For Honor We Stand

by Harvey G. Phillips

  Good bread was one of the compensations of life on board a warship in deep space. No matter how long a warship had been out and how scarce the vegetables and milk and eggs and meat became, there was nearly always fresh bread because the ingredients for bread occupied little space and could be stored for years. Not only was warship bread fresh, it tended to be uncommonly good. Even on ships as small as Destroyers, every galley had a man whose specialty was bread, rolls, and biscuits—a man who always had a store of his own special recipes that were a point of pride. When spacers got together and reminisced about old ships on which they served, the particular flavor of the bread on their former vessels was almost always a focal point for nostalgia. Men had been known to get in loud arguments that escalated to fistfights over which of their former postings had the tastiest dinner rolls.

  The doctor was having a sandwich as well, an open-faced roast beef affair covered in savory brown gravy made to be eaten with knife and fork rather than held in the hand. The roast was excellent as well and fork-tender, Chief Boudreaux in the galley acting in accordance with the traditional Cajun wisdom that a roast is ready to be made into sandwiches only when it “falls apart with a hard look.” Bram also had French fries on the side, which he dipped in the gravy instead of using ketchup, which he had always detested (“looks like blood and tastes like red sauerkraut—why do I want it on my food?”). It wasn’t exactly a traditional Turkish meal, but traditional Turkish food being somewhat scarce on the Cumberland with her Cajun Captain and Cajun Chief of Culinary Services, Sahin made do and, all things considered, made do rather well.

  “Why do you say that Duflot is stupid, other than that he lacks the wisdom to avoid unnecessarily belittling and alienating someone with whom he is about to be working closely in a matter of life and death directly affecting the lives of hundreds of people and indirectly affecting the course of the war and, as a result, the fate of more than two hundred billion people?”

  Max chuckled ruefully. “When you put it like that, it makes him sound even more stupid that I was thinking he was. I suppose that getting this ambassador to the negotiations is pretty damn important.”

  “Pretty damn important? We are talking about forging a strong military relationship among the four powers now at war against the Krag and, therefore, changing the balance of power in a war that our species is fighting for its very survival. ‘Pretty damn important’ understates the situation somewhat, don’t you think? That’s rather like saying that the human heart is a ‘relatively significant organ.’” Max nodded his acquiescence. “What I do not understand is why, if it is so important, is Norfolk attempting to accomplish it with only these three ships. Why not put Commodore Doland on one of those huge Battleships that’s as big as a reasonably-sized city, escorted by a huge Fleet Carrier and a bunch of Cruisers so that it would take the entire Krag Navy to do him ill?”

  “That strategy sounds good, but is likely to lead to disaster. Here’s why.” Max was secretly impressed by the doctor’s having uncharacteristically gotten the names of the ship Types and other naval concepts and nomenclature correct in his question. “First, a force comprised of capital ships is going to be slow. The energy requirements of pushing a ship that big through compressed space are too high to make sustained runs at high c factors, so for anything longer than a crossing from one star system to the next system over they need to jump. This brings us to the second disadvantage, that you can’t move a force like that in secret. You start moving half a dozen capital ships through inhabited systems or even systems that have any civilian traffic in them—and if a system has got jump points it almost always has at least some civvy poking through it somewhere almost all the time—then, in a day or so, the blabby freighter Captain has told all his buddies about the huge task force that he just saw on his sensors and everyone in the sector knows that something is afoot. Then, you’ve got problems. Since your huge protective convoy is so damn slow, once the Krag know what’s going on it is a lot easier for them to get a force in there to attack you. Remember, they don’t have to defeat the force, just destroy the ship carrying the Ambassador, which they would have a high probability of doing if they got in there with four or five Destroyers. They come in fast and catch the group by surprise. The Carrier doesn’t have time to launch fighters, so the only cover is the Combat Area Patrol and your escorts. The Destroyers converge from all around in all three dimensions so that the defenders have to cover the entire sphere. The CAP is almost guaranteed to be in the wrong place or headed in the wrong direction, so the destroyers just blow past them, then they ignore the escorts—they take some attrition but they are moving so fast that most get through—and bore right in on the Ambassador’s ship. Then, they all fire their missiles, break off, and run like smoke and oakum. At least one of those Krag Foxhound missiles gets through, and, POOF, no more Ambassador.”

  “Smoke and oakum?”

  “Old nautical expression. Used a lot on some wonderful old novels I’m reading. You’d like them. There’s one series where one of the heroes is a doctor.”

  “I’m sure I would find the portrayal of my fictional brother perfectly odious and that I would feel for him not the slightest trace of kinship. What, by the way, is ‘oakum’?”

  “I’m not exactly sure, but it sounds good with ‘smoke.’ Anyway, when you look at their options, I can’t criticize Norfolk on their basic tactical decision. The odds are better if you use a small number of very fast ships. They can use their compression drives to cross through interstellar space straight to their destination at high c factors, making them hard to locate and even harder to catch. They are stealthy enough to hide from most attackers and fast enough to evade most of the rest.”

  “All right. Now that you explain it that way, it makes sense. It is a very counter-intuitive idea though, that one can actually be safer with a smaller, less formidable force. But, you still haven’t explained why you think that Commander Duflot is stupid.”

  “It’s simple. Just like I explained in that signal I sent him. Those Krag ships on our tail will follow us into the system hidden from planet based sensors by staying in our compression trail. Then they go subluminal and kick in their stealth systems, hiding out until our little group pulls out. Then they follow us out of the system and tail us by following our base course until they see a good opportunity to attack. Something tells me that Duflot isn’t going to have us follow a deceptive course or do anything tricky like randomly varying our speed, so we’ll be damn easy to locate and intercept. Then, somewhere far enough from any of our forces that help cannot reach us fast enough to do any good, they attack out of the black, by surprise, when we least expect it. And, if the attack is not successful, they try again, and again, and again until we either succeed in destroying them or until they obtain their objective. So, I called Commander Duflot stupid because his narrow-minded, ignorant stubbornness is not only likely to cause our mission to fail, but to bring about one more bad result.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “It’s likely to get us all killed.”

  Chapter 10

  19:52Z Hours, 25 March 2315

  “CAPTAIN REPORT TO FLAG STOP MESSAGE ENDS.” This was the signal communicated by the near-ancient expedient of flashing lights and Morse code from the USS William Gorgas to the USS Cumberland. Commander Duflot’s orders from Norfolk required him to make every effort to avoid being detected by enemy forces, hence his use of lights rather than conventional radio. He could have established a laserlink, but Duflot was apparently not interested in efficient two-way communication and information sharing with the Destroyer; he just wanted to order Max to come on board, and to do so in the most imperious fashion possible. Accordingly, wearing Dress Blues (Chin blinkered his counterpart on the Frigate and found out what the Uniform of the Day was on board the pennant ship), Max was on board his ship’s Launch making the 1800 meter crossing between the two vessels.

  It was with some chagrin that Max saw that the Docking Director Lig
hts on the starboard side of the William Gorgas were blinking red, indicating that the Launch was being directed to dock on the frigate’s port side. It was the third snub in just a few minutes. The first was in not establishing a laserlink between the two ships, as though the Cumberland was in possession of no information in which the William Gorgas could conceivably have any interest. The second was in the wording of the signal. Although Duflot outranked Max by a single step, both men commanded rated warships. Accordingly, a communication from one Captain to another was supposed to be more or less between equals. A senior Captain possessed authority to give orders to the others, but was restrained by a measure of deference and recognition of the other Captains’ independent authority. Typically, the signal would have been worded something like, “CAPT DUFLOT SENDS REGARDS STOP REQUESTS HONOR OF CAPT ROBICHAUX ON BOARD THIS VESSEL AT HIS EARLIEST CONVENIENCE STOP MESSAGE ENDS.” Duflot was also, Max thought, overstepping a bit with “report to flag” when Duflot was not a Commodore or an Admiral and, therefore, not of “flag rank.” The lead ship of a group of vessels commanded by someone not of flag rank was technically the “Pennant Ship” of the group, not its “Flagship.” But, the third, and worst of the snubs was being directed to dock on the port side. Starboard was the side of honor. Docking to port meant that the William Gorgas would receive him without ceremony: no Boatswain would pipe him aboard with the announcement “Cumberland arriving,” no side boys would be present, the ship’s Marines and Officer of the Deck would not salute him or render him any other honors, and he would not be treated as a member of the never formally recognized but still very real Brotherhood of Exalted Warship Captains, a status accorded him by even Admiral Hornmeyer, who was a full-blown Vice Admiral with three gold stars on each shoulder and hundreds of ships under his command. Rather, Duflot’s whole attitude toward Max was that of a superior dealing with a subordinate, nothing more.

  When the red lights started blinking on the frigate’s port side, the man who was piloting the Launch, Ensign Mori, made an inarticulate grunt/snort of disgust and turned to Max. With an annoyed gesture at the Docking Director Lights, he said, “I can still dock us on the port side, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mister Mori. I’m sure you’re good enough to get snugged up there without the grappling field to slip us into place, but that doesn’t engage the docking clamps or open the airlock.”

  “Well, sir, you’re not supposed to know this officially, but when the frigate didn’t initiate a laserlink, Sparks and Gates hacked their ENAP so we could pull a download and do a one way update on our database.” Max sat up and took notice at that one. This statement was an interesting revelation in four ways. One: the Cumberland now had covert access to the Frigate’s computers through the latter’s External Network Access Portal or ENAP, the same portal through which the ships would be communicating if Duflot had permitted a conventional laserlink. Two: hacking a warship’s ENAP was supposed to be well-neigh impossible, but these two men had accomplished it in a matter of minutes. Maybe they acquired a good nutcracker for that system from some of their friends in low places or even managed to crib the passwords from someone. Three: at some point Chin and Bales had sufficiently impressed their shipmates to be awarded the traditional and honorific nicknames for their posts: Sparks, for Communications Officers and Gates, for the Computer and Information Systems Officer. Four: Chin and Bales, who had been at loggerheads going back to when they were Midshipmen together on the Battlecruiser Aeglos, apparently had worked together on what was likely an off-watch project meaning that they had probably resolved their long-standing differences.

  “So, if you want, I can let Sparks know by blinker and Gates can remote activate the grap field, pull us in, and open the airlock, with all the tell-tales and alarms deactivated. We could be drinking coffee and eating pound cake in the Wardroom before anyone even knew we were there. It would be squeaker work, sir, as easy as kiss my hand.” Mori seemed eager to try it, especially given the obvious snub to his Captain.

  “Not today, Mister Mori, not today. Those two Krag ships dropped off our tail as soon as we went subluminal and they’re lurking out there somewhere, so I’m not really enthusiastic about hacking into the operating system of this group’s most powerful ship. Not to mention that I don’t think it would be a good idea for Commander Duflot to know that we hacked his systems. He seems the type who would take offense. I’m not eager to go before a Court Martial right now. I’d rather fight Krag, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I just wanted you to know that the option was available.”

  “Thank you for that, Mori. So, as they used to say back in the Age of Sail, ‘larboard side Mister Mori. Handsomely now, row dry.’”

  Mori laughed, as much at the idea of rowing a spacecraft as at the skipper’s low budget tridvid drama version of an English accent. Something of a buff about such things, Mori did, however, recognize that the skipper correctly used ‘larboard,’ the term used for ‘port’ in the British Royal Navy until 22 November 1844. “Larboard side it is, sir,” he answered in an English accent considerably more authentic than Max’s.” He had an ear for accents.

  Max took a good look at the frigate through the front view port—one actually piloted a tiny auxiliary vessel such as a Launch, at least in part, by looking out a window with the Mark One Eyeball. He smiled at the sight of her familiar lines. The William Gorgas was a frigate of the Edward Jenner class, of the same design and even from the same yard as Max’s last ship, the Emeka Moro, on which he served as Weapons Officer. He found himself enviously contemplating her four forward missile tubes which allowed her to launch a far more effective salvo that he could fire from the Cumberland’s two launchers. So many of the tactical situations in which Max had found himself since taking command of the Destroyer would have been made simpler by the availability of another pair of missile tubes. For that matter, he sure wouldn’t turn his nose up at those big pulse cannon turrets that let the ship train her main batteries in any direction.

  His wistful contemplation of augmented firepower was brought to an abrupt halt when he noticed that, although the green “dock here” ring around the Port Main Docking Hatch was illuminated, another small vessel was only about twenty meters away from docking with it. Another green “dock here” was on, this one around the Number Four Port Hatch, the opening into the Engineering spaces usually used for loading equipment and supplies bound for that part of the ship that were not so large that they had to come in through the Hangar Bay. Almost every rated warship had a hatch in roughly that location. It was generally called “the Servants’ Entrance.”

  Make that four snubs.

  As the Launch was headed aft to the designated hatch, it passed within 100 meters of the other docking vessel—close enough for Max to read the registry number: GCRU-8481. Out of idle curiosity, Max punched the number into the SVR database. In less than a second the computer kicked back an ID: the vessel was attached to the Union Naval Logistics Service base in this system—a waste retrieval and disposal transport. But, no one ever called the type by that name except when filling out official documents. In common conversation, those vessels had another name dating back to the Age of Sail. The Commanding Officer of the Cumberland was being compelled to yield docking precedence to what everyone called a garbage scow.

  Make that five snubs.

  Mori docked the Launch at the Servant’s Entrance with his customary deftness. Within a few seconds, the larger ship’s artificial gravity was took hold by induction through the deck plating and the computer announced “initiating artificial gravity.” As if it took a computer announcement to be able to tell the difference between microgravity and being held in your seat by 1 G.

  “This shouldn’t be long, Mori, and I’d like to be able to leave quickly when I’m done. So, I’d be obliged if you would just wait right here and leave everything powered up.” Max expected a short, unpleasant meeting with Duflot and didn’t want to be forced to endure an uncomfortable wait a
round a docking hatch.

  “Aye, sir. No worries, I’ll be right here with the thrusters hot. We’ll be able to undock and be on our way five seconds from when you give the word.”

  “Outstanding, Mori. Just what I want.”

  Max heard the series of hisses, thumps, and clangs that told him that the hatches of the two craft were being precisely aligned, the docking clamps locking, and the inner doors on both vessels opening. He stood and stepped over to the hatch, waiting for the red light labeled STATUS: DO NOT OPERATE HATCH to go out and the green one labeled STATUS: HATCH MAY BE OPERATED to illuminate. It took four seconds, giving Max four more seconds to contemplate how much fun he was about to have. The red light went out and the green one came on. Both sets of hatches opened and Max stepped into a nondescript compartment usually used for unloading spare parts, barrels of coolant and lubricant, and buckets of paint. In fact, a few examples of each were present in the small space, looking as though they had just been carried in for the occasion to emphasize Max’s importance in the scheme of things. He pivoted to the right where the quarterdeck had been located on sailing ships and where the Union and Naval flags would be standing if anyone had bothered to set them up, which they had not. So, Max found himself saluting a tall crate on which was stenciled: MODEL WPPCP-25878-11929-4 WASTE TREATMENT PLANT CIRCULATING PUMP, AUXILIARY.