“Funny thing. Oz was saying that he liked me in the big chair last night.”
“Well, a good crew doesn't question a new captain out of a sense of duty. That gives the captain a chance to prove his competence. Some time after he takes command, there's a point where he or she gains their respect and they may even feel that they couldn't be in better hands.”
“I'd be lost without my officers. It's a team effort. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing the least of the work, stuck on the bridge reviewing reports and making decisions I don't have to carry out myself.”
“Someone has to make those decisions, but if you feel like you need to make an appearance, get your hands dirty, there's nothing stopping you. Something you're sure you know how to do.”
“And leave Oz holding the bag?”
“He's your first officer. He can take it for a while, that's why he's there. You can also download a lot of the work to the department heads. Every good captain I've known has trusted their high ranking officers to make most decisions for their own teams. This is a young crew. Don't be surprised if they start leaning on you too hard, asking you to make up their minds for them a bit too much. They're department heads because they're the experts in their fields. Tell them to make good choices and they almost always will.”
“That would explain why I get practically no mid day queries or updates from you. Your reports are the shortest too.”
“Oh, I could expand on my reports if you find them too brief. I've always wanted to try my hand at being a director.”
I put up my hands and shook my head at the idea. “No, no, don't ever change Doc. Oz and I wade through plenty of lengthy reports as it is.”
“I could imagine.”
“Commander Minh-Chu is the only one who submits shorter reports. It's where he records them that makes me wonder.”
Doc Anderson laughed and nodded, “Oz sent me the report he recorded in the vibroshower. I'm just glad his vid only captured from the waist up. That is not a bashful man.”
“Yup, that was surprising. Good report though.”
“Compared to the rest of the crew he's got a long service history. I have to respect him for multitasking, even though the benefits of his experience sometimes show themselves in strange ways.”
“I won't be getting a report from you recorded during surgery or something will I?”
“I don't think so. I still prefer doing one thing at a time when I can.”
The alarm on my command console went off, vibrating against my forearm gently. I pressed a button to acknowledge it and nodded. “Well, that's my fifteen minute warning to report to the bridge.”
“Something you started doing in the Academy?”
“What?”
“Using silent alarms and timers.”
“Nope. Started that when I was working in Freeground Port Operations.”
We started for the door. Doc dumped his plate and cup into a recycler as we headed out. “Do you find there are a lot of similarities?”
“Only when I have two hours of reports to sift through followed by another two hours of listening to crew requests and queries. Everything else is great, even recording my own logs.”
“Well, there's an easy way to cut that down. Defer to your department heads' judgement more. Your primary job as captain is to preside over daily operations, determine the direction of the ship, her crew, and make the big decisions. You're not a micro-manager.”
“It sounds like you're quoting an Academy Officer's Manual. You're right though. I've gotten wrapped up in minutia. What would I do without you, Doc?”
“You'd take another day or two to realize it on your own. Three at most.”
“If I didn't drive myself crazy trying to keep up first.”
A few hours later I was sitting on the bridge as we emerged from hyperspace. As the tactical display came to life, filling the holoprojector with a representation of all the ships and objects in the area, I realized that we were closer to the core worlds than ever before.
Our navigational data indicated that the end of our deceleration burn was a safe distance away from the station, but we still had to navigate a safe path around hundreds of vessels. The largest of the ships between us and the station were massive freighters marked as one convoy. Each was over a dozen kilometres long, marking a space and trajectory that took them right through the middle of the busiest section. These were medium ranged ships, some as long as twenty kilometres including storage containers stretching back from the ship proper. The engines were on long beams that stretched out from the head of the ships, making them look like six armed creatures with one eye in the middle and suns for hands. Such ships couldn't make it to Freeground, and they steered clear of areas in conflict, so I had never seen their kind before.
There were a few hundred smaller ships filling the space as well, including interplanetary shuttles only ten meters long all the way up to a massive colony construction ship that was forty kilometres across in some places. I looked through the tactical display projected in front of me, started sorting through the transponder broadcasts, and immediately missed Alice. A well seasoned AI would be able to pick out exactly what we wanted with an educated guess while pointing out other details of interest. The very basic intelligence that I had installed to replace Alice was asking for over a dozen filter conditions as I tried to pick out points of interest from the navigation data in front of us. Good thing I wasn't the only one working on it. “Do we have Vindyne in the area?”
“A few, but they're marked as subcontractors or freighters. No heavily armed vessels,” came the response from tactical.
“I don't know how long we can shadow those freighters before something collides with us here. Got that navigation feed Jason?” asked the helm.
Sergeant Jason Everin shot a look at the communications staffer to his left and shook his head. “What? It wasn't on the standard frequency,” I saw her say with a shrug. There were three crew members sitting at stations so close to him that they were rubbing shoulders.
“Navnet broadcasts over as many frequencies they need. You can always pick them up if you set your seek to find emergency nets and let it drift for a second.” Jason showed her and looked to the helm. There was the pilot and one navigator. There wasn't room for more than one copilot, so the navigator had his hands full. “Navnet is up, now Lieutenant Gregor can avoid getting us tangled in another ship's trajectory.”
“I'm sorry sir, I didn't know,” whispered the younger ensign. I hadn't seen her on the bridge before.
“Communications is a completely different training curriculum in the academy, including negotiation, technical, language and law modules. You'll catch the basics if you keep looking over our shoulders, then you can start doing something other than decryption and data management.”
“Not until she's ready, Sergeant. There might not be a group of freighters to follow next time we drop out of hyperspace into a busy port,” replied Lieutenant Gregor.
“Easy Derek. Retraining takes time,” I interjected. He was a great pilot. Minh-Chu didn't want to let him go as his own copilot or from his fighter squadron, but we needed a new primary helmsman.
“Aye Captain, sorry. Cramped spaces make me cranky and this holding pattern we're getting from the station looks more like a tangled rope net woven through live circuitry.”
His navigator was giving him advance directions and watching for other ships that may be leaving their designated pattern. The pair were working well as a team already, which was more than a little reassuring.
“Zingara station is hailing us sir.” Jason said from his station.
“Put it up.”
The holographic display in the middle of the bridge disappeared for a moment then started projecting a woman wearing a much older style vacsuit. It looked like it was at least a centimetre thick and not nearly as flexible. Her headpiece was clipped to her shoulder for storage and I could see that it had a prominent solid, transparent face plate. It looked like the st
yle my father would wear when he returned from work and it was probably not much different. "My name is Fran. Welcome to Zingara space. Please state the nature of your business, Captain,” she said as though she had said it a thousand times before.
It was a little eerie watching someone do a job that I was performing not long before. I knew how she felt, long shifts of nothing but talking to random travellers, some with strange requests and awkward needs. Others just avoiding the automated communications system with no real reason other than wanting to make standard arrangements with a human being instead of a machine. It was a little strange that the station's staff was contacting us, but we most likely read high on mass and power for our size, placing us on a higher priority as a suspected military vessel. “We're looking to dry dock for six days. We've also some salvage to trade, so if we can offset the cost of docking with scrap that would help. I'm also wondering if you have crews that can help us perform a few repairs?” I asked with a smile.
She leaned forward and took a look at her scanners for a moment, then looked back up into her main display. “The Vindyne have a mark on your ship. Pretty high bounty for capture. I don't think we can help you repair weaponry, but we can spare some people to help you repair your hull breaches. As for trading scrap, we'll take it as long as it's not marked. Our trader registry is a couple weeks out of date, so you'll have to sell any other salvage on your own. Take a walk down to The Pit. That's a good start.”
I knew the trick, she didn't want to recommend traders over an open channel, even though keeping that kind of information a secret wasn't part of her job. She was doing us a favour. The Pit was probably the most active trading center, I'd have to look into it. “Thanks for the tip. What's Zingara station's stand on claiming bounties?”
“No claim can be made in our space, but that doesn't mean people don't try. Just keep your eyes open. Even without the bounty, your ship is starting to get a reputation, and even a long range destroyer as old as yours would be a sweet capture for a crew of pirates.”
“Great, anything else?”
“Please send us your trade manifest. Do not include any biologicals such as slaves, raw fluids or solids including meat products or genetic materials. Zingara does not permit slave or biological trade but is not responsible for those sold into slavery or taken as indentured servants while you're on the station,” she recited as part of her bland obligatory routine.
I tapped my arm computer and brought up the list of saleable, operational salvaged items then patched the list into the communications system and sent it to her. “There it is.”
She looked it over. “Good list Captain. Put me down for a bottle of that Andromeda Gin. You can't trade the torpedo housings unless you melt them down, but other than that, I'm green lighting your list. I'll mark that you're looking for serious buyers only. Please send me the list of requested or required items if you'd like to make a public posting.”
We had a list of things we didn't want to take the time to use our materializers on that included furniture, fixtures for the quarters we planned on rebuilding, data storage units and a few other minor things. I had also added a request for fresh fruit and some other basic food stuffs if they could be found at the right price. I sent it across and the traffic officer skimmed through it. “Thank you Captain. A list of our services and prices is being sent to you now. I'll make sure I post this right away. Zingara station collects a fifteen percent fee on all trades and purchases made in our space. Is there anything else you need?”
“Nothing I wouldn't rather look for myself.”
“Good. Thank you for using Zingara station as your way point or destination. Please follow the docking pattern we've sent you, and have any crew members disembarking during your stay read the summary of laws and keep a copy with them at all times during their visit. For more information please use our automated system by pressing yellow, then five then twelve on any station terminal,” she said quickly and automatically before cutting the transmission.
Oz verified that the transmission was cut on both sides before stepping up beside me and bringing the tactical display up. He highlighted one of the smaller cargo haulers. It was just entering the area and read under four kilometres long. “Now that's the kind of cargo we would have a pretty easy time hitting.”
I looked at what little data we had gathered on it. “I wonder if it's common to see a ship like that out here on it's own. There's no registered escort and according to our navigation computers, it arrived a few minutes after we did.”
“There are a couple dozen solo haulers from what I could pick out without scanning for them specifically. I wonder what they're hauling?”
“Would you like me to scan her sir? The walls of those containers are pretty thin, we could probably get a perfect read on the density and identify the cargo.” Asked Ensign Stevens from tactical. We only had room for two tactical officers on the temporary bridge. Normally a ship the size of the First Light would have four or more.
“Not right now. If we want to start stealing from Triad Consortium it might help if we don't look like pirates right from the first.” I turned to Jason at the communications and decryption station. “If you can listen in on one of the other ship's scan results as they're transmitted aboard ship, that would probably satisfy our curiosity.”
“Good idea, sir,” Jason smiled. He worked the console for a moment then nodded. “Looks like those containers are getting scanned by about fifteen ships, one of the closest ones uses a very old wireless system to communicate between non-critical systems. I've got it. Decrypting.” A few more moments passed and he chuckled. "Decrypted. Nothing to it. According to their scan results the transport is carrying various mass capacitors, several shuttles, and a list of other parts that our computer hasn't virtually assembled yet.”
“I'm on it Sergeant. Now this I can do,” volunteered the newest of Jason's communications team.
“Go ahead, tell us what those components make up when you're finished.”
“If that's the average Triad freighter's cargo, then we might be able to resupply by taking just one down. There's a lot more there than we can carry, and I doubt hauling around the containers ourselves would be a good idea, so we'd have to pick and choose.” Oz commented.
“That might be a good thing. I'm sure some of the items in there are marked, so they could be more trouble than they're worth.” I thought for a moment, looking at the tactical display on the main holoprojector. “I have an idea. When we get to the station, we'll go find The Pit. While we're looking for salvage buyers, let's try and overhear a few of the more unsavoury deals. I want to see how much people here care about buying stolen merchandise and how people unload the stuff. Hopefully there are no privacy booths for trading like on Freeground.”
We came around a large asteroid and saw Zingara station. It was a massive asteroid, more like a small moon. Entire craters had been cut square and turned into hundreds of secure dry docks. Each space had a heavy port door, ensuring privacy and security. There were huge support beams protruding from the rock in seemingly random places, partially to stabilize the interior structure, partially for the few hundred habitation pods that had been built onto them.
There were other long extensions protruding from the asteroid; docking arms, some of them three or four hundred kilometres long, with so many ships attached to them it was impossible to count as we went by. As we manoeuvred closer to our private bay I could see a large flat area that was covered in heavy metal plating. On our display a warning hovered over it indicating that there was a pocket of artificial gravity. I had never seen a landing patch, they were built so ships with landing gear and bottom side hatches could dock cheaply and quickly. It was a cheap way to use exterior space, but it was wasteful.
The massive private dry dock doors parted as we approached and Oz nudged me. “How much did this cost?” He asked in a whisper.
“Only fifteen thousand credits per day.”
“That's three months pay at Comma
nder's rank, you realize.”
“It'll be worth it, trust me. Besides, this kind of dry dock would cost seventy five thousand on Freeground.”
“Seventy five thousand? That's robbery.”
“I'm surprised you didn't already know. That's what happens when you're the only port for light years in all directions. These people obviously make more credits on the docking arms. A spot there only costs a thousand, but good luck getting any work on your ship done.”
“Good point. I'm glad Freeground set us up with enough credits to trade with and to pay the crew.”
“You're not the only one. If we can get some good selling prices on a few things we have, we should have plenty of credits to go around for a while.” I looked at my command console and saw that most of our extra salvage was already sold at the asking price which was a surprise, since I thought the prices the crew had marked them with were on the high side. “But I don't think the docking fees will be a problem. At this rate we'll finish docking and have to offload our extra cargo to buyers right away.”
We stopped in the middle of the dry dock and the doors closed behind us. The bay began pressurizing. Massive docking arms slowly reached out to the ship then securing to hard points on the hull.
Chapter 4
No Rest
There was widespread disappointment that we didn't have time for shore leave, but it couldn't be helped. There was too much to do and I knew that the bounty on the First Light would be trouble. True, most space stations didn't make who was in their dry moorings public, but there was always a way for an enterprising bounty hunter or Vindyne representative to get that kind of information. From my own experience on Freeground, I knew for a fact it wasn't difficult.
The less time we took with this refit, the better. On the first day alone, we had to take all the systems offline to add major system power feeds to the power plants. The particle accelerator was also ready to be implemented. Instead of watching and waiting from the bridge, I took the advice Doc gave me over coffee earlier that day and joined the refit crew in engineering. There weren't many unforeseen problems and we overcame them quickly. I was taking orders from Ayan and her team for a change. I even referred a crew member with questions to Laura instead of trying to research the answer myself. I'll never forget the look on his face as I shrugged and said. “How am I supposed to know the optimum alignment of the secondary field generators? Sounds like something I'd consult a senior engineering officer about.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins Page 31
