The desk with its built-in screens and haptic interfaces was the same. The walls with their concealed projectors for holograms were the same. The low-slung cabinets that concealed collapsing chairs and a coffee machine instead of paper files and folders, the same.
The biggest difference was the back wall, which would be behind the Captain as they sat at their desk. On Panther that had had the name of the ship emblazoned across it, below the eight-star half-circle seal of the United Planets Alliance.
All of that was present, but the UPA seal shared space with the commissioning seal of Raven herself: a sideview of a bird in flight holding a quill pen.
The same circular seal was embroidered into the patch one of the stewards had added to his duty uniform’s shoulder overnight. The turtleneck of this uniform was one of the ones he’d worn as Captain of Panther and already had the white collar, but when he’d dropped his duffle off with Chief Wang’s people, there’d been a clear blank spot on the shoulder where Panther’s seal had sat.
When he’d opened his closest to retrieve a shirt that morning, all six of the sweaters had been updated with the new shoulder flash. Everything he’d seen so far suggested that Lieutenant Colonel Iyotake and the rest of the crew had been doing a good job without him.
Five minutes before his meeting with the XO, however, he started trying to get the coffee machine to work. At oh six hundred hours, Iyotake entered the room to him still trying to get the machine working.
“Ser?” the XO asked quietly.
“Water connection is broken,” Henry concluded, stepping back from the machine and gesturing to it. “Bean hopper’s empty too, but there are at least beans here. I am capable of filling a box on my own,” he said with a smile as he shook his head, “but water fittings are a bit outside my expertise.”
Iyotake looked over his shoulder and sighed.
“There was a work ticket to make sure your coffee machine was functioning,” he said as he poked at the fitting. “Yeah. Install job was slightly off, shifted under acceleration. Easy fix with the right tools.”
“My mostly forgotten degree that came with my commission is in astrophysics, Lieutenant Colonel,” Henry pointed out. “Plumbing is…not my forte.”
“Nor mine. My degree was mechanical engineering, though, so I can at least see the problem,” Iyotake replied. “I’ll ping a steward to bring us coffee and make sure the work ticket is postponed till later today.”
Henry took his seat and gestured for the XO to take the chair across from him.
“So, is this typical?” he asked. “Was there something more critical taking up time, or did the ticket just slip?”
“I should have tasked one of the chiefs with it personally, ser,” Iyotake admitted.
“We have an automated ticketing system for noncritical repairs for a reason,” Henry pointed out gently. “Are we having problems with it?”
“No.” The XO sighed. “What we have, ser, is an engineering department of a hundred and forty-two brand-new graduates and two hundred and thirty spacers, chiefs, and officers pulled from every other ship in the Space Force. The new blood is following their petty officers’ leads, and their POs are following the practices from their old ship.”
“Ouch,” Henry conceded. “If we’ve got people from every ship in the UPSF, that’s a lot of penny packets of crew.”
“Average transfer was thirteen people,” Iyotake told him. “That gave us just over six hundred hands. We pulled a hundred from Base Skyrim and three hundred brand-spanking-new Spacer Third Classes from the Procyon UPSF Training School.”
Henry whistled quietly. That was every battlecruiser, every carrier and a good chunk of the destroyers being raided for people. Raven’s name was going to be ash with a significant portion of his fellow Captains for a while.
He had a thousand SpaceDiv and FighterDiv crew aboard the battlecruiser, plus four hundred GroundDiv troopers.
Although…
“How many did we get from Scorpius?” he asked.
“She was the closest carrier. Captain Barrie sent a contingent of thirty-six, I believe, and we got our starfighters and their pilots from her. Why, ser?”
Henry snorted.
“I’ll want to keep an eye on them,” he said. “Peter Barrie is my ex-husband, XO. I…probably trust him not to intentionally hand me problem cases, but it’s not like we talk anymore unless duty requires it.”
“Ah.” Iyotake looked like he wanted to vanish out of that particular conflict before it splashed on him. Which was entirely fair.
“How many problem cases do we actually have?” Henry asked. “We got their disciplinary records, after all.”
“Less than I was afraid of when they told me how Raven’s crew had been put together. More than I’d like, though,” the XO admitted. “Commander O’Flannagain is potentially going to be a problem. She’s your starfighter group leader, and while I can’t get anyone to tell me anything, I have grounds to believe she’s already had one fistfight with an engineering Chief.”
Henry closed his eyes.
“Please tell me that’s a joke,” he said slowly as he brought the image of the redheaded officer up in his internal network. There were a lot of red flags in her record for someone who’d never—quite—been busted a rank or cashiered.
It was telling that she’d spent twelve years as a combat pilot and was still only a Commander. That took effort.
“No, ser. I wish. Commander Samira O’Flannagain is theoretically Irish via Ophiuchi. She’s so determinedly stereotypical I suspect her family has to actually be Belgian or something similarly innocuous.”
“I know rocket-jocks,” Henry said. “I’ll find a way to deal with her. Her record suggests she knows just where to sit with regards to the line—but she has to realize that won’t fly for long without a war going on.”
“I hope so, ser,” Iyotake agreed. “She’s probably our biggest problem-child officer. We’ve got a few issues scattered through the crew, but most of them can probably be handled by the Chiefs. Where we can trust the Chiefs.”
“If we can’t trust the Chiefs, XO, this ship is fucked,” the older Colonel reported. A gesture vanished O’Flannagain’s record and brought up a holographic projection of Raven. “And we can’t be fucked, to be blunt.
“This ship is supposed to be able to reliably take on two Kenmiri dreadnoughts and win,” he continued. “The old Jaguars were only supposed to do that with one.”
Both statements were either impressive or arrogant, depending on your point of view. A Kenmiri dreadnought was an eight-hundred-meter-long war machine forged out of a conveniently sized asteroid. With energy screens, super-heavy plasma cannon, and an arsenal of terrifyingly smart missiles, they had been the premier warships of the galaxy before the UPA broke onto the scene.
“That assumption requires that everything is running at full efficiency,” Henry continued. “Most especially the gravity shield, but if the lasers, the grav-driver, or our missiles are underperforming, we can very easily end up dead.”
“All it takes is one blowthrough in the wrong spot,” Iyotake agreed. “Too many of our people think we’re invulnerable.”
Henry shivered as the discussion brought up a spark of remembered nightmare, but managed to shrug it aside.
“We’re not,” he confirmed. “Enough of our people have seen the elephant that I think that message has got through. But we’re going back into Kenmiri space. It might be a diplomatic mission, but we’re back in the Empire and I doubt the Empire is dying in as neat and organized a fashion as it sounds in the briefings.
“Our job is going to be to back up the Ambassador and to look mean and intimidating,” Henry concluded. “I suspect we’re going to be shooting at somebody before this is done. So, tell me, XO, are we fucked?”
“I don’t think we’re fucked,” Iyotake told him. “Our Chiefs are solid, but they’re not used to working together and they all have their ways that they expect things to work. We’ve got POs wo
rking for Chiefs from different ships, running crews pulled together from four other ships.
“It’ll sort itself out in time, but it’s going to be a rough few weeks.”
“We have a three-week trip to Resta,” Henry said. “My orders say we have sixty hours to get underway. I’d like to be underway in thirty-six. Is that going to happen, XO?”
“Yes,” the younger man said without hesitation. “I don’t know if we’ll even have the officers lined up and moving in the same direction at that point, though.”
“I’ll settle for everyone moving in the same direction.” He smiled grimly. “My direction. They’ll learn the rest if they can follow orders for now—and if they can’t, I will break them out of the Space Force.
“We’re a peacetime fleet now, after all. The Powers That Be want to bring down headcount.”
Chapter Eight
A single fourteen-hour working day wasn’t enough to break the fourteen-hundred-person crew of a modern battlecruiser to a single man’s will, but Henry was feeling cautiously optimistic as he made his way back to the docking port to the station.
He’d met his senior SpaceDiv officers and most of his bridge crew, and then taken a quick tour of almost the entire ship. The starfighter deck had been the last on his list and had been delayed when he’d received the notice that Ambassador Todorovich was coming aboard.
Commander Thompson and Lieutenant Colonel Iyotake met him in the boarding area, along with an honor guard of twelve GroundDiv troopers. Both gave him crisp salutes and he nodded to Commander Thompson.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Commander,” he told the younger man. “It appears the Captain lucky enough to have you is me.”
“So I see, ser,” Thompson replied brightly. “Remind me not to play poker with you, Captain. Your poker face is perfect.”
“I didn’t know I was taking command of Raven when we spoke, Commander,” Henry admitted. “But I’d still suggest not playing poker with me. XO,”—he turned to Iyotake—“what’s the Ambassador’s ETA?”
“Em Todorovich’s chief of staff advised they’d left their quarters on station twenty-five minutes ago,” Iyotake told him. “Barring traffic, they should be…”
He paused, the telltale mid-sentence break of someone receiving a message to their internal network.
“They just arrived at the outer door,” he noted. “Thompson’s troopers are checking their IDs.”
“How many people are we getting?” Henry asked.
“Fourteen. The Ambassador travels with a small staff,” the XO said. “We’re putting them on the flag deck for now, though we’ve locked off the actual flag bridge, of course.”
“Of course,” the Captain murmured. The “flag deck” was the section of quarters and offices around the flag bridge—also often called the flag deck—where an Admiral and their staff would be set up.
Raven was equipped to act as a flagship, and since she wasn’t currently acting as one, it was a perfect place to stick a cargo of diplomats.
“They’ve cleared the security check,” Thompson reported. “Honor guard, attention!”
The GroundDiv soldiers snapped to attention, forming a neat double file around the airlock as it slid open.
Todorovich was the first through, her staff following in her wake in an only semi-confused crowd.
Henry smiled and offered his hand to the woman.
“Welcome aboard Raven, Em Todorovich,” he greeted her. “I appreciate you moving your schedule up to be aboard for an early departure.”
“The last thing I want to be, Colonel Wong, is late for the Gathering,” Todorovich told him, her voice just as perfectly precise as the previous day.
“Captain Wong now,” he corrected gently. “The commander of a starship is always Captain, regardless of their regular rank.”
“Right,” she replied, eyeing the soldiers lined up. “We have luggage coming aboard via the cargo transfer system, but otherwise, this is my team.” She gestured behind her at a broad-featured man with close-shaved black hair and a perfectly maintained beard. “Felix Leitz, my chief of staff, will be taking care of most of our interactions with your crew.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Tatanka Iyotake will be our main point of contact from our side,” Henry replied, indicating his XO. “We will be leaving Base Skyrim at twelve hundred hours tomorrow. If your people have anything to take care of in Procyon, I suggest you do so before we depart the base.
“It will be some hours after before we engage the skip drive and leave the system, but if you need to get back on the station or to have a guaranteed real-time conversation with anyone, you’re better off doing it before we get moving.”
Raven might not be a Kenmiri escort or gunship, but at half a kilometer per second squared, she could get to the skip lines fast enough for any purpose except chasing a Kenmiri escort or gunship.
“My own immediate situation has been resolved quite satisfactorily,” Todorovich told him. She glanced back at her staff. “All that should be left for you lot is personal affairs. Make sure they’re sorted.
“Subspace communication on a warship is more restricted that you think,” she continued. “Don’t rely on having it.”
Henry nodded his thanks. He’d given several groups of passengers a very similar speech in the past. It was good that Todorovich, at least, understood the restrictions in place.
“Colonel Iyotake will show you and your people to your quarters,” he told the Ambassador. “I would be honored if you and Em Leitz would join myself and my senior officers for dinner tomorrow. Nineteen hundred hours. We won’t have skipped yet.”
“I’ll make sure to clear my schedule,” Todorovich replied. “Till then, Captain. I imagine we both have work to do to make sure this mission goes smoothly.”
After three months in various medical facilities, Henry was torn between pacing himself to make sure he didn’t overdo it—and a burning need to do something. Anything. He’d meant to leave the starfighter bays for the next day, but he found himself down there instead of at his quarters after welcoming Todorovich aboard.
The space aboard Raven for the starfighters was larger than it had been aboard Panther, but the new ship carried eight fighters to his old one’s six. It was still tiny compared to Rygel, let alone a modern carrier like Scorpius.
His ex-husband’s command carried a hundred starfighters: eight twelve-ship squadrons and four specialty support craft.
There were none of the latter in Raven’s fighter bay. From the entrance, Henry’s practiced gaze picked out his parasite complement of eight SF-122 Dragoon starfighters, primarily missile platforms with a secondary laser armament.
They were deadly little ships with a modular armament. If he needed it, FighterDiv could exchange their missiles for additional laser modules and augment Raven’s point defense. Their main purpose, though, was to deliver a thirty-two-missile alpha strike to augment Raven’s own opening salvo.
“Hey! This is a starfighter bay, not a fucking zoo,” a female voice with an Ophiuchi accent barked. “If you’re not supposed to be here, stop ogling.”
Henry didn’t even need to guess who the speaker was. He ignored her and stepped over to the nearest starfighter. The Dragoon was a flat-based sphere, with visible divots around the “waist” where missiles or modular lasers would go. There was no visible cockpit—the pilot flew the ship from a liquid-filled acceleration tank in the exact center of the spaceship, their entire view of the world electronically relayed to their helmet and internal network.
He’d flown the SF-119 Vulture in his time, but none of those had been deployed after the Red Wing Campaign. The SF-120 Wolverine had replaced them, a process accelerated by the Campaign seeing basically the entire inventory of Vultures destroyed in bombing runs on the Kenmiri.
“Are you fucking deaf?” the voice snapped. “Get the hell off my flight deck.”
“I rather think, Commander O’Flannagain, that this is my flight deck,” he observed softly wi
thout turning. “Did you ever fly the Vulture? They still had some as training craft when you went through Flight Academy, right?”
The voice was silent for several seconds.
“Captain Wong?” she finally asked, stepping up behind him. “What the fuck are you doing on the fighter deck?”
“Asking a question,” he noted. “Do I need to repeat myself, Commander?”
“Nah. Yeah, I flew a Vulture in the Academy,” she conceded. He could just barely see her out of the corner of his eye as he studied the starfighter. “Only got stick time on the Wolverine at the Academy, too. Got assigned to a Liberator squadron right out of the Academy.”
“Top marks at the Academy would get you that,” he agreed. The SF-121 Liberator had been the fighter before the Dragoon. Just as obsolete as the Vulture or the Wolverine now. That was how war worked when you had the industrial and research capacity of the UPA and had started the war terrified for your survival.
Three entirely new generations of starfighter had been developed and deployed over seventeen years.
“Of course, most people who graduated in the top three of their Academy class have more…successful careers than you,” he continued. “Still Commander at thirty-five?”
“Is this ‘shame the CAG day’ or something I missed the memo over?” O’Flannagain asked, his new Commander, Air Group sounding more aggravated than anything else. “What do you want, ser?”
“How does the Dragoon stack up against the Vulture?” he asked instead of answering her question. “I get about fifty real space flight hours a year to keep up my certification, but that doesn’t answer the real question, does it?”
“No. It doesn’t.” Her voice was calmer now. “It’s all about the turn with this girl. A KPS-squared and a half lets you change velocity fast. Grav-shield will protect you from most mistakes, but you’re always better off never getting hit in the first place.
“You’re always most vulnerable when you launch. Ports open and a straight-line flight for three-quarters of a second. If you have them confused before that, you can squeeze it in more safely. Kind of sad the Kenmiri never did have fighters.”
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