Hellburner by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page B

facility, Lt. Graff. The fact that your commander saw fit to leave a junior lieutenant in command of the rider trainees and the carrier does not give you authority over any aspect of this operation, and it does not give you authority to issue passes or to take communications to anyone outside of BaseCom, do you understand me?”
    “Where it regards your command, yes, colonel. But I’m responsible to Captain Keu for the communications he directly ordered me to make and which I will continue to make, on FleetCom. Lt, Pollard is here on humanitarian leave in connection with Fleet personnel. He’s Prioritied elsewhere. He’s here temporarily and he has adequate Security clearance to be here.”
    “He’s also UDC personnel.”
    “He’s under interservice assignment. On leave. And not available to R&D.”
    “A friend of Dekker’s. Let me tell you, I’ve had a bellyful of your recruits, and I’m sick and tired of the miner riffraff and psychological misfits washing up on the shores of this program. Your own captain’s interference with design has given this program a piece of junk that can’t be flown—“
    “Not true.”
    “—a piece of junk that works in the sims and not in the field, lieutenant, because it doesn’t take into account human
    realities. That firepower can’t be turned over to adrenaline-high games-playing freaks, Mr. Graff, and that machine can’t rely on the 50%’ers on the sims—how many ships are you going to lose on that 50%? Four billion dollars per ship and the time to train the crew and you’re going to gamble that on 50% of the time the pilot’s nerves hold out for the time required? We’re pushing human beings over their design limits, and they’re dying, Mr. Graff, they’re ending up in hospital wards.”
    “Wilhelmsen didn’t the of fatigue, colonel, he died of communications failure, he died of not working with his own crew. He schitzed—for one nanosecond he schitzed and forgot where in hell he was in his sequence. There’s an interdict on mat move—it’s supposed to be in the pilot’s head, and it failed, colonel, he failed, that’s the bottom line. Dekker—“
    “Dekker ran that same flight on sim and he’s lying delirious in hospital. Don’t let me hear you use that word schitz again, lieutenant, except you apply it to your boy. There’s the problem in that crew. There’s the troublemaker that had to prove his point, had to shoot his mouth off—“
    “Dekker didn’t run that sim. And the word is concussion, colonel. From the impact of an unsecured body in that pod. He didn’t forget to belt in.”
    “He was suited up.”
    “The flightsuits keep your feet from swelling, colonel: Dekker’s been exposed to prolonged zero g. The other crews say—“
    “He was up there on drugs, lieutenant! Read the medical report! He was high on trank, he was in possession of a tape be had no business with, and he and his attitude got in that pod together, let’s admit what happened up there and quit trying to put Dekker’s smartass maneuver off on any outside agency. There wasn’t one.”
    “I intend to find out what did happen.” ^       “Do you? Do you? Let me lay this word in your lap: U either you come up with proof that’ll stand up in court martial, or this investigation is closed. Dekker climbed into that pod on drugs, because he has an Attitude the same as all the other misfits this facility’s been loaded with, he believes he’s cornered the market on right, he’s a smartass who thinks his reflexes make up for his lack of discipline, and if you drop that chaff in the hearing you won’t like the result. If you want this program to fly, and I assume you do, then you’d better reflect very soberly what effect your appearance and your testimony this afternoon is going to have on your captain’s credibility—on the credibility of your service and the judgment of its personnel. Don’t speculate. Keep to the facts.”
    “The facts are, Dekker saw