Raeder whistled when the Dauntless came close enough for visual observation. It was one thing to hear "heavy damage"; it was another to see a capital ship that looked like a Speed back in from a close encounter of the hostile kind. Whole sections of hull were showing bare down into the frames with the plating peeled off . . . and the plating was an important structural member itself. It was a wonder the whole thing hadn't folded like an accordion when they tried to use the main engines. He could look inside and see crew quarters and machinery spaces, as if it were a model or computer simulation. Other sections showed the characteristic star-shaped craters and blast patterns of directed-charge nuclear warheads, or the blobby melted look of plasma bursts, or the long sword-slash mark of heavy lasers. The engines cut out as he was on approach, and he could see the ragged look of the exhaust cones, and the way bits and pieces were still breaking away and slowly spinning off into space, glittering and tumbling.
He whistled again, or tried to. His mouth was uncomfortably dry; the ship could blow at any minute. Which would be a huge disappointment. Not to mention ruining my day. His whole life, actually. There was no rational reason to be frightened, no more than in any dangerous situationif the antimatter went, he wouldn't even have time to know he was going to die. His subconscious still tried to retract certain vital organs at the thought of being near an explosion of that size.
He stared at the nearing ship, amazed not so much by the extent of the damage but by the sheer, astounding luck that had kept her moving. If any of five major hits that she'd taken had landed a meter one way or another she wouldn't be here. And if we don't take care of that little containment problem, she sure won't be here long.
He steered the lifeboat toward the open flight deck doors and realized that landing here wasn't going to be easy. The door itself had been blasted in, the thick metal bent and torn like a cheap toy or vaporized and refrozen in lacy patterns like giant alloy snowflakes. Close-range hit with a plasma cannon burst. From what he could see the deck itself had been breached. Great, that's going to make landing a joy. Fortunately he'd brought an emergency with him, so he'd be able to move around out there.
Raeder cut power to the engines, more or less parking the boat, and went to put on his suit. It was violent orange and very basic. Even so, when fully activated it'd keep him alive for a week or more in hard vacuum. May I never need to rely on it for that, Peter prayed fervently. He changed quickly, catheter and all, and sealed the helmet carefully before returning to the pilot's seat. Another of the many occasions I thank God I was born male.
Both the Dauntless and his little craft had drifted, and Peter found himself closer and a little further down the ship from where he'd been. He looked speculatively at the enormous hole before him. Nah, he told himself. My best bet is to go for Main Deck. Everything around any of these breaches will be sealed off. But if the inner doors are all right, then I should be able to get to where I want from Main Deck. The containment area was one deck below and easily accessible by elevator. If they weren't running, then he'd be able to use one of the emergency ladders.
He twiddled his fingers in the air over the control keypad like a pianist about to play. Suddenly there was a high, whining sound. The lifeboat began to tumble . . . very, very slowly, with a wobble, around its long axis. Raeder looked incredulously down at the main screen. A small gyro-shaped icon was flashing red in the upper left corner.
He felt his mind go blank. How do you steer a ship without gyros? he thought. The answer was appallingly plain; you used the attitude thrusters to balance the main drive as well as pointing the nose on the vector you wanted . . . and the two were contradictory.
He swallowed dryly. "Oh, well. Virtuosos R Us."
His fingers tapped delicately at the keys. Attitude jets made their shrill yips. One eye kept skipping across their fuel supply, which was low and going down. Lifeboats didn't have anything elaborate, like plasma conduits from the main drive; they just used compressed gas. A very limited supply of compressed gas, which he was using extravagantly as the little craft bucked and yawed and threatened to tumble as it drifted in surges toward the Main Deck doors. Coriolis force surged at his inner ear, convincing his stomach that it was on a small sailboat on a very stormy sea. And using the thrusters like this made it very difficult to keep directional control. . . . Which he discovered when he tried to maneuver his boat out of the path of a jagged piece of metal and nothing happened.
Nothing happened except that the huge mitten-shaped protrusion clawed a chunk of the boat's roof aside before it sent the boat plunging toward an upraised spear of the torn deck below him.
Oh, great! Raeder thought, annoyed and feeling foolish. It was the last thought to cross his mind as skill took over. He cut power to the two starboard thrusters and gunned the portside. The boat plunged forward, turning as it went. He cut power, knowing he was going too fast and that a crash was inevitable. Teeth gritted in unconscious reflex.
But with luck I won't break through the inner doors. Because if he did, the ship would automatically react to such a breach by sealing off the Main Deck area, leaving him trapped in the wreckage. And pretty much wasting my time. Not to mention his life.
He impacted one of the side walls and bounced off, spinning away from it like some Frisbee in a giant game of catch. The crash netting that bound him to the pilot's chair strained but held when the boat struck the far wall, smashing it down onto a fairly level part of the deck, where it slid helplessly back toward the breach. Well, that answers that question. Ship's gravity is still on. Then the pinwheeling lurch turned to a floating tumble. The ship appeared to spin dizzily around him. On in some places.
Peter watched as the boat rode back toward the stars, cursing in his mind at the wasted time and wondering how he'd manage to turn the bloody boat around to get back in. Blood was leaking from his nose and mouth, as well, and the suit's life support hummed as it sucked the fluids up.
A small, serrated lip around the blast site snagged the nose of the lifeboat and brought him to a jarring halt, sliding sideways into unidentifiable rubble.
Raeder waited a moment to see if the little craft was secure. Then he released the safety harness. I'm buying stock in this company, too, he thought as he thrust it aside.
Then he snatched up his bag and opened the hatch. The soles of the suit he was wearing stuck to the deck, meaning that the gravity function in this area had been destroyed. Well, and no wonder, Raeder thought looking around. The scene before him was surreal. It seemed impossible that humans had built such a massive construct. And then destroyed it. The chaos around him was beautiful in its way, like a stage set. If people had died here, there was no sign of it. But the Dauntless herself was in imminent danger of dying. He tore himself from the magnificent view and headed away from the breach.
It annoyed him that people would be willing to destroy on this scale for some esoteric belief. How is it, he wondered, that if we're the bad guys, like the Mollies claim, we don't go to Paradise and bomb the crap out of them? Which, frankly, was the sort of behavior you'd expect from soulless scum, as the Mollies liked to refer to Space Command. Ah, well, as my mother used to say, "There's people for you." He trudged toward the emergency door; the green safety lights were still on over that particular airlock. Presumably there was air behind it. . . .
Once through the airlock Raeder divested himself of the spacesuit. It was awkward in gravity. And I can't take the color anymore.
After the destruction on Main Deck the untouched corridor was almost eerie; there was no sound but the low humming of life support. Correction. There was a broad streak of drying blood around one corner, where someone had been dragged toward the lifeboats. The elevators were out of commission, flashing PLEASE TAKE EMERGENCY STAIRS messages from their control plates. Which were actually a ladder in a man-sized tube. Slinging his bag onto his shoulder, Peter began to descend.
"And here I thought I was in good shape," he muttered to himself. His knees twinged, the calves of his legs burned, and his good hand hurt by the time he got to the bottom of the ladder and wobbled upright with a groan of relief. Maybe I should add something like this to my regimen, he thought, looking up . . . then again . . . and up . . . maybe not.
Beside the emergency stair exit there was a general map of the area served by this shaft; a large blank area was designated CONTAINMENT TOP SECRET AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Raeder slung the bag from his shoulder to his hand and headed that way.
He found the area without trouble, but a sign warned that anyone not wearing a clean suit would not be admitted. Even a particle of dust in the wrong place could be deadly in dealing with this stuff. He looked up. There were sensors located in the ceiling that could easily determine who was and who wasn't clean.
Raeder chafed at the delay. But it is a good idea. If so much as a flake of dandruff met a particle of antihydrogen, the results would be . . . exciting.
He ran down the row of lockers, plucking out white coveralls and dropping them in disgust. God! he thought in exasperation. The Dauntless has a runty bunch of containment techs. Finally he found a suit that fit and struggled into it. It was less bulky than the spacesuit, no catheter, and so on, but it covered him completely, from the top of his dark head to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet.
The slippery white material and clear face mask were made of materials to which nothing would cling. By the time he walked back to the door anything he'd left on the fabric had dropped off. There would be four succeeding doors beyond this one, each leading to a cleaner environment.
Finally he was released into the containment sector. It was a single long deck, a uniform off-white except for color-coded pipes. Massive power conduits ran along the overheads, and the vessels themselves ran down one wall like giant two-story thermos bottles. Peter began to jog, looking for bottle six. I wonder, he thought as he made his way down the passage, if Captain Montoya's engineer is still in here.
He was there. In front of a containment bottle a very big man was seated cross-legged on the decking. In his hands he held a power coupling, joined to another. Raeder followed the cords with his eyes. One led to bottle number six, the other was borrowing power from the bottle beside him.
"You're in a hell of a mess," Peter observed.
The man on the floor looked up with a start. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded in rich New Hibernian accent, unlike anything spoken on Earth for centuries. The place had been founded by nationalist antiquarians, and the planetary anthem was The Rising of the Moon.
Peter put down his bag and knelt to unzip it. "Raeder's my name, and engineering's my game," he said flippantly. "I command the flight deck on the Invincible," he continued. "You are?"
"Paddy Casey," the man said, "the engineering chief." He looked Raeder over with a clear blue eye. "I'd salute, sir, but as ye can see that might create a problem. So I hope ye'll accept my informality when I say yer a damned fine sight for bloody sore eyes."
"Pleased to meet you, too," Peter said. "I take it you can't let go?"
"No, sir. D'ye see this little coupling link here?" He tapped a piece of metal with his forefinger. "It broke. D'ye know that's the first time in years one of these has broken on me. I never thought of such a thing and sent the last of me techs off, thinkin' I'd be right on their heels. I locked it in place and it snapped like an old bone." He clicked his tongue in disgust. "Nothing is made the way it used to be. Nobody cares for quality anymore."
Raeder grinned. "You sound just like my mother," he said.
"And it's right she is, God bless her," Paddy asserted.
"Why didn't you just push in another clip?" Peter asked.
"Because, sir, I've only got two hands, d'ye see, and they're holding this mess together. If I was to let go to reach for another coupling, sir, then they'd fall apart and number six here would blow and I'd get to find out if there really is a heaven. And whether ye get golden crowns there for eating yer vegetables, like me mother used to tell me."
"I see your point," Raeder agreed. He reached in and yanked a roll of tape out of his pack.
"Now, what are ye goin' to be doing with that?" Paddy asked, his eyebrows rising.
"Duct tape," Peter said, coming toward him. "It's the force that holds the universe together. Didn't you know that?"
"I've heard the philosophy," Paddy said weakly. "But I don't see it working in conjunction with antihydrogen. Call me crazy."
"Ye crazy great mick," Raeder said obligingly. He carefully wrapped the tape around the loose coupling, winding it around in the big loops as if he was bracing a sprain. "That ought to do it."
"God bless ye, sir!" Paddy exclaimed. Then with a grunt he stood, and stood, and stood until Raeder was looking up.
Wow, Raeder thought. That's one tall mick. He was at least six five, maybe more. And New Hibernia was a heavy-gravity planet, 1.12 Standard; he was almost as broad as he was tall, with arms like trees and huge spatulate hands. They quivered slightly as he worked the fingers loose; Raeder imagined sitting there, holding the cable connectors and waiting for the weakening field to blow. . . .
"We'd best be going," Paddy said, and started off.
"Nope." Raeder bent and reached into the bag again, yanking out the jury-rigged magnetic bleed he'd cobbled together from a Speed's acceleration system. Let's hope our saboteur hasn't had his way with this.
"What in the hell is that?" Paddy asked. His snub nose wrinkling at the sight of the mechanical abortion in Raeder's hand.
"It's what I'm going to use to blow the contents of that bottle," Raeder indicated number six, "into space."
"Now that is a fine idea," Paddy said. "But whatever did ye make it from?"
"A Speed's acceleration system."
"Ah! Yes, I see it now. Brilliant! It's all we need to do is get this one empty," Paddy said, jerking his head at the bottle. "But we'll need to work fast. Bleeding power from number five isn't doing its containment field any good at all."
"Then we'd better get to it," Raeder said. Suiting action to words, he climbed around the bottle to the spaceward side of the container.
"Oh, I see your problem."
"And the problem of the world it is, I'm sure," Casey said.
You couldn't touch antihydrogen with any normal matter. Luckily, in its refined formionized, stripped of its electron shellsyou could manipulate it, after a fashion. With laser cooling systems to keep it dense, and with magnetic fields to move it until you bled carefully controlled amounts into annihilating encounter with ordinary matter. Tanks like this also had an emergency shunt, to blow the stuff out into vacuum. He could see exactly what had happened to this one; it was about the way he'd thought, an elbow-shaped section blackened and twisted, its internal field-guides destroyed by the power surge that had weakened the containment bottle itself. "Right, let's get this section out," he said, pulling out a handheld laser cutter. "This should fit." I can't believe it'll be this easy, he thought, as he fitted the improvised section.
Or tried to fit it. And failed.
"It's too big!" Raeder said in astonishment. "But according to the specs it should fit perfectly." And it most definitely did not, though only by a minute fraction. Forcing it was unthinkable. It might leave a scraping of metal inside where it could react with a particle of antihydrogen, or the field-guide simply wouldn't work.
"Those specs yer talkin' about," Paddy said lazily, "they'd be for a number four, am I right?"
"Yeah," Raeder said slowly.
"Tsk, tsk. New ship, the Invincible. Everything of the best. These are threes," Paddy said, reaching for the part in Peter's hands. "There's a machine shop just a step away. C'mon." And he headed out of the containment area.
Raeder had to jog to keep up with him. "How will you know how much to take off?" he asked.
"It's just a hair or two difference," Paddy said. "None at all, really. Just enough to make sure that parts aren't interchangeable. D'ye ever think the fellows who design these things might be in league with the quartermasters? It makes them feel needed, y'know, to have a dozen different parts on hand that all do the same thing, but the attachments are different sizes."
They'd entered the little machine shop and Paddy had inserted one end of the accelerator into the clamp of a large cutter. He calibrated the machine with seemingly careless haste. Then he started it and with a basso hum its laser began to slice away the offending molecules of metal. In seconds it was finished and he turned the part and inserted the other end.
"That's got it, the creature," Paddy said. "Let's get it done, then."
When they returned to the containment area an alarm klaxon was sounding. Number five containment vessel was loudly protesting the drain on its power source. Container six, as it destabilized, was pulling more and more of it, and five was on the verge of redlining.
"Great," Raeder said, and snatched his jury-rigged part out of the New Hibernian's big hands. He slid back behind the containment vessel and inserted it into the empty couplings. "It fits!" he said as he activated the magnetic field. "Good job, Chief!"
"Thanks," Paddy said, looking like he wanted to send Raeder to the bleachers so that he, the Dauntless's chief engineer, after all, could finish the job.
Raeder started the antihydrogen flowing. "What a glorious feeling of waste," he said, plugging in his portable readout unit. At least those were fully compatible throughout the surface. He watched the figures scroll. "I'm throwing away a whole planet's GNP every minute." It made him feel rich and wicked.
"Come over here," Paddy said. He led Raeder to a screen and activated it.
They watched the antihydrogen flow out in a great burning plume. It created a huge tail of plasma as it reacted with normal matter, air leakage, and debris from the Dauntless, on its way out into space. Its momentum carried it away from the hull, and the great ravaged mass of the hull creaked and groaned under the sideways stress.
The Speeds, the Diefenbaker, and the Mackenzie would be traveling the long way around on their way back to the Invincible, so they would be in no danger from the escaping antihydrogen.
I hope they can see it, though, Peter thought. It looks like victory.
He tilted his head. Or a comet's tail, without the comet.
"I suppose the Christmas star may have looked something like that," Paddy murmured.
If it did, then it meant big trouble for somebody. Raeder knew better than to say it aloud. Paddy was big. More, he was the sort of man who'd joke sitting next to a containment vessel full of antihydrogen, holding a coupling together with his hands.
Raeder sighed, feeling the iron-tense muscles of his neck begin to relax. "We did it. With six empty, the others should be"
Klaxons began sounding, loud and insistent. One after the other the big containment vessels showed red danger lights.
Peter turned to Paddy, who looked as though he'd lost his best friend.
"She's dying," the New Hibernian said. "The last of the fusion engines is shutting down."
"Why?" Raeder asked. "Battle damage?"
Paddy shook his head. "Overheated," he said. "Crystalization in the focus coils. Two have been doing the work of six for several hours now. They can't take it anymore."
"We'll bleed power from the Transit engines," Raeder said.
"They're out of fuel. We used the last of it coming through Transit to get hereexpectin' to refuel at Ontario Base, d'ye see."
"We are not out of fuel," Raeder said, sweeping his arm to indicate the bottles of antihydrogen around them. "Yet," he amended, diving for the shunt on number six.
He quickly turned off the flow and shouted to Paddy, "Have you got a baffle?"
"That I have," the chief answered, and dashed off.
He'd vanished by the time Raeder got out from behind the bottle, so Peter had to kick his heels and wait while the klaxons screamed. The wonderful one-hoss shay, he thought, remembering a story he'd read in his childhood. Beautifully put together, like a Space Command capital ship. Nothing stinted. So when it was stressed past the point of failure, everything tended to go at once.
Paddy returned in moments, dragging what looked like an old-fashioned steamer trunk. Peter grabbed the handle on the other end and helped him maneuver it into the tight space at the bottle's rear. It was awkward, but not impossible; after all, it was designed for moments like this when you had to bleed an emergency ration of antihydrogen from the containment vessels. Of course, it might have been damaged along with so many other systems. . . .
He unfastened his painfully improvised shunt. Paddy heaved the baffle up one-handed to give him room to work, and he guided it home with infinite care. A panel lit up on the side, the readouts confirming that the system was running and properly meshed with the venting fields.
"Let her go," he said.
The klaxons kept up their deliberately saw-edged scream. Out of the corner of his eye he could see one light after another on the containment bottle displays going from red to amber. The light panels overhead flickered; fairly soon they'd be on emergency power, stored in superconducting coils. Fine for keeping the lights on, but these bottles took a lot of power. He made an unaccustomed try at prayer. Casey was running through a list of saints.
When they'd transferred the last of it they rushed toward the elevators, moving as if they'd trained together on emergency transfers for years.
"Wait a minute," Raeder said. "Wait a minute!" he snapped as Paddy kept moving. "It's not on this level?"
"No, it is not. It's the next one down," Paddy said tugging on the big box.
"The elevators aren't working."
Paddy looked at Raeder blankly for a moment. Then he put down his end and, turning, walked a few steps away. "Well, can't be helped," he said and turning back picked up his end again. "Let's do it."
Peter visualized carrying the not heavy but very awkward baffle down that steep ladder and shuddered.
"Have you got any rope?" he asked.
"Rope, is it?" Paddy said. "Now what would I be doing with a bit of rope? D'ye see any mountains I'd be climbing?"
"Cord, then. String?"
"Commander Raeder," Paddy said gently, "there's no time to go rummaging through stores. We've an emergency upon us, don't ye know."
Raeder snapped his fingers and ran back. He returned smiling, the roll of duct tape in his hand.
Paddy grinned. "Y'know, I might become a believer in duct tape theory after all," he said.
The New Hibernian held the roll at the top of the ladder, while Peter pulled the baffle that dangled from it down after him. It was slower than he liked, but he was moving faster than was safe. So I guess it evens out, he thought. The baffle was supposedly safe under far higher stress than dropping it down a shaft. He didn't intend to test the theory. The smell of his own sweat was rank in his nostrils. At least it's only sweat, he thought. I'm passing the diaper test, so far.
When Raeder had dragged the baffle out of the shaft, Paddy slid most of the way down, only catching himself every tenth rung or so.
His palms must be like leather, Peter thought, watching him, knowing that his own hand would be rubbed raw by such treatment.
When they reached the Transit engines time became a flurry of connections, shunts, and cross connections that would have had the safety inspectors screaming. But it worked.
"Pity about having to shut down life support," Paddy said wistfully. "I rather liked having the old girl to meself."
"Well, it was peaceful," Peter agreed, grinning. "But we sure could have used some helping hands the last few minutes there."
Paddy grunted agreement. "We'd better find some suits before the air runs out and it gets too cold," he suggested.
"If there's a lifeboat handy, we won't need them," Raeder pointed out.
"Ah, but there are no lifeboats handy," Paddy said. "Any that could be reached are no doubt gone. There'd be some left in the sealed areas because there was no one to take them. But then," he shrugged his big shoulders, "we can't get to them, either." Paddy frowned. "How did you get here? And why don't we leave the same way?"
"Um. I came in one of the lifeboats, but . . . it crashed," Raeder said.
"Ye crashed a lifeboat?" Paddy said in disbelief. "Sure, I thought those things were supposed to be foolproof."
"The stabilizers went, okay? It was not my fault," Raeder snarled. Paddy raised his brows and his hands and smiled placatingly.
"But it does have a radio," Peter said. "Let's find some suits."
The WACCI slid neatly into position beside the rent in the Main Deck space door and Raeder winced at the sight. Oh, no, he thought. Not her.
There were small magnetic grapple discs located at their waists, once again designed to be foolproof. You aimed your whole body at your target and fired. The discs flew out, impacted with your target and automatically began reeling you in like a hooked fish.
He and Paddy fired, waited to be sure the discs were solidly planted, then pushed themselves off rather than wait for the reels to do all the work. They were spacers, after all. And on the opposite side of the ship from what remained of the giant plume of reacting antihydrogen.
"Commander Raeder," Sarah's voice said in his ear. "Is that you I hear thumping around out there?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Commander," he said wearily. And I've just saved the Commonwealth a five-month supply of antihydrogen, a capital ship, and one very big engineer. Not that I expect you to be impressed, Lieutenant Commander.
"We don't usually pick up hitchhikers, gentlemen, but in your case we'll make an exception. You just hang on tight, Commander," she said, her voice full of laughter. "We'll get you home all right."
"Thank you, Lieutenant Commander, I expected no less of you." Than to humiliate me as much as you could. And it was humiliating to be clinging like a barnacle to the side of her sleek ship, his arms and legs floating uselessly. I wonder if Captain Knott will be as impressed with me as Sarah James is, Peter thought ruefully. He also wondered who had given Sarah her apparently unrelenting dislike of Speed pilots.
He felt even more foolish when they returned to the Invincible and its gravity. As soon as the space doors began to close he cut the power to his disc and slid to the floor like a stone. Paddy let his reel out and descended more gracefully. The air pressure lights signaled green and he opened his helmet.
"Don't want to be seen dangling by yon sharp-tongued harpy?" he asked, indicating the WACCI behind them with a jerk of his head.
"Not hardly," Peter answered.
"Now, who would that little angel be?" Paddy asked, indicating Robbins as she rushed toward them.
She looks mad, Raeder thought. And happy. "That's my second," he said to Paddy. "Second Lieutenant Cynthia Robbins."
"A lieutenant," Paddy sighed. "What a pity."
"Sir," she said, stopping before Raeder and saluting. "You didn't tell us."
"No, Lieutenant," Raeder answered, returning her salute. "I didn't want to get you," arap Moi had arrived and was standing at her shoulder, "either of you into trouble."
"The captain wants to see you, sir," arap Moi told him, looking grim.
Well, I didn't actually expect to be carried shoulder high, Peter thought. But I sure wish everybody would stop acting like I just mugged the prom queen.
"This is Paddy Casey," he said to them, "Engineering CPO from the Dauntless. Could you see that he gets settled, Lieutenant Robbins?"
Cynthia blinked, and looked up at the huge, smiling, red-headed chief. "Yes, sir," she said. "Welcome aboard," she said to Paddy.
He gave her a brisk salute, his smile growing brighter still. "Thank you, Lieutenant."
Her lips twitched as though to answer his smile, but then she frowned. "Follow me, please," she said stiffly, and turned away.
"I think the little darlin' likes me," Paddy whispered to Raeder. "Sir," he added with a wink, and sped off after Robbins.
Peter and arap Moi looked at them as they departed. Then at each other, then at Paddy and Cynthia. Paddy said something to her and she answered him, looking up into his face.
"I think he may be right, Commander," arap Moi murmured thoughtfully.
"Good." Raeder said. "She needs a friend."
"You'd better get along to the captain, sir," arap Moi said. "We can handle Main Deck a little longer."
Without me, Raeder finished for him. "Okay," he said. Sarah's ramp came down. Anything to get away from Sarah's sharp tongue. Though he knew Knott's would be sharper still. "Time to face the music."
Knott kept him waiting. Which was not surprising and probably not intended to make him stew. They'd just come out of battle and the captain was phenomenally busy.
I suppose I should be glad he's making time to see me, Raeder thought, tapping his fingers on his armrest. Though he'd like to get back to work. Cindy and the chief could handle things between them perfectly, he knew. But that's not the point. The point was it was his job and he wasn't doing it at a time when every hand was needed.
"Commander Raeder, the captain will see you now," the captain's secretary announced quietly.
Raeder marched in, saluted, and stood at attention.
The captain returned his salute, then glared at the commander.
He's got a great glare, Raeder thought. I ought to practice until I get a glare like that.
"Commander Raeder," Knott began softly, like the rumbling of distant thunder. "Would you mind telling me just what the hell you thought you were doing?"
"Sir, I saw an opportunity to act and by doing so to save the Dauntless."
"Your post is here, Commander, and your duty is to the Invincible. You had no right to leave this ship while she was in combat." Knott was warming up and his voice was growing louder.
"Sir, you said to use my initiative," Raeder reminded him.
Knott shot to his feet and leaned over his desk. "Don't you try to twist my orders to fit your needs, Commander! If I'd had the slightest notion that you intended to leave the ship, you know damned well that I never would have said that. We don't have enough troubles on this ship, now I can't expect one of my officers to behave rationally, let alone responsibly?" The captain rounded the desk and stood close to Raeder, glaring into his face. "I need to trust my officers, Commander. I need to know that when I call on them to do their duty they won't have gone off to perform one of the most hair-brained pieces of showboating I have ever witnessed in my entire career!"
The captain was breathing heavily in his fury and Raeder could feel the color rising in his neck. Jeez, Peter thought, somewhat sadly, what does it take to get some appreciation around here?
"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Commander?" Knott asked in a quiet voice sizzling with fury.
"Sir, I saved a five-month supply of antihydrogen, the Dauntless, and her acting engineering chief."
"That's the only reason I haven't put you on report!" Knott bellowed. "Why didn't you tell me what you had planned?" he demanded.
"I thought you might say no, sir."
"Damned right I would have," Knott agreed. "To your going. But not necessarily to sending someone more expendable."
Raeder blinked.
"Didn't think of that, did you, Commander?" Knott said. "It's one of the disadvantages of rank. Sometimes you have to send someone else to do what you're sure you could do better. If you can't handle that reality, Commander Raeder, you've risen as far as you're going to and farther than you should have. You are dismissed."
Raeder swallowed, then saluted.
Knott stepped back around his desk, saluted, and sat, picking up a notepad.
Raeder spun on his heel and marched to the door.
"Commander!" Knott snarled.
"Yes, sir," Raeder said, turning.
"Good job. Now, get out of here."
Raeder left, smiling.