Chapter 7
We had Just reentered Paledes system when my com.d popped up with a message from George. I was on the bridge in my chair but Ashley had the helm so after one more check of all of my screens I brought the message up. “ Mr. Miles this is Mr. Moore I’m sending this message because the administrator for the Longbow Historical Trust asked me to contact you about possibly acquiring the second fighter from you. The Panther they have on display at the museum is a replica shell, they held a major fundraiser last night and I have been asked to pass along an offer of 150,000 credits for the fighter as is. The damage from the battle is actually a positive in their opinion.”
I sat stunned, 150,000 was enough to hire on a full crew and would give me a good head start in being able to afford a new plasma generator for the Paladin. It would also give me enough money to afford the invested cost of taking on one of the long distance runs. I sent out a ship-wide message without priority so it wouldn’t wake anyone up. We had been making good time and only had two runs left and were up a day and a half on the schedule so I decided to take a twelve hour break to facilitate the transfer of the damaged fighter. I sent Emily a quick message to make sure it was ready for transport and she agreed to build a frame to re-enforce one of the wings for the transfer to a tug. We were going to let it drift free of the launch elevator when requested and a contracted tug would take care of the actual exchange. I arranged for a parking orbit and set a meeting for the next morning with the crew to go over our future plans.
The trade off went smoothly the next morning and after grabbing a coffee in the mess I went to what used to be the officers ward room which we were using for crew meetings. Over the next ten minutes everyone came in and I started the meeting. “ Good morning everyone, got some good news as most of you saw this morning. We got rid of the broken Panther. What some of you might not know is we sold it to the Longbow Historical Trust for a good chunk of change. The question is how do we use it effectively.”
Max spoke up first “we are going to need a crew sir, this ship really needs a crew of at least 24 before taking it further than Consorsha. A full crew would be around 50 but that would be a lot of new people to take on at once.” Ashley spoke up next. “It might be a lot of people but 50 is a full crew for this vessel as a merchant ship that doesn't count having pilots, flight crews, marines or other military specific jobs, our actual full crew status would be closer to 120, I’m not saying we need that many crew just that if we ever got in trouble while out their 24 is not going to be enough.” The crew continued to discuss it for about five minutes while I listened and thought and finally came to a decision.
“O.K. folks” I said as Marcus finished making a point about needing more dedicated staff to support positions like galley staff. “Here's what we are going to do, we have a week left on the contract. I haven’t seen one that could fit us out of Palades yet, Emily and I have discussed taking a food run from Consorsha after this she is pretty sure we can store four contains per platform we will have six platforms available to store food not counting betty’s and the shuttles platforms. The profit margins on a transport contract are small but guaranteed prices per container leaves us a profit of 100 credits per crate after expenses.” I took a breath before continuing. “ We will hire as many people as possible over the next week up to the 50 to reduce the potential friction we will try to recruit primarily militia and veterans. They will have at least had to work together to get through training so the majority should be fine and we can let any troublemakers go when we get back.”
We talked about a few more housekeeping issues, restocking supplies and some maintenance work done. The group was breaking up and leaving when Ashley and Emily walked over to me. “ Hey Ben, do you have a minute to come down to the armory?” , “sure whats up?” I asked while following them through the ship. “It's a surprise” said in that voice that annoyed me growing up. We made small talk the rest of the way to the armory. They led me to the back where the two ship marine armor sets were kept. Next to the two cases already there was another case but this one wasn’t an armor case. “Open it up!” Emily said, pointing excitedly at the smaller case.
I walked over and opened the crate inside was a flight suit I recognized. It was the same type as the one I used as a ship board utility uniform with a few differences. It had black armor plating similar to the marine armor but thinner. Ashley started speaking while I looked it over. “ We were checking over the fabricator and found the specs for a set of marine light armor that has been discontinued.” Emily continued the story “ we found the individual plates could be printed off. We were able to modify the flight suit with it.” I stepped around the corner and tried it on.
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It was slightly heavier than the original suit but it wasn’t too bad. The flight suit hookups were still easily accessible and the helmet fit fine. I liked it quite a bit then had an idea, “E, Ashley I really like this, do you think we could produce a lot of these over the next week? I want to have a regular utilities version of these made for the regular crew as uniforms.” Emily had a thoughtful look and answered slowly. “Yeah I can do that.” Ashley added, “ I can help the guy who made my armor does custom work and would probably give us a discount for a large order where we provide the armor.” I allowed them both to access the ships funds for double what they thought the cost of buying the feedstock and contracting the work.
***
The trainer deliveries concluded without issue and we bid goodbye to LtC. Monroe and his pilots when we returned to Palades for the last time. By this point the crew was up to twenty of the best candidates of those we selected who could report aboard during our last few runs. With this core crew we began getting used to having more of a crew. A week after the last run, we were up to a staff of 37. The uniforms were passed out and we headed for Consorsha, we were halfway there when Ashley, Max, and Emily asked me to have a meeting so we all met in the ward room.
“We need some kind of organizational structure Ben,” Emily started, “we have 37 staff but technically only me, you Max and Ashley are paid any different and have any kind of defined order now that we have different departments we need something to define positions” “ranks, we need ranks” Ashley added bluntly. I thought for a moment then had an idea,I pulled up everyone's resumes again. And went through them quickly, “ we could use most everyone's Militia rank, for the three retired crew, let's bump them to chief in organization. And lastly let's make Marcus the official Bosun” Max looked at me a bit funny “ sorry boss but what's a bosun actually do? I know they were the highest positioned for the enlisted in the Navy but not much else.” Ashley answered for me, “ Think of them as a First Sergeant or Sergeant Major in other branches they take on things like training the other sailors, handling routine matters and are also directly responsible for making sure the shuttle and I guess the fighter in this case are taken care of.” Max nodded along “makes sense I know Marcus made gunnery sergeant before he retired so he won’t have a problem handling this.”
The rest of the meeting went quickly and we agreed on having simplified tabs on the uniforms. Red represented command personnel, orange for shift leaders and finally blue for regular crew. They were just painted onto emergency equipment sets for now since the uniforms were already delivered. I left the meating and headed to the mess and let Marcus know about his new position. He was happy for the pay raise but was less than thrilled about the new responsibility but was willing to do it. I thanked him, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to my new office.
The office was just off the bridge on the bridge side of the blast door it was big enough to have a meeting with about six people, it had a desk and chair a small bathroom a closet just big enough for three of the armored suits and my submachine gun I had taken from the armory the first week of having the new ship. It was an older model which was hard to find nowadays with its heavier rounds and smaller magazine capacity, but I preferred its stopping power and was a good balance between being small enough to fit in the Bettys cockpit but large enough to be useful if I actually needed it.
I sat at my desk and checked my messages. One was highlighted with an indicator of priority so I opened it.
From: Paledes Defense Force (PDF)
To: Ensign Benjamin Miles (militia)
Subject: required training
This message is to inform you that your mandatory training will take place on the following dates, failure to attend or provide a reason for absence can result in legal action…”
The message continued telling me what I would need to bring and how and where to report. I sent my acknowledgement back to the automated messaging system and kept reading. The next five messages were leave requests from various crew members for the same date range in three months all citing the same training. That was the downside of hiring mostly militia, I was legally required to approve it which I would have done anyway. That gave me a thought and ordered a set of twenty training rifles that worked with a training rig that could simulate the effects of things like smoke and explosions. I added voluntary training exercises in noncritical ship areas and mandatory full ship trainings once a month when not underway, with a note that those with upcoming training had first priority on the company equipment but anyone was welcome if they bought their own gear, then on my private account I bought a set for personal use that had the modern submachine gun instead of the rifle, not a perfect match to mine but I could program the magazines to have a smaller round count to match mine and it would be close enough. Now with the fun stuff out of the way I began digging through routine reports and signing off on the amount of water we took on from a tanker an hour ago.