The Serrano Connection (23 page)

Esmay managed not to choke on her peas. "Yes, it was." End of sentence.

"I've never even served on a warship," Partrade went on, with a glance around. "I don't think anyone at this table has. They put me in Maintenance Administration right away, and I've been on the
Kos
for five solid years."

"I was on
Checkmate
," one of the ensigns said. "But we never did anything but patrol."

"Be grateful," said Esmay, before she could stop herself. Now they all stared at her. She hated this. She felt too young and too old at the same time.

"If the lieutenant doesn't want to talk about it, don't push her." That from the lieutenant at the next table, whom Esmay now remembered was the one she'd met outside the lift tube. "Dinner's not the time for gory stories anyway." He winked at Esmay. She grinned in spite of herself.

"He's right," she said to her table. "It's not a fit topic at the table." Or among strangers, she realized. Now she understood why the veterans tended to cluster apart to tell their tales, why they had fallen silent when she and other juniors had tried to overhear them. "Any of the rest of you have any experience?" She was surprised to hear in her own voice the same slight emphasis to the word which she had heard from more senior, and experienced officers. Their heads shook. "Well," she said. "Then we won't be tempted to bring up things like that at dinner." Her smile would, she hoped, take the sting out of that. "Now . . . Zintner, you're in H&A. Was that your intent at the Academy?"

"Yes, sir." Zintner, who must have stood on tiptoe to make the minimum height requirement, almost sparkled in her seat. "My family's been in shipbuilding forever—a long time anyway. I wanted to work on military hulls . . . that's where the good new stuff is."

"And this is your first assignment?"

"Yes, sir. It's great. You've met Major Pitak—she knows so much—and we get to work on everything, once we're out with the wave."

"Mmm. My background's scan technology, so I don't know much about H&A. I expect you'll be teaching me a lot."

"Me, sir? I doubt it—the major's got me working on a technical manual right now. She'll probably tell Master Chief Sivars to take you on."

Direct contradiction was rude, but the ensign looked too bouncy to have intended any rudeness. She was simply full of what she was doing. Esmay understood that. She turned to the jigs. Callison was pleasantly willing to discuss the less disgusting processes that kept the ship's crew alive, and had amusing anecdotes of the sorts of things that went wrong. It had not occurred to Esmay that a few insect egg cases caught in the mud in someone's hiking boots could hatch and cause serious problems, but apparently they had, on another ship. That story led Partrade to regale them with a story about the time an unnamed junior lieutenant transposed a few numbers and caused a massive overdraft of his ship's account . . . everyone had been bumped up ten grades, so the whole ship was crewed—according to the computer—by officers, and the captain outranked the sector commander.

One of the many differences from home that Esmay savored was this . . . that they could talk about their assignments at dinner. On Altiplano, nothing related to one's work could be discussed at dinner, even if all at the table were working together. She found that unnatural . . . here, a flurry of shop talk would unwind naturally into other topics.

"Are you ready for my exam?" Major Pitak asked when she reported.

"Yes, sir," Esmay said. "But I do have a question."

"Go ahead."

"Why doesn't the ship's schematics agree with reality—or with the schematics on your cube?"

"Excellent. How many discrepancies did you find?"

Esmay blinked. She hadn't expected that reaction. She began to describe the discrepancies, starting at the bow and working aft. Pitak listened without comment. When she had finished, Pitak made a note on her pad.

"I believe you found them all. Good work. You asked why we have discrepancies, and that's not a question I can answer. I suspect it's the new AI subroutines, which actively protect data considered especially important. A software glitch, in other words, though we can't seem to convince the Fleet systems designers that it's a problem. They take the view that architecture, once launched, shouldn't change . . . which is probably true for most hulls."

Esmay thought that over. "So you create new data cubes individually when you change architecture."

"Right. We can actually change the main system for a time—usually an hour or so before it 'heals' itself and repairs what it thinks is a data injury."

"But there were two places where your data cube didn't match the reality."

Pitak grinned at her. "I gave you an old data cube, Lieutenant—to see if you'd really check things out. The stupid ones come back all confused, complaining that they can't find their way by ship schematics. The clever ones check out one or two locations, then come back with a list of discrepancies between my cube and the ship schematics. Good, honest officers who aren't afraid of work do what you did—they check
everything
. That's what I want in my section . . . people who skip the details in H&A kill ships, and we're here to save them."

"Yes . . . sir." Esmay thought about that. It was an efficient way of separating lazy and careless from diligent and careful, but she wondered what other tricks Major Pitak had waiting. It would, she thought, be some exam. "Thank you, sir, for explaining."

Pitak looked at her oddly. "Thank you for passing the test, Lieutenant—or hadn't you figured that out yet?"

She hadn't, and now she felt stupid. "No, sir." Stupid, gauche . . . she felt her ears burning and hoped the glow didn't come through her hair.

"A one-track mind, I wonder, or . . . of course you are a dropsquirt." That in a thoughtful voice with no edge to it.

"Dropsquirt?" Esmay hadn't heard that before, though it sounded pejorative.

"Sorry. DSR vessels develop their own local slang . . . almost a local dialect, though we try not to be too impenetrable. It means Personnel of Planetary Origin, the official term . . . someone squirted into deepspace work from a drop—a gravity well. And someone junior, which is when you can really tell the difference. One doesn't expect dropsquirts to get all the nuances of Fleet social structure right away . . . when did you join, Suiza?"

"Prep school, sir." Esmay thought of the years she'd been in a Fleet environment. Two in prep school, four in the Academy, a tour as ensign, and two assignments as jig. If she hadn't caught on by now, would she ever? She'd thought she had—her fitness reports always commented on her quiet, mannerly demeanor. What was she doing wrong, besides getting involved in mutinies?

"Hmm. Technical track, most of the way." Pitak gave her a long look. "You know, Suiza, we technical types have a reputation for being a little dense in some things. Wouldn't surprise me if you are too. That doesn't bother me, and won't cause you as much trouble here as it would on a warship. But since you are not from a Fleet family, you might want to think about opening your sensors to a little wider band. Just a suggestion—not an order."

"Yes, sir," Esmay said. She felt a little dizzy. What was she doing wrong? What was so obvious? She knew she didn't have an accent any more; she had tried so hard . . . but Major Pitak had moved to her process chart.

"To get you up to speed in H&A, you're going to have to take a couple of quick courses. Right now all we have is a minor little plate repair job for an escort—it'll be done before you're through with the tapes, and you'll be more use to us then. How are you with tools? Ever done metal fabrication? Ceramics or plastics molding?"

"No, sir."

"Mmm. All right, then. Take these tapes down to Training, and run through them as many times as it takes. Then come back here, and I'll set you up with some instructors. You've got to know how a process is supposed to be done before you can supervise it."

That made perfect sense, and Esmay had never minded learning new things. "Yes, sir," she said, accepting a thick stack of tapes for the machines.

"We'll probably be out on deployment before you're through with the tapes," Pitak said. "Take what time you need." Then she shook her head. "Sorry—you're naturally thorough—I don't have to warn
you
against rushing through them."

"Sir." Esmay backed out, with very mixed feelings. One side of her mind felt ruffled and itchy; another part felt soothed and confident.

Scheduling sessions in Training took longer than she had expected. The techs in charge of the banks of machines explained. "A DSR needs more specialties than any other kind of ship. And we have to know everything—all the old stuff, and all the new stuff, and anything someone's come up with to make repair easier. Our people are always retraining. The rest of Fleet just thinks it retrains, with its predictable little drills every so many days. But we'll get you in, Lieutenant, don't worry. And Major Pitak knows what the situation is—she's not going to blame you."

Nonetheless, it would be three standard days before Esmay could get a machine, and then only on third shift.

"Do you have anything similar that I could go over on my cube reader?" she asked. The tech ran the tape titles through his scanner.

"Yes, but this is really technical stuff, Lieutenant—what I have on cube is much more basic. The intermediate stuff's all been checked out—in fact, it's overdue."

"I'll take the basic," Esmay said. "A good review for me." She took the cubes, and gave the tech her tapes, to be held for her session. Back in her quarters, she inserted the first cube. An hour later, she was very glad she hadn't been able to get time on the machines right away. The basic level cube was already past her. She sat back, blinking, and realized she'd have to take it in short doses.

Almost lunchtime. She wasn't really hungry, but she did feel stiff and stale. What she wanted was exercise. She changed to shorts and padded shoes, and followed the directions (in this case identical) given by the ship's schematics and Major Pitak's cube to the junior officers' workout area.

Aside from being bigger, it was much like the exercise compartments she'd seen on other ships. Rows of machines for exercising this or that group of muscles, enclosed spaces for pair games played on a small court, a large open space with mats for tumbling and unarmed combat practice. Half a dozen or so junior officers occupied various machines, and two were sparring on the mats. She checked the charts. At this time of the cycle, only a few machines were reserved; she could use almost anything. Esmay avoided the riding simulators, and climbed onto something said to simulate cross-country walking on snow. She had no desire to walk on real snow—she had done that—but it was better than pretending to ride horses by sitting on an arrangement of pistons and levers.

She had just begun to work up her heart rate when someone called her name. She looked around. It was one of the ensigns from her table . . . Custis? No, Dettin, the blond with the scrape, now healed.

"I just wondered if you'd talk to our tactics study group about the Xavier affair," he asked. "Not necessarily your own role, though of course we'd like to hear it, but just how you saw the battle as a whole."

"I didn't see the battle as a whole," Esmay said. "We got there late, as you may have heard."

"Late?" His brow furrowed. Could he really be this ignorant.

"The ship I was on was captained by a—" it was extraordinarily hard to say "traitor" right out loud to a youngster like this. "Captain Hearne left the Xavier system before the battle," she said. She didn't know why she said it that way; she had not cared that much for Captain Hearne. "It was only after the—"
mutiny
was another hard word to say, but this time she got it out. "Only after the mutiny, when all the officers senior had died, that I took the ship back."

She did not expect the look on his face, the expression of someone who has just seen impossible dreams fulfilled. "You—that's like something out of
Silver Stars
."

"Silver stars?"

"You know—the adventure game series."

Shock knocked out her control. "It was
nothing
like an adventure game!"

He was oblivious. "No, but in the eighth series, when that young lord had to overcome the wicked prince and then lead the ships in battle . . ."

"It's not a game," Esmay said firmly, but with less heat. "People get killed for real."

"I know that," he said, looking annoyed. "But in the game—"

"I'm sorry," Esmay said, "I don't play adventure games."
I only fight wars,
she wanted to say, but didn't.

"But will you talk to our tactics group?"

She thought it over. Perhaps she could make clear the difference between game and reality. "Yes," she said. "But I'll have to check my schedule. When do you meet?"

"Every ten days, but we could move the meeting time if you wanted."

"I'll check," Esmay said. "Now—I've got to finish my set." He went away, and she worked until she felt she'd worked off not only the stiffness of study, but the unreasonable anger she'd felt at being compared to a gaming hero. By the time she'd cooled down again, she began to think whether she should have been quite so quick to agree . . . even if she hadn't agreed to a specific time. Should she talk to a pack of ensigns about the Xavier affair? If she kept her own part to a minimum, and discussed the way Heris Serrano had held off a superior force, surely that could do no harm.