Defender

30

As soon as the door closed, Sampson filled the silence. “Yes, my ship has problems. All new ships do, and this is a new class and a new design that not even headquarters can figure out what to do with. Besides, my crew is sloven and needed additional training before we sailed. What happened today was not my fault.”

“Wrong answer,” Kris said. “General Trouble taught me from the start that when the question is raised about a command’s failures, the only answer for the CO is ‘Mine, sir.’”

Sampson’s eyes fell to the table. “We can’t all be legends.”

Kris pulled the flimsies that Nelly had printed out and tossed them across the table to Sampson.

“Are these the availability reports from the USS Constellation for the last week?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” came in full evasion.

“Is that your signature at the bottom of each of them?”

“It might be. I’ve got a cute ship’s lieutenant who can sign my name better than I can.”

Kris liked this woman less and less.

“In the exercise today, your ship was able to operate just forty percent of your main battery, and your reloads were few to nonexistent.”

“I told you. My crew needs more training. They’re the dregs of the brigs. You think the best would come out here, face a helpless fight with one of them damn Longknifes who never knows when to call it off but can run away herself just fine?”

Kris knew the tactic. Sampson couldn’t face her on the facts, so she was changing the subject. Throwing all kinds of dirt and mud Kris’s way.

Kris stayed on subject and bored in. “Your reactors spent most of the exercise redlined. One went off-line entirely. You were at risk of a major engineering casualty, one that threatened your entire ship, yet you did not inform me of your problems or ask to drop out of formation.”

“There’s no way you can know that,” Sampson snapped, then switched gears in mid defense. “And whoever told you that is lying through their teeth. I have the reports that show my engineering was performing at 4.0.”

“Lieutenant Commander, I was personally monitoring the Connie’s engineering performance. It was because of my own assessment of the risks you were taking to cover up your failed performance that I gave the Connie specific and separate acceleration orders from the rest of the squadron.”

Kris had had enough of this.

“Lieutenant Commander, your squadron commander has lost confidence in you and your ability to perform your duties as captain of the USS Constellation. You are relieved of your command and will be reassigned to the shipyard. Clearly, Mr. Benson has more than enough work to keep all his personnel busy.”

Sampson shot to her feet. She glowered down at Kris. “You can’t relieve me of my command. The Navy gave me that ship, and only the Navy can take it away from me.”

“The Navy also gave me command of this squadron,” Kris snapped. “You stand relieved.”

“You’re no squadron commander. Just because your grandfather lets you hold down a desk doesn’t make you anything.”

“That great-grandfather is your king,” Kris pointed out through clenched teeth.

“Who as soon as he got wind of the rumor that his old lady was alive yelled for us to drop everything and parade across the galaxy so he could sniff at her skirts.”

Kris was appalled. “That woman you’re talking about is the former commander of BatCruRon 16 and the retired leader of this colony. Since when does the Navy leave anyone behind? You know they’re alive, you get them. Even if you have to cross a galaxy,” Kris said, thinking of her own debt to Phil Taussig and the Hornet.

The woman towering over Kris paused for a moment. Was she finally hearing her own words? If she did, it didn’t seem to matter. She shook her head.

“You’re not relieving me of command for any of that. You’re relieving me because a lot of my crew came whining to you that I won’t let them sleep around like the rest of the skippers do. I know. Officers, enlisted, they’re all merging their single rooms and fornicating. I won’t let that happen on my ship. I keep my crew in proper bunkrooms so we can keep our armor up. The rest of them may think they’ll have time to armor up when the enemy shows up. I keep my ship combat ready at Condition Baker all the time. No love boat mine.”

Kris refused to be led down that rabbit hole. Doggedly she went back to the facts. “I am relieving you strictly for your lack of performance today, Lieutenant Commander.”

For a moment Sampson continued to scowl down at Kris. Then she spat. “You arrogant, self-serving bastard. You don’t know what a Navy tradition is. How dare you lecture me on respect for them, you upstart! You’re the one who’s going to turn my Navy’s ships into whorehouses and your officers into whores and pimps.”

Here was a blatant challenge to Kris. To Kris, her entire command, and, very likely, the king whose orders she obeyed.

With slow, cold deliberation, Kris rose to her feet. For the first time in her life, she found her full six feet coming to good use. Now she stared down at Sampson.

Sampson looked up at Kris and seemed to shrink even before Kris said, “You will brace yourself, miss, and you will keep your mouth shut except to answer ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘no, ma’am.’ Do you understand?”

Rage flamed in Sampson’s eyes. She wanted to do anything but follow Kris’s orders. Still, Sampson had worn the uniform so long that she could not but come slowly to attention.

“If you say anything again like what you just did, I will forget my intentions of relieving you for loss of confidence. I will have you up on charges for actions unbecoming an officer and actions prejudicial to the service, if not worse. We will let a court-martial get to the bottom of exactly how reports with your signatures claiming full battle readiness left your ship, it being in a battle zone and on standby for battle at any time. I will see you cashiered from this Navy.”

That was too much for Sampson. “You may think you can prance around in this little fiefdom of yours, Longknife, doing anything a spoiled rich brat may want. But no real Navy court of officers will find me guilty of anything but doing the best anyone could at an impossible job. I told everyone we needed three more months to get the Connie ready for space, but that king of yours gets word his old lady is here, and we’re ordered to space in a week. I’ll get my command back the second we get back in human space,” she said, glaring at Kris.

“That was not a ‘yes, ma’am’ or a ‘no, ma’am.’ But I’ll answer it. There are no ships headed back for human space. All of us had better start planning on being here for the next five, ten years. Assuming we don’t lose the next battle with these bastards and just die.

“Maybe you weren’t listening or failed to get the message. We are all here for the duration. And here, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. As of right this second, you are out of a job. You can apply your competency with ships and their gear—your fitness reports say you have some—or you can resign your commission and drop down to the planet and look for a job. Have you cut and gutted fish? Spread manure over fields? Those jobs have openings.”

Kris let that sink in. It looked like Sampson might have actually heard some of it. “Now, get out of my sight.”

The Navy officer did a perfect about-face, but halfway to the door, she stumbled and had to make a grab for a chair. With each step she took toward the door, she seemed to deflate like a balloon.

Once the door closed behind her, Kris settled down into her chair. Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry. She felt like she’d spent an hour with puggle sticks in OCS.

Abby knocked on the door from Kris’s night cabin, entered before Kris replied, and offered her a glass of water.

“I’d make it stronger, but we aren’t on the Wasp.”

“Water’s just fine,” Kris said. She drank it down and handed the glass back to her maid. She found herself rubbing at the tension in her scalp.

“Why was that meeting just about the hardest I’ve ever had?”

“’Cause you can’t kill the SOB,” Abby said. “Seeing them that deserves it dead at your feet kind of feels good. This civilization thing is overrated.”

“And you are way too bloodthirsty for a maid.”

“And you’re alive because of it two or three times.”

“All too true. You hear anything about someplace we might wrestle up some chow?”

“Sorry, baby ducks, but all my back channels are with the colonials, and they’re at the end of their rope. I hear whispers that Ada was kind of worried that next year they might have to start doing that egg-examination thing.”

“Ouch,” said Kris. “I guess we got here just in time.”

“Sounds like it.”

Kris stood. “Two meetings down, two more to go. Check with Amanda and Penny. Tell them I’d like to have them at the meeting with the business folks. Penny can bring Masao if she wants.”

“You’re meeting with them is in forty-five minutes.”

“So I better get this next one over fast,” Kris said, and headed for the wardroom.