Jacob frowned, but returned the salute. “Thank you, Ensign Knowles.” The ensign extended a small package, which Jacob accepted. When the ensign had retreated, Jacob sighed and glanced at Isaac. “Looks like it’s back to the grind. Take care of yourself.”
“Of course! Laurie would never forgive me otherwise.” Isaac strode away with a wave and a grin, leaving Jacob standing in the corridor. Then he made his way to his office.
The Terrier had been modified compared to the Wolfhound’s plan in order to accommodate the need to house the squadron captain. Where the commander’s office and suite had been located in the Wolfhound, Jacob had found space carved out for his own duties and living space. Commander Flint’s quarters and office had been squeezed in a bit further back, cramping the cargo holds by necessity.
Still, it was comfortable to have his working space in the same spot where he had spent so much time on Wolfhound. Jacob nodded to the Marine on guard duty outside the office, and slid the door closed. Turning, Jacob glanced around to reassure himself that no one had intruded in his absence. Just as the late Commander Rogers had, Jacob chose to keep his office sparsely decorated. A clean, mostly empty desk took up most of the room. Four small chairs were grouped close to the front of the desk, while his chair was squeezed in behind it. A computer and hologram projection unit had been built into the desk, allowing him to access both his data for work and project the various maneuvers his flotilla was assigned by their orders.
Scrunched into the right hand corner was a small, securely locked data storage unit. The sheer durability of the unit, when it had been explained to him, was a testament to the determination of the Navy to guarantee the sanctity of their orders and information. A smug-sounding technician had informed Jacob that without the proper codes, a direct hit from a railgun shell would be needed just to open the unit, let alone access the information. He had been skeptical of the claim, at least until Isaac told him the thing was uncrackable. If Isaac couldn’t hack it, no one could.
Unlike the old office he had used on the Wolfhound, this one was meant for him and not simply surrendered to him in a time of emergency. As a result, he felt more comfortable supplying a bit more of a personal touch. A moderately-sized portrait of his family hung against the wall near the doorway; it was brief snapshot from a family reunion two years before the accident that had claimed his parents. It showed a great mass of cousins in a giant, collapsed human pyramid. The trio of siblings in his father’s extended family stood aside from the chaos with their spouses, all three couples looking on with bright smiles. He could pick out a younger, less moody version of himself, along with a disgruntled Catherine, his sister. Jacob found, as Rogers must have, that a picture of home was a good reminder of why he was serving in his current post. During hard times—particularly when having to deal with recalcitrant underlings or frustrating superiors—it was a reminder he sorely needed.
Another picture, this one of the Wolfhound, decorated the wall behind Jacob’s chair. It was not a pleasant scene, but it was one that gave him an important memory. A newscaster’s picture had been taken when the Celostian destroyer had made the assisted riftjump back to the nearest naval dockyard after the Battle of Reefhome. The Wolfhound had not been in good shape. With hundreds dead from its original crew and a bridge only accessible via extravehicular suits, the ship had taken a brutal beating. Holes and tears in the hull were visible even at the distance the newscaster’s ship had been forced to wait. Each one of those gaps represented another sacrifice by the crew who had followed Jacob against the Telosian pirates under Admiral Dianton, and every time he looked at that photograph, he remembered how lucky he was simply to have survived such an experience.
Not that he always felt like it. He sighed, shimmied his way past the edges of the desk, and fell into his seat with an undignified plop. Jacob shook out the contents of the small package the ensign had given him into his hand. It a small record drive, the standard method of transferring data when an officer did not want the details floating across the shipwide network. Jacob inserted the drive in his projector and sat back as the unit warmed up.
When the projector activated, he saw the face of High Admiral Alan Nivrosky, Leon’s father and the commander of the entire Celostian Navy. Surprise went through Jacob’s mind, followed quickly by worry. The commander of the Navy did not typically need to contact a very junior flotilla captain out of the blue—not unless something very admirable or very stupid had been done. Given the reports Upshaw had to be feeding him, Jacob doubted that Nivrosky had called to congratulate him on his victory.
As usual, the High Admiral did not waste any time with small talk. When he spoke, his voice was firm and unyielding. “Captain Hull, this is High Admiral Nivrosky. Squadron 43 is temporarily relieved of patrol duties. You are ordered to rendezvous with the Badger and her escorts as soon as possible. Collect Captain Espinoza, Commander Kenning and Captain Upshaw from Tiredel before you leave the system and bring them with you. Once you return to the command group, you will join the rest of the commanding officers on board the Badger for a planning conference regarding our future deployments along the Oduran-Celostian border.” The High Admiral paused. “It is my hope that this message finds you and the ships of your flotilla in good health. Execute these orders immediately and with all haste. High Admiral Alan Nivrosky, out.”
The image vanished, and Jacob shook his head slowly. Though Nivrosky had not said anything specific to the last mission, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was being summoned back to the command group in order to be relieved of command. There were plenty of officers that would have rejoiced at the downfall of a young upstart in their ranks, especially one who seemed predisposed to drawing enemy fire and treating the more senior officers with less deference than they seemed to expect. Given the attitudes of both Commander Flint and Captain Upshaw, it would not have surprised Jacob if he was shuffled off the Terrier to some backwards post far from enemy lines.
Still, he would have expected such a message to arrive a bit more directly. The High Admiral was known for many things, but not his lack of direct speech. If Nivrosky had meant to relieve him of command, he would have said so. Further, if a captain was the only person being transferred, it would have made more sense just to send a courier boat or a shuttle instead of pulling two functional destroyers off the front lines.
It had to be something else. Maybe the squadron was being reassigned to a rear area, or the crews were being rotated back on leave. Those options made sense, but Nivrosky had mentioned patrols along the border, and the High Admiral would not have mentioned that detail without a purpose in mind.
Jacob shook his head and pushed his seat back. There would be plenty of time left to worry about it. By what he remembered of Badger’s last position, it was at least a few systems away. He could endure the uncertainty of the situation until then. At the very least he wouldn’t be waiting for a pirate fleet to jump in on top of them. The thought brought a smile across his face, at least until he remembered Captain Upshaw would be along for the entirety of the journey.
Suddenly the pirates seemed like a much less of a problem to face than the journey ahead.
Jacob stood in the hallway outside the skiff hangar, waiting for the smaller ship to return with its passengers. He’d instructed Lieutenant Phong to make the journey as quickly as possible, but the skiff could only maneuver so fast through the traffic around Tiredel. Not that there was much of that, currently. Between the increasing strikes from the Oduran military and the challenges of Tiredel’s own environment, people were quickly deciding to take their travel and their business elsewhere.
Tiredel had required very little in the way of terraforming to accommodate humans, which was part of the reason why it had been settled in the first place. The earliest Celostian colonists had not had the time or the resources to make many changes in the places they had found to live, and as a result they had begun their colony without many of the advantages later systems enjoyed.
The first obstacle Tiredel faced was the distance from its star. Unlike Earth, that ancient, lost home of humanity, Tiredel orbited just slightly too far away from its sun, leaving it much colder than the typical human preferred. While Tiredel was not an ice world by any means, the climate did cause extra hardships for those attempting to start a new life there. Permafrost encroached constantly on the water stores, and only the use of prohibitive amounts of fuel provided enough heat for the habitation domes on the three settled continents. Winters were famously abominable and known throughout the Union. If a first date with a girl had been as cold as a Tiredel night, there would not be a second one.
Such cold did not compare well with the other worlds, even only those in the Rhesium Seating of the Union. Prospective immigrants were often lured away from Tiredel by the inviting shores and beaches at Benjamin or the lush green forests of Dredoski. Though the Union maintained a sturdy foothold of fifty million people on the cold world, Tiredel remained overlooked by most citizens seeking a new home.
The true problem for continued expansion was not just temperature. Tiredel was one of the closest Celostian settlements to the border with the Oduran League, which meant that it formed part of the Union’s border with the Frontier. While Tiredel was not alone on the border, the Odurans attacked frequently enough that it frightened away many prospective settlers. The prospect of being killed or enslaved by Oduran raiders discouraged trade as well, leaving the border planet remarkably isolated. Only trade with the various spacers along the frontier had saved the small settlements from total abandonment, and even then, things looked grim for Tiredel’s future.
There were some, however, who had decided to come and make the world their own. Those brave few had not been disappointed by their opportunities. Valuable ore deposits on Tiredel gave rise to plenty of industries, most importantly an orbiting repair yard where Navy ships could dock and patch battle damage. A large series of biomanufacturing plants had also been constructed; their structures were buried deep underground to escape the cold. They utilized the unusual biologic makeup of the local fauna—specifically, a unique bacteria that worked astonishingly well as a symbiote with most bioengineered industrial organisms—to make everything from nema treatments to the nanofibers that went into cerrafiber armor plates.
Such industries had helped motivate the Navy to maintain a small base on Tiredel’s surface as well, mostly to coordinate with the local government and to arrange for supplies to be sent up to the Navy docks. An assignment to that post was not coveted by most officers in the Navy. For a brief instant, as the skiff maneuvered into the Terrier’s hold, Jacob wondered what Upshaw had done to be banished there. Then he shrugged aside the thought and went to greet the arriving officers.
Upshaw’s escape from the cold had not improved his disposition. He stepped off the shuttle and into the Terrier’s hold, contempt and disgust plain on his face. Jacob saluted, careful to keep control of his face. Giving Upshaw any hint that the feelings were mutual would have been a bad move. “Captain Upshaw. It is good to have you aboard, sir.”
Upshaw fixed Jacob with a look that seemed caught partway between resentment and tolerance. Finally, he returned the salute. “It is good to finally be aboard, Captain Hull. Were you delayed in coming? I expected you at least a day ago.”
Jacob tried to suppress a grimace. “The Beagle sustained a small amount of damage in the last skirmish impaired her dark energy sail masts. We had to wait so Commander Nivrosky could affect appropriate repairs.”
The other captain raised his eyebrow. “So you’re saying it’s Commander Nivrosky’s fault you were late?”
“No, sir.” He barely kept from clenching his teeth as he continued. “I was merely explaining the reasons for our delay. Commander Nivrosky is not responsible for damage the Odurans managed to inflict on his ship, and by any means he was following my orders.”
Upshaw leaned in, eyes glittering. “So the delay is your responsibility, then? Why does this information not surprise me?” Before Jacob could respond, the other captain swept past him and continued toward the exit. One of the three ensigns who had been waiting behind Jacob immediately fell into step alongside the man, hopefully in order to guide him to his quarters. Jacob stared after Upshaw as he struggled to restrain his retort, and then turned to greet the next officer.
Captain Dorothy Espinoza stood slightly smaller than Jacob. Her blond hair bore traces of gray, and her cherubic face could have been called matronly had her eyes not shown a sharp, hard gaze worthy of a sniper. She saluted, and Jacob returned the gesture. “Captain Hull. Permission to come aboard.”
“Permission granted, Captain Espinoza. Glad to have you aboard.” Espinoza inclined her head slightly at the comment and continued past him. Jacob had not expected much of a reaction. Espinoza had quite the reputation as a cold and calculating commanding officer. Her last command before her transfer to the command center on Tiredel had been the CNS Carlos, a Crown-class cruiser. She had fought well during numerous campaigns against the Odurans until the cruiser was destroyed in the last engagements near Rigannin. It looked as if Central Command had found a place for her again at last after her likely interminable post on the frozen world below.
Jacob turned to the doorway to greet the last of the officers. He had not heard much about Commander Kenning. Apparently a rising star within the ranks of the Celostian Navy, he had inspired plenty of admiration from members of the crew, though Jacob had not heard what portions of Admiral Nivrosky’s campaign Kenning had participated in. The officer who stepped through the portal did fit the description Jacob had been given. A little taller than Jacob, he had piercing grey eyes and jet black hair. His uniform was sharply tailored, and he snapped to attention with a precision that would have inspired envy in even the most well disciplined of officers. “Commander David Kenning reporting for duty, sir.”
Jacob returned the salute. Beside Kenning’s gesture it seemed sloppy. “Welcome aboard, Commander.” The other officer relaxed to a more informal pose, but remained in a posture that radiated self-confidence and command. He did not seem inclined to leave; instead he studied Jacob with a thoughtful expression. Jacob nodded toward the last remaining ensign. “Ensign Purbeck will be escorting you to your quarters.”
“Thank you very much, sir.” Kenning smiled. He still didn’t move. “If it is not too forward sir, may I talk with you later? I have heard a lot about your experiences fighting the Telosians, and I would love to learn more about how you so brilliantly succeeded against them.”
Jacob blinked. He had encountered more than his fair share of people interested in his adventures—though some would probably label them misadventures—when the Wolfhound had been cut off from the rest of the fleet. Everyone from reporters to enlisted crewmen to ensigns had wanted to hear about how he had survived the near disaster of his first cruiser. Kenning seemed to be the first among the command level officers to share that interest though, and he had not expected that at all.
He fumbled for a response for a moment before he managed to get the words out. “I would be glad to speak with you, Commander. For now, I will let you get adjusted to your quarters.” Kenning’s smile grew wider and he nodded enthusiastically. He finally strode away, his step energetic and his expression enthused.
Jacob watched him for a while, wondering what creative way Commander Kenning would come up with to complicate his life, then looked back toward the shuttle which had brought them all. The lieutenant who had flown the ship glanced at him, and Jacob waved a short farewell before he turned to leave. There was plenty to do before they made the riftjump to Melessa, and Upshaw was now onboard to pounce on any mistakes. Better to give him nothing to whine about than to bear his incessant complaints.
Chapter Three
“So what do you think of the Navy’s rising star, Captain Hull?” Laurie sounded amused, even through the speaker. Jacob’s projection unit could have showed him an image of his Academy friend, but there was no camera on Laurie’
s end. Besides, Jacob was accustomed to using audio-only channels from his childhood. He sighed and leaned back to consider the answer to her question. His office was probably a private enough location to discuss matters like this one, but he still couldn’t escape the feeling that he was being watched.
Kenning’s popularity with the crew and the sterling reputation the other officers had built made blunt honesty awkward in this case, even with an old Academy friend like Laurie. Jacob tried to be diplomatic. “He’s very eager to please. Very friendly.”
Laurie broke into a laugh. “So I’ve heard. Did he corner you and try to get you to trade old war stories?” Jacob grunted, and Laurie settled down. “That’s kind of typical of him. The man has an extraordinary gift for making most people feel comfortable.” She chuckled again. “I should have known you would be immune to his charms, Hull.”
Jacob glared at the speaker, as if he could somehow make his displeasure felt even through the audio. “And what is that supposed to mean? I can make conversation well enough.”
Laurie chuckled a bit more before she answered. “Oh of course, Captain Hull. I would never imply that you couldn’t.” Then she sighed. “I was just thinking that he probably found you a bit more businesslike than he expected. Your reputation as a maverick probably convinced him that you would be one of those blustery war horses that would want to relive their glory days.”
He snorted. “My glory days? I’m not quite that old, Laurie. I’m not even the married one.”
“Oooh, a hit.” She snorted. “Kenning’s not the type to recognize that sort of thing. The concept of a superior officer he can’t sidle up to with idle chatter and an attentive ear must confuse him. He worked in Intelligence, so whatever Nivrosky’s got waiting for him will be his first combat command. I guess he could be looking for advice from someone who’s weathered it.” Jacob could almost hear her shrug. “Or maybe he’s just a social climber who hasn’t realized what a real Navy post means. You would probably know better than me.”
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