defiance at Second Magaria, and she was surprised only at Tork’s moderation. He hadn’t ordered her throat cut; he hadn’t issued so much as a reprimand. She decided this was a measure of how weak Tork felt his own position to be.
If there was one thing she understood, it was the calculations of survival. Tork had killed forty or so enemy ships while losing forty ships of his own. Chenforce had killed nearly forty and lost only four.
Were the facts made available, Tork’s ability would be called into question. In order to justify his Golden Orb and his new permanent rank, the inconvenient data had to be suppressed.
The only surprise was the ingenuity of Tork’s response. He was a more subtle manipulator of the machinery of the Fleet than she’d thought.
After viewing his message, Sula took advantage of the break in deceleration to shower. As the water hammered her sore, gravity-torn muscles, and as the tiny metal-walled shower cabinet filled with the sandalwood scent of the translucent soap, she considered her future.
She had captain’s rank, and captain was higher than she had ever expected to rise. She had her medals. She had a modest fortune.
She didn’t have an army any longer. And very soon she would not have a ship.
She possessed fame, but didn’t particularly want it. Increased fame could lead to increased scrutiny, and someone with her past couldn’t afford that. Perhaps a few years in an obscure posting would be the safest alternative.
On the whole, she had little to complain about.
She had defied Lord Tork not out of a desire for glory, but out of pride. Her accomplishments were genuine. Her pride had not been compromised. Her pride was still alive. Tork could do nothing to take it away.
She had done well enough out of the war.
Then she paused in her scrubbing, thought of Martinez, and smiled. He was not the sort of person who would take Tork’s orders quietly.
He must be going crazy.
“You may not say that we won. You may not say that we destroyed the enemy at a ratio of ten to one. You may not say that we deployed superior tactics, or that any superior tactics even exist. These facts are to be forgotten until Pezzini’s report is released—ifit’s ever released. And you must tell your crew that they may not speak of these things either. We don’t want any of them to get in trouble.”
Martinez looked at his officers and saw their surprise at his vehemence. He forced a smile.
“I want to assure you that the Supreme Commander is very serious about this. The Investigative Service will look into anyone found to be careless with this information.” He gave them all a solemn look. “Careers may be at stake. I don’t want to jeopardize any of your advancement through my failure to emphasize the absolute nature of Lord Tork’s orders.”
He picked up his fork. “Now that I’ve got these unpleasant preliminaries out of the way, let’s enjoy our meal. I believe that Perry has done something brilliant with this tenderloin.”
The others ate thoughtfully as they sat beneath the murals of roistering ancients. Martinez had given them plenty to think about.
And to talk about. He knew there was no better advertisement for a subject than forbidding it to be mentioned. Lord Tork’s orders—at least as interpreted by him—would naturally offend the pride of every member of Chenforce. WhenIllustrious andCourage discharged their crews, and officers and enlisted made their way to new postings, they would take their offended pride with them.
It was ridiculous to command them not to talk about their accomplishments. They would talk in wardrooms over dinner, in drawing rooms over cocktails, and drunkenly in bars. They would boast of their time with Chenforce, of their service under Michi Chen and Martinez, of their own prowess.
They would not let the memory of Chenforce die.
Martinez had also made a point of giving his lecture while the servants were still putting plates on the tables, thus ensuring that the enlisted would also carry their full measure of indignation throughout the Fleet.
There were certain things that Tork could not do. He could not put a number of Peers of the empire under surveillance to make sure they weren’t speaking of their wartime experience, nor punish them when they did. He couldn’t follow the hundreds of enlisted as they moved through the expanded Fleet, or prosecute them en masse, or even discharge them. They too would carry the legend of Chenforce wherever they went.
Sometimes, Martinez reflected, the best way to sabotage a superior was to follow his orders in the most perfectly literal way.
Martinez’s dinner with his officers was the first of several social events after the long, brutal deceleration finally ended, with Chenforce diving through the rings of a gas giant gorgeous with velvet-soft clouds of purple and green, then shaping a new course at a far more moderate deceleration.Illustrious andConfidence wouldn’t have to part from the rest of Chenforce for three more days, and during that time there was constant visitation back and forth. Michi played host to a reception for the captains during which, through heroic effort, Martinez and Sula managed not to exchange a single word. Sula invited Michi to a dinner in her honor, and since Martinez hadn’t been invited to accompany, he in turn invited his former captains from Squadron 31. He gave them much the same speech he had given his lieutenants, and with much the same effect.
The final day, Michi gave a farewell dinner for the captains of Cruiser Squadron 9, in which she thanked them for their loyalty, their courage, and their friendship, and raised a glass to their next meeting. Martinez, who sat at the far end of the table quivering with the barely suppressed impulse to deliver another tirade on the subject of Tork’s order, thought he saw a tear glimmering in her eye.
IllustriousandConfidence set a new course and began their acceleration toward Naxas Wormhole 1 en route to Magaria and Zanshaa. Martinez braced for the inevitable, which came two days later when Michi invited him and Sula to supper.
Michi and Martinez met Sula at the airlock, where a guard of honor rendered the proper formalities as Sula stepped ontoIllustrious . She wore full dress, the dark green of the tunic a subdued reflection of the emerald green of her eyes. The sight took Martinez’s breath away.
Sula faced the squadcom and braced; Michi shook her hand and welcomed her aboard. A tall, bushy-haired orderly hovered behind her right shoulder, a young man Martinez would have been inclined to dismiss if it weren’t for the ribbon of the Medal of Valor on his breast. He was taken off to be a guest of the petty officers’ mess, and Martinez and Sula followed Michi up a companionway to her quarters.
“Interesting decor,” Sula said, eyeing one of the trompe l’oeil archways in the corridor.
“All installed by Captain Fletcher,” Martinez said. “The artist is still aboard.”
He figured she wouldn’t rip his head off if he stuck to the facts.
“That was a Vigo vase in that still life,” Sula remarked.
Michi glanced over her shoulder. “Are you interested in porcelain, Lady Sula?”
Which led to a discourse that took them to the dining room and into the first cocktail. Sula had a mixture of fruit juices, and the others Kyowan and Spacey. Martinez, standing with tingling tongue and feigned nonchalance by the drinks cart, felt Sula’s clinical glance burn like ice on his skin.
Michi turned to Sula. “Lady Sula, I was wondering if I could review the moment in the battle when you moved your squadron to engage the enemy heavies. I have some questions about how you knew which of the enemy to choose as your particular target.”
Sula explained. Illustration would make the explanation more comprehensible, so the party moved to Michi’s office, where they could use the holographic display built into her desk. The tension drawn between Martinez and Sula began to ebb as they reexperienced the fantastic degree of coordination they had felt in the battle, the balance of movement and fire, subtlety and force. Sula’s pale skin glowed. Her eyes danced. She looked at him and smiled. Martinez returned the gaze and found that his laughter matched hers.
The party moved back to the dining room and continued the battle while plates, bottles, and napkins were deployed on the table like ships of war. Michi and Martinez described the Battle of Protipanu, and Martinez talked about Hone-bar. Diagrams were drawn in gravy. Sula recounted her adventures on the ground in Zanshaa.
“Weren’t you afraid of dealing with the cliquemen?” Michi asked.
Sula seemed to calculate her answer for a half second or so. “Not really. I’d known people like them on
