in. She looked around at Orlova’s clutter, her collection of old artifacts scattered around the room on shelves and stacked on the floor, her uniforms mixed in with her civilian clothes on the rail, and the brand-new holopicture of her and her father on the wall over her bed.

 “Is this a room inspection?” Orlova asked.

 “We’ll get to that later, Sub-Lieutenant. Suffice to say that you’d fail one.” Using her fingertips, she picked up a collection of old mission patches and transferred them from chair to desk, and then sat down opposite her. “How’s the shoulder?”

 “Fine, ma’am.”

 “Good. I’m going to need you on the bridge when Captain Marshall launches his mission; I want you to handle Tactical.”

 Frowning, she replied, “I thought you’d want Ryder, or would take it yourself.”

 “I did consider both of those options, but I believe you to be the best choice for the job given the absence of Lieutenant Caine.” She shook her lead, “Having so many senior officers off the ship at the same time does rather limit my options, I fear.” 

 “Ma’am, can I speak freely?”

 “These are your quarters, Sub-Lieutenant, and I believe you will anyway, so you might as well go ahead.”

 “Can I ask what I did to offend you?”

 A thin smile crossed Zebrova’s features, “Sub-Lieutenant, I am new to this ship. My initial evaluation of the officers in my department was based on the personnel records at my disposal, and I frankly find yours wanting. Your initial performance on the shuttle simply reinforced those opinions.”

 “I saved your life, and the lives of everyone on that shuttle.”

 She nodded, “You were correct. On that occasion. The time will come, however, when you will need to follow the opinions of others than yourself, especially when you are involved in a command situation – and given the estimation of Captain Marshall and Lieutenant Cunningham, I consider it likely that you will face such a situation in the future.”

 “Can I ask a question, ma’am?”

 “Certainly.”

 “How many battle stars do you have?”

 “I have never been in a combat situation, Sub-Lieutenant; however, in nine years of service I have faced many dangerous situations requiring equivalent
quick
thinking.”

 Orlova shook her head, “You haven’t seen the elephant, ma’am.”

 “Elephant?”

 She smiled, plucking out a datapad and passing it to her, “There’s an old expression, ma’am, dating from the wars of the nineteenth century back on Earth. Soldiers used to tell recruits that they didn’t know what war was until they had experienced it for themselves, until they had seen the elephant.”

 Zebrova reddened, “Are you comparing me with a raw recruit, Sub-Lieutenant?” 

 “Only in that...ma’am, sometimes there isn’t time to take a consensus, and such times occur frequently in a battle situation.”

 “I passed at the top of my class in Tactical training, Sub-Lieutenant…”
 “And this wasn’t really covered in that class. It all comes down to making the snap decision at the critical moment. I think that’s the difference between us as officers.”

 “You think that I’m not able to make a snap decision?”

 Orlova shook her head, “No, ma’am. You are a senior officer, placed in that position by officers who know your skills and abilities well. They have decided that you can make the decision, but in my experience, ma’am, you don’t know what it feels like until that day dawns.”

 “And for you…”

 “I’ve seen quite a few.”

 Zebrova leaned back on the chair, then stopped as it creaked alarmingly, “I have to admit, this has been one of the more unusual conversations I’ve ever had with a junior officer.”

 “Welcome to Alamo, ma’am.”

 Twice she had smiled in as many minutes; Orlova was evidently making some progress. “I will be most interested to evaluate your performance at Tactical, assuming Alamo plays a significant role in the engagement to follow.”

 “I’m running over the mission plan now, and I think I’ve spotted a few ways we could potentially play a part.”

 “You think it likely that the pirates will attempt to escape?”

 She nodded. “If the Captain is successful, I rate that as near-certain. I would in their place.”

 “Then prepare an action plan with that in mind, and put it on my desk before you go on duty. I agree with you that the probability of such an escape attempt is high.”

 “Yes, ma’am.”

  Zebrova rose, carefully pushing the chair back under the desk. She walked towards the door, pausing at the threshold and turning towards Orlova.

 “I might never have seen your elephant, Sub-Lieutenant, but I do know that the most valuable subordinate officers are those who are not afraid to speak candidly to their superiors in the correct context. You certainly succeed in that regard, if nothing else.”

 “Thank you, ma’am. I will continue to do so, if you wish.”

 “Please do.” She looked around the room again, shaking her head, “And clean up this place if you get a chance. It really is a mess.”

 “Yes, ma’am,” Orlova replied as the door closed behind her. She started to page through the datapad again, then pulled out another one with the physical specifications of Kumar – then a third with the current location of all nearby ships. If it was a report that Lieutenant Zebrova wanted, then she was going to get a good one.

Chapter 21

 Logan leaned over Harper’s shoulder, watching data streaming across the screen, while Boris guarded the door, his pistol out and pointing into the corridor. Her hands were furiously working the keyboard, stopping occasionally to swap out datacrystals to add new decryption programs into the fray, but the information was still just a collection of meaningless numbers and symbols. She looked over her shoulder at him.

 “Give me some room, for God’s sake. Your breath on the back of my neck is not making me work harder.”

 “Come on, Harper, we’ve got to get that information.”

 “You know they’ll be after us any minute,” Boris said, his eyes darting nervously about as Logan pulled out his pistol. “Why are you using that thing?”

 “Because if I use my plasma pistol I’ll take out most of the corridor.”

 “We could close the blast doors.”

 “Actually, we can’t,” Harper said while she typed. “They might have left their two friends in their cells, but we did give Cornucopia plenty of time to undo all of my work with the station systems in this area.”

 “Great,” Boris said, shaking his head. “Just great. So what’s the plan now?”

 “Hold our ground until we find the data we’re looking for.” He looked across at Boris. “If you want to make for your shuttle, I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

 “Don’t be stupid. They’d swat me out of the sky. I’m stuck here just like you are.” He turned back to the hacker, “Can’t you go faster?”

 “If I was using a computer system that was built in the last decade, maybe, but this old junk barely works any more. And breaking my concentration is only going to slow me down, guys.”

 “Let her work, Boris,” Logan said, peering out into the corridor. Unsurprisingly, there was no-one outside; the corridor vendors had all decided to find safer pitches for their wares, and the shops were all closed and shuttered. The lights were beginning to dim, as well – presumably someone had managed to do a little bit of tinkering with the systems – and shadows were gathering outside, providing plenty of cover for approaching enemies.

 “We ought to go outside, try and get better firing positions.”

 “With two of us?” Boris said, shaking his head. He jerked forward, “Someone’s coming.”

 Gliding out of the shadows, Logan saw the lithe figure of Lilith catching onto a handhold, drifting towards the security office. He dropped his sidearm, placing it back in his holster, but Boris was less trusting, keeping the gun trained on her all the way to the door, whilst still looking around for anyone who might be with her.

 “If I’m not welcome,” she said, looking at the pilot.

 “Not at all. Excuse the mess, we’re just expecting the imminent commencement of hostilities,” Logan replied.

 She looked around, “You don’t look particularly prepared.”

 “Well, we don’t have much of an official military presence on the station for the moment, and I won’t lie that the staff shortages are having an impact.”

 “They’re coming.”

 His eyes widened, “When?”

 “A few minutes. One of my people saw them assembling by their module.”

 “How many,” Boris said, his eyes still darting around.

 “Twenty; he’s called out the whole staff. All of them are armed, all of them have body armor.” She looked at Boris and Logan again, “Where’s yours?”

 “Alamo,” Logan replied.

 “Logan, the three of you can’t hold them off for long.”

 “We don’t have to. All we have to do is get that information to Alamo.”

 “Can’t you just send it to them?”

 “Not enough bandwidth. I can send a short voice message in the clear, but that’s about the best we can do. Cornucopia cut off access to all of the antenna complexes, we’re stuck with my hand communicator.”

 “You’ll be killed.”

 “Possibly.”

 Glancing at the two of them again, she said, “Look, I’ve been hearing things about you. Good things. You don’t need to die here, and I don’t mean risking your lives to his hopper either. I’ve got a shuttle of my own, back in the bar. I’ll lend it to you, get back to Alamo.”

 He shook his head. “Boris and Harper can take you up on that…”

 “Still busy…,” Harper said.

 “Well, Boris then. I’m not going.”

 “This is suicide,” Lilith said, shaking her head.

 Sighing, he replied, “When I joined up, I knew what I was doing. I might not want to be in this uniform, but I know what it means to wear it. We need the location of the pirate base, and we need to know what the Cabal connection is, and my job is to get that information. If I can live through it, so much the better, but I can’t just run away.” He rubbed his chin, “I’ve got to look at myself when I shave in the morning.”

 “I’d just grow a beard,” Boris said.

 “Get out of here, Boris, I mean it. No need to stay.”

 “Don’t be stupid.”

 Logan looked at Lilith. “You could help us. I know you’ve got men of your own…”

 “She owns half the businesses on the station,” Boris mumbled, and Logan raised an eyebrow.

 “If you threw them into the fight, we might have a chance.”

 She shook her head, “I never swore an oath, I never gave my word – except that I would keep my people safe. Committing them to this would be a death sentence.”

 “Perhaps even I think that some things are worth dying for.”