Lord Eldey kindly offered Sula the use of his private yacht, the Sivetta, which he would not be needing for the months he served as governor. Sula understood the historical reference to the grand old Torminel monarch, and Eldey was surprised and pleased that she knew.
On the shuttle from Zanshaa to the yacht, she flew past one of the huge merchant vessels that had brought supplies and personnel to the capital. The cargo ship was a gleaming mirror-bright dome, with the engine module on the far side like the stem of a mushroom. It was far larger than any Fleet warship, with room enough aboard to carry a cargo of ten thousand citizens; and it was only one of half a dozen ships brought to the capital. Clearly, the empire was very serious about keeping hold of Zanshaa now that they’d retaken it.
Sivetta was a beautiful miniature palace, filled with elaborate mosaics of complex, interwoven geometric figures that dazzled and bewildered the eye, and managed to be more dazzling and bewildering the longer Sula looked at them. The crew was Torminel, but since Eldey had Terran aides, there were furniture and acceleration couches suitable for Terrans, and a cook who could assist her own cook, Rizal, in providing food other than raw meat served at blood temperatures. Sula had given Rizal money for food shopping before they’d left Zanshaa, and brought up as well a large collection of wine and spirits donated by the grateful merchants of the High City—an odd gift for someone who didn’t drink, Sula thought, but she supposed she’d spend time entertaining, and so the wine would come in handy.
Not that she expected to spend much time enjoying the yacht’s comforts. She would be enduring long periods of high gee as Sivetta caught up with Confidence, which was orbiting the Zanshaa system with the rest of the Orthodox Fleet.
Among the information sent her by Tork’s staff was an order of battle for the Orthodox Fleet. Scanning it, her eye immediately lit on the flagship of Michi Chen’s Cruiser Squadron 9—Illustrious, Captain Lord Gareth Martinez.
At the name, her heart gave a surge.
The last she’d heard of Martinez, he had become Michi Chen’s tactical officer. Now he actually commanded the flagship.
She wondered how many of Illustrious’s people had to die or be captured by the enemy in order to accomplish that. It was how Martinez seemed to get his promotions.
Her own ship, Confidence, was probably the smallest vessel that Tork could have offered her, a frigate with fourteen missile launchers, and it was normally an elcap’s command. Possibly, Tork had hoped she would refuse the appointment as beneath her dignity. If so, he would now be thumping the walls in chagrin.
Confidence was a part of Light Squadron 17, a formation made up of five Terran frigates and four Torminel light cruisers, all of them commanded by lieutenant captains—which meant that as a full captain, she was now senior officer of the squadron and its commander, so long as Tork made no other dispositions.
Tork, she realized, had decided not to offer a heavy cruiser, normally the province of a captain, but instead given her an entire squadron. This act of unexpected generosity struck her at first as a trap of some kind, though she couldn’t imagine what it would be. Did Tork expect that she’d fail in a squadron command, when she’d been mistress of an entire world? And then it occurred to her that the assignment might simply be an oversight. Tork had a lot on his mind: maybe it had slipped his mind that he’d handed her nine ships.
But on further thought, that didn’t seem likely. A master of detail like Tork would not have made such a mistake.
Maybe Lord Eldey’s support, complete with the loan of his yacht, had made Tork cautious about offending any of her powerful supporters, and therefore made him generous. Or perhaps he’d simply decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Clan Sula was one of the oldest and—at least until recently—most distinguished families of Peers. Maybe Tork assumed that her genes would bring her into line.
She gained a better idea of Tork’s motivations once she contacted her new command. From Sivetta she sent messages to each ship, requesting a full report on their status plus the data on the latest squadron maneuvers.
The ships were in good order and, according to their officers, in an excellent state of training. Sula hadn’t expected the officers to say anything else, and assumed the data from the maneuvers would give her an idea of the real situation.
The maneuvers showed ships moving in close formation, each move scripted well in advance. The side declared the victor of the maneuver had known it would win before the maneuver even started. Some of the squadron’s ships were a bit late or awkward in their course changes, but there was nothing very wrong with their performance.
What was wrong was the sort of thing they had to perform in the first place.
Now she knew why Tork had given her command of a squadron. Shackled to the old tactical system, her presence as squadron commander would make little difference. The worse she could do was bungle the maneuvers of her own ship, since the rest would be locked in their standard formations.
Martinez, she thought, can’t you do anything right? You’d think he would have sold at least a few people on their new tactical system by now.
She sighed. Clearly she had to do it herself.
She took a long deep breath against the two-gravity acceleration, raised her heavy hands to the display attached to her deluxe, luxurious acceleration couch, and busied herself with Sivetta’s tactical computer. It was a machine as sophisticated as those used in Fleet warships, though without the proper database: she had to program in the characteristics of missiles from memory.
She contacted Lord Alan Haz, Confidence’s first lieutenant. “I’d like the squadron to undertake an experiment,” she said. “What I intend is a free-form type of maneuver with no fixed outcome. Just do your best against the threat I’ve programmed into the scenario. In order to run it, you’ll have to add a patch to your tactical program—I’ll be sending that.”
The first time Martinez had tried to run the new system in Corona’s computer, the tactical program had crashed. One of his officers—the one who had run off with PJ’s fiancée, she recalled—had created a software patch that solved the problem.
“You’ll be commanding the squadron from Confidence,” Sula went on. “I’ll expect a report when you’re done, as well as the raw data. Good luck.”
After sending the message, the scenario, and the software patch, she tried, in the heavy gravity, to relax onto the acceleration couch. It sent miniwaves pulsing along her back, massaging sore muscles and preventing blood from pooling.
Her reply came some hours later. Lieutenant Haz was a well-scrubbed, square-shouldered man with the look of a person who had been a popular athlete in school. He had a deep, impressive voice and a tailored uniform that looked soft and rich even on video.
“Thank you for the scenario, my lady. Lord Tork has scheduled no maneuvers for tomorrow, so we’ll be able to implement it then.” His look turned earnest. “I also appreciate your confidence in placing me in charge of the squadron. Thank you, my lady.”
He ended the communication. Sula figured that Haz would be less thankful the next time she heard from him.
She looked at the chronometer over her head and saw that it was over an hour before the ship’s acceleration decreased to one gravity.
Over an hour till the next pee break.
She would try to endure.
“It was…well, frankly, it was a disaster.” Chagrin drew Haz’s mouth into a tight line. “We were wiped out. The enemy used tactics that we didn’t understand. We ran the scenario three times. The best results came when we starburst early—at least we took a few of the enemy with us that time.”
Haz’s distress was so evident that Sula felt something like sympathy for how she’d tricked him. She had created a computer-controlled opposition force to battle Squadron 17, and though the enemy was equal in force, she’d programmed them with the new tactics. She’d just sent her own Squadron 17 into an ambush.
“My condolences on the results of the experiment,” she sent in reply. “I have another experiment I would like you to undertake as soon as your other duties permit. I will broadcast the scenario at once.”
The new scenario was similar, except the enemy was approaching head-on instead of converging at an angle. The next day, Haz reported similar results, though at least Squadron 17 had succeeded at destroying half the enemy before being annihilated.
Sula had her next scenario ready, this time with Squadron 17 attempting to overtake an enemy. The enemy destroyed them.
After the third virtual catastrophe, Sula scheduled a conference with Haz and all eight of the other captains. The conversation was almost normal, as the Orthodox Fleet on its circuit about Shaamah was racing past Sivetta at several times its rate of speed.
Sula wore her decorations, having decided it might help to remind her underlings that she’d won battles and killed Naxids. She used a virtual reality rig to look at all her officers at once: she had their faces tiled in rows, three by three, in order of seniority, each labeled with their name and ship so she wouldn’t confuse them. An anxious expression spoiled Haz’s good looks. Perhaps he thought he was going to be blamed for three failures in succession.
“My lords,” she began. “You’ve now seen what can happen when unconventional tactics are used against standard Fleet formations. My question to you is this: would you rather be on the winning side, or the other?”
There was a half-second delay in the reply.
“We desire victory, my lady, of course.” This came from one of the Torminel captains.
“Do you all agree?” Sula asked.
They all murmured assent.
“The squadron can conduct experiments based on these tactics,” Sula said. “But I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m imposing unwanted drills, and I don’t want to deal with resentment on that or any other account. If we’re to conduct these new experiments, I want you all to agree that this is desirable.”
There was a hesitation. Some, Sula thought, were nonplused—they were used to giving or taking orders, and hadn’t encountered a situation in which they were required to express an opinion. Others seemed to be rapidly calculating the odds of their careers being sidetracked.
It was Haz, after a moment’s pause, who clarified the situation.
“My lady,” he said, “the Supreme Commander has forbidden us to practice unconventional tactics.”
Ah. Hah. Perhaps the inadequacy of the Orthodox Fleet wasn’t Martinez’s fault after all.
Though, truthfully, she preferred to believe otherwise.
“Well,” Sula said, as her lips drew back in a snarl, “he hasn’t forbidden me from doing anything. I have received no orders on the subject whatsoever.” She glanced over the nine heads in the virtual array before her. “I still want agreement, however. Shall we conduct these exercises or not?”
“I believe we should.” The statement came from one of the Torminel, labeled in Sula’s display as Captain Ayas of the light cruiser Challenger. “We worked with this system when Challenger was assigned to Chenforce, and it contributed to our victory at Protipanu.”
“I agree with Captain Ayas,” Haz said stoutly.
With two officers leading the way, the others fell in line, though some with hesitation. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as her army chanting her name, but it would do. Sula smiled.
“Thank you, my lords,” she said. “We’ll begin with a security exercise. I will now censor all officers’ mail, which will be sent through me for forwarding to any appropriate address. All daily situation and activity reports will be passed through me. Neither officer nor enlisted shall refer to our private exercises in any conversation or mail with any other member of the Fleet.”
She saw surprise and consternation among her officers.
“It is my intention,” she explained virtuously, “to avoid anything that might leave the Supreme Commander’s mind anything less than easy. He has many responsibilities, and he has far more important affairs than whether or not one of his squadrons is conducting experiments.”
She smiled again, and saw a few hesitant, answering smiles among the Terrans.
“Forgive me for what follows,” Sula said. “I don’t know you well, and I apologize in advance if you feel slighted, but I think this should be said.”
She took a deep breath against the heavy gravities that pressed upon her. “Some officers may think that informing Lord Tork of our activities will be a road to his favor. Allow me to assure you that, whatever basis the Supreme Commander uses to determine promotion, performance isn’t one of them.”
While they chewed that over, Sula continued.
“Another consideration is that anyone unsettling the lord commander’s mind is unlikely to survive. First, if the performance of this squadron is not improved, the Naxids are likely to kill that person, along with the rest of you. And second, if the Naxids don’t kill you—” She took another long breath. “—rest assured that I will. I’ll cut off your damn head and claim captain’s privilege.”
She took a few panting breaths while reaction rippled across the faces in her display. Shock, mostly—Peers weren’t used to people talking to them this way.
“Later today I will send you a mathematical formula that is the basis behind the new tactics,” she said. “I will also record a lecture concerning the formula’s application.”
“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.
Sula 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.
Martinez 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?”
Her mouth pressed into a firm line. Her eyes were stone. “I haven’t had the leisure,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Martinez said. “You seem to have made a wrong choice or two, somewhere in the recent past.”
He saw a shift in her eyes as the blow struck home.
“True,” she said. “I made a bad decision when I first met you, for instance.”
She turned and marched away, heels clicking on the tiles, walking away from him as she had at least twice before; and Martinez felt the tension suddenly drain from him. His knees wavered.
Honors about even, he thought. But she was the one who fled.
Again.
Feeling a need for support, he went to the buffet in order to have something to lean against. There he found Michi gazing at the food without much interest. He offered her his fritter.
“May I order you something to drink, my lady?” he asked.
“I’m trying not to drink,” she said. “Torminel toilets don’t agree with me, and it’s a long walk back to the airlock and Daffodil.”
Martinez could see Sula out of the slant of his eye. She was turned away from him, her back arrow-straight as she spoke to a Lai-own captain.
He bolted his whisky. Michi raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll take my chances with the toilets,” he said.
“Fucking imbecile,” Sula told Lord Sori Orghoder. “Next time try following my instructions.”
Lord Sori had grown accustomed to this sort of abuse by now, like the rest of Sula’s captains, and his furry Torminel face was resigned.
“Apologies, my lady. I thought I was—”
“You’re supposed to be following the hull of a chaotic dynamical system, not driving a runaway tram through a parking lot!”
Lord Sori’s face gave a tremor, then subsided. “Yes, my lady.”
Peers, Sula knew, weren’t used to be talked to this way. Her savagery had at first stunned them—and then, perhaps because they had no idea of anything better to do, they had obeyed. Sula’s talent for invective had produced results. Light Squadron 17, under the lash of her tongue, was becoming proficient in Ghost Tactics.
She would never have dared speak to her army this way. Volunteers could all too easily have walked away. The Peers who commanded her ships were stuck with her, and perhaps they were too wedded to their notions of hierarchy ever to protest a tongue-lashing from a superior.
Sula worked them hard. She called them idiots and dunces. She criticized their ancestors, their education, and their upbringing. She even censored their correspondence—which was, she learned, remarkably dull.
Without her, she decided, they were nothing. A bunch of coddled aristocrats without an idea in their collective head. But she was going to be the making of them.
“We are going to storm the Naxid citadel,” she told them. “And I know we can do it, because I’ve done it before.”
One of the advantages of not caring about anything, she had decided, was that she could decide to care about any particular thing. She had decided she was going to care about Light Squadron 17. Her command would become immortal in the eyes of the Fleet.
She was particularly vicious at the moment because of her meeting with Martinez the previous evening. She felt the encounter had shown her at her worst. Not because she’d tried to cut him down, which he thoroughly deserved, but because she’d done it out of anger and surprise. She should have slashed Martinez to ribbons coolly and dispassionately, but instead had blurted out a few feeble insults and then run for it.
She had shown that she was vulnerable. She had demonstrated that she, who cared about nothing, still cared about him.
It was her officers who paid for this discovery with their dignity.
“Have some brain food with your dinner,” she told Lord Sori, “and we’ll try another experiment, starting at eighteen and one.”
She broke the connection with Sori—and with the other captains who had been watching with properly impassive faces—and then unwebbed herself from her acceleration couch.
“Secure from general quarters,” she said. “Send the crew to their dinner.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Lieutenant Giove.
While Giove made the announcement to the ship’s crew, Sula swung forward to put on her shoes, which she’d kicked off and dropped on the deck. The advantage of the Ghost Tactics experiments—radical tactics performed in a shared virtual environment while her actual ships soared innocently in the close formations Tork demanded—was that she didn’t need to suit up. She disliked vac suits, the suits’ sanitary arrangements, the helmet visors that locked her into a closed, encapsulated, smothering world. In an experiment, she could wear ordinary Fleet coveralls, kick off her shoes, and feel free to try out any outrageous strategem she pleased.
On the simplest level, each ship could simply follow the formula as she had created it, maneuvering within a series of nested fractal patterns that maximized both its defensive and offensive capabilities, and—significantly—moving in a pattern that would seem completely random to any observer.
There were more complex levels to the system, as there would be with anything involving fractals, and these had to do with the designated “center of maneuver,” around which the squadron would be navigating, which could be the flagship, a point in space, or an enemy. Choosing the center of maneuver, Sula suspected, was far more an art than a science.
With all the practice, she thought she was getting very good at her art, and she was beginning to hunger for the day when she could test it against the enemy.
Martinez realized that Sula must have been charming others as she’d charmed him, because Tork announced a change in the fleet’s order of battle. Light Squadron 17 was shifted into the van as the lead squadron. In the sort of battle that Tork clearly intended to fight, the van squadron would be the first to engage the enemy, and remain in action until the battle was over or until the squadron had been reduced to radiant debris.
Martinez wondered how exactly Sula made Tork so determined to sacrifice her to the necessities of war. Tork was giving the Naxids every possible chance to kill her along with most of her command.
“For once Tork’s had a good idea,” Martinez said aloud as he sat at his desk and reviewed the order, and then was annoyed at himself because he felt the comment lacked conviction.
He looked down at his desk, at the image of Terza holding Young Gareth, which floated at the margins of the display.
At least, he thought, he’d stopped dreaming about Sula. He could give his family that.
Bulletins came almost daily from Terza, charting Young Gareth’s progress, and when Terza was busy and no message arrived, Martinez found himself missing the daily contact. He sent letters in return, and a few videos so Young Gareth could hear his voice and practice focusing his eyes on his father.
Another message, less welcome, arrived from his brother Roland. The video opened with a shot of Roland seated importantly in a hooded armchair upholstered in some kind of scaly leather that might have been Naxid skin. He had the Martinez looks, the big jaw, broad shoulders, big hands, and olive skin. He was also wearing the dark red tunic of the lords convocate.
“I have good news,” Roland began.
It seemed to Martinez that Roland was trying too hard not to be smug.
“Whatever vices Lord Oda might have enjoyed in the past,” Roland continued, “they seem not to have affected his fertility. Vipsania’s pregnant.”
Martinez’s mental wheels spun a bit before they found traction, and it finally dawned that Roland’s good news—the first bit of good news, presumably—concerned their sister, who had been married to the heir of the high-caste Yoshitoshi clan. There had been a cordial sort of blackmail involved, Martinez recalled, Roland having bought the debts that Lord Oda hoped to conceal from his family.
Not unlike the arm-twisting that had gone into his own marriage. Roland’s social wrestling had paid off twice now, with Martinez babies placed, like cuckoos, in the cradles of two of the High City’s most prominent clans.
And as the clan heirs, no less.
“I don’t know whether you’ve heard,” Roland said, “but it seems that PJ Ngeni died heroically in the battle for Zanshaa High City. Walpurga is now an eligible widow, and after a decent interval will find a more suitable spouse. Let me know if you encounter any candidates, will you?”
Martinez wished there were some way to engage his formidable sister to Lord Tork. That would kill the Supreme Commander faster than anything else.
“In return for his magnificent hospitality,” Roland continued, “the Convocation has voted to open Chee and Parkhurst to settlement, and under Martinez patronage. So our centuries-long ambition has finally been fulfilled.”
Chee and Parkhurst would be the first planets opened in hundreds of years, and both under Martinez patronage. No one could freeze the Martinez family out of the High City now.
“And of course,” Roland continued, finally getting to the point, “the Convocation voted to co-opt our father into their midst. He declined, with the wish that they’d consider me instead.” He spread his arms, offering a view of his wine-colored tunic. “The Convocation graciously agreed to abide by his wishes. I have volunteered for a committee that will return to Zanshaa ahead of the rest of the Convocation, to make recommendations concerning the organization of the capital. So, soon we may actually be able to communicate without these annoying delays.”
Roland returned his hands to the arms of his chair.
“I trust you will continue to massacre Naxids at your normal rate, and by the time I see you in person you’ll have gained more medals and your usual dose of undying fame. I’ll send you a message when I arrive in the Zanshaa system.”
The orange end-stamp filled the screen. Martinez blanked it in annoyance.
Roland was up to something, and an early visit to Zanshaa was part of it. Martinez didn’t know what his brother’s plot entailed, but he had little to do but speculate. Roland might be plotting another marriage, his own perhaps; or scouting the High City for the location of a new Martinez Palace grand enough for the city’s newest lord convocate; or working to corner some essential supply coming down from orbit.
He only hoped that he himself was not an essential element in Roland’s scheme.
As it turned out, Roland wasn’t the only member of his family leaving Laredo. The next video from Terza informed him that she and Young Gareth were leaving to join her father—the location was a military secret, but it was presumably closer to Zanshaa than was Laredo.
“It’s time my father saw his grandson,” Terza said. Her expression bore its usual serenity, and at once Martinez felt anxiety begin to gnaw at him. He wondered if Lord Chen had expressed some private disappointment in Young Gareth, and if therefore Terza was rushing the child to her father to reassure him…or, he thought darkly, to confirm his suspicions.
He considered forbidding the journey—he could claim that Lord Chen was too close to a possible Naxid attack—but decided against it.
He was too far away to issue his wife orders, but that was only a part of it. The fact was, the only daughter of Lord Chen outranked the second son of Lord Martinez. Young Gareth was Lord Gareth Chen, not Lord Gareth Martinez the Younger. He was the son of the Chen heir and the presumed Chen heir himself.
In other words, Terza could take the child anywhere she damn well pleased, and he had very little to say about it.
Martinez sent Terza a letter in which he wondered whether it was completely safe for her to make the journey, but otherwise made no protest. He bade her to give Lord Chen his very warmest regards.
He dared say nothing else.
From her position in the middle of the van squadron, Sula half drowsed through one of Tork’s maneuvers. After the intricacies and complexities of Ghost Tactics, Tork’s standard exercises were a dreary trudge toward slumberland.
“Enemy missile flares,” said Warrant Officer Maitland from the sensor station. “Flares across the board. Forty—sixty—nearly seventy, my lady.”
The languor in Maitland’s drawling voice as he announced the launch of a host of enemy missiles aimed at the squadron showed that he too was merely going through the motions.
“Comm,” Sula said. “Each ship will fire one battery counterfire. Weapons”—to Giove at the weapons station—“this is a drill. Engage the enemy barrage with Battery Two.”
“This is a drill, my lady,” Giove reported. “Tubes eight through thirteen have fired. We have a failure to launch from tube thirteen. Missile is running hot in the tube.”
Lady Rebecca Giove—short, dark, and kinetic—was incapable of sounding bored by anything. Her sharp voice had a clear ring of urgency even when she was making the most routine report.
“Weaponers to clear the faulty missile,” Sula said.
“Weaponers to clear the faulty missile, my lady.”
Sula could only imagine what the scene would be like in real life—seventy enemy missiles racing for the squadron, each with its antihydrogen warhead ready to rip apart the fabric of matter, the countermissiles lashing out, the faulty missile flooding the missile bay with heat and energetic neutrons, on the verge of destroying the ship, tension tautening the nerves, the scent of rising panic in her vac suit…
Nothing like that here. Confidence was following a script that had been written ahead of time by Tork’s staff. The faulty missile had been planned from the beginning, to give the weaponers practice at clearing a missile from the tube.
Sula sat in her vac suit and recited the lines that the script more or less demanded. She left her helmet off so she didn’t have to feel closed-in. Counterbattery fire destroyed most of the enemy missiles, and point-defense lasers got the rest. Weaponers operating damage-control robots cleared the defective missile from the tube. Light Squadron 17 launched its own attack, which was duly parried by the approaching—and virtual—enemy.
Confidence was annihilated early in the action, which gave a senior surviving captain practice at commanding the squadron until she too was destroyed. In the end Light Squadron 17 was wiped out, along with the squadron it had engaged.
After losing her ship, Sula had one of the cooks bring coffee and soft drinks to Command, and she added clover honey and condensed milk and drank in perfect contentment while listening to calls between ships.
Confidence had been wiped out in three of the last four of Tork’s exercises. Sula was inclined to view this as a threat.
It had been clear from the moment Tork had ordered Squadron 17 into the van that he was planning to eliminate her from his long list of troubles. Sula supposed she couldn’t blame him. After all, she had spoiled his attack on Zanshaa by capturing the place without him; she had arranged for the elimination of his choice of governor; and she’d blackmailed him into giving her a ship. Probably he wished he could simply have her shot. But she was too prominent for that, too celebrated. Instead he affected to take her at her word—I desire nothing so much as to once more lead loyal citizens into action against the Naxids—and put her in a place of maximum danger.
She had to admit that she admired Tork’s straightforward ruthlessness.
Still, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t anticipated something like this. She knew she was putting herself in Tork’s hands as soon as she requested duty in the Orthodox Fleet.
There only remained the question of what she was going to do about it.
From her point of view, there was only one possible response.
She would have to become a legend.
The Righteous and Orthodox Fleet of Vengeance continued its awkward orbit around Zanshaa. Reinforcements arrived, two or three or five at a time. Martinez continued to hear from old acquaintances. The arrival of the Exploration Service frigate Scout brought greetings from Shushanik Severin, who served as its third officer. Severin and his little lifeboat had spent months grappled to a frozen asteroid at Protipanu in order to provide last minute intelligence to Martinez and Chenforce just prior to the battle there, and as a result had been promoted lieutenant despite being born a commoner. Severin seemed cheerful and comfortable in his new status, and Martinez—who remembered the troubles the commoner Kosinic had experienced—was relieved.
He was also impressed that the down-at-heels Exploration Service had actually gotten a brand-new frigate out of the emergency. It was the first actual warship in the service for many centuries, though it would serve under Fleet command for the rest of the war.
Martinez also received greetings from Warrant Officer Amanda Taen, who arrived in command of a boat bringing supplies to the warships. She was a stunningly beautiful young woman who had shared a pleasantly carnal relationship with him before his marriage, and viewing her message sent a nostalgic charge through his groin.
Her arrival made him wonder just how many of his former lovers were serving with the Orthodox Fleet. He counted four women he had known intimately now circling Shaamah without him, and he felt depressed for the rest of the day.
Terza and Young Gareth joined Lord Chen at whatever secret location was playing host to the Fleet Control Board, driving home the fact that the location was secret to Martinez, but not to his wife. The stream of letters and videos from Terza arrived regularly. Martinez tried to find enough subjects for reply, but new topics of interest were rare on the ship. He began to send Terza word-portraits of his fellow crew, starting with Kazakov and working his way down the list in order of seniority. He wondered what she made of these descriptions of people she’d never met, but reckoned she had to at least give him credit for trying. When he ran out of people he wanted to describe, he began a description of Fletcher’s paintings, beginning with The Holy Family with a Cat. He had a feeling that his description didn’t do the work justice. He considered sending a picture instead.
Martinez saw Sula twice more, as officers visited back and forth. They kept their distance and did not speak.
Roland arrived on Zanshaa and sent him occasional messages. He was with a committee of other convocates, though what they were actually doing in the capital was obscure. Martinez was content that it remain that way.
The Orthodox Fleet grew. Seventy ships. Eight-one. Ninety-five. The last known number of enemy ships had been forty-seven. Martinez began to wonder if Tork would ever engage.
It was when the Orthodox Fleet reached the prime number of 109 that orders began raining down from Tork’s staff. Censorship was tightened. Enlisted crew could send no personal messages home, but only choose from a list of messages provided by the Fleet. All of them were variations on the theme, “I am well, and send you greetings. Long live the Praxis!”
The twenty-two Lai-own ships were placed under Senior Squadron Commander Do-faq and detached to guard Zanshaa against a surprise Naxid attack. The fragile bones of their avian crew would not impede the acceleration of the Orthodox Fleet in pursuit of any enemy.
The rest of the Fleet, on its last swing around the system, participated in several final exercises to accustom them to maneuvering in their new order-of-battle, and then burned one last time around Vandrith for Zanshaa Wormhole 3, where the enemy had fled four months before.
Martinez sent one last message to Terza. If he skated the limits of the censorship, it was because he knew that Michi would be the officer censoring his mail, and that Terza would know more about Fleet activities from her father than she could ever learn from her husband.
Don’t worry about me, he wrote. We’ve beaten them before, and we’ll do it again.
I hope to see you and Gareth within a few months. You have no idea how much I regret this time we have spent apart.
When he signed the word Love, it was with perfect sincerity.