Trenchard’s face belied his feelings. He looked shocked and worried.
‘But the navy can’t possibly cover all of that at the same time. The United Worlds encompass too many systems and we don’t have enough personnel. We’re underfunded and under equipped already. We can barely cope as it is!’
Fife nodded. ‘High Command has already come to the same conclusion. Admiral Adisa has advised Chang to start a recruitment drive and apply to the United Worlds government for extra funding. Fortunately, the public outcry over the terror attacks is providing no shortage of candidates. Xenophobia towards the outer colonies is growing fast. The naval academy on Cairn is going to become very busy.’
Trenchard was silent for a long moment as he took all this in. Pushing recruits through training quickly meant more troopers but those troopers would be young and inexperienced. That could only make matters worse. Then he looked up and said, ‘So what’s our mission?’
Fife smiled at Trenchard’s direct question. Trenchard was no fool and had already realised that Fife must have something special planned for the Might of Fortitude.
‘A space elevator hasn’t been built on any planet for many years,’ Fife began. ‘The Papaver Corporation facility that constructs the carbon nano-tube cables was put into mothballs years ago. It’s located deep within the Kuiper belt.’
Trenchard raised a surprised eye brow. The Kuiper belt was an area of the solar system beyond Neptune. It was a region believed to be left over from the planet forming process, populated by thousands of chunks of ice. Pluto, once designated a planet, was now known to be just one of many planet sized objects that roamed the outer reaches of the solar system. It was a cold, dark and hostile place.
‘The area of the Kuiper belt where the factory is located is too densely populated by fractured ice for a jump capable ship to get very close. The Might will have to be piggy-backed near to the area and dropped off. You are to proceed to the factory and maintain security until Papaver’s permanent staff arrives to take over.’
‘Why is the factory in the arse end of no-where?’ Trenchard asked suspiciously.
‘The carbon nano-tubes are made by a process called super growth Chemical Vapour Deposition.’
Trenchard gave Fife a blank look. He was not “well-up” on science.
‘The process requires great quantities of water added to the C.V.D. reactor. There’s plenty of water available out there,’ explained Fife. ‘Plus, room to build the extremely long lengths of cable needed.’
‘And you suspect that the factory will be a target for the insurgents?’
Fife nodded. ‘We don’t think that the insurgent organisation has access to armed space-craft capable of attacking the factory as yet. But this recent attack on President Smith shows that they have developed an affiliation with the pirates. It’s just possible that the pirates may attack on their behalf. With the space elevator destroyed, export from Earth has been crippled. Rockets are just too cumbersome. That makes the factory a top priority target for both us and the insurgents.’
‘Right.’
‘Your new X.O. will be arriving shortly with a data cube containing the mission details.’
Trenchard raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘You’ve finally decided on a replacement?’
Fife sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was clearly exhausted. ‘With everything that’s been happening, it was more a matter of who was available. She’s a damn good officer though. I’m sure that you will get on together. Good luck Captain. Fife out.’
The screen blinked off. Trenchard sat in silence and thought hard. The last remark from Fife was more of an order than a question. Trenchard was meant to accept the new X.O. and just get the hell on with the job whether he liked her or not. Fife obviously didn’t have the time or the resources to argue. Things were clearly bad on Earth and Fife had other fish to fry.
Trenchard was old fashioned; some would say “sexist”. Privately he didn’t agree with women in the navy, he certainly didn’t like working with them aboard a star-ship. But in his position of authority he had to set a good example. Great, he thought. A mission to the arse end of no-where to guard an empty factory and now a woman as his X.O. On top of that he had an inexperienced crew who were still mourning the death of their Captain and two mutinous officers that no-body trusted. Could things possibly get any worse?
The light above the main airlock changed from red to green and the hatch slid apart with a sharp hiss of escaping air. Trenchard and the gathered officers stared keenly towards the hatchway, eager to get the first look at their new executive officer. The woman who stepped briskly forwards from the airlock was in her mid-thirties, tall, and had a cold but not unattractive face. She stopped in front of Trenchard and saluted abruptly.
‘Captain Trenchard?’ she asked in a thick French accent.
‘Good morning,’ Trenchard replied, as brightly as he could muster, as he returned the salute. ‘You must be Commander Genevieve Noir?’
The woman nodded.
‘Let me introduce you to the crew,’ said Trenchard, turning towards Lieutenant Commander Pugh who was desperately trying to look welcoming.
‘I’m sorry Captain,’ Commander Noir interrupted, ‘but I have orders here for you from Admiral Fife. I will have to meet the crew later; the matter is too urgent. May we use your wardroom?’
Trenchard looked stunned for a moment but recovered quickly. Damn, she was keen. He could see why Fife had chosen her. He would have preferred it if she wasn’t quite so pushy in front of the other officers, but there was time for her to learn that later. He waived his hand towards the end of the corridor.
‘This way,’ he said in a friendly voice with a tight smile.
Trenchard led Commander Noir towards the wardroom, leaving the other officers exchanging confused glances.
Trenchard settled himself into the wardroom bench seat for the third time that morning. He watched as Commander Noir drew a data cube from her pocket and inserted the small black cube into a slot on the control console in front of him.
‘Right,’ he sighed. ‘Perhaps now you can tell me what’s so damned important that this couldn’t wait?’
Commander Noir sat down and smiled warmly at him. ‘I’m sorry to step on your toes Captain Trenchard. I know how it must look to the crew. I promise it won’t happen again.’
Trenchard felt himself unexpectedly flush red in the face. Noir’s whole demeanour had changed. She was now being warm and friendly. She was not unattractive, quite the opposite and now that she smiled the coldness left her face like the melting snow in springtime.
‘Apology accepted,’ said Trenchard, a little less coldly himself.
Was he being manipulated? Would he have let a man get away so easily with acting that way in front of the other officers? Stop second guessing yourself Joe, he told himself. She’s an officer of the navy and she has a job to do, just like you.
Noir operated a palm control that was set into the desk top and a glowing green three-dimensional hologram appeared above the centre of the table. Green text flared over the image which read, “Personal: for Commanding Officer.” Then the tactical image of the space station appeared, resembling a container shipyard stacked on its side. The structure was made from huge rectangular pods that had been connected together to form laboratories and living quarters. They surrounded a central void, which Trenchard assumed was where the carbon nano-tubes were constructed. The whole thing resembled a hollowed-out Rubik’s Cube. Deep in the heart of the structure there was an area that was highlighted with flashing red.
‘Apart from the ability to construct and cut the carbon nano-tubes, it has recently emerged that there is another reason that the pirates might be interested in this facility.’
Trenchard felt his stomach clench. Here it comes, he thought. His day was just about to get a whole lot worse.
‘When it was mothballed, Papaver used the space station to store several prototype weapons systems that his company had been developing
.’
‘What?’ Trenchard exclaimed in alarm.
‘Papaver thought, an abandoned factory thats only use was to build cables for a space elevator that no-one thought would ever need replacing, was the perfect place to hide top-secret weapon prototypes.’
‘Marvellous!’ exclaimed Trenchard. ‘What’s he got there?’
Noir shrugged. ‘Most of it isn’t too impressive,’ she said, scrolling a list through the air with her thumb. ‘A lot of the technology has been superseded by now. But there is one item that Papaver is extremely worried about and he won’t give us the details of the weapon. It’s still classified. All we know is that it’s code-named “Morgenstern”.’
Trenchard racked his brain. His knowledge of German was not extensive. ‘Morning... stone?’
Noir shook her head and corrected him. ‘Morning Star. Sometimes used as a reference to Lucifer or Satan but also a medieval spiked mace. The truth is that we don’t know why it was called that. The designers probably just liked the name. All we know is that Papaver is worried sick in case the pirates capture it.’
Trenchard leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head, then stared at the metal overhead. ‘So, this isn’t just a babysitting mission for an abandoned factory. This is a guard detail for high security, top-secret weaponry? Wonderful!’
‘One more thing,’ Noir said, lowering her voice. ‘Because of the top-secret nature of the weapon, we can’t let the rest of the crew know anything about it unless it becomes absolutely necessary. We are to protect the station until Papaver’s technical team arrives to take charge but we are to stay out of the weapon storage facility. Admiral Fife was very clear on this point.’
Trenchard pulled a sour face. ‘Why do we always have to pussy-foot around Papaver? You’d think he owns the navy the way that High Command simpers after him.’
Noir shrugged. ‘He practically does own the navy Sir. His company builds and supplies all our weapons and ships. He built this prototype vessel Captain. He could make things very difficult for the navy if he wished to.’
Trenchard simply grunted and nodded. ‘When do we leave?’
‘The guided missile destroyer Art of Devastation is already preparing to take us there. We are to dock onto her immediately and leave A.S.A.F.P.’
The troopers of the Might of Fortitude were tucking into their evening meal. The quality of the food was much better tonight as fresh fruit and vegetables were plentiful, owing to the boat being docked at home port. Vast bio-domes had been built on Cairn; huge greenhouses inside which fruit and vegetables were intensively grown. Cox, Stofan and a group of others were already half way through their meals when McGagh pushed over to their table and elbowed his way down onto the bench. He looked tired and irritable and was covered with paint smears.
Stofan grinned at him. ‘Hello Paddy,’ she said. ‘How come you’ve got paint on your uniform when you’ve been inside a protective E.V.A. suit for the last four hours?’
McGagh was hitting the bottom of a ketchup bottle, vainly trying to get the last dregs out and onto his beans. The choice tonight was between spaghetti Bolognese or egg, chips and baked beans. The big Irish man had gone for a portion of both. He was now covering the whole plate with red sauce.
‘I was bloody clean until I got out of the damned suit and had to clean the spray valves,’ he growled, pushing a forkful of chips and beans into his mouth. ‘The flaming pressure hose broke free and covered me with paint. I’ve spent the last half hour cleaning the bloody mess up!’
Stofan and Cox chuckled.
McGagh stopped chewing and glared at Cox. ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at kitten boy!’
Cox stopped laughing and begun to absent-mindedly rub the kitten pin badge on his uniform.
Stofan glared at McGagh. ‘Hey! There’s no need to take it out on Cox. It’s your own fault for being a smart ass to Pugh. I warned you not to.’
Paddy grunted and continued to eat. ‘I didn’t see you obeying his orders during the training mission. I could have sworn you were right behind me when we got zapped in the nads.’
Stofan stuck her tongue out at McGagh and continued to eat her own meal. Cox paused with his fork mid-way from his plate to his mouth and stared off into the distance.
‘I keep thinking about all those poor people,’ he said.
McGagh stared at him as he shovelled another large forkful into his mouth and made a grunting noise.
‘What do you mean?’ Stofan asked.
‘Trying to escape that island when the space elevator fell and being crushed to death; thousands of them. Then the waves hitting the coast and drowning people.’
Stofan placed a comforting hand onto Cox’s arm. ‘Will your girlfriend be alright?’
Cox smiled. ‘Nancy? Oh, sure. She lives well inland. I’m sure she’ll be okay.’
‘That’s good then,’ said Stofan. ‘Try not to think about it. Try to think about our job. It’s up to us to hunt down people like the ones that destroyed the space elevator.’
‘I hope wherever we’re being sent, we get the chance to give them fuckers back what for!’ growled McGagh as he glugged down some coffee and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Any idea where we’re headed?’
Stofan shook her head. ‘No idea, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere inside the solar system.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Cox, ever in awe of Stofan’s seemingly limitless knowledge of naval matters.
‘Because I saw them loading the supplies for the galley this morning. We haven’t taken on nearly enough stores for a long voyage. They were loading in a bitch of a hurry too, so it must be an urgent mission. The logistics officer was in a right foul mood.’
‘Maybe they found out who did it and we’re being sent to hunt them down,’ said McGagh with a gleeful grin.
‘You have a bit too much blood lust for me Paddy,’ snapped Stofan as she stared hard into his eyes.
‘What am I supposed to have?’ he said, still grinning. ‘I’m a trooper in the Space Navy. It’s my job to kick the insurgents’ heads in. They’re filthy rotten dirty fighters the lot of them. The sooner we’ve put a bullet into every single one of their thick skulls, the better!’
Stofan sighed. ‘They’re still people Paddy. They have families themselves you know. They believe in what they’re fighting for, just like us.’
McGagh’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Sounds like you’re trying to justify what they did! You’re not a fuckin’ sympathiser, are you?’
‘No of course not!’ Stofan exclaimed. ‘It’s just that you always deal with black or white, right or wrong Paddy. I’m just saying that it’s usually more complicated than that. There are grey areas where right or wrong gets blurred sometimes.’
McGagh cleared his plate and stood up, ready to go back for seconds. ‘Just you wait till some insurgent has a rifle pointed in your face and your mate’s body is lying in pieces on the ground next to you,’ he snarled. ‘Then we’ll see if you still believe in grey!’
As McGagh stomped grumpily off towards the back of the queue for food, Stofan watched him go and sighed. Then she swigged down her coffee and turned to Cox.
‘Come on then. We have a weapons prep to do before we get underway and I want to be ready, whatever this mission turns out to be.’
CHAPTER 16 “NERVES”
The huge docking clamps released with a hiss that reverberated through the vessel. The Might of Fortitude powered away from the Art of Devastation towards the Kuiper belt like a pilot fish leaving a shark. The area resembled a vast expanse of Arctic Ocean, chock full of massive icebergs and trailing frozen dust and debris. The largest object in this area was the dwarf planet Makemake, an ice giant that was two thirds the size of Pluto and composed from frozen methane, ethane and nitrogen gas. There was nothing on or near Makemake, but the dwarf planet dominated the horizon like an oversized dirty snowball.
The Papaver Corporation factory was much further into the arctic depths of the ice fi
eld. The Art of Devastation had dropped the Might off as close as she could but it was still almost a day’s voyage into the ice field to the factory. It was far too dangerous for any Watters’ Drive capable ship to jump into an area as densely populated as the Kuiper belt. The ship would have risked damage to her hull when she dropped out from the faster-than-light propulsion. The Might of Fortitude was relatively small and could dodge between the icebergs. She powered up her engines, as bright as a sun and then blasted at full thrust into the foreboding cold heart of the densest part of the Kuiper belt.
Twenty hours later, the watch crew in the control room gazed on as the space station finally drew near. Trenchard turned to the navigator.
‘Schmidt. Bring us within five hundred meters of the station and then full stop. I want the troops sent across in the drop-ships. We can’t afford to dock the boat in case trouble shows up. I want the Might on a constant watch, just out of sight from the station, hidden behind one of the ice formations. If a pirate cruiser shows up I want to take them by surprise.’
‘Aye, aye Sir!’ came the reply from several officers.
Trenchard turned towards his executive officer. Commander Noir was standing close behind him to his left. She stood expectantly, waiting for her orders to leave for the station.
‘Commander Noir, you have the Conn. I’m going down there myself,’ Trenchard ordered.
Noir was appalled. ‘Sir!’ she spluttered. ‘Your place is on the ship, it’s my job to command the troopers on mission. It’s completely against regulations to…’
Trenchard raised his finger in front of his face, immediately silencing Noir. ‘I don’t need the regulations quoted at me Commander. I’m well aware of what the book says. I’m also well aware of your service record.’
Noir’s mouth, which was hanging agape, snapped shut and her eyes burned with anger and resentment.
The Space Navy Series Books One & Two: Including the Kindle novellas Josiah Trenchard and the Might of Fortitude & Josiah Trenchard and the Morgenstern Page 14