Ep.#15 - That Which Other Men Cannot Do (The Frontiers Saga)

by Ryk Brown

  Captain Poc looked confused, his brows knit together. “What would you like to speak about?”

  “How do you think things are going?”

  “Things are going fine for us.”

  “No, I meant overall, for the Alliance, for Earth…that sort of thing.”

  Captain Poc thought for a moment. “Well, from a campaign perspective, I guess things are going fairly well. The liberations of Mu Cassiopeiae, Chi Draconis, and Lamda Serpentis, were all executed flawlessly, with very few casualties, and almost no damage to our ships. Even the collateral damage to those systems was minimal.”

  “Yes, we have been quite fortunate as of late.”

  “For the Alliance as a whole, or at least for the forces in the Sol sector, we seem to be picking up quite a bit of support from our new member worlds. At least in manpower, that is.”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “I am concerned about the popularity of Admiral Galiardi and his Strength Now party,” Captain Poc admitted. “If they gain influence on the new Coalition Congress, our ability to conduct operations could become problematic.”

  “Which is exactly why we have been so aggressive with our timetable,” the admiral replied.

  “Understandable.”

  Admiral Dumar paused to take a breath, letting it out in a long sigh. “How do you feel about your ship?”

  “It’s a good ship. A little old, perhaps, but still in good working order. She could use better sensors, though. I’ve heard of the stuff they’re putting into the recon module for the new Super Falcons. I wouldn’t mind getting a few of them installed in my ship.”

  “You will, sort of.”

  “Sort of?” Captain Poc echoed in confusion.

  “We’re taking your ship down for a month or so,” the admiral explained. “Putting her in dry dock. She’ll get new defensive weapons, new shields, and a completely new sensor package. We’re even going to increase her crew by four specialists in order to monitor those new sensors. We’re turning her into a dedicated recon ship.”

  “Interesting,” Captain Poc replied thoughtfully. “Where are you going to put the extra crew, Admiral? We barely have enough room for eight as it is, let alone twelve.”

  “We’re gutting her interior spaces and redesigning. Her missions will be limited to eighteen hours, maximum, and she’ll be on constant duty cycles, standing down a few days for refit every few weeks. She’ll have rotating crews, so each crew will be flying a mission every other day, on average, with a few days off every ten days.”

  “That will take some getting used to,” Captain Poc observed. “We’ve been living in that ship for several years now.”

  “Actually, you’ll have a lot more to get used to than you think,” Admiral Dumar told him. “You’re all getting reassigned.”

  “To where?”

  “Congratulations, Captain,” Admiral Dumar said, standing and offering his hand. “You’re taking command of the Kent.”

  Captain Poc stared at the admiral, so shocked that he forgot to shake his hand. “The Kent, sir?”

  “The Jung frigates in the Tau Ceti shipyards. The first one will be ready to begin service in three weeks’ time.”

  “I thought it was bad luck to rename a ship?”

  “It seems the Jung don’t assign a name to a ship until the day it is launched,” Admiral Dumar explained. “Therefore, we decided to name her the Kent.”

  “A good choice,” Captain Poc agreed.

  “Then you’ll take her?”

  “Of course, sir, thank you,” Captain Poc replied, finally standing and shaking the admiral’s hand. “But, what about a crew?”

  “Like I said, you’ll be taking your crew with you.”

  “But surely they are not enough to run a frigate?”

  “No, they’re not,” the admiral agreed. “It actually takes one hundred and twenty to crew a frigate. I just figured you’d like to take your crew with you. You can assign them roles as you see fit, Captain.”

  “And the rest of her crew?”

  “You’ll start with one full shift of forty,” the admiral explained, “and you’ll have three weeks to get them trained and ready. Captain Roselle has agreed to give you his third shifters to use as your first shift, as many of the systems are similar between both ships. So you should be able to get your first shift ready for action in short order.”

  Captain Poc felt a smile forming on his face. “Thank you, sir. We won’t let you down.”

  “Of that I am certain,” Admiral Dumar replied.

  * * *

  Commander Telles stood on the observation platform, watching the newest batch of recruits going through advanced hand-to-hand combat training. “Which class is this?” he asked Master Sergeant Jahal.

  “Class eight. They have reached the halfway point of their training.”

  The commander continued to watch, paying particular attention to a rather aggressive, dark haired young man. “That one,” he said, pointing to the man. “I believe he has yet to be beaten.” He watched as the recruit used the methods taught to him by his instructors, and brought down a much larger man by using his opponent’s momentum against him. “He uses motion and energy well.” The commander turned to the master sergeant. “Are we teaching them combat kinetics?”

  “Just basic leverage and momentum,” the master sergeant replied. “No time to get into physics and kinesiology with them.”

  “This one has natural instincts,” Commander Telles commented as he continued to watch. “They will serve him well. How did he score on the range?”

  Master Sergeant Jahal leaned against the rail. “Sergeant!” he yelled toward the Ghatazhak sergeant below on the training line. The sergeant turned to look at his superior, who signaled him to join them.

  “Yes, Master Sergeant,” the sergeant said as he stepped onto the observation deck, saluting both the master sergeant and the commander.

  “The young man with the black hair,” Master Sergeant Jahal said. “He seems to have a knack for hand-to-hand.”

  Sergeant Lazo turned to look at the men below, spotting the one the master sergeant was referring to. “Recruit Daymon. Yes, he has been doing well.”

  “Are his scores on the range equally impressive?” Commander Telles inquired.

  “He scored ninety-eight on static targets, both sidearms and auto-rifles. However, his scores on the course were lower. Ninety-two, I believe.”

  “Why the lower score on the combat course?” the commander wondered.

  “He’s a bit too aggressive,” Sergeant Lazo explained. “He took out a lot of civilians by accident.”

  “And how many enemies escaped him?” Master Sergeant Jahal asked.

  “None, sir.”

  “How is he at improvising?” Commander Telles asked.

  “Better than most,” Sergeant Lazo admitted.

  “Are you thinking of bumping him to advanced training?” Master Sergeant Jahal asked the commander.

  “He hasn’t finished basic yet, sirs,” Sergeant Lazo warned.

  “He can fight, he can shoot, and he can improvise.”

  “He hasn’t even seen a tactical display system yet,” the sergeant told them.

  “When does the next advanced class begin?” Commander Telles inquired.

  “Day after tomorrow,” Master Sergeant Jahal replied.

  “Assign one of your men to teach him to use the tactical gear, then transfer him to the advanced class,” Commander Telles instructed.

  “He’ll miss out on some of the group maneuvers,” Master Sergeant Jahal cautioned.

  “If he ends up on an aggressor team, he’ll have to unlearn it all anyway,” Commander Telles said. “Make it happen, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Lazo replied. He snapped a salute, then turned and departed, returning to the training line.

  “An unusual call,” Master Sergeant Jahal commented.

  “Perhaps,” Commander Telles admitted. “But we need more aggressor teams,
and sooner rather than later.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Nathan stood on the aft end of the starboard catwalk, leaning on the railing and looking down at the first Super Eagle coming off the elevator pad below him.

  “Nice-looking ship,” Vladimir said as he came out of the fighter deck control room.

  “Yes, it is,” Nathan agreed. “I trained in the original version, you know.”

  “How did you like it?” Vladimir asked as he joined his friend at the railing.

  “It was an easy ship to fly. Lots of automation, faster than hell to orbit. Maneuverable as well. She could out-turn and out-accelerate a standard Jung fighter. At least that’s what we were told at the time. I’m not sure anyone had actually seen a Jung fighter in combat back then.”

  “Then it was fun to fly?”

  “Fun wouldn’t really be the right word,” Nathan said. “It was a good ship, well suited for its task… But fun to fly? No. Fun would be my grandfather’s old Carson Twelve-B. Little two-seat aerobatic job. He taught me to fly in it when I was about twelve. Now that was a fun plane to fly. Real stick and rudder stuff. Not a single bit of automation aboard. Heck, it barely has any instruments. Just airspeed, altitude, and a few engine gauges. That was real flying.”

  “You should take me for a ride sometime,” Vladimir suggested, as he watched the second Super Eagle roll off the elevator pad on the opposite side of the bay from them.

  Nathan looked at him, thinking. “You know, I’m not even sure if that plane still exists. I mean, it did before the Jung attacked. It was in a hangar on my grandfather’s property outside of Vancouver.”

  “Call him and ask.”

  “He died when I was in college. Our family kept the property and the plane. My father had someone living there as a caretaker for the estate. I think he imagined that I would live there someday… Raise a family, and all that.”

  “Maybe your father knows if the plane is still intact?”

  “Maybe,” Nathan said. “I’ll ask him about it next time we speak.” Nathan smiled, remembering his flying adventures in the old plane. “I wouldn’t mind flying her again, that’s for sure.”

  Nathan and Vladimir watched as the third Super Eagle rolled off the elevator below them. The spacecraft rolled forward, then turned ninety degrees to its right and pulled into the second starboard launch tube airlock.

  “Have you seen the fighter deck control room?” Vladimir wondered, pointing to the large windows along the back wall just to his left. “It’s a lot bigger than I expected.”

  “Yeah, they decided to keep the aft observation window, so they could take over as approach control if flight ops goes down,” Nathan explained. “Of course, we lost our observation deck.”

  “Like anyone ever had time to use it,” Vladimir commented. He looked across the bay as another Super Eagle rolled off the port aft elevator platform. “How many of them are we getting today?” he wondered.

  “Twelve are coming here, and the other twelve are going to the Celestia.”

  “That’s it? Twelve fighters?”

  “They can only make them so fast,” Nathan replied. “Two squadrons of twelve is all they could get built and get pilots for so quickly. That number will double in a couple months. Within six months, we’ll have forty-eight fighters each. Within a year, we should have another forty-eight stationed at Karuzara.”

  “Six months,” Vladimir said. “It is sometimes hard for me to believe that we have been at this for nearly two years now.”

  “We’d both be up for rotation next month,” Nathan commented, as another Super Eagle rolled off the elevator beneath them.

  Vladimir sighed. “This is where we belong, you and I.”

  Nathan looked at his friend. “You don’t buy into all the destiny crap, do you?”

  “Not really. What I meant was that you and I are doing what we were born to do. What we are good at doing. We each could be doing many different things than this, but this is what we are best suited for. You are a natural leader, and I am good at fixing things.”

  “So, that’s all we’re good for?”

  “Of course not. I am good at many things. Fixing things, computer programming, I am an excellent shot, a wonderful cook…”

  “I don’t know about that last one,” Nathan teased. “Speaking of cooking, did you have plans for lunch?”

  “Why do you think I am here? To watch your Super Eagles roll around on the deck?”

  * * *

  Captain Nash stepped up to the podium and looked out at the group of new trainees gathered at the Cobra training center on Tanna. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the next phase of your training. Each of you has completed the didactic portion of your training, and are ready to enter the simulators. We now have three types of simulators. Flight simulators, which are a complete mock up of the flight deck of a Cobra gunship; station simulators, which are mock-ups of each individual station on board the ship, including the quad turrets; and now the ship simulator, which provides a simulated working environment of the entire interior of the ship. This last addition will allow full crews to run mission simulations together, as a team, to better refine your ability to work together.”

  “To date, there are eighteen gunships in service, with the nineteenth gunship launching later today. Twelve of those gunships have seen combat, and no gunships have yet been lost, or even taken serious damage due to hostile enemy fire. I added that last clarification due to a few docking incidents that we won’t talk about today.”

  Captain Nash looked at his first eight crews gathered along the back of the room, noting a few guilty faces. He smiled.

  “Thus far, Tannan gunships have destroyed twenty Jung frigates, thirteen gunships, and twenty-seven fast-attack shuttles. Not a bad tally for only five combat missions. She may not be big, but the Cobra gunship packs a hell of a punch, and when used in well-coordinated group attacks, she can be even more deadly than a ship ten times her size. Just ask the captains of those Jung frigates,” he added with a grin. “The last two battles at Chi Draconis and Gliese 793 proved that as few as two Cobra gunships could bring down a frigate, under the right conditions. In those simulators is where you will learn how to do just that. You will spend countless hours executing the same maneuvers time and time again, until you can do them in your sleep. That way, by the time your gunships are ready, your transition into actual spaceflight will be seamless.”

  Captain Nash looked to his right, spotting his second in command. “Today marks an important milestone in the Cobra gunship program. While it has been an honor to personally train the crews who came before you, it is time that I started delegating more of that responsibility to others. After all, while the Cobra gunship may be a combination of Terran, Takaran, and Corinairan technologies, they are built and flown by Tannans. It is high time that Tannans started teaching their own. To that end, my role in your training will become more administrative, and the task of teaching Tannans how to operate the Cobra gunship will now fall on the crews standing behind you. Each of these men and women have proven themselves in combat, and have learned through trial and error exactly what their ships are capable of. It was a journey of discovery that we took together, as I had precious little time in this design, prior to the start of this program.”

  Captain Nash looked at his executive officer. “Lieutenant Commander Rano, class three is yours to instruct.”

  Everyone in attendance began to applaud, as Lieutenant Commander Rano walked to the podium. He shook hands with Captain Nash, and took to the podium with ease, going right into his opening briefing.

  Captain Nash stepped back and moved off to the side of the room. He stood and listened to the lieutenant commander as he scanned the faces of the men and women of Tanna who had been selected as the third group to enter the final phase of training. He remembered what his friend had told him a month ago, when his people had scored their first kill in the battle to liberate Delta Pavonis. He had been correct; the volunteers had starte
d pouring in. They now had more volunteers than they had positions to fill. There was even talk of creating another gunship production facility. This world now believed that they could fight the Jung, and that they could win.

  * * *

  “Jump to Alula Australis in one minute,” the Jar-Benakh’s navigator announced.

  “All weapons show ready,” Lieutenant Commander Kessel reported from the tactical station. “All guns are pre-aimed and charged, forward torpedoes are ready, as are our broadside cannons. Shield generators are on standby.”

  “Final go order?” Commander Ellison inquired.

  “Coming in now,” Ensign Marka replied. “We are go for attack as scheduled.”

  Commander Ellison looked to his captain.

  “Initiate attack as planned,” Captain Roselle ordered. “You have the conn, Commander.”

  “Aye, sir,” the commander replied. “Ensign Noray?”

  “Fifteen seconds to jump, sir.”

  “You are cleared to jump. All hands, prepare to execute attack,” Commander Ellison instructed.

  “Five seconds,” the navigator warned. “Three……two……one……jumping.”

  The jump indicator lights they had recently added to the ceiling of the Jar-Benakh’s command center turned blue, as a severely subdued jump flash appeared on several of the ship’s view screens. Two seconds later, the blue lights went out.

  “Jump complete…”

  “Shields coming up,” the tactical officer reported.

  “Two Jung cruisers, dead ahead,” Ensign Marka announced from the sensor station. “Five hundred meters and closing fast…”

  “Nicely done, Mister Noray,” Commander Ellison commented.

  “…We’re on course to pass between them, five clicks to port, and seven to starboard.”

  “Plasma cannons to port and starboard targets,” Commander Ellison instructed. “Lock on and fire when ready.”

  “Target lock to port,” Sergeant Garza reported. “Firing.”

  “Lock to starboard,” Sergeant Shugart added. “Firing.”