by Chris Hechtl
He inhaled and then exhaled slowly. “Some of you will have problems. With our backgrounds that is inevitable. Unavoidable and understandable. Talk with each other; try to keep it in perspective. Work it out. If you need a break, say so. Talk to the doc, talk to your roommate, friends, whoever you need to. If you don't think you are cut out for a job, let me or someone else know and we'll try to find something that better suits you. No fault, no problem. We'll work it out,” he said. “Carry on,” he ordered with a curt nod.
“I'm not sure how the ensign will take that, being singled out may harm her further,” Sprite said carefully to him.
He paused, making sure no one was in easy ear shot to hear his reply. Everyone was busy, focused on their duty stations. “I have to keep the larger picture in mind here. Sometimes shit happens. Shit we don't like. We have to learn to deal with it. So does she. Embarrassments will end. We'll get over it, move on.”
“In time?”
“In time,” he replied with a nod. “But for now, back to baby steps.”
“Aye aye, Admiral,” Sprite replied.
...*...*...*...*...
The admiral listened to Sprite after dinner as he got ready for bed. “We have a problem now. I believe Lieutenant Meia was letting Shandra take the tactical seat because she didn't want to lose her own seat in a cockpit. She's good, damn good. But we don't have someone to handle tactical now. That is a big hole,” Sprite said, capping her critique on the situation.
The admiral grimaced but nodded in reluctant agreement. He knew where this was going. “One we have to fill. She will have to do for now. Mia can't cut it.” He made a face. He knew the good of the ship and the fleet came first. Meia had to learn that too. “Mia and Meia what a combination.”
“You don't pick the names of the people you work with; you just make do with what you've got, sir,” Sprite reminded him. He snorted.
“She's not going to like leaving the hot seat. She's doing good training her pups too,” the admiral sighed. “And training the shuttle pilots. I also heard she's planning on moonlighting as a shuttle pilot when we get to where we are going?”
“She's very good at all the roles. I wish we had a dozen more just like her,” Sprite replied.
“Unfortunately we don't. But the ship and the fleet come first. In transit she'll sit in tactical. I want her to get some seat time on the bridge too. She has to know she's only a couple heartbeats away from getting dumped in the deep end,” he said, shaking his head. “At least until we can find someone else to take her place. If she insists on staying with the fighters we'll have to eventually.”
“I'm not sure she will stay, Admiral. Not voluntarily, though she did express an interest and has certainly shown a knack for the job. But she would also make a great squadron commander, possibly even a CAG eventually, Admiral,” Sprite told him. He grunted. “But I agree, the needs of the fleet come first.”
“Good.”
“So, how are you going to break the news to her?” Sprite asked, voice bubbling in amusement. She put up a plot on his HUD with her location. The young woman was currently in a big shuttle exercise while a work crew in a nearby bay worked on a new shuttle project.
“Tomorrow. I'll figure it out tomorrow. If I can catch her,” he said, making a face. He'd heard Meia was all over the place. The young woman was quite the bundle of energy, nearly up to his speed and she didn't have his level of implants or training. Sprite chuckled. “Have some additional understudies in mind. It's actually a good idea for her to start thinking long term career goals this early though. She can't be a flyboy forever,” he said.
“Says you, sir. Don't you know adrenalin junky pilots live forever?”
“Oh to be young and stupid,” the admiral said, shaking his head.
“I'd say it's more of a zest for life ... and an ignorance of future risks,” Sprite said.
“Ignorance is indeed bliss.”
“You'll be happy to know that Ensign Williamson has decided not to resign. At least not tonight. Doctor Che ... wait, I just noticed something,” Sprite said. Irons looked up. “Did you note the name?”
“Name?”
“Che. There was another Che on Bounty. Merlo ... accessing ... yes. I see. Apparently they were related, Admiral.”
“Oh. Oh hell.”
“Yes.”
“Does she know he died of radiation poisoning?”
“I am not certain. I think she either accessed the records ... checking, no. No she didn't. She may not want to know, sir.”
“Related how?”
“Brother and sister Admiral.”
“Oh. Please ... I am not sure how to go about it. Damn,” he muttered.
“A problem for another time,” Sprite said. “But, as I was saying, Midshipman Tormell and the doctor managed to convince her not to take the problem to heart and to wait and not make any hasty decisions. I believe Miss Tormell caught part of our conversation about her future and suggested a change in MOS.”
“Military Occupation Specialty. I haven't heard that in a while. What career track, wait, she'll sleep on it?”
“Yes. I believe Doctor Che convinced her to get some downtime. Some medication may have been involved but I am not certain. Or alcohol.”
“Not a good mix.”
“Not my call either, Admiral. As I said, I didn't witness it, I just picked up the scuttlebutt from Doctor Che later.”
“Understood. Keep me posted. I'll talk with Ensign Williamson later when she's gotten some perspective and sleep. Speaking of sleep ...” He suggested.
“And the other holes in the fleet?” Sprite asked, ready to go on.
“I'll sleep on it,” he growled, taking a seat on the bed. He toed off his boots and then started pulling his uniform off.
“Oh. Right. Night, Admiral.”
“Night, Sprite.”
...*...*...*...*...
The ship twisted and bucked like a terrier after a bath, jerking and twisting about. Irons clung to his chair for dear life. It was all he could do to hold on despite the straps holding him in place. The tractor field had been cut to throw as much power at the shields as they could. The compartment had vented long ago, the same hit that had knifed into their port side and killed the exec and addled the ship's dumb AI into lobotomizing itself had vented his compartment. Shrapnel was still floating about in the air where the grav fields had cut out.
“Enemy has us boxed! She can't take more of this! We're going to lose structural integrity at this rate!” a rating called out.
“Frame 1 and 2, port missiles 3 and 5 are out! They are gone!” a rating called out as the ship bucked again.
“Reactor is solid, but we've got some waves to work out. We need to cut power!”
“We can't! We've got to run her full out if we're going to survive this!”
“That's two cruisers against a destroyer! You're dreaming if you think we're going to live through this!” Blake said, voice rising in pitch over the radio.
“We can't scatter! They've got us pinned in the hyperbridge! We need to translate out to survive!” another engineering rating said.
“We can't leave the convoy! They can't translate out quickly like we can; they lack milspec hardware!”
“Frack that! It's every ship for itself! That's the Raven clan out there if you didn't notice!”
“And we've got a duty to protect the civilians,” Irons snarled. “Focus on your duty. Trust the captain; if anyone can get us out of this mess, he can,” he said, working at his controls frantically to reroute around the increasing damage to the ship. He felt a bit of fear at the potential of death, but it was a distant thing. More important things occupied his full attention. Unfortunately there were only so many redundant systems in a tin can; she couldn't keep absorbing the damage the cruisers were dishing out.
“What the hell is wrong with the JTO? Is he drunk or something?” a rating snarled as the ship took another hit. “Our counter missiles suck!”
“They are
too close for the counter missiles to get off half the time!” another rating said.
“We've lost contact with the bridge! The chief is down! Corpsman to main engineering! DC to main engineering! Oh my gods he's bleeding out!” a petty officer cried, hunched over the body of the burned and shredded Veraxin's suit.
Lieutenant Irons couldn't spare him a look; he was too intent on his own duty. With the bridge and CIC out the duty fell to engineering, which meant him.
“We are fracked! We are so fracked!” a rating said, voice rising in terror.
“Belt up Baker! Get a grip! Stow the crap and check the number two EPS conduit, there is a kick there I don't like.” Shelly snarled, trying to keep the near hysterical rating under control. “We'll figure it out, right Lieutenant?” the chief petty officer asked turning her attention to Irons.
“Five against two,” Lieutenant Irons murmured. He hated those odds. It got even worse when one thought about who he was up against. He was in a small escort destroyer flanked by two of the most feared pirate cruisers in the galaxy.
“We've lost the port side shields. She can't take much more of this!”
“Port side weapon mounts are gone, sir!”
“Nav 2 is out!”
“Hyperdrive is fluctuating,” the CPO said, glancing his way. Irons licked his lips. He tasted salt. He wanted to reach up and find out why but he was too busy routing around the damage to be distracted.
When the pirates flanked his ship, ready to tear them apart, he sweated bullets in his skinsuit as the crew around him begged for commands. “Sir! What do we do?!?” Baker demanded, practically in tears.
“Hang on. We're going to do the one thing we can do. Just hang on,” he said, feeling the ship shimmy and shake through the seat of his skinsuit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw CPO Rich grab at his station console for support.
He sent the signal through his implants but was bucked out of the system. A red warning flashed on his retina. “Damn it! Gotta do it by hand!” He snarled.
He reached out with his free hand to hit the hyperdrive controls and felt something resist him. He thrashed about and woke groggy and annoyed. He blinked the crumminess out of his eyes as he looked at the shredded sheet. He hated that feeling, like he had a hangover. It would have been nice to have actually earned the damn feeling. He rubbed his brow and kicked an analgesic in.
“Are you okay, Admiral? You're brain activity was pretty fast and furious there. And you were not happy. Did you have a nightmare?”
“Yes. I don't want to talk about it,” he said, rolling upright. He swung his legs over the side of the rack and sat there, elbows on his knees as he breathed.
“It sounds like you need to though. Like something hit a nerve,” Sprite said quietly.
Irons grunted. “That scenario we played out yesterday hit a little closer to home than I'd like let's say,” he said as an answer. He yanked the sheet off, wincing as it tore again. Sometimes he forgot his enhanced strength. He yanked it off then balled it up. He'd deal with it later.
She searched her files on him. She found what she'd been looking for in his deep record before he'd made Commander. “The pirate attack when you were a lieutenant? Is that why you chose a convoy escort scenario? To win? Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” he said, voice harsher than he intended. He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to wake up. After a moment he clasped his hands together. “I didn't choose that scenario; you did remember?”
“I gave you a selection of scenarios to run, Admiral,” Sprite reminded him. He grunted.
It had been a routine mission; one he'd thought would be routine at least. A milk run, one that many of the rookies had resented while the veterans had treasured. They had learned the wisdom of preferring boredom over excitement.
The convoy they had been escorting had been attacked while in the HD46233 B hyperbridge to HDE 254755 O, fifteen hundred parsecs from Sol. While trapped in the narrow confines of the hyperbridge, they couldn't maneuver, couldn't speed up or slow down. In other words it was a perfect place for an ambush. Normally a raider couldn't hit a ship in the bridge; you have to be extraordinarily lucky to happen upon a ship in a bridge. The odds were astronomical, or so the authorities on the subject said. Apparently no one had told that to the pirates of Raven clan.
He still had no idea how they had pulled it off. It should have been impossible, the raiders had jumped across the bridge wall and met the convoy at the right time. The perfect time, a minute off and they would have totally missed the convoy. A convoy that had been steadily accelerating with the bridge since they had entered the bridge. They'd gotten in at the low alpha band ... and what, accelerated in such a brief time as to catch the fleet? He shook his head as his fists balled in frustration. That wasn't possible, he knew it, but they had done it anyway. Maybe if he ever did get the chance he'd find out how that had happened.
Their escort destroyer had been one of six ships sent along as sheepdogs to protect the vulnerable ships in the convoy from the raiding pirates in the area. They'd expected an attack in subspace, which made the real ambush all the more devastating. The pirate squadron had come into the bridge on either side of the convoy, right alongside the surprised escorts.
The captain had tried to perch the ship above the convoy to protect the fleet from both sides the best they could. That exposed them to the fire of the pirate cruisers, however, with the expected results. The tin can shook as she had taken a series of serious hits early in the engagement. The ship's AI had been addled enough to shut down, which hampered the ship's ability to fight. The exec and a lot of the chain of command had been cut down in the initial broadside as had the chief engineer who had been critically injured. They were knocked out of contact with the bridge, so command legally had fallen into Lieutenant Iron's lap.
“You had an altercation with the Black Swan, Black Diamond, Spartacus, and the Black Pearl at the same time. That maneuver, fluctuating your drive enough while venting atmosphere out the forward airlocks to drop back as they took either flank was brilliant. You pulled the ship out of their firing arch just as they opened up on your smaller ship. Their missiles hit each other instead of you, tearing them up and forcing them to withdraw. That was classic.”
“It wasn't brilliant; it was desperate,” Irons replied tartly. “I got reamed by the skipper for it afterward but a medal too,” he said, remembering the encounter. He'd stood there, all proud and pleased with himself until the skipper had ripped him a new one. Then he hadn't known what to do with the damn medal. He'd felt ripped off, cheapened.
“I don't understand,” Sprite replied, wrinkling her virtual nose.
He sighed. She obviously wasn't going to let it go. “I maneuvered the ship from main engineering. I saw what needed to be done and did it. But in doing so I superseded the captain who we were out of contact with. At the time I had thought the bridge had been destroyed. As it turned out we'd taken damage that had severed our communication's link to them.”
“Oh. So, he could have had you up on charges for what, mutiny? Disobeying an order? But he didn't.”
“Had he done so he would have looked like an ass. We, I, didn't know he was alive so I assumed command as I had been trained to do so.” He scowled slightly. He'd been promoted and transferred out of that ship shortly after being “rewarded.” To this day he wondered if the captain had put him up for it to get rid of him. “We were the first warship to survive an encounter with the two pirates. We brought back hard data on them even though we got chewed up in the process. It alerted the navy and intelligence bureaus that there were holes in their security; there was no way the Raven clan could have known we were there and come in at just the right moment to hit us like that. They had our schedule down to the second,” he said, shaking his head. He didn't bother to mention how Spartacus had made off with one of the ships under their protection while they'd been engaged by the two pirates. It was still a painful memory, knowing the people on that ship, people
under the navy's protection that would never be heard from again.
What had also bothered him was their ignorance. They hadn't known what they were covering for, what cargo the carrier had been carrying. Apparently it had been important and expensive for the pirates to justify the risk of attacking. They'd also been very selective in their targeting as well, as soon as Spartacus had retreated with her prize the other ships had done so as well. To this day he still didn't know what they'd gotten; the authorities had slapped several layers of top secret all over the incident. It bothered him that the pirates had not only the Intel to pull that off but the hardware too. And he as an admiral still didn't have access to find out the answers or hadn't before the Xeno war.
He rose to his feet and stretched. “Landing hard on me for what I did would have destroyed his career. And,” he smiled slightly. “It gave him a boost when it came time for promotions. So, I shut my mouth about the whole thing.”
“Oh,” Sprite replied thoughtfully as he undressed and climbed into the shower. “I see. It definitely puts a different perspective on history, Admiral.”
“History is all a matter of perspective. Who wrote it, how biased they were, and what information they were given about the subject to begin with,” Irons replied.
“Now I am curious about how many other incidents in the past are like that.”
“In mine? A few. In history in general?” He snorted as he flipped the ultrasonics on. “Too many to count I believe. You mind? I'm trying to take a shower here,” he said pointedly.
“Oh, right,” she replied, voice tinged with amusement. Her attention turned away. The admiral wasn't prudish, and he knew she didn't hold an interest in human anatomy. He just wanted some alone time to relax she judged.
The nightmare most likely had reminded the admiral that others would have the same problem with the training. Tactical and hand-to-hand training for both the navy and marine contingent would cause additional flashbacks or even potential incidents of lock up while in combat. Some of that could be hidden by the nature of the simulations; after all, many knew it was just a game. That was a potential long term problem she judged; one she'd have to bring up at a later date.