Righteous Reign The Series: E-version Boxed Set Edition

by Thomas J. MacDonald

  By June 2251, Fifth Mobile was up to six fleets per Theatre Command with the addition of the Grus, Vulpecula, Ursa Minor, and Scutum Fleets. To date, the Carriers were the Odin, Thor, Freyja, Mjolnir, Loki, Baldr, Embla, Sif, Freyr, Geror, Gefjon and Tyr. Theatre Nine had the hospital ship, Joan of Arc fully staffed and functional, at this point.

  By June 2252, things had really changed. Mobile Fifth was still growing at a steady rate. The past year had seen a slight slowdown in construction and the earmarking of several vessels for other Fleets to fulfill the lifetime program and to fill the last holes in the other Quadrants caused by the war a couple of years before. But that wasn't where things were really popping. In December 2251, after nearly fifty years of service at the age of seventy-one Fleet Admiral David Williamson retired, effective the end of the year. He had been C&C for thirty-five years. The position was immediately offered to Bill Stephenson. He was elevated to Fleet Admiral and assigned as C&C by the Defense Secretary with the assent of the Council and the Emperor. He searched for a replacement. The five Commands discussed it with him and Dickinson several times. George pulled him aside one night in early January.

  "Bill there's only one person to replace you.An Admiral who's a very good manager, an excellent tactician, and deep knowledge of Quadrant Three." George told him.

  "Yeah, who's that?" He asked past the rim of his glass as he tipped it for another sip of scotch.

  "The only person I know, who could do for Three what you did, is Grace Tonaka. She's been a "ten" for two years, now. She was instrumental in our battles during the war. She's great with people, she knows your policies, and she'd continue most of them. She always felt that Three had the best Quadrant Commander." Bryant responded with a grin.

  "Yeah, maybe. But, I got to think it over a bit." There was a slur in his voice.

  But, the next day, the C&C offered her the Command. She accepted the proposal.

  But, it didn't stop there. It was less than a month after Grace stepped up to the plate that Gogorra resigned. His career had stalled, and he would be on full pension at an Admiral 10 rate, anyway, so he retired. Grace offered Tom Stevens the job.

  After the promotion of Tonaka to Quadrant Three Commander, George held her spot open for a while. He had been aware of her dislike of Gogorra and believed he would not stay on with her in charge. When Tom Stevens took the position, He offered Stephen Nichols the position of Theatre Nine Commander. On February 1, 2252, Steven Nichols was elevated to Admiral Level Ten and assigned as Theatre Commander. He had two other nominations approved and filled the two Fleet Commander positions open at the time.

  By June 2253, the other eight supply vessels were in place. Parts of the last two Fleets for each Theatre Command were there. The three Command Staffs were at seventy-five percent of full strength, though some ships in the Fleets were on four and some on the full five shift rotations It was slow going, now. Shipyards had run full tilt, since the war. Another two had opened in February but had not put out a finished vessel, yet. The originals had closed for a two-month break starting April 15, 2253. It was Nichols who detected the sheer exhaustion most of the workers were experiencing. He began watching as quality fell and mistakes and accidents increased. It wasn't long before he realized it was systemic. Bryant contacted the C&C on Nichols advice. Fear of severe workplace injuries or death led to the shutdowns. No one could fault them. They had done everything asked of them, for more than two years. They were all sent on "vacation" at full wages. Hopefully, everyone would return fully rested on June 15. They were well ahead of schedule, so the delay didn't affect the original projections.

  Mobile Fifth RAC started receiving the first of the twenty-four extra Frigates in October of 2254. Theatre Nine was assigned the Shenzhen on December 10, that year. She had been through proving and pre-trials and had a light cruise when she came home to Theatre Nine. On December 15, 2254, once her new crew had been designated, Lt. Cmdr. Kurt Brubacher was promoted to Commander and assigned as her Captain. The next two months were spent in heavy shakedown cruises and crew drills. By the end of February 2255, the Shenzhen was running smoothly. It was ready for full reconnaissance missions, and Fifth Mobile RAC assets were at full complement; while, personnel was almost there - at ninety-four percent.

  Chapter 14 On My Way to The Top

  Wednesday August 22, 2255

  "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

  It was eleven hundred hours when we docked the Shenzhen at the Midgard, the Theatre Nine Flag Ship. It was pretty standard for me to report in when returning to base. I made my way to Admiral Nichols office.

  "Captain Brubacher reporting, sir." I stood at attention.

  "Hi, Captain. Relax and take a seat." He mumbled without looking up from the document that held his attention.

  "Sorry Kurt, I didn't want to lose my place. It's the patrol schedule for next week for both Theatres. What can I do for you?" He asked after a brief silence.

  "Sir, we're just back from HD 156668 via Sigma Corona Borealis. We took the long way back so we could rest our engines for a day at Sigma. I gave most of the crew the day on there. It's incredibly striking." I explained.

  "It's nice you gave your crew some shore leave, but why did you need to rest your engines? Nichols asked.

  "Because, I disobeyed your orders, sir. I brought the cargo vessel back with me, and additional evidence from the pirate ship. Sir, I did it because the towing unit of the cargo ship has a lot of evidence that pertains to the charges. Your experts just wanted pictures and samples, but my own criminal investigator said the hauler's hull was relevant evidence itself, so I hauled it back." I explained.

  "So, you believe the criminal investigator we sent was wrong, but your embedded one was right?" Nichols statement was really and inquiry.

  "Not really, sir. I didn't know which one was right. And, to my amateur eye, the hull does look like proof. So, instead of being wrong and losing the case in court or not convicting of the more serious charges, I thought I'd take my licking from you. I sincerely want the privateers to pay for what they did. It was murder, piracy, theft, destruction of private property, resisting, and there is evidence of a lot of other incidents aboard the pirate vessel. Your man wanted us to leave it behind, too. Since I thought it might lead to additional charges, I brought it back, anyway." I finished my explanation.

  "And, you were right to do what you did. You faced conflicting expert advice and your own intelligence. You were there. I was not. You know, I don't want robots who just obey commands. I want my senior officers to think for themselves. Sometimes, you have to decide the right way to handle things yourself. That's why you’re the Captain of the Shenzhen. I'll have our prosecutor's lab people take a look. But, in the end, it doesn't matter what they find. You did the right thing, based on the on-site information. Keep your ship parked. Stay for a day. I don't have new orders for you, yet. By the time you leave, you'll know for your own peace of mind, how it turns out." Nichols said with a smile as he stood; indicating I was dismissed.

  I used my personal pad to tell my people to secure the Shenzhen, arrange for resupply, and come aboard the Midgard to use its facilities for the night. The Massive Super Carrier has everything anyone could want. Each time we land here, I take discovery tours of it, but I've never seen it all. These ships are remarkable. The two decks that fascinate me most are three, the lowest unsecured level, and four. The third floor is entirely designed for storage of gasses, dry goods, frozen foods, mechanical parts, electrical parts, medical supplies, clothing, boots and shoes, and refrigerated perishables. Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, hydrogen, and methane are the major gasses stockpiled in standing twenty-meter-high by four-meter-diameter tanks. There are nearly three thousand of these enormous cylinders secured in place on the deck. There are eleven hundred fifty nitrogen cylinders, two hundred and seventy-five oxygen vats, five hundred argon cisterns, six hundred hydrogen containers and ten methane ones in an area that takes only a third of the twe
nty-three-meter-high deck. Half of these reservoirs are tied together with lines that allow them to feed supply via ports on the hull for resupply of other vessels. The other half is used for Midgard operations. Most gases last a long time on board these ships. Everything is recycled. Even our own human waste and the decomposable wastes we produced are reprocessed by breaking them down into their constituent elements and recombining those into pure gasses, liquids, and solids. Other disposed items are dealt with in more traditional methods. Most of the shipboard gas storage is to replenish the minuscule losses incurred in the recycling. Argon is actually expended by the ion engines and particle cannons. It has to be replenished from shipments originating on planets with it in their environments. Hydrogen is used in minimal quantities with Deuterium and Lithium in the fusion reactors. Radioactive fissionable materials are not stored. Some weapons have small amounts as do the fission reactors. But reactor cores are dealt with in space dock, while weapons come shielded and with their payloads already installed. The only recyclable item not stored on this level is water. Water is recycled or generated by a chemical reaction and pumped from the lowest engineering deck to the uppermost one, for storage. Because of our positive gravity, storing it in that fashion assists in maintaining a constant pressure for use ship-wide.

  Aft of gas storage is a vast area holding enormous upright shelving in rows that stand from floor to about half a meter from the ceiling. Each cubical division in the racks is identified by RFID tagging. Massive automated turret-type lift trucks are guided through narrow aisles to the section they will store to or retrieve from. The shelves are divided by application. Dry food materials have their area. Clothing has its location. These supplies are drawn by departments at the various command levels for distribution. A little aft of mid-ship the freezers are constructed much like the dry goods racking. Freezers are floor to ceiling, each door identified as a boundary. Millions of pounds of meats, fish, frozen desserts, frozen vegetables, frozen fruits and freezable cheeses are stored or retrieved by the automated turret trucks. The smallest storage area is the refrigerated stores. Most of the goods in this section are perishable, and have limited lifetimes, even when cool. That's why high-density vertical farming is executed atop the upper deck of every vehicle. All OESA vessels can reap as many as four annual harvests of many vegetables and two of most fruits. For that reason, refrigerated goods are stored to last only two weeks. Ships galleys will then switch to frozen fare for the period required to reach the first fresh harvest. After that, they will oscillate between frozen and fresh, as the vertical farming permits. With this system, Fleet attached vessels can generally run two weeks between visits from their supply ships. Each supply craft stores enough to restock an entire Group before returning to the Theatre Command for replenishment. Theatre Commands can warehouse enough in their holds to fully provision all eight of its Fleets, once, while maintaining its own operations, before needing to be refilled itself. Mobile Fifth Command can handle a full fill-up of each Theatre Command once, while sustaining its own operations, before requiring materials from one of the fifteen planets they can draw from throughout the Empire. There is a significant protective barrier, after the refrigerator area, and aft of that stackable racks store thousands of rods, spears, missiles, and torpedoes. Though the handling beyond this section is automated, the storage and removal of these weapons is managed mostly by hand. All armaments in the section are checked for age, physical condition, and fidelity. The fear of a fuel or radiation leak is the cause of the stringent security and working methods employed here.

  I love to stroll the deck above this one. Along its port side, occupying a third of the ship's width is its Mess Halls and kitchens. It holds the expansive enlisted mess, with its large non-com alcove. This takes up nearly two-thirds of the total length, on that side. It is placed amidships with the Officers' Mess located from just aft of it to the rear of the ship. There is a relatively small Senior Officers' dining hall running from the bow on that side to the enlisted mess. Officers from the level of Commander up to Fleet Admiral can eat in this space, though Captains and Flag Officers can order food for delivery to other areas. Two broad hallways run the length of the deck, separating the mess section from a center section, and that area from the other compartments along the starboard side. In the center section, a huge Sick Bay runs from a midship's hallway to within one hundred feet of the bow. It fills the entire width of the center section. It boasts full radiological, pathological, and biological diagnostic services and labs, a pharmacy, six operating rooms, six trauma rooms, three dentistry areas, a fracture clinic, and a twenty-bed temporary ward. Medical also has fifty semi-private rooms. A staff of fifty doctors, twenty technicians, forty nurses, four dentists and hosts of assistants and orderlies see to the patients in this facility. It is capable of handling nearly any problem and enjoys representation in twenty-four specialties amongst its staff.

  Four enormous elevators are just across the hall from the Sick Bay main entrance in the transverse hallway.

  Across the corridor from sick bay in the aft portion of the Midgard is a mall. It holds a men's shop, a lady’s wear, a sporting goods retailer, a jeweler, two barber shops, two hair salons, a four-screen movie theater, a live action theater, a nightclub, a bar, a family restaurant, and a high-level bistro. In the foredeck, from sick bay to the bow is a full gymnasium, a multipurpose sports area, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool with solar lighting, lots of decking and about fifty reclining deck chairs.

  The starboard side of this floor is dedicated to training of all types. There is a three thousand seat amphitheater, three lecture halls, a four class elementary school, a four-chamber, four-laboratory secondary institute and a large section of classrooms and labs devoted to college/university level training.

  In all, it is an amazing level that mimics traveling Main Street of Anytown, OE, complete with street lamps and faux-cobblestone flooring echoing its streets.

  Because of their size, the Midgard, Asgard and the Valhalla all have a Senior Command handling nothing but accommodation. On this ship, Commodore Olivia Hurst is the "Bursar." So, I contacted her for accommodations and notified her office that others from the Shenzhen may also stay over. I quickly received mail designating my quarters and installing my passcode to the room, for the evening. I notified my personal Steward to drop one set of daily uniforms and change of undergarments in the apartment.

  I went to the room and washed up, then left for the pub. Nichols and Hurst were already sitting together at the bar having a drink. I tried not to disturb them but was waved over by the Admiral, as soon as he saw me. "Would you like to join us for a drink and some snooker?" He asked.

  "Yes sir, I'd enjoy that," I said with a smile.

  "Drop the sir, in here. It's Stephen and Olivia in the pub; when you're in our party." He said with a smile.

  "That's a kind offer but, it's too easy to slip, afterward. If you don't really mind, I'd prefer to address you both formally, no matter how familiar the setting." I answered.

  "Always in control, eh Brubacher? Ever since that first incident. You should forget it. We all have - until you remind us. Stick to the informal. That's my last order of the evening." Nichols laughed.

  "Okay. Okay. I'll join you and Olivia for the evening. And, snooker would be great." I replied.

  Two games of snooker are enough, for me. Though I can keep the game competitive, Nichols is somewhat of a shark. He intensely understands the bank action of the table and can apply English that makes the cue ball do exceptional things. "Okay ... Okay, I give. Can we just go sit down and talk? I need to retain some of my personal dignity to be able to maintain command of my ship." I said in an exaggerated manner with a laugh.

  "Sure, we can go back to the table if you want to quit," Nichols said with a sly smile.

  "Not quit ... retreat, regroup, and come at this from a different angle. Isn't that what you teach in you Academy tactical classes?" I shot back, referring to his guest lectures at the War College
.

  "The Valhalla and the Asgard will be here soon, Kurt." Nichols quiet tone, as we retake our seats, suggests that the information isn't quite public knowledge.

  "Is something going on." I maintain the secretive tone of the conversation.

  "I am not sure. Admiral Bryant was a bit evasive in his message. He just asked us to hold position and said the two ships would join us here. Based on the time he sent the message, and Asgard's position at the time, both vessels, and their support ships should land anytime. You know, he still wants to give you a Carrier, eh? It's just a step in his plan. He wants you to have a star on your collar as soon as possible.

  Part Two

  Chapter 15 The Loki Step

  Wednesday October 3, 2255

  “It’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong++

  We're just parking at Midgard, now located at Gliese 777 a large yellow-white star in Cygnus. We've been on a variety of patrols since our last visit here, in August. From the window, I can see it's pretty much a typical day, at Theatre Nine. There are a couple of Admirals' personal crafts docked and the usual array of supply vessels waiting to dock for loading or unloading. On Sunday, we were in Lyra at the HD170651 star system when, I received orders to report to Admiral Nichols at Theatre Nine, located at the Gliese 777 system. It was thirteen hundred when I received the message. As we dock, it is five hundred hours - just a little early to report in. My bridge watch ends at six hundred, so I will go eat some breakfast, then clean up and change uniforms. I should be able to report to Nichols by seven thirty hours.