“After you, Lieutenant Commander.”
4
It was not, at least, the full officer’s dinner that would put all of the destroyer’s twenty-six commissioned officers in one space. As Roslyn made her way to a seat at the long table in the Captain’s mess, she realized it was technically a senior officers’ dinner—everyone there was a department head, which made Roslyn the youngest officer by two years.
A time frame, she noted, that was less than the amount of Academy time she’d lost. Now that Captain Daalman had pointed it out, she’d have to check—but it was quite possible she had more time-in-grade than Lieutenant Commander Jamshed Abiodun, the destroyer’s logistics officer.
She didn’t think that was the case with the other three officers around the table. Lieutenant Commander Nikoleta Franklin, the chief engineer, was the oldest of the ship’s five department heads at thirty. Mage-Lieutenant Commander Eva Lehr, their navigator, was only two years behind her. Lieutenant Commander Ignác Frost, the coms officer, was halfway between Abiodun and Lehr.
“Officers,” Daalman greeted them all. “I apologize for the late notice and I’m glad everyone made it here in time. Mage-Commander Lehr has the watch, which leaves her eating a sandwich on the bridge, but the rest of us get slightly better food than that.
“Steward Washington will be here momentarily with the dinners, and we will refrain from discussion until dessert, but I do have our new orders and wanted to share them with you all.”
That had everyone’s attention and Daalman nodded approvingly.
“Abiodun, you’re going to have your work cut out for you for a few days,” she told the logistics officer. “We are shipping out in seventy-two hours—and the only reason it’s seventy-two and not twenty-four is because Lieutenant Samuels is in a Mars-side hospital.
“Command decided that waiting for us to have our full Jump Mage complement was going to get us to our destination faster,” she continued.
The math made sense to Roslyn. With the Captain, the XO, the three tactical department officers and Lieutenant Commander Lehr, they had six Jump Mages aboard. Each could teleport the starship a full light-year roughly once every eight hours.
With Samuels aboard, they could travel twenty-four light-years a day. Without the sixth Mage, they were jumping twenty times each day. It would extend the time to get to Sorprendidas, on the edge of Protectorate space, from five days to six. Waiting two days to save one made sense, especially when not having that Mage and watch-standing officer would give Huntress’s crew multiple other problems.
“That destination is deep in former Republic space,” Daalman continued. “We are on a standard patrol and show-the-flag run to the Sorprendidas System, where we will relieve the Honor-class destroyer Unrelenting Pursuit of Justice as the system’s primary RMN presence.
“The tour is expected to last three months. Because we have a Link and Unrelenting Pursuit does not, we make a far better tripwire than she does.” Daalman beamed beatifically at her crew. “We will be responsible for assisting the local sublight security forces in providing search-and-rescue and general security in the system, with a limited patrol radius of the standard jump zones around the area.
“Our patrols will be kept to a minimum because our main purpose in Sorprendidas is to be seen,” she noted. “I will hammer this point into you a dozen times before we arrive; and I expect you to hammer it into your subordinates: we will be the single largest symbol of the Protectorate in the system.
“We must be on our best behavior and in our most generous mood. Our job is to remind the people of the benefits and value of Her Majesty’s protection. Any and all opportunities to help or otherwise make a good impression are to be seized immediately.”
“We’re not going to make them love us,” Franklin said grimly. “The Repubs—”
“The Republic no longer exists,” Daalman said sharply. “These people are citizens of the Protectorate of the Mage-Queen of Mars. They have elected Senators and Members of Parliament here in Sol. They are not our enemies and I will not tolerate my senior officers, especially, regarding them as such.
“Or using derogatory nicknames born out of a war that ended over two years ago,” the Captain concluded. “Am I understood, everyone?”
Nods and quiet murmurs answered her.
“I hate to do the parade-ground bullshit,” Daalman told them, “but I did not hear you. I said, is that understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Roslyn joined the other Lieutenant Commanders in chorusing, hiding a grin as she did it.
“The people of the former UnArcana Worlds have a thousand reasons to distrust a destroyer of the Royal Martian Navy,” Daalman told them. “I trust Unrelenting Pursuit’s crew to have ground down some of those fears—and we will continue to grind down those fears, until for every reason they have to distrust us, they have a dozen positive memories of what the RMN has done for them.”
As if to cap off the speech—and quite possibly in response to a concealed signal—the door to the mess slid open and Steward Washington emerged with an assistant and several trays of steaming pasta.
“Dinner is served,” the Steward told them all. “I ask that you refrain from more work discussion until you have at least tasted my cannelloni, please?”
“What do we know about Sorprendidas?” Frost asked as the desserts were brought in and the already-stuffed officers looked at the cheesecake with trepidation.
“Fringe World, settled sixty-two years ago,” Kristofferson replied, the XO clearly having been expecting the question. “Original founding group was a Spanish Catholic diaspora effort. They’re not technically a theocracy, but the planetary Cardinal has always been elected Governor.”
“Does anyone even run against them?” Abiodun asked. “I’ve seen that kind of mess before.”
“Surprisingly, yes,” Kristofferson said. “Like most colonies, Sorprendidas hasn’t stayed as monocultural as it was planned. It’s young enough that the population are still mostly Spanish and Spanish-descended Catholics, but that still leaves a few million people who are neither Spanish-speaking nor Catholic.
“Despite the Cardinal-Governors being
