Was Once a Hero (13 page)

I would hate to believe he sleeps with the
damn things,
Fenaday thought.

Shasti
raised an eyebrow at him.
 
She did not
smile, but again, her quirky way of looking at him made him suspect she knew
what he was thinking and that it amused her.

Fenaday
took a few deep breaths and led them into the shuttle bay.
 
The buzz of conversation lowered as he
mounted the hastily erected dais.
 
Shasti
stood on the deck before him, her head still level with his.
 
The HCRs fell in on the corners of the dais.
 
Mmok and Telisan joined him on it.
 
Shasti’s best Landing Force troops took up
strategic spots in the bay.

“Not
like the old days, when you could have taken the bay by yourself,” he murmured,
just softly enough for Shasti to hear.
 
The barest hint of a smile touched her lips, then her face returned to
its usual mask-like calm.
 

He
looked at the crew, as unusual a collection as had ever flown space.
 
They ran from dedicated professionals from
the shadow side of the military, to adventurers to the desperate.
 
They all stood staring at him.

Fenaday
keyed his throat mike.
 
“You’re gathered
here to find out the destination of our mission.
 
All of you signed up for the voyage knowing
this was a high-risk mission.
 
It is for
this reason that the least ranked of you will make most of a lifetime’s
earnings on this one voyage.

“You
know we are government sanctioned and sponsored.
 
Government people are onboard.
 
They won’t admit it.
 
Their bosses don’t carry them on official
rosters.
 
The point is—we are
legitimate.
 
We are doing something the
government wants done, but does not want to risk regular forces to do.”

He
drew a deep breath.
 
“We are on our way
to Enshar.”

The
reaction was as bad as he expected.
 
One
female crewmember screamed and others cursed.
 
Fenaday looked at them, seeing wide eyes, open mouths, terror stamped on
every face.

“Silence,”
Telisan roared in his best parade ground voice.
 
As if to emphasize his point, the HCRs snapped from parade rest to
attention in absolute unison.

“We’re
dead,” one crewman sobbed into the wary silence.

“We
are not,” said Fenaday sharply.
 
“The
command staff has no more desire to die than you do.
 
We have brilliant doctors and scientists on
board, the best robots and equipment the Confeds have and an ASAT team.
 
They did not come here to die.”

“They
had a whole planetary military on Enshar,” called one man.
 
“They were wiped out.
 
Just like the fleet that came after.”

Fenaday
recognized the man after a second, Greywold, a bar tough hired by Shasti to pad
out the landing force.
 
She’d been
unhappy about him afterward, but they needed the gun.

“The
fleet was not wiped out,” Telisan replied.
 
“I was with it.
 
The attack on us
ceased as we drew away from the planet.
 
I will also tell you something now declassified.
 
I took a scout below the so-called line of
death.
 
I descended to the height of the
Flamme’s
orbit.
 
The zone of death is not there.”

“
Sidhe
,” Fenaday said, “will not approach
the planet closer than the point at which the attack on the fleet ceased.
 
I’ll take a single fighter on an atmospheric
entry.
 
If I’m not attacked, the three
Dakota
shuttles will come in for a
planet landing.
 
I’ll ask for volunteers,
but if I nominate you as necessary for the mission, you go.

“Understand
this,
Sidhe
is a military
vessel.
 
We are under Letters of Marque
and Reprisal on a military mission.
 
This
means military discipline.
 
I will brook
no dispute with our mission.
 
I will
shoot space lawyers, plain and simple.”

The
crisis point seemed past.
 
Many in the
crew relaxed at the news that the starship herself would not land.
 
Others, whose specialties meant possible
inclusion in the landing, stood tense, their eyes flickering around the bay as
if seeking escape.

“We
didn’t sign up for this,” Greywold called out from the back.

“You
are here, you signed, you go,” Fenaday stated.
 
“That is also the last outburst I will tolerate."
 
Behind him, Shasti brought her riot gun up;
its butt rode comfortably on her hip.

“While
I command the mission,” Fenaday continued, waving toward Duna.
 
“I want you to meet the sponsor of it.”

Belwin
Duna entered from the passageway door where he stood waiting with Li.
 
He walked with apparent ease to the dais and
stood on a box Fenaday set up for him.
 

“Greetings,
crew of the
Sidhe
,” said Belwin.
 
“Though you do not believe it now, in times
to come, each of you will be venerated as heroes among my people for
participating in this great cause.”

Duna
delivered an impressive collection of indirection and platitudes.
 
He acquainted them with the facts of the
disaster and reminded them that in the time since the attack on the fleet,
there had been no sign of any hostility on the planet.
 
All this glossed over the fact that nothing
remained on the planet to attack.
 
The
little scholar’s speech calmed the crew at least for now.

Duna
made much of Telisan’s flight.
 
The
scholar had only learned of it after liftoff, one of Mandela’s conditions on
Telisan’s pardon for stealing the stealth programs. When Duna learned of
Telisan’s flight, the hope that shone in the old scholar’s eyes was painful to
see.
 
Fenaday realized that Telisan had
been right to keep the information secret.

“Let
me guess,” Fenaday whispered to Telisan, “that sometime in his long life, he
was a politician.”

Telisan
did not nettle as expected.
 
“It has been
a long life, as you say.
 
He has been
many things in it.
 
Here, I think he
means just to comfort.
 
They must go to
Enshar.
 
Perhaps they go less afraid
now.
 
I tell you that he believes there
is a chance, or he would not do this.”

“A
leader can deceive others,” Fenaday replied, “but he should not deceive
himself.”

“As
you wish,” Telisan said.
 
Manners forbade
him to argue with his captain.

The
meeting broke up and the crew went back to their stations.
 
For the rest of the ship’s day, Fenaday
worked the crew as hard as possible.
 
Maintenance, fire drills, everything else he could think of to keep them
busy.
 

That
evening, Quartermaster Dobera made sure dinner was the best food
Sidhe
could boast.
 
Fenaday met Duna and Shasti at the entrance
to the mess, leaving Telisan on the bridge standing watch.

Sidhe
didn’t have an officer’s wardroom,
but Fenaday sometimes used a large table on a raised area in the back for
official functions.
 
A steward greeted
them, rushing out drinks.

“The
condemned will eat a hearty meal,” Johan Gunnar said.

Duna
overheard the comment and looked over at Fenaday.
 
“Your cook is good?”

“My
cook,” Fenaday said as they seated themselves, “insists on being referred to as
Chef Marcel.
 
He affects a terrible
French accent, but he’s no more French than Shasti.
 
He’s a deserter from the War.
 
He is also a trained chef, so naturally the
Confederacy drafted him for the infantry, the service arm with the highest rate
of casualties.”

“Yes,”
Shasti added.
 
“Claiming he’d trained to
prepare meals, not risk becoming one for the Conchirri, he deserted.
 
We were refueling on Morokat when he tried to
sneak aboard
Sidhe
.
 
I caught him immediately.”

“She
brought him to the bridge,” Fenaday said as plates were set about him.
 
“I was reaching for the com to call MPs when
he asked me if I was a betting man.
 
He
made a wager that if he could serve me one meal, I would never turn him over to
the MPs.
 
He won.”