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“Dekker should trust it. The tape did come from his crew. And he certainly knows the crew we’ve given him.”
“The crew we’ve given him never worked ops together. They were financial partners. Everyone seems to have forgotten that!”
“Dekker’s confident.”
“Confident, hell! Dekker’s numb. He’s taken the chaff that’s come down from the UDC, his crew’s dead, somebody tried to kill him, he’s got a personal problem with a MarsCorp board member, which is why the UDC pulled him from that demo in the first place, on somebody’s orders I still haven’t heard accounted for. You put him into the next mission and what guarantees you won’t get the same communiqué Tanzer got: Pull Dekker, keep him out of the media, take him out of the crew that’s trained for that run—and then what will you do? Fold like Tanzer did? Or tell the EC go to hell?”
Cold stare. Finally Porey said, “I’m aware of Dekker’s problem.”
“Is that all? You’re aware? —Do you realize his mother and the peace party lawyers are all over the news right now? The case is active again. Do you think that’s coincidence? Salazar doesn’t care what she brings down.”
“I’m aware of Alyce Salazar.”
“So are you going to pull Dekker? Or are you using him as test fodder? Doesn’t matter if he cracks up in the sims, it solves a problem—is that it?”
“You have a personal attachment to this boy—is that your problem?”
No re-position. Straight through. Straight through. He got a breath and tried to tell himself it was all right, it was only a sim. A last target.
Miss. Sal said, “Damn,” and: “Sorry, Ben.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said.
“Dekker.” Sim chiefs voice. You didn’t hear them break in like that, they didn’t remind you they existed unless you were totally, utterly screwed. “Dekker. What’s the trouble?”
Pod was in neutral now. They wouldn’t abort you cold—a shift like that messed with your head. But nothing further was going to happen in the sim. Virtual space was ru
“Muscle spasm.”
He lied to the sim chief. Chief was going to order them in, no question. New crew—he could well glitch their reactions— He’d never, never gotten called down over com. Never gotten a stand-down like this.
“Going to order a return. Your crew ail right?”
“Crew’s fine.” He didn’t get any contradiction over com.
“You want to push the button?”
Abort was quicker. Abort would auto them to dock. His nerves wanted that.
“I’ll go manual. No abort.” Hell if he was going to come hi like a panicked neo. He got his breathing calmed. He lined them up, minute by excruciating minute. He brought it as far as basics. “Meg,” he said then, “take it in. Dock it, straight push now. Can you do that?”
“Got it,” Meg said. “Take a breath, Dek.”
Three more minutes in. Dock was basic—now. Lesson one. Punch the button. Mind the closing v. They’d killed one man and a prototype module getting that to work realtime, before Staatentek admitted they had a problem.
Whole damned program was built on funerals...
“Doing all right, Meg.”
He unclenched stiff fingers. Watched the numbers run, steady, easy decline in distance: lock talked to lock and the pod did its own adjustments.
Bang into the grapples. System rest.
A damned pod, not the ship, but he was having trouble breathing as the hatch opened, to Meg’s shutdown—
“Shit!”
His heart jumped. “Easy, easy,” he told her, as she made a frantic reach at the board. “Lock’s autoed, not your fault, not your fault, it’s automatic on this level.”
“Not used to these damn luxuries.” Breath hissed between her teeth. “Got it, thanks.”
No word out of Ben. Ben wasn’t happy. Sal wasn’t. He could feel it out of that corner. He thought about saying Don’t mind it, but that wasn’t the case, you damned well had to mind a screw-up like this, and they did. He thought about telling them some of those were his fault, but that wasn’t what they needed to set into their reactions either. He just kept his mourn shut, got the tape, grabbed the handholds and followed Meg out the hatch.
Caught Meg’s attention, quick concerned look. He shied away from it, hooked onto the handline and heard Ben and Sal exit behind him. He logged the tape out on the console, teeth clenched against the bitter cold.
“Cher,” Meg said, gently, hovering at his shoulder, trying for a look at him or from him, he wasn’t sure and he wasn’t coping with that right now.
“We’ll get it,” Sal said. “Sorry, Dek.”
They were trying to apologize to him. Hell.
He started to shiver. Maybe they could see it. Maybe they were realizing how incredibly badly he’d screwed that move—or would figure it once their nerves settled. He didn’t know how much to tell them, didn’t want to act like an ass, but he couldn’t put his thoughts together—he just grabbed onto the handline and headed off down the tube, not fast, but first, so he didn’t have to see their faces.
He heard Ben say, “Damn temper of his. Break his neck, I’d like to.”
“Hey,” Meg said, then, “we screwed up, all right? We screwed it, we screwed him up, he’s got a right.”
He wanted to tell Meg no; and he wanted to believe that was the answer; but he couldn’t. He handed off at the lift, waited for them.
Sal said, “Dek, we’ll get it. Trez bitch, that machine. But we’ll get it, no problem.”
“Yeah.” First word he’d been able to get out. He punched the lift for exit level, snatched back a shaking hand toward his pocket.
Meg was looking at him, they all were, and he didn’t want to meet their eyes. He stared at the lift controls instead, watched the buttons light, listened to the quiet around him, just the lift thumping on the pressure seals.
“So?” Tanzer asked, on the phone; “Does this mean a runaround or does it mean you’ve found an answer to my question?”
“There is an answer, colonel. Negative. The orders come from outside this base. We ca
“Policy, is it? Policy? Is that what we call it now, when nobody at this base can answer questions? What do you know, lieutenant? Anything?”
Graff censored what he knew, and what he thought, and said quietly, “I repeat, I’ve relayed your objections. They’ve been rejected. That’s the answer I have to convey, colonel, I’m sorry.”
“Damn you,” Tanzer said, and hung up.
He hung up. He sat for a long few moments with his hands folded in front of his lips and tried to think reasonably. No, he could not call the captain. FleetCom went through Porey now. No, he would not go ru
So what was there to say? The captain had refused to disapprove Porey’s command. The captain had refused Demas, refused Saito... who was he, to move Keu to do anything? Perhaps the captain was more farsighted, or more objective, or better informed.
Or more indifferent.
Porey was aware of Dekker’s problem? And Porey shoved Dekker and a novice crew toward mission prep?
Bloody damned hell
“You blew it,” Porey said.
“Yessir,” Dekker said on a breath. “No excuses.”
“ ‘No excuses.’ I told you I wouldn’t hear excuses, and I wouldn’t hear ‘sorry.’ You’re the pilot, you had the say, if you weren’t ready you had no mortal business taking them in there.”
“Yessir.”
Porey’s hand came down on the desk. He jumped.