But bet they wouldn’t use nukes, not if they wanted to board and take the second chief navigator for themselves. They’d use inerts: simple mag-fired rifle balls, in effect—hoping to cripple Corinthian’s jump-capacity; and they’d have to launch those after they’d picked up the wavefront of Corinthian’s arrival.
“Nav.”
“Sir.”
“Are you comfortable with what you have, with data?”
“Yes, sir, more than adequate. “
He keyed up the alternatives. Found the one he wanted. The supply dump. “Nav, receive my send. How close can you put us?”
“Sir. May I talk privately?”
“Come ahead.”
Capella left her chair, came and leaned an elbow against his console. “Sir,” Capella said. “If you want honestly to leave it to me, give me leave to dump at any point, I’ll guarantee you best of two alternatives.”
“What two?”
“We find this sumbitch far enough out we can make that dump or close enough in we take my bet and skip through to Viking. We can dump down. Swear to you.”
You looked in Capella’s eyes when she was off duty, you learned nothing. You looked there now and you got the coldest, clearest stare.
“I believe you, second chief navigator. Are you saying leave that choice to you? My priorities involve the economics of this ship. Involve keeping a contract, with entities I believe you represent. Can you set us next our target, if our problem isn’t within, say, three hours light? Can you assure me… we can stay emissions-neutral?”
“Hell of an accuracy, sir.”
“Can you do it?”
Capella when that grin cut loose was the devil. The very devil. You didn’t know.
“Maybe.”
“I’d suggest you figure it, second chief navigator.”
“You are one son of a bitch, captain, sir.”
“Yeah. I am. How good are you?”
“Damn good.”
“Then do it.”
“Yes, sir. “
Never a way in hell he could have gotten that berth within the Fleet—point of fact, there hadn’t been a way in hell he’d have wanted one, in his adult life, when they were losing ships faster than they could reckon what they’d lost, and attitudes inside the Fleet were responsible for that trend. He could still name a couple of the captains he’d have shot as soon as deal with, and the feeling was still, he was sure, entirely mutual.
He’d never truly known where Capella fit in that mosaic, until just now that he’d nudged Capella into action: Don’t question me, second chief, just obey the order. And that straight look and that ‘sir’ out of their nameless navigator…
Satisfying, that he could get ‘sir’ out of this woman, who’d had the career that had slipped away before he was old enough to chase it, in any sense that the War could be won or that there was time left to reconstitute the old order. He’d seen nothing past the impending debacle, once upon the omniscience of his youth, seen nothing worth obeying or believing, fool that he’d been; and now his son was staring into another Götterdämerung, nothing of fire and fury, just a niggling increase of regulations—he could see that from where he sat, watching anachronism on her way to the navigation console.
He’d had his moral victory, maybe, maybe could slip out of this mess… maybe escape all the rest of the little regulation-generated disasters, so long as he lived, on a ship that had thrown in its lot with what was changing. Little ships couldn’t get the profit margin, with the new regulations, couldn’t keep ahead of the Family ships and the state-sponsored combines.
So what did a small-hauler do, but go on serving the ports they could, getting cargo where they could, even doing what obliged them to take personnel the Fleet dictated they take?
No way to refuse the honor, of course, no objection possible, and no assurance the divisions inside the Fleet weren’t going to play out one day on their own deck, for interests a mere merchant captain didn’t guess, and against opposition said captain might not find out about until it was too late.
Unless, say, the second chief navigator saw it, too, saw the same wall coming, and the same Götterdämerung.
Yes, sir, that word was, and he watched her settle in, all business, listened to her, on A-band, engage Beatrice, and tell Beatrice she’d have certain data, and she should trust it blindly, no matter how extreme it seemed.