Beginnings - By David Weber Page 0,178
with public notice of her family. “It's not Noah's fault he never had a dad.” Claire glared at both men daring them to contradict her. “So what if he doesn't know how to grow up? He never had anyone to show him! That's your fault. If you'd just let some of the women around him be adults, we could have taught him.
“Instead, he went straight from a baby to a dictator without ever the chance to make mistakes that didn't leave half the family in hock and make my two cousins have to go off and strip on Blackbird just to cover the debts and then end up dead with nothing but folk looking down their noses at them as if they didn't do all that they had to do because there wasn't no better way.” Claire flushed as she realized her Saganami Island grammar had abandoned her in her fury. She wasn't done though.
She darted a look at Mayhew and then back at her Steadholder. “There's no way I'll be leaving the steading legally. And the GSN doesn't allow law breaking in the officer corps, so don't you worry, Sir. My life is well and fully ruined, because some idiot leeched onto Noah's guilt to get him to rescind my authorization to work outside the home.”
Her two listening steadholders were dead silent. Claire wanted to vomit. “But, Lord Steadholder, you could have had a whole troublesome family that might have finally amounted to something. Tester knows that Aunt Jezzy, Lucy, Mary and the rest thought that with the Saganami Island appointment you'd decided to save us all. It was going to be a leg up for the whole family.”
Steadholder Burdette shifted uncomfortably.
Claire held her peace focusing on the fine weave skimming over her knees. Maybe she could keep the skirted uniforms after her discharge and wear them for Founding Day parades or something, just to remember that for a while she'd served.
Lord Burdette said, “I suppose I could grant just you legal independence, but I don't see how that could do much for any of the rest. If they just had one strong man to keep them from falling quite so much . . .”
Oxygen flooded in through Claire's gasping open mouth, and then the words came pouring out.
“Give them to me,” she pleaded leaning towards the screen and nearly kneeling. “I've been managing a whole division of techs for a year and a half now, and I've done well enough they made me an ensign. There aren't but six or eight left in my extended family now, depending on who was actually on Blackbird in the end. I know them. If you give me charge of myself, I can take charge of them too.”
Mayhew muttered something near inaudible about every man's responsibility for meeting his own Test. Claire gritted her teeth, and Lord Burdette slowly nodded, “I suppose I could make you Noah's guardian in lieu of the appointed paroleman, and his dependents would come with that. But what would you have them do? You'll be away most of the time. That's no way to run a family.”
Elsabeta and Commander Greentree both bristled in Claire's peripheral vision.
“I'll do what the GSN has done for ages and leave Aunt Jezzy to run things. But like the officers do, I'll leave her the actual power to do so. And,” Claire added almost in spite of herself, “I mean to leave the service after this tour. I had wanted to work on the shipyard. I suppose I'll have to help rebuild it first.
“We're going to need it to go after whoever did this to us. Whoever our enemies are, they know how important Blackbird Yard's industries were, or they would have hit our population, instead. But we can rebuild the station, and we will. They should have hit Grayson; they just don't know it yet.
“Some of my cousins aren't too bad at schooling, if Noah weren't raiding my funds anymore I could get them into some decent trade schools. Maybe enroll Noah in one, too. He could stand to learn a thing or two and do something useful, so he'd have something of his own to be proud of. Maybe we'll have a company in a few years for the rebuilding. The GSN is going to need it, and shouldn't Burdette have more space industry anyway?”
“Why not?” The edges of a smile tipped Steadholder Burdette's lips. “Your legal manumission will be in the next care package from my wives. And congratulations on the promotion, Ensign.”
* * *
The gleaming clean corridors from the captain's cabin back to Claire's stateroom held the usual bustle of crew members, but either Cecelie's stories had extended only as far as those she'd believed could help or the crew genuinely didn't object to Claire trying to break from whatever it was that could stamp a teenager as protector to his mother and female cousins. There were boys who could do it. Probably. Noah just wasn't one of them.
Claire recorded a message to Aunt Jezzy and saved it. Rustin would lend her something to get it passed. Tester knew she couldn't count on Aunt Jezzy getting a payable-on-receipt message without pawning the restaurant cookware. Doubt curled in her stomach. Lord Burdette would reconsider, or somehow she would flub up worse than Noah ever did.
Claire walked back into the wardroom to find Cecelie, Commander Greentree, and Elsabeta talking avidly about the implications for Burdette law of stretching head-of-household to include a female officer and what it would mean if Lord Burdette's judges decided to apply the precedent.
Lieutenant Loyd smiled a greeting at Claire and offered a seat next to her roommate.
Claire sank into the soft, stiff-back chair and nodded tightly at Elsabeta's congratulations.
Cecelie's fair to bouncing out of the seat excitement stilled. “Claire, what's wrong? Your Steadholder didn't take it back, did he? It was witnessed, he couldn't!”
With a quick shake of her head, Claire hugged herself. “What if I blow it? My family, they aren't easy. They aren't like crew with skills and training and believing that directions can be trusted and generally followed as long as the officer isn't being too much of an idiot about it.”
Commander Greentree shared a knowing smile with Lieutenant Loyd at the description of junior officer leadership. “You'll do okay,” he assured her.
“Of course you will.” Cecelie smiled and got a little bit of the bounce back. “You should hear the crazy stories my chief tells about officer families. He says he's been bored with me, because I haven't got any wives to spend every cent or kids to flunk out of school.”
Elsabeta added, “And of course, the wives club does extend membership to extended family for whatever crises come up. We're around when the rest of you are off chasing down pirates, Havenites, or whatever.” She flicked a wrist towards a group of the embassy staff as almost an afterthought acknowledgement of the Blackbird Yard destruction.
“Strengthening family support is one of the things a command team does.” Commander Greentree said. “I don't see why your family should be left out.”
“You'll help me?” Claire nearly stuttered staring around the wardroom. She read their faces and believed them.
Lieutenant Loyd just grinned at her. “The slogan does say, ‘Join the GSN. We'll make a man out of you.'”
Table of Contents
BY THE BOOK
A CALL TO ARMS
Epilogue
I
II
III
IV
Epilogue
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
THE BEST LAID PLANS
OBLIGATED SERVICE
Table of Contents
BY THE BOOK
A CALL TO ARMS Epilogue
I
II
III
IV
Epilogue
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
THE BEST LAID PLANS
OBLIGATED SERVICE