neither he nor anyone else in the RMN needed it spelled out for them. “No, Sir,” he said.
“There's a strong and growing movement in Parliament to gut the RMN even more than it already is,” Castillo said. Apparently, despite Travis's assurances, the captain was in the mood for a spelling lesson. “Men like Admiral Locatelli and their families and allies are the ones standing up for our jobs. Standing up for your job, Lieutenant.”
Which would mean a double handful of nothing, Travis thought blackly, if the cost of that protection was staffing the RMN with political animals who either couldn't or wouldn't do those jobs.
But that, too, was part of the spelling lesson. “Understood, Sir,” he said.
“Good,” Castillo said. “You have a promising career, Mr. Long. I'd hate to have it cut short for nothing.” He pursed his lips briefly. “And bear in mind that there are other ways of dealing with incompetence and neglect, ways that don't involve the recipient's permanent record. You'd be well advised to learn them.”
“Yes, Sir.” In fact, Travis did know those other methods.
Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn't.
“Good.” Castillo looked up at Bajek. “Is he still on duty?”
“Yes, Sir,” Bajek said, never taking her eyes off Travis.
Castillo nodded and looked back at Travis. “Return to your station, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
The rest of the shift was tense, but not as bad as Travis had feared it would be. None of the men and women in his division said anything, though he did catch the edge of a couple of whispered conversations. Locatelli himself had the grace not to smirk. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, someone had once told Travis, and it was just barely possible that Locatelli wasn't so much arrogantly indifferent as he was a really slow learner.
Travis hoped it was the latter. Slow learning could be corrected with time and patience. Arrogance usually required something on the order of an exhibition bullwhip.
Still, by the time he started his final check of the systems under his watch, he was feeling more optimistic than he'd been earlier in the day.
Or at least he was until he discovered that the primary tracking sensor for the Number Two forward autocannon was once again miscalibrated.
Maybe, he thought as he headed wearily back to his quarters, it was time to go hunt up that bullwhip.
* * *
“Freighter Hosney, you are cleared to leave orbit,” the voice of Manticore Space Control came over the bridge com. It was an interesting voice, Tash McConnovitch thought, holding shades of both excitement and regret beneath the official tone. Excitement, because in a system where visitors typically dropped by less than twice per T-month a Solly freighter was a welcome break from the drab routine of the controller's job. Regret, because with Hosney's departure the boredom would be settling in again.
Patience, McConnovitch thought darkly in the controller's direction. You'll be begging for boredom and routine before we're done with you.
Or possibly not. The last data file Llyn had received from Axelrod's spies had put Manticore's fleet at somewhere around ten warships, with at most a single battlecruiser poised and ready to face combat.
But that data had been old. Dangerously old, as it turned out. For reasons McConnovitch had yet to pin down, King Edward had launched into an ambitious program of pulling RMN ships out of mothballs and pushing the boot camps and Academy to churn out enough warm bodies to put aboard them.
Still, Edward's revitalization was a work in progress. While the RMN might look fairly impressive on paper, none of the newly refurbished ships were even close to running at full strength. They should still be no problem for the Volsung Mercenaries.
Though of course the Volsungs themselves might not see it that way.
Fortunately, none of that was McConnovitch's concern. His job was simply to deliver the data to the rendezvous system where the mercenary task force was assembling. That snide little man Llyn was the one who would have to make the actual go/no-go decision.
“We're clear of the lane, Sir,” the helmsman announced. “Course laid in.”
“Good,” McConnovitch said, and meant it. He was more than ready to show his kilt to this grubby, backwater little system. “Make some gees, Hermie. We wouldn't want to keep Mr. Llyn waiting.”
* * *
Travis had finished unsealing one of his boots and was starting on the other one when the young man lolling on the top bunk of their tiny cabin finally emerged far enough from the depths of his tablet to