I walk through the halls of the space station, my boots clanking against the metal floor. I pull on the collar of my dress uniform with my metal hand because for some fucking reason the station is being kept at a toasty 78 degrees Fahrenheit. My gait is rather brisk as I pass by the crewmembers of the station and the few marines standing guard at random intervals. I don't get many stares because I am supposed to be here, sometimes I get a half-assed salute but I really don't care. The war ended only about a month ago. The boys don't need an officer chewing their asses.
I stop in front of the base commander's office and take a deep breath. One of the Marines standing guard chuckles and asks,
"How fucked are you Commodore?"
I shake my head ignoring any lapse in discipline from the marine Lieutenant and respond,
"Oh, I'm fucked bad. Might lose a rank."
Both of them laugh as the door slides open with a hiss and I step into the darkened office. At the wooden desk is Admiral Alica Koppel. An old woman of indeterminate age, probably multiple age reduction gene therapy treatments, so my guess is at least 100. She looks up from the tablet on her desk with a look of thinly veiled rage as the door slides closed behind me. I salute the woman who returns the gesture and motions me to sit down with an angry grunt. I do so immediately. She then asks,
"Commodore Hollander, how is it that my station, the place I am in charge of, has a Skippy Jones class frigate on fire and inside one of the fighter hangars?"
I shrug and respond,
"Maybe... that's where the frigate belongs?"
I can hear her teeth gritting in her mouth and she asks,
"Who was the captain of the vessel prior to their promotion and interview with naval intelligence?"
I do not answer and she sharply says,
"Answer me. That is an order, Commodore."
I sigh, staring a hole through the wall behind her and answer,
"That would be me, Ma'am."
She nods and then asks,
"Does a Skippy Jones class frigate fit inside a fighter hangar?"
I respond flatly,
"No Ma'am."
She then asks again,
"Now tell me why the actual fuck is it there?"
I sigh and respond,
"Call in your traffic controller."
She grunts and states,
"I've already taken him by the balls. You are a commanding officer, you should've said no.
Yes, I understand parking a capital ship, even a small one is really cool if you can fit it inside an empty hangar, but you are lucky no one died, but the costs are easily in excess of 250 million in damages which itself is a miracle. I called it into high command, but they told me my hands are tied and I can't do shit.
Although I can ban you, and any ships under your command from my station unless we are in a state of war. That is what I am going to do."
I ask flatly,
"And how will I get off this station?"
She sighs and now looks depressed rather than angry and states,
"You have new orders. High command sent it down to me and I have the honor of giving it to you despite your blatant disregard for safety and military discipline.
Go to office number 219, there isn't anyone in there. I am lending it to you for now so that you may go over the orders. I am not going to waste any more of my time on you. Get out of my office, Dismissed."
I salute and exit the office damn near skipping as I do so. I got out of a court marshall. I knew I fucked up as soon as the pilot tried to drift us into the hangar, but a hundreds of tons ship doesn't stop on a dime and we had to accept the loss. I feel a little bad for the maintenance crew and for the frigate crew, but I was curious and no one brought up their concerns. Hell, the pilot stated he could make it.
I briskly walk down the hallway, following the ring of the station until I get to the designated office. I step inside to find a long-abandoned office, but I quickly get behind the desk and boot up the console in front of me. It kicks to life and a small camera scans me before it logs me in. I have to wait for the long-disused system to come to life. There is a picture on the desk with a nice-looking woman in it. She's in a full navy dress and I notice the fleet insignia on her uniform shoulder and feel kinda shitty for using this office. The 32nd fleet had been entirely annihilated during the war, this woman was absolutely dead. I remove the picture from its frame and put it inside a pocket on my uniform. I'll find who it is, and make sure this picture gets to their family.
The console finishes booting up and then proceeds to give an error screen when loading the file full of my orders that the Admiral sent me. The system automatically calls up the IT department and I lean back in my chair, thinking about the war...
About a week after first contact one of the other human governments decided a nice war would be a wonderful idea. The UEG, or United Earth Government which consists of Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Russia. They declared that they had a higher claim over the African continent rather than the US. This is a very odd reason for war considering there is absolutely no reason to declare war over a continent on Earth anymore. Truly Earth only has a value symbolically as it doesn't even have the highest population of any planet and all resources have been long exhausted. Right now Earth is nothing but a big nature preserve with a few cultural cities still operating. I think they declared war, just being salty about the big war when mankind first started interstellar travel.
Like always it was a big stupid affair, and once I got myself healed up from my injuries I was brought into the fold, and through my service I became a commodore, funnily enough, aside from the diplomatic corps, everyone forgot about the aliens as we glassed a few planets and then decided we didn't actually need to be at war after a full five years of war. Twenty million dead and all for jack and shit, but the UEG did cede about thirty-star systems to us. Now that the war is over I think we are going to start focusing on the whole alien thing again. I wonder when I'll be briefed on em, wonder when I'll be able to make a roast outta that bird bitch.
"You're going to ruin the finish on your hand... it's such a nice model too."
I nearly jump out of my skin as a voice pulls me from my daydream. I realize I've been flicking my metal fingers, a habit I've started doing after losing my hand. I put all four fingers against my thumb and open my hand quickly scraping the metal. To be honest it's probably ruining the finish. I look at the intruder in my office and find a rather small woman wearing a naval enlisted uniform. A Tech officer of some flavor. Her long reddish hair is tied back in a navy uniform ponytail, a pair of big brown eyes sit behind a pair of thick, rounded glasses, and a sorta rounded face with a small little nose. To be honest she looks like a young girl trying to dress like navy personnel. I raise an eyebrow at her and state,
"Yeah. It's a bad habit that I started doing."
She nods, and at this point, I realize she has been working diligently on the console attached to the desk in front of me. I also noticed she won't keep eye contact. It doesn't take me long to understand she is the IT person who was called in to help, but I notice her patches show she is an engineer, not designated IT. I have to tell myself to ignore it as we are no longer at war. During wartime, engineers could not be wasted on random computer problems, navy engineers were needed to run ship systems and fix broken shit on their posting, and civilian contractors generally did IT. I guess her paycheck has to be justified somehow now that the war is over.
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She stares at my hand for a moment, thinking about something before she asks,
"Is that the m42 high feedback prosthetic?"
I nod without a word and she beams for a moment before stopping her work and walking over to me. Without asking she grabs my metal hand and lower arm and rolls up my sleeve a little before picking at the exposed steel and the underlying wires. I can't feel it but it still feels weird. My eyes tell me my arm is being opened up and messed with but I can't feel a single thing aside from pressure from her pulling and pushing on my arm. Her expressions are adorable, the look of amazement and wonderment on her face reminds me of one of my many younger cousins when I would let them mess with my officer sidearm, unloaded of course.
This continues and she asks about the specifications that were used when granting me a new hand, mostly things like if my hand grants me greater strength or something like that. I always answer with a simple,
"Nope, they modeled it exactly after my left hand, the idea being to have balanced hand strength. I have no need for physical cybernetic enhancements."
She finally asks a question with a different answer,
"What method do you use to control this hand? Is it a direct nervous connection or does it utilize a system that detects your muscle contractions since you still have most of your arm?"
I sigh and reply,
"It's actually linked up with the metal I have built into my skull. I think my neural mod is the... uhhhh... xm-25 ship commander neuro mod. It links to that thing and then it contracts and moves as I will it. It's a little more similar to how my real hand works, just more direct rather than utilizing a direct cable or nervous connection. It also means I can remove and replace it without feeling much in the way of pain, unlike the muscle and nervous connections."
She seems impressed by my use of technology and asks,
"You have the new xm-25? That's impressive, I heard they rolled that one off about a year ago. What kind of ship did you command to require such intensive neuro mods?"
I give her a confident smirk and respond cockily,
"At the end of the war, I was the captain of the USS Alaska, a Wisconsin class battleship."
Her eyes go wide in wonderment and she asks,
"Amazing! A ship of that size really would require a powerful neuro mod to command such a big ship..."
She then remembers something and asks,
"Didn't that ship... umm... get destroyed by that super-dreadnaught the UEG made?"
I nod and shrug stating,
"Yeah, that thing was a monster, but the sacrifice of my ship was required in the absolute jumping we committed against it. Only four crewmen died, say what you want about my ship getting destroyed, those Wisconsins really knew how to keep their crews alive."
She nods, clearly a technophile and very familiar with lots of military hardware. She continues inspecting my metal hand, my console still an error screen, until she moves my sleeve a little too far up, revealing the scarred flesh of the rest of my arm past my metal. Her expression drops and she quickly apologizes saying,
"I'm sorry Commodore, I didn't know..."
I give a small laugh and tell her reassuringly,
"It's alright. It's a lesson you need to learn. As cool as metal arms and legs may be to you, the ones who have them have a reason to. Especially in the military. "
She nods and I ask her,
"You're an Ashkhan right?"
She seems surprised by how quickly I figured out her home planet.
The Ashkhan are machine cultists, or at least their majority are. They tend to replace limbs and other parts of their bodies with machinery, some try to keep it vaguely human-looking, and others will replace their legs with tank treads. It reminds me of something my dad and grandpa used to talk about, something 40k years in the future or whatever, but regardless the planet of Ashkhan is a shithole above all else, and during the early days the machine replacements were required for survival. Now it's just kinda a cultural thing they are still Christians, just with a healthy dose of replacing body parts. During this short exchange with the girl, I noticed both of her hands, if not her entire arms are made of metal. I don't know the model but they are very artistic in how they are designed, humanoid, but somehow more ergonomic and smooth. They make for great engineers as they love all things technological.
Her surprise is quickly changed to pride and she replies,
"Yup! I have been doing my family proud for my service in the navy, working on ships!"
I give her a warm smile, nod, and ask,
"Why are you on station then?"
A station posting, especially for an Ashkhan is almost a punishment due to their love of FTL travel. It's odd though, she looks at me confused for a moment before asking,
"I am not station crew. I thought..."
Her eyes go wide as she looks over at the still-broken terminal before letting out a yelp and practically diving back to the access panel where she gets back to work. I am rather confused, but entertained. Normally I'd start dicking around with things on my neuro implant but I have it turned off for the moment, this new xm-25 still gives me a headache. The old m-22 that I used to have was far less... intense in how much data it fed directly into my brain.
After a moment of work, the girl announces success and says to me,
"It should be done Commodore, try logging in."
I log into the console and my orders boot up quickly, a large file opens up revealing a document with multiple links built in. The links open up different documents containing information about my orders and new station. My orders are to take command of the flagship of a small fleet. My role is to perform deep-space patrol along the border with our new alien neighbors. From there more orders will be granted to me, mostly to decide if we will actually begin exploring Xeno space and begin diplomatic operations with them. The Eternal Kingdom is a real conundrum for humanity at the moment and is a possible international nightmare for the US.
I ask the girl,
"What's your name and rank girl? "
She stands up and replies,
"Seaman Ceiel Grant sir."
I nod and enter the name into the console and find to my surprise that she is actually under my command and is one of the engineers aboard my flagship according to my orders and other information that came along with it. I give her a smile and say,
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Miss Grant. It will be my pleasure to lead you going forward. Now tell me, why the hell are you on the station doing repairs right now? Shouldn't you be onboard?"
She shakes her head and responds,
"According to the Master Cheif of the engineering department, the Admiral said that she didn't want any of her actual crew to come into contact with a degenerate like Hollander."
I nod understanding the situation now. The Admiral is still very mad at me, for good reason. Then Ceiel then asks,
"Commodore... If I may ask,
Why does your breath smell of cinnamon whiskey?"
I walk down the halls of the station with the small cyborg girl following behind me. She is somewhat annoyed with me after I explained to her I celebrated a little too much for the past month because of how the war ended. I completely forgot to tell her that it wasn't a celebration actually, but drinking shit cinnamon whiskey was just a normal thing for me, actually it's normally tequila but the frigate I captained into the fighter hangar had the whiskey onboard as the old captain really liked it for some reason. Overall, it's not good for me to do while on duty. She is annoyed because I damaged the frigate, and the unnecessary destruction of technology is close to heresy to her kind. Right now we are heading to where my ship is docked.
I turn off of the main hall of the station and walk down one of the long docking arms where large ships are docked. On this arm only a single ship is docked, a massive warship that will be my home for my entire next posting. The USS Catfish, a Viking Class Large Cruiser, is also known as an orbital supremacy warship. This type of ship is known as such for its role in military action. They are armed with a wide array of weapons and systems with diverse functions. They are of course smaller than the battleships and carriers that stalk the long and lonely void, seeking enemy capital vessels to shatter with apocalyptic firepower and swarms of nuclear-armed fighters and bombers. They are larger than the other classes of heavy and light cruisers who make up the great battle lines offering firepower and defense for friendly carriers. The large cruisers work as the spearhead of smaller operations, or as the dedicated flagship for orbital invasions.
Great bays to deploy atmospheric fighters and dropships, massive firepower to deal with enemy ships of most sizes and classes, maneuverable enough to not be a sitting target, armored enough to ignore smaller patrol vessels defending planets, and a good enough sensor suite to designate and guide friendlies to targets. Overall its role is that of a smaller version of other flagships and the Viking class specifically is designed to work with minimal logistical support, a flagship for the outer reaches of US territory, generally leading scouting, deep space patrols, and quick reaction forces when the bigger guns are far off. They are not battlecruisers who fulfill the role of pocket battleships as large cruisers are more flexible in doctrine and in theory should never challenge a battleship, battlecruiser, or certain heavy cruisers in a direct confrontation due to the lesser firepower compared to these other ships.
As I walk along the arm I look out the long window running along the entire length, inspecting the matte-black hull of the vessel, and admire the giant catfish painted on the bow. The entire outer hull is spotless, freshly repaired, and retrofitted after the war. I can't be certain about the armament and specific loadout until I go onboard, fully activate my neuro implant, and connect it to the ship. I could've already activated it, but I want to wait until I am onboard and have the ship AI take some of the load of information before it is all forcibly put into my brain.
Once boarded through a 10x10 meter docking port, Ceiel disappears down a maintenance corridor and I start following signs to the bridge. I make it to the place of my command, finding the bridge fairly standard for a US warship. It's centrally located, deep within the ship underneath meters of armor. The whole room is about 10x5x3 meters in size, quite a bit larger than I am used to, but the various systems the Catfish has require more crew than even the battleship I once captained, which really only contained weaponry stations.
The bridge is empty aside from myself as I walk across the textured floor inspecting every station, not for flaws or the cleanliness of them, but for a baseline understanding of where each of my officers will be located. Once satisfied with my inspection, I make my way to the captain's chair in the center of the bridge and toward the back. I sit down in the comfortable captain's chair and activate my console. It blinks to life and the shipboard AI shoots me a text,
"Welcome aboard commodore! I am the USS Catfish. How may I be of service?"
Modern AI are not truly sentient, but are very intelligent and knowledgeable, sometimes scary too, but are overall a needed part of any ship capable of FTL, the calculations needed are just far too advanced for even a team of geniuses to figure out in any meaningful time. They also are great at cataloging data and information for future reference, I generally utilize them as a system to lower the information flow to my own console and only send me summarized or important data. With a sigh, I begin the procedure of connecting my brain hardware with the ships systems, and slowly I slip into the very coma-like state that this requires....