Cerberus

by John Filcher

  Ronin waited for a few minutes outside the simulation machine while LeCroy completed the simulation. Finally, it ended and LeCroy emerged from the unit.

  “Thoughts?” Ronin simply said. Since LeCroy was the only former Ike crewmember who had prior experience in testing and designing simulations, he was the natural choice to test this one first.

  “The sims are too basic and fail to incorporate the type of new tactics which our hardware makes possible. It’s like some tech guy programmed his notion of tactics into the system, but he didn’t know what he didn’t know,” said LeCroy.

  “Agreed,” said Ronin. “Let’s grab Lieutenant Anzio and talk about what we’d like to see in a sim over lunch. I was pretty underwhelmed by my first few runs through the system, too. Jump systems not being used to their potential, over reliance on perfunctory and unimaginative fleet tactics, and orthodox command and control based on outdated tactics and capabilities. Cerberus isn’t even going on a mission like that,” Ronin continued.

  Ronin, LeCroy and Anzio sat in the empty crew’s mess and discussed changing the sims.

  “First thing that came to mind was the lack of jump bombs,” Anzio noted. “I’m pretty sure we can rig up something for short range jumps that goes boom.”

  LeCroy nodded, stating, “That would be great. Tactically speaking, only a few light seconds would be needed to be tactically relevant. The sims also didn’t factor in our gravity lenses. They’re intended to help drive the ship for jumps, but the field they make can be calibrated into a highly effective, long range sensor suite that can pinpoint objects and movement based on how they affect the field harmonics.”

  “Good,” Ronin said. “I was hoping they were feasible. Have the AI incorporate those variables into the sim. I’d also like it to incorporate a stealth mode based on using the grav lenses to bend light around the ship. It won’t reduce certain emissions like engine and power signatures, but it certainly makes sense to have the ability to cloak the ship so we can sneak up on enemy vessels, or conduct surveillance unmolested by anybody. And I also want more lone wolf tactics in the sims. Right now, they were made for conventional fleet movements, but Cerberus isn’t attached to any other fleet ships for the time being. We may have to do a lot more hit and runs as well as sneak and peeks.”

  “Lone wolfing it,” Marcy responded. “This will be a different world, all right. No more large-scale fleet tactics. LeCroy and I will get started with the AI, and call you with the new sims are ready.”

  With that, the team finished their lunch and Ronin headed to his quarters to continue reading up on Cerberus technical data while Anzio and LeCroy returned to the simulation room.

  It’s going to be a totally different mindset to reverse the the new crew members’ former emphasis on large scale, fleet formation tactics and start focusing on lone wolfing it, thought Ronin as he walked.

  ***

  “Captain Ronin to the bridge. Captain Ronin to the bridge,” came the announcement from Ronin’s regulation, half-moon-shaped commlink node attached to his uniform’s neck collar.

  “Acknowledged,” responded Ronin, quickly leaving the simulation room and jogging down the main passageway to the transport’s bridge. As he walked, he again thought how odd it was to spend months on a top-secret transport of a design unknown to him and his crewmembers coming from the Ike. They had spent the entire trip locked away in a secure area of the vessel, and now he would exit that area for the first time during the entire trip.

  He stopped at the closed airlock and thumbed the screen reader next to it. As he was expected, the hatchway quietly opened and Ronin quickly walked through to the black uniformed Fleet Intelligence Security guard who was waiting on the other side.

  “Sir, if you would follow me to the bridge,” said the guard, but more as a command than a request. They quickly traversed the secured section of the ship until reaching the command bridge.

  “Welcome to the bridge, Captain Ronin,” said the transport’s commanding officer.

  “Colonel Hobson, why am I not surprised to see you?” remarked Ronin, recognizing the now-familiar colonel sitting in the command chair. “I’m a little surprised to see someone with an infantry rank in command of a naval vessel, though.”

  Without taking his eyes from the front view screen, Hobson tilted his head towards Ronin as Ronin walked towards the command chair. “I’m full of surprises, Captain,” said Hobson. “Names, ranks, and so on. It’s like I was never there. And Fleet Intelligence tends to do things their own way. Suits me just fine.”

  Ronin noted Hobson never identified the name of their transport, which seemed to not exist as far as the fleet was concerned. Hobson looked at him for a moment.

  “Captain, you never asked me or Admiral Rodding why you were selected to command Cerberus. I presume you’ve figured it out and didn’t need to. Yes?”

  Ronin nodded. “It seemed like the obvious choice for a deep space mission beyond all chance of help if trouble was encountered was to take the captain of the ship whose role most closely resembled that mission profile. Ike spent long periods of time hunting the enemy on its own. That requires a very different mindset and tactics than formation warfare.”

  Hobson nodded slowly, before responding, “Indeed it does, captain. It also requires independent thinking, a willingness to conjure up innovative solutions, and tenacity unmatched by more conventional ship captains. Your record is replete with those characteristics.

  “We especially liked your use of the Magneto Bomb solution to flush out Shanwei from its hide. Most commanders would have given up the chase long before then and been satisfied with an already highly successful mission. You topped that by using a science experiment to find, outgun, and capture an enemy ship that became a treasure trove of valuable information. Your new command will require all that and more.”

  Ronin’s attention was drawn to the view screen and the strange looking structure that it showed.

  “Argo Station. Current location classified, but as you can plainly see from the image of nearby Europa, it’s currently hidden among the Jovian moons. Next time we show up, who knows?” said Hobson touching his console to magnify the image for Ronin.

  Suddenly Argo Station loomed large in the view screen. Looking it over, Ronin was impressed. The station was enormous, and appeared to be a central cylindrical core extending several hundred levels in length and tapering at the ends, surrounded by three separate wings of massive superstructure that were able to move and wrap themselves around vessels parked within them.

  As they approached closer, Ronin was able to see two structures inside the nearest superstructure wings on the side of their approach. One was obviously Cerberus, with her large, armored hull lit up. Cerberus had a sleek appearance despite her size, with a tapered prow in front and huge drive engines in the rear. Twin landing bays located along her length on opposite sides of the outer hull of the ship lent the appearance of a top and bottom of the ship when such concepts were normally meaningless in spacecraft. Both landing bays connected to the large hangar bay, which bisected Cerberus amidships. Weapons and sensor pods were currently secured in their resting positions that hugged the hull. As his attention moved to the next visible wing, Ronin couldn’t identify the other object as it appeared to be a partially completed cylinder of enormous size.

  Noticing Ronin’s attention to the under-construction cylinder, Colonel Hobson stated, “It’s another Argo Station under construction in that other wing. Fleet AI determined the first few stations can replicate themselves a few times before they begin to churn out four vessels at a time. For now, it’s a station plus three ships.

  “By the way, the other two vessels under construction are the sister ships of Cerberus, code named Ship Hulls 402 and 403. Construction won’t be complete for several months yet,” said Hobson.

  “Can Argo Station perform an emergency jump while it’s building other v
essels?” Ronin asked, breaking his silence.

  Hobson shrugged. “I don’t know, Captain. It hasn’t been gamed out by the boffins that I’m aware of.”

  When Ronin glanced at him in response, Hobson shrugged again and said, “No, I really don’t know. If Argo can jump fully loaded, its information that’s on a need to know basis and I apparently didn’t have a need to know.

  “We’re about to dock with the station. I assumed you wanted to be present to get a look at the station while we did so. Orders have arrived for you, Bravo team, and lieutenants LeCroy and Anzio to immediately proceed to Cerberus. As you can imagine, there’s a lot to do before you can get the ship underway.”

  “Yes, it’s overwhelming, really,” Ronin responded. “And we’ve got a few things we’d like to fabricate before leaving the station. Hopefully Argo Station can spare a few hands to help us make that happen.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Hobson replied. “There are 43,000 crew working aboard Argo, plus thousands of AI controlled construction machines and fabrication printers.”

  Soon, docking with Argo Station was completed. As Ronin and his former Ike crewmembers approached the airlock doorway, it opened and a black uniformed Fleet Intelligence Security team was there to meet them.

  “Captain, please have your crew follow us.” said the security team leader in a commanding tone. It wasn’t articulated as a request. The leader did not identify himself, which seems to be a common trait among the black uniformed security teams. He was a tall, heavily built man, with vaguely Hispanic features and an Argentinian accent.

  “Lead the way, please,” responded Ronin, nodding.

  The group walked down a short hallway that turned and opened into a maglev tube.

  “We’ll ride the tubes in style, Captain. Otherwise, it’s a really long walk,” commented their tall, dark and enigmatic guide as everyone began boarding the tubecars.

  Once they began to move, the magnetic propulsion tubecars were like missiles. “Wow! A thirty-minute tubecar! This station must be unbelievably huge,” Lieutenant Anzio commented upon their arrival at Cerberus, prompting grunts of agreement from the other crewmembers.

  If you only knew, thought Ronin. Since the others hadn’t seen Argo from the outside like Ronin had, nor had he informed them, they really didn’t know.

  Their guide escorted them to the Cerberus boarding hatchway, which was down a docking tube connecting to the hatch. “Cerberus is a real beauty, Captain. None of us has ever seen a ship like her in the fleet. Is she a new type of vessel?” asked the guide.

  Ronin responded as they glanced at each other. “Operational security rules prevent me from discussing that. Sorry, I can’t tell you more than that,” said Ronin.

  “Understood, Captain,” replied the guide. “I even know better than to ask, but curiosity was killing us.”

  Ronin smiled at his reply. As the hatchway opened into Cerberus, it occurred to him that his guard was obliged to ask as a test to see if Ronin would observe the top-secret nature of the projects.

  As the former Ike officers and Marines walked into Cerberus, the white hallway was lined with the officers of Cerberus in their gray fleet uniforms and Ronin was piped aboard by the ship’s boatswain with a traditional naval ceremony.

  “Cerberus Actual, arriving,” announced Cmdr. Diane Mueller, the tall, blonde executive officer, in German-accented English. In response to the announcement, the assembled crew and officers saluted.

  “Permission to come aboard, Commander Mueller?” said Ronin, returning the salute.

  “Oh, yes, sir!” Mueller smiled and shook Ronin’s outstretched hand. “We’ve been awaiting your arrival for six months as we finished fitting out Cerberus and getting her ready. We have several options of things ready for you to choose from to do upon your arrival, but we weren’t able to take your temperature in advance about what you’d want to do because we’re operating under radio silence orders.”

  “Is a ship tour on the menu?” asked Ronin with a raised eyebrow as they walked behind the dismissed crewmembers returning to their stations.

  “Yes, sir, that was the top option. We have a lot for you to see,” Mueller responded.

  Hours later, Ronin was sitting at the small desk in the office section of his small quarters, reviewing personnel files and making a few duty adjustments. His primary bridge crew consisted of some very qualified personnel, although the international composition of the crew wasn’t something any of them had previously experienced.

  Traditionally, crews originating from the same nation manned Confederation warships. As a 43-year-old Captain from Wisconsin, Ronin had only commanded crews of American origin in his past two postings, He re-reviewed the crewmembers’ files after having met them today to compare his mental notes to what he had read.

  Cmdr. Diane Mueller was a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, thirty-two-year old from Rothenberg, Germany. Her husband, Karl, was a highly qualified civilian scientist attached to Cerberus. Since they had both volunteered for the duty so they could be together for Diane’s tour of duty for once, they were permitted to bring their three children along for the duration of the Cerberus mission. Few families were permitted aboard combat vessels unless exceptional circumstances involving both parents justified it. Mueller was a very experienced XO, but she lacked a background in the type of hit-and-run combat missions Ronin specialized in. Ronin thought she would soon have her own command when he studied her file, but some concern about her background nagged at him. Based on very limited information given to them, Commander Mueller and her husband volunteered for a very different mission profile than she has previously experienced. Unless she is very quick to adapt to a completely different mindset, there might be a rude awakening in their future, he thought.

  A thirty-year-old Israeli with the highly unusual name of Elvis Lazarus was the ship’s chief engineer. His parents were big fans of an ancient singer who apparently had been known only by his first name. They discovered a scratchy recording of the singer’s music in an archaeological dig they had been conducting in the ruins of a city once called “Nashville.” Although raised in New Tel Aviv, Lieutenant Commander Lazarus was born a few months after the discovery, while the expedition was still on site, which had made him the first human born in Nashville since the plague wiped it out centuries ago.

  Lt. Matt LeCroy would again handle Tactical on the bridge. He was twenty-seven years old, and had been born and raised in Laverne, Minnesota, before going to college at the University of North Dakota. About six feet tall with brown hair and hazel eyes, LeCroy was already on his third tour of duty with Ronin.

  Ronin relied on LeCroy’s sound judgments and had come to trust his lieutenant with his life. He was very pleased LeCroy chose to accompany him to the Cerberus.

  The same held true for Lt. Marcy Anzio, who once again would run the ship’s weapons. Anzio and LeCroy had to function together as a team that unified weapons and tactics into a smoothly functioning unit on the ship. The twenty-six-year-old Anzio was on her second tour of duty with Ronin, but had integrated with LeCroy so swiftly and smoothly that Ronin knew they had to be a package deal to bring them to Cerberus. Born and raised in Russellton, near the ruins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the 5’2” Anzio was dark-haired with olive skin and dark eyes.

  Scans were a new department for Ronin. On the Ike, Scans were integrated into Tactical, but on Cerberus the scanning was so much more powerful that the flood of information required a standalone bridge function. Lt. Pierre Delacroix would run the station. He was a tall, raven-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-nine-year-old combat engineer and scanning specialist from the Bordeaux region of France, with prior combat tours on the Confederate frigate Achéron. Interestingly, there was a personal file note from the captain of Achéron to beware Delacroix’s poker skills unless you’d like to become bankrupt before you knew what happened. Ronin’s late wife, Marie, having heard
Ronin’s stories of legendary poker players in the fleet Marines, had forbid him from ever playing a hand, so that their family wouldn’t starve. Ronin consented and to this day he wasn’t tempted, especially having been forewarned about Delacroix’s skills. Another completely new function to Ronin was Fabrication. Not only did the existence of the unit tell Ronin a lot about where Cerberus might find itself someday, the large size of the area and huge population of AI ‘bots operating in Fabrication suggested to him the ship was expected to handle long deployments far from where it could call for assistance.

  Fabrication was under the leadership of thirty-year-old Lt. Kristoff Alphonso, who came from the Greek island of Mykonos, part of the Cyclades. On his first tour of duty, Alphonso triple majored in college with a combination of Computer Design, Mechanical Engineering, and Robotics. Clearly, he was a genius at designing and building.

  Communications was run by Lt. Maria Delgado, a thirty-two-year-old combat veteran from Brazil on her fourth tour. She had graduated from university at the age of nineteen, then set off on three successive combat tours on other ships before helping devise new communication protocols to strengthen fleet commlink security.

  Medical was under Lt. Hirohito Taketa, who hailed from Kyoto, Japan, where he had obtained advanced medical degrees in surgery, robotic surgery, and medicinal synthesis. The experienced fifty-year-old Ship’s Doctor had served several tours on a combat vessel, aboard a space station, and in an Earth-side naval hospital in Green Bay.

  The ship’s helmsman and navigator was Antonio Perez, from the South American nation of Chile. Just twenty-four years old, he was already on his second tour, having joined the fleet at sixteen. His prior duty station was on the destroyer Chacabuco, a newer, more powerful class of destroyer than the Ike. Perez was transferred to Cerberus because of his familiarity with the Cerberus navigation system, which was nearly identical to the system aboard Chacabuco.

  Ronin’s review of the crew files was interrupted by a soft intercom chime indicating a call from Colonel Hobson on Argo Station.