Fleet Elements Read online

  Of course, given that the war at present was Humanity vs. Everyone Else, Martinez would command ships crewed only by Terrans, so conveniences for the other species could be put in storage for the now. But, in the event of peace, he could see himself obliged to host dignitaries—even Fleet officers—from other species, and in that case all the species-specific equipment would be necessary.

  After leaving Perfection of the Praxis, Martinez went straight to Corona and found it deserted, discovering only a trace of Terza’s vetiver scent floating in the air, and called his orderly on his sleeve display.

  “Yes, my lord.” Khalid Alikhan had an upright bearing, iron-gray hair, and the curled, upturned mustachios favored by senior petty officers. He was a retired master weaponer who had returned to the Fleet as Martinez’s servant, as well as something of a good luck charm. In addition to brushing Martinez’s uniforms and polishing his shoes, Alikhan was a conduit to the hermetic world of the Fleet’s enlisted personnel and the petty officers who kept the warships running while the officers did their decorative best to pretend they were in charge.

  Martinez realized he had less need for an orderly than Michi had for an experienced petty officer, so he’d sent Alikhan to the crews that were converting the non-Terran ships to human use.

  “I’ll need you back on Corona to shift my gear to the Los Angeles,” Martinez said. “We’ll be launching sometime tomorrow, as soon as all the crew reports on board.”

  “Very good, my lord,” said Alikhan. His lips narrowed slightly, which in his unruffled expression was the equivalent to signaling major distress.

  “Yes?” Martinez said.

  Alikhan took a breath, then spoke. “I am no longer young, my lord,” he said. “I don’t know how well I will be able to stand up to acceleration. Some days I think I would do better to remain here on the ring and continue my work with the conversion crews.”

  Martinez preferred not to respond to this directly. “And how is that work coming?” he asked.

  “It is without doubt the greatest shambles in the history of the Fleet,” Alikhan said. “Too many people don’t know their jobs, and that includes the officers, and on top of it we’re shorthanded. I’d hate to have to bring any of these ships into battle in anything like their current condition.”

  “That’s precisely what I’m going to have to do with Bombardment of Los Angeles,” Martinez said. “I’m going to have to shake down the ship on the way to combat, and hope that I’ve got enough experienced crew on board to keep us from catastrophe.”

  Alikhan was silent. He’s going to make me ask, Martinez thought.

  “If you feel that the accelerations are a hazard,” he said, “I won’t order you to join me. But the situation is urgent, the job is more or less what you’re doing now, and I would very much value your collaboration in the work.”

  Martinez saw a shimmer in Alikhan’s eyes. “I will be honored to join you, my lord,” he said.

  Somewhere inside his chest, Martinez felt a little knot of anxiety dissolve. “Thank you,” he said. “I won’t forget this.”

  And then he thought, What if I’ve just killed him? Alikhan had spent thirty years in the weapons bays and had been with Martinez for another ten years on top of that, and he was perfectly right that he was too old to safely undergo the sorts of accelerations that might be required in combat.

  Alikhan volunteered, he told himself. But Martinez knew perfectly well that he’d manipulated Alikhan into offering his services.

  It’s my job to keep them all alive, he reminded himself. And he needed Alikhan.

  “I’m going to need a cook and a pair of signalers,” he said.

  “I won’t be much use finding you a cook,” Alikhan said. “But there seem to be two kinds of signalers available. Would you prefer an embryo or a grandparent?”

  “One of each, I think,” Martinez said. “One can teach the other.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Alikhan paused in thought. “I think I can recommend a grandparent, sir. I served with Lalita Banerjee in the old Pride, and she was most competent. She’s working here at rehabilitating old comm units, and I saw her yesterday. She retired as a warrant officer first class, though, and you may prefer a lieutenant.”

  “Thank you for the recommendation,” Martinez said. “I’ll look into her. And rank seems to me no boundary, since we seem to be handing out promotions with a liberal hand.” He smiled. “Would you like a commission for yourself, by the way?”

  He made the offer only to enjoy the look of horror on Alikhan’s face. “Thank you, no, my lord,” he said firmly.

  Martinez ended the call. He thought he knew where to find a cook. Corona’s civilian crew—those who were fit, anyway—had been absorbed into the military as soon as the carrier had arrived, and that included the kitchen staff. He could order one of Corona’s chefs aboard Los Angeles and save him or her from the horror and tedium of serving uniformly bland food to the enlisted masses.

  Before he could summon his personal chef his sleeve button chirped, and he answered a call from Elissa Dalkeith, who thanked him for her promotion to captain and for his requesting her as his flag captain.

  Martinez had made no such promotion and no such request, but he said, “You’re very welcome” anyway. “Well deserved,” he added. “Though it wasn’t just my recommendation, it was a joint decision by myself and by Fleet Commander Chen.”

  “I’ll send her my thanks as well,” Dalkeith said in her child’s lisping voice. “Will you join me in an inspection of the ship?”

  “I have to find my staff first,” Martinez said.

  “The ship will need inspecting before we launch.”

  “I’ll be happy to join you, but it will have to be tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Lord Captain.” She hesitated. “Or did you get promoted as well?”

  He offered a laugh. “I seem to be a senior squadcom now.”

  She congratulated him, an irregularly promoted captain congratulating her irregularly promoted superior. After the conversation ended, Martinez issued orders requisitioning Corona’s head chef, Marivic Mangahas, and promoted her to master cook. Martinez knew he was no judge of high cuisine, but Mangahas had been praised by those who were—including his sister Vipsania, who rarely praised anyone. He sent Mangahas to purchase supplies for his personal pantry, and to bring them to Corona until Los Angeles was ready to receive them.

  After he also requisitioned Lalita Banerjee, the post of second signaler was still open, but fortunately Michi had granted Martinez access to the Fourth Fleet’s personnel database. He cast a look at the list of officers who had recently graduated from signals courses, found the one with the highest score, and looked at his file. There was nothing indicating potential trouble, and so he sent a message inviting Sublieutenant Santana to join him on Los Angeles. The reply was immediate and wholehearted.

  Junior officers, Martinez thought, could be counted on to respond enthusiastically to a personal invitation from the second-most-decorated captain in the empire. (Sula, unfortunately, had more medals than he did.)

  In addition to his staff, an officer of Martinez’s rank was also entitled to four servants. Alikhan and Mangahas were all he really needed, so he filled his foursome with a pair of experienced petty officers that he could loan to Dalkeith, who could employ them wherever they were required.

  Martinez walked to Corona’s bar and made himself a cup of coffee and reflected on the last few minutes. He’d assembled his staff in a highly unusual fashion, without the standard favors and trading, and without accepting officers on the recommendations of his seniors. There had been too little time for any of that.

  Martinez drank his coffee while using his sleeve display to compose a list of tasks that needed to be completed before Los Angeles’s departure, and then, musing into his coffee, he heard Marietta Li’s high-pitched laugh echoing from somewhere, and he knew he wasn’t alone on Corona. To judge by the tone of her laughter, Marietta wasn’t alone, either.

/>   He wasn’t interested in interrupting her, and he decided it was high time he talked to Terza anyway, so he retreated to his quarters and used the wall display in the lounge to call his wife. She appeared on the screen with an owlish expression and her face slightly distorted, which told him he was seeing the video feed from her hand comm.

  He saw that she wasn’t in her uniform, but dressed in a smart lilac crepe top with a ruffled collar. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m interviewing headmasters,” Terza said, “trying to find Chai-chai a school.”

  Having a son nicknamed “Chai-chai” was a consequence of Martinez having married into a Peer family as ancient and established as the Chens, where the oldest boy was always “Chai-chai,” generation after generation, while a younger sister was “Mei-mei,” the names coming from an ancient language now known to no one but scholars. Only a few words had been passed down to the Chens, and Martinez had been told the nicknames only meant “Boy-boy” and “Younger Sister-younger sister.” This seemed self-evident to the point of absurdity, but apparently a tradition this ancient was not to be denied, ridiculous or not.

  “Good luck with the headmasters,” Martinez said.

  “Fortunately your reputation hasn’t preceded you here,” Terza said.

  Martinez feigned innocence. “What reputation?”

  “For hectoring teachers and administrators when your son doesn’t get high enough marks.”

  “There is something about a teacher’s education,” Martinez said, “that forces their minds into rigid and unimaginative corridors. I’m just trying to pry open those corridors a little and throw in a little light.”

  Terza sighed. “Can you at least stay away from the schools till I get Chai-chai enrolled?”

  “I will,” Martinez said. “I’m shipping out tomorrow.”

  Terza’s face froze. Then she took a long breath and spoke.

  “You’re on Corona?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll come at once. The headmasters can wait.”

  “Where’s Chai-chai?”

  “In the hands of his aunt Michi’s staff,” Terza said. “He’s getting a tour of Perfection of the Praxis.”

  Odd, Martinez thought, that Michi hadn’t mentioned this when they’d spoken an hour or two ago. But then she’d been in a hurry to get to her formal dinner, and maybe thought he knew already.

  “That should keep him busy for a while,” Martinez said.

  “I’ll see you soon.” Terza ended the call, and Martinez contemplated the blank wall screen for a moment, then decided to make himself another coffee.

  There was so much to do before he left, he wouldn’t be doing a lot of sleeping between now and Los Angeles’s departure. Anything that would aid him in staying awake . . .

  When Terza arrived, carrying a crystal goblet of shimmering, silver Cavado wine, Martinez was listening to a message from Carmody, the ginger-whiskered squadron commander whose command he was usurping.

  “I’m a little relieved, to tell you the truth,” Carmody said. “I’m not exactly comfortable having the fate of the human race resting on my shoulders. I’m doing my best, but I’m feeling a little lonely out here.”

  Terza looked at the screen with amusement as she passed through the lounge on her way to an inner room of the suite. Martinez gave her a little wave of one hand—he needn’t pay full attention to the video message, because Carmody was forty light-minutes away and it was impossible to have a conversation.

  “I’ve been running constant drills using your Method,” Carmody said, “and even though I don’t understand it terribly well, I think the results have been splendid. If only we had some idea what we’d really be up against, I’m sure we’d be even better.” Carmody straightened his shoulders and looked directly into the camera.

  “You are very welcome to this force, Captain Martinez,” he said. “I will look forward to welcoming you in person.”

  Martinez considered his response, then straightened his uniform tunic, and triggered the camera.

  “Thank you for the generous welcome, Captain Carmody,” he said. “We’ve fought together in two brilliant victories in the last war, and I have every confidence that our next encounter with an enemy will be as triumphant as the last.” He nodded in the direction of the camera.

  “I shall look forward to seeing you face-to-face, and in the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you could send me records of your last three drills. If you haven’t already received orders from Fleetcom Chen, you should chart the most efficient course for Wormhole One and Toley. You should also prepare drills based on encountering Rukmin’s force from Zarafan, both with and without the presence of Foote’s light squadron.”

  He made an attempt to smile. “That should tell you all you need to know. I’ll be in touch once my own plans are more evolved.”

  Martinez ended the call and sent it to its destination forty light-minutes away, turned to find his coffee, and saw Terza standing in the doorway, and his heart gave a lurch. She stood half in shadow, wearing stockings and a bed jacket of quilted white satin. Her long dark eyes were fixed on his. A little smile crossed her face, showing she was satisfied with her intended effect, and she turned to drink from the goblet of silver wine. Then she turned to him again.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said.

  His breath caught in his throat. “I suppose we don’t.”

  Terza was being unusually direct. Normally her passions came wrapped in a slightly unearthly tranquility, and she preferred in her serenity to accept and reflect his own desires before revealing her own.

  But. As she said, there wasn’t a lot of time.

  Her vetiver perfume whispered into his senses. She took another swallow of wine. “The last time you went to war,” she said, “we had seven days together. Now we’ve had something like nine years together, but it feels the same.”

  He took a step toward her. “How does it feel?”

  “Like—” She searched for words. “Like anything can happen now. Worlds can end, new worlds can be born. Everything can twist and distort and change when we’re not looking, and we won’t know how till we look through the curtain. But . . .” She hesitated. “But we might win through, if we can hold firm to what we desire.”

  Thoughts flamed in his skull and turned to ash. Martinez approached her and took her in his arms. Her lips had the bright, rich taste of the Cavado wine with an earthy undertaste that was the flavor of Terza’s blood and flesh and self. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Of course you will. Victories are what you do.” She kissed him, then rested her cheek on his shoulder. He inhaled the warm scent of her hair, felt the warmth of her body through the quilted satin. He could see past her into the bedroom, where in haste she had scattered her clothing on her way to the closet and her bed jacket.

  Terza tipped her head back and finished the last of the wine. “I wish I’d skipped the wine and got some whisky or brandy instead,” she said. “I want to feel the fire.”

  “I can try to kindle a spark,” Martinez said.

  “I know you will.”

  She took his hand and drew him into the shadows of the darkened bedroom, lit only by a pale spill of light from the half-closed closet. He closed the door behind him as she tossed the heavy crystal goblet onto a chair, where it rocked for a moment glittering, and then was still. As she undid the buttons of his uniform tunic, his sleeve display gave a discreet chime.

  “I don’t think this call is important,” he said.

  “I think you’re right,” she said.

  In the hour that followed he didn’t think of Sula once. Or so he told himself later.

  Chapter 5

  An earlier incarnation of the heavy cruiser Bombardment of Los Angeles had been crewed with Terrans and destroyed at Felarus on the opening day of the Naxid Rebellion. The latest vessel to bear the name had been constructed as part of the postwar building program, and it was crewed with Torminel. Since Michi Chen’s co
up Los Angeles had been hastily converted to a Terran ship. Since Terrans and Torminel had a similar physique, the conversion had been quick, and some of the Torminel furniture was deemed acceptable for human use.

  Martinez’s wedge-shaped dining/meeting room featured a wedge-shaped table and had chairs and a table intended for Torminel. The table was just a table, usable by any species, and the chairs were broader in the seat than those intended for humans, but they were well padded and comfortable enough.

  It was the room’s decoration that Martinez resented. Squadron Leader Lokan, the previous occupant, had been a booster of the martial arts, and the walls were covered with detailed mosaics of Torminel wrestling, with heavily furred participants in shorts and vests grappling, strangling, joint-locking, throwing, pinning, and sinking fangs into one another, all depicted in dark, muddy colors suited to Torminel nocturnal vision. The view was not one that would stimulate anyone’s digestion.

  Lokan’s influence extended through Martinez’s entire suite. His office next door still featured shelves filled with trophies won by Lokan in competition, and the bedroom featured Lokan’s taste in erotica, positions that looked much the same as the wrestling except with more imaginative use of fangs.

  Martinez was thankful that when Michi’s mutineers stormed in to arrest Lokan, they’d been armed with guns. If they’d tried to wrestle him into submission, there would have been blood.

  As for the Torminel erotica, he was unable to maintain even a clinical interest. He’d cover the walls with pictures of his family as soon as he could arrange it.