Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(114)

“Should I repeat it?” asked Dabeet. “Was it clear?”

“You got a voice like a whip,” said Ja. “You were the man for the job.”

“So that’s my career now,” said Dabeet. “Public relations.”

A couple of them laughed. The ones who had lived on Earth. The spaceborn had no reason to know what “public relations” even meant.

“I think we need to go and see whether they’re actually doing what Dabeet said,” Zhang He suggested.

Dabeet made as if to go with them, but Ja put a hand on his chest and stopped him. “You stay here. You, too, Cynthia.”

Monkey’s eyes flashed with resentment, but whether it was at the instruction to stay behind or at the use of her given name, Dabeet couldn’t guess.

“You two have been through enough,” said Ja. “Taken enough risk. If these bunducks are still shooting or taking hostages or whatever, you don’t need to be in it. You’ve done your part.”

“Leave Ignazio with us?” asked Dabeet. “In case we need to make another announcement?”

“Koncho,” said Ignazio. But he also stayed.

After a few minutes with the three of them alone in Urska Kaluza’s quarters, Dabeet began to go around the room, palming open everything that looked like a door. Lots of cupboards. Enough dishes to serve a six-course meal at the big table. Two different bathrooms, presumably one for guests and the other, with a luxurious bath and shower, for the commandant. A cupboard of snacks, which they immediately began sampling, and a refrigerator with food and drinks, with and without alcohol.

“Don’t even think about it,” Monkey told Ignazio, who was fingering a bottle of scotch. “You have no idea what your body’s tolerance for alcohol is, and you don’t want the official report on this to say that they found you drunk.”

“Besides, if somebody’s keeping scotch in the fridge,” said Dabeet, “it means they’re too stupid to choose decent scotch in the first place.”

“Oh, you’re the expert,” said Monkey.

“Room temperature except for American beer and a few wines,” said Dabeet. “I was raised by a civilized mother.”

Ignazio set down the bottle and picked up a soft-drink can with a label printed in cyrillic characters. He poured it out into a glass and it looked like some kind of fizzy fruit juice. Pretty soon they were working their way through the fridge and the snack cupboard, reviewing it all as snidely as possible.

After a half hour or so, Ragnar came back with news. Two officers dead, killed by their own men when Dabeet told them, over the public-address system, to shut them up. Otherwise, no casualties.

The raid hadn’t gotten that far, anyway. When the raiders pursued the students into the battlerooms, they had been confused by the network of walls and pillars and bridges they had built. They couldn’t see any kids and they didn’t know how to find their way through the maze. Then the shock hit the station and everybody stopped moving while the officers screamed about how they had a job to do, now do it … and nobody did anything.

“So what are they doing now?” asked Monkey.

“One of the older kids got some teachers out of Embarcation and they turned on the gravitics in the battlerooms. All the kids are out, all the raiders are in. The doors are locked.”

Dabeet felt relieved.

“And here’s the thing,” said Ragnar. “Not one person asked, ‘Who was that on the loudspeakers?’ They all knew.”

Dabeet knew exactly what that meant, but he tried to put a good face on it. “When the job requires an asshole,” he said, “I’m your man.”

“It wasn’t a bad thing,” said Ragnar. “I didn’t mean that as a bad thing.”

“I know,” said Dabeet. And he did know. But despite Ragnar’s intention, it was a bad thing. It meant that with not all that much time at Fleet School, Dabeet was famous for sounding arrogant and scornful. It might have been useful this time, but it wasn’t something Dabeet would ever be proud of.

It took three hours for the first IF ship to dock at Embarcation. By the time any marines made it to the battlerooms, the teachers had already filled them in on what happened. It was another couple of hours before anybody came to the commandant’s quarters.

The marine colonel who led a couple of noncoms into the room looked surprised to see Monkey, Ignazio, and Dabeet there.

“This is the best of the soft drinks,” said Monkey. “There’s still plenty in the fridge.” Of course she had indicated the one that they all hated worst, because she was, after all, still Monkey.

“What are you kids doing in here?” asked the colonel.

“Being naughty,” said Ignazio. “After ejecting the raiders’ ship and getting the ones still on the station to surrender, we figured it was time for a snack and Urska Kaluza kept all the best stuff for herself.”

“Are you drunk?” asked the colonel.

Ignazio looked at Monkey and Dabeet. “If they think I’m drunk anyway, you could have let me actually have some of the scotch.”

“Not scotch from a fridge,” said Dabeet. “You deserve better.”

By then a couple of teachers had come into the room. “This is where they made the announcement from,” said the astrogation teacher. “It was that one.” She pointed at Dabeet. “Said all the right things and they complied.”