Victory Conditions (17 page)

“Romantic, as in chatting up pretty women?” Ser Tallal said. His tone would have peeled paint.

“Romantic as in heroic,” Ky said. “He believes in honor, gallantry, heroism, and style. Whatever you think of his present costume, he has shown himself courageous and able in combat, which is after all the measure of a warrior.”

Tallal looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns. Clearly, nothing was going to change his negative opinion.

“It is said that some of our founders had a Romantic streak,” the Deputy Minister said. “We always considered it something the young grew out of, with experience.”

“The same on Slotter Key,” Ky said. “But on Ransome’s home world, people apparently cycle through extremes of personality, or attitude—I’m not sure which. His parents, he says, are ‘being Irrationalists’ he’s being a Romantic, as is his friend Captain Baskerville. It led them to seek adventure, first against pirates in their own system, and then to venture afar. We met them on Adelaide, where they asked to join us.”

“How very interesting,” said the Deputy Minister as a chime sounded. “But I believe they’re now signaling it is time to go in, and if I recall correctly, the ambassador from your home world—yes, here he is.”

“Admiral Vatta,” Estro Rajani said. “May I take you in?”

“Thank you,” Ky said, with considerable relief. She left the Deputy Minister to sort out the Nexus representative. From her seat far up the table, she saw Rafe being perfectly polite beside Tallal, hardly looking at anyone else, and certainly not at her. He looked, in fact, like the embodiment of a stuffy, somewhat glum senior executive. Probably for the best, she told herself. She herself chatted with Ambassador Rajani about conditions back on Slotter Key and with the Moscoe Confederation Defense Minister on her other side about the education of young officers in both systems.

“They will be sorry not to claim you as a graduate,” the Defense Minister said toward the end of dessert.

“If I’d graduated,” Ky said, “I’d be a very junior officer on a ship somewhere.”

“And we would be lacking your experience,” he said, nodding. “So their loss is our gain.”

CHAPTER

NINE

O
ver the next few days, Ky gathered data on the privateers’ combat history and repairs, and began to organize maintenance and training schedules for them. Every ship needed an ansible installed, and crews needed training in their use. Some also required repairs; others, resupply. Minor repairs and supply ate up the first ten days of
Vanguard
’s refit, but in addition to shepherding the Slotter Key fleet, Ky now had Cascadian ships. Commander Dowitch’s contact at Moray’s Tobados Yards reported that Moray had indeed taken on a contract to build sixty to ninety of their largest design, a contract made two years before.

“It got them out of a depression,” Dowitch reported. “They’re delighted; there was an upfront payment, another a year ago when they were on schedule with the job, and they expect to deliver the first ships in about forty days.”

“How far away is Moray?” Ky asked. “And did you warn them?”

“I let the Minister do that,” Dowitch said. “Government-to-government. But it’s going to be tight, if that is indeed the target. We’re pushing flat-out on your ship, Admiral, but you won’t have time for practice runs. Moray’s a solid twenty-day run.”

“I’ll need to talk to their defense people,” Ky said. “I can warn them what they’re up against, and suggest a few tactical things to make up for what Turek can throw at them.”

“I expect Admiral Trey will help you with that,” Dowitch said. “But what if it’s somewhere else?”

Ky shrugged. “We don’t know of any other large-ship yard that’s gotten an order in the right time frame. Piccolo’s only got one on order and it’s eight months from completion. Defornis doesn’t have anything but light cruisers, and only four of those. I’m betting on Moray, especially as they said the government was Stepparn, and we know they’re anti-humod.”

Time blurred over the next days as she consulted with Moray Defense, Moscoe Defense, the privateer captains, Cascadian captains. She managed only one hurried meal with Stella, in the apartment with Toby and Zori. “Rafe’s gone back to Nexus,” Stella said, halfway through the meal. “Nexus has pulled out, the idiots.”

“I was afraid they would.” Ky ate hungrily; she hadn’t had a regular meal in days, just grabbing a bite whenever she could. “That Nexus ambassador or whatever, Tallal, seemed to think I was a monster.”

“It’s Rafe’s father,” Stella said. “That and our fathers being friends with Lew Parmina. They didn’t know—but the Nexus idiots don’t know they didn’t know.”

Ky put that aside—nothing she could do about another system’s government—and turned to Toby. “I hear you had quite an adventure,” she said.

He glanced sideways at Zori. “It was, kind of.”

“And you, Zori,” Ky said. “You translated all those things I sent—you must be really good at languages.”

She looked at Toby, then down at her plate. “Only because my father is—was—a criminal.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Ky said. “You aren’t.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked, flashing a glance at Stella then looking straight at Ky. “I thought I knew what my parents were, but I didn’t. He was horrible all along, and I didn’t see it.”

Ky had only the bare-bones story from Stella, nothing to suggest the level of distress Zori was showing. Stella gave Ky a look that meant something, but she didn’t know what. Deal with this? Fix this? Then she got up and started clearing the table. When Zori offered to help, Stella told her it wasn’t her turn. Nobody could have missed the obvious signals that left Ky and Zori alone. It was ridiculous. Why would Stella think Ky could help Zori? But she had to try something.

“Tell me,” Ky said. Maybe directness would work. Zori looked at her, eyes already shiny with tears.

“I love Toby,” she started. “But I loved my father once, and now I hate him, and I didn’t understand about my mother.”

Ky tried not to sigh obviously. “Go on,” she said, trying for a voice somewhere between commander and friend.

“I can’t tell Stella. She’s been so good to me. She wants to help me. She thinks she understands because of her—because of Osman—but she doesn’t. It’s not the same. She never loved Osman.”

Stella had misplaced trust, too, Ky thought, but perhaps there was a reason having fallen for the gardener’s son wouldn’t work. She nodded, saying nothing.

“It started—I mean, I realized it started—when I was in the kitchen at O’Keefe’s, the night Toby was taken, and I had fallen on the floor, and there was this little girl…” Tears were flowing now, but Zori’s voice shook only a little. This was a story she’d rehearsed to herself.

Ky knew—everyone knew—that some marriages were unhappy, that some were even violent, but the story Zori told still shocked her. It linked in her mind with the violence done to her class ring; she wondered if Hal would have been that kind of spouse.

“And I ran right to him,” Zori said. “My mother was hurt and I didn’t even see it; I just let him hold me and pet me and feed me cookies…I
liked
being his favorite. And all the time he was hurting her, I believed what he said…believed it was her fault, that I was better—” Her head drooped. “I feel so guilty—I am so guilty—she should never forgive me—”

“Have you talked to her since?” Ky asked. “Do you know she’s angry with you?”

“No. Stella has. I—I can’t. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not,” Ky said. “You were a child…”

“That’s what Stella says, but I’m not a child now and I still didn’t see it.”

“Are you more afraid she’ll hate you, or more afraid she won’t?” Ky asked. She had finally realized that her own fear of telling her parents about her reaction to killing had both components.

Zori looked up, surprised. “I—I don’t know.”

“Stella has her own issues with her mother,” Ky said. “Did she tell you?”

“No…”

“You might ask her sometime. But here’s what I see. You were a child; your father used you against your mother, and you could not possibly have understood that—”

“I’m supposed to be smart,” Zori said, glowering.

“So part of what you’re upset about is that you weren’t as smart as you thought you were?” Ky said.
That
she understood. She herself had been so smug about not making the mistakes “that idiot Stella” made—then she’d missed the cues that her Miznarii protégé was using her and that Hal’s affection was really ambition. She’d hated feeling stupid more than anything.

“I…guess so,” Zori said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I’ve been fooled,” Ky said. “And that was the worst of it for me. Stella and I grew up together, you know, and I always thought I was smarter than she was, even though I was younger. Then I went and fell for a sob story and got myself kicked out of the Academy.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Ky said. “Look—I’m not a therapist, and maybe a therapist would help you more. But I do know it’s not your fault your father fooled you. By what you said, he may have used drugs as well—and possibly programming in your implant—to shape your perceptions. You made the right deduction at the right time, to save Toby, and you’ve now realized what the truth is. See your mother. Talk to her. If she’s hostile, then you have to deal with that. If she’s not…you’ll have a chance to rebuild your relationship. At least she’s not dead.”
Like mine,
she thought but did not say. This was about Zori, not herself.

“The cookie,” Zori said. “I did get sleepy.”

“Yeah. You said that. I’ll bet he used treats more than once. Not a nice man, your father.”

Zori straightened up. “I know she wants to see me. She’s asked Stella. Stella won’t make me…but now…all right.”

Ky reminded herself that adolescents could change moods in moments—she had, Stella had, Toby’d been the same. Then her comunit chimed. “Drat.” She pulled it out. “Zori, I’m sorry. I have to leave.”

“That’s all right—I mean, you’ve helped.” Zori seemed to sparkle with renewed energy.

“Stella—I have to go,” Ky called. Stella and Toby came out of the kitchen.

“Already?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I’ll try to call you later.” Ky noticed that Zori was murmuring something to Toby. Stella glanced that way and gave Ky a finger-flick:
Good.

Ky caught the shuttle over to the yard where the newly installed CCC was ready for calibration runs.
Vanguard
was shrouded in the vast bulk of a repair dock capable of handling a ship twice her size. Riggers were now rebuilding the hull around the inserted CCC; the interior of the ship was mostly aired up, and Ky could enter from the normal hatch.

The ship looked different even on the route from the personnel hatch to the CCC. Ky had known that her former spacious cabin and office would be cut into quarters for more crew, but it felt strange to see hatches where none had been before. Where she had fought Gretna’s intruders along the aft weapons-deck passage, she now faced a bulkhead with a single hatch that looked much thicker than usual.

“Remember I told you the CCC has hull-thick construction,” Dowitch said. “Go on in.”

“Where are the connections to the ship’s systems?” Ky asked.

“Already covered,” Dowitch said. “The breakfrees are on the ship side—I can show you later, if you want.”

Inside, the CCC was every bit as cramped as they’d said and smelled of freshly molded plastics and resins, machine oil, and an acrid bite from soldering just finished. Protective film still covered some of the screens and control boards. It looked too fresh, too clean, but that would not last the first tenday’s use, Ky knew. Soon there would be smudges, stains, the paths humans left behind them wherever they worked and lived.

Ky wove between the lumpy shapes of the armored stations for Scan and Communications and the intrusive bulk of the onboard ansible to the command seat. It looked much like the one on
Vanguard
’s bridge, except the shield that would close her in was opaque, a peculiar blue-gray.

“I thought it would be translucent,” she said.

“It will be,” Dowitch said. “When you turn it on and choose that option. But it will respond to certain kinds of shock by going opaque. Doesn’t matter; you’ll still get the data. What you’re seeing there are the laminae for the displays.” He nodded toward the chair. “Go on—sit in it. I want to calibrate it for your size and weight.”

“Shouldn’t I have my suit on?”

“Yup. Your suit locker’s by the hatch.”

Ky suited up, wondering who had moved her personal suit from her former quarters, then eased into the command seat.

“Let your arms lie naturally on the armrests,” Dowitch said. He touched the controls of a remote; the chair seemed to squirm under Ky, gently lifting, falling, nudging…“How’s that?”

“Very comfortable,” Ky said.

“Setting one,” he said. The seat quit moving. “That’s your default. Now look to the right. Good—and to the left. Now pretend you see something right in front that you want to point out—yes, just that much movement. Now I’m going to unlock it again. Lean back—you’re tired; there’s a break in the battle, and you need to relax, shift, unkink your muscles, but you’re not sleeping—yes.”

Ky leaned back, stretching her legs out a little; the seat moved, supporting her, easing her back.

“I’m going to start the massage function,” he said. “You tell me how much is too much—”

In another five minutes, he had the seat’s support functions set for her.

“Now the displays. I know you’ll practice, but I want to take you through them first. Left hand, thumb knob: that’s your translucency. Right hand, thumb knob, lift and lower the canopy when it’s not automatic. If it won’t open, there’s a reason: don’t fight it.” He waited until she nodded, then went on. “Now: lower the canopy.”

Ky lowered it; in front of her, a dark field, like space itself. She thumbed the left-hand control, and it faded until it was wholly translucent; she could see Dowitch watching her.

“How’s the sound?” he asked. It sounded as if he were inside the shield; she said so. “Good. Your scans can be chosen as the primary data from any of the stations, or as an integrated view of all of them. I’ve put a simulation in the CCC scan units, so we don’t panic Station Security by setting off live scan this close. Scan controls are left hand, communications are right hand. You have armrest controls, but you can also choose point, touch, or gaze direction.”