Old Soldiers

"Governor Agnelli's daughter and son-in-law are physicians aboard Kuan Yin," Lazarus' tenor voice murmured suddenly in the Brigade implant in her left mastoid bone, and her belly twisted in an abrupt resurgence of guilt.

"Governor," she said, as soon as she was certain she had control of her voice, "it's possible," she stressed the qualifying adverb, "that Kuan Yin wasn't totally destroyed."

Agnelli's eyes leapt to her face, and his right hand, just visible on the corner of his desk, clenched into an ivory-knuckled fist.

"Explain," he rapped. "Please." The afterthought courtesy popped out of him as if extracted by a pair of pliers.

"I'm no military expert, Captain," Agnelli said, "but even I know how ... difficult that would be." The word "difficult" came out as if it tasted physically sour. Or as if he blamed her for raising hopes which couldn't possibly be satisfied. "That sort of search and rescue is a job for fully equipped military ships, Captain Trevor. Not for a handful of hastily assembled merchant vessels!"

"Governor, I wouldn't have said anything about it if I weren't reasonably confident of our ability to locate her. We know precisely when and where she left hyper, and exactly what her emergence vector in normal-space would be."

Agnelli looked skeptical, and she reached out and touched the headset on the corner of her desk.

The Governor's sharp eyes didn't miss the gesture, and she saw them widen slightly.

"Lazarus—I mean, Unit One-Seven-Niner—had a hard fix on her, sir. And with all due respect to the Navy, I doubt very much that any astrogator could do a better job of computing an intercept solution."

"Even so," Agnelli sounded now as if he were arguing with himself, not Maneka, "even the best solution is going to leave a very large volume to be searched, Captain. Even assuming that ... that anyone is still alive aboard her," he cleared his throat, "it sounds highly unlikely to me, from the damage you've described, that her own sensors or communications systems would still be operable. Without an active com beacon for us to home in on, finding her is still a job for Navy sensors, not a bunch of merchant ships."

"Under normal circumstances, you'd certainly be correct, sir," Maneka agreed. "But we're not exactly your ordinary run-of-the-mill merchant ships. We happen to have a couple of Bolos along. They may not mount standard naval sensor fits, but I think you'll find they have the capability we need for this mission."

"You're serious," Agnelli said slowly. She nodded, and he drew a deep breath.

"I really shouldn't authorize it," he said.

"Excuse me, Governor, but it isn't your decision."

"I beg your pardon?" Agnelli's shoulders stiffened, and his eyebrows lowered.

"Commodore Lakshmaniah left me in military command, sir," Maneka said in her most respectful tone. "As the senior Dinochrome Brigade officer present, and as the commanding officer of Unit One-Seven-Niner, the senior Bolo present, I am now the ranking member of the Concordiat military present. As such, under our initial mission orders, I am now the military commander of this expedition."

"That's preposterous!" Agnelli exploded. "Ridiculous!"

"No, Governor," Maneka said unflinchingly, refusing to allow a single quaver into her voice which might have alerted him to how desperately she wished she might have avoided this responsibility. "It's neither preposterous nor ridiculous. I suggest you consult the relevant portions of our orders and of the controlling sections of the Articles of War and the Constitution." She paused for perhaps two heartbeats, then added, "If you wish, Unit One-Seven-Niner can provide you with the necessary text of all three documents."

Agnelli's jaw clamped like a vise, and she gazed back at him calmly, trying to look older than her twenty-seven Standard Years. He was aboard another ship, well over two thousand kilometers from Thermopylae, but she could almost physically feel his anger, frustration, resentment, and desperation.

Hard to blame him, really, she thought almost clinically. He's almost three times my age, and he's spent the last fifty years of his life building a career in government. He's a professional, and now some wet-behind-the-ears kid is trying to play rules lawyer and push him aside. No wonder he's pissed!

"Regardless of what our mission orders and the Articles of War may have to say, Captain," the Governor's voice was icy, "you and I both know that neither the Constitution nor those who conceived of and pla

"I didn't mean to imply that they did, sir."

This was a fight Maneka would have preferred to avoid entirely, and if that weren't possible, one she would have delayed as long as she could. Unfortunately, it was a point which had to be addressed—and settled—now.

"I'm aware, Governor," she continued, deliberately emphasizing his title, "that our mission pla

His face remained a fortress, but she thought that at least a little of his tension had leached out of him.

"As I interpret our mission orders," she told him, "the senior military officer of the expedition is in command of the military and logistical aspects of the operation until such time as the colony has been planted on a suitable planet and there is no military threat to its security. Obviously, the people who wrote those orders expected Commodore Lakshmaniah to fulfill the role of military commander, not someone as relatively junior as myself. Nonetheless, I think you'll agree with me that the imperatives of survival require that there not be any question of our relative spheres of authority. As the senior military officer, I may find myself forced to issue orders based on the military situation and my knowledge of it, which I may not have time to share with or explain to anyone else. If that happens, none of us can afford a situation in which someone hesitates, or second-guesses those orders, because there's some question as to whether or not I have the authority to give them."

Agnelli's jaw was still set, but she saw at least a flicker of acknowledgment in his flinty eyes.

"You have the ultimate responsibility for the future and survival of this colony, sir," she said earnestly.

"That's a responsibility I'm not suited for, and an authority I certainly don't want. But the military security of the colony and its delivery to its new home are now my responsibility. Commodore Lakshmaniah specifically gave it to me, and my seniority, despite my youth, means I can't just pass it off to someone else, however much I might wish I could. It's my duty, Governor, and I intend to do it."

Silence hovered, and Maneka wondered how Agnelli would have reacted if he'd known that she'd deliberately held her fire until after the Melconians attacked Kuan Yin and the other two ships. She knew she'd had no choice, but not only was the Governor a civilian, he hadn't been part of that human-Bolo fusion. Which meant he would never share her absolute certainty that no other option had been open to her, and that doubt, added to her youth and junior rank and his resentment of both, would probably have forced the issue to a bitter and open confrontation, despite how badly he knew the colony needed the Bolos.