Conventions of War

THIRTEEN

Martinez was killed the next morning, during Chandra’s maneuver. He was walking off his breakfast with a tour around the deck when Chandra’s voice echoed down the corridor from the speakers at each end. “This is a drill. General quarters. This is a drill. Now general quarters.”

Martinez responded to the call with a brisk walk to his quarters, where Alikhan helped him into his vac suit. If it hadn’t been a drill, he would have headed straight to Command at a dead run and hoped that Alikhan and the vac suit caught up with him later.

When he arrived in Command with his helmet tucked under his arm, the officer of the watch-Mersenne-stepped aside from the captain’s cage and settled himself into his usual place at the engines station. Martinez swung into his couch and called for a status report, all the while looking at his display as the various stations reported themselves ready.

The last symbol flashed, and Martinez reported to Michi thatIllustrious was at quarters. After a modest delay, caused presumably by waiting for other ships to report themselves ready, Chandra’s voice sounded in his earphones. Martinez then passed command of the ship to Kazakov in Auxiliary Command so his crew in Command could devote themselves entirely to the maneuver.

“The experiment assumes that we are six hours into the Osser system,” Chandra reported.

Osser again, Martinez thought. It was almost as if Chandra were repeating his last maneuver, not a good sign if she wanted to impress Squadron Commander Chen.

“Chenforce has entered hot, and we’ve been able to search the system a little more than three light-hours out. No enemy force has been detected. Are there any questions?”

Apparently there were none, because Chandra went on. “The exercise will commence on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

A new system blossomed on the navigation displays.

“My lord,” said Warrant Officer Pan, one of the sensor operators, “we’re being painted by a tracking laser.”

“Where?”

“Dead ahead, more or less. A rather weak signal-I don’t think it’s anywhere near-My lord! Missiles!” Pan’s voice jumped half an octave in pitch.

“Power all point-defense lasers!” Martinez said. “Power antiproton beams!”

But by that point they were all dead, and within seconds Chenforce was a glowing cloud of radioactive parties spreading itself into the cold infinity of space, and Martinez’s heart was thumping to a belated charge of adrenaline.

Naxid missiles, Martinez realized, accelerated to relativistic velocities outside the system, then fired through the wormhole along the route they knew Chenforce had to take. The reflection of a tracking laser fired from somewhere in the system provided last-instant course corrections.

Through his shock he managed a grim laugh. Chandra had impressed the squadcom, all right.

He looked at the recording of the attack, slowing the record at the critical moment. Two of the attacking missiles had been destroyed by the squadron’s automated laser defenses. Only a few of the squadron’s lasers had been powered, because lasers kept powered required greatly increased maintenance and replacement of key components.

Martinez keyed open the channel he shared with the Flag Officer Station. “Request permission to run that exercise again,” he said. “I’d like to begin with the antimissile weapons already powered.”

“Stand by,” said Michi’s aide, Ida Li.

Permission was granted a few moments later. Chenforce began the exercise with all antimissile weapons powered, but it didn’t make a difference. Two more missiles were killed on the way in, but the entire squadron was still vaporized twelve seconds after the exercise began.

Michi’s voice came into Martinez’s earphones. “Let’s give the experiment to the people in Auxiliary Control. I want to see howthey handle it.”

Kazakov and her coequals on the other ships did no better, which gave Martinez small comfort.

“I’ll want all officers in my quarters for dinner at fifteen and one,” Michi ordered. “Captain Martinez, can you improvise an exercise to take up the rest of our time?”

“I’ll try, my lady.” Martinez looked over Command, then said, “Choy, Bevins, please lie down on the deck.”

The two warrant officers looked at each other in surprise, then rose grinning from their seats and sprawled between the cages.

“Comm,” Martinez said. “Page the sick bay and tell them to send stretcher parties to Command. We have two casualties.”

He made the next call himself, to Master Rigger Francis. “Decompression in Compartment Seven. Power is down. Send a party at once to rescue any survivors from the Flag Officer Station, which is not responding to any communication. Because the power is down the hatch and will have to be opened manually.”

He thought it might amuse Michi Chen to be rescued by a damage control party.

The next call went to Master Electrician Strode. “All breakers on Main Bus Two broken due to radiation attack. Send a party to replace all breakers, and in the meantime reroute power through Auxiliary Bus One.”

Which risked blacking out parts of the ship, but Martinez judged the risk worthwhile to find out if Strode was actually good at his job.

“Weaponer Gulik,” Martinez called. “A missile in Tube Three of Battery One is running hot in the tube. The outside hatch is jammed and hot gases have disabled the automatic loader. The missile must be unloaded before the antimatter container is breached.”

And so the morning went, as Martinez devised one catastrophe or another to test the crew. Due to a failure somewhere in the chain of command, the stretcher party turned up without their stretchers, but otherwise the crew behaved very well. Strode did not black out any parts of the ship, and the missile was unloaded by a damage control robot before it could detonate. Other crises were dealt with, and Michi sounded pleased at being rescued-it appeared Francis had sent an exceptionally good-looking rigger to head the damage control team.

An hour before the scheduled dinner, permission was given to Martinez to secure from quarters. He walked to his quarters, was assisted out of his vac suit by Alikhan, and showered to remove the scent of the suit seals.

The damage control exercise had cheered him, but now that he had time to think, he grew somber again, remembering the result of Chandra’s experiment, the shock he’d felt as he watched all Chenforce die. He tried to work out ways to prevent the catastrophe happening in reality, and couldn’t think of much.

The mood at dinner was even more sober. The officers looked as if they’d been beaten flat by hours of high-gravity acceleration.

The meals that had been prepared in the wardroom and in the captain’s and squadcom’s kitchens were combined-casseroles mostly, which could cook quietly away in the ovens while everyone was at quarters. Michi had several bottles of wine opened and shoved them across the table at her guests, as if she expected the company simply to swill them down.

“I should like the tactical officer to comment on this morning’s experiment,” she said.

The tactical officer.Triumph glimmered in Chandra’s long eyes as she rose.

“The attack was something I’d been worried about all along. I know that we were following standard Fleet doctrine for a squadron in enemy territory, but I wondered how useful that doctrine was in reality.” She shrugged. “I guess we found out.”

She turned on the wall display and revealed that in her simulation she’d launched thirty missiles from Arkhan-Dohg, the next system after Osser.

“It was possible to make a reasonable calculation of when we’d enter the Osser system. Since our course would be straight from Wormhole One to Wormhole Two, the missiles’ track was obvious. Our course and acceleration could be checked by wormhole relay stations, and any necessary corrections sent to the missiles en route. All the Naxids would need would be a targeting laser or a radar signal to give the missiles’ own guidance systems last-second course corrections.” She shrugged. “And if our course and speed are very predictable, they won’t need even that.”

“Obviously,” Michi said, “we need to make our course and acceleration less predictable.” She looked at the assembled officers. “My lords, if you have any other suggestions, please offer them now.”

“Keep the antimissile defenses powered at all times,” Husayn said. His voice betrayed a degree of embarrassment. The tactic hadn’t worked well in simulation.

“My lady,” Chandra said, “I had thought we might keep our own targeting lasers sweeping dead ahead and between the squadron and any wormholes. If they pick up anything incoming, we might gain a few extra seconds.”

“Decoys,” Martinez said. “Have a squadron of decoys flying ahead of us. The missiles might target them instead of us, particularly since they’ll have only a few seconds to pick their targets.”

Decoys were missiles that could be fired from the squadron’s ordinary missile tubes, but were configured to give as large a radar signature as a warship. They were less convincing whom as an observer had more time to view them, but with a relativistic missile having only a second or two to decide, that was hardly a problem.

Michi seemed dubious. “How large a cloud of decoys are we going to need?”

Martinez tried to make a mental calculation and failed. “As many as it takes,” he said finally.

Michi turned to Chandra. “I want you to try all these tactics in simulation.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Give me regular reports.”

“Of course, my lady.” Chandra turned to the others. “The danger signal will be entering a system where the radars are still operating, or where we’re painted by a targeting laser from what will probably be a distant source.”

Ever since Chenforce had plunged into enemy space, the Naxids had been turning off all radars and other navigation aids in any system the loyalists had entered, so Chandra was right to say that radar would be a danger signal.

Michi poured a glass of amber wine and contemplated it while she tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “The best way to prevent this kind of attack is to blow up every wormhole station we come across,” she said. “That way they can’t relay course corrections to any incoming missiles. I’d hate to blow those stations; it’s uncivilized. But to preserve my command I’ll kill anything on the enemy side of the line if I have to.”

Martinez thought of the Bai-do ring burning as it fell into the planet’s atmosphere.

Michi reached out a hand and picked up her glass of wine. “Isn’t anyone drinking but me?” she asked.

Martinez poured himself a glass of wine and raised it in silent toast to Chandra. She had just made herself too valuable to be blamed for Fletcher’s death.

Chandra and Martinez finally had their long-postponed dinner the following day. Martinez thought it was probably no longer necessary to Chandra’s plans, but in any case he instructed Alikhan not to leave them alone together for too long.

Chandra entered the dining room looking splendid in her full dress uniform, the silver braid glowing softly on the dark green tunic and trousers. Her auburn hair brushed the tall collar that now bore the red triangular tabs worn by Michi’s staff.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Martinez said.

“Thank you, Captain,” Chandra said. “And my congratulations onyour new appointment as well.” She smiled. “Your luck is surprisingly consistent, you know. People get killed, and you do well out of it.”

A number of replies floated uneasily in Martinez’s mind.Only lately was one of them. The last thing he wanted was to work out exactly how many people had to die in order for him to become captain of theIllustrious.

“Here we are then,” he said. “A couple of suspects.”

“That’s right,” Chandra said, then brightened. “Let’s conspire!”

The conspiracy was low-key. Martinez sat at the head of the table, with Chandra on his right. While Alikhan poured wine and delivered plates of nuts and pickled vegetables, they discussed which cadet could best be promoted to take Chandra’s place. While they spoke, Martinez debated whether to tell Chandra how close she had come to being sacrificed to Michi’s search for a killer, and decided against it.

“How are you faring with the 77-12s?” Chandra asked. “Other than scaring the hell out of the department heads, that is.”

“The revised logs were delivered this morning,” Martinez said. “I’ve been going over them ever since. Some are even complete.”

At least the department heads had learned not to yarn the logs: when they didn’t have the information, they admitted it. “Data pending” was the phrase they’d all decided to put in the blank spaces, probably because it looked better than nothing at all.

“Signaler Nyamugali sent a complete log, didn’t she?” Chandra said.

“Yes.” Martinez smiled. “Your former division did well.” He signaled to Alikhan for the first course. “Of course I’ll still have to check the log to confirm it hasn’t been yarned.”

“You won’t find any mistakes,” Chandra said. “I kept the signalers on their toes.”

“Nyamugali had an easier job than most of the others. Francis is going to have to account for every air pump, ventilation fan, and heat exchange system on the ship.”

Chandra was skeptical. “You’re feeling sorry for them now?”

“No, not very.”

Alikhan arrived with a warm, creamy pumpkin soup, fragrant with the scent of cinnamon. Chandra tasted it and said, “Your cook has it all over the wardroom chef, good as he is.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.”

“That was one of the small compensations of being with Fletcher,” Chandra said. “He’d always give me a good meal before boring me to death.”

Martinez considered this as he sampled the soup, and decided that Chandra could at least pretend to be a little more stricken by the death of an ex-lover.

“What did he bore you with?” Martinez asked.

“Other than the sex, you mean?” When Martinez didn’t smile at her joke, she shrugged and went on. “He talked about everything, really. The food we were eating, the wine we were drinking, the exciting personnel reports he’d signed that day. He talked about his art. He had a way of making everything dull.” A mischievous light came into her eyes. “What did you think of what he had hanging in his sleeping cabin? Did it give you sweet dreams?”

“I got rid of it,” Martinez said. “Jukes found some less depressing stuff.” He looked at her. “Why did Fletcher have Narayanguru there? What did he get out of it?”

Chandra gave an elaborate sigh. “You’re not going to make me repeat his theories, are you?”

“Why not?”

“Well,” she said, “he said that if he ever joined any cult, it would be the Narayanists, because they were the only cult that was truly civilized.”

“How so?”

“Let me try to remember. I was trying not to listen by that point.” She pursed her full lips. “I think it was because the Narayanists recognized that all life was suffering. They say that the only real things were perfect and beautiful and eternal and outside our world, and that we could get closer to these real things by contemplating beautiful objects in this world.”

“Suffering,” Martinez repeated. “Gomberg Fletcher, who was filthy rich and born into most privileged caste of Peers, believed that life was suffering. Thathis life was suffering.”

Chandra shook her head. “I didn’t understand that part either. If he ever suffered, he didn’t do it when I was looking.” A curl of disdain touched her lip. “Of course, he felt he was more refined than the rest of us, so he probably thought his suffering was so elevated that the rest of us didn’t understand it.”

“I can see why the Shaa killed Narayanguru, anyway,” Martinez said. “If you maintain that there’s another world, which you can’t prove exists, where things are somehow better and more real thanthis world, which wecan prove exists, you’re going to run afoul of the Praxis for sure, and the Legion of Diligence is going to have you hanging off a tree before you can spit.”

“Oh, there was more to it than the invisible world business. Miracles and so on. The dead tree that Narayanguru was hung on was supposed to have burst into flower after they took him down.”

“I can see where the Legion of Diligence would take a dim view of those stories too.”

That night, sitting on his bed while he drank his cocoa and looked at the picture of the woman, her child, and the cat, Martinez thought about Fletcher sitting in the same place, contemplating the ghastly figure of Narayanguru and thinking about human suffering. He wondered what Fletcher, a prominent member of two of the hundred most prominent Terran families in the empire, had ever suffered, and what comfort he received by looking at the bloody figure strung on the tree.

Dr. Xi had said Fletcher found his position a burden, that he worked dutifully to fulfill what was expected of him. He wasn’t an arrogant snob, according to Xi, he was just playing thepart of an arrogant snob.

Fletcher had been empty, Martinez thought, filling his hours with formal ritual and aesthetic pleasure. He hadn’t created anything; he hadn’t ever made a statue or a painting, he just collected them. He hadn’t done anything new or original with his command, he’d just polished his ship’s personnel and routines the same way he might polish a newly acquired silver figurine.

Yet he had suffered, apparently. Perhaps he had known all along how hollow his life had become.

Fletcher had sat where he was now sitting, and contemplated objects that other people considered holy.

Martinez decided he wasn’t going to figure Fletcher out tonight. He put the cocoa aside, brushed his teeth, and rolled beneath the covers.