Land of the Dead (11 page)

But the
Chu-sa
knew there were gangs of yard specialists running hundreds of tests against the skin, looking for defective linkages, bad command interfaces, or skunky tiles which had—for unknown reasons—lost their ability to deform with acceptable speed. Her boots trampling on the quiescent surface would trigger alarms and lead to unnecessary work.

We have enough to do,
she thought pensively.
Naniwa
was still at least thirteen days from being spaceworthy.

The marine walking point in front of her raised a warning hand. They had entered a region of the shipskin where long radiating fins ran out from the hull, making a queer sort of forest—all black limbs and leaf-like extrusions frilled with thousands of tiny heat-exchanging surfaces.

“Priest dead ahead,
kyo
,”
Socho
Juarez muttered across the local comm. Susan could tell the sergeant major was unhappy, but who wanted their commander skylarking around outside the ship’s armor—even here, deep in Anáhuac space—when they could be safely parked in Command, out of harm’s way? “
Chu-sa
, do you want some privacy?”

Susan shook her head.

You’re sure?
he signed.
There are Mice everywhere.

Kosh
ō
almost laughed aloud.
The Mice are always watching,
she replied with a deft movement of her gloved fingers. “Feel free to listen in. But if you are worried—I will be polite.”

The officers complement on the
Naniwa
—including junior officers—stood at almost a hundred men and women. After her discussion with the Mayan
hafuri
, their attitude towards her had cooled noticeably. When she’d first come aboard, most of the five-hundred-plus crew were already hard at work, so Susan had found herself out of synch with her subordinates. There had been so much to do, however, they had started to gel into something like the team she expected.

But nothing like we had on the
Cornuelle. Kosh
ō
knew that had been rare—Fleet crews usually had a high rate of turnover as specialists rotated out and the officers were promoted. A ship’s complement which remained substantially intact for three years—particularly under combat conditions—was almost unheard of save in the Clan-supplied squadrons. She missed the comfort long familiarity provided.

Proper respect for the
Chu-sa
was absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the ship, but there was an uneasy tension Susan could not ignore, particularly when the fitting officer was not in her chain of command. The Fleet was dependent on the
Zosen
—Construction and Supply Service—but did not control the logistics arm of the Imperial military. Like the Army, they were held separate from one another by the Emperor’s decree. Each
Kaigun Kyo
reported directly to the Military Council. Her rudeness, therefore, had exacerbated a natural division between
Zosen
and Fleet.

Again, grandmother would have illuminated this error with a
b
ō
ken
or perhaps a kettle.

The marine signed an all-clear and Kosh
ō
stepped past him, around one of the towering fins, and onto an open area among the heat radiators much like a meadow in a forest of black battle-steel. Oc Chac was waiting, hands clasped behind his engineer’s construction suit, helmet turned towards the vast eye of Jupiter burning down upon them. His mirrored faceplate glowed amber and red, as though filled with fire.

“Chac-
tzin
.” Susan waved off the marine, who faded back into the “forest,” his combat armor dappling to match shadow to shadow. Most Fleet officers seeking a private conversation—particularly of ship-command rank—would have ordered the sergeant-major to stay aboard ship and out of their hair, but Kosh
ō
had spent far too long beyond the Frontier to go anywhere without proper security precautions. Indeed, she hadn’t even thought of
not
having Juarez accompany her. “I understand we’ve finished final inspections on all systems save the shipskin and the main drive coil?”

Chac nodded, but said nothing. In response, she gave him an abbreviated bow and turned to look upon the face of Jove as well.

“I would like to apologize for my behavior the other morning. It was rude.”

The Mayan shifted a little, and Kosh
ō
could feel his attention focus upon her.

“I understand,” she continued, “that you have been most diligent in your efforts to see construction completed and all systems readied for our trials. Engineering, in fact, sings your praises and promises to spill a thousand cups of
octli
beer in your honor. Which, from my experience with engineers, is heady tribute indeed.”

There was a short, abrupt snorting sound.
He laughs. Well, now I have him.

“These same engineers pressed me, in a most unseemly way, to let you finish your work. I must admit, as I’ve never served on a
new
ship before, that I do not fully understand your role.”

“Truth,
kyo
,” the Mayan barked, almost against his will. “Your service jacket bears such a statement out.…” Now he was facing her, and Susan could make out his eyes as shadows within shadows. “The
Cornuelle
was far past her time.”

He paused. Kosh
ō
could hear him click his teeth together.
Thinking, is he?

“This
Chu-sa
Hadeishi of yours was competent—this I have heard from Painal the Runner, and having read the Book, would believe. But he was reckless! Ah, by the Gods,
Chu
-
sa
, he was a madman!”

For a moment Susan struggled, trying to frame a proper response.
How can he say this! Mitsuharu was spinning gold from straw for six months! How …
Her shoulders sagged for an instant, before she straightened up again.
How could he have risked all our lives? He did. He dared Hachiman over and over again … even at Jagan he was still maneuvering for a way to stay out on patrol. Even at the end, when he and the ship and the crew were past exhaustion.…

“He was.” The words were harsh, brittle, metallic in her mouth.
But true.
“And so he paid, in the end, in blood—as we all pay.”

“Huh!” Chac wrinkled up his prominent nose and clicked his teeth sharply. “Do you see why the crew fear you,
Chu-sa
? Why they are on edge? Why my work here is crucial for your success at trials?”

“So all say.” Kosh
ō
spread her hands, accepting fate. “And are we ready? Could I take
Naniwa
into transit tomorrow? Could I take her into battle in a month?”

“Battle,
kyo
? In a month!” The Mayan laughed out loud. “Oh,
Chu-sa
, you know she is not ready, the crew is not ready! Six or seven months of working up, running the engines through a full maintenance cycle … then you can go hunting! A month.” He chuckled.

Susan removed a folded orders packet from the document pouch on her suit gunrig. She held it up, letting the light of Jupiter gleam ruddy red and gold from the Fleet seal.

“We have received deployment orders,” she said quietly. “To join a battle-group forming up off Europa right now.
Chu-sho
Xocoyotl is already aboard the
Tokiwa
, and the other ships are arriving in short order.
Naniwa
is expected to join them within five days, fully supplied and ready for action.”

“Hsst! Impossible!”

“Tell that to the admiral. Will your work be done in time? Will everyone cease giving me such foreboding looks and turn their minds to proper work?”

The Mayan’s chiseled old face twisted into a grimace. “
Chu-sa
, you don’t believe they have cause to fear? Even with all that has happened to you, even with the engineer’s mighty tribute?” For an instant, it seemed as if he would spit in disgust, but then held back. “You called me the
superstitions
officer, as though such a thing had no weight in this world!”

Susan almost took a step back, hearing the fury in the old man’s voice. “Instruct me, then,
Zosen
, for I have little time left to waste, not with the admiral—”

“Waste,
kyo
?” Chac cut her off with a harsh bark. “Waste is the root of my business, and the fullness of your ignorance. Listen!” He stopped abruptly, his anger having passed as quickly as it had come. “Listen,
kyo
.”

Kosh
ō
said nothing, waiting patiently. Grandmother had spent a long time teaching her to grow still, to pause in the instant of action, waiting for balance to emerge from chaos.

“The mind of a warrior must be clear,
kyo
,” Chac began, “undiluted by fear, unrestricted by disorderly thoughts. If he hurries the throw, his aim ever goes awry. You know this, you are
samurai
. Your family is noble with a long tradition, a great lineage.… Your blindness in this matter is of great concern—both to me, and to your men.

“So listen. There is no mechanism yet devised by man which exceeds the complexity of a ship of war. Our
Naniwa
is small, as the great ships go, yet she holds within her every kind of system, every kind of compnet, sensor, power plant, engine of destruction we can devise. Her armor may be lighter than a dreadnaught, she may lack so many launch-racks as a carrier—but everything is present in her. A capsulation of all we can build … and she is fragile. A delicate bubble.”

Chac lifted his face to the vast, molten orb hanging over their heads. “Despite all her shielding and armor and bronzed hull, if
Naniwa
were plunged into the heart of Jupiter—tidal pressures would crush her shell, incinerate her inhabitants, and leave nothing but dust.”

His hand moved, indicating the radiating fins surrounding them, almost invisible against the ebon backdrop of open space. “If the thermocouples fail, we roast inside, broiled by our own waste heat. If Engineering does not balance containment properly, a fusion rupture obliterates us. In battle, the slings, arrows, and stones of the enemy will seek us—and one penetrator through the point-defense leaves us an expanding cloud of superheated plasma. Everywhere, failure is waiting to consume us.

“All this, beside the unforgiving environment of open space … a hideous broil of hard radiation, micrometeoroid swarms, gravitational eddies—you have seen what happens to a ship which loses transit shielding in the run-up to gradient! There is no soft margin upon which to fall, not for us.

“Thus the
Zosen
crawling through every compartment, access way, and control space on this ship. All of them seeking to find and eliminate as many sources of failure in this machine as they can. Your crew, too, is deep in the work. Preparing to take her out—then the real learning begins! And I am here,
Chu-sa
, trying to keep
you
alive with my … superstitions.”

The Mayan leaned close, the faceplate of his helmet almost touching Susan’s.

“What kills more ships, Captain, than pitiless space? More than microscopic black holes, the teeming ships of the Megair or Khaid or Kroom
ā
kh? More than solar storms lancing out from the heart of some unseen sun to overwhelm shielding and armor?

“What is
my
enemy,
Chu-sa
Kosh
ō
?”

Susan tilted her head; her face a quiet, still mask. “Tell me.”

“Your crew,
kyo
.” His left hand stabbed at the hull beneath their feet. “These men and women toiling inside, all effort concentrated to our safety. They are my enemy, and a cunning, devious one they are, too! More than a match for all fail-safes and interlocks, able to overcome every restraint we put upon them.

Kosh
ō
attempted to keep her expression still, but Oc Chac snarled at
something
in her countenance. “Still,
Chu-sa
, you do not understand. Listen!

“The
Agarwal
was a Fleet battleship in the
Vishnu
-class. A planetary commission financed by the colonies around Maghada Prime. Two thousand, five hundred crew. Lost with all hands off Tau Ceti during her second trials. The wreck was recovered and the
Zosen
tore the remains of the ship apart, seeking to understand her death.

“This much they found—” he held his thumb and forefinger apart by the smallest fraction. “One of the waste recirculators failed behind a bulkhead, seeping biochemical sludge into the between-hull. Line-sensors reported the initial leak, but the engineering tech investigating the alert did not enter the between-hull. Instead he checked the flow meters on either end of the line, saw they were within variance of each other, and then suppressed the alert.