The Phoenix in Flight (72 page)

Rom-Sanchez snorted at the mockery in the last phrase, but
shook his head doubtfully.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Methuen.
“Wolakota’s a liberty port, not an out-octant hellhole like Smyrna or
Breakpoint. Tactical’s a sinecure on an emergence like this: Captain’s actually
going easy on you.”

“Right.” Nilotis tipped his chin towards a short,
powerfully-built lieutenant watching two other officers playing L-4 Phalanx,
the Tenno version forbidden in tournament play but popular throughout the Navy
for both training and entertainment. “Mzinga, there, he’s on Nav—always
possible to screw up at that station, no matter where we come out.”

Rom-Sanchez glanced in that direction, and his brows
contracted in a quick frown. Nilotis realized that Rom-Sanchez wasn’t paying
any attention to Mzinga. His attention was on the console, specifically the
Tenno evolution one of the players was attempting.

Then Rom-Sanchez shook his head and turned back again.
“Yeah, but Mzinga’s been alpha before.”

“He had a first time, too. We all did, at least on
Grozniy
.
Lot of ships you can’t say that about.”

Rom-Sanchez grimaced but said nothing. As far as Nilotis
knew, the younger officer was largely apolitical, although it was hard to tell
whether that was innate or the regrettably necessary discretion practiced by
Highdwellers like him in a Navy increasingly dominated by the Aerenarch
Semion’s Downsider connections.
Well, we don’t have to worry about that with
Margot Ng at the helm, even if it does mean we spend most of our time
out-octant.

As if to belie his words, the wardroom hatch slid open, and
Nilotis didn’t need to look up to know who had just entered the compartment.
The sudden bubble of quiet and the wariness of the two young lieutenants told
him it had to be Lieutenant Commander Eisel ban-Tessler.

“Uh, oh,” said Tang under her breath. “Stuffcrotch has that
brass-polishing look of his, and I’m on my tween watch, which means ‘available
for scut work’ as far as he’s concerned.”

Accurate as the epithet was, Nilotis had to uphold the
respect for rank that made Naval hierarchy work smoothly, and he glanced Tang’s
way.

She flushed. “Tell you what, Sergei, why don’t you take
another shot at convincing me that Warrigal’s L-5 Phalanx doesn’t rot your
brain?” Her gaze flickered to Nilotis. “Lieutenant Commander Tessler won’t
bother us there.”

Nilotis suppressed a smile. He’d heard the faint emphasis on
Tessler’s rank and name. Tang was always trying for the lower orbit, trying to
keep ahead, which tended to cost her rank points that her ability would
otherwise garner.

“How about you, Denil?” Tang turned his way.

The other lieutenant shook his head theatrically. “Brrrr! No
way I’m letting that wire-dream blunge into my head—that would be all I need,
transposing her impossible Tenno into the middle of a real fire fight.”

“Who’s going to be looking at the screen?” replied Tang.
“Not me. I like watching the players sweat.”

The three juniors excused themselves just ahead of Tessler’s
arrival at the table.

Tessler was carrying a compad as was his invariable custom.
As he sat down, he looked after Tang and Rom-Sanchez with a sour expression
that deepened the frown lines on his long face.

“Our newest lieutenant seems pretty casual about his first
alpha,” he said. “Or does he think that fantasy Phalanx is a good warm up for
Tactical?”

 “I can think of worse,” replied Nilotis mildly, with a
glance at Tessler’s compad.

Tessler’s lips tightened. Scuttlebutt had it that Tessler
had entered the Academy with high hopes for a fighting career, with patronage
linked to the Aerenarch. That he’d ended up in Supply was, Nilotis suspected,
in large part because he had found the Tenno tactical glyphs difficult to
master. There was nothing wrong with that—the Navy needed logisticians as good
as Tessler. But it wasn’t good enough for the man himself.

“Well, he’ll hardly gain any rank points kissing up to
Warrigal.”

Kissing up
. Like too many Downsider officers, whose
families were satellites to the older Tetrad Centrum clans, Tessler tended to
see things first in terms of Douloi preference, then Naval rank.
A
regrettably common viewpoint among many connected to the Aerenarch—especially those
not invited to Narbon.

“They’re distantly related, I understand,” said Nilotis,
“and both in Tactical.” Tessler’s face soured even more at the reminder that
the two juniors would have to acknowledge some acquaintance, given their
families’ relationship. “The Warrigals freighted Rom-Sanchez’s Highdwelling, I
don’t know, three or four centuries back.”
And the Warrigal shipping
interests have helped start Highdwellings many times, since before there was a
Panarchy, in fact.
So Rom-Sanchez has little to worry about from you,
especially since they’re both under me, not in Supply.

“As you say,” said Tessler, somewhat stiffly, pushing his
chair back a bit. Nilotis tended to loom over just about anyone on the ship. He
called Nyangathanka home, a planet deep in the Tetrad Centrum that had joined
the Panarchy in the first century of Jaspar’s Peace.
There I go, doing the
same right back at him.
Disgusted with himself, Nilotis leaned back in his
chair.

“I suppose it’s harmless enough,” Tessler continued. “It’s
not as though
she’s
likely to have much to do otherwise, given the
circumstances of her transfer from Narbon. No rank points, came out as she went
in, an Ensign.”

Nilotis shrugged. “Captain seems happy enough with her. So
am I. Her doctorate in tactical semiotics, coming so early, doesn’t hurt.”

“Doesn’t help much, either that I can see,” replied Tessler.
“Close to a calculated insult to turn in a game as a thesis. A
game
,” he
repeated in disgust. “While the Aerenarch struggles to build up the Navy to
face a real threat.”

Nilotis managed not to roll his eyes.
Dol’jhar again.

“Sorry, Eisel, I just can’t see a failed serial-chip empire
as a real threat. It shattered like glass after Acheront. What’s left is maybe
ten or fifteen planets with raving sociopaths barely in control, while Sodality
syndicates make a fortune smuggling and jacker raids keep them off balance.”
Nilotis laughed. “If they start to get out of line, there are entire Rifter
fleets willing to take them on if we open up the Dol’jharian sector for bidding
on a Writ.”

“You just don’t get it,” said Tessler in exasperation. “Why
did we just spend seven months out-octant from Rouge Nord? Because Eichelly
dropped out of sight two years ago, just like Charterly and others.”

Nilotis snorted. “No surprise there. There were enough
derogations to have put his Writ under litigation a dozen times over. The
Justicials vacated it just before we left on patrol.”

“Exactly. It took them over a year, which ended up costing
the Navy three battlecruiser tours of duty, plus who knows how many destroyer
squadron tours? And that’s just for our assigned recognizance. It’s happening
elsewhere. Raving sociopath or not, the Avatar of Dol’jhar  is dispersing our
forces.”

“To do what? With one capital ship?” asked Nilotis, wearying
of the familiar argument. Tessler could hardly be expected to feel otherwise,
not and expect to retain his connection to the Aerenarch, who would never
forgive the murderer of his mother.

“You know how I see this. Eichelly, those others, are just
part of the natural expansion of the Peace. He’s deep out-octant by now,
establishing some petty fiefdom. He’ll either end up plasma, Shiidra food, or
the founder of a polity that a few centuries from now will be petitioning for a
protectorate. Yes, it costs tours of duty. That’s how it works, so I think it’s
pretty senseless to build up a core fleet that never leaves the Tetrad Centrum.”

The first watch-change bells sounded, interrupting Tessler’s
reply, and Nilotis shifted his attention, watching the group around Warrigal
break up and hurry to the hatch, on their way to the ready room. Tessler
watched, too, stiff with disapproval.

They are cutting it close
, Nilotis thought.

Warrigal, now alone, was still tapping intently at her
compad as though nothing had changed. She often seemed to be in a world of her
own, as though walking in the Dreamtime of her ancestors on Lost Earth. Was
that why Captain Ng hadn’t yet given her a shot at alpha, despite her tactical
skills?

Tessler followed the direction of his gaze, and snorted. “If
you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He scooped his compad off the table and
stalked out of the wardroom.

Relieved, Nilotis settled back to his watching-not-watching.
He’d been working hard, and this was his wind-down before he hit the rack. He’d
sleep through emergence so he could be fresh for Wolakota. Rom-Sanchez could
handle this emergence in his sleep. Once he got used to being on the bridge
under the captain’s eye. After all, what could possibly happen?

o0o

In the last few seconds of the countdown to emergence, Ng
looked around
Grozniy’s
bridge, wishing she could have more time with
this new alpha crew, young as some of them were. They were smart, ambitious,
and several of them were perhaps a bit too unconventional for their own
good—just as she had been twenty-five years back. She hoped that their new
captains would recognize their potential. Especially Rom-Sanchez. Aside from a
regrettable emotional distraction of the sort she’d dealt with before, he’d
demonstrated command potential on this cruise, and not just at Smyrna.

“Emergence.”

The descending tones of the bells blended with the quiet
voice of the navigator as the battlecruiser
Grozniy
dropped back into
fourspace with a barely perceptible shudder.

After a pause Lieutenant Mzinga looked up, puzzled. “No
beacon, sir.”

Captain Margot O’Reilly Ng leaned forward in her command
pod.

“Siglnt. Verify.”

Yeo Wychyrski at Siglnt tapped scrupulously at her console,
her profile intent. Lieutenant Rom-Sanchez glanced at Ng from the tactical pod;
she briefly checked his display echo next to the main screen and noted with
approval that he was already setting up the appropriate range of presets for a
no-beacon emergence.

 “All sensors functional, sir,” Wychyrski sang out. “No
beacon.”

“Navigation, tactical skip, now.” The fiveskip’s faint basso
profundo hummed momentarily. “Confirm our position. Engage drunkwalk skip-orbit
around our emergence point at five light seconds. Tactical, take us to
threat-level one.”
Grozniy
had come in using a standard trojan attractor
point, so there was little doubt of where they were within a few light minutes.

Ng saw the impact of her orders in the postures of the crew,
especially those new to alpha: transformed from nervous,
under-the-captain’s-eye alertness to eager anticipation. Mzinga and Rom-Sanchez
barely had time to echo her orders before the engineering officer sang out
“Engineering reports teslas at threat-level one,” a heartbeat ahead of other
station confirmations.

The Tenno rippled, accommodating the sudden change in
position. “No ship traces within skipmissile range,” reported Wychyrski moments
later.

Aside from the derogation at Smyrna, which had turned out to
be a private Rifter feud that the losing party had tried to turn around by
bringing in the Navy, it had been a long, boring patrol out-octant from
Rouge-Nord. Lots of time for drills, including, just a few weeks ago, the
standard beacon-bashing scenario, where jackers destroyed the navigational
beacon and fivespace conditions transponder, hoping to delay passing ships long
enough for an intercept. Not very likely, now that they had returned to the
Thousand Suns proper: Wolakota was just inside the ill-defined outer border of
Rouge Nord octant. But still . . .

Decision crystallized in her. This was too good an
opportunity to pass up.

“Lieutenant Rom-Sanchez,” she said.

He turned to her, startled, reminding her even more of a
puppy, with his large brown eyes and curly dark hair that had the vestige of an
cowlick over one eye, strictly clipped.

She’d used his name rather than his station. She saw
comprehension dawning in him just ahead of her next words.

“Your captain just dropped dead, and you’re senior.” She
smiled at the stricken expression on his face. “But I’ll leave you the rest of
the crew, and I’ll take Tactical. You have the con.” With a swipe of her hand
she transferred control to him, and took the tactical feed.

Rom-Sanchez blushed to the ears, then shifted his focus to
the unremarkable starfield now on the main screen. Ng saw some of the crew
watching him, especially the two other members of what some officers derisively
called “the L-5 Loonies” that she’d chosen for alpha: Ensigns Wychyrski and
Ammant, SigInt and Communications. To the crew’s credit, there was no trace of
schadenfreude
or malice in anyone’s expression, often a problem when a potential lower-orbit
junior officer was put on the spot.

Lieutenant Mzinga was not watching Rom-Sanchez. His fingers
were dancing over the nav console, correlating the data delivered by the
sensors scattered over the seven-kilometer-long hull of the
Grozniy
. The
precision lent by its size enabled a battlecruiser to orient faster than any
other ship in the absence of the flood of data furnished by a navigational
beacon. The older officer appeared absorbed, but Ng detected the faintest
compression of lips indicating a suppressed laugh.

A bit more quickly than she’d expected, Rom-Sanchez spoke,
with only a trace of a stammer before he dropped into bridge cadence, the
almost-singsong speech pattern that they learned in the academy as part of
bridge protocol, meant to project a uniform impression of calm and control.
“AyKay. I have the con. SigInt, crunch a ship-centric mass and energy summary
for me while nav is working.” He hesitated briefly. “Tactical, work up a threat
assessment assuming we’re at the Wolakota leading trojan. If jackers took out
the beacon, what are we likely facing, given the strategic situation here?”