A Question of Courage

A Question of Courage, by Jesse F. Bone, has a narrator who says he smelled the trouble the moment he stepped on the lift and took the long ride up the side of the "Lachesis." The narrator describes the ship from the outside as beautiful, a gleaming shaft of duralloy, polished until she shone. The narrator reports for duty as Lieutenant Thomas Marsden and finds Lieutenant Commander Charles Augustus Chase in command.

The narrator says every Midshipman in the Academy knew Chase, and that his nicknames were legion and not one of them was friendly. The text describes a lesson that was now fifteen years along, in which "we" forced "them" through sheer military necessity to gradually tighten their loosely organized League into tightly centralized authority. A voice tells Marsden to throttle back and hang on to his converters, says the ship is in good position in relation to "Amphitrite," and calls out "Drop out and fire", and the narrator says the "Lachesis" dropped like a stone.