Ship of Destiny

by Frank Chadwick

  “I have already arranged to consult on a continuing basis with key representatives of the civilians on board. We have an impressive pool of talents and experience to draw on. But I will not attempt to minimize the potential danger we face. I do know that our best chance of surviving whatever trials lie ahead of us is together and working as a team.

  “I promise you anything we find out which bears on our fate I will share with you. We are in this together. Thank you for your courage and patience.”

  The alert wardroom was in the main hull, not the rotating habitat ring, which meant it had no simulated gravity. Sam got there five minutes early, got a zero-gee squeeze bulb of black coffee from the dispenser, and clipped his tether to the table in the middle of the room. The alert wardroom, austere by the standards of Cam Ranh Bay, was larger than the only wardroom USS Puebla had.

  He missed Puebla. Mostly he missed the familiarity of working with a crew he knew he could count on. Not that the Bay’s crew was second-rate. He still just didn’t know them well enough, didn’t know their strengths and weaknesses, didn’t know where he could lean on them for strength and where he had to go easy, help them along. He did know something was wrong with the officers and he finally had an idea what it was.

  His stomach growled. He’d deliberately put off eating to avoid post-jump consequences. Now he touched the smart surface of the table and ordered a seaweed salad with Bosnian chicken, and texted his apologies to Chief Duransky for having to skip their scheduled lunch. Just as the XO got there the steward brought Sam’s salad out and clipped its magnetic plate to the table surface. As usual Sam looked at the metal plate and half expected the salad to float away, but it never did. The surface tension of the liquid salad dressing was enough to hold it in place. The silverware, on the other hand, was magnetic to stick to the table when not in use.

  Running-Deer still wore a broad piece of surgical tape across her nose but the swelling had gone down and the bruises under her eyes, shiny greenish-purple at their peak, had faded to pale blue shadows.

  “Sorry I’m late, sir.”

  “No, I’m early. Get something to eat if you like. How’s that nose?”

  “My nose is fine, sir, and thank you for asking. I hardly feel it anymore. I’m not hungry, sir, but I’ll grab a cup of tea if you don’t mind.”

  She drew a zero-gee squeeze bulb of black tea before clipping her own tether to the table.

  “I want to make this a slow trip, XO. We need to work the crew, get them used to the idea of where we’re going. You live with something long enough you start getting used to it, no matter how screwed up it is.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, but it sounded pro-forma to Sam as if she wasn’t sure she agreed.

  “The other thing is the officers,” he said. “A month or more will give us time to whip them into shape.”

  “Sir?” she said, as much a challenge as a question.

  Sam took a breath before continuing. He really dreaded this next part.

  “XO, I’ve been trying to figure out what the problem is with the officers, and I finally did. It’s you.”

  Sam saw her mouth stiffen, her body draw back slightly, and her neck and cheeks color.

  “It’s not that you don’t know your stuff,” he continued. “In terms of technical skills, you’re clearly the best officer on this ship. You could take the place of any department head tomorrow—except maybe engineering—and not lose a step, hit the deck running.

  “But you cover for them, like you did for Ma in the holocon just now with the fuel numbers. You connect the dots between the departments, fill in all the blanks. They get about 80% of the job done and you take the baton and cross the finish line for them. Any time departments need to cooperate, you do it. The department heads don’t even need to talk to each other.”

  Running-Deer looked at him but her eyes had become glassy, expression fixed, and he saw her knuckles had turned white on the hand that held the grip rail around the edge of the table.

  “I know. You knock yourself out to make this ship run like a well-lubricated machine, and now here’s some new captain ragging your ass over it. But XO, you’ve got to let these people do their jobs. No, strike that. You have to make them do their jobs, because that’s your job.”

  “I-I don’t know what to say, sir,” she stammered. “I thought you were satisfied with my performance.”

  “It took me a while to figure out what was wrong. So now I have and now I’m telling you, but you can turn this around. You’re a fine officer, Running-Deer. Look . . . tell me about Lieutenant Brook. Give me your unvarnished assessment of his strengths and weaknesses.”

  She looked at the table surface for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then looked at her bulb of tea. Sam wondered how much she wanted to throw it at him. She took a breath and looked up.

  “Ka’Deem is smart and technically very proficient. There isn’t a station in the Ops department he can’t crew as well or better than the specialists assigned to it. He cares about his people, looks out for their welfare. Very conscientious.”

  “But,” Sam said.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “But he is conflict-averse, sir. He doesn’t like to discipline people. He covers for his weaker staff. He goes along with other people’s ideas even when he thinks they aren’t the best way to do things, just to avoid a disagreement. He’s great at coming up with compromises . . . maybe too great.” She thought about that for a moment and looked Sam in the eye. “You think I’m like Ka’Deem Brook, don’t you?”

  Sam chewed another bite of salad thinking about how to answer that, what the most honest answer was.

  “No. You have more initiative than he does, and you’re clearly a stronger leader. You’re being the XO Captain O’Malley wanted you to be, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He was the captain. But you got a new captain now. So be the XO I know you can be.”

  He pushed the remnants of his salad aside and leaned forward.

  “We’re one ship, a transport, not even supposed to be anywhere near real trouble, and I think we’re about to go into a shitstorm of epic proportions. But we’re not defenseless or helpless. We’ve got a month to get our people working together and coming up with ideas for how to get every gram of performance out of this ship. And I mean weapons, life-support, sensors, acceleration, endurance, data analysis, everything. We have to get every quantum of knowledge and experience and imagination out of the crew.

  “It’s not your fault, XO, but the Bay’s been coasting. Hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and then nodded in genuine acceptance.

  “Okay. No more coasting. What do you say? Let’s light some fires.”

  She looked away for a moment and then looked back.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Okay, then. Carry on.”

  She unclipped her tether and pushed off through the hatch, and Sam sighed.

  Well, it sure wasn’t the enthusiastic embrace of the new order he had hoped for, but it was probably the best Running-Deer could manage under the circumstances. He hadn’t meant to damage her self-esteem but he hadn’t known any other way of getting through to her. He wondered if she understood how little actual experience he had at this captain stuff.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Seven days later, aboard USS Cam Ranh Bay

  26 February 2134 (ten days after Incident Seventeen,

  1946 light-years from Destination)

  Mikko Running-Deer stepped back from the shower of sparks as a machinist mate from engineering put the finishing touches on the composite alloy pipes in the renovated storage compartment.

  “The first hydroponics compartment is already hydrated and we have soy growing there,” Lieutenant Rosemary Acho, the logistics officer, explained. “This compartment should be up and running by the mid-watch tomorrow. More soy here, but when we clear a third compartment we’re going to grow some different plants, tomatoes, probably. They grow fast.”

  Mikko looked over the cluster
s of water pipes and the six separate clear tanks inside.

  “Engineering did a good job fabricating the clear composites,” she said.

  “Yes, Ma’am, once we got Lieutenant Ma moving on it. I figure we can stretch our human rations by another month, maybe six weeks, if all three of these chambers produce like they should. Um . . . there’s something else I’d like to bring up, XO. I found a shipment we’re carrying for transfer to Fleet Base Akaampta.”

  “The Cottohazz combined operations base?” Mikko asked.

  “Yes, Ma’am, although it’s US Navy property and consigned to the US ordnance holding facility there.”

  “Okay, my curiosity is aroused. What is it?”

  “A shipment of thirty-six deep-space intercept missiles,” Acho answered and looked down at her data pad. “Mark Fives, the new Block Six variants with the refitted laser pointers and with the Sunflower anti-missile option, the one the destroyer crews improvised in the war. It’s now hard-coded in.”

  “Mark Fives?” Mikko said. “Aside from the four new General-class heavy cruisers, the only things that can shoot those are US Navy destroyers, and most of those are wrecks out around K’tok. There sure aren’t any of either at Akaampta. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well, XO, that’s the Navy for you. I checked the supporting documentation. The shipment was ordered before the war, as advanced deployment of replacement munitions in case one of our heavy cruisers got tagged for joint Cottohazz operations. It looks like it’s been moving through the bureaucracy on autopilot ever since, except someone decided to substitute new production missiles. Now they’re in our hold.”

  Mikko saw the possibilities. Cam Ranh Bay was technically an armed transport, but aside from the spinal coil gun for launching planetary bombardment munitions it had two small point defense lasers for anti-missile work, two larger dual-purpose lasers, and launchers for twelve older Mark Four deep-space intercept missiles. Thirty-six brand new Mark Fives would be a major augmentation to their anti-ship firepower.

  The captain would like the fact that the idea came from Acho instead of her. It would show initiative, maybe even growing self-reliance. That conversation a week earlier still stung, but Mikko was trying to change.

  “That smacks. Good work, LOG. The captain can requisition those for emergency use. You put together the paperwork and I’ll get his signature. Tell Lieutenant Alexander he has some new toys. That should excite him.”

  Acho looked down and shook her head. “I already did, Ma’am. He says we can’t fire them. Wrong bore size for the coil gun.”

  “That sounds like another job for engineering,” Mikko said.

  “Lieutenant Ma wasn’t crazy about detaching part of his A gang to rig these hydroponics tanks. And the truth is, neither Lieutenant Alexander nor Ma have much use for me.” She looked up into Mikko’s eyes. “They’re reservists, with good jobs waiting for them once the emergency is over. They figure people who picked the Navy as a career did it because they couldn’t find anything better.”

  “Be careful how wide you cast that net, Lieutenant. The captain’s a reservist, too.”

  “He’s different, XO. Besides, they’ve all been to college, you too.”

  “You’ve been to college, Acho. I’ve seen your personnel folder.”

  “Navy sent me to technical school, ma’am. It’s not the same. I came up through the ranks. I may wear a white shipsuit now, but when they look at me they still see khaki.”

  Mikko knew that much was true. There was no getting around it. Acho was ten years older than most of the other officers of her grade because she’d had a good career as a petty officer before being tapped for officer training. She didn’t have “polish,” didn’t get the literary references in some of the wardroom conversations, and so mostly kept quiet, although Mikko couldn’t see what “polish” had to do with getting the job done. Yes, there was an inescapable air of condescension in the way most of the other officers treated Rosemary Acho, but Mikko doubted she understood how quickly it would go away if she just wouldn’t embrace it like a martyr.

  “I’ll talk to Alexander,” Mikko said, “get him moving on this with you and Ma, but you need to discharge that ballast and stand up for yourself, Rosemary. You’ve got more active duty time in uniform than both of those two put together. You know how to make things work and where to look for answers—like finding these Mark Fives buried in the cargo. You don’t need to apologize to anyone on this ship for who you are or how you got here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Acho said, without conviction.

  “Look,” Lieutenant Alexander, the TAC boss, told Mikko an hour later, “we’re not a cruiser, okay? We’re a transport. There’s only so much firepower we can wring out of this tub.”

  Mikko rubbed her temples, hoping her headache would go away. Of course, her current headache was mostly Lieutenant Homer Alexander.

  “USS Cam Ranh Bay is an assault transport,” she said. “She’s not a cruiser, but she’s not a tub either and you better never let the captain hear you call her that. We’ve got a coil gun—”

  “For launching bombardment munitions,” Alexander broke in. “Forty-centimeter bombardment munitions, not deep space intercept missiles.”

  “I know that, TAC. But Lieutenant Acho—”

  “Lieutenant Acho knows logistics, not ordnance,” he interrupted again. “She sees ‘missile’ on a shipping manifest and thinks she’s got something. But those Mark Five bad boys need a coil gun to fire and they won’t fit our coil gun. I can’t just wave my hands and make them fit.”

  Bad boys? Mikko thought. And he said it with a sort of tough male swagger and a step toward her that made her fight against her rising anger. How much of this was just Alexander defending his turf as a testosterone-only zone? Maybe he’d forgotten that Captain Bitka’s old TAC boss on Puebla had been Marina Filipenko, and she’d managed to get the job done pretty well. Or maybe it was just that he hadn’t come up with the idea himself.

  “Lieutenant Alexander, you interrupt me one more time and you will bitterly regret it. Do you read me?”

  Alexander took a half step back.

  “I . . . I’m sorry, Mikko. It’s just . . . TAC is my job. I take it really seriously.”

  “Take it seriously?” Mikko said. “You know, Lieutenant, sometimes I just don’t get you. We’re going into the deep-deep black with no idea what we’re facing except they’re probably more advanced than we are and might not be friendly. The last thing we want is a fight, but if it comes to that, we’re going to need every edge we can get. Right now, our only credible anti-ship assets consist of the two dual-purpose lasers and exactly twelve Mark Four missiles. You’re the TAC boss, for crying out loud. I’d think you’d jump at the chance to add thirty-six Mark Fives to that. Instead I’m hearing excuses. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Lieutenant Alexander’s eyes grew wider and she saw him color with either anger or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell which.

  “What’s wrong? Look, I know my job, XO, but you’ve got to be realistic. Just wanting more firepower doesn’t make it happen.”

  No, she knew wanting it didn’t make it happen. But working the problem did. There had to be a way to use these missiles. There had to be, and she knew she could figure it out and make it work. She wanted to. She wanted to drag Alexander and Acho to engineering, explain the problem to Ma, and beat the solution out of them if she had to, then give it to the captain, her present of thirty-six lethal additions to their armament suite.

  But that was why these three couldn’t work it out on their own, wasn’t it? Because she always did it for them. She had done her best to change, to execute her job the way the captain wanted her to, and for days she had seen little bits of evidence like this that maybe he had been right.

  “TAC, you and Lieutenant Acho get together with Lieutenant Ma and come up with a solution.”

  “It’ll have to be later,” Alexander said. “Lieutenant Ma’s on watch right now.”
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  “I know. He’s duty engineering officer so you know right where to find him. Get Acho, go to engineering now, and do not come back until you three have figured out a way to make these missiles work.”

  “How?”

  “That’s your job, TAC. Build a goddamned catapult if you have to but make them work. Now go. Shoo!”

  Watching Alexander stride away in obvious irritation, Mikko had to admit to a fairly unprofessional feeling of satisfaction.

  Three hours later she was doing her afternoon routine on the resistance machines in the officers’ gym when Rosemary Acho pinged her again. She sounded upset when she asked Mikko to join her in her office. Mikko wiped the perspiration from her face with a towel and her first reaction was to refuse. She suspected this was just another complaint about the boys not treating her as an equal, although only an hour earlier they had submitted a joint plan to make the Mark Five missiles work: engineering was going to fabricate sabot sleeves around the missiles so they would fit their larger bore coil gun.

  Something in Acho’s voice sounded different, though.

  “What’s the problem, LOG?”

  “The, uh . . . the Varoki trade delegate e-Lisyss and his assistant are here with some, um . . . recommendations concerning rations. I think this may be above my pay grade.”

  Was that anger in her voice? No. Maybe disgust, but something else as well.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” Mikko said.

  She unhooked the cooling feeds from her shipsuit, washed her face in the ’fresher, and thought through the possibilities for problems over rations on the way to Acho’s office, a quarter of the way around the habitat wheel.

  Because the six species of the Cottohazz were independently evolved from different trees of life, their protein chains were different, as in incompatible, even poisonous to each other. But since transport vessels of all the navies of the member states of the Cottohazz might be called on to move almost anyone, all of them carried protein ration stocks for all six species. Cam Ranh Bay’s galley could put meals on tables for Humans, Varoki, Buran, Zaschaan, Katami, and Brand. The problem, she supposed, was that it was navy galley food, and the Bay’s cooks weren’t exactly experts in alien haute cuisine. The envoy e-Lisyss, like any other sentient being, probably had a lot going on inside him, but about all that Mikko had experienced so far was a sense of disappointed entitlement.