6: The Ensign Who Preferred Girls.
He had not slept, but two hours before the first shift, at 0600, Hornblower nevertheless went to the gym. He would not have it said that he abandoned his routine in the face of crisis, and he obstinately took his usual treadmill, in the corner, facing the warp field that he had been thinking over through the night. Bush was waiting for him; Hornblower gave her a nod, then stepped onto the treadmill.
Through the night, the dilemma acquired a mathematical quality in his mind: an increase in speed meant an increase in the plasma vented from her nacelles. Correspondingly, there was an increase in the chance that the Bird of Prey could track them and blow them to pieces with her cloak and superior firepower. If they met, he must keep the Lydia well clear of the ship; she likely had the strong Klingon tractor beams, and those had, in fact, looked like supplemental torpedo batteries slung along the underside.
He called up the image in his mind. It was vivid in his mind after a night of study; he could call up a map of the sector, too, and manipulate it, turning it this way and that through three dimensions.
If only they could select a speed in between, Hornblower thought -- fast enough so that they could get to the Federation border before the Bird-of-Prey caught them, but with a small enough plasma trail that it would be lost in cosmic radiation -- but there was little information about the Bird of Prey's capabilities, and Hornblower wanted to avoid a confrontation if he could. The road in between would rely upon the Bird of Prey's weaknesses, rather than the Lydia's strengths, and Hornblower was so absorbed in his calculations that he did not see the Ambassador's assistant come picking her way through the equipment.
Before the scandalized Bush could stop her, she interrupted the captain in his sacred morning run.
"The Ambassador asks whether the captain breakfast with her," she lisped, looking a little green about the mouth. Bush continued to look scandalized.
"Eh -- what's that?" asked Hornblower, taken by surprise and coming out of his thoughts. Then, he realized the request that the assistant had made, and his face darkened. The treadmill noted that his feet had stopped moving and brought itself to a stop -- he could be thankful for small mercies.
"No. No," Hornblower said. "Tell her ladyship I will not breakfast with her. Tell her that I will never breakfast with her. Tell her that on no account am I to be sent messages during the morning or to be disturbed with her messages. She is not to contact me, for anything short of an imminent emergency that threatens to destroy the ship, before eight hundred. Get away from me!"
Bush's expression shifted to one of puzzlement, quickly covered when she saw that Hornblower had spotted the expression. The assistant, though -- Hebe, was that her name? -- seemed used to be shouted at, and she scuttled off as soon as Hornblower's attention moved away. Her departure, though, brought attention back to her, and Hornblower turned back to watch her go.
Now that his thoughts had been broken into, he could hear the noise of the fitness room. There was the clatter of the weight machines, the hum of the treadmills, and the sound of feet. It was good to know that the crew was keeping its morale; Hornblower had barely noticed them before he started running, but that was Stahl in the corner at the rowing machine, and down on the end were two of Gerard's security people, talking to each other about hull plating while taking turns at the pull-up bar.
"Bush," Hornblower said.
"Sir?"
She had stopped running as soon as he had stopped, Hornblower supposed, and he studied her while she finished wiping her face. Odd that she should do that, but the solution had come to him while watching the Ambassador's assistant walk away.
"I'm taking the bridge for this shift. You'll be in Engineering; I want you personally supervising the warp core and venting in accordance with instructions that I'll transmit."
He would have to verify his intuitions, of course, with the Navigational computers. A plan of this sort was not lightly undertaken. Nevertheless, in his bones, Hornblower knew that it was correct; it was a matter of navigation, really, of numbers and calculations, and he understood those very well indeed.
Bush studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Aye aye, sir. In accordance with your instructions."
***
"Any idea what the captain is planning?"
The Lydia had a remarkably small Engineering room. Her core had all the punch that a ship of her size and duty required and then some, just in case, but the area housing the core had been designed to maximize space for the engine, not for the psychological comfort of its workers.
Still, in the one-quarter light of the third shift, it took on elegant proportions. Bush sat at the primary console, and Gerard stood next to her, looking at the warp core. There was no one else; Bush had sent Galbraith, the chief engineer, to bed, and the sound of the engine was louder here than anywhere else on the ship. A deep, almost thrumming noise, it vibrated in the railing.
"Haven't the faintest idea," she said. "Is he still on the bridge?"
"He won't leave, apparently. He was eating dinner in the ready room with the door open."
Bush smiled. "Is he? At least he's eating. The last time we were in a situation like this, he wouldn't leave the bridge. Always a worrier -- did you ever see the Hotspur?"
Gerard lifted his eyebrows at her, and Bush's smile grew a little wider. A little embarrassed, so she asked, "Has the Ambassador talked to him?"
"I don't think she's come out of her quarters." Gerard turned around so that his back was to the core, and his elbows rested against the railing. It was easier for them to talk to each other this way. "More is the pity. She has a very nice bottom, doesn't she?"
"Is that all you think about?"
"Pretty much." Gerard shifted a little to make his elbows more comfortable.
"What happened to that nice male ensign you were keeping warm at night?"
"Decided he preferred girls," Gerard replied with a sigh.
"Does he?"
"Until I change his mind back," Gerard said, turning away from his inspection of the bulkhead above him. "I've got to do something in between all these checks of our weapons systems, Will. They're going to wear a hole in the torpedo bank before the week is out."
Bush ignored the attempt at serious conversation. "So until then, you're back at staring women's bottoms."
"It's not just bottoms, Will." Even in the quarter-light of the Engineering deck, Bush could see that Gerard was smiling broadly, and it was directed squarely at her. "I can be persuaded to like bosoms as well. Yours, for example, are looking particularly lovely in this li -- "
"Still on duty, Alex."
"I can't even admire?"
Bush considered several responses, varying in both rudeness and degree of amusement. "Not while we're working."
There was a chirp, but not from their badges. Instead, it was the in-ship message system, blinking a notification on the screen, and she was still staring at the screen when Gerard came to read over her shoulder.
"I'll be damned," he said. "A dinner party? Now? And sent out to the senior officers and the Ambassador. For the holodeck. Tomorrow."
"You know how the captain is." Bush was still staring at the screen, and it took her a moment to respond. It was strange how quickly adrenaline started, how quickly the heart started beating like a drum. They were going to turn and fight. "He likes company on the eve of action."
It was Gerard's turn to stare, and Bush leaned closer to the screen. "I just wish I knew what he was planning."