Midshipman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 1)

by David Feintuch

  Lieutenant Dagalow and a seaman boarded Celestina to help our suited passengers alight; the other sailor and I stayed in the launch to help them disembark. When all were safely aboard the derelict I joined the somber tour.

  Lights had been strung every twenty meters or so. We stumbled along Celestina’s second-level corridor. The ship, of an earlier design, had but two levels in her disk. Debris must have swirled around the wreckage during the explosive decompression; much of it hung about where its inertia had brought it.

  Celestina was like nothing I had ever seen. Much of her disk was surprisingly clean and orderly. Lieutenant Dagalow opened a cabin hatch; inside, a neatly made bunk waited for its long-gone occupant. A suit folded on the dresser was undisturbed.

  “The ship was entering Fusion when the accident occurred. The drive exploded without warning. The shaft and the disk sustained heavy damage. Decompression was almost instantaneous.” He paused. “Today, rapid-close hatches divide the disk into sections. We believe many of you would now survive a similar accident.”

  Mrs. Donhauser spoke up. “What caused the explosion?”

  Ms. Dagalow shook her head. “The truth is, we don’t know.” I felt a chill. “The fusion drive has been redesigned several times since Celestina was launched. No other ship has ever had a similar failure.”

  She opened the hatch to the adjoining cabin. A rocking horse and a closet full of little girls’ clothes framed the hatchway. Sickened, I turned away.

  “What happened to the people?” a passenger asked.

  “They were given decent burial in space when the ship was rediscovered by the Armstrong.” The legendary U.N.S. Neil Armstrong, Captain Hugo Von Walther commanding. The search vessel that had found the long-missing Celestina, and later opened two new colonies for settlement. Her commander had fought a duel with a colonial Governor, served as Admiral of the Fleet, and had ultimately been elected Secretary-General.

  Our seamen had strung a rope barrier to keep us from the damaged areas where ragged sheets of torn metal hung dangerously. We trekked up the ladder to Level 1. My breath rasped in my helmet. My suit’s defogger labored.

  We gathered at the top of the ladder and moved as a group along Celestina’s circumference corridor. Ahead a pale light gleamed, reflecting the gray corridor bulkheads. “The bridge is just ahead,” said Lieutenant Dagalow.

  We came to the open hatchway revealing the ghostly, deserted bridge. My breath caught. On the bulkhead outside the bridge hung the hundreds of slips of paper pictured so often in the holozines. We clustered at the bulkhead to read them.

  “Robert Vysteader, colonist en route to Hope Nation, in memory of this poor ship, this fifteenth day of August 2106, by the Grace of God.” “Mary Helene Braithwaite, colonist in God’s hands, in memory of our brethren who died here. December 11, 2151.” “Ahmed Esmail, remembering Celestina. December 11, 2151.”

  So they went. Each spacefarer who had come this lonely way had left a respectful mark to honor his predecessors who’d suffered disaster. Many of the visitors had gone on to Hope Nation or Detour, lived long lives and since died of old age.

  “Over here! Look!” We crowded round. The slip of paper was clipped just beyond the hatchway. “Hugo Von Walther, Captain, U.N.S. Neil Armstrong, in commemoration of our sister ship Celestina. God rest her soul, and all who sailed in her. August 3, 2114.” We trod the actual footsteps of Captain Von Walther. He had stood in this very spot the day he discovered Celestina, eighty-one years past. I tried to summon his presence. What a man he had been.

  “Those who wish may leave a message of commemoration for future generations.” Lieutenant Dagalow fished a box of tiny round magnets from her suitslot. We fumbled in our own slots for pencils and paper. Using the bulkheads, our knees, and the deck for tables, we wrote our blessings to the dead. I thought a long time before writing mine. “Nicholas Ewing Seafort, aged seventeen years, four months, twelve days, by Grace of God officer in the service of the United Nations, saluting the memories of those who have gone before. January 16, 2195.” I took a magnet from Lieutenant Dagalow’s outstretched hand and stuck it to the bulkhead, four meters from the bridge hatchway.

  Our return trip was subdued. I was glad no one felt the need to speak. We berthed in Hibernia; I went aft to desuit and change. Then I reported back to the bridge. Captain Haag waited stolidly while the next load of passengers was embarked. On watch, Lieutenant Cousins and I had little to do.

  It would take eleven trips to ferry all who wanted to go. Vax went on the fourth trip, then Alexi Tamarov. When Alexi returned he said excitedly, “Mr. Cousins let me pilot!” I hoped my feelings didn’t show.

  I went again on the seventh shuttle, but lagged behind when the group went to the bridge. Like the Captain, I had no need to experience it again.

  After dinner the trips resumed. I was to stand watch with the Captain and Lieutenant Malstrom; Sandy and Lieutenant Cousins would sail the launch. Before reporting to the bridge I went with Alexi to help suit the passengers.

  Lieutenant Dagalow was supervising the suiting room. Perhaps as a reaction to the grimness of the vessel lying alongside, Sandy and Alexi were in a playful mood. Sandy finished helping an older man into his unfamiliar suit and stuck out his tongue to Alexi as he reached for his own. Alexi tweaked him in the ribs. Sandy jumped, losing his balance, and tripped over the suiting bench. He crashed to the deck, tangled in a floppy suit. The back of his hand was bleeding slightly, but worse, he had split his pants wide open.

  Mortified, Sandy glanced between the two outraged officers. Lieutenant Cousins bellowed. Ms. Dagalow shot me a glower that spoke volumes. I was senior; the fiasco was my responsibility.

  “Mr. Tamarov!” Lieutenant Cousins’s voice was a whip. “It’s your fault, you go in his place. Get suited! You’re both on report; I’ll deal with you later!”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Alexi grabbed his suit.

  Lieutenant Dagalow intervened. “Mr. Tamarov went last trip, Mr. Cousins. I can go instead of the middy. I don’t mind; I’d like to look at the hull damage again.” Cousins frowned; he was senior and could overrule Dagalow, but courtesy forbade that. He nodded, assenting. Ms. Dagalow called the bridge to get the necessary approval; Alexi and I helped finish the suiting, and the party left.

  The moment the airlock hatch slid shut I wheeled on Sandy. “Change your pants, Mr. Midshipman Wilsky!”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  I caught his arm as he started to run. “If you think Lieutenant Cousins is the only one going to deal with you, guess again! Tomfoolery on duty? God—” I caught myself in time. “God bless it, Mr. Wilsky! Mr. Holser and I will give you some attention.” He blanched; unleashing Vax on him was a threat indeed. I released him; he double-timed it to the wardroom, glad to be free of me.

  Seething, I set Alexi at attention against the bulkhead. Then, nose to nose with him, I reamed him slowly and thoroughly. At the end he wasn’t far from tears. My memory is very good. Most of what I said came from Sergeant Trammel at Academy. I recalled it was very effective.

  I dismissed Alexi and headed for the bridge. “Permission to enter, sir.”

  The Captain was still on watch. “Granted.” Didn’t he ever sleep?

  “Midshipman Seafort reporting, sir.”

  He merely nodded. Maybe he was tiring, after all. I took my place at the console. There was nothing to do but watch the simulscreen.

  “What was that commotion in the suiting room, Mr. Seafort?”

  That was tricky. The Captain had heard something about it; Lieutenant Dagalow needed his permission to leave ship. I couldn’t lie to an officer, no matter what. Yet it was also my job to keep wardroom affairs out of the Captain’s hair. I said carefully, “Mr. Wilsky tripped and cut his hand, sir.”

  “Ah. Is he getting medical attention?” There was a dryness in the Captain’s tone that I found suspicious. On the other hand, the Captain was not known to joke with midshipmen.

  “It was just a minor scrape, sir.”


  Captain Haag waved it aside. “No matter.” Lieutenant Malstrom winked at me. So he did know.

  “Three more trips after this, sir.” Lieutenant Malstrom spoke to the Captain.

  “Yes.” After a moment he added, “Then we get under way in earnest.” No more stops for nine months until we reached Miningcamp, except for routine navigation checks.

  Captain Haag leaned back in his chair, his eyes shut. Lieutenant Malstrom yawned. I tried not to yawn too. It had been a long and emotional day.

  “Hibernia, Mayday! Mayday!” It must have been a seaman; not a voice I recognized.

  The Captain bolted upright, slapping the caller switch. “Hibernia!”

  “We have a passenger down! Suit puncture!”

  The Captain swore. “What happened?”

  “Just a moment. Sir.” We could hear him relaying the message on his suit transmitter. “Lieutenant Dagalow slapped on a quickpatch and re-aired her suit. Mrs.—the passenger is unconscious. Probably still alive, sir.”

  “Tell Mr. Cousins to get everyone back into the launch.”

  “Aye aye, sir. The woman is wedged in the bridge hatchway. She touched the emergency close. It shut on her suit. They can’t reach around her to the hatch control switch.”

  I didn’t know bridge power backups could last so long. The bridge of any major vessel is built like a fortress. When the Captain slaps the dull red emergency-close patch inside the hatchway the hatch snaps shut almost instantly, with great force. Thereafter it is almost impossible to enter the bridge.

  Blocked by the unconscious passenger, Celestina’s hatch hadn’t shut entirely, but the body hindered access to the control panel. Somebody had fouled up badly, letting her in.

  The Captain touched the caller. “Machinist Perez, call the bridge.”

  In a moment a voice came. “Machinist here, sir.”

  “Crowbars and laser cutters to the Captain’s gig at once. Have another seaman suit up with you.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Shall I take the gig across, sir?” Lieutenant Malstrom got to his feet.

  “No, I’ll go myself. You take the watch.” Captain Haag started for the hatchway.

  “Aye aye, sir. But, Captain—”

  “It’s my responsibility.” His voice had sharpened. “I’ll have to see what happened. If she doesn’t survive ...” Passengers might be cargo, but there would be a Board of Inquiry if anyone died. Captain Haag shook his head. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour. You have the conn.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The Captain slapped the panel. The hatch opened. He strode toward the ladder.

  Lieutenant Malstrom and I exchanged glances. He grimaced. I felt pity for Lieutenant Dagalow and even for Mr. Cousins; when the Captain got to them, heads would roll.

  A few minutes later they launched the gig. We watched in the simulscreens as it shot across to Celestina. Smaller and far more maneuverable than the launch, the gig was a mere gnat against the brooding mass of the great stricken ship.

  Celestina’s lock was already occupied by the launch. The gig maneuvered as close as it could, then the seaman fired a magnetic cable into the lock. The Captain went across, hand over hand, just like a cadet at Academy.

  Half an hour later the speaker came alive. “Bridge, this is Hibernia.” The Captain naturally called himself by the name of his ship.

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  “It was easier than we thought.” Captain Haag sounded relieved. “Perez reached the switch with the point of a crowbar. She’s breathing, at any rate. We’ll bring her back on the launch: it’s faster. Get the next gaggle of passengers ready. Send an extra middy next trip for the gig.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Shall I go for the gig, sir?” I tried to conceal my eagerness. The midshipman he sent would be, however briefly, in command during the passage between ships.

  Lieutenant Malstrom smiled. Perhaps he remembered his own days as a middy. “Sure, Nicky.”

  With magnification set to zero we could see the passengers and crew waiting in the launch. The moment the Captain and the injured passenger were aboard, its lock closed. Crewmen untied the safety line.

  The Captain sounded worried. “Her complexion isn’t good. Have Dr. Uburu stand by at the lock. Belay that figuring, Mr. Cousins, there’s no time. Darla, feed coordinates to our puter!”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Darla knew when to be all business.

  Lieutenant Malstrom and I watched on the simulscreen as the launch shot away from Celestina. Under main power it headed toward our lock. When it reached the halfway point I stood to leave for the launch berth. I glanced over my shoulder at the screen.

  The speaker blared. “THE ENGINE’S OVERHEATING! WE’RE THROTTLING DOW—THE SHUTOFF WON’T—” The caller went dead as the launch disintegrated in a flash of white light.

  “Lord God!” Lieutenant Malstrom froze at his console. I heard myself make some sort of sound. Chunks of twisted metal and other debris spun lazily off the side of the screen. I glimpsed a shredded spacesuit.

  The lieutenant frantically keyed the suit broadcast frequencies. Nothing but the barely audible hiss of background radiation.

  I stood rooted halfway between the console and the hatch. Mr. Malstrom’s eyes held terror. Together, we stared into the space the launch had occupied.

  At last, Lieutenant Malstrom began to function.

  We couldn’t search for survivors, even if there’d been any; we had neither our launch nor the gig. Mr. Malstrom ordered Vax and a party of seamen across to recover the gig from Celestina’s lock. Squirting propellant from tanks strapped to their thrustersuits, they navigated the void between Hibernia and the derelict. At last they reached the gig. Vax sailed it back to Hibernia’s waiting lock. He docked it as well as any of the lieutenants might, far better than I was able.

  We could do nothing else.

  Mr. Malstrom made the necessary announcement to the stunned passengers and crew. From some inner reserve he summoned a formal dignity. “Ladies and gentlemen, by the Grace of Lord God, Captain Justin Haag, commanding officer of U.N.S. Hibernia, has died in an explosion of the ship’s launch. With him died Lieutenant Abraham Cousins, Lieutenant Lisa Dagalow, Machinist Jorge Perez, able seaman Mikhail Arbatov, and six passengers. I, Lieutenant Harvey Malstrom, senior officer aboard, do hereby take command of this ship.”

  He rested his head on the console. Then he continued, “The six passengers are Ms. Ruth Davies, Mr. Edward Hearnes, Mr. Ayah Dinh, Ms. Indira Etra, Mr. Vance Portright, and Mr. Randolph Carr.”

  After a moment he reached for the speaker again. “Chief McAndrews, Dr. Uburu, and Pilot Haynes, report to the bridge.” Then he swung toward me, desolate. “God, Nicky, what do I do now?”

  “Permission to use the caller, sir.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I rang Dr. Uburu’s quarters. “This is the bridge. Please bring a tankard of medicinal alcohol to your conference with Captain Malstrom.”

  The Captain shot me a grateful look. Then as the import of my words sunk in, he paled. “Captain Malstrom. Dear God!”

  “Yes, sir.” I wasn’t good at my practical lessons but I knew the regs fairly well. The commanding officer of a Naval vessel was always a Captain. His rank was subject to reconfirmation by Admiralty upon return, but a ship could be commanded only by a Captain. When Lieutenant Malstrom became Hibernia’s senior officer, he became Captain Malstrom.

  After a moment’s inward reflection he focused on me anew, and muttered, “You’d better go, Nicky. I’ve got to talk to them.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” I came to attention and snapped a formal salute. The Captain would need all the support he could get. He returned the salute and I left him to his desolation.

  I trudged back to the wardroom. Sandy’s eyes were red. Vax, for once, was quiet and withdrawn. I chased them both out of the cabin and lay down in the dark, to cry myself to sleep. At seventeen, I was unaccustomed to horror and loss.


  When I woke the next morning, Sandy Wilsky was in the brig pending the official inquiry into the disaster. He’d been arrested by Master-at-arms Vishinsky, on orders of the Captain. I knew he was innocent, and surely so did Mr. Malstrom, but if it hadn’t been for Sandy’s tomfoolery, he, not Lieutenant Dagalow, would have been aboard the launch when it disintegrated.

  Troubled, I went in search of Amanda, and found her in her cabin. Seeing my face, she stood aside without a word, closed the hatch behind us.

  Not long after, she sat on her bunk, my head in her lap. “I don’t understand, Nicky. Why can’t he command Hibernia without changing rank? He’s still the same Lieutenant Malstrom.”

  I was patient. “Think of Captain as a legal position instead of a rank. You think Captain Haag ran the ship, right? He was higher in rank than the lieutenants, so he was in charge.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, no. The Captain is the United Nations Government. All of it. The SecGen, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the World Court. Anything the U.N. can do, he can do. He is its plenipotentiary in space.” For some reason, telling her the obvious made me feel better.

  “So?”

  “A lieutenant is just an officer, but the Captain is the government. Only the Captain can be that. And only the government can run the ship. So, the person who runs the ship is Captain. His word is law.”

  Amanda was already on another topic. “Anyway, Chief Engineer McAndrews has more seniority. He should be Captain.”

  “Hon, it doesn’t work that way.” She stroked my hair in response to my endearment. “The ship had three lieutenants. Under them are four middies. There are also three other officers on board. Staff officers.”

  “I’ve heard that before. What does it mean?”

  “A line officer is in line to command the ship. Staff officers can order the middies and the seamen about, but they don’t succeed to command. They’re here to do a specific job, and that’s it.”