Conventions of War (59 page)

“My lady,” Ayas said, “I have a record of exercises conducted by Chenforce.”

“Very good. Please forward these to me at your convenience, and to the others as well.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“My lords,” Sula said, again looking over the faces in her display, “are there any questions?”

“Yes.” One of the Terrans raised a hand, as if she were in school. “Is this the Foote Formula, or something else?”

“The
what
formula?” Sula cried.

The Terran explained, and Sula treated her officers to a display of invective so prolonged and inventive that when she finally ran out of breath, a long, stunned silence followed.

“Well,” said the same hapless officer, “if it
isn't
the Foote Formula, what do we call it?”

We can call
you
a useless cretin,
Sula wanted to reply, but managed to stop her tongue in time.

On reflection, she decided, the Terran captain had a point. The new tactics had no name other than “new tactics,” and they needed something better. “Foote Formula” had the advantage of being brief, descriptive, memorable, but offered credit to someone who did not deserve it. A situation, she thought, that should be rectified.

“Call them Ghost Tactics,” she said. “I will send the formula and its exegesis within a few hours.”

That was one in the eye for Martinez, she thought, and ended the transmission with a modest glow of triumph.

 

S
ula handed
Sivetta
's crew generous tips for their service, then stepped through the airlock and aboard
Confidence,
followed by her servants. A recording of “Defenders of the Empire” blared out, deafening in the small space. Her lieutenants saluted; an honor guard presented arms. Sula shook Haz's hand, then was introduced—with a shout, over the crashing music—to the other two lieutenants, Lady Rebecca Giove and Lord Pavel Ikuhara.

There was no room available on the small ship for the entire crew to be assembled, so half the crouchbacks crowded into the mess and the others stood braced in the corridors and crew quarters spaces while Sula formally read her commission over the frigate's public address system.

“‘Lord Tork, Supreme Commander, Righteous and Orthodox Fleet of Vengeance,'” she said, reading the signature, and then added, with a grin, “Signed in his absence by Lieutenant Lord Eldir Mogna.”

No sense in not being thorough, she thought.

She looked at the stolid faces before her, the mixture of raw recruits and gray-haired veterans called to service in the emergency. She decided they might as well get a look at her, so she stepped onto one of the mess tables. The low ceiling brushed her hair as she looked down and told them to stand at ease.

“Some of you,” she said, “may wonder how someone my age is qualified to run a squadron. I'm taking this command for a very simple reason…” She gestured broadly with one arm.
“I know how to kill Naxids!”

Bright surprise glittered in the eyes of the crew. She grinned at them.

“I plan to teach you everything I know about killing the enemy,” she continued. “You'll be pulling a lot of extra duty, and I don't plan to be easy on any of you, but if you work with me, you'll survive the war, and we'll get along.”

She paused, searching her mind for anything more profound to say, and decided there was little point in being profound. She nodded. “That's all.”

She jumped off the table in the slight, surprised silence that followed, and then the officers were calling the crew to attention. Haz introduced her to the warrant and senior petty officers before Sula conducted her first inspection.

Confidence
had been damaged severely in the rebellion at Harzapid, and it showed. The officers' mess and the lieutenants' quarters were dark-paneled luxury, with softly gleaming brass and the faint scent of lemon polish. The parts of the ship that had been damaged or replaced were paneled in alloy or resinous sheeting and painted gray or pale green. Wires and conduits were in plain sight rather than hidden behind discreet access doors. Supplies and equipment were stored anywhere, lashed down in gravity-resistant containers.

Sula found nothing very wrong in her inspection. She had studied plans of the ship ahead of time, and was able to impress the division heads by knowing where odd lockers or control consoles had been tucked away. She asked no questions she didn't know the answers to in advance, and trusted this would impress everyone with her intelligence.

She ended the inspection in her own quarters, a coffinsized sleeping cabin and a small office with walls, ceiling, and floors entirely of metal sheeting painted a uniform, dismal gray.

She wasted no time mourning the beautiful paneling and splendid fixtures that had been destroyed or irradiated at Harzapid, and immediately sat down at her desk and inserted her captain's key. Haz gave her the codes that provided full access to all the ship's systems, from its planet-shattering weapons to the waste recyclers.

“Very good,” she said. “Thank you.”

On the wall behind her, Macnamara hung PJ Ngeni's rifle, along with the very first model of the Sidney Mark One. Then he and Spence began the considerable task of stowing her personal possessions, the uniforms and vac suit, the food and liquor.

Sula paid no attention. She was already working on a plan for the next day's maneuver.

 

M
artinez watched Sula's ascension with considerable interest and a modest amount of envy. First she commanded the High City of Zanshaa, then the entire planet. Then there was another governor for two days, and then Sula was back, this time with a promotion. Martinez had to wonder how she'd done it.

Then, lastly, Sula was given a squadron, which to Martinez's mind was better than a planet any day. When he heard the news, he recalled with nostalgia the days he'd spent commanding Light Squadron 14, and the glory of his position of honor and prominence on Michi Chen's flagship seemed to dim.

He dreamed of her almost every night, lurid blood-burning fantasies from which he woke with a mixture of relief and regret. He called images of Terza onto the display above his bed and watched her walk gracefully through her pregnancy while his nerves cried out for another woman.

Time passed. The Orthodox Fleet continued its circuit of Zanshaa's system, waiting for reinforcements and news of the Naxids. There was suspense concerning whether the enemy would adopt the same strategy the loyalists had used after the fall of the capital, to break up into small groups and raid into loyalist territory. But there was no news of raids, and it became apparent that the Naxids were hunkered down at Magaria, presumably crying for reinforcements of their own.

For once Martinez was happy for a delay in the fighting. When he advanced on the enemy, Tork would have to detach part of the Orthodox Fleet to guard Zanshaa, which meant he'd need enough new ships both to make up for the detachments and to match any reinforcements the Naxids had procured.

Disciplinary hearings on
Illustrious
demonstrated how bored the crew had become. The officers sometimes visited from ship to ship; but the enlisted were stuck with one another, and complaints of fighting, theft, and vandalism occupied an increasing amount of Martinez's time.

He knew it wasn't as if he hadn't asked for it. He'd assured the crew that they could speak to him at any time, and though most had the good sense to leave him alone, some took full advantage. He not only found himself dealing with disciplinary issues, but advising crew on their investments and on matrimonial issues. He disclaimed any authority on these last, but in the end advised investment in Laredo Shipyards as well as wedlock. Weddings on the ship at least provided an excuse for a party and raised the crew's spirits—unlike the two cases of genuine madness, crew who were actually raving and had to be subdued and tranquilized by Dr. Xi. One recovered, but the other showed every evidence of remaining a frenzied lunatic to the end of his days. He was shipped home on a courier vessel.

The days of Terza's pregnancy slowly drew to their close. When he wrote her letters—or more properly, electronic facsimiles of letters—he found himself filled with a rising tenderness that surprised him. He hadn't thought of himself as a sentimental person, as the sort of man who would flush with remembered affection for a woman he'd known for only a few days and who carried a child he might never see. He kept viewing Terza's videos and had the latest playing silently in his desk display when he wasn't using it for business.

In his dreams, however, he still burned for Sula. Perhaps the boredom and isolation were getting to him, as well as to the crew.

The time passed when he had expected to hear of the birth of his son, and he grew fretful. He snapped at Jukes during a meeting over some of the artist's ideas for decorating
Illustrious,
and gave Toutou an angry lecture about some supplies misfiled in the commissary.

The first bulletin came from his father, a video of Lord Martinez flushed with pride and bouncing in his chair with enthusiasm. “A large, lovely boy!” he boomed. “And named after the both of us—Gareth Marcus! Terza had no trouble at all—it was as if she's been practicing in secret.” A large fist smacked into a meaty palm. “The Chen heir, born on Laredo, and with our names—I expect they'll have to make him king, don't you?”

Martinez was perfectly willing for his son to be proclaimed Gareth Marcus the First. He called for a bottle of champagne and shared it with Alikhan.

For once he didn't dream of Sula. As he woke with a blurry head the next morning, he found a video from Terza waiting for him. She was propped up in bed wearing a lavender-colored nightdress buttoned to the neck. Someone had combed her hair and applied cosmetic. She held the future Lord Chen in her arms, and tilted the round face toward the camera lens. Young Gareth's eyes were squeezed shut with stubborn determination, as if he had resolved that the outside world should not exist and he refused to contemplate any evidence to the contrary.

“Well, here he is,” Terza said. Her smile was weary but not without pride. “He's given no trouble at all. The doctor said it was the easiest delivery he'd ever seen. We both send our love, and we hope to see you soon.”

Martinez's heart melted. He watched the video half a dozen times more, then proclaimed a holiday on the ship, the crew excused from normal duties except for watchkeeping. He ordered Toutou to open the spirit locker and share out a drink to the crew. Again he split a bottle of champagne, this time with Michi.

My
son's going to be the head of
your
clan,
he thought.

A few days later he was invited to a reception on Fleet Commander Kringan's flagship. The invitation specified undress, so he left the Golden Orb and the white gloves in his cabin. Michi used
Daffodil
to ferry all her other captains to Kringan's flagship, so they arrived a little late. The air aboard
Judge Kasapa
tasted of Torminel rather than Terrans.
Kasapa
was a sixty-year-old ship, old enough to have gained the dignity that comes with age—the allegorical bronzes in their niches were polished smooth and bright by the hands of generations, and the geometrical tiles had lost a bit of their original brilliance and faded to a more mellow shade.

The officers were grouped in the fleetcom's dining room, from which the long table had been removed to make room. Smaller buffet tables had been set on either end—lest Torminel eating habits spoil anyone's appetite, the marrow bones and bloody raw meat were across the room from the food intended for other species. Tork, busy planning his next conquest, wasn't around to spoil the party. Kringan, wearing braid-spangled viridian shorts and a vest over his gray fur, chatted amiably in his adjoining office with a group of senior officers. Martinez got a whisky from one of the orderlies and held a plate with some kind of fritter in the other hand. He was pleased to encounter a Torminel captain he had once commanded in Light Squadron 14, who had been given command of one of the new cruisers, and Martinez chatted for a moment about the new ship and its capabilities.

And then the grouping of officers shifted and a sudden awareness of Sula crawled across his skin on scuttling insect legs. She stood about five paces away, talking to a Terran elcap Martinez didn't know. She stood straight and slim in her dark green uniform, and there was a slight smile on her face. Whatever words Martinez was about to offer his former captain died on his lips.

“Yes, my lord?” the Torminel said.

From a stiffening of Sula's spine and the way the smile caught on her face, Martinez knew that she was aware of his presence. He tried to continue his conversation, but his mind was awhirl and his heart lurched in his chest.

This was impossible. He should at least try to be civil.

“Excuse me, my lord,” he said, and stepped toward her, awkward with the fritter sitting like an offering on his plate.

Sula likewise disposed of her companion and turned to face him. She was so lovely that her beauty struck him like a blow. Her hair was a shade more golden than he remembered, and shorter. Her scent was something muskier than the Sandama Twilight he remembered. Her green eyes examined him with something that might be calculation, or malevolence, or contempt.

“Congratulations on your promotion,” he said.

“Thank you.” She cocked her head to one side and studied him. “You deserve congratulations as well, my lord,” she said. “I hear your wife has spawned.”

A blast of furnace anger flashed through his veins, but even in his fury he felt an icy sliver of rationality amid the flame, and he clung to it.

He could hurt her now. And she had just given him the justification.

“Yes,” he said. “Terza and I are very happy. And you?”