One day later. October 10th, 2265. 01:15 CNS Waukesha
John had talked with Damian prior to his first officer’s shift starting. Damian was very surprised that his captain had already taken action to reach out and ask if there were any open seats available. But it was a welcome surprise because he had decided that he wanted the seat.
Ultimately, he had decided on the seat in the Third Fleet on a Scottsdale class heavy cruiser. That wasn’t John’s first choice, but he wasn’t surprised that his first officer had selected that. The downside was Admiral Petrov was surely going to boast about stealing an officer from First Fleet.
“Yeah, I’m going to get my ass chewed out,” John said as he was meandering around the ship.
He couldn’t sleep so John was just conducting spot inspections. What repairs could be done were being worked on, though the engineering crew was much more active in conducting inspections and notating for space dock crews what and where to fix things. The amount of writing on the walls was rather impressive.
John was down the corridor from the main engineering department. He stopped and was investigating the notes written on the wall. One of the ceiling plates was resting against the wall. A patchwork fix for a piece of conduit could be seen. It was clear that they wanted a more permanent bit of splicing work completed.
He looked around the corridor and he could barely go two feet without seeing another note and another panel removed. This time the panel was on the wall itself. A tertiary power conduit for the rail turret that was destroyed looked like it had arcing damage. That was one more thing that needed replacing.
While those onboard the ship wasn’t in any danger of dying, aside from that lone rail round that could have done serious damage to them, the Waukesha suffered from a case of a million stings. No one attack did a crippling amount of damage, but the totality of damage suffered was extensive. Every single ablative armor plate needed replacing. It was unclear how many exterior armor plates would need to be replaced, but that number was going to be significant.
The terminal to John’s left activated and a voice began to speak, “Captain, this is Petty Officer Ramsey, Admiral Dufresne is requesting to speak to you.”
John groaned loudly, “Are the engineering meeting rooms in use?”
Tess pulled up the scheduling software and shook her head, “No sir, they are not.”
“Transfer him to room two down here. I’ll take the call there.”
John took a deep breath and shrugged. He quickly walked into engineering and made straight for the meeting room. Truth be told, John wanted no part of this conversation. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but admirals are reluctant to see any of their captains move to another fleet. That applies in triplicate when their own actions prevent one of their own from receiving a command that is deserved.
John entered the meeting room and then locked the door behind him and sat down. His hand hovered over the terminal built into the desk for several moments. He really didn’t want to press the accept button.
Eventually, he relented and accepted the communication, “Sir, good to see you.”
Admiral Dufresne was not smiling. He rubbed his forehead and sighed loudly. Eventually, he stopped rubbing his forehead and clasped his hands together on his table.
“I received your message while I was in a meeting with the other admiralty in our fleet. Moments later I received a rather condescending message from that prick Admiral Petrov. Would you explain why one of our rising stars within our command division leaving First Fleet for his?”
John answered as deadpan as he could, “Not to interject any sass or sarcasm into my answer, but if he were the rising star you, and frankly I believe as well, then why wasn’t the cruiser that was meant for him delayed for two weeks until we get back to Manchester?”
“Lieutenant, I’m not in a mood.”
“Nor am I, and again, I’m not being my normal self. It is a legitimate question. If he is the rising star that we both believe him to be, then why hasn’t the admiralty made a seat open or held the one they promised to him? I’ve looked at the captaincy report. There won’t be a seat open for at least eighteen months, and that seat is tentatively scheduled for an oldish frigate. Within twelve months of his taking that seat, he will be eligible for a promotion to lieutenant commander.”
Admiral Dufresne sighed loudly once again, “And if he were still captain of a frigate, regardless of the reasons why once that promotion hits his career is effectively over.”
“Not much of a rising star anymore. On the plus side, you can try to poach him back in three years. The long play isn’t as fun but that’s the best we could do.”
“Well, dammit. I’ll have a conversation with Admiral Dickinson about this. You aren’t wrong that this is a failure on our part. In the future, I’d appreciate a heads up before changes like this are made.”
“With respect, sir. I did air my grievance when Damian was passed over as the captain of the CNS Milwaukee. Your message to me in return was that there was an urgent need for that ship in a task force. You and I both know the urgent need was not only not a need, but a baseless political gesture.”
“In the future, come to me before you willingly ship out any officers to other fleets. I don’t want to be blindsided by other admirals in the future,” Admiral Dufresne pinched the bridge of his nose as he knew John was correct about everything, “How’s the ship?”
“Every ship in the task force received noticeable damage. We took on the crew of the Kolyma, she suffered a through and through that, they couldn’t repair themselves safely. It was towed to the station.”
“No hull losses though. Eighty-six dead though.”
John nodded solemnly, “The Damas and Alps both suffered penetrating hits to compartments. Forty-one of our casualties came from that event alone. The Nagao and Aziz each also lost three crew due to internal fires. The Orlando and Lagos also lost five and six members respectively. The remainder were fighter pilots.”
“The CAG and you have both been cleared from any wrongdoing in our reviews, but I agree with your joint recommendation to change when they withdraw from a fight at different munition levels.”
John sighed, “That’s little comfort to the families that lost men and women.”
“The task force has done a number on the pirates. Sadly, you weren’t the only task force to dig up incestuous relationships with the locals and pirates. Though what you saw was the most blatantly and wholly unacceptable behaviors,” Admiral Dufresne paused, “Naval Intelligence has rounded up ninety percent of the traitors thus far.”
“I wasn’t expecting that degree of cooperation. Some paying hush money to get better or more goods, that I can understand. But eschewing the Confederacy for pirates? That was a shot out of the left field.”
“I noticed you didn’t include a timetable to return to service. Why is that?”
John winced, “I had hoped you’d overlook that. We’re estimating six months as a best-case scenario for the Waukesha. All of her ablative plates need replacing. If that wasn’t bad enough a substantial number of hull plates need to be replaced too. Engineering is finding all sorts of plasma and arcing damage internally too.”
“That’s the kind of damage that makes six months turn into twelve in a heartbeat.”
“We’ll be lucky if it’s ten months but given that this kind of damage is the norm for this task force the Manchesterian Shipyards are going to be working overtime to fix everything.”
“Out of commission for a bloody year,” Admiral Dufresne smiled, “Well when you get back from your well-earned shore leave I know the perfect role for you.”
“Please no.”
Tim grinned evilly, “Chief taskforce analyst. Your skills will be put to great use here.”
“Wonderful, I get to be a paper pusher once again.”
“Excellent. Safe travels home,” Admiral Dufresne ended the communication.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
John unlocked the door and stared at the wall on the other side of the room. He had the look of a youngster that just go into trouble. He sighed once again as he looked at the primary engine core.
“You look like how my brother and I did after we got our asses chewed out, sir,” Marty said with some stifled laughter.
“That obvious chief?” John grinned, “I’d rather have my adoptive folks be mad at me than the admirals.”
“Ooh, damn. That’s worse.”
“How’s the ship?”
Marty shook his head, “Every bloody panel we open up we find more plasma arcing. That’s a metric ass-ton worth of shit to repair.”
“What’s your guess on downtime?”
“If I was in charge of the maintenance, which I’m not by the way, I could get it done in five months,” Marty gave off a disgusted shrug, “With the shipyard folks? Seven to ten months. On the plus side, this arcing damage is expected, and the shrouds haven’t been damaged.”
“If push came to shove the ship could go out?”
“Yup, but once you get that plasma soot that’s a sign that maintenance needs to be done sooner than later. Basically, the protective stuff around the conduit is beginning to fail. Though it should take a very long time or a sustained fight to cause actual damage.”
John walked over to a wall with one of its panels out and looked inside. He could see the telltale sign of soot. Beyond the connecting bit of conduit, everything else appeared in good working order. Though John was the first to admit that he didn’t know enough about the guts of the ship to really know if it was in good shape or not.
“Yeah, that one is just sooty,” Marty said, “Everything else is pristine.”
“Unlike our armor plates?”
“Hey, I have since found and confirmed eight ablative plates took no damage. But man, I am glad the majority of our shielding arrays didn’t flare out.”
John grinned, “Didn’t help the number one turret.”
“I’d rather lose the turret than have that round strike. Wouldn’t have killed us but we wouldn’t have much fight left in us after that.”
John and Marty walked down the length of the engineering room and ended up in the chief engineer’s office. Marty dropped into his chair and rubbed his eyes.
“What are you going to do with your downtime?” John asked after sitting down in the chair across from Marty’s desk.
“Well, I’d love to say relax and unwind. But my wife has a trip planned with the boys to some museums on Manchester. She says the kids need more culture and refinement,” Marty snorted, “She’s not wrong but fat lot of chance a twelve- and thirteen-year-old are going to pay attention in some stuffy museums.”
“Even if they don’t it’s still a good experience.”
“Yeah, I am interested in going to the military museum they have in New Adelaide. The artsy fartsy crap that she wants to go to,” Marty shook his head, “Oof. You have any kids, sir?”
“Nah, we miscarried about four months ago. As it turns out I have suffered some significant genetic degradation as a result of some stupidity on my part from several years ago. Doc has me on some new meds that he swears will help out on that.”
“Yeah, they are saying us conceiving is going to be tough to non-existent in our twenties.”
“If it makes you feel any better, we had our struggles too,” Marty said with a heavy heart, “Wow, that must mean the two of you are supes. Wasn’t there an article about how the ideal child-rearing age for baseline humans is twenty-two to twenty-four, but for superiors, isn't it in the middle thirties?”
“Late thirties actually. The exception that is early thirties if the male is the non-superior in split partners. I cannot begin to express how little Alice wants to wait until she’s nearly forty to start popping kids out,” John laughed, “It would be best for the two of us career-wise at that point but she doesn’t want to listen to reason. Or wait for that matter. There’s irony somewhere in three for me being the one preaching patience.”
Marty started to laugh, “My wife is a plus. She didn’t want to wait either. Not that either of us was planning the first kid. Marriage came pretty damn fast after we found out,” Marty grinned, “Having said that, I knew I wanted to marry her the moment I met her.”
John smiled as he looked back fondly at his memories, “She was more interested in me apparently. Though it didn’t take long for me to fall for my wife.”
“Women, they do have a hell of a power over us don’t they?”
“Isn’t that the truth,” John smiled.
“Are you still catching hell for forcing Cohen to stand down?”
John nodded.
“My old man was a naval historian. You and he would get along well I presume. Attacking that ship would’ve failed.”
“I agree, which is why I opted to do what I did.”
“I suspect he isn’t going to back down. I know Brady pretty well. He’s going to demand a general inquest over your forcing him to stand down.”
John sighed, “I haven’t received a formal request yet, but I presume my leave is going to be delayed because of that. Honestly, can’t imagine a scenario where that doesn’t happen.”
He then stood up and stretched.
“You’ll have a full internal damage report by my team in seventy-two hours.”
“Good work,” John said as he began walking out of the office.
“Captain, I don’t care what anyone else says. You did the right thing.”
John nodded, “I know. Maybe that’s why I’m so bothered by it.”
Main engineering was still a source of frenetic energy. Engineers were way busier than John thought they should be. Then again, after a battle, it’s often this department that is doing the heavy lifting. John made a mental note to send a personal thank you to all of the engineers for their hard work after their battle.
Five days later. October 15th, 2265. 17:05 Captain’s Quarters
John woke up after a brief three hours of sleep. He was still sitting on his bed and rubbing his eyes as his feet bounced off the chilly deck plating. Four and a half days of paperwork had fried his brain. It was always switched on, irrespective of how mentally fatigued he was.
“My eyes fucking hurt,” John said to no one in particular.
John picked up a grey t-shirt and put it on quickly before quickly walking over to his dresser to find some socks. Oh, how he wanted socks. The Navy eschewed away from carpeted or faux carpeting on its anti-grav plates that the civilian world does. It’s easier to keep clean that way.
Unfortunately, the anti-grav plates have an annoying tendency to draw heat from anything in direct contact with them. It won’t freeze a person’s limb, nor would it injure someone that fell asleep on the floor, but it was uncomfortably cool to the touch with bare skin.
Moments later John found what he wanted from his dresser. He picked up his pair of tennis shoes and quickly put both the socks and shoes on. He increased the lighting in his room to about half their brightness. It was then he noticed that his communications screen was flashing on his terminal.
“Wonder who this might be?” John said as he sat down at his desk.
John unlocked his terminal with a palm print and then quickly accepted the communication request. He was mildly annoyed that the bridge crew didn’t answer it and wake him up. That feeling of annoyance was shrugged off as he waited for the system to connect him to his caller.
“Lieutenant Lief, how’s being a captain treating you?” Kristin Andern said with a smile.
“Good. Killed a bunch of pirates. Literally used all of our ordinance in the last engagement. Seen the Folly of Icarus up close too. That was neat,” John said yawning with all the passion of a sloth.
“Rough night?”
“Like five days of paperwork. My eyes are about ready to start bleeding. The joys of the office,” John grinned, “That’s the downside to being a captain. Paperwork for days. How’s being a first officer treating you?”
“It’s going well. It feels overwhelming at times though. I was told that I was selected to be in the next wave of junior captains. Sounds like I’m going to be commanding a frigate within a year if all goes well.”
“Congrats. It’ll feel weird for about a day, then you’ll get used to it,” John grunted, “Or you’ll know that it really isn’t for you.”
“I think it’ll last longer than a day.”
“Nah, you are selling yourself short,” John said with a smile, “So what’s the real reason for contacting me?”
“Well, in truth I did want to catch up. But I have a weird and icky work-related question.”
John grinned, “How icky?”
“My captain is not…” Kristin sighed, “A moral man. Nor does he follow the rules.”
“Truth be told neither of those things really applies to m either,” John deadpanned.
Kristin squinted at the camera, “You aren’t helping. It’s true, but you aren’t doing what he’s doing.”
“Fine, fine. What’s happening?”
“He’s screwing an ensign. I…” Kristin shuddered, “unfortunately I am in possession of a really gross video that I accidentally came across.”
“I presume you still have said video?”
Kirstin nodded.
“Why haven’t you notified your captain’s CO. They’d want to know this.”
“There’s a rumor that this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”
“What’s his name?” John said as he was typing at his terminal.
“First Lieutenant Erik Moore.”
“Thanks. Let’s see what I can find out about this cat,” John said as he worked at her terminal.
“Jacob was right, he told me to talk to you.”
“While I am all for catching up, this kind of thing isn’t exactly something I’d want to get roped into if I’m honest with you,” John said as he skimmed the file, “Well, unofficially he received a reprimand for inappropriate conduct with a junior officer last year. Two more occurrences from the year before. Looks like he hooked up with someone in a higher social class than he is and her parents got pissy about it. Second Fleet begrudgingly dropped the case though. Color me impressed with how well-connected this dirty asshole is though.”
“How is he so connected?”
“Dad’s a former political critter and current CEO. Very well connected, he’s destroyed a couple of careers to keep his idiot boy out of trouble. Admiralty in Second Fleet seems to cave a lot towards this man, which makes me believe he has dirt on them. Let me reach out to an NI contact I have at the Nesbit Station there.”
“You are bringing NI onboard?”
“Officially? No. You will hear the convo but I won’t bring you in unless you give me the green light.”
John then attempted to connect with said contact. This wasn’t exactly something Naval Intelligence deals with, technically unlawful fraternization was a Navy thing. But Erik’s father was a known factor, and it wouldn’t be surprising if NI was willing to take out both.
Moments later the other line connected, “Holy shit. Look at you!” the voice exclaimed.
“Dwayne, how the hell are you? What’d you do to get shipped out to the middle of fuckin’ nowhere?”
“Got married, she’s posted here. We can work remotely. You know, life happened basically.”
“Nice, congrats on the nuptials.”
Dwayne grinned, “Alright you space pirate, what’d you really want? You aren’t one for water cooler chats.”
“What do you know of First Lieutenant Erik Moore?”
Dwayne reacted immediately, “I’d like to beat the pompous asshole to within an inch of his life. NI is working on a dossier to rid the Navy of him, but his father is a surprisingly well-connected prick.”
John grinned and replied, “Where’s his dad live?”
“You don’t know?”
“Would I ask if I knew?” John frowned at his old office coworker.
“Fair point. You should be able to see the planet from the station you are stationed in. The old man lives and works on Manchester.”
John grinned as he looked back at Kristin. She nodded her head. He quickly merged the calls.
“Dwayne, this is a close and dear friend of mine. She’s got some more dirt on our boy Erik. As for his old man, let me handle him. Off the record of course. Let’s keep this on the down-low for now.”