The Voyage of the Star Wolf (22 page)

From above, Brik said quietly. “Don't mince words, Mr. Korie. What are you
really
angry about?”

Korie whirled to stare up at him. “I don't even want to talk to
you
.” And then, in explanation, he said, “My wife—and my two sons—were killed in a Morthan attack. So you'll forgive me if I'm not overjoyed to be working with you.”

Abruptly embarrassed, Korie exited through the Ops bay, leaving Tor and Hodel and the others staring curiously after him.

Tor turned back to her console and resumed locking in a course. Very softly, to no one in particular, she said, “For some reason, I have the feeling that this is
not
going to be a happy enterprise.”

Korie stepped into Hardesty's cabin and stood rigidly before the captain's desk. Hardesty didn't even glance up; he was studying something on his desk screen.

“First of all,” he began without preamble, “I know what you've been through. I read your file. I know the craziness that drives you. It's ripping you apart. You haven't healed yet. Maybe you never will. It's left you confused. You don't know if you should be a ruthless bastard or a compassionate healer—well, neither one of those roles is right for a starship officer; although, I will tell you, ruthless bastard does have some advantages.” Hardesty gestured. “Sit down.”

Korie sat.

“Lesson One: You're going to have to learn to control your temper. Hide your feelings from the crew. The crew is a sponge. Whatever you put out, they will soak up—and they will give it back to you amplified a thousand times over. That's what's wrong with this ship right now. Your crew doesn't know who you are, so they don't know who they're supposed to be. That's the first thing we have to fix.

“Lesson Two: This is not a democracy. No warship ever is. But you've been running this ship as if your crew gets to vote on every decision. Your chief engineer, for example, argues every order, so every damn crewmember on this ship thinks his opinion means something too. Bullshit. Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they're all full of shit. You—Mr. Korie—stop worrying about being popular. If a crew likes an officer, he isn't doing his job. Your only job is to produce results, nothing else. If the crew isn't doing their job, you're not doing yours. Am I getting through to you?”

Korie swallowed. His throat hurt with the pressure of all he was holding back. “Yes, sir.”

“But you don't like it.”

“I don't have to like it, sir. As you say, my feelings on the matter are irrelevant.”

Hardesty grunted. “Good answer. You're learning. I don't think you believe it yet, but I don't care. You can start by learning the language. The understanding will come later.” He reached for a folder and opened
it. “All right,” he said, turning to the first sheet of paper inside. “We're not playing Good Cop/Bad Cop here. Do you know that game?”

“Yes, sir. Some captains delegate all the unpopular orders to their exec so he can take the heat.”

“Right. Well, I don't believe in that. If an unpopular order has to be given, the captain should take responsibility for it himself. Also”—he tapped the right side of his head, the metal-plated prosthesis—“this particular handicap makes me a lot less
likable
, so if we were to play that game, you'd have to be the good cop, I'd have to be the bad cop. I can't run a ship that way either. For obvious reasons.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That's the other reason why you have to stop being popular. You understand? Because like it or not, we're already halfway into a game of Good Cop/Bad Cop and I won't have it. It weakens my authority.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So what we're going to do instead is Bad Cop/Bad Cop. Do you know how to play that game?”

“No, I don't.”

“It's very easy. I'm the meanest son of a bitch in the galaxy. You're the second-meanest son of a bitch. The crew will hate me. They'll hate you. And this ship will get a reputation as being a very unpleasant duty. But we'll get results. And after we start getting results, the crew will start bragging about being on this ship and they'll consider it a privilege to wear her colors. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about this ship's reputation now. Forget it. Forget the past. The past is dead. Because you and I say so.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You disagree with that?”

“No, sir. You're the captain.”

“What does one have to do with the other?”

“You give the orders. We'll do whatever you say.”

“Mr. Korie—” Hardesty put his papers down. “I don't want an executive officer who's a flunky or a yes-man or an echo. I want an executive officer who is capable of taking responsibility and using it appropriately. That means that in the privacy of this cabin, I expect you to argue with me if you think that I am making a bad decision.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, I know damned well—just from reading the expressions on your face—that you hate what you're hearing. If you think I'm wrong, I expect you to tell me so.”

“Sir—may I speak?”

Hardesty waved a hand.

“You want me to disagree with you? Fine, I will. But you have already stated in no uncertain terms how you want this ship run. You made it quite clear that there is no room for negotiation in that position. Fine. I'll do what you say. But to argue with it now seems to me to be a waste of time. I will only voice my disagreements when I think that doing so will make a difference. Given what you've just said, I don't see that anything I might say right now would make much of a difference, so the best I can say is ‘yes, sir' and ‘no, sir' and carry out your orders as best as I can.”

“Good.” Hardesty nodded, satisfied. “That's fair. It's also intelligent.” He leaned back in his chair, studying Korie. “Part of a captain's job is to train his executive officer to become a captain too. I can't train a man with no initiative. Don't be a wallflower.”

“Yes, sir.” Korie sat quietly, waiting for the captain to continue.

Hardesty steepled his fingers in front of him and studied Korie for a long moment. The lens that replaced his right eye was cold and unreadable. His left eye showed even less emotion. “Is there anything else you want to say to me?”

Korie started to shake his head no, then changed his mind and nodded. This was the hardest thing of all to say, and he didn't know where it came from or even if he really believed it yet, but—“Maybe your way is right,” he began. “I don't know. But it's not the way I was trained. I learned management technology and team dynamics as the best way to produce results. We built spaceships and we built good ones. We might even have built this one. I always thought that having your team feel good about their work also means they'll feel good about themselves. Let them have pride in their work; that's the best quality control of all. Your way has an awful lot of hate and fear and stress in it. I don't like it. It feels wrong to me. It feels
bad
. But”—Korie met Hardesty's curious gaze—“I also know how desperate the situation is. And I know that these choices are not mine to make anymore. And you know more about war than I do. So, I figure the best thing for me to do is shut up and do what I'm told.

“And one more thing. That drill—that hurt. I don't like having my nose rubbed in it. But it's also undeniable proof that something is very wrong here and I want it fixed just as much as you do. Maybe even more so, because it's my career that's in the dumper, not yours. So . . . all right, I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to make this ship work.”

Hardesty studied Korie for a moment longer, considering his words. Then he nodded and picked up his folder again. He turned to the second page.

“You had
half
of it right, Mr. Korie. You understood what was wrong—it
is
the crew that has to be fixed. Fix the crew and they'll fix everything else. But you thought you could do it with parties. What's wrong with this crew can't be fixed with a party. You want your crew to feel good? Give them results. Let them take their pride in a job well done.” Hardesty put the folder down. “We're going to start by tearing this ship down to the framework and putting it back together. Every structural member, every rivet, every conduit, every system-analysis node, every sensor, every damn thing that can be checked is going to be checked. Then it's going to be rechecked. Then we'll do it again to make sure we did it right the first two times.

“This will accomplish four things. First, it'll give us a new ship, one that we know works. Second, we'll be establishing a new confidence baseline against which to measure system performance. This is what you should have been doing for the past eight weeks. Third, it'll train the crew. A crewmember who's taken a piece of machinery apart and rebuilt it by hand will know more about it than the one who wrote the documentation. And finally—fourth—it'll give this crew a pride in their ship that can't be gained any other way. A crew that's had to repaint and repair every square inch of their starship doesn't put rude graffiti on its bulkheads. They start taking pride in keeping her shining. Question?”

“No, sir. I see you're right.”

“You have a look on your face.”

“Yes, sir. I see that my mistake lay in the assumption that it was essential to get this ship back into duty immediately.”

“
This
ship?” Hardesty raised his one eyebrow. “That's a pretty big assumption. This ship, as she exists today, is worthless to the Alliance. Your crew knows that. They're festering in their own shame and at the same time, they're terrified that you might actually get this ship working again. They're not ready to go out again. Not up against the Morthans. That's why things keep breaking down all around you.”

“I'm . . . not sure I understand . . . what you're implying.”

“Don't be obtuse. I'm talking about carelessness, mistakes, stupidity, things that happen because people are so frightened or upset or angry that they can't focus on their jobs. These things are happening because these men and women are operating at the level of individuals. They've forgotten that they're a team.”

Korie conceded with a downcast nod. Now he was feeling sick. His throat hurt. His eyes hurt. His chest was a pressure chamber. “I should have seen this,” he said. “This is a failure for me. I mean, it's a bigger failure than—”

“Shut up. I don't have time to wet-nurse you.” Hardesty pierced Korie's attention with an angry look. “Here's the only thing you need to know. I don't waste my time on losers. Criticism is an acknowledgment of your ability to produce results. The reason the crew lost
their
focus is that you lost
your
focus. You said you'll do whatever is necessary to get this ship working. Well, this is what's necessary. You need a kick in the ass. This is it.”

Korie swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

“Let's go on.” Hardesty turned to the next page. “Drills. A lot of them. As we start getting the various systems rebuilt and back online, I want you to drill this crew until they drop. Over and over and over again. Every single simulation in the book until their scores are flawless—and then we'll start inventing new simulations. Everything. I want cross-learning on the skills too. Break them into teams. Every member of every team has to know every job that his team is responsible for. Then dissolve the old teams and form new ones with new responsibilities and start over. Ideally, I want every member of this crew able to run every station on this ship.”

“Sir? That's—”

“I know. I've never yet been on a ship where we succeeded, and I doubt we'll make it here either. But I'll tell you this. Those ships with the highest cross-skill ratings are also the most effective in the fleet. So that's the goal and I expect you to push for it.”

Hardesty passed a sheet of paper across to Korie. “Here's a hardcopy for you of the first week's targets.”

Korie looked at the list. “Sir? This is—”

“There's too much can't in that sentence.”

“I didn't even finish it.”