by Chris Hechtl
“Have you had the tour yet?” Shelby asked mildly as she set her fork down and picked up her linen napkin to dab at the corners of her mouth.
“Um, something of a tour, ma'am,” the reporter replied with a nod. “We're going to arrange a video tour of the ship when time and duty permits,” she said with a nod to the quartermaster and then the XO.
“We are pretty stuffed at the moment as you know. Every compartment has things stored in it. Spare supplies and equipment. Space is at a premium. Even the bridge and boat bays are stuffed,” Lieutenant Talon, the quartermaster said.
“I thought this is a factory ship? Can't you make your own spares? Why carry so much?” Rachel asked, wrinkling her nose.
“We're limited by the keys we have,” Shelby said with a shrug. “Those keys have a limited number of uses before they expire.”
Rachel blinked. She hadn't known that. “Oh,” she said, filing the datum away as reference material. It might come in handy later.
“The keys don't cover everything. We can't make certain critical parts like hyperdrive components, so we stock up on them. Also, some parts are better made in an industrial plant over time so they can be plugged in when we're in a hurry.”
Rachel nodded slowly. “I see.”
“The same thing for fresh food. We have food replicators, but they can pall over time. Some of the rations from them tend to be on the bland side,” Cynthia said. “Don't get me started on medical supplies. We need vaccines and other materials that we can't replicate. Stuff that can save thousands of lives.”
“I see,” the reporter mumbled. She grimaced internally. Clearly she was stymied on that front as well.
“Which is why space on board and even on the exterior hull is at a premium,” Shelby said with a nod to the quartermaster. Carl nodded back. “It's the whole idea behind an expedition, pack everything up to and including the kitchen sink. You don't know what you'll need or when.”
Rachel nodded, fighting a sigh. “I see, ma'am.”
“We'll get you the studio; we'll even build it to spec when we build our base in Tau,” Shelby said. That made the reporter sit up straight in surprise, eyes bright at that news. “For the time being, you're going to have to do spot recordings where we can fit you. In your quarters or a corridor, the wardroom, or mess when they are available,” she said.
The reporter nodded reluctantly. “Understood. I guess it is what it is,” she sighed. “Do you know when we'll have the base started?” she asked hopefully.
Cynthia snorted. “We've got to get there first,” she drawled. The reporter looked at her. “It's going to take months, possibly years before we get there,” she said with a shrug.
“Months? Years?” the reporter demanded, eyes wide in surprise. “No one said …” Clearly the woman was aghast at the idea. Being in a grand adventure and making a name for oneself was one thing, having to cool her heels for that long with little to report … and they'd be out of contact while in hyper … wheels began to turn in her head. She didn't like the implications or what it would do to her career. She made a mental note to talk to Nell firmly about the problem. Once out of the sight of the public, her fans would fade …
“A problem?” Shelby asked mildly.
“If you'd like to get off now, you'd better speak up,” Cynthia said with a slight smile.
Rachel saw the broad malicious hint, scowled and then shook herself to get control of her raging emotions. “No,” she finally said. There was no way they'd get rid of her so easily she vowed. They needed supervision. The public had a right to know how their money was being spent. “No, I'll … deal with it,” she said grimly.
“I'm sorry no one told you about that part,” Shelby said sympathetically. “The jumps are long, and it will take time to get to the center of the sector based on the maps we have. We're not even sure where we're going,” she said.
“You aren't …?” Rachel said, eyes wide.
“No. They didn't tell you that either?” Cynthia said, fighting to hide her malice at the civilian's discomfort.
“None of us were told that,” Mister Muggs said. Cynthia's eyes cut to the diplomat.
“That's because we don't know. We know only so much about the sector and most of that is years out-of-date. Some of it comes from the enemy, so we can't trust it on face value,” Shelby replied smoothly. Cynthia nodded.
Rachel grimaced. “So why …?”
“Because we need to get in there and secure the sector and protect the Rho sector's rear while putting a stopper in the bottle for any pirates that come from Upsilon. We're going there to put an end to the piracy in the area and get the populations there back on track. To help them rejoin the interstellar community properly,” Shelby said firmly.
“Oh,” the reporter said with a nod. That much she knew from the government's statements on the Tau and Pi missions.
“The captain is correct. She'd make a good diplomat in some ways,” Mister Muggs said with a nod to the skipper.
Shelby bobbed a nod. “Why thank you Mister Muggs. I've had a few classes,” she said with a nod to him.
The Neochimp nodded. “You're welcome. I can see some of the polish; you've picked up some good tricks that will serve you well. You are good at being blunt and honest or circumstantial when needed. A straight talker is good. I see I can work with you.”
“Thank you,” Shelby replied with a crockered smile. “I think.”
“You're welcome,” Mister Muggs said, cracking a toothy smile. His canines glittered briefly before his lips covered them again. The diplomat turned his head to the reporter. “A part of what the captain and I are going to do is negotiate for the rights with the natives at where she'd like to place the base. That is one of the reasons I am along for the ride,” he said.
“I see.”
“It is you, a camera robot, a technician, a producer, and that's it?” Shelby asked.
“They said we can only have three people,” Rachel said, sounding aggrieved at the limitation. “For the time being, I'll have to be a reporter as well as anchor desk. I imagine we'll negotiate for rights to rebroadcast local reports when we enter a star system. That is up to Nell of course as the producer; she's better at the business side than I am to be honest.” She shrugged for a moment. “We'll also hire locals to fill in the ranks when we can. The home office gave us a generous budget to start up the branch; I've been going over it with her. Hiring will be tight if we want to fill all the branches. But we'll be able to sell advertising space and keep most of the credits to support the local network ….”
Shelby nodded, noting Cynthia's eyes glaze over slightly in boredom. “I'm sorry we didn't have the room so Miss Jurgens could be here now,” she said, waving a hand. “As you can see …”
“As you and the commander pointed out, space is tight on board,” Rachel said looking around the compartment. Eventually she nodded. She'd put up with it she vowed. If they could handle it, so could she. “We'll live. There will be plenty of time for everyone to get to know each other on the trip out I suppose.”
“Good to hear,” Shelby replied with a nod of encouragement. “That's the spirit.”
“I bet you can't wait to get to each star system. Do reports, negotiate with the locals … When the ansible comes in and we get hooked up, you are going to have a lot to dump on the home office,” the diplomat said with an encouraging smile. “Though you'll, of course, have to wait on bandwidth,” he said with a nod to Shelby and then a flick of his long hand to indicate himself.
Rachel nodded. She knew how the game was played. It wasn't fair, but then again the government was the one who had built the ansible network in the first place. The people had a right to know … and they would, but no one said anything about how soon they'd get the information. “I know. How far behind will the ships carrying the ansibles be?” Rachel asked, eying Shelby.
“Months behind. They are going to be traveling in the low alpha and beta bands. They actually left ahead of us; we'll pass them
probably somewhere around ET.”
“I see,” Rachel said slowly, thinking hard. “ET, I can do a broadcast there?” She was already considering the angles. A follow-up of what had happened recently in ET wouldn't work quite well, the subject had been talked to death by the major networks. But a follow-up might get some interest, and seeing the navy on leave spending their money to help the economy might tickle the home office's interests enough to broadcast a good chunk of her series …
Shelby nodded. “You can upload to their ansible. We won't be there long, but I believe you'll get a chance,” she warned.
The reporter blinked in confusion. “Wait, you won't be making planet fall? For leave? Supplies?”
Cynthia shook her head firmly in the negative. “Not unless we have a problem. I don't expect one. Our first planet fall will be in Tau. We're going to pass through each star system along the way. In a few, we'll drop off some gear we've got for them.”
Rachel's eyes fired up at that news. “That will free up the space?”
“Some. Some we'll use when we eat the fresh food. Most of the gear we're dropping off isn't on our ship. It's stored in the freighters,” the quartermaster explained.
“Oh,” Rachel said in disappointment. She bit her lip. There went that idea, she thought sourly to herself.
“If you find yourself too claustrophobic on board, we can drop you off along the way or transfer you to another ship. None of the warships, but we can find a ship to fit you in, most likely a support ship. There is a liner, but it is also full up, so I doubt we can bump anyone there … A freighter …” Carl suggested as he cocked his head to her. “You'd probably end up living in cargo space however,” he warned.
“My wife and son are on the liner. I'll be there myself,” Mister Muggs said. “It's not five star by a long shot but it serves its home for now. I think they might be able to squeeze you in somewhere. You'd be in even tighter quarters though. Most likely a large group and hot bunking as they call it,” he said looking at the XO for confirmation.
“Correct,” Cynthia said with a nod.
“Thank you, but I'd rather be here where the heart of the action is,” Rachel said politely.
Mister Muggs shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“You're not going to get rid of me that easily,” Rachel said, turning a challenging look in Cynthia.
Cynthia snorted and then shrugged. “Ah shucks,” she murmured. Shelby shot her a quelling look but the reporter chuckled.
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As reality set in, a few of the crew started to have problems with their spouses, extended family, and dependents. Some of the dependents and even some of the crew started to suddenly have cold feet. Some of the various officers, noncoms, and enlisted had children and didn't want to break up a family unit for a decade or more despite getting paid a bonus. Those who had married in the service had been given special attention to allow both spouses to serve in the same task force but in different chains of command. Their children were allowed to come with them or were supposed to be left with a family caregiver for the duration of the mission.
But that wasn't the same for other couples. Some of the kids who were coming along didn't want to leave everything behind. A few of the civilian spouses had similar issues. It was one thing to get the money, quite another to realize they would be away from everyone and everything they knew for years. The threat of danger was also in their decision-making process.
Some of the parents tried to sell it as an adventure of a lifetime, but it was a hard sell. Some of the disputes spilled out into the public, at first on forums, then some of the kids’ nasty video blogs got picked up by the media outlets. Rachel Trejo did her best to keep the reporting to a minimum since she didn't want to offend some of the people that she would be traveling with. It was hard; it went against some of her ethics to be an impartial observer.
As the clock ticked ever closer to their departure date, some problems were settled harshly. A few of the families couldn't settle their differences and ended in a divorce. A few of the personnel reluctantly requested reassignment. Some were in critical posts with no replacement around so had to be denied. They were resigned to that.
Those that could be replaced forced BUPERS and Cynthia to scramble to shuffle personnel around to handle the problem and fill the voids.
Chapter 14
Beta fleet had jumped out several weeks prior to the Tau mission's final series of exercises. Shelby had hoped for more warships, but a squadron of tin cans and a mixed squadron of cruisers plus all the small fry she had attached like Terran Remora fish. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to train with those ships outside of virtual sims.
Those ships and the cargo pods on her starships would degrade their speed by several octaves she knew. Computer modeling had given her a broad range of possible outcomes though; it was clear Lieutenant Ming wasn't certain about how things would shape up until they were actually in hyper. So be it, she thought.
Shelby was aware that they would get news updates as they moved through the Rho sector star systems leading up to the jump from Airea 3. Each stint in hyper would be capped by a download of news once they arrived on the other side. Unfortunately, once they were in the Trajin cluster and the Tau sector proper, they would be without news. At least until the ansible ships arrived sometime later.
She wasn't certain if the cluster would make a good base. Based on some of what ONI had assembled about the cluster she doubted it. There would be time to make the final decision of course once they were in the cluster itself and she had actual eyes on the situation.
She was soon forging into uncharted territory for the navy as well as herself. On her own for a longer period than the southern loop mission. Speaking of uncharted territory … she checked and then nodded. Janice should be on her way to Anvil tomorrow to drag some answers out of the college one way or another.
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Since Captain Yu had so much experience as a navigator as well as a professor, it fell on her to deal with the Anvil college astronomy and cartography department. The department had hemmed and hawed about meeting the hard deadline and had yet to hand over their findings. But today was the day she reminded herself as she made small talk with the professor and one of his grad students.
Through small talk, she found out that the college wanted a science vessel. What they had done with the last one she had no clue. Possibly sold it? She wasn't certain, but the two scientists were ready and eager to grumble over it. “We even have a name picked out for the first one, Goddard,” Professor Filch said. “We chose it by poll; it's a famous human name, a creator of ancient chemical rockets which ushered in the space race.”
“That's nice,” Janice said politely.
“Unfortunately, the government say's we're not a priority,” Miss Louger, the professor's head grad student and TA said snidely.
“To be brutally honest you aren't,” Janice said with a shake of her head. She saw the grad student rear back and then narrow her eyes in anger. “Right now we're at war. We need warships.”
“I know that. But if they can build support ships …”
“Which bring weapons and ammunition to the warships. You are getting navigational data and Astro data though, correct?” Janice asked. She knew they did get it because she had instituted the program years ago. The information they handed over was of course scanned by ONI and picked clean of anything they didn't want known to the public.
“Well … yes but …”
“Plus funding and grants for projects like this. Like going through your files and crunching the numbers for us.”
“Which is a good service to everyone not just the navy …,” Miss Louger complained. “We're not allowed to publish some of this for a while,” Miss Louger whined. “That's not fair.”
Janice half expected the young woman to stomp her foot and stick her bottom lip out. “But it was the navy who paid for it. We need it so we can get in and do our jobs effectively. Besides
, if you published it, than the enemy would get it too and use it to their advantage, not just the public at large.”
“Oh,” the civilian woman blinked.
“Right. Oh,” Janice said, staring the other woman down until she ducked her head and looked away.
Janice cocked her head as she turned to the professor. “You realize that your science vessel would need a naval escort, right?” the professor blinked at her in confusion. “Think about it. You can't go off into the unknown without someone to watch your back. Space might be vast but there is a lot of pirates out there.”
“I see. No, we didn't look into that,” the professor said.
“I suggest you do,” Janice said as she took the chips with the data on them. “You can also look into grants to build your ship or purchase one from a civilian yard. A corporation might be willing to underwrite the project if they get access to the data first and can use it as a write off. Or you could hope we find a derelict science vessel that can be restored. I understand there are dozens of ships being recovered in B-102c,” she said.
“That …,” the professor frowned thoughtfully.
“We need a new ship not some hand-me-down piece of junk that will constantly break down,” Miss Louger grumbled.
“Take what you can get for the moment. A ship is better than no ship,” Janice said with a hint of exasperation in her voice, patience near its exhaustion point. “I seem to recall your college had a ship. Whatever happened to it?” she asked. The grad student flushed and looked away, not rising to that bait.
The professor cleared his throat. “But you said we'd need an escort …” the professor frowned.
“Right. You would unless you traveled in safe areas. You do realize the ship would have to be manned, right? You'd need a crew; they'd have to be paid too. All that costs credits. Plus, maintenance, equipment, upkeep … docking fees, port charges … replenishment, fuel … it can't all come from the government.”