It wasn't the first time she'd noticed that Gutierrez seemed to take special offense when he encountered someone who used physical size or strength to intimidate others. Mateo Gutierrez didn't care for bullies. Abigail had been a bit surprised by how little astonishment she'd felt on the day she realized that for all his toughness and amazing lethality, he was one of the gentlest people she knew. There was nothing "soft," or wishy-washy about Gutierrez, but although he went to considerable lengths to hide it, he was the sort of man who routinely adopted homeless kittens, lost puppies . . . and steadholder's daughters.
Her temptation to laugh vanished as she remembered how she and Gutierrez had met. She hadn't expected to survive the brutal, merciless encounter with the pirates raiding the planet of Refuge. And she wouldn't have, without Gutierrez. She knew, with no sense of false modesty, that she'd held up her own end of that exhausting, endless running battle, but it hadn't been her sort of fight. It had been Mateo Gutierrez's kind of fight, and he'd waged it magnificently. That was what a professional noncom in the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps did.
She understood that part. What she wasn't quite clear on was precisely how a Manty Marine platoon sergeant transmuted into a lieutenant in the Owens Steadholder's Guard. Oh, she was certain she detected her father's inimitable touch, and as a Grayson steadholder, Lord Owens clearly had the clout to "convince" the Royal Manticoran Marines to allow one of their sergeants to cross-transfer to the Owens Guard. What she couldn't figure out was how her father had convinced Gutierrez to accept the transfer in the first place.
At least she knew why he'd done it, if not how, and she felt a fresh spurt of affectionate irritation at the thought. As a mere daughter, she'd had no standing in the succession to Owens Steading when she initially left home to become the first Grayson midshipwoman ever to attend Saganami Island. As such, she'd managed to make the trip without the personal armsman which Grayson law required accompany any steadholder's heir or potential heir.
But that had been before the Conclave of Steadholders awakened to the full implications of Benjamin Mayhew's alterations to Grayson's laws of inheritance. Daughters were no longer precluded from inheriting steadholderships, so the Conclave had determined that they should no longer be excused from the consequences of standing in the succession.
Abigail had been furious when her father informed her that henceforth she must be accompanied on any deployment by her personal armsman. At least she didn't have to put up with the complete security team which accompanied the older of her two brothers wherever he went, but surely a serving naval officer didn't need a personal bodyguard! But Lord Owens had been inflexible. As he'd pointed out to her, the law was clear. And when she'd tried to continue the argument, he'd made two other points. First, that Lady Harrington, who was certainly a "serving officer" by anyone's definition, had accepted that she had to be accompanied at all times by her personal armsmen. If she could, then so could Abigail. And, second, that since the law was clear, her only real choices were whether she would obey it or whether the Grayson Space Navy would withdraw her commission.
He'd meant it. However proud he might have been of her, however completely he'd accepted her choice of a career, he'd meant it. And it hadn't even been a simple matter of a father's intransigence. There were all too many prominent Graysons who remained horrified by the very notion of Grayson-born women in uniform. If she chose to reject the law's requirements, those same horrified men would demand that the Navy beach her. And the Navy, whether it liked it or not, would have no choice but to comply.
And so she'd accepted that she had no choice, and, somehow, Lord Owens had convinced Mateo Gutierrez to become his daughter's armsman. He'd found her the biggest, toughest, most dangerous guard dog he could lay his hands on, and he'd traded unscrupulously on the bonds between her and Gutierrez to convince her to accept him. She'd continued her protests long enough to be certain honor was satisfied, but both of them knew the truth. If she had to put up with a bodyguard at all, there was no one in the entire universe she would have trusted more than Mateo Gutierrez.
Of course, the fact that she'd just been reassigned to a Manticoran warship rather than to a Grayson vessel did tend to complicate things a bit, and she wondered why she had been. High Admiral Matthews had told her it was because they wanted her to gain all the experience—and seniority—she could in a navy which was used to female officers before she took up her duties aboard a Grayson vessel. And she believed him—mostly. But there was that nagging edge of doubt . . .
"This way, My Lady," Gutierrez said, and Abigail shook herself as she realized she'd been woolgathering while she walked along. She'd completely failed to notice when their guide line turned down a side passage towards a bank of lifts.
"I knew that," she said, smiling sideways up at her towering armsman.
"Of course you did, My Lady," he said soothingly.
"Well, I did!" she insisted. He only grinned, and she shook her head. "And that's another thing, Mateo. We're assigned to a Manticoran cruiser, not a Grayson ship. And I'm only a very junior tactical officer aboard her. I think it might not to be a bad idea to forget about the 'My Ladies' for a while."
"It's taken me months to get used to using them in the first place," he rumbled in exactly the sort of voice one might have expected out of that huge, resonant chest.
"Marines are adaptable," she replied. "They improvise and overcome when faced with unexpected obstacles. Just treat it like something minor—like storming a dug-in ceramacrete bunker armed with nothing but a butter knife clenched between your manly teeth—and I'm sure a tough, experienced Marine like you can pull it off."
"Hah! What kind of wuss Marine needs a butter knife to take one miserable bunker?" Gutierrez demanded with a resonant chuckle. "That's why God gave us teeth and fingernails!"
"Exactly." Abigail smiled up at him again, but she also shook her head. "Seriously, Mateo," she continued. "I know Daddy and Colonel Bottoms insisted on that whole 'My Lady' thing. And it probably makes sense, on Grayson, or in the GSN. But we're going to have enough trouble with people who think it's silly neobarb foolishness to assign a bodyguard to any officer as junior as I am. Let's not rub any noses in anything we don't have to rub them in."
"You've got a point, Ma'am," he agreed after a moment. They reached the lift, and he pressed the call button, then stood waiting beside her. Even here, his eyes flitted endlessly about, sweeping their surroundings in a constant cycle. He might have been trained originally as a Marine, not an armsman, but he'd taken to his new duties like a natural.
"Thank you," she said. "And while we're on the subject of not rubbing any noses—or putting any of them out of joint—did you and Commander FitzGerald come to an understanding?"
"Yes, Ma'am, we did. Although, truth to tell, it was Captain Kaczmarczyk I really needed to talk to. I told you it would be."
"And I believed you. All I said was that you needed to touch base with the XO before you talked to the detachment commander."
"You were right," he conceded. "Probably." He couldn't quite resist adding the qualifier, and she shook her head with a chuckle.
"You, Mateo Gutierrez," she said as the lift doors sighed open, "need a good, swift kick in the seat of the pants. And if I could get my foot that high without getting a nosebleed, I'd give it to you, too."
"Such constant threats of violence," he said mournfully, even as his eyes swept the interior of the lift car. "It's a good thing I know you don't mean it, Ma'am. That's the only thing that keeps me from breaking out in a cold sweat when you threaten me that way."
"Sure it is," she said, rolling her eyes as he waved her forward and she stepped past him into the lift. He followed her, taking his position between her and the doors and actually making it look casual. Then he punched the button to close the doors.
"Destination?" a computer-generated voice asked pleasantly.
"HMS Hexapuma," Gutierrez told it.
Chapter Three
"All right, Peop
le. Let's not block the gallery, shall we?"
The soft Grayson accent sounded more amused than anything else, but there was a definite edge of command in it. Helen looked over her shoulder quickly, and her eyebrows rose as she recognized the young woman behind her. So far as she was aware, there was only one native-born Grayson woman in the Grayson Space Navy. Even if there hadn't been, the face behind her had been splashed across just about every HD in the Star Kingdom a T-year ago, after the business in Tiberian.
Helen broke off her conversation with Ragnhild Pavletic and stepped swiftly out of the lieutenant's way. The towering giant in the blue and gray uniform walking at the lieutenant's shoulder considered all three midshipmen thoughtfully. His uniform might be that of a Grayson armsman, but he himself could only have been from San Martin, with the dark complexion, heavy-grav physique, and hawklike profile of so many of its inhabitants. And while there was no threat in his eyes, something about him suggested that it would be a good idea not to crowd him or his charge.
The other two middies made haste to follow Helen's example. The lieutenant's seniority would have been enough to produce that result under any circumstances; the quality of her personal guard dog only gave it a bit more alacrity, and her smile showed that she knew it.
"No need to be quite that accommodating," she assured them mildly, and turned to look through the thick armorplast of the space dock gallery herself.
The sleek, double-ended spindle of an Edward Saganami-class heavy cruiser floated to her mooring tractors in the crystalline vacuum, physically connected to the gallery observation deck by personnel tubes while parties of hard-suited yard dogs and their remotes swarmed over her after impeller ring. Technically, Hexapuma was a Saganami-C, an "improved" version of the original Edward Saganami design. Once upon a time, she would have been considered an entirely different class, but BuShips' nomenclature had become a bit more flexible under the previous Admiralty administration. By calling the design a Saganami, rather than admitting that it was an improved, completely new class, they'd actually gotten funding to continue its construction—albeit in very small numbers—as part of the Janacek Admiralty's concentration on building up the Navy's lighter combatants.
At 483,000 tons, Hexapuma was sixty-one percent larger than the Star Knight-class ships which had been the Navy's newest, latest—and largest—heavy cruisers before what people were beginning to call the First Havenite War. Yet despite the increase in tonnage, and a vast increase in firepower, her ship's company was tiny compared to a Star Knight's. In fact, the way the decreased manpower and life support requirements had freed up mass was as much the reason for her increased combat power as the improvements in weapons technology.
Unlike the original Saganami design, Hexapuma was uncompromisingly optimized for missile combat. Although she actually mounted only forty tubes, fewer than the intermediate Saganami-Bs, she still had half again the missile broadside of a Star Knight. And the tubes she did mount were bigger than a Saganami-B's, capable of handling larger and more powerful missiles, while her magazine space had been substantially increased over the preceding class. Her energy weapons were fewer in number—she mounted only eight in each broadside, plus her chase armament—but, taking a page from the pattern the Graysons had set, they were individually more powerful than most navies' battlecruisers mounted. She could hit fewer targets at energy range, but the hits she landed would be devastating. And the Saganami-Cs had been the first cruiser class to receive the new, improved two-phase bow wall generators.
In short, given her choice of engagement ranges, Hexapuma could have engaged and destroyed any prewar battlecruiser—-Manticoran, as well as Peep.
"Pretty, isn't she?" the Grayson lieutenant observed.
"Yes, Ma'am. She is . . . Lieutenant Hearns," Helen agreed. The other woman—she was no more than two or three T-years older than Helen herself—glanced at her speculatively. She was probably used to being recognized, at least by other Navy types, Helen realized. But she looked as if she were wondering why Helen had made the point that she'd recognized her, and Helen suddenly hoped it wasn't because Hearns thought she was trying to brownnose. She met the lieutenant's eyes steadily for a moment, then Hearns nodded slightly and returned her attention to Hexapuma.
"Our new snotties?" she asked after a moment, without looking at them.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Well, I realize it's considered bad luck to welcome a middy aboard before she's officially reported," Hearns went on, her gaze still fixed on the floating cruiser, "so I'll continue to assume you people are just passing through and stopping off to admire the view. It would never do to violate traditions, after all."
"No, Ma'am," Helen agreed, still speaking for all of them.
"If I were you," Hearns continued with a slight smile, "I'd spend a few more minutes taking time to admire her properly. You won't see very much of her from the inside. And," her smile broadened, "you won't have much free time for admiring anything after you report aboard."
She chuckled, then nodded to them and continued on her way towards the forward personnel tube, a slender, graceful destroyer trailed by a lumbering superdreadnought.
* * *
The Marine sentry watched expressionlessly as the trio of midshipmen approached the end of Hexapuma's main boarding tube. The corporal had to have seen them playing gawking tourist and watched their exchange with Lieutenant Hearns, but no one could have guessed that from his expression. From the hashmarks on his sleeve, he'd seen at least six Manticoran years—over ten T-years—of service. He'd probably also seen more midshipmen than he could have counted in that time, and he regarded this newest batch with professional impassivity as they walked towards him.
The snotties shook down into formation on the move without a word. Pavletic had graduated highest of them in their class, although she'd edged the other two (who'd ended in a dead heat) by less than two points. But what mattered was that Pavletic's class standing made her senior, and at the moment, Helen was just as glad that it did.
The delicately built honey-blond midshipwoman led the way to the gallery end of the tube, and the Marine came to attention and saluted. She returned the salute crisply.
"Midshipwoman Pavletic and party to join the ship's company, Corporal," she said. The others had passed her the record chips of their official orders, and she handed all three of them over to the sentry.
"Thank you, Ma'am," the Marine replied. He slotted the first chip into his memo board, keyed the display, and studied it for a second or two. Then he looked up at Ragnhild, obviously comparing her snub-nosed, freckle-dusted face to the imagery in her orders. He nodded, ejected the chip, and handed back to her. Then he plugged in the next one, checked the image, and looked up at Aikawa, who returned his regard steadily. The sentry nodded again, ejected the chip, passed it back to Ragnhild, and then checked Helen's face against her orders' imagery in turn. He didn't waste a lot of time on it, but it was obvious he'd really looked at the imagery. However routine his duties might be, he clearly didn't take anything for granted.
"Thank you, Ma'am," he said to Ragnhild. "You've been expected. I'm afraid the Executive Officer is out of the ship just now, though, Ma'am. I believe Commander Lewis, the Chief Engineer, is the senior officer on board."
"Thank you, Corporal," Ragnhild replied. He hadn't had to add the information that Lewis was the Engineer, and some Marines, she knew, wouldn't have. The function of a snotty cruise was at least in part to throw midshipmen into the deep end, and declining to provide helpful hints about who was who aboard their new ship was one of countless small ways of adding to that testing process.
"You're welcome, Ma'am," the Marine replied, and stood aside for the three midshipmen to enter the boarding tube's zero-gee.
They swam the tube in single file, each taking care to leave sufficient clearance for his or her next ahead's towed locker. Fortunately, they'd all done well in null-grav training, and there were no embarrassing gaffes as, one-by-one, they swung themselves
into Hexapuma's midships boat bay's one standard gravity.
A junior-grade lieutenant with the brassard of the boat bay officer of the deck on her left arm and the name "MacIntyre, Freda" on her nameplate was waiting with an expression of semi-polite impatience, and all three of the midshipmen saluted her.
"Permission to come aboard to join the ship's company, Ma'am?" Ragnhild requested crisply.
The lieutenant returned their salutes, and Ragnhild handed over the record chips again. The BBOD cycled them through her own memo board. It took a bit longer than it had for the sentry, but not a lot. It looked to Helen as if she'd actually read Ragnhild's orders—or skimmed them, at least—but only checked the visual imagery on the others. That seemed a little slack to Helen, but she reminded herself that she was only a snotty. By definition, no one aboard Hexapuma could be wetter behind the ears than she was, and perhaps the lieutenant had simply learned to recognize the Mickey Mouse crap and treat it accordingly.
"You seem to be running a little late, Ms. Pavletic," she observed as she passed the chips back. Ragnhild didn't respond, since there wasn't really much of a response she could make, and MacIntyre smiled thinly.
"Well, you're here now, which is the important thing, I suppose," she said after a moment. She turned her head and beckoned to an environmental tech. "Jankovich!"
"Yes, Lieutenant." Jankovich's pronounced Gryphon accent was like a breath of home to Helen, straight from the Highlands of her childhood. And there was something else she recognized in it—an edge of deep-seated dislike. There was nothing especially overt about it, but Highlanders were remarkably bad at hiding their true feelings . . . from other Highlanders. The rest of the Star Kingdom found everyone from Gryphon rough-edged enough that they seldom picked up on the subtle signs that were unmistakable to fellow Gryphons.