Jethro: First to Fight

by Hechtl, Chris

  Downloads and sleep teaching made up for a lot, but for some, they only learned through experience, through doing. For some it took a long time and a few tumbles to knock the rough edges off and gain the polish of a veteran. And for some, that experience broke them. She hated it, hated seeing the kids just go under like that. She'd learned to check her helping hand, to toss them a life preserver now would do her and future commands a disservice. It was better for them and for the navy to break now, in peacetime than in combat.

  Those who had the full two year course along with the year on ship were earmarked for advanced promotion, which bothered her. Those in the much venerated tactical track doubly so. That was a problem in her eyes, they may be good on paper, but that was a classroom, this was real life. They had no common sense when it came to being on a ship, they had no seasoning. Sure they did fine in a sim, but deep down, everyone knew that a sim was just that, a sim. A simulation, as in not real. Fantasy. When it was over, it was over and you went on with life. Learning that their decisions could affect lives... including their own... that was something they had yet to learn. They had no consequence for their actions, they didn't have to tour a sickbay and look at broken bodies and try to explain how she had screwed up but still won the day.

  They were all so full of life, full of hope and promise. It was hard to try not to crush that. To crush their initiative. She'd had a couple of close calls, and she knew the XO had stepped on a few rambunctious toes.

  As the current flagship and the largest ship in active service, they usually got the lion share of each midshipman class. Also, since they had the extra space and life support, they tended to get the... shall she say, non Terrans most of the time. That was... interesting. It definitely added a different dynamic to her officer dinners.

  She frowned. She was still getting used to having a steward, of trying to deal with that. She'd come to like some traditions, but others.... others were getting on her nerves. She missed Vargess, someone she could sit down and talk with about it all, someone with, from his perspective, the experience in it all to help ease her into it. But he was off on his own ship, the destroyer Fuentes. That didn't seem fair, to her. Besides, she was horny.

  She snorted at herself and then looked down at her tablet and then away. It all sort of jumbled together after a while, all the forms. She had to read them, some were important. But a lot of it was signing off on inspection reports or logistics reports, that sort of thing. Tedious. She'd love to give her yeoman carte-blanche to rubber stamp them all but she knew what sort of trouble that might bring. She looked at the clock. Janice was coming on shift soon, she needed to get some downtime during that time. Something told her that when the exercises kicked off, all hell would break loose.

  “We're as ready as we can be Captain. I've stood down as much as the crew as possible for downtime. They will need as much rest as possible,” Firefly reported.

  Mayweather grunted. “Me too,” she finally said. “I'll be in my quarters,” she got up and gave Shelby a look. The exec nodded. “I suggest you get some downtime too number one, you'll need it.”

  “If you don't mind, I'll just do a quick once over one more time before I turn in Captain,” Shelby replied. “I want to make sure there is no number two to worry about.”

  Mayweather snorted. “Cute. Carry on then,” she said with a nod as she exited the bridge.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Janice, senior navigational officer was antsy to get into hyperspace. At one point she had even considered resigning her commission in order to take a helm slot on an outgoing freighter. Only the camaraderie of being with her other Carib Queen shipmates like the Captain kept her on board. As a first Lieutenant, she was long in her rank as an officer in charge of Navigation. The Helm department was usually manned by petty officers and she knew it. Mayweather had also pointed out to her that if she didn't get off her ass she'd have someone younger and inexperienced over her shortly. The wakeup call hadn't been nice, but it had been effective. She had, on her off time, trained in Hyper-navigation and had even passed the first Lieutenant promotion's test seven weeks ago. She was currently studying for Lieutenant Commander. She had to go through her time in grade, but she'd get it done.

  The 'wetting down' party had been a blast, she was looking forward to another soon. The Marines were slow to take on the formal traditions and ceremonies, being more focused on training and their work, but apparently that was slowly changing.

  She liked it. Both services were taking on a polish, formalism yes, but every day they looked and acted like the military personnel they were. They weren't play acting as some of Governor's media supporters liked to suggest.

  She was still getting used to the responsibilities of manning a watch, but had come to realize it wasn't all that different from being a helms-woman or navigator. Both put the safety of the ship and the crew in her hands after all.

  She'd realized she wasn't at all like Lieutenant JG now Ensign Sam Halfold, also known as Halfcock for his little stunt. He had done well as a OOD for nearly a week before youthful exuberance had gotten the better of his brain. He'd gone off, half cocked as they later said, and taken the ship off course on a joy ride. At the time Firefly had scheduled his downtime to coincide with the communication's officer's watch. Since there had been no warning of his eagerness, no one had any warning he would go off mission. Fortunately it didn't make the public news.

  Half-cock as he was later nicknamed had been demoted to Ensign after a thorough ass chewing by just about everyone in the chain of command, including Commander Logan. The Ensign was now serving as a junior logistics officer in some off the wall posting and pretty much had toasted his career.

  She shook herself, getting rid of thoughts of the wayward Ensign and back to her own field. She looked over the lecture, frowning.

  She had thought the course would be a cake walk, how little she had known. Things were a lot different now than in the old days, and the new training was to the standards of the old Federation. That had been a wakeup call to her.

  For instance, the current methods for Hyper-navigation were simple. They had devolved from the actual need to calculate and plot a course of yester-year, which was what the new correspondence course had required, much to her chagrin. Now they would load a canned plot from jump point A to jump point B. Along the way there were way points, identifying natural or artificial markers in hyperspace that the computer and crew could recognize. They acted as markers, which allowed the crew to maintain their plotted course. The navigator would tie into the sensors and orient the ship on each identifying marker. They would then adjust the ship's heading and feed that to the helm as needed... with a healthy dose of luck they made it to real space in one piece, if not in good time.

  Markers could be anything from a hyperspace ripple caused by a mass in real space such as a planetary body or star system, or even a black hole. The objects mass caused space in hyperspace to bend and twist, a mass shadow as some called it. By recording these places, they had a way point. The ships of course had to have the sensor resolution to see them, so no ship moved faster than it's ship's sensors could reach.

  Places between mass shadows were where there were intense electron discharge. Electrons freed in hyperspace could be collected by the ship's hyperspace collectors, giant bussard ram scoops that used the shields to funnel free electrons to collection systems. Thus the system allowed the ship an element of free energy to power the systems on board. There was never quite enough to power all the systems totally, there is no such thing as a free lunch of course, the law of conservation of energy still applies, but it was enough to stand the power demand down on a reactor to minimal levels. The higher the band, the higher the compression and the more efficient the bussard ram scoops became.

  Unfortunately most ships now couldn't get into the higher bands, thus putting more wear on their reactors over time. Over the centuries that had caused a vicious feedback loop.

  The basic course had forced her be
yond what she had known and into the realm of actually calculating courses and plotting new more efficient ones. That had made her come to understand the foundation of hyper-navigation much more thoroughly, and therefore appreciate the course and it's challenge. When she had completed the course she had been elated that she had risen and surpassed the challenge, and then momentarily dismayed by the sight of the next hurdle.

  But knowing what she knew now, that she could handle it if she put to mind to it, whether it was manning the bridge or plotting her own course had helped settle her. She was now ready for it. Since she wanted to continue bettering herself, she'd set the goal of becoming a first Lieutenant, and now even dreamed of becoming a Lieutenant Commander! “My, if mom could see me now,” she murmured.

  Ensign Wickety looked up and over to her from the tactical chair. She waved a hand. “As you were.” she said softly. He nodded. She caught his sidelong look out of the corner of her eye before she settled back down in the Commander's chair. She smiled slightly, using a finger to scroll down on the tablet in her lap. After a moment she allowed herself to smile slightly. She had indeed changed, matured. She no longer just wanted to keep her posting, keep her head down, be a button pusher. Now that she had seen what was around her, she was for the first time interested in being something more.

  She looked up periodically, checking the other stations. Her implants showed her the basic functions of each station, their read outs like heading, weapons and power status, location, and communications as she looked at each station. She nodded, noting nothing had changed and then went back to her tablet.

  When she came to the end of lecture exercise she stopped. She realized she had been woolgathering and sighed, scrolling back up to where she had drifted off. She had to pass the advanced navigational course before she could move on. She would get there, eventually.

  Still, it would be nice for something to happen. To get back to hyperspace once more. Though, the coming exercises, they might be fun. She looked at her clock widget. Eight standard hours until the fun started.

  Chapter 6

  FARETEP Fleet exercises began with opening ceremonies and the fleet passing in review in front of the Annex in the Navy controlled portion of Pyrax space. The review wasn't broadcast, they didn't want information on the status of the fleet to get out to the Horathians. Still, it added an element of pomp and pride to those who did get to see it.

  Normally the governor would be on hand to witness it. However his invitation had arrived late and he had not had sufficient time to clear his schedule and cross the system to attend. Fortunately, Lieutenant Governor Enrique Salazar had been on hand to fill in for him.

  The ships passed the annex viewing window, with Firefly at the point of a delta formation. Fuentes was off her port, Maya off her starboard. Gunships filled in the remaining slots behind her and formed another delta behind the larger ships. Fighter squadrons also formed smaller deltas. To some it was quite impressive. To someone like Commander Logan, it was intensely annoying, they had come so far, yet had so much further to go. His yeoman nudged him. He grunted, flashing a slight frown her way before he turned to the assembly.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you know I'm not big on speeches,” Commander Logan's voice rasped over the navy network. A few smiled at that, the Commander was well known for rolling up his sleeves and diving head first into engineering projects, just like Admiral Irons had done. Both had hated paperwork, and had treated it like a necessary evil.

  “The next several weeks are going to be the closest thing we can get to combat. It is designed to test men and equipment to their breaking points. All too many will break. It is how we handle such situations and how it effects our mission that will determine who will rise to the occasion. Don't treat this as a time to goof off, this is war. War is serious business. The schedule is on its way out, I've got my work cut out for me on my own ship, so get to work. The umpires will call the first exercise shortly. Dismissed.”

  He turned from the podium and shook hands with a few of the officers on his staff as he tried to make his way to the door. As usual he didn't quite make his escape as planned. Nor did Lieutenant Commander Thornby or Lieutenant Zek. All had been cornered by media groups or visiting dignitaries like Judge Farley.

  The Fleet Armed Readiness, Exercise, Testing, and Evaluation Program was a grinder, similar to the Marine boot camp crucible in a lot of ways. It was a make or break week of testing for every ship in the fleet. Independent observers drawn from the yard as well as each ship AI would keep score.

  The ship crews had had nearly six weeks to prepare, but some were still floundering, not an auspicious start to the program. Since none had ever gone through the program before, that had been expected, but the observers didn't make or accept excuses.

  There was a bit of confusion as they got the process under way. Despite the blizzard of memos not everyone was on the same page, many people just didn't respond well to reading page after page of memos. Nor did they respond well to endless dog and pony show meetings. Some learned by doing.

  Ships who participated in the training exercising found that their duties didn't end. Ships were rotated from guard duty on the jump points to participate. Transit time had been factored in, but refueling time hadn't been, which also effected the schedule.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Firefly had an hour after the review to get to the designated coordinates of her first training exercise. Wendigo, her opponent, had beaten her there. The scenario called for an ambush, and with the delay in the ceremonies as well as the paperwork snafu, it had given the smaller ship plenty of time to find a nice place to hide in the thicket of asteroids.

  “Tricky tricky,” the Captain murmured, watching Wendigo's icon on the plot. The Neo-orangutan's were well known for subtle, some would say incredibly sneaky tricks. She was wary, trying to think and see what she had overlooked. She was fairly certain what she was looking at was a decoy, but she couldn't be certain without deploying a recon drone or fighter. Which she was expressly forbidden not to do since they couldn't afford losing them or putting excess wear on the equipment. “So what the hell am I going to do?” the Captain murmured.

  “Fight. If you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough. Officers, especially commanding officers are expected to take every advantage presented to them and then be on the look out to generate more or take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself,” Firefly responded.

  Mayweather glanced at the avatar with a cool expression. “Well, you're no help,” she said.

  The AI spread his hands. “In this case, I'm not expected to be Captain. Sorry. I'm the umpire here.”

  “Right,” the Captain replied, settling in to her seat. She rubbed her jaw and then turned to her tactical officer. “All right tac witch, any ideas?”

  “I was wondering when you would come calling Captain,” the elf replied magnanimously. “As it happens, I do. But first, I suggest we go to silent running and alter our course.”

  “Ah,” the Captain replied with a nod. “Very well, let's do that little thing,” she said.

  “Silent running. Rig for silent running. Ship is in stealth mode,” the AI said over the intercom. The lighting changed subtly, dimming and changing to a reddish hue.

  After a minute the tactical officer looked up. “Ship is in stealth mode Captain,” the elf reported.

  “Very well. Helm, alter course, oh, say ten degrees nadir. Slow to one quarter speed. Let's take the scenic route shall we?” the Captain said.

  “Aye Captain, one quarter speed, alter course ten degrees nadir,” the Coxswain said looking up.

  “And keep a look out for rocks in our path,” the Captain said.

  “Mines?” The Veraxin JTO asked in a stage whisper to his senior.

  “Possible but unlikely. I'm wondering if that is Wendigo at all. It could be a decoy.”

  “But we're not supposed to use them right?”

  “It's up to the Captain to overrule such things.
It's on her head if the decoy is lost or damaged.”

  “Ah.”

  “So where do you think Wendigo is?”

  “Anywhere and nowhere. She could be sitting right there. She could have box launchers somewhere waiting to flank us. Or she could be stealthed like we are,” the elf said. “The important thing is not to sail in fat dumb and happy.”

  The Captain eyed the two and then went back to looking at her display. She frowned, tapping at her lips with one finger before she clasped her hands together. She hated it when she looked nervous, it spooked some of the crew.

  “Captain, I recommend we over-rule the rule on no recon drones and send a few out. We can send them in ballistic with passive sensors only,” Purple Thorn said.

  “On the theory it is better to get our hands slapped for breaking the rules over getting our ship shot up and egg on our face?”

  “Something like that. We have some passive sensors that can be replicated Captain. They are cheap microsats.”

  “I wonder if Wendigo deployed a few?” the Captain mused.

  “Perhaps she did. We can't pick them up, they are plastic and hard to spot even when you know where one approximately is.”

  “Ah. And you think we can recover them?”

  “Or replace them,” the elf replied.

  The Captain tapped her jaw, hiding a grimace. “Very well, do it. Kick them out, at least one along our original flight path, no, make it two.”

  “Two?” the elf asked, tapping at her controls.

  “Two. One facing forward, the other to the stern.”

  “Ah,” the elf replied with a blink. “I see.”

  “Right. Helm, take us another fifteen degrees to port. Plot a course to bring us to the flank of that ship's current location.”