Amir decided he should check in on Lady Ellis, or Harriet as Chloe told him he should start calling her, she was back in medical as soon as she was out of it. Poor girl, he thought she was getting really knocked around on this ship, more than most of his marines, and she could have hardly expected this for her life. His sympathy for the girl had grown after Chloe’s telling off and as his own stress of being on a new ship, which seemed constantly under attack, had begun to subside; plus she was getting properly stuck in to both her tech work and in that firefight and was proving far more resilient that most naval ratings. The Captain would be bound to mention her in dispatches again for her rescue of the other member of her detail. She wouldn’t get another promotion for this one, the Captain had already pushed - her as far up as she could possibly be competent to hold with only a few weeks of a naval career behind her even if she had benefited from extra training from him and Sparrow. Not that she hadn’t deserved it, Amir was pretty sure he’d have been dead if he had been in that firefight.
So that was how he found himself walking down to medical after his shift had ended and before mess was due to start. He asked at the nurses station where she was and headed down to her bed. This wasn’t as bad as after the boarding, she’d only be in for one more night he suspected; relocating her shoulder into its proper place had only been a five minute job and now they were just waiting for the nanos to stitch her radius back together.
He coughed and pulled back the curtain to find the girl sitting up in bed, reviewing training modules on her tablet. “You planning on moving in here then?” he said jovially. He probably needed to work on his bedside manner.
“The bed is certainly comfier than the ones they put in our dorms,” she replied looking up at him, “To what do I owe this pleasure Sir?”
“Oh just general conviviality and comradeship I think,” Amir replied, “you’ve come a long way in not a very long time and I thought I should check in on you. How are you getting on?”
“Well I’m scared most of the time, I don’t really feel I know what I’m doing, and I hate giving orders now; but at least people have stopped actively hating me even if none of them like me.”
“Well apart from the last part I think you’ll find most sailors feel the same way; there’s an old saying that military life is long periods of boredom followed by short bursts of abject terror. No one as fresh as you really knows what you’re doing and to be honest you’ve been promoted way too soon but then again anyone who did what you did in the boarding has to be promoted, it’s a matter of honour. Every new NCO, and possibly the more sensible new officers, hates giving orders. You’ll get used to it though eventually.”
“I hope so,” Harriet replied.
“I’ve seen hundreds of new NCOs by now, you’re not so different really, you’ll be ok. In fact I must say I was surprised. This whole thing was to get you out of the station alive, I didn’t think you’d settle in as well as you did.”
“You call this well?” Harriet replied arching her eyebrows.
“For an Honourable joining the ratings, I’d say it’s going remarkably well,” Amir retorted.
“Well whatever,” said the other girl a little sulkily.
“So where’s Rita, Chloe tells me you too have become inseparable?” Amir asked, changing the subject.
“Oh I expect she’ll pop up soon,” the other girl said with a faint smile.
“So you’re friends now?”
“I guess, she didn’t really give me a choice about it, persistent isn’t she?” she replied good humouredly.
“To be honest I haven’t really gotten to know Ms MacLeod yet,” Amir admitted, “I should probably have a chat with her before too long.”
“Yes you probably should,” the girl agreed.
“Indeed,” Amir sighed, “I don’t suppose you want to be a marine do you. A lot of my marines have watched you in the fire fight and think you might have got what it takes.”
“To be honest, and I mean no offence, but I can’t think of anything worse,” she replied, “I think I’ll stay as a systems tech.”
“Fair enough,” Amir admitted, “I wouldn’t be in the marines if it wasn’t where I was conscripted into. I shouldn’t have kept so fit in my youth. Anyway, now I’ve seen you’re live and kicking I best be off, wouldn’t want to miss mess after all.”
“No I imagine not,” Harriet agreed, “well this was a nice chat, Sir.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t but it was nice of you to say it.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
After dinner his next stop was to get a drink with Chloe, she didn’t know it yet, but she had been working herself to the bone and it was getting impressive results. The hull wasn’t patched fully but that was down to the lack of raw materials. The asteroid that was already being carved up into blocks which would fit in the refining units of the ship would help with that. The main batteries were functioning again along with the in-system drive. It was just diagnosing whether there was a problem with the slip drive now.
Amir had timed this jaunt to catch Chloe, and probably Sparrow, as they came out of the Warrant’s mess. Sure enough, after a couple minutes loitering against a support strut, he heard them come out.
“I think I’m going to check on Harri,” he heard Sparrow saying before wandering off towards medical. This was his chance. Stepping out from his hiding place he called out, “Chloe, care to join me for a drink?”
“Amir, you bastard you scared the hell out of me leaping out like that,” she panted.
“I’ll take that as a yes then?”
“You’re buying,” came the answer.
“Officer’s bar then you realise,” he pushed back.
“Whatever, I can handle a room full of aristos so long as you are paying for my drinks,” she quipped back.
Amir steered them to the officer’s bar, signed Chloe in as his guest, and then the two of them wandered to the bar.
“What can I get you Sirs?” said the catering department rating manning the bar tonight. It was a popular rotation, mainly as there were ample opportunities for drunk officers to say “and something for yourself.”
“Two pints,” Amir answered.
“And two tots of rum if you please,” Chloe added.
“Yes Sirs,” the barman acknowledged and went to get them their drinks.
“So what are we really doing,” Chloe asked Amir.
“What I’m trying to make friends on this ship, you realise I’ve not been here long you know,” Amir replied slightly defensively, “and you know I thought, once we get to a quieter corner we should talk about our respective charges don’t you think.”
“I thought as much,” Chloe laughed, “but yeah I could use another friend on this boat to be honest and having an officer, even a marine officer, as a friend could be useful.”
“That sounds a little ominous,” Amir smiled back.
“Oh it is,” Chloe amusedly answered, “you’re going to be buying me so many drinks.”
“You realise, I don’t get much more allowance than you.”
“Makes all the difference though doesn’t it,” Chloe retorted.
“I guess we’ll see,” Amir sighed, thinking about the meals this friendship might make him miss, “come on there’s an empty table in that corner - looks quiet enough.”
They headed off towards the table, sat down and Amir watched Chloe take a big swig of her beer and then down one of the shots. Of course Amir thought he shouldn’t be drinking but one of the realities of naval life was alcohol and Amir had embraced it despite his religious beliefs; it wouldn’t be the first commandment he’d broken after all. He did sip his beer more sensibly than Chloe though.
“So Mr Choudary, how is Miss Ellis?” Chloe opened with, “I hear you went to see her earlier?”
“How did you hear that?”
“You’re a) not as subtle as you think and b) Rita just pinged me a message saying as much,” she laughed.
“I’ve never claimed to be subtle,” Amir laughed, “what marine ever is? But those two have gotten as thick as thieves haven’t they.”
“Yes, amazingly,” Chloe agreed, “she’s got really close to Rita.”
“How close?” Amir raised his eyebrow questioningly.
“Not that close I think, I don’t think Rita would really even be thinking about anything like that to be honest, but they seem like they’ve made good friends at least.”
“Well that’s something. You know I invited her to be a marine,” Amir laughed.
“She’s a decent shot but you’re not having her, I think she’s going to make a good systems tech, one of my systems techs I might add.”
“She turned me down right off the bat so don’t worry; she’s a decent shot but not a fighter at heart,” Amir replied.
“Yeah, sounds sensible of her although I doubt she’ll entirely avoid more fighting over the course of her career,” Chloe said.
“Yeah that’s the reality of living on a warship. But you know she seems happier than she did despite all that’s happening to her.”
“Just goes to show, money doesn’t buy you happiness doesn’t it.”
“Nah but it buys nicer food which to be honest I’d take over happiness any day of the week,” Amir joked back to Chloe.
“Oh Amir, are you lonely at home? Is that why we’re here,” Chloe teased.
“Well, to be honest my last relationship kind of petered out and homelife has been kinda quiet ever since, but you know I’m mainly on duty and it’s not like any of us are getting home soon.”
“True that,” the woman agreed, “I’ve been wondering what my husband is going to do when he hears. Days to send a message back home, decades to actually make it. I doubt he’ll wait. We’ve not exactly seen each other in a long time anyway.”
“Sounds rough,” Amir commiserated, “sorry, my love advice is generally pretty poor and well you know - gay - my hetrosexual love advice is notoriously worse than my general love advice.”
“Ha,” Chloe laughed, “what makes you think I’d take advice from you?”
“The natural arrogance all officers have.”
“Yeah that will do it, alright,” Chloe agreed.
“So how’s Rita?” Amir said, getting back on topic as he watched Chloe finish her beer and signal to the bar for another. He took another sip of his.
“Getting to be more herself every day,” Chloe admitted.
“Is that a bad thing?” Amir asked.
“Not necessarily, but her personality is asserting itself over her programming,” Chloe admitted, “luckily for us, her personality is very sweet isn’t it.”
“Aye, she’s a nice girl, amazing isn’t it after all she’s gone through.”
“Yeah,” Chloe admitted, “what I’m worried about now is whether without her programming she can navigate the slip. Her performance is dropping quite markedly.”
“It will be a big problem if she can’t,” Amir said worriedly, “we’ll never get home in that case,”
“Indeed,” Chloe agreed, “I don’t think it’s a big problem so far; I’m confident that she can still navigate the slip at the moment. I just don’t know how long for.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Still very worrying,” Amir repeated.
“I agree, there is one idea I’ve had but it’s not a good one,” Chloe admitted.
“Come on then I’m dying to hear it,” Amir lied, he had an idea where this might be going.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with her twitch reactions,” Chloe started, “I think it’s the environment that is causing the drop in performance. If she’s surpassing her programming the pod like assembly we’ve constructed might not be the right environment to get the best performance out of her. For instance, without the programming I don’t think she has 360 vision capabilities anymore. I think she’s visually checking every screen which is going to seriously impact her performance even with her incredible twitch reactions.”
“So what do we suggest we do about it - not sure there’s enough chaos to build another cockpit in a service tunnel,” Amir responded.
“Well that wasn’t what I had in mind to be honest,” Chloe said sheepishly.
“What did you have in mind then?” Amir’s worries were growing.
“I think she needs to be on the quarter deck,” Chloe put it bluntly, “in a normal pilot’s chair, responding normally like a normal girl, a normal girl with incredible twitch speeds.”
“You know we can’t, we’ll all be for the firing squad,” Amir answered cautiously, making sure no one was within earshot of them.
“I know, but I don’t think we’re going to get home if we don’t.” Chloe admitted.
“Fuck it, we’re going to have to talk to the Captain then; either we’re going to start a whole ship conspiracy, we’re never going home, or they’ll be a mutiny. None of these sound like good options?”
“As opposed to being smashed to pieces in the slip when she misses the first massive object,” Chloe replied.
“Well that doesn’t sound too appealing either,” Amir conceded.
“I didn’t say we had any good options but that’s what we’ve got,” Chloe said.
“Well let’s hand it over to the Captain to think about. Tomorrow,” Amir added firmly.
“Naturally - you’ve still got a lot of drinks to buy me tonight,” Chloe answered, as the barman began making their way over to their table.
“Time to change the subject,” Amir warned.
“So how about you and your marines take a shift down at the refinery.”
--------------------------------------------------------
Olivia stretched out on the bed in her private cabin and pulled a bunch of tablets she had stacked up on the bed over towards her; the latest repair reports. Now that they had captured the small asteroid most of their resource issues were solved and they could finally seal the hull again. At least shields and main weapons were back on line and they had system drives up and running back at full capacity so they weren’t defenceless or dead in the water. Still they lacked their main escape route into the slip whilst Chloe fixed that drive next. That was probably the report she should start with.
She picked up the tablet and opened the report, all it said was, “we probably need to talk - Ms Liu and Mr Choudary - but not tonight please, Sir.” Well that was an anxiety inducing message - she thought about ordering them straight up but after checking the AI for their location and finding they were already in the officer’s bar she guessed they’d already be too drunk to provide any decent sort of explanation of what they were worried about tonight.
Frustrated, she picked up the next tablet and made her way through a much more tedious report from Chloe on drive diagnostics but essentially what it said was that everything was fine with the in-system drive now. Next, and this one was mainly for her own amusement, she picked up Sparrow’s report on the water recycling; she had written an incredibly detailed, and polite,, report on the efficiency of the water recycling systems. Again essentially they were working at optimum performance again and Sparrow had left a note to Chloe basically offering her details service on any job Chloe wanted them on. There was a note from Chloe asking her to take a look at the air filtration systems on deck 26.
The rest of the reports were from various warrants, or indeed petty officers and leading hands for a lot of the details, and the occasional officer who had deigned to write up a section report. Apart from the evidence of the depletion of her crew the reports were all pretty mundane. The immediate crisis was definitely over and apart from the slip drive the ship was back to about 85% operational capacity.
She suddenly realised she’d been reading two hours into her sleep shift. Time to get some shut eye she thought, just as her personal tablet pinged with a priority message. Fuck, of all the times for the admiralty to get back to her. She reluctantly picked up the tablet and opened the message. Immediately a video message popped up, some rear admiral was staring down the camera at her; she didn’t recognise him.
“Captain Hernandez,” he began, “this is Admiral Baxter here, commander of the solar squadron. I received your report and forwarded it to the Admiralty. I have since conversed with the Admiralty board and here are their comments and orders Captain.”
The recording paused and adjusted the tie on his uniform before continuing, “Captain Hernandez, the Admiralty notes your report of your most recent defence of the Whittington and commends you on your escape. Your report about slip anomalies has been passed on to the Naval research division for further investigation. We will advise you if we can derive any findings from the sensor data you forwarded.” Olivia doubted they would find anything; afterall no one really understood the slip other than to punch in and out of it and that it was bloody dangerous but also the only means of interstellar travel.
“On the other matter,” Olivia, realised she had been getting distracted and shifted her attention to the Admiral’s boring monotone, “of the Honourable Lady Ellis, it is most unfortunate she both returned to the ship and enlisted. I can’t imagine what she would have been thinking. However, Captain, you or whichever officer, should have refused the application to volunteer. As you can imagine House Ellis is extremely angry about this turn of events and have been exerting their considerable influence against us in the Court of Aldermen. Since your recent dispatches I’m afraid things have got markedly worse - what were you doing deploying her to a frontline position. It’s incredibly fortunate she survived or you would probably find a firing squad in front of you when you finally make it home. In anycase, I regret to inform you that disciplinary action against you was necessary; however, in light of your successful defence of both the vessel and The Honourable Lady Ellis’ continued survival we have been able to successfully mitigate your punishment somewhat. Captain Hernandez, you will remain Master of the Whittington but you are to be demoted with immediate effect to the rank of Commander.”
Well fuck, thought Olivia, that was going to screw her pension plans right up. She didn’t really care about the rank so long as she was still in command. Although, when they made it back to Corporation Space a commander being Master of a ship of the line, even one as old as the Whittington, may well end up being be a problem with the ambitious captains of the frigates all looking for their big break into a ship of the line and then into the flag ranks.
“As for the Honourable Lady Ellis, we note her actions in the defence and your decision to confer her the rank of Leading Hand and the Admiralty has confirmed her promotion and awarded her the laurel leaf for being mentioned and will additionally be awarding her the distinguished service cross. However, please Commander, keep her out of any future fire fights.”
Well that would be counterproductive, she was part of the crew now, they were even warming to her, some of them. Sure she’d make sure we wasn’t assigned to an actual meat grinder again but Olivia didn't think she should or even could give her special treatment, the girl was nothing if not headstrong, if she was to try and prevent her from taking a station if they were boarded again she was pretty sure she would disobey. Well that was to the girl’s credit really. However, she made a mental note to delete her most recent dispatch about Lady Ellis’ actions in saving Able Seaman Peters during the recovery of the asteroid; the girl didn’t need a second laurel leaf and Olivia certainly didn’t want to be busted down to Lieutenant Commander.
The Admiral wittered on for a few more minutes about other details of the firefight and how Naval Intelligence was making good progress identifying their attackers from an intense tactical analysis by six AIs apparently. Finally he got to their orders.
“Commander,” the Admiral began, “here are your orders. You are to return the Whittington to Corporation Space for reassignment.” Well there it was, Olivia thought sadly, although realistically for a ship as old as the Whittington reassignment would probably be to the breakers yard. “You will continue to locally analyse the anomaly you found in the slip and if possible exploit it to return home more expediently. Failing success in that endeavour you are reminded that Naval Standing Order 108 still applies, any system discovered whilst you are traversing back to Corporation Space must be investigated and reported to the Admiralty.”
Well of course it did, luckily the odds of emerging from the slip where something strategically significant was located were pretty small, it was just unfortunate they’d be doing a lot of emerging from the slip over the next year or so it would probably take them to get home.
“Please acknowledge receipt at the first available opportunity; otherwise you’re dismissed, Commander. I wish you a safe journey home.”
Olivia recorded the briefest reply she could get away with. “Commander Olivia Hernandez, Master of the Whittington to Admiral Baxter, Flag Officer of the Solar Squadron. Your message and orders are received and acknowledged. We Stand Ready.”
Well thought, Olivia, in all honesty what else could she have expected? They were always going to hang her out to dry for this and to be honest she must have one friend left in the admiralty at least as she had half expected to be stripped of command - a demotion was small beans in comparison. She’d have to find out who her mysterious benefactor with enough political capital to stand up to the Ellises was. Well that wasn’t for now, she had a ship to get home, a non-operational slip drive and still no idea whose attack had landed them in this mess. On top of that her next priority was the catering department. They needed a plan to ration the food so that the Whittington’s limited hydroponics and bio-reactor facilities would be able to produce enough food to keep the crew alive for the next decade. She’d also have to get Ms Liu to put together a more intensive maintenance programme for them; they couldn’t lose any of them if they were to get home. Water would eventually be an issue too even if Sparrow had the whole system performing optimally nothing could stop the gradual depletion of water on ship; so they’d have to hope to stumble into at least a couple of systems where there would be comets or water bearing moons or asteroids they could harvest. Something to discuss with Lieutenant Commander Desai in the morning, navigation fell under his remit and maybe he had some ideas about how to stumble across a system or two.
----------------------------------------------------------
The next morning she sat at her desk in her cabin receiving the actual report of Ms Liu and Mr Choudary.
“Well the good news Captain,” Chloe began.
“Did you not see the morning bulletin,” Olivia interrupted, “they’ve busted me down to Commander.”
“I did Sir,” Chloe continued, “but Naval Regulation 17 - the Master of a ship of the line should be referred to as Captain regardless of actual rank held whilst in operational service.”
“Ha, well thanks for the reminder Ms Liu,” she smiled, “but in all honesty I don’t care. We’re years away from Corporation Space. I’ll be pensionable by the time I get back. I suspect both of you will be as well. We’ll all be quietly shuffled off to some remote but quiet retirement where we can’t cause any trouble.”
“Sounds ideal Sir,” Mr Choudary said wistfully.
“Well at least someone’s happy,” she said, before continuing, “well let’s have it then what did you want to tell me.”
“Well here’s the good news,” Ms Liu began, “ the slip drive is fully operational.”
“Thank goodness for that, how long before we can make our first dive?” Olivia asked.
“Well,” Ms Liu began, “We should patch the hull fully first, that will be another week of work I reckon and we should harvest as much raw material from the asteroid as we can before we have to ditch it.”
“I think Ms Liu is forgetting the actual point of us reporting to you,” Amir said grimly.
“Ah, yeah the bad news,” Ms Liu said sheepishly.
“Bad news?” Olivia asked worriedly.
“Aye,” Mr Choudary took over, “it seems like Sparrow's performance is dropping to dangerous levels.”
“I think it’s the loss of direct connection to the pod or the interface or both,” said Ms Liu as she launched into the explanation she had given Mr Choudary the previous night. By the time she had finished Olivia’s jaw dropped.
“So either,” she summarised, “we take our chances with a pilot who is too computationally overwhelmed to use the cockpit you designed or I have to install a flight deck in the quarterdeck, induct the whole crew into our little conspiracy and pray no one thinks they can cut a deal to spare their own neck. These are shit options Ms Liu, Mr Choudary.”
“Aye, I know Sir,” Mr Choudary acknowledged.
“We can’t lie, get her up here when we need to navigate the slip but say she’s doing something else?”
“Not really Sir,” Ms Liu said slowly, “her twitch reactions would give her away almost instantly.”
“And this plan of yours would actually work would it? In terms of getting us home?” Olivia continued to question the Chief Engineer.
“Well it’s just a theory but she piloted the shuttle successfully through the slip using the manual control deck well enough. So it’s possible for her. The problems she’s encountering are psychological I think.”
“How so?” Olivia asked.
“Well I think she still thinks like an AI, in terms of routines, subroutines, partitions in her mind; but her personality is reestablishing itself in a big way. I mean it was always there but her programming was always the part of her that was in control. The personality was only expressed when she was talking to me or you invited her to project. Obviously, her personality existed within her own mind but her programming could always override her actions and emotional responses. It appears that is no longer the case; I’m hypothesising that something about the pod or the direct connection to the interface reinforced her programming constantly; either that or the much greater social contact she’s having is allowing her personality to get the upper hand.”
“Irreversibly? And yes I regret having to ask that.”
“Yes I think so,” Chloe said, not quite suppressing a note of protective suspicion.
“I thought you were going to say that,” Olivia replied, “don’t worry it wasn’t really an option for me but as Master of the vessel I have to ask.” Gosh that was going to be clunkier than just saying Captain.
“Understood Sir,” Mr Choudary answered, shooting a warning glance at Chloe.
“Right, I’m going to need time to think this through.”
“Actually,” Mr Choudary interrupted again, “I’ve had an idea.”
“You have?” a sceptical Ms Liu replied.
“Well, even Marines spend time thinking sometimes - particularly when their necks and dreams of a provincial retirement are on the line.”
“Let’s hear it then,” Olivia said.
“So what I was thinking was, if her performance was so much better in the Shuttle, let’s stick her in there, with Harriet if she needs company,” Mr Choudary started.
“Harriet?”
“It’s what she wants to be called when there’s the option to apparently,” Mr Choudary answered, “may I continue.”
“Yes, just remind me never to ever meet an Ellis when this is all over.”
“Sounds generally solid advice,” Mr Choudary conceded, before getting back onto topic, “anyway what I was thinking is when we send the shuttle into the slip it’s always slaved to the control of the Ships pilot. What if we just reverse the connection, slave the ship to the shuttle.”
“Ms Liu?” Olivia queried the engineer who already looked lost in thought.
“You know what, it might work,” she said smiling, “It just might, I’d have to understand the connection speeds between the ship and the shuttle but in theory there’s no reason we can’t try it.”
“Well get to it then!” Olivia ordered.
“Yes, Sir.” Ms Liu responded.
“Good, well you’re both dismissed,” she said, “and good thinking Mr Choudary.”
“You’re welcome Sir,” he replied before trooping out of the room.