Starfarer's Dream (Kinsella Universe Book 4)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  His mind flashed back a few minutes. He’d introduced himself... and somehow, she had not. His mouth! He’d asked her what ship, and thus allowed her to change the subject.

  “Ma’am?” The voice was the heretofore silent Marine corporal, interrupting Johnny. “Captain Hollorith asks if 1630 is still the scheduled time for the shuttle?”

  “Affirm,” the lieutenant replied confidently, without a second’s hesitation.

  Johnny noticed that and a couple of other things. First and foremost, the Marine had been -- cordial -- and his captain was asking. Marines were not, normally, cordial towards Fleet. And Marine captains almost never asked anything politely of a Fleet lieutenant. Chew them out, maybe, but they did not ask diffidently. And just how had this Marine’s captain asked the corporal here anything? The other hadn’t touched his phone!

  Lieutenant Morrison came out of the other room, grinning. He gestured at the oldest of the three remaining lieutenants who straightened his uniform and marched forward.

  Johnny contemplated several things; not the least was that he wasn’t doing nearly as well with the lieutenant as he had on the exam. “Would you like to go out to dinner with me?” he asked suddenly.

  For a change the expression on the young lieutenant’s face altered. Mirth. “I can’t. But if you’d like dinner with me, come aboard Warlock tonight at 1900 hours. Ask for Lieutenant Wolf. It will be a duty dinner.”

  One of the best things about the replacement pool was that Johnnie’s time was pretty much free. “I’ll be there. Your ship is at Maunalua?”

  “Currently,” her reply was laconic. “And we will be there tonight at 1900. After that... I can’t say.”

  “I’ll be there,” Johnny told her. She had just told him that later could well be too late.

  “Wear dress uniform,” she told him, just as the youngest male lieutenant came back after a very short time and sat down, without a word, simply motioning the last young woman lieutenant to go in.

  When the door closed behind her, the older male lieutenant shook his head and said, “I thought this was my heart’s desire! Instead...” his voice trailed off. The rest of them were silent, even when shortly later the young woman came out of the room and the remaining lieutenant went in.

  After he returned the last two ensigns went very quickly.

  At the end, the board president came out, followed by the other board officers.

  “Stand at attention, if you would,” she told them.

  They all stood at attention.

  “Lieutenant of the Fleet, Willow Wolf. 99.99%.”

  Admiral Fletcher came and stood in front of the young lieutenant and saluted. “My very great honor, Lieutenant,” he said as he handed her her certificate.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The admiral commanding the Fleet leaned close and kissed her on both cheeks, and then stepped back and saluted her.

  “Lieutenant of the Fleet, John Montezuma. 99.98%.”

  The admiral handed Johnny his piece of parchment and then saluted him. “Congratulations, Lieutenant.” No kisses; just brusque business, a salute nonetheless.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Lieutenants of the Fleet Terry Morrison, Bethany Booth, David Zinder, and Robert Shannon. 99.98%.”

  More sheets of parchment and more congratulations and then he announced, “In addition, two ensigns with outstanding marks -- 91.6% and 91.2%.”

  Johnnie wanted to laugh. Oh yeah! Outstanding marks, which would normally be true. Except everyone else is over ninety-nine percent, but you’ve done well with just over ninety-one percent!

  Admiral Fletched continued brisk. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are dismissed.” One last salute, and the ensigns and Johnny filed from the room, leaving behind Lieutenant Wolf and the other four lieutenants who Johnny had come to associate with her.

  Johnny walked slowly, trying not to be obvious about his curiosity. The lieutenant who had done better than everyone except Johnny emerged with her captain and the Marine corporal, trailed by the others and headed up, rather than downstairs. There was almost certainly a jitney pad on the roof, Johnny realized.

  He walked faster, knowing he’d have to wait until evening to talk to her again. He ended up waiting for a jitney bus outside, one of the young female ensigns waited with him.

  “Ensign.” The other looked at him. “I know this makes me sound stupid, but could you tell me what it is when Admiral Fletcher kissed that lieutenant on the cheek and said, ‘My honor?’”

  The other looked Johnny up and down. “Are you reserve?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “It’s an Academy thing, mainly. Technically, contra-reg. Except that in the Fleet, contra-reg isn’t always as bad as it sounds.”

  “I figured.”

  The woman gestured towards the ship basin. “Do you know what a rabbi is?” Johnny shook his head.

  “Another word for that is mentor, although rabbi is the more colloquial term. It is a senior officer who is looking out for a junior officer’s career. Helping them along and making sure that they don’t get worthless assignments. They give them little bits and pieces of advice along the way as well.

  “It’s damn all hard to get far in the Fleet even with the extra boost.” The young woman gestured back towards the building. “I don’t know what she did, but she sure as hell impressed those officers! Christ, having Ernie Fletcher as your rabbi! If she doesn’t screw up, she’ll be an admiral for sure! And she won’t get her star for her retirement cruise, either.”

  Johnny wasn’t sure if he should say it, and decided that he should. “You know what Battle Stars and Death Stars are?”

  A jitney pulled up, and they boarded and sat down. “The new awards. That one captain had them. God, he must be good!”

  “Yeah,” Johnny said. “That lieutenant? She has four Death Stars and five Battle Stars. And a couple of others; she was wounded as well.”

  The Academy ensign’s face froze for a moment, and then she expelled a long breath. “Wow!” she said softly.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” she told Johnny, and then she added, “that makes me feel better; she isn’t Academy. It hurts like hell to see someone who didn’t have to go through what we had to, getting a leg up on those of us who did. Unless, of course, you deserve the leg up.” She looked at Johnny. “No offense intended, Lieutenant.”

  “I’d been wondering,” Johnny told the ensign with a grin. “I’ve been afraid regulars would dump on me; it hasn’t happened. I was beginning to think you all were really nice people after all.”

  The ensign grinned. “Tam Farmer, once of Ganymede, now the Fleet’s.”

  “Johnny Montezuma, once the best navigator of the Castle Line, entertaining all of those beautiful young women traveling first class into deep space. Now, look at me! A prince of the replacement pool!” They shook hands.

  “Me too,” the young ensign from the exam said. “Hurry up and graduate nine months early from the Academy, and now I've parked my sorry bottom as a replacement for three weeks. Probably Port has my paperwork, but maybe it’s still in BuPer’s hands! I do what I have to do. At least I was told that I’m a lieutenant, as of 1600 hours today.”

  III

  Bill Travers shook Willow’s hand. “Outstanding, Lieutenant!”

  “We had a good review. One of the other officers taking the exam asked me which ship I belonged to now. I hope it’s okay that I told him, even if I’ve never been aboard until now.”

  “Of course.”

  “He is coming to dinner tonight.”

  Captain Travers studied her for a moment. “It’s not nice to tease people, Willow.”

  She ignored him. “He is a replacement, and he’s looking for a ship. He nearly beat me on the watch-standing exam.”

  Bill nodded. “If you want him aboard, that’s your choice, Willow. You do understand that our likelihood of long term survival is close to zero? That you’ll be doing the young man no particular favor?”


  “Our chances are close to zero, Captain, but not zero.”

  “We’ve been tasked for something Admiral Fletcher is calling ‘The Picket Force.’ It’s Fleet’s belief that the aliens have outposts not only in our inhabited systems, but in the uninhabited systems close to the solar system. It will be our duty to emplace observation stations to alert us of risks in such systems. To make sure that our enemies don’t try to build bases close to our planets, to support their operations inside the Federation.”

  “I understand, Captain. We talked about this earlier; I agreed with you then and I agree with you now.”

  “We’re going into harm’s way, Willow. Are you sure that’s what you want for someone?”

  Willow Wolf stared at her captain as if he had two heads. “I want to kill them all, Captain. Nothing else is important. If anyone wants to help, I’ll oblige them.”

  He grinned at her. “Oh, yes. You’re not the only one who has been promoted unexpectedly. I am now,” he brushed his fingers on the sleeve of his shipsuit, “a commodore. Warlock and six other cruisers and a half dozen cargo ships -- but not Dreamer.”

  IV

  Terry Morrison was ushered into the office of the Chief of BuPers. Terry had no idea why a rear admiral wanted to see him about what had to be a routine assignment for a mere engineering lieutenant.

  “I am Rear Admiral Vassily Litvinink,” Terry was told. “You are a full lieutenant of the Fleet. A glory hound, I hear.”

  Terry knew the phrase and reacted badly. “Sir, no, sir. The only assignment that I ever asked for was as a supernumerary engineer aboard Guam.”

  “Of course. That got you what? Two bumps? And some gongs?”

  Terry shut up.

  The Chief of the Bureau of Personnel smiled slightly. “Hateful, isn’t it, when you are accused of things that turn your stomach?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Adjust, adapt -- overcome. I am bowing to the request of any number of senior officers, Lieutenant. As of midnight last night, you are a lieutenant commander.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Terry said, stunned.

  “Sorry, I am indeed serious. You are now the chief engineer of the cruiser Black Rock. I have another surprise for you.”

  Terry grimaced, and didn’t much care what this admiral thought of him. “I can hardly wait to find out what a surprise it could be.”

  “You should. I have a named request for Lieutenant Bethany Booth to be appointed as the operations officer of the Black Rock. We’ve never had operations officers appointed before at that level.”

  “Whatever,” Terry said. Bethany Booth had impressed him with her knowledge and skills. As a human being, she came up pretty short.

  “That’s fine then. Lieutenant Booth is currently on detached duty and will be joining your ship in six hours. You’ll lift in eight hours. You won’t like your orders, but this is as real as it gets. Do your duty, Lieutenant Commander Morrison.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Terry told him without enthusiasm.

  Admiral Litvinik laughed. “For what it’s worth, I know every single officer who rated Bethany Booth as a titan and you as midget. I am amused that the only two who disagree with that characterization of her is her father and you. Relax, Commander Morrison. You have another surprise forthcoming.”

  That turned out to be the door to the admiral’s office opening and admitting a three stripe captain, one of the stripes on her wavy. She was incredibly blonde and beautiful. She was also furiously angry.

  “What’s going on, Vassily?” the woman demanded.

  “You are appointed to command Black Rock, Captain Heisenberg.”

  “I was quite content commanding Donner. After Snow Dance, I thought I’d deserve a little consideration. It isn’t very considerate to strip my ship of all of her senior command staff.”

  “You deserve consideration, Captain. The Black Rock is one of three Fleet ships that, single handedly, opposed an alien incursion and defeated the attack. You will be Rear Admiral Ibn Saud’s flag captain.”

  “Oh, great!” the woman said sarcastically. “I going to have along an admiral to hold my hand and make sure that I don’t get into trouble!”

  The BuPers admiral chuckled. “Actually, the thought was that you would be holding his hand, Captain, since he’s never had a fleet to command before and he was only captain for a month before we made him an admiral. There will be three cruisers and an assault transport in the formation.”

  “And what are our orders?”

  “You will go to Tannenbaum and there you will arrest the Port and Fleet Aloft admirals who command there, and execute them for failure to command, delay and obstruction of ships assigned to Paul Revere, failure to adequately prepare to defend Tannenbaum... As well as those two admirals, you shall execute such other officers of their staffs who played any material part in the decisions or actions of the two admirals to obstruct and delay two individual ships who were on Paul Revere and who didn't act to prepare Tannenbaum's defense.”

  The woman stared at Admiral Litvinik, her mouth agape, while Terry was equally thunderstruck.

  After a moment her face unfroze and she waved at Terry. “And who is this officer?”

  “He is Lieutenant Commander Terry Morrison, Captain Heisenberg. Black Rock’s chief engineer. Commander Morrison, this is your new CO, Captain Sophie Heisenberg.”

  Captain Heisenberg scrubbed her face with her hands, before returning the admiral’s gaze. “Is there any more good news for me?”

  “Admiral Ibn Saud asked for a particular officer to head a new operations department aboard Black Rock. She is currently engaged in a classified meeting; as soon as she is free and aboard, you are to lift for Tannenbaum, Captain. She's a full lieutenant with her Bridge Watchkeeping certificate.”

  She sniffed. “I’m supposed to salute, and say, ‘Aye, aye, Admiral?’”

  Admiral Litvinik laughed. “No, I think that’s probably not in the cards, Captain. I’ll settle for the ‘Aye, aye, Admiral.’”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” she told him and the she added, “I hope you don’t try this with my sister Irina. She has a temper.”

  “Your sister’s new slot is the XO of a cruiser squadron, under a commodore. She was much more polite than you.”

  311

  Starfarer’s Dream

  Chapter 13 -- Investigations

  I

  Bethany Booth glanced down at her shipsuit and made sure that there was nothing wrong at all, before knocking on the ornate door in front of her. After a few seconds a Fleet lieutenant appeared; she wore a red ship suit, medical corps, plus she had an aide’s aiguillettes on one shoulder.

  Bethany kept her face composed. “Lieutenant, I’m Lieutenant Bethany Booth. I have an appointment with Admiral Cloud.”

  “Please come in, Lieutenant.” The medical aide was in her late twenties; Bethany did not go anywhere near the thought that the other was a little old for her rank; if the woman was old, Bethany was a baby.

  The aide ushered Bethany inside, and nodded curtly. “If you would, Lieutenant, please follow me. The admiral is reading on the patio.”

  She led Bethany through a beautiful home, then through sliding glass doors, across a flagstone patio, towards a man sitting in a powered chair, facing away from Bethany. As beautiful as the house was, the garden beyond him was even more splendid.

  The man heard them coming, and craned to look. “Lieutenant Raeder, please, before you go, make sure that our guest has something to drink if she wishes.” The admiral gestured to Bethany; “Please, Lieutenant, at least have juice with me.”

  Bethany bobbed her head. “Apple juice, if you have it, sir.”

  The aide laughed, “We have it all. Please, Lieutenant, have a seat.”

  Bethany eyed Admiral Duncan Cloud who simply laughed and gestured at an empty chair a few feet from his own. “Please.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Bethany said quietly, sitting down.

  “You are exactly who, Lieu
tenant, and what brings you here?”

  Bethany’s eyes flicked to his face, and she paused for a moment.

  Admiral Duncan Cloud was the most famous intelligence spook the Federation had ever had. That he was on the wrong side of ninety, she’d been told to ignore. Since this had been a prearranged appointment it was inconceivable that he didn’t know who she was and what she’d had for breakfast last week.

  “Admiral, I am technically between assignments. I asked my former captain if I might have a word with you about some ideas I have.” She grinned sourly. “That request took on a life of its own. First to my father, Vice Admiral Dennis Booth, and then to Fleet Operations, and then to Fleet HQ, and then back down on your side of the tree, sir.

  “I am, sir, Fleet First Lieutenant Bethany Booth. My prior assignment was aboard Starfarer’s Dream, Captain William Travers commanding, and now I’ve been seconded to head the operations department aboard Black Rock, Rear Admiral Ibn Saud, commanding, but I’m to report aboard after I have this meeting with you. I asked for, and was granted a delay in route to talk to you, Admiral.”

  The admiral let his eyes run over Bethany, and she looked stolidly back into his eyes. “You’re one of Nagoya’s projects, are you not?” he asked, “One of his concept of the natural leaders?”

  “Admiral, I was with my father, Den...”

  “I know who your father is,” the admiral cut her off abruptly. “You said it once already. I asked who you are.”

  “Admiral, my father had been sent to New Texas to run the construction of a new habitat; we were aboard City of Manhattan, on approach to New Texas, when the aliens attacked the system. I was on the bridge of City during the attack and I made a number of personal observations of the action. Subsequently, I was ordered back to Earth aboard Guam, a Fleet transport. Guam had a severe malf as we approached New Helgoland, but we made it in. There I was assigned to Starfarer’s Dream. While aboard Starfarer’s Dream I completed a number of watch-standing certificates and was promoted twice, to my present rank. Yesterday, at Maunalua, I stood for my bridge watchkeeping exam and adequately passed.