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spacecraft.”
    “ Lieutenant,” the captain’s voice was dangerously soft, “You were placed in command of a strike package totaling some three and a half billion dollars of aerospace craft, and you chose to play overly ambitious games with their drives– and my own .”
    Captain Baldwin stepped into the brewing confrontation. “Captain, the final authorization of Blue Force’s strike tactics was mine, and that included skimming the drive field as closely as she did. We want pilots to be audacious and to push their airframes to the limit.” He drew Harding aside, away from Veronica, and the senior officer dismissed her with a curt nod.
    “ Captain Baldwin, I appreciate the dedication to the hard work of your men and women, but the ultimate safety of and authority over this vessel is mine, not yours, and we both have responsibility for teaching her–not just you.” Harding’s eyes were beginning to soften slightly, “I remember what it was like to be a junior pilot and want to prove myself but damn it, Baldwin, you and I both know she’s going to go back to the space warfare side of the street in a couple years, and we don’t want her treating a half-million-ton heavy cruiser like it’s a fighter.”
    Baldwin stuck his chin out a few centimeters further. “Sir,” he said, “Gray is a brand-new command pilot in my group. In the handful of days since she came on board, she’s been showing strong potential as a tactical officer. The ability to leap while looking–to start to act while you’re still developing a picture of what’s going on–is what separates a great commander from a merely competent one. And the discipline of the flight wing is my job, Captain, “He took a breath, “With due respect, sir, if we beat her over the head every time she pushes the envelope a little, we’ll end up putting her on the beach, where she’ll nurse a resentment for the Navy for the rest of her life.”
    “ Thinking of Charlie Solano, are we?”
    “ Yes, sir, I am. And of a certain squadron commander I didn’t listen to when I was a much younger and more impulsive man.”
    “ This squadron commander was probably a smart man.”
    “ He was, but he’s gotten a bit crotchety.”
    Harding grunted softly. “Touché, Captain, though that was a bit of a low blow. Whatever my other faults, I’d like to think I’ve not gotten ‘crotchety.’ Yet. I’ll go apologize to the Lieutenant.”
    “ Thank you, Sir. Beers later?”
    “ If you’re buying, Jack.”
    “ Wouldn’t miss it.”

    Chapter 5
     
    28 th of 1 st Month, 343
     
    Some days later, the crew of Corvette Dog Two-Oh-Seven trooped aboard her again. The days after the successful exercise had been a whirlwind of simulated re-runs, tests, close examinations and dissections of Veronica’s successful assault tactic (the verdict was that without precise knowledge of the Lexington class carrier’s drive systems, the attack wouldn’t have gotten into range before interception), and paperwork. So much paperwork. One of the handful of differences between the simulation they’d just done and a real attack was that Dog Two-Oh-Seven wasn’t considered blooded. Until she successfully completed a combat mission, she and her crew would not have a name.
    A starship captain ’s apology was a rare nod–but even more important was the fact that Captain Baldwin had stepped into the proverbial line of fire to remind the Captain that the ambush had been something he himself had approved. She filed both examples away in her trove of reminders for how to conduct herself when she was herself the mistress and commander of a starship.
    Despite its much-studied shortcomings, Veronica ’s plan had earned her a twin appointment as Tactical Officer of the Pukin’ Dogs and Assistant Tactical Officer of the entire flight wing. The former was technically more prestigious, but she treasured the latter more because ATO (Wing) was responsible for routine deployments. As such,