by B. V. Larson
“Florida class?” he asked. “This ship doesn’t have a class, really, she’s the only one we’ve got.”
I almost rolled my eyes, but I managed to stop myself. “I’m a Navy man, sir,” I said. “Ships have classes. In the Air Force, I know you guys like letters and numbers, but names are better for large vessels. We’re making rapid advances, so we need a way to distinguish this design from others. We need to give her a class, and then we need to name her something with human appeal.”
He heaved a sigh and grumbled.
“Devilfish,” he said thoughtfully. “I like that one.”
“That’s at the bottom of the list,” I complained. “Smaller ships get names like that—Devilfish would be good for a phase-ship, maybe.”
“All right then, dammit. What’s your name? Just tell me.”
“It’s right there in bold at the top.”
“Naples? Are you kidding me?”
“It’s a city in Florida, sir. Florida class, Florida—”
“I get it. The problem is, Blake, it sucks. Did your ghost Godwin give you that stinker?”
“No sir…”
“Starship Naples… people will think the Italians built it. That’s a no-go.”
Crossing my arms, I leaned back. “Okay then. What do we call her?”
He tapped the screen firmly. A word jumped up.
“Devilfish,” he said. “That’s the name. Take it, or shove it, and we’ll go with SCL-1.”
With a sigh, I nodded. I felt naval traditions were being violated, but that was nothing new around here. The good thing was the name was reminiscent of Rebel Fleet ship names. They were often references to local predators on their various planets of origin.
“Devilfish it is,” I said, “care to help me work up my roster?”
“No,” he said. “I’m going downstairs to abuse the spook-team that was supposed to detect Godwin.”
“Give them my best.”
He left, and I went back to the rosters. Notices were going out already. People who were active-duty and not already on a mission-critical assignment had begun to get their summons. The speed was shocking for the military, but also it was gratifying. It showed how much they valued me and my ship.
Emails were starting to flood into my inbox. They wanted to know why they’d been suddenly reassigned and ordered to report to me as their new CO. Apparently, they were getting no details.
After my talk with Vega, I decided to answer them all with a boilerplate statement.
Welcome to Project Devilfish, my note said. This is a classified project. Don’t tell anyone of your involvement. You’re appointment date with Captain Blake is…
After that, I customized it to the recipient. Most of them were officers—the first people alerted, and officers with balls enough to ask questions.
Thoughtfully, I decided to meet with one man before all the others. He was none other than the commander I’d beaten down in my arena just yesterday. Commander Hagen was his name. I wanted a good XO, a job he’d already been performing aboard one of the phase-ships. I might have asked for Gwen, but she’d become a staffer here on base and was off limits. Miller, my old XO, had been given command of a phase-ship of his own.
That left me with a hole in my roster. A big one. I hoped Commander Hagen could fill it.
Later that same day after lunch, Hagen came to see me. He had a wary look on his face—which was kind of swollen up after our last meeting.
“Good to see you again, Captain,” he said, and we shook hands.
His words were a little mushy. His lips were purple, taped and sewn together, and they didn’t quite form words right.
“You too, Commander. Take a seat.”
He did so. “Captain, what is Project Devilfish?”
I paused for a moment. “I can’t tell you that. Not until you agree to serve under me.”
His eyes narrowed. They were dark and puffy, with red crescents under each one.
“Captain, is this some kind of test? Another one? Should I prepare to defend myself?”
I chuckled. “Nah. No beat-downs today. I need a sidekick. An experienced man I can trust.”
“It seems like you don’t need my approval. This reassign—it’s airtight. My captain has been complaining to anyone who’ll listen all morning. He got nowhere.”
“Yeah… Listen, Hagen. I know you’re a good XO on a phase-ship. You’re a tough bastard with a pugil stick, too.”
“That’s another thing,” he said, leaning forward. “Those pugil sticks weren’t regulation. They were weighted.”
“Do you feel abused? Are you going to lodge a formal complaint, Hagen?”
“What…? No sir.”
“Good. If you’d given me any other answer, I’d kick you out of here right now. The Rebel Kher operate on the basis of status. We have to compete with them, and in order to do that we have to understand them. That was the purpose of the exercise.”
“I get all that, Captain. It’s just—never mind.”
“Ah…” I said, catching on. “You’re annoyed you didn’t win.”
His eyes flashed up to meet mine, then he studied my littered desk again. “I’m not that petty.”
“Sure you are! That’s what I like about you. You wanted to cream all those young punks. You almost did it, too. I’m beginning to think I made the right choice after all.”
“Captain… what is Project Devilfish?” he repeated.
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you. Not until you’ve signed on. I’m not going to force you, either, as the position I have in mind for you requires full commitment.”
“How can I fully commit to something if I don’t even know what the hell it is?”
“You have to believe in me. You have to believe in Space Command as an entity. You have to be willing to risk it all. I can tell you the project is a big deal, and it’s critical to Earth’s defense.”
Hagen nodded slowly. “Well sir… in that case, I accept. Sign me on. I’ll dive off this cliff with my blindfold on.”
He made me smile. I knew I could count on him. He was tough, competitive, and a risk-taker. Making him commit blind-folded was a trick, of course, designed to put him in the right frame of mind.
But it was more than that. It had proved something about him to me.
After that, I laid out the whole story. I showed him pictures of the ship. Stills and video taken during my first tour.
“This is all absolutely classified. Top secret.”
“I get it, Captain—and I can see why.”
His eyes were alight. He’d had no idea. If I’d shown him the ship first, he would have certainly signed on without hesitation. But that wouldn’t have proven much, as anyone could have seen it was a wise career move.
Commander Hagen was much more committed than that. He wasn’t thinking about his career path. He was thinking about the defense of Earth.
That’s just where I wanted his mind to be.
=14=
It was nearly a week later by the time I had my crew assembled and took them aboard Devilfish. There were still nearly a hundred unfilled positions, but all the key spots were taken.
Some of my choices had been met with resistance. Others were on missions that they couldn’t be recalled from yet. Still other posts we hadn’t yet found a suitable spacer to fill.
But I didn’t care about any of that today. I’d moved permanently aboard Devilfish and taken up residence there. It was a glorious feeling—and she was a glorious ship.
My first surprise came less than an hour after I’d made the transfer. A tap came at my new office door, and I ordered the door to let them in.
It was Dr. Abrams. He had another surprising face behind him—Mia.
“Um…” I said. “This is unexpected.”
“You have a new girl, don’t you?” Mia demanded. “Several, if I’m right.”
Dr. Abrams appeared pained. “I told you, creature,” he said. “Blake has been celibate for a week.”<
br />
“You don’t know everything,” she said. “You don’t know how a male is supposed to act. Ra-tikh would never go a week without mating—not willingly, anyway.”
“Uh…” I said. “What’s going on, Abrams? How did you even get Mia up here?”
“We’re both part of your crew now, Captain Blake.”
I frowned. “I didn’t sign any such orders.”
The truth was, I’d kind of hoped to ditch Abrams on Earth. He was a pain, and I knew he’d question everything I did up here on our maiden voyage with his ship. Devilfish was his baby, and I didn’t want him whining about how I treated her.
“You’ve been overruled,” Abrams said with a faintly smug expression. “Admiral Vega decided—”
“Okay,” I said cutting him off. “I get it. You went right over my head and told him you had to be on the ship. But how did you get Mia up here?”
“I told you,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at the floor. “He’s taken up with others. I’ve seen several young females walking about unattached, and we’ve only been on this ship for ten minutes.”
“Mia,” I said, “I haven’t replaced you. Have a little faith.”
“I do have faith—in the disloyal nature of males.”
Abrams raised his skinny arms in exasperation. “You should be greeting one another as a mated pair! Don’t fight! I brought Mia here to calm your nerves, Captain. This is going to be a very long trip. It’s best that your libido is quenched right from the start.”
“That’s beyond presumptuous of you,” I told him.
He shrugged. “I’m the chief technical officer on this ship. You represent the military side, while I represent the researchers. Long term deployment in space is an experiment, one among many. Social and psychological—”
“What station?” I demanded.
“What’s that?”
“What post did you get her assigned to? I’m assuming you got Admiral Vega to assign her to Devilfish without my consent.”
He cleared his throat. “That’s essentially correct. She’ll be rotated into the aft gunnery shifts. She can serve from anywhere aboard—even your chambers.”
I looked around at the workstation in my quarters, which also served as my office. It was a strange design. Abrams had compressed functionality wherever he could, including here. I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea.
“She’ll serve on the bridge or in the gun operator’s room. Not here.”
He smiled and lifted his hands to display his palms. “It’s up to you, Captain. It’s all up to you.”
“No, apparently it isn’t. But I’ll accept your interference in this case, if you’ll promise to keep out of my private life.”
“Naturally! I never wanted to impose.”
“And,” I said, “I want you to run ideas like this one through me first. I’m the captain of this ship. I can’t serve with someone who undermines me.”
“That was never my intent, but I will of course submit to your will.”
I glared at him for a moment, knowing he was full of shit, then gestured for him to get out. He did so wordlessly.
Mia was pouting by this time. She’d assumed wrongly that all my anger had been due to her arrival.
“I should never have come here,” she said. “I knew it was over when you vanished for days at a time. I knew—”
“Come here,” I said, outstretching my arms.
She wandered over reluctantly.
Without warning, I reached around behind her, grabbed her tail and gave it a firm yank.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Here?” she asked. “Now?”
“Yes.”
She melted, and we were happy again. We made love like we hadn’t done for months.
When it was over, I had to wonder if Dr. Abrams had known more about my mental state than I wanted to give him credit for.
The days flew by, and I worked from the moment my eyes opened until I couldn’t keep them from sagging closed. I didn’t even keep regular shifts. I worked all shifts, for as long as I could keep going effectively.
My XO, Commander Hagen, was usually the one to order me off the bridge. He had purposefully taken over the “night” shift, and he would tolerate my lingering for an extra hour or two. But finally, he requested a private word and demanded I go to bed.
Mia was likewise engaged, always trying to test me and fuss over my habits. Between the two of them, I felt like I hardly needed Dr. Abrams at all.
* * *
It was on the ninth day that everything changed.
Events unfolded rapidly, beginning with a horrible noise that rang off the metal walls in my quarters. My eyes snapped open, and I sought the source of it.
After a moment, I knew it to be a klaxon, one of those nasty ones that sounds like an air horn gone mad.
“Captain, please log in,” an artificial and vaguely feminine voice said. “Captain, please log in.”
The klaxon kept warbling, and I was up and scrambling for clothing. The clothes helped with this, wrapping me up and crawling over my skin. Less than a minute later I was stumbling into the hallway, forcing my service cap onto my head.
“Captain, please log in,” the calm voice said again. It seemed to be following me.
“I’m on my way to the bridge!” I shouted at the walls. “I’ll log in when I get there. I promise.”
“Acknowledged.”
The voice shut up, but the klaxons weren’t so easily put off. When I reached the bridge, I found it overflowing with freaked-out officers.
One of them was Commander Hagen. “It’s the AI, sir, it’s gone ape. We’ve got nothing from Command. Nothing.”
“Who’s analyzing the sensor data?” I demanded.
I soon had a wealth of information blasted to my console. I ordered the computer to turn off the sirens, and it did so. With irritation, I realized I had to log into a console to get it to take commands from me.
“This ship isn’t like Hammerhead at all,” I said.
“No, it isn’t,” said a voice from behind me. “It’s infinitely superior.”
I turned to see Abrams standing there, looking down at me over his imperious nose.
“Get strapped in, Doc,” I told him. “We might have to perform sudden maneuvers.”
He did as I asked with poor grace.
“Now,” I asked, “why is your computer demanding we all wake up and move to battle stations?”
He shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Ship?” I asked. “What’s the reason for this alert?”
“Long range sensors indicate a tear in localized space-time.”
“A rift is forming?” I asked. “Where?”
“The visual mapping data is already—”
“Zoom in for me. Show me the affected area.”
The central display, which amounted to a lingering holograph in the center of the chamber, lit up. I could see a rift forming now, just as the computer had said. I didn’t see anything around it other than empty space.
“Zoom out slowly. Give me a point of reference with enhanced imagery.”
The names of constellations appeared in the background as the image zoomed out. At last, I could see Jupiter. Then, as it continued to expand the range of the image, Mars appeared. Our ship was in orbit over Mars, so a tiny sliver of green with the label Devilfish appeared there as well.
“Okay, give me a range estimate.”
A staggering figure appeared.
“Sixty-one million kilometers?” I demanded. “That’s hardly an emergency.”
“Predictive calculations place the arriving ships within striking range of Earth in forty hours.”
“Two days…? How long until we could make it back, if we shift to full burn to get home starting now?”
“Ninety-two hours.”
I took a deep breath. “Great. We’re out of range. Who the hell placed us out here at Mars? We can’t even help—”
“Captain,” Abrams said
gently. “Are you satisfied with the ship’s reasoning in waking you up? Or do you, perhaps, want to go back to bed?”
I flashed him an ugly stare. “No, Abrams. I get it, the ship is worried we can’t get back home fast enough to aid in the defensive effort.”
“Precisely so,” Abrams said with an insufferably pleased expression on his face. He’d gladly let a billion souls die if it proved him right about something.
“Plot an intercept course,” I ordered the AI.
Immediately, the charts shifted and the arcing curves connected our two ships, not at Earth, but in the middle of the ocean of nothing between Mars and our home planet.
“We can do it…” I said. “Just barely.”
“We’d have no support, Captain,” Commander Hagen pointed out.
I glanced at him. In a way, it was his first real moment as my XO. I didn’t resent his input—but I hoped he wouldn’t turn into a problem.
“Do you have a better option, XO?” I asked him.
“Hmm… Maybe. Can we jump to get there? Instead of using our standard drive?”
Abrams made that choking-cat sound again.
“No!” he said. “We can’t do that. It’s not—we’re not designed for precision jumps.”
Hagen and I both frowned at him. “Precision jumps?” I asked. “There’s not much out there to run into between Earth and Mars, Abrams.”
He shrugged and crossed his arms, grabbing his own knobby elbows with each hand.
“Regardless, I can’t condone it. My star drive works, Blake—but the targeting isn’t very exact.”
“You mean we might scatter? Jumping about an AU, we’ll scatter?”
He didn’t meet my eye. “We might, yes.”
“How many tests have we successfully performed on this drive of yours?”
“One hundred and seventy-three,” he said.
“Well then, what—ah…” I broke off, catching on. “You’re talking about simulated tests, aren’t you? Computer models and all that?”
“Obviously,” he snapped. “We only just assembled the ship over the last few months. How could we have performed live flight tests?”
I nodded slowly. I’d known the drive wasn’t well-tested—but this was madness. For all I knew I was test-flying a stick of dynamite.