The Serrano Connection by Elizabeth Moon Read Free Book Online Page A

Xavier.
     
    "You might want to consider a psych session," he said. "If it's bothering you that much."
     
    "It's not now," she said. "It was those first days after . . ."
     
    "Sounds normal to me. If you're sleeping well enough to stay alert . . . there's an advantage in not going for a psych evaluation now, you see, because it might look as if we're going to plead mental incompetence."
     
    "Oh."
     
    "But by all means, if you need it—"
     
    "I don't," Esmay said firmly.
     
    "Good . . . now about this petty thievery you said was plaguing the enlisted lockers . . ."
     
     
     
    Circumstances conspired to shift the date of the court martial so that the Captain's Board met first. Major Chapin grumbled about this, too.
     
    "You don't take counsel to a Board of Inquiry, so you'll have to remember everything we've talked about by yourself. You can always ask for a short recess and come ask me, but it leaves a bad impression. Damn it—I wanted you to have experience before you went in alone."
     
    "Can't be helped," Esmay said. He looked mildly surprised, which almost annoyed her. Had he expected her to complain when it could do no good? To make a useless fuss, and to him?
     
    "I'm glad you're taking it that way. Now—if they don't bring up the matter of the damage to the nav computer, you have two choices—" That session went on for hours, until Esmay felt she understood the point of Chapin's advice, as well as the advice itself.
     
    The morning the Board hearing began, Chapin walked her into the building and all the way to the anteroom where he would wait in case she asked for a recess and his guidance. "Chin up, Lieutenant," he said as the door opened. "Keep in mind that you won the battle and didn't lose your ship."
     
    * * *
    The Board of Inquiry made no allowances for the irregular way in which Esmay had arrived in command of Despite , or so it seemed from the questions. If a Jig commanded in battle, that jig had better know what she was doing, and every error Esmay made came up.
     
    Even before the next senior officer died of wounds, why had she not prepared for command—surely that mess on the bridge could have been cleaned up faster? Esmay, remembering the near-panic, the need to secure every single compartment, check every single crew member, still thought there were more important things than cleaning blood off the command chair. She didn't say that, but she did list the other emergencies that had seemed more pressing. The Board chair, a hard-faced one-star admiral Esmay had never heard anything about, good or bad, listened to this with compressed lips and no expression she could read.
     
    Well then, when she took command, why had she chosen to creep into one system—the right move, all agreed, given what she found—and then go blazing back into Xavier, where she had every reason to believe an enemy force lay in wait? Didn't she realize that more competent mining of the jump point entry corridor would have made that suicidal? Esmay wasn't about to argue that her decision made sense; she had followed an instinct, not anything rational, and instincts killed more often than they saved.
     
    And why hadn't she thought of using a microjump to kill momentum earlier, when she might have saved two ships and not just one? Esmay explained about the nav computer, the need to patch a replacement chip from one of the missile-control units. And on and on, hour after hour. They seemed far less interested—in fact, not interested at all—in how the Despite had blown the enemy flagship, than in her mistakes. The Board replayed surveillance material, pointed out discrepancies, lectured, and when it was over at last Esmay went out feeling as if she'd been boiled until all her bones dissolved in the soup.
     
    Major Chapin, waiting in the anteroom where he'd watched on a video link, handed her a glass of water. "You probably don't believe this, but you did as well as you could, given the