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.
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