by D. J. Holmes
Rachael hesitated for a second. James wasn’t surprised. Joining the Sub Lieutenants would be potentially embarrassing. She was older than them all and at least technically her rank of science officer made her more senior than them. Joining them would cause everyone on board to think less of her rank. A look of resolve settled on her face.
“I’ll do it,” she said, “Thank you for the opportunity Captain, I hope I won’t let you down.”
“I hope so too,” James replied.
As he was about to change the subject and ask Rachael about her studies an alert from his desk notified him that someone on the bridge was trying to contact him. Opening a COM channel he said, “Yes, this is the Captain?”
“Captain,” Seamus Mallory, the Second Lieutenant began, “Orders have just arrived from Vulcan Sir. An encrypted data file is awaiting you at your command chair.”
“Thank you Lieutenant,” James replied. “I will be up presently.”
Looking over at the Science Officer, James stood and shook her hand again. “I’m afraid we will have to continue this another time. I’m sure it will be a pleasure having you on board.”
“Thank you Sir,” she responded, “and can I say that it is exciting to be serving under you. I hope we can make a discovery as important as the Void with Endeavour.”
James laughed and then answered, “Me too, but you should be careful what you wish for, discovering the Void led us to a war.”
After watching her leave James took a moment to compose himself. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine. This was the first time he would be entering the bridge. After going through the protocol for taking command when he had come aboard he had come straight to his office to read up on Endeavour. Now he was about to enter the place that would be his home for the foreseeable future. Endeavour was his third command and he knew from experience that he would be spending long hours in his command chair. From there he could direct the three hundred men and women on board, as well as control all of Endeavour’s weapons.
A few years ago the thought of commanding another survey ship would have filled him with dread. His first command, the survey frigate HMS Drake, had been a punishment rather than a reward. Giving him the ship had been a ploy to keep him away from Earth and the British princess. Yet, over time he had come to love the navy and his first command. Now command was all he had left. The idea of an extended survey mission into outer space actually excited him. Or at least, it was better than the thought of staying on Earth.
Before heading to the bridge he went into his personal quarters to retrieve his captain’s jacket. His steward from Raptor had accompanied him to Endeavour and Fox already had all his things unpacked and stowed away. With a glance at one of the reflective screens in his quarters he straightened his uniform, patted down his thick blond hair and headed for the bridge.
As he entered and every eye looked at him, James suddenly felt a little self-conscious. Endeavour’s bridge was much bigger than Raptor’s and there were many more people about. Before he had a chance to take everyone in, Lieutenant Mallory stood to vacate the command chair.
“The bridge is yours Captain,” he said as he saluted.
“Thank you Lieutenant,” James said as he approached his chair. “You can continue the watch, I will be reviewing our orders.”
As Mallory walked over to sit in the Officer of the Watch’s command chair, James slowly lowered himself into his home aboard Endeavour. The seat was identical to the one onboard Raptor and he immediately felt at ease. Before opening his orders he looked around the bridge again. Everyone was still staring at him. “At ease, back to work,” he said with a wave of his hand.
When all the eyes in the room turned back to their duties James took the opportunity to assess his bridge crew. There were five Sub Lieutenants manning the ship’s command consoles, Navigation, Sensors, Tactical, Defense and Communications. To either side of him there were secondary command chairs, both of which were a new addition for James. Lieutenant Mallory sat in one while the other was vacant. To one side the Science Officer sat, looking over her shoulder James could see she was reviewing some sophisticated looking graphical image. He quickly moved on, knowing that whatever she was doing was way beyond his comprehension. As well as the usual Sub Lieutenants there were also a number of Ensigns on the bridge. Their job was to assist their seniors and take over in the event one was injured during combat. Finally there were the two marine guards standing at ease by the door to the bridge. After Major Johnston’s successful boarding of a Chinese destroyer during the Void War, the RSN had instigated some new protocols to prevent the same thing happening to a British warship. One of which meant there was a marine guard on every ship’s bridge.
Happy that everyone was working efficiently, James turned his attention to his command chair. The data chip containing his orders had already been placed in a slot on his chair and a screen was flashing, demanding his password. After he typed it in and pressed his finger to the scanner to confirm his DNA, a file appeared on the screen. His orders were simple. He was to take Endeavour through the shift passage to the Alpha system and then onto Chester, the furthest British colony from Earth. In times of peace Endeavour was designed to be a survey ship. As the first survey cruiser the British had built, she was designed for prolonged periods of space travel in unexplored space. His orders were to carry-out a survey cruise of up to nine months beyond Chester.
Having already met with his uncle, Admiral Somerville, the First Space Lord of the Admiralty, James knew his orders were only for show. Sure enough as he scanned through them he found a set of coordinates in his objectives. To anyone else who looked at the orders it would look as if someone back at the Admiralty had made a mistake for they made no sense. Yet, they were his real objective. He didn’t want to put them into a computer to project them until they left Earth, just in case someone was watching what he did. His uncle had impressed on him the importance of secrecy. Still, from the look of the coordinates it appeared Endeavour would be rendezvousing with a ship somewhere near the New Edinburgh system. There he would get his real orders, along with all the information the Royal Space Navy Intelligence had managed to obtain on Chang. For now, it was important that everyone, including his crew, thought Endeavour was about to set off on a long exploration mission, for the duration of which they would be out of contact with Earth.
Alongside his orders another file was flashing to get his attention. It was the report from the Master Engineer aboard Vulcan. He was responsible for overseeing every ship constructed by Vulcan. Endeavour had left space dock just over two months ago. From that time the First Lieutenant had been putting her through her space trials. Her final act had been a stealth run through the Sol system to test her capabilities. She had passed with flying colors and a week ago she had docked with Vulcan for the engineers to give her a once over to ensure she was still space worthy. As the first of her class, every caution was being taken to ensure she was performing as expected. James was happy to see the Master Engineer’s report cleared Endeavour to take up her duties among the fleet.
As he closed the report he turned to the Second Lieutenant, “How long until we finish taking on our stores and ammunition?”
Lieutenant Mallory took a moment to answer as he brought up the relevant file, “six more hours Sir. After that we will have everything we need on board to operate independently for up to a year.”
“Very good,” James said. If he had wanted to look up the file he would have done it himself. Mallory should have known how things were progressing without having to check.
Turning back to his command chair he opened a ship wide COM channel. “Attention, this is your Captain speaking. I have just received our orders. We are heading to the Chester system and from there we will begin exploring the unmapped shift passages in the area. Endeavour has been given a clean bill of health by the engineers from Vulcan and as soon as we have replenished our stores, we will be breaking orbit. I suggest any of you that want to contact lov
ed ones and say your goodbyes do so now. That is all.”
Comfortable in his command chair, James brought up a number of files that he hadn’t had time to review yet. He was so engrossed in reading them that he lost track of time. His thoughts were broken when his First Lieutenant, Stephen Ferguson, sat down beside him in the vacant command chair and spoke, “Sir, I’m pleased to report that we have just stored the last penetrator missile. Endeavour is ready to leave.”
“Very good Ferguson,” James said, “you have been commanding Endeavour for the last two months. I think you have earned the privilege of taking her out on her maiden voyage. You have the bridge Lieutenant, set course for the Alpha system.”
As Ferguson barked orders to the rest of the bridge James watched his ship come alive. The Sub Lieutenants were all chatting frantically with one another and even the senior Lieutenants looked excited to be off on an adventure of discovery. James knew that wasn’t where they were headed. He was excited nonetheless. The Void War had cost him his future with Christine. He couldn’t get that back. But he could get some revenge on the Politburo member who had started it all. Chang, I’m coming for you, James thought as Endeavour disengaged her docking clamps and climbed out of Earth orbit.
Chapter 2 – Innocence
In those days piracy was almost unheard of.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
11th February 2466 AD, New Edinburgh System
Three weeks later James was on the bridge as Endeavour dropped out of shift space into the New Edinburgh System. They had passed through the system on their way to Chester just over a week ago with all the ship’s equipment fully powered up, ensuring that Endeavour had been visible for all to see. They did the same in Chester. James had even entered the inner system and had a lengthy conversation with the system commander in order to discuss the latest survey findings from around Chester. From there James had jumped Endeavour out of the Chester system towards unexplored space. To anyone who was keeping tabs on his ship it would look like she had been sent out on an exploration mission.
To his crew’s bewilderment, instead of beginning to map out the dark matter, James had ordered Endeavour into stealth mode and jumped back to Chester. For over a week they then slowly worked their way back through British space to New Edinburgh. It was here that they were to meet their contact and get the final update on their real orders. The coordinates that James had indicated they were to head towards was that of the shift passage that linked New Edinburgh with French colonial space. Thus, James suspected they would be heading in that direction, possibly they would be going all the way to the New France system itself. James had never seen it, but he had read a lot about the system, it had been the place of the biggest space battle in human history, up until the Void War at least.
“Navigation,” James said once the holo plot had updated to show nothing unusual in the New Edinburgh system. “I have just sent some new coordinates to you, plot us a course to take us there.”
“Aye Sir,” Sub Lieutenant Jennings responded. James had been impressed with the Sub Lieutenant’s skill in their stealth runs through the British systems on their way back to New Edinburgh. A number of his Sub Lieutenants were newly promoted and were still very inexperienced. He and the First Lieutenant had been forced to keep a close eye on them. No doubt it would take a few months for them to settle into their roles. James had assigned them all extra shifts in the auxiliary bridge to hone their skills, but Jennings hadn’t been among them. She was already well on her way to earning her promotion to full lieutenant.
“Lieutenant Ferguson, can I see you in my briefing room?” James asked as he rose from his command chair and strode from the bridge. Ferguson nodded and got up to follow his captain.
As he entered the briefing room James called out to his steward, “Arthur, can you bring us both black coffees, please.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned back to Ferguson and motioned for him to sit. As the First Lieutenant followed his direction James took a moment to study him. At six foot two inches Ferguson was impressively built, yet James had already noticed that he seemed very light on his feet. Coming from Ireland he had a strange accent and James wondered if, in stereotypical fashion, he had stowed some alcoholic beverages on board. Ferguson’s record was notable so he was happy to overlook both issues in any case. After serving on board a survey frigate he had been promoted to a Lieutenant and posted to one of the RSN’s battlecruisers. Then, just before the outbreak of war with the Chinese, he had been promoted to Second Lieutenant and transferred to a destroyer. The destroyer in question had spent the first half of the war on patrol in the Oxford system but when the Admiralty had decided to send raiders into Chinese space, his ship had been sent up the Beta shift passage to harass the Chinese. Both his Captain and the crew had performed well and Ferguson’s reward had been another promotion. James had been delighted to see another raider on board Endeavour. Alongside Captain Lightfoot, James had caused the Chinese a number of headaches behind their frontlines in the last war. Yet having to carrying out such missions had been unexpected and the Royal Navy was still relearning the skill of operating behind enemy lines. Whilst Endeavour was officially classed as an exploration ship she was designed to also operate behind enemy lines in times of war. In fact Endeavour was the first ship purpose built for just such a mission and it was good to have an officer on board who knew what he was doing. His record was certainly impressive and everything James had seen of Ferguson only served to confirm that he was a very competent officer.
“We’ll be having a briefing with all the senior command crew but I think you deserve to know what we’re about first,” James began.
“Thank you Sir,” Ferguson said. “It will be good to know what is going on. Your orders so far have been strange. I assume our mission won’t involve too much exploration in the immediate future?”
“Call me James in private please,” James said, smiling, “And you could say that. There’s a reason the Admiralty picked a Captain and First Lieutenant for Endeavour who were involved in the raids into Chinese space. You’ve heard of the Chinese Minister Chang of course. Well, we’re going after him. The UN wants him arrested for war crimes and our government is keen to see him punished for starting the war.”
“That sounds like a real mission,” Ferguson said with a widening grin. “Do we have any intel on his whereabouts?”
“No, but we are meeting a contact at the coordinates I gave Jennings. Whoever they are, they will be giving us the information we need. I also suspect we will be taking on board some passengers. I can’t imagine RSN Intelligence will let us go tearing after Chang without some form of assistance or oversight.”
“In that case I look forward to meeting our contact,” Ferguson replied. “I lost some good friends in the final battle with the Chinese at Wi Xiang. It would be a real pleasure to be one of the ones who brings Chang to justice.”
“Indeed,” James said, “my sentiments exactly. We’ll brief the rest of the command staff once we have met with the contact and have more information but I wanted you to know what we are about first. We’re going to be working together very closely over the next few months and there is likely to be information I can only share with you, so I wanted us to get off on the right foot.”
“I understand Sir, I mean James,” Ferguson said with a nod.
“Good, well in that case there is another issue I want to bring up.” Before progressing any further James paused and took a deep breath. He hesitated as he thought again about bringing up the next issue; it was not something he had faced before. “It’s about Second Lieutenant Mallory. I have been observing him, as I have all my Lieutenants over the last three weeks. On paper he seems like a good Lieutenant, he meets all his efficiency targets. Yet he doesn’t seem to get on well with the crew and he meets his efficiency targets too well; he never does more than he has to. Is my assessment fair or have I misjudged him?”
This time Ferguson hesitated. James underst
ood. Ferguson had only known James for a few weeks. It was a First Lieutenant’s duty to oversee the other Lieutenants and only come to the Captain whenever something happened that demanded his attention. If he started telling on his junior lieutenants now, he could lose their respect and confidence.
Before he closed down and refused to speak, James prodded Ferguson some more. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t bring this up so soon but reading between the lines, there were some concerning comments in his personnel file. I know I shouldn’t be sharing this with you but we need to trust each other completely. Both his previous captains commented that Mallory was an efficient officer, but lacked leadership experience. I think they were trying to say something. At the start of the Void War he was a fifth lieutenant. His promotion to second came about because of deaths among those higher up, not because he was deemed worthy of promotion on merit alone. If we were just going on a routine survey mission I would let it slide and try to work on him. However, our mission to find Chang is a sensitive one – I need to know who I can trust and depend on. If my guess is right, we’ll be heading into French colonial space and who knows where from there. If Mallory is going to prove a liability, I need to know now.”