Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “Captain Bartholomew wants to see you. Right now, Lieutenant.”

  Tam contemplated what she might be in trouble for now; the sims today had pitted her against her peers, most of whom despised their nominal commanding officer. She stood and followed Ensign Soza out into the corridor and then through the junior lieutenant's bay. As a senior lieutenant she had only one roommate, instead of a twenty, like the rest of the squadron.

  Soza led her into the “Wing” office. Captain Bartholomew called his trainees “fighter pilots” and had organized them into “squadrons” and the training squadrons into a training wing. It was a crock, she'd learned. She was going to be stuck on some stupid rock, without legs and without hope of ever getting off.

  Since then her attitude had steadily deteriorated -- and it hadn't been good before. She had no idea who it was who had it in for her, much less why, but they messed with her all of the time. She'd stood fourth in her graduating class at Maunalua, and while she finished sixth out of eight in her bridge watchkeeping exam, she was in the top five percent of scores, overall. She had had extraordinary competition on that exam: only one of those who scored higher than she had, ranked less than full commander and she was pretty sure he didn't care, because he was dead. One of those she tested with had won the Federation's highest decoration twice and commanded one of the mightiest warships ever conceived.

  The only bright spot was that she was getting promoted to match her certificates; at some point someone was going to notice something was wrong. Hopefully that would happen before she went totally bonkers.

  “Lieutenant Farmer reporting, sir,” she said, saluting the fat toad they'd put over them. How in the world had the man ever scored a weapons officer certificate? By the second day of their training, half of the students could beat him. By the third day, they all could.

  “Lieutenant, I've been levied for four weapons control officers. I was told they were to rank one-two-three-four in my classes -- so I have no choice. Thus, neither do you. Return to your quarters, gather your ship bag and report to shuttle bay seventeen as quickly as possible.”

  “And the nature of the assignment?”

  “Classified, I'm told. I was told that if asked I was to tell each officer that it is an aloft assignment of indefinite duration -- you can take that to mean a full deployment, whatever that means these days. Get going, Lieutenant.”

  Tam tried not to jump for joy as soon as she went outside. Instead, she hustled to the bay, crammed everything she owned into her ship bag and fifteen minutes from when she'd sat down the first time, she was in the shuttle bay.

  She had expected to have to wait. Instead, there was a master chief talking to one of the shuttle bay's crew. The master chief was wearing a fighter pilot's black shipsuit, but a master chief's chevrons. And more medals than Tam had ever seen anyone ever wearing before.

  “I'm Lieutenant Tam Farmer, I was supposed to report here for transportation.”

  The master chief ran her eyes over her. She was, Tam thought, in her mid-thirties, a bit young for her rank. But that was happening more and more often these days.

  There was a long delay that would have been insulting, if it hadn't resulted in three more of her classmates appearing, all puffing.

  When they were all assembled, the master chief spoke formally to them, “I am Master Chief Shinzu, sirs. I'm afraid there will be a short delay. Please, sirs, accompany me.”

  The four of them trailed behind the master chief as she led the way through corridors of the base; after a few minutes, the master chief turned to them. “We're going to have to hustle, sirs. My apologies.”

  She started to jog, and for an instant Tam wondered if this was some sort of bizarre test. She decided that the master chief was being polite, and that the worst that could happen to her was that she'd look like an idiot. She could live with a butter-side like that, if the upside was a ship assignment.

  A few moments later the master chief stopped just short of the base hospital.

  “Sirs, if I may suggest. This would be a very good time to practice your fly-on-the-wall imitations. Do not speak unless spoken to; answer questions as succinctly as possible while making sure that you are entirely truthful. If it is any consolation, I don't think you'll be spoken to about the matter at hand.”

  “What matter is that, Master Chief?” Tam asked. She was senior, it was nominally her responsibility to find out what was up.

  “Patience, Lieutenant. Practice that fly-on-the-wall imitation.”

  A few moments later they were in the base hospital. The master chief breezed past any number of people, until they were in an office marked “Colonel Levi, Hospital Commander.” A chief petty officer stood at the door, holding it open for them. The master chief slowed going through, coming to a stop just inside.

  Tam froze. There was a vice admiral inside the hospital commander's office. Since there was exactly one vice admiral in the Adobe system, that meant it was the admiral commanding the entire shebang. And if Tam was any judge of expressions, the admiral was furious.

  Worse the admiral glanced at Tam, and his expression worsened. She braced herself; she had no idea what she'd done wrong; but this was a possible ship assignment. She'd do whatever she had to do to land it.

  The silence was a little unnerving. More unnerving was a red-faced Captain Bartholomew who appeared a few minutes later, breathing stentorianly.

  The admiral was abrupt. “Can either of you two explain to me why you tried to send not one, but four medically unfit officers out to one of my ships?”

  Tam blinked. She was medically unfit? No one had ever said anything about that to her! From the expressions on her companions' faces they too were stunned. Tam's hopes sank, but she lifted her chin. She'd show them who was medically unfit!

  “I wrote you a memo, saying that the number of devices had fallen to a critical level, Admiral. I spoke to you directly about that. We have exactly one hundred and twenty-two remaining in stock,” Colonel Levi said. “We can't expect more in less than two months.

  “In spite of the shortage, all officers who report here for implants are given them.”

  “Captain Bartholomew?” the admiral asked of the training squadron commander.

  “Admiral, the order I received was that I was to forward four officers to a particular shuttle bay with absolutely no delay, for transfer to a classified Fleet Aloft assignment. I complied with that order, sir.”

  “As I recall, the word 'unnecessary' was included in that order before the word 'delay,'” the admiral said acidly. “I will repeat my earlier instruction to you gentleman. No one goes to a ship assignment without a device -- right up until we run out.

  “Doctor Levi, you said you would look into a substitute.”

  “I have, Admiral. Sir, the Fleet-supplied device is the size of a small grain of rice. It is powered by heat diffusion from the bearer's blood and contains the requisite transmitter and receiver. The smallest substitute my bioengineering department has produced is the size of a breadbox.”

  “These officers are to be fitted at once. I will repeat my order so that you all may be perfectly clear about my meaning and intent. You will send no individual out to the Fleet without a device, so long as you have one in stock. Am I perfectly clear? This is a necessary delay; a critically important delay.

  “I will write this off just this once. It had better not happen again, or someone will come to regret it, no matter how briefly. Am I very clear?”

  “Yes, Admiral!” the two officers said in unison.

  “Master Chief Shinzu, you will insure that these officers are fitted. You've had this duty before, have you not?”

  “Yes, sir. I will see to it, and then transfer them aboard. The XO can hardly wait, sir.”

  “And she's in the proper uniform?”

  “Aye, sir. Gunny Hodges and I saw to it personally.”

  “Good, carry on then, Master Chief. Give my regards to your XO.”

  Tam was startled when the
master chief laughed.

  “Our newest senior lieutenant has observed that if an officer is in the doghouse -- nothing rating a purple rocket but still -- they get early promotions and plum assignments. She's asked me to paddle her every other day until further notice, and could she stay in the doghouse until we return?”

  “And you told her what, Master Chief?”

  “I told her I didn't think my arm had that many cycles of paddling in them at my advanced age. Instead, I told her that I want her to write, longhand, one hundred times a day 'Each and every day, I will make Master Chief Shinzu very happy.'”

  The admiral coughed. “I'll be going now. Colonel Levi, you fix up these officers right now.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral!”

  “Lieutenant Farmer, you will stay for a minute, the others can go first. The rest of you have things to do. Go do them.”

  Tam froze. She had never before been singled out by an admiral. She tried to take comfort from the one time she'd seen someone singled out, that person's career had started a meteoric rise.

  The others left, and the admiral waved at the door. The PO that had been there all along simply closed it behind him, leaving her alone with the admiral.

  “Lieutenant, you represent a possible problem. I've been reviewing your records and can see that there has been a number of injustices aimed at you. Now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be unjust to you again.”

  “I'll do whatever you want, sir, just so long as I go out on a ship.”

  “Well, you'll be doing that; it's just that you present an unfortunate problem to good order and discipline.”

  “I would like to think I could be a paragon of good order and discipline, sir.”

  “Oh, it's nothing you've done -- it's who you are. You’re assigned into an unusual ship with an unusual crew and an unusually critical mission. Two other officers have already agreed to something like I wish to ask you to accept.”

  “Whatever it is, sir, I'll do it.”

  “I will be giving you a brevet rank, Lieutenant. A brevet is a rank given to an individual to fulfill a need according to the exigencies of the service.”

  A promotion? She'd get a brevet promotion!

  “As I said, sir, I'll do whatever is needed.”

  “Even if that is an appointment as a junior lieutenant with a date of rank one day before any of your classmates?”

  Tam froze. A demotion? That hurt! That really hurt!

  Still... she'd said anything. “Yes, sir, if that's what's needed. I agree.”

  He smiled. “Good! First, the rules. Your commanding officer will write your efficiency report. She can recommend that you stay at your breveted rank or revert to your regular rank with your original date of rank.

  “For your information, one of the officers who've been breveted was significantly more eager than you are, and went from commander to ensign. The second officer was more modest in her goals -- she went from lieutenant commander to senior lieutenant.

  “Let me blunt. The commander of your new ship was directly appointed by Admiral of the Fleet Nagoya. He didn't envision any problems, as the only other officer member of the crew was an ensign. Your captain, you see, has no bridge watchkeeping certificate. Neither does your new XO... although she's been promoted senior lieutenant now.

  “Former Commander Roeser has such a certificate, former Lieutenant Commander McVey has such a certificate and now you have such a certificate. Admiral Nagoya has no desire to have anyone interfere with the individual he appointed in command or her XO. You will not try to rise above the station your new rank provides you, do you understand, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir, BuPers revoked all of my watchkeeping certificates; they said they'd been earned without all of the prerequisites. That's why I'm here, sir, trying to get my weapons certificate back... I've gotten communications, navigation, and sensors back already.”

  “The particular officer who voided those certificates has been shot. Admiral Litvinik, was, at last report, going through the man's personnel actions, attempting to correct the man's multitude of mistakes. I've reinstated your certificates as of a few moments ago, with your original scores and dates. Your promotion number will be adjusted as well... the brevet rank won't cause it to change, by the way.”

  “Thank you, sir. I don't have a problem with this. Just so long as I go out.” She thought her legs were going to give out; she wasn't sure if she wanted to pee or throw up -- or maybe both.

  “You'll go out. One sop to your vanity, Lieutenant. The one watchkeeping certificate your new captain has is a weapons officer certificate. Further, she has accumulated the second highest count of enemy capital ships destroyed by a weapons officer. The only reason she isn't number one on the list is that her commanding officer was Willow Wolf -- and she had a head start.

  “I have made a note in your records, Lieutenant, that when you return from this mission with a promotion recommendation, that you be promoted lieutenant commander and given your choice of ship assignments.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now get out there, get that little gizmo and get out to your ship, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral!” she replied, feeling much better.

  Then the admiral was gone, and five minutes later Tam found herself face down on an examining room table, having something done behind her ear. Then the Master Chief explained what was going on with the link, and then led the four of them back to the shuttle bay.

  They rode a shuttle out to a ship docked some distance from the base. There was no word about what ship was their destination, or what their duties would be beyond as weapons officers, but Tam was certain that life was certainly going to get a lot more interesting!

  They landed in a shuttle bay, which said it was a larger than usual in a cruiser-class ship. But, instead of disembarking right away, the master chief came into the passenger compartment and spoke to them.

  “Welcome to Pixie. You four represent approximate a 25% crew augmentation; everybody else already knows everybody very well. Our mission will be explained to you shortly -- in short it will be hazardous deployment of long duration. I've been told in the last few minutes that Colonel Levi back there in the hospital had earlier done you all a favor -- he refused to certify Pixie as flightworthy with our initial berthing plan... we were going to put you all up in the sick bay, and if anyone needed a bed in sick bay, you'd swap with them.

  “Instead, lucky you, we'll be integrating a pax module tomorrow. It's a standard model with ten staterooms, bringing our total to sixteen, which coincidentally is one less than the number of our crew... but several people are sharing quarters and aren't likely to want to change. So you'll have private compartments.

  “I warn you right now that our mission has a top priority; the four of you and our other new officer have the lowest mission priorities -- assigned by a vice admiral. The rest of us were personally placed here by order of Admiral Nagoya at the request of President van der Veere.

  “You will need to keep your opinions to yourselves until you understand things much better than you do. Pixie is not your usual warship, nor is her crew your usual crew. Understand that you will not want to do anything without due consideration to our mission priority.

  “Ranks aboard Pixie are at the whim of officers a whole lot more senior than you or me. The most junior officer is our most senior officer...”

  “Pardon?” asked Ian Xavier, a young man who'd been more determined than most to do well.

  “I refer to Tin Tin Roeser... in fact, the Tin Tin Roeser, who relieved his admiral in the middle of a battle. He took a voluntary bust from full commander to ensign for this assignment. Our new third officer took a bust from lieutenant commander to senior lieutenant... and she's still number three on the totem pole.

  “You will want to phrase orders and requests carefully; technically you will be senior to 'Ensign' Roeser -- just don't forget that he had his admiral shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy. Our XO had a less l
ofty aim, picking off a senior lieutenant for cowardice.”

  She nodded to Tam. “I understand that you've joined our brevet ranks, Lieutenant. Until recently I was a crew chief for a fighter squadron aboard Rome. They would pass out a pair of brass balls to the pilots that everyone admired the most. It was said, accurately, that if you got that rather informal award that you no longer had anything left to prove to anyone, ever again. The only person I know who has been awarded a pair and who is still alive is Tommy Mikklejon.

  “I digress. Lieutenant Farmer has accepted a brevet rank of junior lieutenant, with an adjusted date of rank older than any of yours. On the other hand, her watchkeeping certificates have been reinstated -- all of them, including bridge watchkeeping and the full suite of engineering certificates.”

  The master chief looked at Tam fondly. “I know they are going to try to snag you for bridge duties, Lieutenant, but I need you more in engineering. That being said, your battle stations will be in a standard defensive module.”

  Tam raised her hand. “Master Chief, we couldn't man one of those and you used a plural.”

  “Exactly! Lieutenant Farmer has already been informed, but it won't hurt the rest of you to know that your captain is number two on the all time list of enemy capital ships destroyed, second only to Willow Wolf -- and, I might add, had she been serving on another ship, she'd be ahead, because each time she evaporated one of them, Captain Wolf got a half credit as well.

  “That's your captain. Your XO was, briefly a fighter squadron operations officer, who performed her duties adequately in the days running up to the Big Battle. She moved up to squadron XO when our XO was killed saving Dragon. Then she moved up to squadron CO when our CO was relieved for almost certain fatal wounds. The last two hats are courtesy only; she never performed any duties... but Admiral Nagoya placed her here. You'll want to know who all else signed off on her placement... Admirals Fletcher, Jensen, Saito, Tennyson head the list. You will kill yourself if you try to change the command structure of this ship.”