Once a Hero

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Better report now," Esmay said. "If we hail them on their own frequency, it might be someone I know. They can get Major Pitak to identify me, anyway."

  "You're right, but—in the grand tradition, it seems a bit tame to let them know. Adventurers who've survived unprotected FTL flight ought to do something more dramatic . . . why weren't we provided with those little invisible wire things that spies and thieves are always using to lower themselves from heights?"

  "Blame the props department," Esmay said, surprising herself. They all chuckled.

  "Suiza, if you ever get tired of maintenance, I'd be glad to have you on my ship," Seska said. "I wondered at first, but now I can see why the admiral wanted you on the operational end of this."

  Esmay's ears burned. "Thank you, sir. Now—I'll just let them know we're here." She switched channels, and found herself listening to the end of the previous set of directions.

  " . . . Now back a tenth . . . just right . . . there."

  "Lieutenant Suiza here," she said, hoping she wasn't cutting across another transmission.

  "What! Who? Where are you?"

  "I'm up at the top of the bay, on the personnel platform by lift one. With three other officers: Captain Seska and Lt. Commander Frees of Wraith, and Commander Bowry from the Schools. I have an urgent message from Admiral Dossignal for the senior officer in T-3."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "What did you think you were doing hiding out up in the rafters all this time? I was told you were going over to T-1 to some kind of conference with the admiral and Commander Seveche and other important brass." Commander Jarles, head of Inventory Control, was the senior commander aboard T-3. Esmay had met him briefly, at one of the officers' socials, but she did not know him well. Now he was angry, his stocky body thrust forward in his chair, his cheeks flushed.

  "I did, sir."

  "And with everything else going on, you just lazed your way the long way round? You can't tell me you got past the blast doors, or that you didn't hear the allcall telling everyone in this wing to get their tails to assembly points!"

  Esmay interpreted the emphasis on "important brass" to mean that Commander Jarles of Inventory Control had had his nose put out of joint because he wasn't invited to that conference. Now he was feeling very much on his dignity.

  "Sir, if I may ask—how is communication with the rest of the ship, especially T-1?"

  "We've got a link to T-4, thanks to the access tunnel, but no one else. Why?"

  "Then you might not be aware that the captain was gassed and in critical condition; Admiral Dossignal was injured in a firefight, and that's why the admiral didn't come along. I have his orders here." Esmay fished them out of her pocket and handed them over. Jarles pursed his lips, and gave her a nod that clearly meant Tell the rest.

  "We couldn't get past the blast doors out of T-1," she said. "The captain gave us the override codes, but they didn't work. The admirals felt it was imperative to get Captain Seska and his exec back to Wraith—the reasoning's in that order cube, sir. So we got out the SpecMatFab far end, and followed the transport track partway over the ship."

  His eyes widened. "You crossed the whole ship?"

  "Yes, sir. I don't know if the scans here picked it up, but the ship took hostile fire from beam weapons—the shields held, but the transport track was destroyed." She waited a moment for any questions, then sprang the big one. "Then it went into jump. That's why it took us so long to get back."

  "You're telling me . . . you were on the outside of this ship . . . during jump insertion?"

  "Yes, sir."

  A long pause. "Lieutenant, you're either crazy or lucky or blessed by some combination of deities I never heard of. The officers with you confirm this story?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "All right. I presume you need a little time to . . . eat . . . or something. We've got a scratch mess set up; my clerk'll direct you. Give me a time to read these orders, then I'll want a complete report, down to each breath you took, and from the others as well. You can have an hour."

  Pitak was waiting for her outside. "Where have you been?"

  Esmay was too tired to smooth it out for her. "Crossing the outside of the ship during the fighting, the jump, and FTL flight. Thanks, by the way, to whoever turned on the repair bay lights. We were having problems up until then."

  Pitak's brows went up. "Well. Somehow I suspect I'm losing you permanently for Hull and Architecture. I'll take you down for what passes for food. Where's the admiral?"

  "In T-1, as far as I know—he was hurt, but alive. The captain was gassed, and maybe dying, when we left."

  "And here we are, hijacked like any fatbellied trader, going someplace we don't know and into trouble we can only imagine. Much good our escorts did us!"

  Esmay found a toilet, then food . . . basic mush, but it was hot and the temporary cook had spiced it with something that gave it an actual flavor. She had expected to feel better after eating, but the warmth in her belly made her sleepy instead; she felt she could sleep standing up, and maybe even walking. It made no sense . . . she woke with her cheek on the table. Major Pitak was a few feet away, talking on the com. Esmay struggled to get her head up as Pitak came back.

  "You need sleep," she said. "I talked to Commander Jarles, and he said what with the jump and all he'll need longer to assess the admiral's orders. You're going down for a half-shift at least."

  Esmay would have argued, but when she pushed herself up, her head swam. Pitak found her an empty space in a nearby corridor, in a row of other sleeping forms, and before she knew it Esmay was asleep on the hard deck. No dreams troubled that sleep, and she woke clearheaded.

  She made her way around the other sleepers, found a working toilet and shower—it was hard to believe that with all the emergencies they still had enough extra water to use for showering, but she needed it. Then she went back to Commander Jarles's office, where she found Commander Bowry dictating his own report of their experiences.

  He grinned at her, but kept talking. "—Then the lights came on, which made it easier to find our way to T-3 and the overhead access . . . whatever those openings are really called . . . Anyway, once back inside the ship, we found normal gravity, and our suit instruments began working again." He turned off the recorder. "Did you fall in a heap, too? I did, and I've just talked to Seska and Frees aboard Wraith—they said they'd barely gotten aboard when they couldn't stay awake. Scared hell out of their crew."

  "Maybe it was being outside the FTL shields," Esmay said.

  "Maybe. Maybe it was having had a long and interesting day. You know, you're really good at this kind of stuff—how'd you get stuck in a DSR, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "That mutiny, probably. I'd guess they didn't want any of those involved where they'd get into similar trouble, and since I ended up commanding, they sent me as far away as possible."

  "Where you promptly found a use for your newly acquired expertise. Yah. They might as well put you back in command track; you're a lightning rod."

  "I was technical track before. Scan."

  "You?" He shook his head. "Your advisor messed up; you're a natural, and I don't say that lightly. Put in for transfer."

  "That's what my boss here said once. Major Pitak, in Hull and Architecture."

  "Believe it."

  She almost did. From someone like this, a seasoned veteran who had observed her . . . maybe it was true, and maybe she was not just lucky, but good at it.

  Commander Jarles came out of his inner office. "Lieutenant Suiza—glad you're here." He sounded much more cordial than the day—was it day?—before. "Hope you're rested, both of you. Captain Seska says he's staying aboard Wraith, but Lt. Commander Frees is coming to liaise with us on a plan to retake the Koskiusko and fight off any attempted boarding. Lieutenant Suiza, Admiral Dossignal seems to have a lot of faith in you."

  Esmay couldn't think what to say—Yes, sir seemed a bit too pushy—but Bowry spoke up.

  "Considering that she sav
ed the captain's life, and later the admiral's, I'd say he had reason."

  "I suppose." He looked down at the files in his hand. "He wanted you to take over all security for T-3 and T-4, and said you had helped develop a plan to trap a Bloodhorde ship. Frankly, with the admiral out of communication, I'm not comfortable putting that much responsibility on a junior officer I don't know very well. I've consulted with Major Pitak, who gives you a favorable review, but I'm not sure."

  "Got a plan yet?" came a voice from the door. That was Frees, whom rest and food had restored to an almost bouncy quality. "Captain Seska sends his regards, and says he's got a guess how long we'll be in FTL flight." He waited a moment for that to sink in, then waved a data cube. "Nothing wrong with Wraith's nav computers, though she couldn't give us any scan data. But from where we were, there are four primary mapped routes that we know—and know the Bloodhorde knows. They're on all the standard references. Two we can pretty much dismiss; they won't go back where they attacked us, because they can figure that our ships will be out there looking for them. In the same way, they won't backjump where you came from, because they don't know if there were more Fleet ships there. But there's Caskadian, which has a direct route into Bloodhorde space at Hawkhead. And Vollander, which is offset to most routes, and a long jump to Bloodhorde space . . . but direct, and a long way from any Fleet pickets."

  "Put it up on the screen," Jarles said. Frees complied, and they stared at the tangle of lines, thicker or thinner with flux values, edged with colors that told which political entities were known to use those routes.

  "Wraith's onboard systems say we went through the first jump point some 43 hours ago. We need someone from Drives and Maneuver to give us the figures on this ship's FTL drive, and then we might know which route we're on, and when we might drop out."

  "How long are they for regular travel?"

  "Caskadian should be about 122 hours, maybe longer given the slow insertion and assuming the same exit. Vollander would be about 236 hours."

  "Long jumps—longer than we made coming in. I'd expect them to go for the short one, with so few of them aboard."

  "Now on the connecting lines—how does this ship handle series jumps?"

  "It doesn't. Or rather, in theory it can, and we did coming out after you, but usually there's a pause of several hours for recalibration between jumps."

  "Besides," Esmay said. "They'll want to get more of their people aboard. The intruders have been working as hard as we have—without relief, and shorthanded."

  "So we've got roughly sixty hours before you think we'll come out of jump, and until then all we have to cope with is the ones aboard."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Captain Seska wants to know how far the repairs on Wraith can get by then," Frees said.

  Commander Jarles shrugged. "We have no access to the main inventory stores—and we can't move anything from SpecMat while we're in FTL. I suppose Major Pitak will know about the structural repairs—" Esmay decided this was no time to tell him that nothing was going to come from SpecMat by the exterior transport system until it was rebuilt.

  "Sixty hours," Bowry said. "Nobody can come in from outside while we're in FTL flight—and surely those Bloodhorde are getting tired by now. There aren't that many—if we can get back in contact with the rest of the ship, we might be able to take control back."

  "And get ready for whatever's waiting when we come out of jump," Esmay said. "If they're jumping to a place where they have a battle group waiting . . . how many ships would that be?"

  "With the Bloodhorde—five or six, probably."

  "A two-part plan," Bowry said. "Get control of this ship, and defeat whatever's waiting for us."

  "For which we need warships," Jarles said. "We can't mount weapons on Koskiusko."

  "Who's here for Weapons?" Esmay asked. "I know Commander Wyche is in T-1."

  "It can't be done," Jarles said firmly.

  Esmay looked at him, then glanced at Bowry. Bowry spoke up.

  "I think, Commander, to make best use of the resources of the 14th, the senior person in each department should assist in our planning."

  For a moment he puffed around the neck, exactly like the frogs Esmay remembered from home. Then he relented. "All right, all right."

  * * *

  When the fourth person started to remind the group that they couldn't do what they usually did, Esmay lost patience.

  "Now that we know what we can't do, it's time to start thinking what we can do. Fifty-eight hours, at this point: what can we do in fifty-eight hours? Thousands of intelligent, inventive, resourceful people, with the inventory we have available, can come up with something."

  "Lieutenant—" began Jarles, but Commander Palas held up his hand.

  "I agree. We don't have time for the negatives. Do any of you know what the senior officers were planning in case of a Bloodhorde assault?"

  Bowry outlined it quickly. "So," he finished, "I'd think that getting a Bloodhorde ship into T-4 would still work. Is there some way to get it . . . sort of stuck, so they can't move it? I think they'd come boiling out, and if they were somehow diverted away from it, some of our people could get in—if it could be unstuck . . ."

  "There's that new adhesive . . ." said someone in back. "Really strong, but depolymerizes in the presence of specific frequencies of sound. We could coat the barriers—"

  "That's what we need to hear. Now we know we don't have that many troops capable of close-contact fighting—someone think of a way to immobilize Bloodhorde troops, who will be wearing EVA battlesuits."

  "So gas won't work," someone muttered. "If we knew the signal characteristics of the suits . . ."

  "What about gluing them down?"

  "Then our people couldn't get to the ship—the stuff stays tacky too long."

  "You'll think of something," Esmay said. "Now—about getting to the rest of the ship—"

  "Once we're out of FTL, we could rig a communications cable back around to T-1 . . ."

  "Once we're out of FTL, the airlocks will work. And we have lots of EVA suits; our people work in vacuum a lot."

  Commander Bowry nodded. "Then to head the team that's going to get Wraith as ready as possible to be put out on the drive test cradle: Major Pitak, because she's Hull and Architecture."

  "I'll need to pull people from—"

  "Go ahead. If there's a conflict, get back to me. Commander Palas, could you head the team that will plan the capture of a Bloodhorde ship, assuming we can get one into T-4."

  "Certainly. May I ask where you'll get your crew?"

  "That was my first assignment from Admiral Dossignal; I'll choose a crew from those who've served aboard warships fairly recently. Lieutenant Suiza, I'd like you for my exec, when the time comes, but in the meantime, I'd like you to work on the assignment Admiral Dossignal gave you: prepare Security here to defend these wings against the intruders. I suspect they'll try to get into T-4 to prepare it for their own ships."

  "Yes, sir." Esmay wondered how she could possibly get ready for both, but having argued against negative thinking, she knew better than to say anything.

  * * *

  Vokrais grinned happily at his pack. Bloodied, bitten, but not defeated, and they had the bridge, its surviving crew demoralized and—at least temporarily—cooperative. The ship had made its jump into FTL without falling apart. The wings were locked off, helpless. Three of them had been reduced, at least largely, to unconscious dreamers and corpses. T-3 and T-4 so far held out; he'd expected more resistance there, but it didn't matter. When they came out of jump in a few hours, the ship pack would be waiting, with enough warriors to manage them. After all, they had no real weapons over there, and they were only mechanics and technicians anyway.

  His people had even gotten some rest; it didn't take the whole pack to subdue these weaklings. Three of them were sleeping now. By making the bridge crew work longer shifts, they'd kept them tired enough that there'd been so sign of rebellion. He stretched, easing his shoul
ders. They had done everything they'd set out to do, done it better than predictions; their commander had not believed they'd be able to get the ship through jump. He was waiting for a message; he'd be delighted to get the whole prize.

  Still, he hated leaving any part of the job undone. He had missed out on four years of raiding; the pack had fewer shipscars than any other of their seniority. They'd paid—paid dearly, in honor and opportunity—for the preparation necessary for this operation. He didn't want to share the glory with anyone. If he could offer his bloodbond the ship entire, he could raise his banner any time he chose, independent command.

  He glanced around. Hoch looked bored; he had tormented the Serrano cub until all the fun was out of it. Three of his remaining pack would be enough to hold the bridge against the unarmed, spineless sheep that now sat the controls.

  Excitement roiled in his gut again. "Let's do it," he said in his own tongue. His pack looked up, eager. Who should stay behind? As he described what they were going to do, he looked at their faces, looking for the slightest hint of weakness, exhaustion, or even worse, contentment.

  First they would unlock the barriers to T-4 . . . with the crippled Wraith in T-3, most of the personnel would be in T-3. Could they repair Wraith in time? He doubted it, but even if they did it could not outfight a whole ship pack. Vokrais considered which deck they should use. According to the ship maps, Deck 17 contained hydroponics and even a few small gardens tucked among the gantry supports. Unlikely anyone would be watching for them up there, and they'd have a good view of the entire repair bay. They could work their way down, using their weapons and gas grenades to subdue anyone in their way, and drive them to a holding area at the base . . . and they had no way out. Not if he opened only the Deck 17 hatch . . . they'd be sure to close it behind them.

  Corporal Jakara Ginese kept her eyes on her screens, obedient and to all appearances as scared as all the rest. She had not indulged in the sidelong glances that got Sergeant Blanders a beating; she had not struggled when one of the Bloodhorde fondled her and told his friends what he planned to do with her later. Above all, she had not revealed, by the slightest change of expression, that she understood everything they said in their own language. While she could do nothing, she did nothing.