Honor Among Enemies

'Crew efficiency, Ma'am,' Tschu said. 'Specifically, Engineering efficiency. We're still not cutting the mustard down there.'

'I see.' Honor cocked her chair back and played with a stylus. Their 'convoy' was just over a month out of New Berlin and due to reach Sachsen in another week, and the lengthy cruise had given her enough time to get a feel for her crew. She really didn't need Tschu to tell her that his department's efficiency remained marginal. Of course, his wasn't the only one which still had problems, just the one with the biggest gap between target levels and reality. She was relieved that he'd brought it up, however. She'd been willing to let Cardones give Tschu time to try to straighten out the kinks on his own, but she'd also been curious to see how the engineer would respond to the lack of official pressure from above. Some officers would have tried to pretend there wasn't a problem until his exec or CO called him on the carpet, and it was good to know Tschu didn't work that way.

'Do you know why you aren't?' she asked after a moment, and Tschu rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair.

'I think so, Ma'am. The problem is what I do about it.'

'Explain to me, Commander,' Honor invited, and he frowned.

'Basically, it's a matter of who's got the seniority,' he began, then paused and drew a deep breath. 'Before I go on, Ma'am, please understand that I'm not making excuses. If you have any advice or suggestions, I'll be delighted to hear them, but I know whose responsibility Engineering is.' He met Honor’s eyes levelly until she nodded, then went on.

'Having said that, I think I do need some advice. This is the first time I've actually run a department, and there are a couple of changes I want to try, but I don't feel comfortable about making them without running them by you first. And if I do make them, I'm afraid it'll mean stepping quite a ways outside normal procedures.'

Honor nodded again. Nimitz was too preoccupied with Samantha for Honor to sample the engineer's emotions, but she didn't need her link to the 'cat to recognize his frankness. Like many of her officers, he was young for his rank, and, as he'd said, this was the first time he'd held full responsibility for running his own department. He clearly felt his inexperience, and she suspected that what he really wanted was for her to tell him that whatever he had in mind was an acceptable answer, not for her to reach out and solve his problems for him herself.

'All right,' he said in a more normal tone. 'Like all our departments, I've got a lot of newbies, and the ship's sheer size exacerbates the problem. With Fusion One tucked away at the center of the hull and Fusion Two still in its original position, it takes me almost fifteen minutes just to get from one power plant to the other, and both of them are an awful long way from Main Hyper, the impeller rooms, and Damage Control Central. For the first few weeks, I was spending way too much time trying to shuttle back and forth between widely dispersed work sections, and my assistants were taking their cue from me. I'm pretty sure a big part of that was the fact that I know how new most of my people are, and I wanted to be available to them if a problem came up. Unfortunately, all I was really accomplishing was to try to be in too many places at once. I was a moving target, and when trouble did crop up, I was almost always in the wrong place.'

He shrugged and rubbed one eyebrow with a wry smile.

'That part of it's being taken care of. I've had extra com links run to Fusion One, and we've built complete repeaters of the master control panels from Fusion Two and Hyper in One, as well. That should let me monitor them directly and give me face-to-face capability with every station simultaneously, if I need it.'

Honor nodded once more. She'd known Tschu was making modifications, but she hadn't realized they were as extensive as he seemed to be suggesting. She approved, however, and she made another mental check mark by the engineer's name. People who dug right in to solve problems instead of standing around wringing their hands were unfortunately rare.

'My biggest current problem is that I'm not seeing the increased efficiency I anticipated from the new arrangements. Part of it's to be expected, with so many newbies still learning their jobs, I suppose, and it's taking longer to get all the classroom crap out of their brains because we're so thin on experienced people to serve as mentors. But part of it's the nature of those 'experienced' people, too. Frankly, I've got some really bad apples down there, Ma'am.'

Honor let her chair swing upright once more and folded her hands on the table. So far, thanks, no doubt, to Sally MacBride, Wayfarer had experienced few of the discipline problems Honor had half- expected. The Bosun wasn't the sort to put up with any nonsense, and Honor was reasonably confident she'd settled a few personnel problems with direct intervention of the sort Regs didn't envision. As Wayfarers captain, Honor could live with that, but it sounded as if Tschu had problems of his own. And, she thought guiltily, she was the one who'd deliberately handed Wayfarer's officers more than their fair share of potential troublemakers.

'I've got about a dozen genuine hard cases,' Tschu said. 'Two of them are particular problems. They've got the training and experience for their jobs, but they're troublemakers, pure and simple. They sit around on their butts if someone doesn't stay on top of them every moment, and they pressure the newbies to do the same. I can't bust them, because there's no place to bust them to, they're already at the bottom of the heap.'

'Do you want them removed?' Honor asked quietly.

'Ma'am, there's nothing I'd like better,' Tschu said frankly, 'but I think it would be the wrong move. What I've got to do is get them off their butts and keep them there, and make sure everyone knows I did it.'

'I see.' Honor nodded in agreement, pleased by Tschu's response.

'The problem is that some of my senior petty officers aren't getting the job done. My problem children are careful not try any crap whenever an officer's around, but the watch logs tell me they're giving plenty of trouble when we're not there. The worst problem's Impeller One, the drive room chief on first watch doesn't have the guts to face the troublemakers down without commissioned support, but the situations almost as bad on third watch.' The engineer paused, then shook his head. 'In a way, I understand why the chiefs in question are running scared,' he admitted. 'Engineering can be a dangerous place, and to be perfectly honest, I think at least the two I've already mentioned are capable of arranging 'accidents' for someone who ticks them off.'

'Anyone who arranges an 'accident' in my ship will wish to heaven he or she had never been born,' Honor said grimly.

'I know, and you'll only get them after I'm through with them,' Tschu said. 'But until they actually try something, all I can do is warn them, and I don't think they really believe me. Worse, the two senior chiefs who seem to be caving in don't think they believe it, either.'

'So what do you want to do about them?'

'Well, Ma'am...' Tschu glanced at Cardones, who nodded, then drew a deep breath. 'What I want to do, Ma'am, is relieve both senior chiefs I've mentioned. I'll find some crap assignment for them, one that will both keep them out of other people’s hair and make it clear to their people that they've been removed for lack of performance. But I'm already one senior chief short of establishment. If I boot them, I'll have to replace 'em with someone with the guts to do the job, and I'm fresh out of people with the seniority and attitude for it.'

'I see,' Honor repeated, and her mind flickered over options. Given the rush with which her ships had been manned, they were stretched tight for personnel, and Tschu was right about his lack of senior petty officers. Nor did anyone else have equivalent personnel to spare the engineer.

'What about Harkness?' she asked Cardones after a moment.

'I thought about him, Ma'am. One thing I know for sure is that he wouldn't take any crap off anyone, and only a lunatic would push him. The problem is that Scotty needs him. He may technically be a missile tech, but he's also the best small-craft flight engineer we've got. He's not only keeping the pinnaces on-line, but spending a lot of his time on loan to the LAC squadrons, as well. If we pull him from Flight Ops, we're going to leave an awful big hole in that department.'

'Point taken,' Honor murmured, and looked back at Tschu. 'I assume, Harry, that since you're making this proposal you have candidates of your own in mind?'

'Yes, Ma'am, but none of them have the seniority for the jobs. That's my problem. CPO Riley's already holding down a chief of the watch's slot in Damage Control Central, and I figure I can bump him to senior chief and give him Impeller One on third watch. But that still leaves me needing someone for first watch, which is the real hot spot, plus a replacement for Riley in DCC. I've got two people in mind, but they're