Jethro: First to Fight

by Hechtl, Chris

  Mayweather sighed ruefully. “I think we always will have trouble measuring up. Irons... The fleet admiral... I can't even imagine his experience. Decades in the service.”

  “Yes well, his was a unique experience I believe. He rose through the ranks rather quickly.”

  “He... he was in the navy for how long?” the Captain asked, turning to stare at the avatar.

  The AI shrugged. “Eight decades. Seven as an officer.”

  Mayweather stared at the avatar. “And you are saying that's short?” she finally asked.

  “For someone with access to anti-geriatric treatments of course,” the AI responded. “You organics can live centuries with proper treatment.”

  “Oh.”

  “In peace time flag rank usually didn't come until over 60 years as an officer for command track Commander,” Firefly said tweaking her a bit over her meteoric rise in rank. She blushed a little and nodded curtly. “For someone in engineering tract? To get that far so fast? He was a flag officer when he was in his fifth decade as an officer. Usually the higher you go the longer you spend in rank until you move on. But do to his experiences and his skills he moved up faster.”

  “But it is different in wartime,” Mayweather replied.

  “Yes. Attrition is a major factor, also getting enough warm bodies to fill all the slots required. Sometimes people are deficient, you either get them sorted out, or shuffle them off to somewhere that they can do little harm and grow into their new rank.”

  “Ah.”

  “Which is why one of the criteria of training is to train the people under you to replace you in case of combat loss. They need to know they can handle the job if the need arises.”

  “Gee thanks. Now I'm disposable?” the Captain asked, smiling.

  “Not in so many words. But if anything should happen to you or to a member of your chain of command, I should hope the comfort of knowing someone will rise to the occasion to fill their shoes or yours and take care of the ship and crew would be a balm to you.”

  “Buttering me up now?” the Captain snorted.

  “Well, if I wanted to go that route, I would have pointed out that a fully trained crew is a mark of esteem and a career enhancer.”

  “Now you are buttering me up!” the Captain laughed, sitting back and shaking her head. “And all this testing, training, I thought for a while it was to get everyone on the same page, to work out the kinks... but there's always something else to it isn't there?”

  “Yes Captain,” the AI replied. “Sometimes people get too full of themselves the higher they go. I believe the saying is called having a power trip. Spotting them and providing corrective behavior modifiers is part of the job.”

  Mayweather smiled. “And you think I've had a power trip?”

  “Not as bad as some of your subordinates,” Firefly responded. “I've done my best to curb them when I see them pop up. A few still slip up. They are learning on the job after all. The best thing to do is to humble them a little every now and again. Keep them honest,” the AI responded.

  Mayweather thought about that, cocking her head slightly. She remembered Harris, how much of an ass he was. How much of a pompous ass he still was. Finally she nodded and smiled slightly. “Well, the next time you have a recreant miscreant, do clue me in. I'd love to drop by uninvited at the right time to jerk them up by the short hairs.”

  The AI sniffed. “I believe you'd would love to do that. Perverse being that you are,” he responded.

  “Ah, you know me so well,” the Captain chuckled.

  “Is that all?” the AI asked.

  Mayweather smiled and picked her coffee cup up. “For now.”

  “Very well. Have a good evening Captain,” the AI responded as his image disappeared.

  Chapter 5

  “I think we're getting the hang of this,” the Captain quipped, signing off on a logistics report with a flourish.

  “I should hope so, it's only been what? Two years?” Commander Logan replied, taking her tablet.

  “It's not nice to poke fun at the obvious Commander,” the Captain said with mock angst. Shelby snorted softly, scanning the document quickly with a practiced eye.

  “Was it always this way?” Captain Mayweather asked, turning to the AI avatar. “Commander?”

  “Oh? Sorry Captain, and no, it wasn't. At least not for me.”

  “Oh?”

  “You have to excuse me, for me this too is a learning experience. I was constructed during the Xeno war, so I never knew peacetime. So I am learning a lot.”

  “So no nostalgia?”

  “Nostalgia for me would be remembering the actual battle damage and casualties, not simulating them Captain,” Firefly replied. The Captain hesitated ever so slightly. The AI shrugged. “Like I said, this is new. For instance, having enough warm bodies alone is a new thing to me.”

  “Warm bodies... you mean people? Crew?”

  “Yes. This is the first time in memory that I am not only at establishment but actually over establishment. Usually that happened when we took on evacuees from another ship, station, or planet. It was always temporary and they weren't considered crew. This is... it takes some getting used to.”

  “Ah,” the Captain said and then nodded turning to the exec as she finished with the tablet. “I see,” she said, smiling ever so slightly. “We good?”

  “We, meaning you, are good. Yes ma'am. You managed to sign on the dotted line, dotted every I, and crossed every T.”

  “Shucks. Well, there's always next time,” the Captain teased with a wicked smile. The exec snorted, tucking the tablet under one arm. A yeoman cleared his throat and she turned, saw his expectant hand out and she sheepishly handed the device over to him.

  They turned to see the yeoman give the report a look over with a critical eye. Suddenly Mayweather was taken back to when she had been a child on the Carib Queen, under her tutor's no nonsense gaze. It was a little humbling.

  The yeoman nodded, clipped his heels together, nodded and then left them.

  “Dismissed,” Shelby murmured. “Or at least we are,” she said, turning an eye to the Captain. “Do you ever get the feeling we're just for show? That the noncoms are really running the show and they let us play with the toys only if we've eaten all our supper and done our homework?”

  The Captain's lips quivered as she fought a smile. She snorted, shaking her head. “Something like that,” she said, not at all surprised that Shelby had the same feelings she had just had. They had come a long ways, connecting into an effective command team. Each had their own area of expertise, hers on the Carib Queen, the exec's as an assistant engineering Chief on Anvil and later as Chief engineer on Firefly.

  “How are we on the watch bills?” she asked. They had been having trouble getting Janice to step up to the plate and take responsibility of the bridge as a bridge officer. The same went for Sam, their last Communication's officer. That had changed however.

  A part of being an officer, at least a junior bridge officer, was to garner time in the hot seat. To some it was a way to prove how reliable they were. For others it was a chance at being in command of a warship, a heady rush. Of course when the weight really settled, and the implications of being responsible if something went wrong hit, they weren't so eager to put their head in the noose. Or at least were a lot more aware of the consequences to their own careers.

  One of the real reasons for the junior officers to carry the watch was to help them build the self confidence and ship handling skills they would need when they really were the Captain or executive officer. Which for some was soon once the new ships were launched for their builders trials.

  “It looks like things have settled down Captain. No recent changes, or need to shake things up.”

  “Good,” the Captain replied with a nod. “Glad that's done.”

  “For now at least,” the AI replied.

  “It's not nice to pop a ladies dream of smooth sailing,” the Captain said, mock withering.

&
nbsp; “Sorry Captain, just how things go.”

  “Pessimist.”

  “Realist actually,” the AI replied, not rising to her bait. “And as I was saying, we are over establishment. So, once construction get's back underway, I have a feeling we'll be poached.”

  “Oh? That sounds depressing?”

  “Well, it's to be expected. We're actually overdue,” Firefly replied.

  “True. It doesn't mean I have to like breaking in new people though,” the Captain sighed. “Just when you get them trained up right, get them to learn to lace their shoes and wipe their own noses, they up and leave you.”

  “It's all a part of growing up Captain,” Firefly replied.

  The Captain turned to her exec. “Does that mean you will be leaving the nest soon I suppose?”

  Shelby shook her head. “Not if I can help it Captain.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dad... excuse me, Commander Logan doesn't have my command, or should I say, my future command ready. Yet.”

  “Ah. Prometheus?” Mayweather asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Exactly. She may not be a warship, but with my background, she's right up my alley. I'm looking forward to playing with her... as soon as we get all her toys installed that is.”

  “It's going to be a long wait Commander. You do realize others may pass you by right?”

  Shelby shrugged. “It's not a race. At least not for me,” she said. “Besides, some people still need looking after,” she said with a smile to her Captain.

  The Captain gave her a mock glower for a moment then snorted. “Funny. Really funny.”

  “I really think we've got the shifts sorted out.”

  “Oh you do? I for one am not so sure about having five shifts,” the Captain replied.

  The watch bills were broken into five shifts, each manned by a junior officer. Department heads like the Captain, XO, Chief Engineer, and Chief doctor were usually standoff. They were considered always on duty, something they had come to learn over the past several years. They had eased out of the hot seat, handing over the watch to those who needed the confidence and polish and seat time.

  Watches were for every department, from the bridge to main engineering and each of the power and engine rooms. Since many junior officers, fresh from the academy or college lacked field experience, their seniors usually sat in the background and did paperwork on quiet shifts. That let the juniors do the grunt work while having wiser heads to fall back on if something went wrong.

  Still, it took them a while to truly understand that the watches weren't for them to garner glory or to shine apples for teacher, but to gain necessary seasoning and polishing. Many still hadn't come to realize that Firefly critiqued their performance after each shift for later review.

  The AI Firefly scheduled his own downtime during the graveyard in order to process information from his temporary memory buffers. Artificial intelligences needed downtime just like organics in order to process the information of the day into their long term memory. Sometimes they took time during quiet periods to process the load, the equivalent of a nap, but it was never quite enough to do the job properly.

  The five bridge shifts were run by a different officer for each watch. Four of them were manned by organics, the last by Firefly. The shift commanders, or Officers Of the Deck as they were called were the Senior Communications Officer, Senior Tactical Officer, Astronavigator, and Junior Tactical officer. The JTO was the defensive officer of the ship.

  Since tactical officers had double duty they were considered the fast track to promotion, building up time on their service records for time as Officer Of the deck or OOD.

  First shift was handled by First Lieutenant Purple Thorn, the Senior Tactical officer, or tac witch. She was a veteran spacer, she didn't need looking after despite her diminutive size. Some people did tend to forget she was in a seat though, twice she had nearly been sat on. The Captain had lovingly given her a hat pin for the next possible occurrence.

  Purple Thorn had served with the Captain on smaller commands before transferring in a year ago. She had settled in, even though her Captain still twitted her about her size and dueled for the tac witch title on a daily basis. Since she was the most reliable junior bridge officer, Firefly had rescheduled his downtime to coincide with her shift. She had teased the AI about missing out on her tactical sims, but he hadn't risen to the bait. Unfortunately for the elf, the Captain occasionally did. Not that the bruised ego either of them occasionally had after such match ups ever was a deterrent to keep the other from razzing them about a loss. Usually the loser went out of her way for revenge, and usually, she succeeded.

  First Lieutenant Janice Lu was also an old friend of the Captain, having come from Carib queen as well. She had taken second watch under protest. Janice had been set in her ways, preferring to be just a helms-woman for much of the first year on the ship. The Captain had coaxed her out of her shell, or kicked her out kicking and screaming, opinions differed on that point. She had passed the junior officer exam as well as the hypernavigator correspondence course and test. She had been nervous about manning the bridge for some time and had taken time to settle into the harness.

  She resented leaving the helm department to the greenhorn Coxswain Roman, he was a good lad, but she missed Jesse. Jesse had moved on to Fuentes and was now an Ensign.

  Third shift was split into two dog watches. Each dog watch was half the watch. The JTO Ensign Tr'j'ck a Veraxin, served as the first half, Firefly served as OOD for the second dog watch. Each dog watch allowed the crew time to eat dinner as a group, a necessary bonding measure carried by tradition.

  And finally, Ensign Ray Sampson the Senior Communication's officer manned the graveyard watch. For a communication's officer he was sometimes a surly taciturn officer, uncommunicative from time to time. It had taken some time to find out why, his abysmal tactical scores had forced him into a career track not of his liking. The Captain had taken some time to try to work with the man, but he was a bit hopeless in sims. That didn't help her mental opinion of him if things ever went south and he was in charge of her bridge when it did. However he was old for his rank, having worked in communications on the Krensha colony for over two decades before taking a commission. He also didn't scare easy, he kept a cool head even when things went south.

  Each department had juniors and each major installation had its own watch bills to manage. Engineering was the largest department, with watches in the drive rooms, power rooms, and other installations. They even had small craft crews in the various boat bays, attending to the shuttles, fighters, and other craft there.

  “So we're good?” the Captain asked, taking her seat and rubbing her arm rests as the chair molded to her body and her displays rearranged themselves around her to her liking.

  “It looks that way. At least for now Captain,” Shelby replied, standing at her side.

  “Good,” the Captain murmured softly. “Good.” She smiled and picked up a second tablet from the pouch on the right side of her chair. “Then by any chance, would you know what this is?”

  Shelby frowned, looking over her shoulder. “I hope you don't mind me pointing out the obvious Captain, but to me it looks like a tablet.”

  “Cute.”

  “I think someone left it there.”

  “Ah, I see,” the Captain said. She knew that her XO knew that the reports were in the ship's cloud, so the tablet was just a tool to access them. She liked the things, after growing up without implants they were a lot easier to use than implants, but she still couldn't resist twittering her crew over having so many of them.

  Captain Mayweather came from a small ship, originally XO under her sister on the Carib Queen, she had been abandoned when her sister had left her, Janice, and two dozen others on Anvil in order to run from the pirates.

  Renne had signed on with the admiral as a tactical officer, impressing him and others, like then Lieutenant Harris, with her skills. Due to her beginnings though, she hadn't been fully tru
sted so she had been taken on as tactical officer and XO under Commander Logan on the corvette Sun-Yat when they recovered her, and then the Captain of Maya with then Ensign Naomi as her Chief engineer.

  Frigates, Corvettes, and gunships had tiny crews, with few officers, so each officer manned a watch. It had taken Mayweather months to get used to not needing to man a watch, to allow her juniors to take the watch and just supervise. Sometimes she wondered about their people, they seemed to be making it up as they went along. Sure they were getting some things right, but sometimes not. But they always did correct things; or fiddle with things that didn't need correcting. That tended to be even more aggravating.

  In a lot of ways they were learning the hard way. For instance, the watch, and protocol of the watch. Some of her senior people were just as green as her junior officers. They desperately needed the seasoning too.

  She had taken to doing paperwork on the communication's watch. She let the communication's officer to the grunt work of managing it, while she stayed in the background and tried to not look like she was looking over his shoulder. It wasn't that she didn't trust the lad, it... no, hang it, she had to be honest with herself, it was because she didn't fully trust him. He was in charge of a massive warship and he was nineteen with a year's training at the college. He may be a spacer, but he'd never been on a ship until his middy cruise. He'd been wrapped in bubble wrap the better part of his life, stuck in day care for the first half of it.

  Which was another thing that bugged her. Midshipman. She had four of the snotnoses. Twice a year, a class of sixty or so graduated from the college. They had settled on a two year course load for now, so those who hadn't gotten the full benefit of the class load were either SOL or were trying to make it up with correspondence classes. Even when the kids passed the two year college course they still had a year of practical sailing to get under their belts, and while doing that they were expected to take and pass correspondence classes as well. Mayweather hadn't seen the latest numbers, but something like fifteen or sixteen percent washed out before they made Ensign, finding the job just too tough. Those that made it through the gauntlet would hopefully move on to other ships and postings.