Chapter: For the Prize
The Lucky Clover point transferred into a system without a name, only a number. AZT89443. There was no great flash of light, no massive 'whump' of the engines, and no encounter with hyperdimensional aliens intent on enslaving humanity for the purpose of serving us as appetizers at some transdimensional buffet. I readily admit that I was somewhat disappointed, even though I'd experienced several jumps during my time on board the ship. I suppose I expected the experience to be somehow better from the Admiral's Throne.
“Firing up main engine,” declared the Helmsman, whose name I had learned was DuPont.
“Point Resistance?” demanded Lieutenant Tremblay.
“Engine at 20% of maximum,” said DuPont, his voice tense. “We’re still locked.”
“It was a long jump,” the science officer said sarcastically glaring at the Navigator.
“I want figures, not information I already know. And it wasn’t that long a jump!” Barked Tremblay.
“Engine at 35% of maximum,” reported the Helmsman. “Lighting up both secondaries now.”
“Shield strength at 86%,” reported a trainee at one of the tactical consoles.
“Engines two and three are lit. We’ve doubled our thrust… and still locked,” reported the Helmsman.
“Report,” Tremblay demanded. No immediate response was forthcoming, which only served to add to the general tension on the bridge. I watched uneasily as the bridge crew tried to break the ship free of the inertial sump created by the point translation.
“We should’ve broken free by now,” said the science officer sounding concerned.
“Give me answers,” growled Tremblay.
“Check the shield modulation, everything reads out as fine on my boards,” the science officer snapped back.
“Shields at 74% and dropping,” said the trainee at tactical. He sounded as scared as I felt.
“All engines at 50%,” reported the Helmsman. “Something’s wrong.”
Lieutenant Tremblay lunged over to the tactical section. Pushing aside the trainee at shields, he settled into the chair and began scrolling through the screens.
I decided it was time to get involved. “What seems to be the problem, Lieutenant Tremblay?”
“Just a second,” Tremblay said tersely.
The science officer broke in. “The shields weren’t properly modulated for a point emergence. Instead of helping us slip out of the sump they’re holding us in, making it harder to overcome the inertia created by our point transfer into the system,” said the science officer. I queried the ship's crew manifest through the console built in to the Admiral's Throne, and found the science officer's last name was Jones.
“Got it,” said Lieutenant Tremblay after less than a minute. A few seconds later the ship lurched abruptly, and I had to grab the arms of the chair to keep from falling onto the floor. My embarrassment was diminished after I saw that half of the bridge crew had reacted in the same fashion, and not all of them were successful in keeping their feet.
“And we’re free,” reported science officer Jones with a sigh of relief.
I adjusted myself in the chair. “We’ve got to do better than this people,” I said, shaking my head. The entire time Admiral Janeski and the rest of the imperials had been on the ship, I’d never experienced a sudden lurch like the one we just felt after exiting hyperspace.
A sensor operator chimed in, “I’ve got two ships on my screen. I think they’re our prize ships.”
Another voice called out, “I’ve got four on mine.” There was a pause, “It looks like a pair of medium cruisers, a heavy cruiser and a freighter matching the profile of the pirate conversion we captured,” he said smugly.
“Hail the Medium Cruisers,” I said in the direction I thought would be the communication's officer. I gave a nod to the sensor operator who had spotted all four vessels and leaned forward in the throne. “Let’s make sure they are who we think they are.”
The sensor operator smiled and turned back to the task. The rest of the sensor division scowled and redoubled their efforts.
A few tense minutes rolled by. “They identify themselves as Pride of Prometheus and Prometheus Fire,” the Communication Tech reported. I exhaled in relief.
“The Captain of the Pride is now requesting a video conference with Admiral Janeski,” said the Communications Tech. Sudden silence filled the bridge.
Looking around quickly, I was acutely aware that no one was looking at me. The pause dragged on.
“They don’t know about the Imperial withdrawal or...” Lieutenant Tremblay slowly trailed off, “you,” he finished lamely and turned red.
“Put the Captain on the main screen,” I told the Communications Tech. There was nothing for it but to go forward. Another extended pause while the Communications Tech figured out how to put the Captain of the Pride of Prometheus on the screen.
I took this temporary reprieve to straighten my uniform. I stopped myself halfway through nervously running a hand through my hair.
A fat man with grey hair came up on the main screen. I had never seen him before. The patrol fleet under Imperial Admiral Janeski had not dedicated a lot of time to socializing. In Pre-prolong years he looked to be somewhere in his mid-forties. In the post-prolong universe we all lived in, that meant he could be anywhere between 40 and 140. Although considering he was from Prometheus and also a ship commander, it was probably safe to put him around the 80 year mark, rather than the unadjusted 40 he looked.
As a Prince-Cadet, I was used to dealing with people older than myself. Not only were most of the people on Capria older, but I was specifically trained to deal with politicians. Admittedly, my training wasn’t in ordering them around. Quite the opposite, but I liked to that think I’d seen enough of their behavior from guests during my stints at the palace to have a good idea of what to do.
I knew I couldn’t pull off the image of a completely professional Admiral, but I figured that since I was a prince-cadet of Capria I could manage something appropriate to the situation. Or so I hoped.
“What are you doing, son,” Demanded the Promethean SDF Captain, “Decided to play dress up in Granddaddy’s uniform?” He snorted, referring to the outdated confederation uniform I was wearing. “Run along and put Admiral Janeski on the screen.”
I refused to be embarrassed. I absolutely refused. I ignored the sudden heat rushing to my face and, instead of allowing myself to turn red, I turned my head to the side and draped a leg over the throne-like edifice they called an Admiral’s Chair. A moment later the heat was gone and I turned back to face the Captain with an arched brow.
“Greetings, Captain,” I did my best to put a royal drawl in the words, “Jason Montagne, at your service. I am Admiral and commanding officer of this Patrol Fleet and all that entails,” I said with my best airy wave and a meaningless court smile plastered on my face.
It took several seconds for the words to sink in, and when they did the Captain purpled. “I don’t know who you think you are, boy, but I don’t have time for your games,” growled the Captain, the fat jowls of his mouth jiggling with the force of his words.
“Admiral Jason Montagne Vekna,” I repeated with emphasis on the title. I pointedly turned to look at the arm of the Throne, activated the screen and entered a search query. I realized I didn’t even know the Captain’s name. I knew that this was something I should have thought to look up long before now, and I felt the heat returning to my face.
“Admiral Who?” the Captain demanded, his brow furrowed, before throwing up his hands and shaking his head. “Put Admiral Janeski on before I have your ears clipped for insubordination and impersonating a retired officer in that outrageously outdated Confederate uniform.”
“Lieutenant Tremblay, please squirt over a copy of the Imperial Admiral’s last declaration before he left us,” I said with a slight inclination of my head toward the viewscreen.
“What,” exclaimed the Captain, eyebrows reaching so high on his face they appeared headed for the ceiling.
“I fear the Imperial Admiral has declared the Triumvirate’s will, which was to abandon the Spine, and promptly departed for Imperial Space onboard an Imperial Command Carrier,” I paused to read the result of his query. Ah there it was, Captain Jeremiah Stood was the man’s name.
Captain Stood’s head reared back and he gave a short shake of his head. “You’re space crazed, my young imposter. I don’t know what you’ve done with the Imperial Admiral, but when he finds out about this line of baloney you’re spewing it won’t be pleasant for you.” He laughed, a harsh barking sound.
“I’m only speaking to the facts, and as Admiral Janeski reaffirmed my right to command prior to departure when he left to reinforce battle fleet, I’m not sure exactly what you think he’ll do.” I rolled my eyes. “I understand that this is something of a shock for you, the realization that this patrol fleet is the only thing standing between the spine-ward sectors and the darkness beyond our borders. It can’t be pleasant, and I realize you will probably require a few moments for the gravity of the situation to sink in, and I fully intend to grant you those moments. As your commanding officer, however, I expect a Sir on the end of those sentences, Captain Stood. What would become of us if we were to abandon the chain of command, along with our hard-won military discipline?”
Once again Captain Stood purpled. “If this is some kind of joke…” he trailed off menacingly.
“You’ll what, Captain Stood,” I demanded loosing my controlled veneer. “Ignore my legal authority over you, bestowed by both Admiral Janeski and the Prometheus Government? Refuse my instructions? Fire on the Flag Ship, perhaps?” I paused and my face hardened, only partially be design. “Prometheus has two Medium Cruisers in this system. Let me be the first to remind you I have a fully armed Dreadnaught Class Heavy Cruiser, recently upgraded by the Imperial Fleet itself, if it comes to that.”
Off to the side Jason noticed Lieutenant Tremblay turn pale and start waving a hand across his throat in a cutting motion, before stopping himself.
I paused and looked at my new First Officer, but Tremblay just gave a quick shake of his head and opened his hands before glancing back at the screen. I shook my head, unable to understand what the other man was trying to get across. I didn’t have time for Tremblay at the moment, Captain Stood required my full attention.
Stood’s jaw was clenching and unclenching. The way his jowls quivered made him seem like some sort of cartoonish figure when viewed close-up on the main screen.
I decided now was the time to throw some more wood on the fire. “If you doubt I’m really a duly-appointed Admiral, just look on the Fleet’s official chain of command in your ship’s database. You’ll find my name rather quickly if you start at the top,” I said as smugly as I could. I wanted to smile, or grin or do something to lighten up at least my own mood but things were too serious all of a sudden. So instead of trying to lighten things, I worked as hard as I could to keep my features even. The last thing I wanted was to give away how worried I felt. After all, this was the first time I had ever tried to be on the other end of one of these particular lashings, and it was definitely uncharted waters from here on out.
The Captain cut the audible and angrily gestured at someone off screen. He scowled and turned back to face the screen. “Name again, your supposed Admiralship,” he asked.
“Jason Montagne Vekna,” I said through a dry mouth, and felt my heart ready to explode through my ears as the captain started a search.
“You’re listed as a Supernumerary,” he said derisively and kept reading, then seemed to come to a realization. “You’re in here as the ceremonial head of this band of intrepid mouse-trappers they call a patrol fleet.”
“So we’re both in agreement that I am listed as the official head of the patrol fleet,” I said, purposefully ignoring everything but the part I wanted to hear, just like my 'superiors' had done throughout my young life.
“You’re listed as a supernumerary with ceremonial duties,” the captain said bullishly.
“This is mutiny,” I said as mildly as I could, but I could see things were starting to spin out of control.
“There’s nothing in my brief that states I have to obey orders from a pampered stripling without the barest hint of naval experience,” Stood snorted.
“Lieutenant Tremblay, lock all turbo-lasers on target,” I paused as Tremblay once again waved his hands in the air, fortunately it was off screen so Stood wasn’t able to see the first officer’s antics. “That would be the Pride of Prometheus,” I offered helpfully. Lieutenant Tremblay threw his hands in the air.
At this point, even an idiot (which I don’t think I am) could see that something was terribly wrong. However, there was no time to figure it out now. We were well past the point of no return at this point.
“You wouldn’t dare,” stated the Captain.
“Targeting the Pride of Prometheus now, Admiral,” said one of the junior trainees at the tactical station.
“Try me,” I returned, trying to keep my voice from cracking under the stress.
Captain Stood hesitated. Then after an extended pause finally grimaced. “What are your orders, Admiral,” he said the last word like it tasted bitter.
I smiled and inclined my head slightly. “Take your men off the prize ships and prepare to follow the Clover into hyperspace as soon as our engines have recharged. My Navigator will relay the hyperspace coordinates.”
“So we’re abandoning the pirate vessels then,” Captain Stood asked dryly.
“No," I said, trying to hide my elation. "We’ll be taking them with us.”
The Captain shook his head. “The merchant conversion can make the transfer without too much trouble. The heavy cruiser, on the other hand, is a mess from top to bottom. Those pirates never performed any system maintenance they could avoid, and while the star drive is still intact, the main dish was completely blown to pieces. She can make the strange particles but there’s no way she can form a hyper field of her own.” Obviously Stood had been doing a thorough job examining the ships and their status.
I ground my molars, then gave a wave of my hand. “I’ll have our Chief Engineer take a look, I’m sure he can come up with something. That ship is coming with us.”
“There’s no way that’s going to happen unless you’ve got a spare main deflector,” Stood made a chopping motion to emphasize the impossibility of what I was suggesting.
I narrowed my eyes. “We’ll see,” was all I could manage before I gave the order to cut the connection. I turned to First Officer Tremblay. “You had something you wanted to say?” I asked.
“I didn’t think you could pull it off,” Tremblay said. He shook himself, “What I meant to say is that most of our weaponry was upgraded Imperial issue.”
I shrugged, oblivious to what he seemed to be implying.
Tremblay’s mouth tightened. “Meaning Admiral Janeski and the Imps took it with them when they left.”
I nearly leapt out of my seat, and couldn't control my shock when I rather unprofessionally blurted “What!"
“In several cases they took out the turret along with turbo laser. Essentially we’re unarmed,” said Tremblay with a note of finality.
I closed my eyes. I’d known that threatening two medium cruisers, when we had barely half a crew (and an untrained one, at that) was risky business. I sighed. Thankfully, I hadn’t known just how helpless we were when I made my threats.
The First Officer continued, “On top of that, gunnery was raided almost as badly as the tactical section. Even if we had the main guns, we don’t have enough trained men to crew them.”
“Better and better,” I opened my eyes and looked over at my First Officer. “I suppose its too much to hope that we kept any of the old beam guns after the… upgrade,” I said, more of a pleading note in my tone than I had intended.
“I’ll check into it first thing,” said Tremblay, his lack of confidence easily betrayed by his voice.
“That’s just great. Not only are we unarmed, but even if by some miracle we manage to rearm, we don’t have enough men to fire the blasted weapons.” Being thrust into command of a Dreadnaught class heavy cruiser was bad enough, but finding out that essentially all of the weaponry had been stripped added a measure of stress to the equation that I hadn't considered possible.
“That’s about the long and the short of it,” Tremblay said.
I struggled to find a response that wouldn't give away just how hopeless I found the situation. Fortunately, I remembered how I dealt with this type of problem just yesterday. “Look into starting a training program for the proper manning of whatever gun turrets we have remaining, Officer Tremblay. I also want an inventory of our remaining tactical assets. And I do mean immediately.”
“What we need to do is head straight to a proper naval base so we can refit for the voyage home,” said Tremblay.
I turned my hardest steely stare at the Lieutenant until he dropped his gaze and turned away. I turn to address the communications station, since I was still unfamiliar with the names of the crew manning it. “Get me the Chief Engineer, even if you have to roust him from the deepest, darkest pit in this ship and fetch him a set of clothes."
The Deposed King
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Snippet 9 - Admiral Who
Chapter:
It was a relief to be out of that iron cage they called power armor. I rolled my shoulders and sighed, suddenly aware of how sore my neck felt.
My new wardrobe was a little too well padded, but at least I now looked like I belonged on a star ship. As of this morning, I was the proud new owner of a heavily reinforced officer’s uniform. The armory crew even told me it sported the insignia of an Admiral, which was a step up in blending into the naval world. Much better than official Caprian court attire or that battle suit I’d been wearing up until now.
The main reason I had accepted the new uniform as a replacement for the battle suit, was that along with being bullet proof and blaster resistant, it also provided some limited protection against hand-to-hand vibro weapons. I was told it lacked many of the more modern features of an imperial uniform, but compared to the uniforms worn by the rest of the crew it was a big step up.
The only unfortunate thing about this new ensemble was that it wasn’t an SDF uniform. Instead, it was an old style Confederate officer’s uniform from a period before the official unification of the Confederation and Imperium.
From the cut of the cloth, it seemed a rather rotund Admiral had found his way onto the Lucky Clover at some point and left one of his uniforms behind when he departed.
The ship’s tailor had been called over to the armory from his post in the supply department. After a few quick measurements, the waist was taken in and the arms adjusted. The uniform now fit close enough for me to appear in public without fear of embarrassment. More importantly, I would no longer loom over the bridge crew in a battle suit. A suit of armor that no longer felt quite as invincible as it had before the chief engineer disabled it with his bare hands.
So I left the battle suit behind with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it had stopped blaster fire aimed directly at me at close range. On the other hand, its padding left a lot to be desired in the comfort department. Still, this new uniform seemed to be adequately protective and comfortable.
But just in case personal security once again became my sole responsibility, I was also the proud new owner of a miniature, hold out blaster pistol. It was small and easily concealed in the sleeve of the new uniform, so no one would know I was armed until it was too late. Amazingly, I managed to somehow feel a measure of security with the addition of a new uniform and a pistol that could easily fit in a lady's portable makeup kit.
I had survived an Imperial withdrawal which had seen what was essentially the better half of the ship's crew taken with them, a political assassination attempt, a false-alarm life support failure on deck three, and a face-to-face meeting with perhaps the most crazed Engineer in the SDF.
I was exhausted. After riding the lift, I made a quick tour of the Flag Bridge, before heading back to my quarters for some sleep.
Three hours later, claxons sounded and I jerked out of a nightmare filled slumber. Instead of the usual process of waking gradually to the sound of the gentle, yet successively louder tone of the alarm clock, I bolted out of bed to the sound of the harsh yellow alert siren.
I pulled on the Confederate Admiral’s uniform (the new one with built in protection that made me look fat) hanging over the back of the desk chair, and hastily worked the buttons closed. Buckling on a ceremonial sword, the only part of my court attire I had transferred to my new admiral’s uniform, I couldn't help but laugh. Thanks to the former marine jack’s, I had rarely worn the sword on the bridge. Now, my first day in a proper naval uniform and the sword was the very first thing I put on when I heard the alarm.
I paused to check if there was anyone in the corridor outside my quarters. Seeing no one, I took off at a run for the nearest lift.
Arriving outside the Flag Bridge panting, more from the adrenaline dump than the distance to the bridge, I paused to straighten and adjust my uniform. The blast doors were closed, which wasn’t usually the case.
Flicking my hair out of my eyes, I slapped a panel to open the door. Nothing happened. My heart rate skyrocketed. I took a deep breath to calm myself, an action that wasn’t helped by the still howling alarm claxon. I ran a hand through my hair again before glancing around. No one was there and I became angry with myself for even checking. As the Admiral, I shouldn’t be worried about someone else watching me. They should be worried about me watching them!
I reached into a pocket on the front of the uniform and pulled out the command crystal for the ship. I inserted it into the door's control panel, and sighed with relief as it slid open.
I repeated the process with the second set of doors and walked onto the Flag Bridge.
“Where are we headed,” shouted Lieutenant Tremblay. He was wearing dress pants and an undershirt, The rest of his uniform, including footwear, was missing.
“There are no point coordinates set in the Nav Computer, First Officer,” said the Helmsman, panic in his voice.
“Field strength approaching first threshold. Point of no return estimated in two minutes and counting,” a rating at one of the sensor consoles reported.
I stood in the doorway and observed the Flag Bridge, taking in the chaotic scene. I didn’t know what was going on and until I did, it seemed like it was better to find out as much as I could before injecting myself into the fray.
“Someone get me the Navigator up here!” Tremblay actually looked like he was faring worse than I was at this point, which was pleasing for some reason.
“Engineering on the line, Sir,” said a damage control rating.
“Ask them what the devil’s going on,” demanded Lieutenant Tremblay. “Wait. Put them up on the main screen instead.”
There was a pause.
“One moment, Sir,” said the damage control rating.
“How did the entire bridge crew miss the fact our Hyper Drive was spinning up for the past eight hours,” the First Officer asked, looking up at the ceiling before glaring around the bridge.
The image of the Chief Engineer, grey hair flaring out wildly on either side of his balding head, appeared on the main screen.
“What demon Disciple of Murphy decided it’d be such a sweet idea to pull the Chief Engineer away from his engines, to answer the ruddy phone,” demanded the aged Lieutenant Spalding.
“What game do you think you’re playing down there, Spalding,” snapped the former intelligence officer.
“Right now, I’m answering stupid questions over the internal comm. Before that I was overseeing the formation of the Clover’s hyper-field with a crew of greenhorns. You know,” he spat off to the side, “the one that keeps the whole ruddy ship from being torn apart when we tear a hole through hyperspace.”
Then he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘idjit’.
Lieutenant Tremblay purpled, “On whose authority did you activate the Star Drive and form the point-field,” demanded the young Lieutenant, gaining a measure of composure with every word. “Or is this another one of Engineering’s bright ideas? Like the way its Chief Engineer has ignored every scheduled meeting to date and decided to run a series of ship-wide drills without bothering to consult with the bridge or, heaven forbid, ask for permission first,” by the time he finished, his finger was leveled at the Chief Engineer's image on the screen.
“I don’t have time to waste on administrative meetings, you young space pup. Not when the Clover’s ready to shake apart around our ears,” roared the ancient Engineering Officer.
“You insubordinate, old-,” began Tremblay.
Spalding overrode him by raising his voice as he continued speaking. “Everything I’ve done, including spinning up the Star Drive, has been by order of the Little Admiral his-own-self.” Lieutenant Spalding abruptly cut the connection.
I stared at the blank screen. Everything had been by order of the Little Admiral. My orders. I had done nothing of the sort… had I? Now that I thought about it, the Engineer had mentioned something last night about the ship needing drills. I hadn’t disagreed with him, but I didn’t remember doing anything as active as issue an order. And as for lighting up the hyper drive, I specifically remember telling him to wait for -
Oh no. The lift door had closed in the middle of my telling Spalding to wait for the order. I hadn’t thought to check back with the engineer later and make sure he had understood. I mean really, who decides to light off a hyper drive from some off handed comment in the middle of a ship’s corridor?
I closed my eyes. A man who could be found sprawled naked and asleep in the middle of said corridor as often as he could in the brig, and called himself the ship’s Chief Engineer, that’s who. I suddenly began to realize the magnitude of our current situation.
I also realized that hiding out by the blast doors wasn’t necessarily the best thing to do.
So I cleared my throat, struck what I hoped was a properly regal pose and strode onto the bridge proper.
A startled sensor officer glanced over at me and went bug eyed.
“Who are you,” he barked incredulously. “We’re in lock down, what are you doing on the Flag Bridge?”
The young Admiral was taken aback. I recognized the man from the bridge meeting and was sure I’d seen him on the bridge since then.
“Admiral Jason Montagne, at your service. And where else would I be during a yellow alert than on the bridge?” I arched an eyebrow for effect. I couldn’t help feeling like fraud every time I called my self an Admiral but I had to play the part.
By now several of the bridge crew where looking at me in surprise.
“Admiral Who?” This particular question came from a crewman over at the damage control station. “When did the old Confed Navy get here?”
I didn’t recognize this one from any of the previous meeting. I thought him to be one of the new trainees.
“It’s the Little Admiral himself, not some stupid Confederal,” hissed a man I did recognized from yesterday's events.
“I thought you said he’d be in power armor. Couldn’t miss him, you said,” hissed back the first crewman.
I felt myself go red from the neck up and cleared my throat louder.
Lieutenant Tremblay whirled around. For a second he stopped, mouth hanging open in shock and his hand started to come up in salute. Then he scowled.
Must be the new uniform, I thought. At least I still had their attention, I thought hiding a smile.
“I trust you’re aware Engineering has spun up the Star Drive,” demanded the First Officer, “because no one else on the bridge, including myself had been told anything about this.”
I paused before answering, tapping a finger on my chin while I tried desperately to find the best path through this latest crisis. I wanted to place the blame right where it belonged, but I had been trained better than that. Finally out of the power armor and inside this new confederate uniform, my media training as a parliamentary scapegoat kicked in. Instead of damning the Chief Engineer to the tender mercies of all the ice cold space gods, I smiled like I was standing in front of a bank of cameras.
“Of course I was aware,” I said, stepping closer to the First Officer and not incidentally toward the Admiral’s chair, “I gave the Chief Engineer his instructions during third shift.”
Lieutenant Tremblay’s expression turned thunderous. “And you didn’t think to share this information with the rest of us?” The First Officer's countenance was absolutely explosive, but his voice was measured and controlled, if a bit low in pitch which was an obvious giveaway for his temperament. Those public debate lessons were coming into play again, and I smiled to myself in satisfaction. I still had the upper hand with this particular opponent to my illusory authority, which was better than the alternative, as Jean-Luc might well attest.
“I thought we all did such a bang up job with the three shift enviro-crisis that a few more drills were in order. I include myself in that evaluation.” I did remember something about standing up for the men under your direct authority from some of those colonial administrative courses I’d taken, so I thought that taking full responsibility for the rest of the Chief Engineer’s actions was perhaps the right course in this particular case. Hopefully it would head off a confrontation regarding Spalding’s competence, or lack thereof.
Not only did I recall that bit of morale-building from administrative classes, but the hard truth of the matter was that we had literally no one else to turn to down in engineering. I knew, I had looked at the roster. Hard. It was the first thing on my mind upon returning to the Flag Bridge after finding the man sprawled out in his underwear on three deck.
“Sir, threshold limit reached and now exceeded, we are at 80% and climbing,” said the same sensor operator who’d reported to Tremblay before.
Tremblay went white lipped. “There’s no turning back now,” he said, a slight quiver in his voice. I hoped the rest of the crew could hear the same fear I could, but I doubted such nuances were perceptible to anyone but a thoroughly trained public speaker.
I reached the Admiral's Throne and turned in a practiced motion, sweeping my gaze across the bridge crew's faces until I finally rested my gaze on Lieutenant Tremblay. The crew was understandably excited, and I could see that my arrival had not produced the desired calming effect up to this point.
"Lieutenant Tremblay, what is the significance of the 80% limit," I asked, doing my best to sound more like a university professor than a frightened child.
The First Officer paused and shot me a look. “Up to 80% and we’re just filling the ship with strange particles, the ones we need to survive a point transfer. The hyper field, the part of the point transfer process which actually tears open a hole in hyperspace, doesn’t start to form until we exceed the 80% mark. Up to the 80% threshold and we can abort at any time. If we try to stop the star drive after we exceed the threshold and the field starts to form, the accumulated energy could tear the ship apart,” said Tremblay in a wary tone, studying my expression as he delivered his response.
“Ah,” I said without accompanying body language. I resisted the urge to gulp at the thought of the ship tearing itself apart due to a poorly delivered order to a half-crazed engineer, if only because Tremblay's gaze was firmly locked on my expression, obviously looking for something in my reaction. I refused to give him the satisfaction, so I only nodded slowly as though I felt the answer to be adequate. Good information to know. No stopping the ship after it reached threshold levels. Bad things could happen, and enough of those seemed to pop up without encouragement.
“Where is the Navigator,” I asked in the lightest, conversational a tone as I could manage. “He should probably start plotting the course, as it looks like we’re going to get our prize ships back sooner, rather than later.”
I looked around for a yeoman, I recalled seeing them bustling about the bridges of the many intrepid vessels of holo-vid fame. Mouth dry I suddenly found myself rather thirsty, and thought some tea might help sooth my nerves a bit. I also realized I had no idea what insignia a yeoman might wear. "Yeoman," I said, trying for an amused tone but producing something closer to a sharp bark.
Three crewmembers, two women and a man snapped about at the sound of my voice. I could get used to this type of reaction, I thought with satisfaction. I indicated the woman to my left, who did not appear to have a specific task at the moment. "Some tea, please. Not too hot, mind you," I said. Fully half of the crew took the opportunity to steal an incredulous glance in my direction.
The yeoman seemed confused by this order, but drew herself up before replying. "Sir, I'll see what I can do," she managed, with a hint of annoyance. She quickly made for the lift doors and I refocused my attention on the mayhem unfolding around me.
Lieutenant Tremblay drew himself up to attention, “It would be beneficial to the ship and its crew if you would inform the rest of us where we’re going before you have engineering spin up the hyperdrive, Admiral,” he said stiffly.
I waved my hand airily, resting an elbow on arm of the Admiral’s Throne. “Lieutenant, I doubt there’s a man on this ship who doesn’t know our destination by now.”
“Sir,” Tremblay said through his teeth, “Have I mentioned that as your First Officer I need to be made aware of any significant changes to the ship, before they land in my lap looking for instructions.”
On the inside I squirmed. Which was why on the outside I put on a smile that was equally parts condescending and exasperated. I’d practiced that smile in front of the mirror after seeing it turned on me at court time and time again. “It was important for the sake of the test that no one but engineering be informed of the point transfer ahead of time, since they needed to form the hyper field." I spoke in a slow, slightly punctuated fashion to drive home the point. "The bridge needed to discover the strange particles and hyper-field on its own for the test to be a real evaluation of our skills. Don't you agree, Number One?” Stars, that was good!
The First Officer was still angry and looked unconvinced but all he did was shake his head and turn away. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
“Where’s that blasted Navigator,” Tremblay barked. The bridge crew scurried to locate the missing man.
The navigator finally made his way to the bridge at the same time as my tea, and nearly passed out when told the ship was already past the threshold limit and he had to calculate a hyperspace transfer before the ship point-transferred into oblivion for lack of coordinates.
Now I looked like an Admiral from the vids. A proper point of calm in the middle of a storm. Thankfully, I felt like I was concealing the sheer terror which threatened to overtake control of my bodily functions. I took the covered mug containing the warm liquid and held it in my right hand for a moment. I raised it to my lips before seeing Tremblay shoot a look my way, trying to go unnoticed in doing so.
Damn, I thought to myself, what if it was poisoned?! I sniffed the vapor carefully, trying to discern anything unusual about the drink, but then I realized I had no idea how to identify poisons. I carefully placed the container on the arm of the throne and refocused on the bridge crew's frantic activities. I decided to have the tea tested later, but that holding it produced the same desired effect as actually drinking it, without the potentially lethal side effects.
“It takes hours to calculate a point transfer,” the Navigator gasped. “Whose bright idea was it to spin up the drives before calling in the Navigator?”
Lieutenant Tremblay shot me another look before clapping the navigator on the shoulder. “Then it's a good thing our Lucky Clover takes a full twelve hours to spin up. An Imperial ship this size and you’ve got two, maybe three hours start to finish.”
“Without coordinates we could be lost in hyperspace. We might point-transfer inside a moon, get sucked into a black hole, or appear in the middle of a star’s corona, if there isn’t enough time to calculate them right,” he complained fiercely. “That’s not to mention asteroids, rogue stars or other ships.”
Lieutenant Tremblay cut him off. “Then it’s a good thing you’ve still got over two hours to make the calculations, Navigator.”
The Navigator opened his mouth, but Tremblay place a hand on his shoulder squeezed. “If you had answered the page and come to the Flag Bridge sooner, you would have had more time. A lesson in itself, wouldn’t you say?”
The navigator winced and closed his mouth.
“Like I said, Imperial Navigators make point transfer calculations in this kind of time frame all the time. Rather routine for them, I’d say.” Lieutenant Tremblay kept his grip on the Navigator's shoulder.
I raised a hand. “I’m sure the Navigator would like to get started on those calculations now,” I said, becoming more than a little concerned about the Navigator's ability to discharge his duties in time.
Tremblay nodded and stepped back.
I couldn't help but notice the anxious looks the rest of the bridge crew where giving the Navigator, but at least the general mood had settled down noticeably.
It was a tension filled two hours while the Navigator sweated over his console.
When he announced the calculations were finished with fifteen minutes to spare, I heaved a sigh of relief, along with the rest of the bridge crew.
The Deposed King
It was a relief to be out of that iron cage they called power armor. I rolled my shoulders and sighed, suddenly aware of how sore my neck felt.
My new wardrobe was a little too well padded, but at least I now looked like I belonged on a star ship. As of this morning, I was the proud new owner of a heavily reinforced officer’s uniform. The armory crew even told me it sported the insignia of an Admiral, which was a step up in blending into the naval world. Much better than official Caprian court attire or that battle suit I’d been wearing up until now.
The main reason I had accepted the new uniform as a replacement for the battle suit, was that along with being bullet proof and blaster resistant, it also provided some limited protection against hand-to-hand vibro weapons. I was told it lacked many of the more modern features of an imperial uniform, but compared to the uniforms worn by the rest of the crew it was a big step up.
The only unfortunate thing about this new ensemble was that it wasn’t an SDF uniform. Instead, it was an old style Confederate officer’s uniform from a period before the official unification of the Confederation and Imperium.
From the cut of the cloth, it seemed a rather rotund Admiral had found his way onto the Lucky Clover at some point and left one of his uniforms behind when he departed.
The ship’s tailor had been called over to the armory from his post in the supply department. After a few quick measurements, the waist was taken in and the arms adjusted. The uniform now fit close enough for me to appear in public without fear of embarrassment. More importantly, I would no longer loom over the bridge crew in a battle suit. A suit of armor that no longer felt quite as invincible as it had before the chief engineer disabled it with his bare hands.
So I left the battle suit behind with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it had stopped blaster fire aimed directly at me at close range. On the other hand, its padding left a lot to be desired in the comfort department. Still, this new uniform seemed to be adequately protective and comfortable.
But just in case personal security once again became my sole responsibility, I was also the proud new owner of a miniature, hold out blaster pistol. It was small and easily concealed in the sleeve of the new uniform, so no one would know I was armed until it was too late. Amazingly, I managed to somehow feel a measure of security with the addition of a new uniform and a pistol that could easily fit in a lady's portable makeup kit.
I had survived an Imperial withdrawal which had seen what was essentially the better half of the ship's crew taken with them, a political assassination attempt, a false-alarm life support failure on deck three, and a face-to-face meeting with perhaps the most crazed Engineer in the SDF.
I was exhausted. After riding the lift, I made a quick tour of the Flag Bridge, before heading back to my quarters for some sleep.
Three hours later, claxons sounded and I jerked out of a nightmare filled slumber. Instead of the usual process of waking gradually to the sound of the gentle, yet successively louder tone of the alarm clock, I bolted out of bed to the sound of the harsh yellow alert siren.
I pulled on the Confederate Admiral’s uniform (the new one with built in protection that made me look fat) hanging over the back of the desk chair, and hastily worked the buttons closed. Buckling on a ceremonial sword, the only part of my court attire I had transferred to my new admiral’s uniform, I couldn't help but laugh. Thanks to the former marine jack’s, I had rarely worn the sword on the bridge. Now, my first day in a proper naval uniform and the sword was the very first thing I put on when I heard the alarm.
I paused to check if there was anyone in the corridor outside my quarters. Seeing no one, I took off at a run for the nearest lift.
Arriving outside the Flag Bridge panting, more from the adrenaline dump than the distance to the bridge, I paused to straighten and adjust my uniform. The blast doors were closed, which wasn’t usually the case.
Flicking my hair out of my eyes, I slapped a panel to open the door. Nothing happened. My heart rate skyrocketed. I took a deep breath to calm myself, an action that wasn’t helped by the still howling alarm claxon. I ran a hand through my hair again before glancing around. No one was there and I became angry with myself for even checking. As the Admiral, I shouldn’t be worried about someone else watching me. They should be worried about me watching them!
I reached into a pocket on the front of the uniform and pulled out the command crystal for the ship. I inserted it into the door's control panel, and sighed with relief as it slid open.
I repeated the process with the second set of doors and walked onto the Flag Bridge.
“Where are we headed,” shouted Lieutenant Tremblay. He was wearing dress pants and an undershirt, The rest of his uniform, including footwear, was missing.
“There are no point coordinates set in the Nav Computer, First Officer,” said the Helmsman, panic in his voice.
“Field strength approaching first threshold. Point of no return estimated in two minutes and counting,” a rating at one of the sensor consoles reported.
I stood in the doorway and observed the Flag Bridge, taking in the chaotic scene. I didn’t know what was going on and until I did, it seemed like it was better to find out as much as I could before injecting myself into the fray.
“Someone get me the Navigator up here!” Tremblay actually looked like he was faring worse than I was at this point, which was pleasing for some reason.
“Engineering on the line, Sir,” said a damage control rating.
“Ask them what the devil’s going on,” demanded Lieutenant Tremblay. “Wait. Put them up on the main screen instead.”
There was a pause.
“One moment, Sir,” said the damage control rating.
“How did the entire bridge crew miss the fact our Hyper Drive was spinning up for the past eight hours,” the First Officer asked, looking up at the ceiling before glaring around the bridge.
The image of the Chief Engineer, grey hair flaring out wildly on either side of his balding head, appeared on the main screen.
“What demon Disciple of Murphy decided it’d be such a sweet idea to pull the Chief Engineer away from his engines, to answer the ruddy phone,” demanded the aged Lieutenant Spalding.
“What game do you think you’re playing down there, Spalding,” snapped the former intelligence officer.
“Right now, I’m answering stupid questions over the internal comm. Before that I was overseeing the formation of the Clover’s hyper-field with a crew of greenhorns. You know,” he spat off to the side, “the one that keeps the whole ruddy ship from being torn apart when we tear a hole through hyperspace.”
Then he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘idjit’.
Lieutenant Tremblay purpled, “On whose authority did you activate the Star Drive and form the point-field,” demanded the young Lieutenant, gaining a measure of composure with every word. “Or is this another one of Engineering’s bright ideas? Like the way its Chief Engineer has ignored every scheduled meeting to date and decided to run a series of ship-wide drills without bothering to consult with the bridge or, heaven forbid, ask for permission first,” by the time he finished, his finger was leveled at the Chief Engineer's image on the screen.
“I don’t have time to waste on administrative meetings, you young space pup. Not when the Clover’s ready to shake apart around our ears,” roared the ancient Engineering Officer.
“You insubordinate, old-,” began Tremblay.
Spalding overrode him by raising his voice as he continued speaking. “Everything I’ve done, including spinning up the Star Drive, has been by order of the Little Admiral his-own-self.” Lieutenant Spalding abruptly cut the connection.
I stared at the blank screen. Everything had been by order of the Little Admiral. My orders. I had done nothing of the sort… had I? Now that I thought about it, the Engineer had mentioned something last night about the ship needing drills. I hadn’t disagreed with him, but I didn’t remember doing anything as active as issue an order. And as for lighting up the hyper drive, I specifically remember telling him to wait for -
Oh no. The lift door had closed in the middle of my telling Spalding to wait for the order. I hadn’t thought to check back with the engineer later and make sure he had understood. I mean really, who decides to light off a hyper drive from some off handed comment in the middle of a ship’s corridor?
I closed my eyes. A man who could be found sprawled naked and asleep in the middle of said corridor as often as he could in the brig, and called himself the ship’s Chief Engineer, that’s who. I suddenly began to realize the magnitude of our current situation.
I also realized that hiding out by the blast doors wasn’t necessarily the best thing to do.
So I cleared my throat, struck what I hoped was a properly regal pose and strode onto the bridge proper.
A startled sensor officer glanced over at me and went bug eyed.
“Who are you,” he barked incredulously. “We’re in lock down, what are you doing on the Flag Bridge?”
The young Admiral was taken aback. I recognized the man from the bridge meeting and was sure I’d seen him on the bridge since then.
“Admiral Jason Montagne, at your service. And where else would I be during a yellow alert than on the bridge?” I arched an eyebrow for effect. I couldn’t help feeling like fraud every time I called my self an Admiral but I had to play the part.
By now several of the bridge crew where looking at me in surprise.
“Admiral Who?” This particular question came from a crewman over at the damage control station. “When did the old Confed Navy get here?”
I didn’t recognize this one from any of the previous meeting. I thought him to be one of the new trainees.
“It’s the Little Admiral himself, not some stupid Confederal,” hissed a man I did recognized from yesterday's events.
“I thought you said he’d be in power armor. Couldn’t miss him, you said,” hissed back the first crewman.
I felt myself go red from the neck up and cleared my throat louder.
Lieutenant Tremblay whirled around. For a second he stopped, mouth hanging open in shock and his hand started to come up in salute. Then he scowled.
Must be the new uniform, I thought. At least I still had their attention, I thought hiding a smile.
“I trust you’re aware Engineering has spun up the Star Drive,” demanded the First Officer, “because no one else on the bridge, including myself had been told anything about this.”
I paused before answering, tapping a finger on my chin while I tried desperately to find the best path through this latest crisis. I wanted to place the blame right where it belonged, but I had been trained better than that. Finally out of the power armor and inside this new confederate uniform, my media training as a parliamentary scapegoat kicked in. Instead of damning the Chief Engineer to the tender mercies of all the ice cold space gods, I smiled like I was standing in front of a bank of cameras.
“Of course I was aware,” I said, stepping closer to the First Officer and not incidentally toward the Admiral’s chair, “I gave the Chief Engineer his instructions during third shift.”
Lieutenant Tremblay’s expression turned thunderous. “And you didn’t think to share this information with the rest of us?” The First Officer's countenance was absolutely explosive, but his voice was measured and controlled, if a bit low in pitch which was an obvious giveaway for his temperament. Those public debate lessons were coming into play again, and I smiled to myself in satisfaction. I still had the upper hand with this particular opponent to my illusory authority, which was better than the alternative, as Jean-Luc might well attest.
“I thought we all did such a bang up job with the three shift enviro-crisis that a few more drills were in order. I include myself in that evaluation.” I did remember something about standing up for the men under your direct authority from some of those colonial administrative courses I’d taken, so I thought that taking full responsibility for the rest of the Chief Engineer’s actions was perhaps the right course in this particular case. Hopefully it would head off a confrontation regarding Spalding’s competence, or lack thereof.
Not only did I recall that bit of morale-building from administrative classes, but the hard truth of the matter was that we had literally no one else to turn to down in engineering. I knew, I had looked at the roster. Hard. It was the first thing on my mind upon returning to the Flag Bridge after finding the man sprawled out in his underwear on three deck.
“Sir, threshold limit reached and now exceeded, we are at 80% and climbing,” said the same sensor operator who’d reported to Tremblay before.
Tremblay went white lipped. “There’s no turning back now,” he said, a slight quiver in his voice. I hoped the rest of the crew could hear the same fear I could, but I doubted such nuances were perceptible to anyone but a thoroughly trained public speaker.
I reached the Admiral's Throne and turned in a practiced motion, sweeping my gaze across the bridge crew's faces until I finally rested my gaze on Lieutenant Tremblay. The crew was understandably excited, and I could see that my arrival had not produced the desired calming effect up to this point.
"Lieutenant Tremblay, what is the significance of the 80% limit," I asked, doing my best to sound more like a university professor than a frightened child.
The First Officer paused and shot me a look. “Up to 80% and we’re just filling the ship with strange particles, the ones we need to survive a point transfer. The hyper field, the part of the point transfer process which actually tears open a hole in hyperspace, doesn’t start to form until we exceed the 80% mark. Up to the 80% threshold and we can abort at any time. If we try to stop the star drive after we exceed the threshold and the field starts to form, the accumulated energy could tear the ship apart,” said Tremblay in a wary tone, studying my expression as he delivered his response.
“Ah,” I said without accompanying body language. I resisted the urge to gulp at the thought of the ship tearing itself apart due to a poorly delivered order to a half-crazed engineer, if only because Tremblay's gaze was firmly locked on my expression, obviously looking for something in my reaction. I refused to give him the satisfaction, so I only nodded slowly as though I felt the answer to be adequate. Good information to know. No stopping the ship after it reached threshold levels. Bad things could happen, and enough of those seemed to pop up without encouragement.
“Where is the Navigator,” I asked in the lightest, conversational a tone as I could manage. “He should probably start plotting the course, as it looks like we’re going to get our prize ships back sooner, rather than later.”
I looked around for a yeoman, I recalled seeing them bustling about the bridges of the many intrepid vessels of holo-vid fame. Mouth dry I suddenly found myself rather thirsty, and thought some tea might help sooth my nerves a bit. I also realized I had no idea what insignia a yeoman might wear. "Yeoman," I said, trying for an amused tone but producing something closer to a sharp bark.
Three crewmembers, two women and a man snapped about at the sound of my voice. I could get used to this type of reaction, I thought with satisfaction. I indicated the woman to my left, who did not appear to have a specific task at the moment. "Some tea, please. Not too hot, mind you," I said. Fully half of the crew took the opportunity to steal an incredulous glance in my direction.
The yeoman seemed confused by this order, but drew herself up before replying. "Sir, I'll see what I can do," she managed, with a hint of annoyance. She quickly made for the lift doors and I refocused my attention on the mayhem unfolding around me.
Lieutenant Tremblay drew himself up to attention, “It would be beneficial to the ship and its crew if you would inform the rest of us where we’re going before you have engineering spin up the hyperdrive, Admiral,” he said stiffly.
I waved my hand airily, resting an elbow on arm of the Admiral’s Throne. “Lieutenant, I doubt there’s a man on this ship who doesn’t know our destination by now.”
“Sir,” Tremblay said through his teeth, “Have I mentioned that as your First Officer I need to be made aware of any significant changes to the ship, before they land in my lap looking for instructions.”
On the inside I squirmed. Which was why on the outside I put on a smile that was equally parts condescending and exasperated. I’d practiced that smile in front of the mirror after seeing it turned on me at court time and time again. “It was important for the sake of the test that no one but engineering be informed of the point transfer ahead of time, since they needed to form the hyper field." I spoke in a slow, slightly punctuated fashion to drive home the point. "The bridge needed to discover the strange particles and hyper-field on its own for the test to be a real evaluation of our skills. Don't you agree, Number One?” Stars, that was good!
The First Officer was still angry and looked unconvinced but all he did was shake his head and turn away. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
“Where’s that blasted Navigator,” Tremblay barked. The bridge crew scurried to locate the missing man.
The navigator finally made his way to the bridge at the same time as my tea, and nearly passed out when told the ship was already past the threshold limit and he had to calculate a hyperspace transfer before the ship point-transferred into oblivion for lack of coordinates.
Now I looked like an Admiral from the vids. A proper point of calm in the middle of a storm. Thankfully, I felt like I was concealing the sheer terror which threatened to overtake control of my bodily functions. I took the covered mug containing the warm liquid and held it in my right hand for a moment. I raised it to my lips before seeing Tremblay shoot a look my way, trying to go unnoticed in doing so.
Damn, I thought to myself, what if it was poisoned?! I sniffed the vapor carefully, trying to discern anything unusual about the drink, but then I realized I had no idea how to identify poisons. I carefully placed the container on the arm of the throne and refocused on the bridge crew's frantic activities. I decided to have the tea tested later, but that holding it produced the same desired effect as actually drinking it, without the potentially lethal side effects.
“It takes hours to calculate a point transfer,” the Navigator gasped. “Whose bright idea was it to spin up the drives before calling in the Navigator?”
Lieutenant Tremblay shot me another look before clapping the navigator on the shoulder. “Then it's a good thing our Lucky Clover takes a full twelve hours to spin up. An Imperial ship this size and you’ve got two, maybe three hours start to finish.”
“Without coordinates we could be lost in hyperspace. We might point-transfer inside a moon, get sucked into a black hole, or appear in the middle of a star’s corona, if there isn’t enough time to calculate them right,” he complained fiercely. “That’s not to mention asteroids, rogue stars or other ships.”
Lieutenant Tremblay cut him off. “Then it’s a good thing you’ve still got over two hours to make the calculations, Navigator.”
The Navigator opened his mouth, but Tremblay place a hand on his shoulder squeezed. “If you had answered the page and come to the Flag Bridge sooner, you would have had more time. A lesson in itself, wouldn’t you say?”
The navigator winced and closed his mouth.
“Like I said, Imperial Navigators make point transfer calculations in this kind of time frame all the time. Rather routine for them, I’d say.” Lieutenant Tremblay kept his grip on the Navigator's shoulder.
I raised a hand. “I’m sure the Navigator would like to get started on those calculations now,” I said, becoming more than a little concerned about the Navigator's ability to discharge his duties in time.
Tremblay nodded and stepped back.
I couldn't help but notice the anxious looks the rest of the bridge crew where giving the Navigator, but at least the general mood had settled down noticeably.
It was a tension filled two hours while the Navigator sweated over his console.
When he announced the calculations were finished with fifteen minutes to spare, I heaved a sigh of relief, along with the rest of the bridge crew.
The Deposed King
Snippet 8 - Admiral Who
Chapter: 5
The next morning it was a young admiral, red eyed from lack of sleep, who clomped his way to the armory.
I’d only managed to catch a few winks while sitting on that throne they called an Admiral’s chair. I’d stayed up all night, certain that something bad was bound to happen and determined to be prepared to face the revolution when it stormed its way onto the bridge.
Instead last night I was greeted by a sight that would scar me for life. I was sure anyone who had seen the new Chief Engineer in all his sagging glory, decked out in nothing more than his underwear and a plasma torch, would agree.
Fortunately the problem was with the ship’s old distributed intelligence system, not with the air supply. It looked like time and a general lack of use had left a few bugs in the system, because there was nothing at all wrong with the sensor units themselves. It seemed the problem originated in one of the ship’s sub-processing cores.
The maintenance teams and the members of deck 3, roused from their sleep by the alarm klaxons, had gone back to bed and a system’s technician was called in to deal with the faulty sub-processor.
The sheer amount of panic on the bridge and the half hour it had taken for first responders to arrive from other decks had showcased how badly the Lucky Clover needed to run some basic emergency drills. A half hour to respond in a real emergency would have seen everyone on that deck dead of asphyxiation. I shuddered to think how we would have done with an actual threat or, stars forbid, if somebody was actually shooting at us.
One thing was certain (other than this ship’s crew needing more drills), and that was this battle suit was killing me. The padding was very much not working in some places, which was why I found myself on the way down to the armory. I was very much hoping to turn in the power armor for some further work, read padding improvements, and check out something a little less obtrusive in the way of protective gear.
Over at the armory, Crewman Gants was a sight for sore eyes. His two friends standing guard outside the blast door, armed with pipe wrenches, not so much.
“Don’t worry, Admiral Sir,” he hastened to assure me when I glanced sideways at the pair of them. “I don’t let them have anything more powerful than those wrenches while they’re on guard outside the armory. Just in case someone gets any ideas,” he said laying a finger alongside his nose before leading me inside the armory proper.
If the two pipe wrench wielding guards had given me pause, his half dozen friends inside the armory itself nearly gave me a heart attack. Decked out in everything from strings of sonic hand grenades to flash-shotguns and outright plasma rifles, with one person carrying so many blaster pistols they were literally falling out of not only his pockets, but also his oversized utility belt. The group looked like they were ready to start a war. I wasn’t sure how much damage they could do to anyone other than themselves, but they’d enthusiastically loaded themselves down with as many weapons of war as they could individually carry.
I imagine that my voice, when it finally emerged, resembled a choking sound more than anything else, “Not quite what I had in mind when I asked you to guard the armory.” I took a moment to gather myself together.
“I know,” Gants said with a grin. “This is much better isn’t it?”
“It sure is something,” I said with a false tone of appreciation. “They look like they’re wearing half the armory.” I looked around at the ‘friends’ helping Gants guard the armory and shook my head in dismay when the crewman with all the pistols brushed against the wall and several blast pistols fell crashing to the ground.
“Oh not even close,” Gants hastened to assure the little Admiral. “These are just from one of the light arms lockers, we didn’t even put a dent in it when we took these ones out for cleaning,” he said proudly.
“You were working on these,” I asked, waving my arm to encompass the whole motely-crew and their assorted weaponry. “Fixing them?”
“Yep. A few were down checked for basic repairs, so we just pulled them out and started working on them. Since we were stuck down here anyway,” He said proudly. “Might as well make ourselves useful.”
“I hope no one got hurt,” I said genuinely, trying not to imagine all the trouble they could have gotten into. An image of an exploding power cell from one of the blast pistols flitted through my head, right past the one of poor Jean-Luc's final moments.
“Oleander set off one of the sonic grenades,” Gants admitted then hastily added, “It was an accident. Don’t worry, he’s on duty outside with a pipe wrench, guarding the door.” Gants leaned closer and muttered, “It seemed safer to keep him away from the heavier ordinance, at least until after someone with more skill had a chance to look them over first.”
By someone with more skill he clearly meant himself or one of the other happy hoodlums inside here with him. I felt my blood pressure rising.
I couldn’t risk leaving them in here all by themselves, who knew what kind of trouble they’d get into. On the other hand, could I risk replacing them with a random selection of strangers from the crew? At least from the looks on the faces of these grinning fools, they were happy enough to be down here playing around with the guns and pretending to guard the door.
Although on second thought and after another glance at all the weaponry, I wasn’t sure just how much pretend was going into the guarding part. Pretending could turn deadly serious with this many over-armed and overeager volunteers.
I decided on a half measure until I had time to make a better decision.
“How many of these men are checked out on the weapons they’re carrying?” I asked.
“Checked out, Sir?” Gants asked cautiously, he looked concerned. “Uh,” he glanced around the room, “well, I’m not entirely sure, Admiral,” he said, like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar and refused to meet my eyes.
I frowned for effect, “Then for the meantime its sonic weapons only, Mister Gants. See to it that everything else is returned to the small arms locker and sonic weapons are issued to the men down here in the armory. Until your people have been trained in their use, properly trained, Mister Gants,” I said sternly. “There’s no point in carrying around weaponry they don’t know how to use.”
Gants opened his mouth and his fellow temporary armory guards looked dismayed but I overrode them all.
“Help me get out of this suit of battle armor,” I said imperiously. “I need something more comfortable to wear while I’m on the flag bridge, power armor is simply too big and clunky to be effective bridge wear.” Pretending that this had only occurred to me after I’d spent the last day and night wearing the suit.
The Deposed King
The next morning it was a young admiral, red eyed from lack of sleep, who clomped his way to the armory.
I’d only managed to catch a few winks while sitting on that throne they called an Admiral’s chair. I’d stayed up all night, certain that something bad was bound to happen and determined to be prepared to face the revolution when it stormed its way onto the bridge.
Instead last night I was greeted by a sight that would scar me for life. I was sure anyone who had seen the new Chief Engineer in all his sagging glory, decked out in nothing more than his underwear and a plasma torch, would agree.
Fortunately the problem was with the ship’s old distributed intelligence system, not with the air supply. It looked like time and a general lack of use had left a few bugs in the system, because there was nothing at all wrong with the sensor units themselves. It seemed the problem originated in one of the ship’s sub-processing cores.
The maintenance teams and the members of deck 3, roused from their sleep by the alarm klaxons, had gone back to bed and a system’s technician was called in to deal with the faulty sub-processor.
The sheer amount of panic on the bridge and the half hour it had taken for first responders to arrive from other decks had showcased how badly the Lucky Clover needed to run some basic emergency drills. A half hour to respond in a real emergency would have seen everyone on that deck dead of asphyxiation. I shuddered to think how we would have done with an actual threat or, stars forbid, if somebody was actually shooting at us.
One thing was certain (other than this ship’s crew needing more drills), and that was this battle suit was killing me. The padding was very much not working in some places, which was why I found myself on the way down to the armory. I was very much hoping to turn in the power armor for some further work, read padding improvements, and check out something a little less obtrusive in the way of protective gear.
Over at the armory, Crewman Gants was a sight for sore eyes. His two friends standing guard outside the blast door, armed with pipe wrenches, not so much.
“Don’t worry, Admiral Sir,” he hastened to assure me when I glanced sideways at the pair of them. “I don’t let them have anything more powerful than those wrenches while they’re on guard outside the armory. Just in case someone gets any ideas,” he said laying a finger alongside his nose before leading me inside the armory proper.
If the two pipe wrench wielding guards had given me pause, his half dozen friends inside the armory itself nearly gave me a heart attack. Decked out in everything from strings of sonic hand grenades to flash-shotguns and outright plasma rifles, with one person carrying so many blaster pistols they were literally falling out of not only his pockets, but also his oversized utility belt. The group looked like they were ready to start a war. I wasn’t sure how much damage they could do to anyone other than themselves, but they’d enthusiastically loaded themselves down with as many weapons of war as they could individually carry.
I imagine that my voice, when it finally emerged, resembled a choking sound more than anything else, “Not quite what I had in mind when I asked you to guard the armory.” I took a moment to gather myself together.
“I know,” Gants said with a grin. “This is much better isn’t it?”
“It sure is something,” I said with a false tone of appreciation. “They look like they’re wearing half the armory.” I looked around at the ‘friends’ helping Gants guard the armory and shook my head in dismay when the crewman with all the pistols brushed against the wall and several blast pistols fell crashing to the ground.
“Oh not even close,” Gants hastened to assure the little Admiral. “These are just from one of the light arms lockers, we didn’t even put a dent in it when we took these ones out for cleaning,” he said proudly.
“You were working on these,” I asked, waving my arm to encompass the whole motely-crew and their assorted weaponry. “Fixing them?”
“Yep. A few were down checked for basic repairs, so we just pulled them out and started working on them. Since we were stuck down here anyway,” He said proudly. “Might as well make ourselves useful.”
“I hope no one got hurt,” I said genuinely, trying not to imagine all the trouble they could have gotten into. An image of an exploding power cell from one of the blast pistols flitted through my head, right past the one of poor Jean-Luc's final moments.
“Oleander set off one of the sonic grenades,” Gants admitted then hastily added, “It was an accident. Don’t worry, he’s on duty outside with a pipe wrench, guarding the door.” Gants leaned closer and muttered, “It seemed safer to keep him away from the heavier ordinance, at least until after someone with more skill had a chance to look them over first.”
By someone with more skill he clearly meant himself or one of the other happy hoodlums inside here with him. I felt my blood pressure rising.
I couldn’t risk leaving them in here all by themselves, who knew what kind of trouble they’d get into. On the other hand, could I risk replacing them with a random selection of strangers from the crew? At least from the looks on the faces of these grinning fools, they were happy enough to be down here playing around with the guns and pretending to guard the door.
Although on second thought and after another glance at all the weaponry, I wasn’t sure just how much pretend was going into the guarding part. Pretending could turn deadly serious with this many over-armed and overeager volunteers.
I decided on a half measure until I had time to make a better decision.
“How many of these men are checked out on the weapons they’re carrying?” I asked.
“Checked out, Sir?” Gants asked cautiously, he looked concerned. “Uh,” he glanced around the room, “well, I’m not entirely sure, Admiral,” he said, like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar and refused to meet my eyes.
I frowned for effect, “Then for the meantime its sonic weapons only, Mister Gants. See to it that everything else is returned to the small arms locker and sonic weapons are issued to the men down here in the armory. Until your people have been trained in their use, properly trained, Mister Gants,” I said sternly. “There’s no point in carrying around weaponry they don’t know how to use.”
Gants opened his mouth and his fellow temporary armory guards looked dismayed but I overrode them all.
“Help me get out of this suit of battle armor,” I said imperiously. “I need something more comfortable to wear while I’m on the flag bridge, power armor is simply too big and clunky to be effective bridge wear.” Pretending that this had only occurred to me after I’d spent the last day and night wearing the suit.
The Deposed King
Monday, March 19, 2012
Snippet 7 - Back to the Admiral!
Chapter:
I was sitting in the Admiral’s throne and receiving all kinds of conflicting reports. Environmental said it looked like a possible sensor problem, while engineering was almost hysterical, insisting that everyone on three deck was dead. The intercom to that level was on the fritz, so trying to reach an actual person down there was currently impossible.
On top of that, the Chief Engineer was nowhere to be found and the Shift Supervisor Castwell thought he’d died along with his repair team.
The ship was melting down around my ears and on the bridge there was nothing but confusion. I had to find out how bad it was down there before my brain exploded.
I made my way out as quietly as possible, then sealed the bridge crew in using the command crystals to lock the blast doors and then headed for a lift.
I took a deep breath and pressed the appropriate button before sealing the suit helmet. The power armored battle suit was built to be self-contained, and could even be used in vacuum. So I knew that whatever was wrong on 3 deck, the suit should be able to survive it.
The door opened up to an empty corridor. There wasn't any smoke, nor were there dead bodies strewn across the deckplates, which seemed like a good sign. Unfortunately, if the suit had a scanning function then I didn’t know how to access it to find out about the various gas levels. And I wasn’t quite brave enough to unseal my helmet and test the air quality personally.
I instead opted to proceed down the hallway and soon came to a T intersection. A quick glance to one side showed a series of doors. A look to the other side made my heart stop.
Sprawled out against one wall and naked except for his underwear was an ancient, balding figure with wild grey hear splayed out to either side of his ears. It was the missing Chief Engineer.
I felt like throwing up (and probably would have, were it not for my previous episode). It was true. Everyone on three deck really was dead. Then paranoia set in. A problem with the air supply just happened to take out Lieutenant Spalding, the Chief of Engineering. I looked around wildly. Maybe this was a trap. When no one jumped out of any doors or demanded I pay for the crimes of my ancestors, I heaved a sigh of relief.
Cautiously I approached the body of the Chief Engineer. It was a humiliating way to die, sprawled naked in a public corridor where anyone could see all of his wrinkled, sagging skin. It was hardly the last image I would have wanted the world to see if I was the Chief Engineer.
Then through my suit’s speakers I heard the Chief Engineer's body make a horrible rattling sound.
“What!” I exclaimed and nearly jumped out of my skin. In fact, that's probably exactly what would have happened if I weren't wearing a full suit of vacuum-tested power armor. I did manage to cause the suit itself to jump into the air and land back on the deck with a thump, which woke up the snoring Spalding.
Eyes bulging out of my head, I stared at the Lieutenant. I had thought the Chief Engineer was on his way to a date with the waste recycler or the welcome arms of the systems primary, and he’d just been sleeping in the middle of a crisis. Perhaps the stress of the situation had over powered him.
Spalding looked around blearily for a second before focusing on my face, or helmet, as it were. “If it isn’t the Little Admiral,” he said with a smile.
I grimaced at the name and crouched down next to the Chief Engineer, servos whining with every motion. “What have they done to you, Lieutenant,” I asked.
“Huh,” said Spalding forehead wrinkling before looking down at his scantily clad body. “Oh this, this is nothing. I had to inspire the men, lead by example and all that, you know,” he said dismissively.
I simply stared at him for a moment, unable to form a coherent picture of what he might have been trying to convey. It was like the man was speaking Greek.
“That, and motivate them with my plasma torch,” the Chief Engineer said with a chuckle.
“What are you talking about? Were you attacked,” I asked, still trying to piece together what series of events could lead to this particular scene. I stood myself back up, and the servos whirred in their increasingly familiar fashion.
“Oh, they thought about it. But they knew what was good for them and decided to do like I told ’em to in the first place,” the Chief Engineer said with satisfaction.
“Say, that’s the suit I was rebuilding for you,” the Chief Engineer’s eyes lit up, “sounds like the servos need adjustment.” Spalding laboriously climbed to his feet.
“I don’t understand,” I said, still desperately trying to decipher the nature of the emergency on three deck, and the Chief Engineer's role in it, “was there a plot?”
“A plot,” mused the Chief Engineer, his hand fumbling around on his waist before he seemed to realize he didn’t have his tool belt. He then reached up to grab my suit's arm. “I don’t think there was anything as deep as a plot, it's more like irrational fear filled the men’s heads and caused their brains to ooze out their ears.”
“Uhhh… you don’t mean to say you killed any of them, did you,” I asked, careful to keep my arm still. I vividly recalled the last time a man got too close to my power-armored arm. I tried to step away but the Engineer followed me.
“There,” the Engineer said in triumph and I was suddenly unable to move. “Let’s get rid of that awful whine.” He looked up at the young royal. “I don’t have my proper tools with me so this’ll just be a temporary fix.”
I swore and jerked my arms and legs but I was stuck. Somehow the Engineer had locked down the suit’s servos. I couldn’t even pop open my helmet or try to escape. I was trapped.
This could be it, I thought. My breath began to come in rapid, shallow bursts. The chief engineer played dead long enough to lull me into a false sense of security before shutting down my suit, or maybe just long enough to get me off the bridge and let the new first officer take over the ship. Meanwhile, they hauled me off to the brig.
“Now this won’t take but just a moment,” the engineer said, tongue clenched between his teeth.
Sweat rolled down my temples. The world began to spin, my vision narrowed, I was sure I was about pass out, and why not? There was no real need to be awake for any of the inevitable humiliation, was there? I let myself relax, and I began to make peace with my fate. It wasn't what I'd hoped for, but at least this insanity would soon be over.
I heard a loud clicking sound, followed by an elated "Ah-ha!" My vision returned and I found that my arms and legs were no longer trapped, and I could move again.
Which I did, quickly backing away from the engineer, who now sported a beatific smile.
“What did you just do?” I demanded.
The Chief Engineer’s brow wrinkled before clearing. “Temporary fix on those noisy servos. Really need to get that suit over to the shop for another overhaul. Thing’s still a work in progress. It wasn’t really meant to be used just yet, I had a few more upgrades planned for that thing,” he said with a wink.
“You’re not part of some sort of plot, are you,” I asked suspiciously.
The chief engineer looked a bit guilty. “I assure the Admiral if there’s any discrepancy in the equipment register that I had nothing to do with it. The new head of Supply Department’s been out to get me from the start,” he said indignantly.
“No. I don’t mean a supply discrepancy,” I felt like pressing the issue, but I merely waved my hand and abandoned that particular line of inquiry, remembering rather abruptly why I had come down here in the first place.
“Why are you naked in the middle of a public corridor,” I asked trying to regain composure. “Obviously, reports on the oxygen levels on three deck have been somewhat inaccurate.”
The Engineer opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he could say a word.
“On second thought, I really don’t want to know. All I care about is getting whatever it is fixed and restoring order on the ship.”
Again the Engineer looked guilty, probably because he’d been caught naked in the middle of a public corridor.
“Ah yes…,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure it’s not an engineering problem. My guess is we need a system’s analyst to take a gander at the sub-processing node.” He looked nervous, shuffling from one foot to the other, his hands working their way across his waist-line. “That’s just a guess,” he hastily added. “No one can know for sure.”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, instantly thankful for the face-shield's presence to hide the gesture from the guilty-looking Spalding. “I’ll have one of those sent down here right away. Just get yourself dressed and figure out what’s wrong with the ship.” I turned to go, hoping to put this entire scene behind me.
“Right away, your Admiralship,” said the engineer, “We’ll have her right as rain in just a jiff. Expect we’ll need to run a few more drills though,” the Chief Engineer said to my recently presented back.
I grunted in response and hurried to the lift. Maybe the Chief Engineer hadn’t been part of any plot, but that didn’t mean that this little non-emergency hadn’t been engineered by someone else. Someone with the intent of getting me off the bridge long enough to start a coup.
Then something occurred to me, and over my shoulder I yelled, “How long does it take for the ship’s hyper drive to spin up?”
“About twelve hours to get a full charge,” said Lietentant Spalding, now following close behind. “Why?”
I stepped into the lift and turned around, careful not to bump anything with the bulky armor suit.
“When the ship’s ready, we need to secure those two pirate ships, as soon as possible.” The doors started cycling closed. “I’ll let you know when to spin up the drives, Lieutenant.” The doors clicked shut during the middle of the sentence. I shrugged and punched in the Flag Bridge.
Arriving back on the Flag deck I made my way to the bulkheads to find them still closed. The command key unlocked them and I peered inside. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I saw that everything was the same as I’d left it. It looked like there had been no coup attempt this time, so with a weary sigh (and blessedly silent servos), I went back to the Admiral’s Throne and resumed my previous position. It was going to be a long night.
I need some comments people!
The Deposed King
I was sitting in the Admiral’s throne and receiving all kinds of conflicting reports. Environmental said it looked like a possible sensor problem, while engineering was almost hysterical, insisting that everyone on three deck was dead. The intercom to that level was on the fritz, so trying to reach an actual person down there was currently impossible.
On top of that, the Chief Engineer was nowhere to be found and the Shift Supervisor Castwell thought he’d died along with his repair team.
The ship was melting down around my ears and on the bridge there was nothing but confusion. I had to find out how bad it was down there before my brain exploded.
I made my way out as quietly as possible, then sealed the bridge crew in using the command crystals to lock the blast doors and then headed for a lift.
I took a deep breath and pressed the appropriate button before sealing the suit helmet. The power armored battle suit was built to be self-contained, and could even be used in vacuum. So I knew that whatever was wrong on 3 deck, the suit should be able to survive it.
The door opened up to an empty corridor. There wasn't any smoke, nor were there dead bodies strewn across the deckplates, which seemed like a good sign. Unfortunately, if the suit had a scanning function then I didn’t know how to access it to find out about the various gas levels. And I wasn’t quite brave enough to unseal my helmet and test the air quality personally.
I instead opted to proceed down the hallway and soon came to a T intersection. A quick glance to one side showed a series of doors. A look to the other side made my heart stop.
Sprawled out against one wall and naked except for his underwear was an ancient, balding figure with wild grey hear splayed out to either side of his ears. It was the missing Chief Engineer.
I felt like throwing up (and probably would have, were it not for my previous episode). It was true. Everyone on three deck really was dead. Then paranoia set in. A problem with the air supply just happened to take out Lieutenant Spalding, the Chief of Engineering. I looked around wildly. Maybe this was a trap. When no one jumped out of any doors or demanded I pay for the crimes of my ancestors, I heaved a sigh of relief.
Cautiously I approached the body of the Chief Engineer. It was a humiliating way to die, sprawled naked in a public corridor where anyone could see all of his wrinkled, sagging skin. It was hardly the last image I would have wanted the world to see if I was the Chief Engineer.
Then through my suit’s speakers I heard the Chief Engineer's body make a horrible rattling sound.
“What!” I exclaimed and nearly jumped out of my skin. In fact, that's probably exactly what would have happened if I weren't wearing a full suit of vacuum-tested power armor. I did manage to cause the suit itself to jump into the air and land back on the deck with a thump, which woke up the snoring Spalding.
Eyes bulging out of my head, I stared at the Lieutenant. I had thought the Chief Engineer was on his way to a date with the waste recycler or the welcome arms of the systems primary, and he’d just been sleeping in the middle of a crisis. Perhaps the stress of the situation had over powered him.
Spalding looked around blearily for a second before focusing on my face, or helmet, as it were. “If it isn’t the Little Admiral,” he said with a smile.
I grimaced at the name and crouched down next to the Chief Engineer, servos whining with every motion. “What have they done to you, Lieutenant,” I asked.
“Huh,” said Spalding forehead wrinkling before looking down at his scantily clad body. “Oh this, this is nothing. I had to inspire the men, lead by example and all that, you know,” he said dismissively.
I simply stared at him for a moment, unable to form a coherent picture of what he might have been trying to convey. It was like the man was speaking Greek.
“That, and motivate them with my plasma torch,” the Chief Engineer said with a chuckle.
“What are you talking about? Were you attacked,” I asked, still trying to piece together what series of events could lead to this particular scene. I stood myself back up, and the servos whirred in their increasingly familiar fashion.
“Oh, they thought about it. But they knew what was good for them and decided to do like I told ’em to in the first place,” the Chief Engineer said with satisfaction.
“Say, that’s the suit I was rebuilding for you,” the Chief Engineer’s eyes lit up, “sounds like the servos need adjustment.” Spalding laboriously climbed to his feet.
“I don’t understand,” I said, still desperately trying to decipher the nature of the emergency on three deck, and the Chief Engineer's role in it, “was there a plot?”
“A plot,” mused the Chief Engineer, his hand fumbling around on his waist before he seemed to realize he didn’t have his tool belt. He then reached up to grab my suit's arm. “I don’t think there was anything as deep as a plot, it's more like irrational fear filled the men’s heads and caused their brains to ooze out their ears.”
“Uhhh… you don’t mean to say you killed any of them, did you,” I asked, careful to keep my arm still. I vividly recalled the last time a man got too close to my power-armored arm. I tried to step away but the Engineer followed me.
“There,” the Engineer said in triumph and I was suddenly unable to move. “Let’s get rid of that awful whine.” He looked up at the young royal. “I don’t have my proper tools with me so this’ll just be a temporary fix.”
I swore and jerked my arms and legs but I was stuck. Somehow the Engineer had locked down the suit’s servos. I couldn’t even pop open my helmet or try to escape. I was trapped.
This could be it, I thought. My breath began to come in rapid, shallow bursts. The chief engineer played dead long enough to lull me into a false sense of security before shutting down my suit, or maybe just long enough to get me off the bridge and let the new first officer take over the ship. Meanwhile, they hauled me off to the brig.
“Now this won’t take but just a moment,” the engineer said, tongue clenched between his teeth.
Sweat rolled down my temples. The world began to spin, my vision narrowed, I was sure I was about pass out, and why not? There was no real need to be awake for any of the inevitable humiliation, was there? I let myself relax, and I began to make peace with my fate. It wasn't what I'd hoped for, but at least this insanity would soon be over.
I heard a loud clicking sound, followed by an elated "Ah-ha!" My vision returned and I found that my arms and legs were no longer trapped, and I could move again.
Which I did, quickly backing away from the engineer, who now sported a beatific smile.
“What did you just do?” I demanded.
The Chief Engineer’s brow wrinkled before clearing. “Temporary fix on those noisy servos. Really need to get that suit over to the shop for another overhaul. Thing’s still a work in progress. It wasn’t really meant to be used just yet, I had a few more upgrades planned for that thing,” he said with a wink.
“You’re not part of some sort of plot, are you,” I asked suspiciously.
The chief engineer looked a bit guilty. “I assure the Admiral if there’s any discrepancy in the equipment register that I had nothing to do with it. The new head of Supply Department’s been out to get me from the start,” he said indignantly.
“No. I don’t mean a supply discrepancy,” I felt like pressing the issue, but I merely waved my hand and abandoned that particular line of inquiry, remembering rather abruptly why I had come down here in the first place.
“Why are you naked in the middle of a public corridor,” I asked trying to regain composure. “Obviously, reports on the oxygen levels on three deck have been somewhat inaccurate.”
The Engineer opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he could say a word.
“On second thought, I really don’t want to know. All I care about is getting whatever it is fixed and restoring order on the ship.”
Again the Engineer looked guilty, probably because he’d been caught naked in the middle of a public corridor.
“Ah yes…,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure it’s not an engineering problem. My guess is we need a system’s analyst to take a gander at the sub-processing node.” He looked nervous, shuffling from one foot to the other, his hands working their way across his waist-line. “That’s just a guess,” he hastily added. “No one can know for sure.”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, instantly thankful for the face-shield's presence to hide the gesture from the guilty-looking Spalding. “I’ll have one of those sent down here right away. Just get yourself dressed and figure out what’s wrong with the ship.” I turned to go, hoping to put this entire scene behind me.
“Right away, your Admiralship,” said the engineer, “We’ll have her right as rain in just a jiff. Expect we’ll need to run a few more drills though,” the Chief Engineer said to my recently presented back.
I grunted in response and hurried to the lift. Maybe the Chief Engineer hadn’t been part of any plot, but that didn’t mean that this little non-emergency hadn’t been engineered by someone else. Someone with the intent of getting me off the bridge long enough to start a coup.
Then something occurred to me, and over my shoulder I yelled, “How long does it take for the ship’s hyper drive to spin up?”
“About twelve hours to get a full charge,” said Lietentant Spalding, now following close behind. “Why?”
I stepped into the lift and turned around, careful not to bump anything with the bulky armor suit.
“When the ship’s ready, we need to secure those two pirate ships, as soon as possible.” The doors started cycling closed. “I’ll let you know when to spin up the drives, Lieutenant.” The doors clicked shut during the middle of the sentence. I shrugged and punched in the Flag Bridge.
Arriving back on the Flag deck I made my way to the bulkheads to find them still closed. The command key unlocked them and I peered inside. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I saw that everything was the same as I’d left it. It looked like there had been no coup attempt this time, so with a weary sigh (and blessedly silent servos), I went back to the Admiral’s Throne and resumed my previous position. It was going to be a long night.
I need some comments people!
The Deposed King
Snippet 6 - The Engineer
He was the very model of a modern, outdated space engineer.
Spalding woke up to the combined sound of his hatch door chiming and someone physically pounding on his door. The door was made of a light composite, but it was still solid metal. They must be pounding on it with a wrench or something.
Rolling over he grinned, until his aching joints started to complain. The grin wilted and a grimace took its place. Grimace turned to scowl when he looked at the clock he’d set up on the two way wall-screen.
Sweet cryin' Muphy, they’d woken him up at 2 a.m. in the morning. What a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing slackers. He’d told them to keep a sharp eye out during two and three shifts. He told them to triple check everything. Blast it! Arses were going to feel the heat before he was done tonight.
Two o’clock in the grief stricken morning. He’d told them to watch out, he warned them to follow their check lists, and have parties out doing manual follow ups and double checks, most especially this first night of all nights, with a skeleton trainee crew. He’d done everything but give away the whole darned game.
He’d specifically set the ship to reboot the three deck main sub-processor back to its original factory specifications at midnight on the dot. Factory defective specifications, as he’d learned when he was a young midshipman fifty years ago. Midnight was the middle of the blasted shift change, when they were supposed to be visually double checking things. Things exactly like breath gas mixtures. And sending out crew parties to verify anomalous readings with hand held scanners.
He staggered around his quarters, forcing his way into his uniform and skin suit. He only fell once, catching himself against the bed, which he thought with pride was an accomplishment all on its own. As soon as he was dressed he over-rode the safety lock he’d personally installed for his room and headed out of the room on a tear.
Still strapping on his tool belt, the sight of Spacehand Brence did nothing to improve his mood.
“Sir! It’s a disaster, three deck’s been flooded with CO2 and Argon. Everybody’s dead!” Stuttered Brence.
“What are you talking about, you blithering fool,” Chief Engineer Terrence Spalding asked. He couldn’t help a sliver of fear shooting through his heart, even though he knew better.
“Both Engineering and Environmental have identical readings, sir, there’s no way anyone could have survived breathing those levels,” Brence said, face crumpling.
“How long ago did the CO2 and Argon levels spike? What’d a physical check with hand scanner turned up,” he demanded, walking as fast as his old bones could carry him to main engineering.
“We’ve no idea, Sir,” Brence said.
Spalding spun around, leaned in closer, poking his finger into Spacehand Brence’s chest and smelled whiskey on his breath. “You’ve been drinking,” he cried. “Drunk on duty and it’s no wonder you don’t have the first idea what’s going on!” His voice echoed through the corridor. “The Imperial’s wouldn’t have you for love or money and so you stayed here to plague the rest of us with your drunken incompetence. Which just got a bunch of good men killed, you mewling idiot,” It was past time someone taught the pair of ne'er’do’wells a lesson and better they learned it from the Chief Engineer, where they only thought they’d killed their fellow crewmates, than after they’d actually exterminated an entire decks worth of people.
“Why don’t you know, you drunken fool?!”
“I was off duty, Chief,” Brence said. “I swear I didn’t touch a drop of the stuff until after shift end. Castwell’s the shift boss in engineering for third shift. I’m off duty!”
Spalding used his forearm to slam the spacehand up against the wall, “An Engineer is never off duty and if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times. The Clover’s a dry ship when it comes to rot gut whiskey. Its triple distilled Gorgon Ice-ales and simple meads or nothin' else when you’re on my ship!”
“Half the men are allergic to Ice-ale, Sir,” he protested, “and the meads aren’t very strong stuff.”
Spalding drew back and slugged him in the gut. “Saint Murphy give me strength, people are dying and you’re arguing about an illegal liquor still. Get a work party with scanners and emergency oxygen supplies over to 3 and find out what the blaze’s going on over there,” the engineer demanded to the now coughing Brence.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Brence said right before he threw-up. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “the Imperials took all the self-sealing skin suits with them when they left and the work parties won’t go in there, not when the only thing they’ve got is a stupid head bag.”
“Argh,” Liuetenant Spalding screamed. “Cowards! The Caprian 109-a self sealing Face Bags are specifically rated for short periods in a pressurized area with low or no oxygen. Which leaves aside the absolutely brain straining idea of putting on an exterior suit and slow stepping it all the way from an airlock over to deck three. Why, there’s even more than one airlock on three deck itself!”
The chief engineer ran all the way to the next lift and stomped inside, a silent Brence, looking green faced from whiskey and worry in tow.
The doors slid open. A party of engineering ratings stood blocking the way out of the lift and arguing with Castwell. From the sound of things the ratings didn’t want to risk getting in the lift and going over to 3 deck.
Spalding forced his way through the men outside the lift door and scowled when they ignored him. He went to the machinist room and pulled out a plasma torch. This’ll do the trick nicely, he thought before stomping back out to confront the young hooligans who were too afraid to do their duty.
“Time to do your duty to your crewmates, lads,” said the Chief Engineer in a voice that cut through the din.
There was a pause followed by a resentful silence. “Easy enough for you to say, with your fancy government issued skin suit and for them staying safely here in main engineering,” sneered a loud mouthed red head, with damage control patches on his shoulders.
Spalding turned red from half way up his chest to the top of his balding head.
“We’re the ones who have to go to three deck and die in these,” snarled the red head, shaking the oblong shaped clear plastic looking bag with a flimsy plastic port at the bottom, near where the chin would be if someone was wearing it.
Spalding glared and started tearing off his clothes, first his uniform and then the self-sealing skin suit. Holding up the skin suit he said, “I paid for this my own self, you candy arsed coward,” Then he threw the skin suit on top of the uniform.
Now standing in nothing more than his skivvies, he snatched a head bag from one of the crowd of disgruntled ratings. Placing it on his head, he ignited the plasma torch.
“Time to make like a rabbit and run into that there lift,” he said conversationally, taking a few practice swings with the plasma torch before making a few adjustments to the settings, lengthening the two inch flame into a foot long stream of burning plasma.
A few of the reluctant ratings gave him a concerned look and backed away a step or two, into the midst of their gathered fellows.
“I’ve already lit the fire boys,” the engineer continued in the conversational tone, then roared, “so let’s go save yer crew mates before I use this here torch to burn you a new evacuation port!” So saying, he gave a shriek and charged forward.
Ratings gave out cries of dismay and tried to scatter but he managed to herd enough of them for his purposes, including their red haired leader, into the lift. Jumping into the lift himself, he hit the emergency button and shut the door. Using one hand he slapped the override button and sent them straight to 3 deck.
“You’re crazy, old man,” screamed the red head. “Get away from the door and let us out!”
To keep any of the cowards from rushing him, Spalding casually swept the plasma torch in front of him. He could tell several of the nearer ones felt the heat when they tried to back away but were caught between the walls of the lift and the bodies of their friends.
“Shut yer yap, before I decide it’s important for the safety of the ship that I remember your name, buddy boy,” sneered the wild haired engineer in his underwear.
The lift chimed and the doors started to slide open.
“There’s no air in here,” cried the red head before scurrying to put on his head bag. The faint noise of suction seals taking hold sounded, as the other ratings pulled on their head bags in a rush.
“Engineering’s the toughest Department on the ship. I don’t care what lies Gunnery tells,” cried the new Chief Engineer, “If you think I’m going to let you disgrace the Department with your cowardice then you’ve got another think coming,” he said before chasing them out of the lift by running around one wall, swinging his torch. “Now jump, my scared little rabbits. Jump! Papa Spalding’ll make a man out ye’ yet, or someone will die from his trying!”
Spalding kissed a few reluctant butt cheeks with the flame of his torch, and made sure the red head got a good stripe along his backside to complement his hot mouth.
The shrieks of burned and terrified ratings echoed out into the corridor as they raced down the hall. “Hop along my little rabbits, hop along, and don’t forget to check your hand scanners,” he yelled after the ratings. He ran after them as long as he could. But at his age he barely made it past the first T in the corridor before his heart was pounding uncontrollably and his breath was coming in short gasps.
He placed his hands on his knees as he stopped to catch his breath, and bent over laughing between gasps. He thumbed the deactivation switch on the plasma torch and dropped it to the floor. He sat down in the middle of the corridor and pulled off his head bag.
He chuckled, expelling air and throwing the head bag as far as he could down the hallway. This was the moment of truth. If his little trick with the sub-processing node had actually killed the crew on three deck, he deserved to die right along with them.
Taking a breath of good clean recycled air, he scowled. He hoped his little running rabbits were too terrified to stop for a good long while yet. “Everyone dead on three-deck, my ugly old bones,” he snorted. “Too terrified and jumping at shadows to engage brain and figure out this was just a training exercise. Idiots.”
One thing was sure and certain, and that was that this ship needed a lot more in the way of safety drills. Or he wasn’t Junior Lieutenant Terrence Spalding, Chief Engineer of Lucky Clover, the finest Battleship to every come out of the Caprian Ship Yards. Or, as far as he was concerned, any shipyard in the entire Galaxy.
“Broke the mold when they made you, my fine lass,” he said and gave the metal wall of the ship a pat. “Even the other ships of your class, none can hold a candle to you, my beauty. You are the last and greatest of your kind.” His voice lowered to a soft, smooth pitch and he leaned his head back against the cold metal wall. “I'll make them worthy of you.”
The Deposed King
Snippet 5 - The Admiral
Chapter:
The former intelligence officer, looking very harried and overloaded, caught back up with me on the Flag Bridge.
I was sitting in the Admiral’s chair (or throne as I still thought of it, especially since it was the only chair on the bridge big enough to take my power armored enlarged bulk) watching the half trained bridge crew go about the job of scanning near and far space inside the solar system. In the background I listened as the bridge damage control center coordinated with the engineering and damage control parties, as they went about routine maintenance and repairs.
Everyone sounded nervous and in some cases like they didn’t really know what they were doing. Occasionally I’d clump my way to a position of interest and peer over the shoulder of someone. I was trying to get a feel for what they were doing, but I was having limited success. By 'limited,' I mean I had absolutely no better idea what they were doing after observing them than I did before observing them. Unfortunately, having someone in power armor looming over you tends to make most people nervous, so I tried to limit myself to the desk controls on the throne as much as possible.
I was busy mirroring the display of a sensor operator when my First Officer cleared his throat.
I turned my head to face him. “Yes?” I imagine I sounded more than a little irritated, but it had little effect on the already flustered junior lieutenant.
“Engineer Spalding told to me to inform you that he refuses to waste time on staff meetings on the bridge when there are more important meetings in engineering, or better yet actual work to be done on the ship.” Raphael Tremblay said, reporting on our wayward Chief Engineer.
“I take it they freed him from the brig, then,” I said a little too sharply and I knew it.
“Yes, Admiral,” he nodded.
“What else?” I consciously tried to moderate my tone now. Too many outbursts simply wouldn't do here on the bridge. People were tense enough as it was.
“Sir?” the former intelligence officer said.
“What else did he say,” I replied. “Our Chief Engineer is quite the character, I’m sure he had more to say than he wouldn’t be showing up at a meeting.”
“Other than disobeying a direct order and generally being abrasive and insubordinate?” Lieutenant Tremblay asked disbelievingly.
I gestured with my hand for him to get to the point. Servos whined in response, and I think my new First Officer flinched at the sound of the power armor's mechanisms.
“He complained about everything from the state of the ship to the former Imperial crew, and even the former Caprian crew who, in his words, ‘Deserted the ship.' He also claimed engineering had lost the most people of any department on the ship.”
I'm afraid I wasn’t able to keep my eyes from widening at this news.
The new first officer rolled his eyes in response. “Engineering only lost about a quarter of its people. From the initial reports most other departments lost half or more.”
I tried to hide a sigh of relief at this news, bad as it was. “Not quite as bad as I’d feared, then,” I said in a measured tone.
Raphael Tremblay made a back and forth movement of his hand. “Better than most but I wouldn’t say it even approaches the level of good news. Initial reports are that most of those still with us are hopelessly junior or out and out trainees.”
From what I’d seen so far I had to agree with him. Still it wouldn’t do to talk down about the crew where they could hear him. Images of Jean-luc and his traitorous crew had formed a permanent presence in my mind's eye. I raised my voice above the general din of the bridge and said, “Everyone who stayed with us is worth two of those disloyal jackanapes who left with the Imperials.” The former intelligence officer opened his mouth but I quickly cut him off. “As for training, that just takes time. I have no doubt that our ship can and will be the equal of any Imperial crew, given the chance. What's more, they now know they are surrounded by comrades who won’t abandon them in the middle of their mission,.”
The speech appeared to have the desired effect, as I saw some of the crew on the bridge straighten their shoulders.
Lieutenant Tremblay slowly closed his mouth and glanced over at the bridge crew before deciding not to continue that line of conversation any further. The bridge crews lost over three fourths of its people, including the Captain and all the senior officers, and we have no trained tactical officers at all,” he said instead, trying a different approach.
“I know that,” I replied shortly, silently congratulating myself on identifying this particular Lieutenant as a threat to my budding command. I drew a measured breath.
Lieutenant Tremblay’s mouth quirked but he didn’t look pleased, “I understand we are instituting a new training program to fill the holes.”
“I'm glad to see you've made yourself aware of such developments, Lieutenant,” I said with a cold, practiced smile.
The Lieutenant gave a fleeting smile and then frowned, “If I’m going to be your First Officer, its important I know I’m responsible for something like a new training program before I’m approached by crewmembers looking to apply.”
“You've already demonstrated that you've got your finger on the ship's pulse,” I said unrepentantly. "I have the utmost confidence in your ability to continue displaying such attention to details which concern ship wide operations." All of those one-sided public debate defeats with my cousins were starting to pay dividends, I thought to myself with a smirk.
“I mean it!” he said angrily. “If you don’t want me to be your first officer, that’s fine with me. But if you do, I need to be in the loop on things like this.”
I narrowed my eyes and considered. “I suppose you’re right,” I finally agreed.
The former intelligence officer lowered his voice. “Why do we even have a training program in the first place, Admiral? We lost our training cadre when the Imperials boarded the Invictus Rising,” he said, then continued in a harsher tone. “For that matter what’s this I hear floating around the decks about us going to retrieve those pirate ships we captured, before the imperials make off with the crew’s prize money?”
“The first thing we should do is head to the nearest port and report in,” Tremblay finished more loudly than perhaps he’d intended.
By the stiffened backs of several members of the bridge crew, I was aware that they must be listening with at least one ear cocked in our direction, I paused before also replying loudly enough to be heard across the bridge. “I have every intention of taking the ship straight to an official port, but only after we’ve secured this crew’s prize money.” I think I managed to keep my voice fairly steady and measured.
“Prize money!” blurted the new first officer. “This ship may need a lot of things, but prize money has to be near the bottom of the list.”
“Maybe prize money ranks low on your own personal list, Raphael, but while a couple of months’ worth of pay for a common crewman may seem like an inconsequential amount to you, I assure you it’s not inconsequential to many of the crew.” I retorted smoothly. I knew for certain that the money was important to Lieutenant Tremblay and thought many of the crew had to feel the same way. “More importantly, however, as the flagship we have a responsibility to the rest of the patrol fleet and we will have the opportunity to meet with two of the larger ships in our fleet, while at the same time securing our prizes. They need to know about the Imperial withdrawal as well.”
Lieutenant Tremblay visibly pulled himself up short and closed his mouth tight. Disagreement still radiated off him.
I softened my voice. “Besides, it hurts nothing to have a training program for filling critical spots that have no one to man them. The downside is that the crew wastes sometime learning they have absolutely no talent for the position they’ve always dreamed about. The upside is they find themselves on the bridge of a battleship a longtime before they ever dreamed possible. If something does go wrong, we’ve got a few more semi-trained people to help deal with it.” I was doing my best to extend an olive branch while simultaneously maintaining the upper hand.
Tremblay gave me a long, accusing look. “After we get those prize ships we’re heading straight to the nearest port,” he asked, obviously still suspicious.
I gave a tight smile, “Well, the nearest one with a space dock and a full service salvage yard at any rate. We wouldn’t want to go to all the effort of retrieving those two ships, only to have them disappear into some local planetary defense force. Or find ourselves saddled with a poor evaluation that loses us half the prize money because we didn’t take it to a place with a top salvage evaluator." At this was point I was working entirely off of holo-drama knowledge of space operations from a popular vid-series, but it at least sounded reasonable.
I have to admit that by this time, I had been considering just exactly what a share of prize money could do for my own career. Combined with the courses I had already completed, Imperial accredited courses at that, there was good chance I could afford to enter a top Caprian University. If parliament ever decided they were willing to let me out of their sight for more than two minutes, I thought glumly. I sighed, as my dreams once again came crashing down around my ears.
Junior Lieutenant Tremblay finally spoke after a long silence. “Considering the circumstances, I have to think the planetary parliament,” he pointed out, “and the system defense force, will be very interested in getting this ship back safe and sound.”
“I don’t see a great deal of danger in retrieving a couple of prize ships. Do you?” I asked, an edge returning to my voice.
“Not danger, per se, but what if the Imperials get there first, or even while we’re getting ready to take the ships to a salvage yard?” Tremblay was looking cross again, his composure teetering on a knife's edge.
“If the Imperials show, we’re not going to pick a fight,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders, “so barring criminal stupidity, like attacking an Imperial command carrier, I see no obvious danger. I don’t foresee any problems we can't manage.”
The former intelligence officer hesitated.
“Do you see a problem, Lieutenant?” I demanded, looking him in the eye.
“No,” he said then added, “Admiral. But something might still come up.”
I shrugged again, “Well as far as I’m concerned, there you have it. No obvious danger. Let’s remember, Officer Tremblay, this isn’t a luxury cruise. Part of the reason we were sent all the way out here is to stop danger from reaching civilized space.”
“As a trained officer in the Caprian SDF, I’m aware why we’re out here.” Tremblay said.
I could hear the implied rebuke when the other man used the words ‘trained officer’ but there was nothing I could do about my lack of training. Other than resign, which I wasn’t even sure the parliament would let me do. On the other hand that luxury cruise comment had probably been over the top. I decided to ignore the whole thing and let it pass.
“Well now that you’re officially informed about the new training program, why don’t you go see to that or one the other many things you’ve got on your plate. I think I can handle the bridge while we’re parked in an empty solar system.” I gave an airy wave, putting all my royal training into the motion.
Tremblay spun on his heel and left the Flag Bridge, obviously unimpressed with the dismissal.
I breathed easier, having successfully circumvented one confrontation. I was treading on the thin ice and I knew it. I was a complete fraud when it came to Admiraling. My only hope was that no one else realized just how out of my depth I really was.
That’s why I was still in powered armor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep the suit on forever, could I?
Comments!
The Deposed King
The former intelligence officer, looking very harried and overloaded, caught back up with me on the Flag Bridge.
I was sitting in the Admiral’s chair (or throne as I still thought of it, especially since it was the only chair on the bridge big enough to take my power armored enlarged bulk) watching the half trained bridge crew go about the job of scanning near and far space inside the solar system. In the background I listened as the bridge damage control center coordinated with the engineering and damage control parties, as they went about routine maintenance and repairs.
Everyone sounded nervous and in some cases like they didn’t really know what they were doing. Occasionally I’d clump my way to a position of interest and peer over the shoulder of someone. I was trying to get a feel for what they were doing, but I was having limited success. By 'limited,' I mean I had absolutely no better idea what they were doing after observing them than I did before observing them. Unfortunately, having someone in power armor looming over you tends to make most people nervous, so I tried to limit myself to the desk controls on the throne as much as possible.
I was busy mirroring the display of a sensor operator when my First Officer cleared his throat.
I turned my head to face him. “Yes?” I imagine I sounded more than a little irritated, but it had little effect on the already flustered junior lieutenant.
“Engineer Spalding told to me to inform you that he refuses to waste time on staff meetings on the bridge when there are more important meetings in engineering, or better yet actual work to be done on the ship.” Raphael Tremblay said, reporting on our wayward Chief Engineer.
“I take it they freed him from the brig, then,” I said a little too sharply and I knew it.
“Yes, Admiral,” he nodded.
“What else?” I consciously tried to moderate my tone now. Too many outbursts simply wouldn't do here on the bridge. People were tense enough as it was.
“Sir?” the former intelligence officer said.
“What else did he say,” I replied. “Our Chief Engineer is quite the character, I’m sure he had more to say than he wouldn’t be showing up at a meeting.”
“Other than disobeying a direct order and generally being abrasive and insubordinate?” Lieutenant Tremblay asked disbelievingly.
I gestured with my hand for him to get to the point. Servos whined in response, and I think my new First Officer flinched at the sound of the power armor's mechanisms.
“He complained about everything from the state of the ship to the former Imperial crew, and even the former Caprian crew who, in his words, ‘Deserted the ship.' He also claimed engineering had lost the most people of any department on the ship.”
I'm afraid I wasn’t able to keep my eyes from widening at this news.
The new first officer rolled his eyes in response. “Engineering only lost about a quarter of its people. From the initial reports most other departments lost half or more.”
I tried to hide a sigh of relief at this news, bad as it was. “Not quite as bad as I’d feared, then,” I said in a measured tone.
Raphael Tremblay made a back and forth movement of his hand. “Better than most but I wouldn’t say it even approaches the level of good news. Initial reports are that most of those still with us are hopelessly junior or out and out trainees.”
From what I’d seen so far I had to agree with him. Still it wouldn’t do to talk down about the crew where they could hear him. Images of Jean-luc and his traitorous crew had formed a permanent presence in my mind's eye. I raised my voice above the general din of the bridge and said, “Everyone who stayed with us is worth two of those disloyal jackanapes who left with the Imperials.” The former intelligence officer opened his mouth but I quickly cut him off. “As for training, that just takes time. I have no doubt that our ship can and will be the equal of any Imperial crew, given the chance. What's more, they now know they are surrounded by comrades who won’t abandon them in the middle of their mission,.”
The speech appeared to have the desired effect, as I saw some of the crew on the bridge straighten their shoulders.
Lieutenant Tremblay slowly closed his mouth and glanced over at the bridge crew before deciding not to continue that line of conversation any further. The bridge crews lost over three fourths of its people, including the Captain and all the senior officers, and we have no trained tactical officers at all,” he said instead, trying a different approach.
“I know that,” I replied shortly, silently congratulating myself on identifying this particular Lieutenant as a threat to my budding command. I drew a measured breath.
Lieutenant Tremblay’s mouth quirked but he didn’t look pleased, “I understand we are instituting a new training program to fill the holes.”
“I'm glad to see you've made yourself aware of such developments, Lieutenant,” I said with a cold, practiced smile.
The Lieutenant gave a fleeting smile and then frowned, “If I’m going to be your First Officer, its important I know I’m responsible for something like a new training program before I’m approached by crewmembers looking to apply.”
“You've already demonstrated that you've got your finger on the ship's pulse,” I said unrepentantly. "I have the utmost confidence in your ability to continue displaying such attention to details which concern ship wide operations." All of those one-sided public debate defeats with my cousins were starting to pay dividends, I thought to myself with a smirk.
“I mean it!” he said angrily. “If you don’t want me to be your first officer, that’s fine with me. But if you do, I need to be in the loop on things like this.”
I narrowed my eyes and considered. “I suppose you’re right,” I finally agreed.
The former intelligence officer lowered his voice. “Why do we even have a training program in the first place, Admiral? We lost our training cadre when the Imperials boarded the Invictus Rising,” he said, then continued in a harsher tone. “For that matter what’s this I hear floating around the decks about us going to retrieve those pirate ships we captured, before the imperials make off with the crew’s prize money?”
“The first thing we should do is head to the nearest port and report in,” Tremblay finished more loudly than perhaps he’d intended.
By the stiffened backs of several members of the bridge crew, I was aware that they must be listening with at least one ear cocked in our direction, I paused before also replying loudly enough to be heard across the bridge. “I have every intention of taking the ship straight to an official port, but only after we’ve secured this crew’s prize money.” I think I managed to keep my voice fairly steady and measured.
“Prize money!” blurted the new first officer. “This ship may need a lot of things, but prize money has to be near the bottom of the list.”
“Maybe prize money ranks low on your own personal list, Raphael, but while a couple of months’ worth of pay for a common crewman may seem like an inconsequential amount to you, I assure you it’s not inconsequential to many of the crew.” I retorted smoothly. I knew for certain that the money was important to Lieutenant Tremblay and thought many of the crew had to feel the same way. “More importantly, however, as the flagship we have a responsibility to the rest of the patrol fleet and we will have the opportunity to meet with two of the larger ships in our fleet, while at the same time securing our prizes. They need to know about the Imperial withdrawal as well.”
Lieutenant Tremblay visibly pulled himself up short and closed his mouth tight. Disagreement still radiated off him.
I softened my voice. “Besides, it hurts nothing to have a training program for filling critical spots that have no one to man them. The downside is that the crew wastes sometime learning they have absolutely no talent for the position they’ve always dreamed about. The upside is they find themselves on the bridge of a battleship a longtime before they ever dreamed possible. If something does go wrong, we’ve got a few more semi-trained people to help deal with it.” I was doing my best to extend an olive branch while simultaneously maintaining the upper hand.
Tremblay gave me a long, accusing look. “After we get those prize ships we’re heading straight to the nearest port,” he asked, obviously still suspicious.
I gave a tight smile, “Well, the nearest one with a space dock and a full service salvage yard at any rate. We wouldn’t want to go to all the effort of retrieving those two ships, only to have them disappear into some local planetary defense force. Or find ourselves saddled with a poor evaluation that loses us half the prize money because we didn’t take it to a place with a top salvage evaluator." At this was point I was working entirely off of holo-drama knowledge of space operations from a popular vid-series, but it at least sounded reasonable.
I have to admit that by this time, I had been considering just exactly what a share of prize money could do for my own career. Combined with the courses I had already completed, Imperial accredited courses at that, there was good chance I could afford to enter a top Caprian University. If parliament ever decided they were willing to let me out of their sight for more than two minutes, I thought glumly. I sighed, as my dreams once again came crashing down around my ears.
Junior Lieutenant Tremblay finally spoke after a long silence. “Considering the circumstances, I have to think the planetary parliament,” he pointed out, “and the system defense force, will be very interested in getting this ship back safe and sound.”
“I don’t see a great deal of danger in retrieving a couple of prize ships. Do you?” I asked, an edge returning to my voice.
“Not danger, per se, but what if the Imperials get there first, or even while we’re getting ready to take the ships to a salvage yard?” Tremblay was looking cross again, his composure teetering on a knife's edge.
“If the Imperials show, we’re not going to pick a fight,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders, “so barring criminal stupidity, like attacking an Imperial command carrier, I see no obvious danger. I don’t foresee any problems we can't manage.”
The former intelligence officer hesitated.
“Do you see a problem, Lieutenant?” I demanded, looking him in the eye.
“No,” he said then added, “Admiral. But something might still come up.”
I shrugged again, “Well as far as I’m concerned, there you have it. No obvious danger. Let’s remember, Officer Tremblay, this isn’t a luxury cruise. Part of the reason we were sent all the way out here is to stop danger from reaching civilized space.”
“As a trained officer in the Caprian SDF, I’m aware why we’re out here.” Tremblay said.
I could hear the implied rebuke when the other man used the words ‘trained officer’ but there was nothing I could do about my lack of training. Other than resign, which I wasn’t even sure the parliament would let me do. On the other hand that luxury cruise comment had probably been over the top. I decided to ignore the whole thing and let it pass.
“Well now that you’re officially informed about the new training program, why don’t you go see to that or one the other many things you’ve got on your plate. I think I can handle the bridge while we’re parked in an empty solar system.” I gave an airy wave, putting all my royal training into the motion.
Tremblay spun on his heel and left the Flag Bridge, obviously unimpressed with the dismissal.
I breathed easier, having successfully circumvented one confrontation. I was treading on the thin ice and I knew it. I was a complete fraud when it came to Admiraling. My only hope was that no one else realized just how out of my depth I really was.
That’s why I was still in powered armor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep the suit on forever, could I?
Comments!
The Deposed King
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Admiral Who - Snippet 4/Chapter 3
Chapter 3:
Having arrived back on the Flag Bridge, I listened to the servos of the power suit whine as I paced back and forth on the duralloy deckplates. I couldn’t keep the crew in their quarters forever. Not only were they needed to run the ship, but I was fairly certain they wouldn't sit in their bunks indefinitely, no matter what I said, or how well I said it.
I needed to let them out before they decided to wander out on their own and blamed their new Admiral for keeping them penned up too long.
>>>>>>>>>>I wasn’t sure what to do. The only thing I was certain of was there was no way I could do this all by myself. I thought back to the tables of organization I’d had to study as part of the midshipman’s courses I’d taken. My brow furrowed as I desperately tried to remember, but I couldn't remember it at all. At least not enough to be helpful.
For the moment I had to be both the Admiral and the Captain of this ship and I could do neither. I came to the realization that I needed help. I did recall that the ship’s crew was broken up into departments, with assigned department heads. I realized that I could just tell the ship’s computer, the distributed intelligence network, to send a message to the senior remaining member of each department informing them they were needed for a meeting on the Flag Bridge.
After that, I knew I was still missing something important, but exactly what it was still eluded me. Then, I snapped my fingers in realization. A bridge crew, that was it. I’d tell the computer to message any remaining bridge crew, informing them they were needed on the flag bridge. I would set the time for that right after the meeting with the department heads.
Plan made, I turned to the communications console with a feeling of great satisfaction at my budding organizational talents. Things were starting to come together, at last. A great sense of serenity was beginning to form around me, like a warm blanket on a cold night.
A half hour later, I was positively fuming. To say that the ship’s old distributed network was clunky and infuriating to work with was something of an understatement. Sometimes it seemed to half work at finding the people I needed and then, for some unknown reason there would be music, something that had nothing at all to do with a personnel search or messaging, blaring out of the speakers and random search results scrolled over the main console screen. Shortly after that was when the first group of messages meant for the department heads were confirmed as having been delivered to members of the bridge crew, and vice versa.
So it looked like instead of having one group show up for the department head meeting and another for the bridge crew one, I might have a mix and match. I sighed, feeling absolutely pathetic. There was no helping it now. I would have to stick to the original plan and meet with the department heads first and the bridge crew would just have to wait until that meeting was finished.
As it was no one wanted to wait to find out what was going on with the ship they all lived inside. So as soon as they received any sort of permission to leave their quarters, they all bolted straight for the Flag Bridge.
The first one through the door was a crusty middle aged senior chief from environmental. “Who's been monitoring the air scrubbers and oxygen recyclers,” She demanded, sniffing the air. “Something smells off.”
She was interrupted as another senior chief - this one from supply - came in and nearly bumped into her. “We’ve been robbed!” Exclaimed the senior chief from supply. “All the new equipment we loaded after we left Capria has disappeared from the ship’s inventory!”
Realizing there was no one in the Flag Bridge but the fleet’s ceremonial Admiral - who was now clad in power armor - they stopped talking, their mouths dropping open instead.
While they were still gaping at the improbable sight, a junior lieutenant with gun metal grey hair pushed between them and forced his way onto the Flag Bridge. Behind him came two junior ratings. All three of these latest arrivals sported the black hats of ship security and while the officer had a side arm strapped to his waist, the two ratings carried sonic rifles slung to their backs.
“Jason Montagne, on the suspicion of high treason against the parliamentary government, I hereby place you under arrest,” stated the solidly built lieutenant before getting a good look at the now power armored admiral.
As soon as he realized the young prince was in a battle suit the officer started clawing for the sidearm in his holster.
The two senior chiefs gasped and the supply officer dived off to the side, while the petty officer from environmental stood flat footed in dumbfounded surprise.
For my part, I was taken aback, shocked that I was about to be arrested. I had been afraid something like this might happen but while I thought there was a strong possibility of it occurring at some point during the trip home, I never really internalized the idea that the government would arrest me for something I hadn’t even done yet, and so soon! Up to this point everything had all seemed very much like of a game.
I also realized something else. I may have picked up a suit of power armor, and I may have tried to lock down the armory, but at the moment of truth I realized I wasn’t going to actually fight the parliamentary forces. The good fight was always rewarded in the holo-vids with wealth, fame and improbable companionship, but in reality such principled stands usually resulted in little more than extra work for the clean-up crew who had to remove the valiant crusader's earthly remains.
Decision made, I raised my hands above my head in the universal sign of surrender. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, and an unexpected sense of relief swept over me. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad upon return to Capria. They might even deem exile to Planetary Body Harpoon an acceptable outcome for me. Ultimately it wasn't all bad, being on a nearly deserted asteroid. I actually thought it might be nice to retire there, with visions of tending an algae farm and perusing hijacked vid-signals for entertainment filling my head.
Unfortunately it had been a few years since I had last practiced with power armor, and in this tense situation I didn’t have quite as light and deliberate of a touch as when I was completely calm. Instead of raising my arms at a normal, controlled speed, the power assisted servos of the suit gave a high pitched whine and whipped my arms up over my head.
The officer was taken by surprise at the blur of arm movement in front of him, and knowing he faced a potential opponent in a battle suit that was both stronger and faster than a normal human body, reacted instinctively and fired his weapon. The un-aimed blast tore a divot in the metal decking between us.
The two ratings behind the security officer were barely able to level their weapons between the time the officer first pulled out his weapon and when he fired.
Eyes widening, I took a step back, careful not to make any more sudden gestures.
“He’s trying to escape!” Exclaimed one of the young security ratings behind the lieutenant.
The other rating didn’t wait to say anything, he simply fired.
The blast from his sonic rifle knocked me off my feet. Pulling myself backward, I scrambled for cover. How had everything gone wrong so fast? I was trying to surrender, not start a war in the middle of the blasted Flag Bridge!
All I could think to do was close the faceplate of my helmet and try to raise my hands again, to show I was surrendering.
The second rating fired, once again flattening me against a nearby bulkhead, but other than rattling my head around inside the helmet, I was extremely pleased to find that the sonic rifle had little more effect than a rough ride at a theme park.
I realized they weren’t going to let me surrender. I knew I had to do something, but what? I had only taken a two week course in power armor use and that was a few years ago. I knew how to walk and get around in the suit without falling over but the weapon controls were all so very different from the model I trained on that I wasn’t even sure I could activate them. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone was really trying to kill me when the lieutenant opened fired with an aimed barrage.
The first blaster bolt glanced off the heavy metal plate covering my chest and ricocheted into a nearby console. A second and a third followed close after the first, impacting on the arm and face plate.
Instinctively shying away from the hit to the faceplate, I nearly fell over yet again as I scrambled to my feet. The constant audio assault from continued blaster fire, as well as the alarm system built into the power suit issuing imminent failure warnings was almost more than I could cope with as I tried to stagger away.
“All you Montagne were born drenched in the blood of innocents! In the name of the Caprian Parliament I demand you surrender or die, you treasonous scum,” cried the grey haired Security Officer as he swapped out the power pack in his hand blaster.
Seeing the officer reloading, I thought about making a run for it and ducking off into the Admiral’s ready room.
But reality caught me up short when I remembered there was only one way in or out of the Flag Bridge. A design feature I couldn’t understand at that particular moment. To get out I had to go past the Security personnel blocking the door. At least if I was going to find a shuttle and make any sort of escape. So instead of running away, I let my outrage at this last insult overrule the logical part of my brain and I leapt forward instead of finding a place to hide. Not stopping to think, I lashed out with my left hand, like a football player carrying the ball, attempting to stiff arm the officer out of the way.
No one was more surprised than I was when gauntleted hand made contact with the officer's chest and caused an unusual, muffled popping sound followed by the security officer's thudding impact into a wall eight feet away. Blood covered the fingers on my gauntlet, and I realized with absolute horror that it was from the ragged hole in the chest of the security officer I had moments before simply tried to push out of my escape path.
For a moment, the three remaining combatants all stood and gaped at one another. Then the senior chief from environmental jumped out from the behind chair she’d been hiding behind and slugged one of the ratings in the face.
Spurred back into action (but not wanting to kill anyone), I decided against further punches or other strikes. Instead, I tried to grab the other rating by the arm in an attempt to subdue him. Reaching wildly, while the security rating backed away and tried bring up the rifle for a shot at pointblank range, I managed to snag one arm. All I could see was a look of horror on the face underneath his black cap.
“Stop,” I yelled and gave the rating’s arm a squeeze. I heard a crack and the rating gave a high pitched scream.
I realized the power servos in the suit’s hand had crushed the rating’s arm. Feeling sick to my stomach, I released him.
The rating dropped to the floor screaming, his arm flopping around in unnatural directions until he managed to use his good hand to clutch the damaged one close to his body.
I opened the face plate of my battle suit and leaned over to the side as the contents of my stomach came spewing up all over one of the workstation consoles.
“Medic!” Yelled the environmental chief, from her position standing over the other security rating. The one with two working arms. “We need some help in here. Somebody call the infirmary,” she ordered.
More footsteps came running down the corridor and a grizzled looking doctor on the wrong side of middle age hustled into the flag bridge.
Feeling confident that my episode of involuntary emesis was concluded, I staggered over to the blast doors and hit the emergency lockdown button. I couldn’t handle anymore life threatening situations right this moment. Parliamentary agents had just tried to arrest me and I had done everything I could think of, first to show that I was giving up and then later when they wouldn’t let me do that, just to run away. How had everything gone wrong? I laughed hysterically and leaned against the bulkhead, sliding down to the floor as I stared at the bloody gauntlet. I realized that I might have just killed someone.
Instantly the laughter died and once again I felt like throwing up.
It took the doctor heading over to the blast doors with a hypo-spray in hand to snap me back into reality. I couldn’t risk being unconscious. If I let the doctor give me a sedative, who knew when or even if I would ever wake up? Temporary relief could turn into permanent sedation until the ship got home for trial.
“It’s okay,” said the Doctor. “This will help take the edge off.”
I shook my head and got to my feet. “No thanks, Doc. I need to be clear headed right now. Besides, these men need your attention more than I do.”
The doctor started to insist but I crossed my arms over my chest and he backed off, eyeing the still bloody power armor with wary respect.
“I need to get these men up to the infirmary,” the doctor said gesturing to the fallen security personnel.
I nodded.
“The door,” the doctor said pointing to the blast doors I’d just locked down.
I jerked at his reminder of the blast door partitions, and after a moment of consideration, turned off the emergency internal locks and cycled open the doors.
Outside the flag bridge were a large group of junior officers and senior crew chiefs.
I stared at the assembled bridge crew and department heads, once again at a loss. What did protocol dictate after you’ve disabled and/or killed your arresting officers by accident, because they refused to accept your surrender? The officers and senior enlisted stared back at me with mixed looks of fear, confusion and horror.
I didn’t know what to do, but something obviously had to be done. It seemed like I spoke before I had actually made any decision.
“The Department heads will meet as soon as the injured are escorted to the infirmary. Bridge crew can wait outside until we’re done.” Carrying on with things like nothing had happened might not be the best policy, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do, other than going back to my room and hiding in bed, which was not an option. I will admit, however, that it was becoming an increasingly attractive non-option the longer this day went on.
Ignoring a few wide eyed stares, I turned and headed back onto the Flag Bridge, passing the doctor who was calling for helpers to carry the fallen to the infirmary.
I realize that I might not be the most knowledgeable or deductive person in the galaxy, but I was slowly growing very certain about one thing. None of this would be happening if Imperial Rear Admiral Janeski and his infernal Empire of Man had kept its word and fulfilled its promises.
Something would have to be done about that eventually. Exactly what that something was eluded me at present, however. Which in all honesty was probably a good sign, since the last thing the galaxy needed was to have me start setting interstellar policy.
The meeting that followed passed in something of a blur. I was introduced to all the new department heads in no discernable order. Everyone seemed uneasy inside the battle damaged flag bridge, so we reconvened in the briefing room attached to it. Even after the move they still seemed uneasy, but less so. There wasn't much to be done for that and honestly, I didn't care. Especially when all I could think about was that sickening crunch as I straight armed the grey haired security officer. Still, I tried my best to conduct the affair with an air of professionalism and dignity, even if I was still wearing a suit of power armor.
Eventually I got tired of the quiet and uneasy conversation, so I decided to act like I knew what I was doing. “I want a head count of the crew still with us, now that the Imperials have abandoned Clover and left us to our own devices,” I said with as much practiced authority as I could muster.
“Abandoned, Sir?” asked a junior lieutenant wearing the black gloves of Intelligence. “I thought they were just going off to reinforce the fleets facing the Gorgon Alliance.”
I shook my head. “Triumvere Pontifex ordered a complete Imperial withdrawal from the Spine.” Gasps, quickly muffled, accompanied this statement. “Any Imperial assets that can’t be removed are also to be destroyed by the Imperial Rim Fleet before they depart.” I paused to let this sink in, “Imperial citizens are encouraged to depart of their own free will.”
“What!” Exclaimed the Intelligence officer. “Surely there must be more to it than that,” he then added a belated, “sir.”
The other officers and crew chiefs signaled their agreement. “They can’t do that,” declared the senior chief currently in charge of supply, bringing a round of affirmation from the assembled personnel.
I shook my head. “You’re all free to review the video logs for yourselves. In the meantime,” I said, raising my voice over the sudden buzz of dismayed conversation, “this ship needs to be reorganized, a new crew roster taken and any holes in leadership or other critical, skilled positions filled.”
Now they were all looking at me. I continued without pause, hoping to discourage further outbursts “For the meantime those of you who are here are the heads of your various departments. If you feel yourself unable to do the job,” at this several heads perked up and hands started to rise, which I studiously ignored, “then I expect you to let me know your concerns and at the same time who you feel is the most qualified person to replace you.” Several of the hopefuls visibly drooped.
“Until you can find someone more qualified for the position than yourself, don’t bother asking to be replaced. You’re stuck with the job until further notice.”
“Sir what about the crew,” asked the Intelligence officer and as soon as he spoke several of the crew chiefs nodded in agreement. “They’ve been stuck in quarters for well over half a shift.”
I nodded, trying to look as though I had anticipated the question at this very juncture. “Get them out of their quarters for a nose count and then put them back to work. This ship won’t fly itself,” was all I could think to say in response.
“You,” I said pointing at the Intelligence officer.
The officer paused and pointed to himself.
“Yes, you, what’s your name?”
The officer looked surprised. “Raphael Tremblay, sir. Why?”
“I want you to stay,” I turned to the rest of the department heads. “The rest of you are dismissed. See to your crew, and prepare those revised department rosters as soon as possible.”
When they all looked at each other instead of immediately getting up and leaving like I’d just said, I slammed a still bloody fist onto the table.
Seeing the dent did more to get them moving than anything I’d said so far and after that they scrambled to leave the room. The intelligence officer's wide eyes alternated between the dent in the table and the now-congealed blood on the power gauntlet.
Too mentally fatigued to really care, I just stared at him for a moment without really processing anything. Then, I regained my composure and returned to a relaxed, seated posture. “As of right now you’re my new First Officer, XO or whatever they call it.”
The officer’s eyes widened further, which I had only seconds before assumed to be impossible. “Sir, I'm far too inexperienced and junior to accept that position. I’d hardly even know where to start,” Tremblay said, shaking his head in negation. “Why would you pick me, you don’t even know me. We’ve hardly met,” he said.
“Hardly knowing what to do is better than not having any idea,” I said, knowing full well how true a statement that was and envious he at least had an inkling of where to start with his new job. Myself I was completely at sea when it came to running a fleet. “As for why? You asked questions during the meeting and I don’t think Intelligence is as critical a position as Environmental or Engineering right now.”
“Asking questions is your criteria,” muttered intelligence officer Tremblay. He didn’t look very reassured by my stated selection criteria.
“Speaking of which, why wasn’t my new Chief Engineer at the meeting,” I said with a hint of growl creeping into my voice. “I personally called down to engineering and told them to get him out of the brig.”
“The brig,” Officer Tremblay said faintly, obviously having difficulty fathoming my meaning.
I waved my hand abruptly, the servos whining at a higher pitch.
“Make sure they’ve freed Lieutenant Spalding from the brig and then go... Well, do whatever it is that First Officers or XO’s do.”
“Where will you be, Sir…,” started the officer then he paused. “What I mean to say is that I really have to insist. I don’t know the first thing about being a First Officer. That’s a line position and I’m a staff officer,” he protested. “Besides which I don’t have the seniority for such a post.”
Not having any idea the difference between line and staff officers and not wanting to display my own ignorance, I waved my hand again and walked out of the briefing room and off the flag bridge. “I need to get cleaned up.” Believing that to be the most politic moment to do so, I headed back to my quarters.
I may have told the Intelligence officer that I picked him because he asked questions, and that was true, as far as it went. But the most important reason I’d picked him was because, after security (which had already tried to kill me) I concluded that the intelligence section was the most likely place to be filled with parliamentary hit men.
An ancient earth philosopher (or maybe it was a poet) had once said, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ I very much intended to keep this guy as close to me as possible. No extra free time would be allotted for him to run around plotting and scheming and generally feeling sorry fo himself because he’d been passed over or any other stupid reason he came up with for causing me trouble. If he was too busy keeping the ship from falling apart he’d have no time for planning a palace coup, or mutiny, or whatever they called it in the naval service. At least that was the hope.
I was man enough to admit that I was paranoid. In my defense, they really were out to get me, as evidenced by the security detail that shot up the flag bridge. Just because this guy was in intelligence didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was probably all just jumping at shadows, but I wasn't going to second-guess myself at this point. Still, in general it's a good idea to keep an open mind.
A few minutes with a rag cleaned all the blood I could see off the armored suit. After that all I wanted to do was take off the bulky thing and sleep until the hard part was over. Instead I’d already promised a meeting with the bridge crew. The very members of the crew most familiar with the task of getting us safely back home. The same home that was more than likely to take me into custody for the twin crimes of resisting arrest and assaulting a security officer, than it was to thank me for returning a battleship to them safe and sound.
Everyone was counting on me to do the right thing. The crew was counting on me to keep them alive and get them safely home. The parliament was counting on me to bring back the Lucky Clover and hand myself over to them for punishment. Admiral Janeski expected me to carry on where he left off and finish the patrol agreed upon by our various governments. All of which ignored the billions of everyday civilians going about their lives in peace, who relied on Rim Fleet to protect them from pirates and alien marauders, or whatever it was that we were supposed to intercept.
The enormity of what I was doing crashed over me and I stood paralyzed. For how long I couldn’t say afterward. I didn’t snap out of it until my door buzzed, indicating someone outside wanted me to come out and deal with more of this unholy mess I’d somehow landed a staring roll in fixing.
Back in the briefing room I had a whole new set of faces with which to contend. Unlike the new department heads who were an equal mix of the young and the old, the bridge crew where almost entirely young. Not only were they young for their posts but I eventually discovered mostly half trained as well.
As I should have been able to figure out for myself if only I’d stopped for a few moments to think things through. Obviously, most of the officers and senior enlisted bridge crew had been provided by the empire. Of those experienced few that weren’t imperials, many had jumped at the empire’s offer to join the imperial armed forces.
In short, I was left with the enlisted crewmembers they’d been training up during the cruise. Looking at the table of organization for the bridge on my suits internal HUD screen, I discovered we barely had enough people remaining to staff a single shift on the bridge. We didn’t have enough to even think about fully staffing the flag bridge on a round the clock basis with three full shifts like we’d been doing up to this point.
We had one navigator, two helmsmen and no one at all in tactical as, apparently, they’d all decided to sign up with the imperials. We also had an overabundance of people who’d been cross trained to man the various sensor stations and the damage control center on the bridge. Our science officer was the only person approaching middle age and he was here only because he was conducting a study for his PhD thesis at the University of Capria, on the cost/benefits of slave rigging an older warship like ours, versus running it with a crew three times the size of most warships in our weight class.
Just counting bodies gave me an uneasy feeling. I realized that even if we called everyone in during an emergency, we still had no one trained in tactical. I had taken a few online classes on basic tactical theory, mostly for the fun of it, but had stopped when I discovered it was a lot more like work than I’d expected and I didn’t wanted to take that kind of time away from my colonial administration studies.
I think I fairly successfully redirected most of the questions I didn’t understand, or subjects which were only barely comprehensible to me, off on my absent Intelligence officer slash First Officer. Anything I couldn’t hand off, I steadfastly stated was still under review. I thought I sounded like an incompetent fool who couldn’t even make a decision half the time but what could I do? I wasn’t trained to be an Admiral. All I could do was point them in the direction of someone who might have a clue and stick to the things I could do something about.
It was one of the helmsmen who finally helped me reach a decision regarding something I could actually do something about.
“Where are we going after this, Admiral,” he asked, looking worried and yet strangely hopeful that I had an answer at the same time.
“Going, Helmsman DuPont?” I asked, brow furrowed. “I would hope we would adjourn to the bridge to perform a ship-wide readiness check and systems analysis.”
“After we leave this star system I mean, Sir,” he said. “It’s just that a few of us have been wondering where we’re going to go after the ship’s put back to rights.”
This was the question I dreaded above all others, especially from one of the people who were going to actually operate the ship. Anyone else and I could say that I needed to talk with the helmsman or navigator first. But this was a helmsman and the blasted navigator was right across the table from him.
This was the sort of thing to which Admiral Janeski was supposed tend. On the outside I was stalling for time by appearing to think the question over, while on the inside I was railing once again at our recently departed imperial admiral. Unlike myself, I was sure he never found himself at a loss as to how to reply to a question like this. I wished that I could cause him even a quarter as much trouble as he’d caused for me, and then suddenly I had it. The idea that popped into my brain was so outrageous, so gutsy, that it would never have occurred to me before the Admiral dumped this great big steaming mess in my lap and called it placing me in operational command. I dare say it wouldn’t have occurred to me even if I was a trained Admiral myself, not before the Empire of Man declared it was pulling out and leaving us to our own devices anyway.
Now it not only occurred to me, the idea filled me with a perverse delight.
A couple months ago the Lucky Clover had come upon a pair of pirates, a converted merchant freighter and an aged heavy cruiser that was even older and more poorly built that the Lucky Clover. Swift action and some handy maneuvering on the part of Admiral Janeski had resulted in our ship disabling the two pirates. The fact that the pirates hadn’t been able to keep up on the maintenance of their one genuine warship and that half the guns didn’t fire hadn’t hurt either.
Anyway, the two ships had been captured and claimed as prizes of the Imperial Rim Fleet. Their crews had been shipped off via prison transport while we’d continued on with our assigned patrol route. However, leaving to continue our patrol hadn’t been the only thing the admiral had done. He’d used the Imperial ComStat, a network of FTL buoys which were not always within communications range on the outer edge of the spine, to send a message for a couple of the ad-hoc patrol fleet’s larger vessels to come guard the prizes and repair the engines of the heavy cruiser enough get it to a repair dock.
I thought that since the Imperial Rim Fleet was officially no more, and that our ship had done most of the work and all of the original seizing, that going back and claiming those two ships for our beleaguered Patrol Fleet was a capital idea.
I was sure Admiral Janeski had plans for those ships, at least at one point. What those plans had been or currently were, I wasn’t quite sure but still it would be nice to derail his plans for once, whatever they were. I couldn’t think of anything more likely to do so than stealing those prizes right out from under his nose and making sure our imperial abandoners never saw a credit of all the prize money from those captured pirate ships.
I also knew the perfect way to sell this to any of the ship’s crew with thoughts of bugging out now and heading straight for home. Which I was sure were quite a few of them. I didn’t dare order them to do something and have them refuse, that was a risk I couldn’t afford. At the moment everyone, outside of the fallen security team, was listening intently to what I had to say because I was the Admiral the Caprian government had placed over them, here on the flag ship. That could all change in an instant if they didn’t like where I was taking them, and once they started ignoring me it would only be a short step from there to turning on me like an angry slash lizard. Just like they did to poor Jean-Luc. Inside I shuddered and felt a little queasy.
“That’s a very good question, Helmsman DuPont,” I said, after an uncomfortably long silence while I considered the question. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, instead of running around like a maniac trying to put our ship back in order,” I put on a winning smile, direct from media training 101, and watched as they reluctantly followed suit. “Our first order of business should be to go back and pick up those two pirates vessels we took a prize,” I smiled.
Brows furrowed and mouths started to open with questions but I overrode them. “I’m sure everyone on the ship wants to make sure the Imperials don’t steal them from us…” I paused for effect, and then added the only part I thought the crew would really be interested in, “along with all that prize money the crew earned when the Clover captured them.”
Mouths closed and brows became less furrowed. I could see that a desire to go to the nearest port, or just plain straight home, warred with the thought of giving up all that prize money. Money that with half of the original crew gone, along with the Imperial fleet, would be doubled if ‘we’ grabbed the pair of ships or on the other hand could become absolutely nothing when the Imperials did all the grabbing instead.
I could tell some of them weren’t entirely convinced by the idea but at least I’d given them something to think about, something other than making a b-line for home.
As for myself I thought the idea had merit all on its own but I had to admit to that I wasn’t sure if going straight home would ge me killed and/or imprisoned and this seemed like the perfect way to go about delaying the inevitable, at least until I had more information and some time to digest it.
Everyone likes to think that politicians and fat cat capitalistic business men have some sort of monopoly on greed but wave a fat chunk of change in front of the masses and most people are willing temporarily alter their moral compass or entirely revise their normal, reliable decision making processes.
More than anything else the crew was worried and with good reason. Even a complete naval fool like myself could see we had critical manpower shortages all over the ship. Supplies had been raided, equipment sabotaged and morale crippled to the point where any sane commander would have hove to and head straight for the nearest port. To top all it off, with the Imperials leaving the spine-ward sectors to their own devices, there was a lot to worry about both on both the personal and interstellar scene. In my opinion the crew would have to be complete idiots not to be worried.
A chorus of, “Yes, sir’s,” and “You’re the, Admiral,” came from the bridge crew.
I just nodded. I could tell that a few of them would still need convincing but for now I’d just let the thought of ‘losing’ all that money do my convincing for me. Hopefully by this time tomorrow the crew would be buzzing over the idea of rescuing their prize money from the greedy Imperials.
“I think that about wraps things up.” I said. “For now the helmsmen will have to be on twelve hour shifting. The navigator will stay on first shift but is on call at need. As there are no tactical staff that problem solves itself. The various sensor and damage control personnel will also be mainly on first shift but I want at least one sensor operator and one damage control operator on shifts two and three.”
There were various nods of agreement.
“In the future we’ll start a cross training program, to fill as many holes on the bridge as possible. Bridge staff as well as general crew will be considered for the training program. Training aside, I’m hoping for volunteers for the two and three shift spots but if there are disputes regarding who get those duties take them up with First Officer, who will be the final arbiter of the initial assignments. The same thing regarding the new training program, also if anyone is interested in the new training program please speak with the ship’s First Officer, Raphael Tremblay.” I gave them a moment to process these orders, hoping it made me appear controlled and collected. “Dismissed.”
As they filed out I congratulated myself for handing off yet another time consuming assignment to the ship’s former intelligence officer. I wanted that man as busy as humanly possible.
Having arrived back on the Flag Bridge, I listened to the servos of the power suit whine as I paced back and forth on the duralloy deckplates. I couldn’t keep the crew in their quarters forever. Not only were they needed to run the ship, but I was fairly certain they wouldn't sit in their bunks indefinitely, no matter what I said, or how well I said it.
I needed to let them out before they decided to wander out on their own and blamed their new Admiral for keeping them penned up too long.
>>>>>>>>>>I wasn’t sure what to do. The only thing I was certain of was there was no way I could do this all by myself. I thought back to the tables of organization I’d had to study as part of the midshipman’s courses I’d taken. My brow furrowed as I desperately tried to remember, but I couldn't remember it at all. At least not enough to be helpful.
For the moment I had to be both the Admiral and the Captain of this ship and I could do neither. I came to the realization that I needed help. I did recall that the ship’s crew was broken up into departments, with assigned department heads. I realized that I could just tell the ship’s computer, the distributed intelligence network, to send a message to the senior remaining member of each department informing them they were needed for a meeting on the Flag Bridge.
After that, I knew I was still missing something important, but exactly what it was still eluded me. Then, I snapped my fingers in realization. A bridge crew, that was it. I’d tell the computer to message any remaining bridge crew, informing them they were needed on the flag bridge. I would set the time for that right after the meeting with the department heads.
Plan made, I turned to the communications console with a feeling of great satisfaction at my budding organizational talents. Things were starting to come together, at last. A great sense of serenity was beginning to form around me, like a warm blanket on a cold night.
A half hour later, I was positively fuming. To say that the ship’s old distributed network was clunky and infuriating to work with was something of an understatement. Sometimes it seemed to half work at finding the people I needed and then, for some unknown reason there would be music, something that had nothing at all to do with a personnel search or messaging, blaring out of the speakers and random search results scrolled over the main console screen. Shortly after that was when the first group of messages meant for the department heads were confirmed as having been delivered to members of the bridge crew, and vice versa.
So it looked like instead of having one group show up for the department head meeting and another for the bridge crew one, I might have a mix and match. I sighed, feeling absolutely pathetic. There was no helping it now. I would have to stick to the original plan and meet with the department heads first and the bridge crew would just have to wait until that meeting was finished.
As it was no one wanted to wait to find out what was going on with the ship they all lived inside. So as soon as they received any sort of permission to leave their quarters, they all bolted straight for the Flag Bridge.
The first one through the door was a crusty middle aged senior chief from environmental. “Who's been monitoring the air scrubbers and oxygen recyclers,” She demanded, sniffing the air. “Something smells off.”
She was interrupted as another senior chief - this one from supply - came in and nearly bumped into her. “We’ve been robbed!” Exclaimed the senior chief from supply. “All the new equipment we loaded after we left Capria has disappeared from the ship’s inventory!”
Realizing there was no one in the Flag Bridge but the fleet’s ceremonial Admiral - who was now clad in power armor - they stopped talking, their mouths dropping open instead.
While they were still gaping at the improbable sight, a junior lieutenant with gun metal grey hair pushed between them and forced his way onto the Flag Bridge. Behind him came two junior ratings. All three of these latest arrivals sported the black hats of ship security and while the officer had a side arm strapped to his waist, the two ratings carried sonic rifles slung to their backs.
“Jason Montagne, on the suspicion of high treason against the parliamentary government, I hereby place you under arrest,” stated the solidly built lieutenant before getting a good look at the now power armored admiral.
As soon as he realized the young prince was in a battle suit the officer started clawing for the sidearm in his holster.
The two senior chiefs gasped and the supply officer dived off to the side, while the petty officer from environmental stood flat footed in dumbfounded surprise.
For my part, I was taken aback, shocked that I was about to be arrested. I had been afraid something like this might happen but while I thought there was a strong possibility of it occurring at some point during the trip home, I never really internalized the idea that the government would arrest me for something I hadn’t even done yet, and so soon! Up to this point everything had all seemed very much like of a game.
I also realized something else. I may have picked up a suit of power armor, and I may have tried to lock down the armory, but at the moment of truth I realized I wasn’t going to actually fight the parliamentary forces. The good fight was always rewarded in the holo-vids with wealth, fame and improbable companionship, but in reality such principled stands usually resulted in little more than extra work for the clean-up crew who had to remove the valiant crusader's earthly remains.
Decision made, I raised my hands above my head in the universal sign of surrender. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, and an unexpected sense of relief swept over me. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad upon return to Capria. They might even deem exile to Planetary Body Harpoon an acceptable outcome for me. Ultimately it wasn't all bad, being on a nearly deserted asteroid. I actually thought it might be nice to retire there, with visions of tending an algae farm and perusing hijacked vid-signals for entertainment filling my head.
Unfortunately it had been a few years since I had last practiced with power armor, and in this tense situation I didn’t have quite as light and deliberate of a touch as when I was completely calm. Instead of raising my arms at a normal, controlled speed, the power assisted servos of the suit gave a high pitched whine and whipped my arms up over my head.
The officer was taken by surprise at the blur of arm movement in front of him, and knowing he faced a potential opponent in a battle suit that was both stronger and faster than a normal human body, reacted instinctively and fired his weapon. The un-aimed blast tore a divot in the metal decking between us.
The two ratings behind the security officer were barely able to level their weapons between the time the officer first pulled out his weapon and when he fired.
Eyes widening, I took a step back, careful not to make any more sudden gestures.
“He’s trying to escape!” Exclaimed one of the young security ratings behind the lieutenant.
The other rating didn’t wait to say anything, he simply fired.
The blast from his sonic rifle knocked me off my feet. Pulling myself backward, I scrambled for cover. How had everything gone wrong so fast? I was trying to surrender, not start a war in the middle of the blasted Flag Bridge!
All I could think to do was close the faceplate of my helmet and try to raise my hands again, to show I was surrendering.
The second rating fired, once again flattening me against a nearby bulkhead, but other than rattling my head around inside the helmet, I was extremely pleased to find that the sonic rifle had little more effect than a rough ride at a theme park.
I realized they weren’t going to let me surrender. I knew I had to do something, but what? I had only taken a two week course in power armor use and that was a few years ago. I knew how to walk and get around in the suit without falling over but the weapon controls were all so very different from the model I trained on that I wasn’t even sure I could activate them. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone was really trying to kill me when the lieutenant opened fired with an aimed barrage.
The first blaster bolt glanced off the heavy metal plate covering my chest and ricocheted into a nearby console. A second and a third followed close after the first, impacting on the arm and face plate.
Instinctively shying away from the hit to the faceplate, I nearly fell over yet again as I scrambled to my feet. The constant audio assault from continued blaster fire, as well as the alarm system built into the power suit issuing imminent failure warnings was almost more than I could cope with as I tried to stagger away.
“All you Montagne were born drenched in the blood of innocents! In the name of the Caprian Parliament I demand you surrender or die, you treasonous scum,” cried the grey haired Security Officer as he swapped out the power pack in his hand blaster.
Seeing the officer reloading, I thought about making a run for it and ducking off into the Admiral’s ready room.
But reality caught me up short when I remembered there was only one way in or out of the Flag Bridge. A design feature I couldn’t understand at that particular moment. To get out I had to go past the Security personnel blocking the door. At least if I was going to find a shuttle and make any sort of escape. So instead of running away, I let my outrage at this last insult overrule the logical part of my brain and I leapt forward instead of finding a place to hide. Not stopping to think, I lashed out with my left hand, like a football player carrying the ball, attempting to stiff arm the officer out of the way.
No one was more surprised than I was when gauntleted hand made contact with the officer's chest and caused an unusual, muffled popping sound followed by the security officer's thudding impact into a wall eight feet away. Blood covered the fingers on my gauntlet, and I realized with absolute horror that it was from the ragged hole in the chest of the security officer I had moments before simply tried to push out of my escape path.
For a moment, the three remaining combatants all stood and gaped at one another. Then the senior chief from environmental jumped out from the behind chair she’d been hiding behind and slugged one of the ratings in the face.
Spurred back into action (but not wanting to kill anyone), I decided against further punches or other strikes. Instead, I tried to grab the other rating by the arm in an attempt to subdue him. Reaching wildly, while the security rating backed away and tried bring up the rifle for a shot at pointblank range, I managed to snag one arm. All I could see was a look of horror on the face underneath his black cap.
“Stop,” I yelled and gave the rating’s arm a squeeze. I heard a crack and the rating gave a high pitched scream.
I realized the power servos in the suit’s hand had crushed the rating’s arm. Feeling sick to my stomach, I released him.
The rating dropped to the floor screaming, his arm flopping around in unnatural directions until he managed to use his good hand to clutch the damaged one close to his body.
I opened the face plate of my battle suit and leaned over to the side as the contents of my stomach came spewing up all over one of the workstation consoles.
“Medic!” Yelled the environmental chief, from her position standing over the other security rating. The one with two working arms. “We need some help in here. Somebody call the infirmary,” she ordered.
More footsteps came running down the corridor and a grizzled looking doctor on the wrong side of middle age hustled into the flag bridge.
Feeling confident that my episode of involuntary emesis was concluded, I staggered over to the blast doors and hit the emergency lockdown button. I couldn’t handle anymore life threatening situations right this moment. Parliamentary agents had just tried to arrest me and I had done everything I could think of, first to show that I was giving up and then later when they wouldn’t let me do that, just to run away. How had everything gone wrong? I laughed hysterically and leaned against the bulkhead, sliding down to the floor as I stared at the bloody gauntlet. I realized that I might have just killed someone.
Instantly the laughter died and once again I felt like throwing up.
It took the doctor heading over to the blast doors with a hypo-spray in hand to snap me back into reality. I couldn’t risk being unconscious. If I let the doctor give me a sedative, who knew when or even if I would ever wake up? Temporary relief could turn into permanent sedation until the ship got home for trial.
“It’s okay,” said the Doctor. “This will help take the edge off.”
I shook my head and got to my feet. “No thanks, Doc. I need to be clear headed right now. Besides, these men need your attention more than I do.”
The doctor started to insist but I crossed my arms over my chest and he backed off, eyeing the still bloody power armor with wary respect.
“I need to get these men up to the infirmary,” the doctor said gesturing to the fallen security personnel.
I nodded.
“The door,” the doctor said pointing to the blast doors I’d just locked down.
I jerked at his reminder of the blast door partitions, and after a moment of consideration, turned off the emergency internal locks and cycled open the doors.
Outside the flag bridge were a large group of junior officers and senior crew chiefs.
I stared at the assembled bridge crew and department heads, once again at a loss. What did protocol dictate after you’ve disabled and/or killed your arresting officers by accident, because they refused to accept your surrender? The officers and senior enlisted stared back at me with mixed looks of fear, confusion and horror.
I didn’t know what to do, but something obviously had to be done. It seemed like I spoke before I had actually made any decision.
“The Department heads will meet as soon as the injured are escorted to the infirmary. Bridge crew can wait outside until we’re done.” Carrying on with things like nothing had happened might not be the best policy, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do, other than going back to my room and hiding in bed, which was not an option. I will admit, however, that it was becoming an increasingly attractive non-option the longer this day went on.
Ignoring a few wide eyed stares, I turned and headed back onto the Flag Bridge, passing the doctor who was calling for helpers to carry the fallen to the infirmary.
I realize that I might not be the most knowledgeable or deductive person in the galaxy, but I was slowly growing very certain about one thing. None of this would be happening if Imperial Rear Admiral Janeski and his infernal Empire of Man had kept its word and fulfilled its promises.
Something would have to be done about that eventually. Exactly what that something was eluded me at present, however. Which in all honesty was probably a good sign, since the last thing the galaxy needed was to have me start setting interstellar policy.
The meeting that followed passed in something of a blur. I was introduced to all the new department heads in no discernable order. Everyone seemed uneasy inside the battle damaged flag bridge, so we reconvened in the briefing room attached to it. Even after the move they still seemed uneasy, but less so. There wasn't much to be done for that and honestly, I didn't care. Especially when all I could think about was that sickening crunch as I straight armed the grey haired security officer. Still, I tried my best to conduct the affair with an air of professionalism and dignity, even if I was still wearing a suit of power armor.
Eventually I got tired of the quiet and uneasy conversation, so I decided to act like I knew what I was doing. “I want a head count of the crew still with us, now that the Imperials have abandoned Clover and left us to our own devices,” I said with as much practiced authority as I could muster.
“Abandoned, Sir?” asked a junior lieutenant wearing the black gloves of Intelligence. “I thought they were just going off to reinforce the fleets facing the Gorgon Alliance.”
I shook my head. “Triumvere Pontifex ordered a complete Imperial withdrawal from the Spine.” Gasps, quickly muffled, accompanied this statement. “Any Imperial assets that can’t be removed are also to be destroyed by the Imperial Rim Fleet before they depart.” I paused to let this sink in, “Imperial citizens are encouraged to depart of their own free will.”
“What!” Exclaimed the Intelligence officer. “Surely there must be more to it than that,” he then added a belated, “sir.”
The other officers and crew chiefs signaled their agreement. “They can’t do that,” declared the senior chief currently in charge of supply, bringing a round of affirmation from the assembled personnel.
I shook my head. “You’re all free to review the video logs for yourselves. In the meantime,” I said, raising my voice over the sudden buzz of dismayed conversation, “this ship needs to be reorganized, a new crew roster taken and any holes in leadership or other critical, skilled positions filled.”
Now they were all looking at me. I continued without pause, hoping to discourage further outbursts “For the meantime those of you who are here are the heads of your various departments. If you feel yourself unable to do the job,” at this several heads perked up and hands started to rise, which I studiously ignored, “then I expect you to let me know your concerns and at the same time who you feel is the most qualified person to replace you.” Several of the hopefuls visibly drooped.
“Until you can find someone more qualified for the position than yourself, don’t bother asking to be replaced. You’re stuck with the job until further notice.”
“Sir what about the crew,” asked the Intelligence officer and as soon as he spoke several of the crew chiefs nodded in agreement. “They’ve been stuck in quarters for well over half a shift.”
I nodded, trying to look as though I had anticipated the question at this very juncture. “Get them out of their quarters for a nose count and then put them back to work. This ship won’t fly itself,” was all I could think to say in response.
“You,” I said pointing at the Intelligence officer.
The officer paused and pointed to himself.
“Yes, you, what’s your name?”
The officer looked surprised. “Raphael Tremblay, sir. Why?”
“I want you to stay,” I turned to the rest of the department heads. “The rest of you are dismissed. See to your crew, and prepare those revised department rosters as soon as possible.”
When they all looked at each other instead of immediately getting up and leaving like I’d just said, I slammed a still bloody fist onto the table.
Seeing the dent did more to get them moving than anything I’d said so far and after that they scrambled to leave the room. The intelligence officer's wide eyes alternated between the dent in the table and the now-congealed blood on the power gauntlet.
Too mentally fatigued to really care, I just stared at him for a moment without really processing anything. Then, I regained my composure and returned to a relaxed, seated posture. “As of right now you’re my new First Officer, XO or whatever they call it.”
The officer’s eyes widened further, which I had only seconds before assumed to be impossible. “Sir, I'm far too inexperienced and junior to accept that position. I’d hardly even know where to start,” Tremblay said, shaking his head in negation. “Why would you pick me, you don’t even know me. We’ve hardly met,” he said.
“Hardly knowing what to do is better than not having any idea,” I said, knowing full well how true a statement that was and envious he at least had an inkling of where to start with his new job. Myself I was completely at sea when it came to running a fleet. “As for why? You asked questions during the meeting and I don’t think Intelligence is as critical a position as Environmental or Engineering right now.”
“Asking questions is your criteria,” muttered intelligence officer Tremblay. He didn’t look very reassured by my stated selection criteria.
“Speaking of which, why wasn’t my new Chief Engineer at the meeting,” I said with a hint of growl creeping into my voice. “I personally called down to engineering and told them to get him out of the brig.”
“The brig,” Officer Tremblay said faintly, obviously having difficulty fathoming my meaning.
I waved my hand abruptly, the servos whining at a higher pitch.
“Make sure they’ve freed Lieutenant Spalding from the brig and then go... Well, do whatever it is that First Officers or XO’s do.”
“Where will you be, Sir…,” started the officer then he paused. “What I mean to say is that I really have to insist. I don’t know the first thing about being a First Officer. That’s a line position and I’m a staff officer,” he protested. “Besides which I don’t have the seniority for such a post.”
Not having any idea the difference between line and staff officers and not wanting to display my own ignorance, I waved my hand again and walked out of the briefing room and off the flag bridge. “I need to get cleaned up.” Believing that to be the most politic moment to do so, I headed back to my quarters.
I may have told the Intelligence officer that I picked him because he asked questions, and that was true, as far as it went. But the most important reason I’d picked him was because, after security (which had already tried to kill me) I concluded that the intelligence section was the most likely place to be filled with parliamentary hit men.
An ancient earth philosopher (or maybe it was a poet) had once said, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ I very much intended to keep this guy as close to me as possible. No extra free time would be allotted for him to run around plotting and scheming and generally feeling sorry fo himself because he’d been passed over or any other stupid reason he came up with for causing me trouble. If he was too busy keeping the ship from falling apart he’d have no time for planning a palace coup, or mutiny, or whatever they called it in the naval service. At least that was the hope.
I was man enough to admit that I was paranoid. In my defense, they really were out to get me, as evidenced by the security detail that shot up the flag bridge. Just because this guy was in intelligence didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was probably all just jumping at shadows, but I wasn't going to second-guess myself at this point. Still, in general it's a good idea to keep an open mind.
A few minutes with a rag cleaned all the blood I could see off the armored suit. After that all I wanted to do was take off the bulky thing and sleep until the hard part was over. Instead I’d already promised a meeting with the bridge crew. The very members of the crew most familiar with the task of getting us safely back home. The same home that was more than likely to take me into custody for the twin crimes of resisting arrest and assaulting a security officer, than it was to thank me for returning a battleship to them safe and sound.
Everyone was counting on me to do the right thing. The crew was counting on me to keep them alive and get them safely home. The parliament was counting on me to bring back the Lucky Clover and hand myself over to them for punishment. Admiral Janeski expected me to carry on where he left off and finish the patrol agreed upon by our various governments. All of which ignored the billions of everyday civilians going about their lives in peace, who relied on Rim Fleet to protect them from pirates and alien marauders, or whatever it was that we were supposed to intercept.
The enormity of what I was doing crashed over me and I stood paralyzed. For how long I couldn’t say afterward. I didn’t snap out of it until my door buzzed, indicating someone outside wanted me to come out and deal with more of this unholy mess I’d somehow landed a staring roll in fixing.
Back in the briefing room I had a whole new set of faces with which to contend. Unlike the new department heads who were an equal mix of the young and the old, the bridge crew where almost entirely young. Not only were they young for their posts but I eventually discovered mostly half trained as well.
As I should have been able to figure out for myself if only I’d stopped for a few moments to think things through. Obviously, most of the officers and senior enlisted bridge crew had been provided by the empire. Of those experienced few that weren’t imperials, many had jumped at the empire’s offer to join the imperial armed forces.
In short, I was left with the enlisted crewmembers they’d been training up during the cruise. Looking at the table of organization for the bridge on my suits internal HUD screen, I discovered we barely had enough people remaining to staff a single shift on the bridge. We didn’t have enough to even think about fully staffing the flag bridge on a round the clock basis with three full shifts like we’d been doing up to this point.
We had one navigator, two helmsmen and no one at all in tactical as, apparently, they’d all decided to sign up with the imperials. We also had an overabundance of people who’d been cross trained to man the various sensor stations and the damage control center on the bridge. Our science officer was the only person approaching middle age and he was here only because he was conducting a study for his PhD thesis at the University of Capria, on the cost/benefits of slave rigging an older warship like ours, versus running it with a crew three times the size of most warships in our weight class.
Just counting bodies gave me an uneasy feeling. I realized that even if we called everyone in during an emergency, we still had no one trained in tactical. I had taken a few online classes on basic tactical theory, mostly for the fun of it, but had stopped when I discovered it was a lot more like work than I’d expected and I didn’t wanted to take that kind of time away from my colonial administration studies.
I think I fairly successfully redirected most of the questions I didn’t understand, or subjects which were only barely comprehensible to me, off on my absent Intelligence officer slash First Officer. Anything I couldn’t hand off, I steadfastly stated was still under review. I thought I sounded like an incompetent fool who couldn’t even make a decision half the time but what could I do? I wasn’t trained to be an Admiral. All I could do was point them in the direction of someone who might have a clue and stick to the things I could do something about.
It was one of the helmsmen who finally helped me reach a decision regarding something I could actually do something about.
“Where are we going after this, Admiral,” he asked, looking worried and yet strangely hopeful that I had an answer at the same time.
“Going, Helmsman DuPont?” I asked, brow furrowed. “I would hope we would adjourn to the bridge to perform a ship-wide readiness check and systems analysis.”
“After we leave this star system I mean, Sir,” he said. “It’s just that a few of us have been wondering where we’re going to go after the ship’s put back to rights.”
This was the question I dreaded above all others, especially from one of the people who were going to actually operate the ship. Anyone else and I could say that I needed to talk with the helmsman or navigator first. But this was a helmsman and the blasted navigator was right across the table from him.
This was the sort of thing to which Admiral Janeski was supposed tend. On the outside I was stalling for time by appearing to think the question over, while on the inside I was railing once again at our recently departed imperial admiral. Unlike myself, I was sure he never found himself at a loss as to how to reply to a question like this. I wished that I could cause him even a quarter as much trouble as he’d caused for me, and then suddenly I had it. The idea that popped into my brain was so outrageous, so gutsy, that it would never have occurred to me before the Admiral dumped this great big steaming mess in my lap and called it placing me in operational command. I dare say it wouldn’t have occurred to me even if I was a trained Admiral myself, not before the Empire of Man declared it was pulling out and leaving us to our own devices anyway.
Now it not only occurred to me, the idea filled me with a perverse delight.
A couple months ago the Lucky Clover had come upon a pair of pirates, a converted merchant freighter and an aged heavy cruiser that was even older and more poorly built that the Lucky Clover. Swift action and some handy maneuvering on the part of Admiral Janeski had resulted in our ship disabling the two pirates. The fact that the pirates hadn’t been able to keep up on the maintenance of their one genuine warship and that half the guns didn’t fire hadn’t hurt either.
Anyway, the two ships had been captured and claimed as prizes of the Imperial Rim Fleet. Their crews had been shipped off via prison transport while we’d continued on with our assigned patrol route. However, leaving to continue our patrol hadn’t been the only thing the admiral had done. He’d used the Imperial ComStat, a network of FTL buoys which were not always within communications range on the outer edge of the spine, to send a message for a couple of the ad-hoc patrol fleet’s larger vessels to come guard the prizes and repair the engines of the heavy cruiser enough get it to a repair dock.
I thought that since the Imperial Rim Fleet was officially no more, and that our ship had done most of the work and all of the original seizing, that going back and claiming those two ships for our beleaguered Patrol Fleet was a capital idea.
I was sure Admiral Janeski had plans for those ships, at least at one point. What those plans had been or currently were, I wasn’t quite sure but still it would be nice to derail his plans for once, whatever they were. I couldn’t think of anything more likely to do so than stealing those prizes right out from under his nose and making sure our imperial abandoners never saw a credit of all the prize money from those captured pirate ships.
I also knew the perfect way to sell this to any of the ship’s crew with thoughts of bugging out now and heading straight for home. Which I was sure were quite a few of them. I didn’t dare order them to do something and have them refuse, that was a risk I couldn’t afford. At the moment everyone, outside of the fallen security team, was listening intently to what I had to say because I was the Admiral the Caprian government had placed over them, here on the flag ship. That could all change in an instant if they didn’t like where I was taking them, and once they started ignoring me it would only be a short step from there to turning on me like an angry slash lizard. Just like they did to poor Jean-Luc. Inside I shuddered and felt a little queasy.
“That’s a very good question, Helmsman DuPont,” I said, after an uncomfortably long silence while I considered the question. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, instead of running around like a maniac trying to put our ship back in order,” I put on a winning smile, direct from media training 101, and watched as they reluctantly followed suit. “Our first order of business should be to go back and pick up those two pirates vessels we took a prize,” I smiled.
Brows furrowed and mouths started to open with questions but I overrode them. “I’m sure everyone on the ship wants to make sure the Imperials don’t steal them from us…” I paused for effect, and then added the only part I thought the crew would really be interested in, “along with all that prize money the crew earned when the Clover captured them.”
Mouths closed and brows became less furrowed. I could see that a desire to go to the nearest port, or just plain straight home, warred with the thought of giving up all that prize money. Money that with half of the original crew gone, along with the Imperial fleet, would be doubled if ‘we’ grabbed the pair of ships or on the other hand could become absolutely nothing when the Imperials did all the grabbing instead.
I could tell some of them weren’t entirely convinced by the idea but at least I’d given them something to think about, something other than making a b-line for home.
As for myself I thought the idea had merit all on its own but I had to admit to that I wasn’t sure if going straight home would ge me killed and/or imprisoned and this seemed like the perfect way to go about delaying the inevitable, at least until I had more information and some time to digest it.
Everyone likes to think that politicians and fat cat capitalistic business men have some sort of monopoly on greed but wave a fat chunk of change in front of the masses and most people are willing temporarily alter their moral compass or entirely revise their normal, reliable decision making processes.
More than anything else the crew was worried and with good reason. Even a complete naval fool like myself could see we had critical manpower shortages all over the ship. Supplies had been raided, equipment sabotaged and morale crippled to the point where any sane commander would have hove to and head straight for the nearest port. To top all it off, with the Imperials leaving the spine-ward sectors to their own devices, there was a lot to worry about both on both the personal and interstellar scene. In my opinion the crew would have to be complete idiots not to be worried.
A chorus of, “Yes, sir’s,” and “You’re the, Admiral,” came from the bridge crew.
I just nodded. I could tell that a few of them would still need convincing but for now I’d just let the thought of ‘losing’ all that money do my convincing for me. Hopefully by this time tomorrow the crew would be buzzing over the idea of rescuing their prize money from the greedy Imperials.
“I think that about wraps things up.” I said. “For now the helmsmen will have to be on twelve hour shifting. The navigator will stay on first shift but is on call at need. As there are no tactical staff that problem solves itself. The various sensor and damage control personnel will also be mainly on first shift but I want at least one sensor operator and one damage control operator on shifts two and three.”
There were various nods of agreement.
“In the future we’ll start a cross training program, to fill as many holes on the bridge as possible. Bridge staff as well as general crew will be considered for the training program. Training aside, I’m hoping for volunteers for the two and three shift spots but if there are disputes regarding who get those duties take them up with First Officer, who will be the final arbiter of the initial assignments. The same thing regarding the new training program, also if anyone is interested in the new training program please speak with the ship’s First Officer, Raphael Tremblay.” I gave them a moment to process these orders, hoping it made me appear controlled and collected. “Dismissed.”
As they filed out I congratulated myself for handing off yet another time consuming assignment to the ship’s former intelligence officer. I wanted that man as busy as humanly possible.
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