Denis didn’t care what anybody said. It was his ship, so it was his responsibility.
Didn’t matter that Auberon was part of a Task Group, assigned to the Imperial Fleet for the duration. Didn’t matter that they were in deep space in the middle of nowhere, more or less in a gap between the two nations. Didn’t matter than Jessica was in overall command.
Nor that they were in the field. At war. Jouster was just the first of what would hopefully be very few casualties. Another name plate added to the wall on the flight deck, pilots and flight engineers lost in service.
Wasn’t the first. Wouldn’t be the last.
None of that mattered. It was his ship. Jouster had been one of his pilots.
Denis let the sonorous words of the ancient service roll out of his mouth, reading carefully as his mind was in another place. Hopefully, he would never know this prayer well enough to recite it from memory.
And pigs might fly.
“…and so we commend his soul to the Creator, even as we commit his body to the depths of the sea without a shore,” Denis read aloud in a normal voice, letting the pickup broadcast his words across the flight deck and the assembled crew, and to the rest of the squadron. “Command Flight Centurion Milos Pavlovic, Jouster, rest easy.”
Denis closed the small, black, Book of Naval Rituals and looked up, making eye contact with only a handful of people and breaking the spell of awkward silence that had fallen over everyone.
Blinks greeted him as folks came back from wherever it was that sudden, violent death took them.
Denis found himself centered. Calm.
Death did that to him.
“All hands, dismissed,” he ordered.
The crowd before him broke into a receding tide, bodies turning away to find solace in smaller groups, private memories, drinks raised in toast and celebration to one of the greatest pilots they had ever known.
He made eye contact with Jessica standing to one side of the mob, and nodded to her. Moirrey and Bedrov were closer to the rear of the group, and already departing.
Iskra Vlahovic, the flight deck commander, actually looked angry today, but Denis couldn’t imagine at what. She fell into stride on his left as Jessica did on the right, the three of them following Moirrey out the hatch and into the corridor.
A conference room nearby waited.
Jessica and Iskra took places on one side. Moirrey and Yan Bedrov were on the other. Denis stood at the closest end. Captain Wald had just removed his dress sword and was leaning it in a rear corner of the room. He turned and stood behind the chair at the head of the table with both hands on it, almost noble in his best dress uniform.
Denis met the man’s questioning eye and nodded. They both sat at the same time, facing each other down three meters of flat, polished surface.
“Why is Captain Wald chairing this hearing?” Jessica asked.
Her voice wasn’t antagonistic. Very antagonistic, anyway. Curious, with a sharp edge, perhaps.
Denis turned his attention to Bedrov.
“Because I needed someone good with numbers,” the pirate replied. “And it helped, having another expert with command experience who was also an outsider, asking questions to people who might have chosen to withhold things I needed to know.”
Denis watched the dynamic play out silently. There were things there that remained unsaid. Perhaps unsayable, but that was the effect of living in close quarters for a very long period of time.
You got to know how your friends thought and how their moods flowed. Often better than they did.
Jessica nodded, satisfied enough.
“The findings and notes have been entered into the record,” Captain Wald began in a stern voice. “The purpose of this meeting is to address the issues raised and to apply lessons learned to future endeavors. As Sri Bedrov has noted, the results were to be found in the data generated by Jouster’s craft, once the dross had been cleared away.”
He paused there, as if measuring the room for the words about to come out of his mouth. Wald had impressed Denis with his ability to be intelligent and expert, without having an ego about it. Calm, quiet, prepared.
Self-contained.
It was a set of qualities Denis valued very highly. If the rumors about Jessica and the Imperial officer were to be believed, Wald would need them, especially if he could help make her happy.
Denis had many years as Jessica’s right hand. He understood how well those traits complemented her own.
“After interviewing other pilots and flight deck engineers, a consensus has emerged to support the data,” Wald continued, in a tighter voice, like ice chipped off the side of a barn on a winter morning. “As you are aware, the fighter ships in question are still new enough to be considered experimental, so their on-board systems are in full diagnostic mode at all times. Jouster’s data recorder was located at about the same time as his body was recovered, and it tracked everything the man had done since the craft was delivered to the fleet. Nearly every built-in safety feature and governor that Jouster could access was disabled, or manipulated to settings well beyond what we would consider safe for the systems in question.”
“And he did it himself?” Denis asked, just to make sure that finding was in the official record.
The last thing he needed was suspicion of a spy or vengeful ex-girlfriend in their midst. Creator knew Jouster had enough of the latter.
“Affirmative, Command Centurion,” Wald answered. “Jouster took great pains to make the physical changes invisible, but everything was there in the data audit.”
“And your conclusions?” Iskra finally spoke. She was always quiet. This wouldn’t change that.
“If I may be so crude,” the Imperial said. “I could boil the results of my various interviews down to: Jouster being Jouster. However, I have never worked with the man, so I cannot say if that adequately describes him.”
“I’m not sure you could more accurately describe Milos Pavlovic, Captain Wald,” Jessica interjected.
Most of the heads in the room nodded.
“Recommendations?” Denis asked.
It was all formal cant at this point. Iskra had probably already implemented everything anyone here could think of. Part of the official record. And lessons for II Augusta, and eventually the rest of the navy.
“Mostly, change the security access authentications for the onboard systems,” Wald said with something of a shrug. “Separate what the flight engineers can do from what the pilots are supposed to be doing. If Jouster hadn’t been tinkering with his coolant systems for an edge, he wouldn’t have overloaded his charging capacitors at a moment when the engines were already red-lined and straining. Results still would have been bad, but he would have had time to eject and suffer nothing more than embarrassment.”
Denis nodded.
Jouster being Jouster.
If he hadn’t been one of the best pilots in the navy, he would have long since been cashiered for all the stupid things he did in his life. A man who was never willing to admit that maybe it was time to retire.
Denis hoped he would be able to remember that lesson when it was his time.
“Are there any other items that need to be addressed?” Denis inquired in a formal tone.
“No, Command Centurion,” Captain Wald replied, just as formally.
“Your findings are so noted, and this hearing is complete,” he said. “If you would all remain with us for a few minutes, I have an unrelated topic for this group.”
Nobody had moved. They had barely twitched.
Denis turned to the Fleet Centurion.
“Normally, the senior-most surviving officer would brevet to command of the Wing, until more formal arrangements could be made,” Denis observed, dangling his next worry out there.
“And that’s Uller,” she replied to Denis’s nod.
She turned to Captain Wald, drawing lightning bolts to herself as Denis watched.
“Senior Flight Centurion Friedhelm Hannes Förstner, known as Uller, was an Imperial citizen until he was eleven years old,” she stated.
To his credit, Wald looked like a man who had just discovered he was standing in a live mine field. Not that it was his fault, but Lady Casey was acting like a Republic Navy officer these days, so it fell to him to fully represent Fribourg.
He was doing a pretty good job of it, too.
“Kennet Förstner, his paternal grandfather, was executed as a Chartist, by Karl V,” Jessica continued like a steamroller intent on leveling the Imperial officer. “Uller and his extended family were pardoned by Karl VII as part of the Peace, but feelings still run high.”
“I see,” Wald replied carefully.
“I have spoken with Uller, and others,” Jessica said. It felt like a mousetrap closing, from where Denis sat watching. “Given the sensitivities we will be likely encountering, he is content to stand aside, at least for the duration of this mission. I suspect he would be happy not being promoted at any point, since he should, by all rights, be driving a desk at his age, not leading a flight squadron. Ainsley Barrett will be acting as Command Flight Centurion, until First Lord or the Senate say otherwise.”
Something of a smile ghosted itself across Wald’s face, just for a moment, before it was gone, but Jessica had apparently seen it, too.
“Captain?” she asked.
“da Vinci, Fleet Centurion,” Captain Wald observed dryly. “I can only imagine what leverage you had to exert, to blackmail her into taking that role.”
Denis appreciated the blush that quickly flushed Yan Bedrov’s silent face. He wasn’t sure anybody else was looking the right direction to catch it, and he wasn’t about to say anything. The pirate and the laconic scout had taken great pains to remain off everybody’s scanners with their relationship.
But she had been smiling more lately than in all the years Denis had known the woman.