Wolfhound

by Kindal Debenham

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  A short time later, Jacob found himself at the front of the briefing room. Staring back at him were most of the remains of the Wolfhound’s officer corps. Ensign Mensah had elected to stay in the medical ward treating the wounded, and both Ensigns Carver and Gi from Engineering were among them. Caddamar from Life Support had also tried to beg off, but Jacob had stayed firm, so at least one officer from Engineering was in attendance besides Turley. The Gunnery and Countermeasures officers had been luckier, and all eight ensigns were present, including Isaac and Laurie. The Support ensigns were there as well, minus Mensah, and the two Marine sergeants, Ashford and Chiun, rounded out the mix.

  Almost every single officer showed marks of the struggle for the survival of the destroyer. Some showed bruises from where the restraints had not kept them from injury, and many ensigns had uniforms that showed tears or hastily patched rips.

  Of course, they also all shared one other characteristic. Most of them, with few exceptions, were staring at him with something approaching disbelief, if not utter and complete mutiny. Isaac and Laurie looked encouraging though, and Turley was still looking at him with the same indifferent hostility he had always shown.

  “I still don’t understand why we have to accept some ensign as commander. Why not one of the petty officers, or somebody from Countermeasures or the Marines? I mean, you just barely got out of the Academy, for pity’s sake.” Ensign Taylor’s voice was firm and determined. It was obvious he had not viewed the results of Jacob’s first command favorably and even more blatant that he did not intend to risk following him a second time into battle.

  Jacob sighed, bracing himself on the podium for a moment as he tried to scrounge up the words. The exhaustion he had been feeling a short while ago had dulled a little, but he still felt as if he had been through the wringer. Finally, he managed to grate out a response. “Commander Rodgers placed me in command. I don’t intend to shirk my responsibility, therefore I continue as acting commander until I am incapacitated, killed or relieved. That is how the Naval code treats the situation, and that is how we will treat it.”

  The stocky Gunnery officer shook his head stubbornly, and Jacob felt a stab of pain start to throb between his eyebrows. Taylor had become Jacob’s foremost opponent from the very first moment the officers had gathered. He obviously was not about to relinquish the role any time soon. “I’d rather we talked about it now. I’m having a very hard time believing that Commander Rodgers would specifically put you in charge.”

  Jacob felt his back grow stiff as a murmur of agreements swept through the room. He let it die down, his anger starting to grow at the situation. Taylor nodded and met Jacob’s eyes with a steely gaze. “After all, Commander Rodgers couldn’t have known the other lieutenants were dead. Even if he had, why would he have trusted you over any of the rest of us? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  There was another murmur throughout the officers, but Jacob gave Taylor no time to continue. “There are several reasons, actually. I’d rather not explain it at this time.”

  Ashford snorted derisively. “Sure. And I have a girlfriend back home. She’s beautiful but she doesn’t like cameras so I can’t show you.” The Marine shook his head. “I would have at least expected a frontier rat to be good at lying.”

  Jacob felt his temper flare, but he bit back his first, instinctive response. When he spoke, he kept his voice perfectly calm. “Alright then, fine.” He held up a hand where they could all see it, and extended his index finger. “One, Commander Rodgers knew he didn’t have much time. It was his responsibility to pass on command, and I was the only officer available.” He put up a second finger. “Two, if he didn’t know the lieutenants were dead, he would have thought they would relieve me of command as my superior officers. Without them, there’s nobody here who has experience commanding a naval destroyer, so just out of the Academy or not, I am as good a candidate for command as any other ensign.” He ended that sentence with a look toward Taylor, who still stood pale and glaring among the others. Jacob paused until the sound died back down.

  When their attention came back to him, Jacob raised a third finger. Better to have it said. “Lastly, I’m currently the only person in this room Rodgers knew was not a pirate.”

  The room burst into a wave of protests. Taylor took a step forward, his face pale with restrained rage. Sergeant Ashford was right next to him, his face livid, and his shouts overrode the ensign’s more terse words. “You have no right to say that! I’ve served in the Navy for longer than—”

  “Morris?” Jacob’ response cut through the room like a knife. Half out of their seats, the assembled men and women froze. Jacob continued, the hardness in his voice mixing with a kind of bitterness born of fatigue. “How about you, Ensign Taylor? Had you served longer than Schroder? Or any of the other men I shot on the bridge?”

  Silence fell, and most of the people in the room slowly returned to their seats. Taylor remained standing, his face still very pale, but his mouth was closed. Ashford remained standing as well, though he was looking elsewhere. Jacob shook his head and continued. “Look, I’m not questioning loyalties or disparaging your honor. I’m just being frank with you.” He gave each of them a look, meeting their eyes one after another. “I didn’t catch any signs of what happened before it did, not until I was chest deep in it. I don’t want to suspect that it will happen again, but we can’t take the chance. I will remain in command until I’m unable to fulfill my responsibilities, or until a superior officer relieves me.”

  Ashford leaned forward, his expression ugly. “And if we don’t go along with you, techie?” Jacob met the Marine’s eyes for a long moment. Then he let his lips twist into a smirk.

  “I hope you won’t be that difficult, sergeant, I’d rather not shoot anybody else this cruise.” He gave Ashford a significant look, and the Marine’s eyes narrowed.

  Turley snorted. “As if you’d hit anybody. Can’t aim worth a damn.”

  A couple of people chuckled, and Jacob felt the tension in the air lessen a bit. He smiled at the engineer. “True enough, true enough. Now, can we get back to work on getting out of this mess? The quicker we get back home, the quicker we don’t even have to worry about any of this. Until then, I will remain in command.”

  Jacob let the statement hang in the air. Finally, Taylor nodded reluctantly and sat, and the remaining people who were standing also took their seats. Jacob heaved an inward sigh of relief. “Alright then. We’re going to review the status of the ship and develop a plan on what to do. We’re going to start with Engineering. Ensign Caddamar, could you give your report please?”

  The sole remaining Engineering ensign stood awkwardly. Caddamar coughed into his fist, and then turned to where Petty Officer Turley was sitting a few seats away. “I’ve decided in order to get a truly accurate report, I will have Officer Turley report on the situation. He was closer to the site of the damage and can give a more accurate description.”

  Jacob gave the ensign an exasperated look, which Ensign Caddamar seemed either apathetic toward or ignorant of, and then turned to where Turley was standing. “Fine. Turley, can you tell us what shape we’re in?”

  “A pretty damn bad one, by all accounts. Honestly, Jacob, I never doubted that this cruise would be a screw up, but we’ve still managed to take me off guard.”

  Jacob felt guilt, frustration and anger build in him, but Turley sighed and held up a hand. “No, don’t yell. We all did our best, but the ship still got hammered.”

  Turley gestured to the podium, and Jacob twisted a knob to activate the hologram projector. Instead of a star system, the projection focused specifically on the Wolfhound. Different sections of the ship were highlighted in shades of red, yellow or black, while the majority glowed a comforting blue and green. Turley pointed to one of the red areas, the signal drone launchers just aft of the bridge.

  “The bomb the pirates set up knocked our signal drone launchers out completely.
The drones themselves are a mess as well; we’ll be lucky to get even one of them working again. That means no signals home, no distress calls. Our only options are to riftjump out of the system or to wait until the Navy notices we are missing. To top it all off, they set up a feedback pulse that disabled the bridge elevator, probably to make the hijacking simpler.” A rough murmur swept through the room, but most of the ensigns and officers had already known about that damage.

  “Enter the pirates shooting up the Engineering section.” Turley pointed to the veins of red spidering up through the belly of the destroyer. Here the petty officer’s voice seemed to catch, but his eyebrows lowered and Turley bulled ahead. “In addition to injuring Ensigns Gi and Carver, they managed to send shrapnel through half our damn nav computer. We’ve kept most of the banks that control the sail rigs and the maneuvering jets, but from what we could tell, the riftjump charts are all mostly gone.”

  “We lost our star charts? Why aren’t there any backups?” Jacob felt his own voice quake even as a sharper round of murmurs swept through the officers. Without that data, there was no hope of riftjumping out. They would have to wait in the vacant system they had been ambushed in until someone came looking for them. While it might have been even chances whether the pirates or the Navy would come first, something told Jacob he wasn’t going to be that lucky.

  “The backups seemed to have been shredded too. They were located close to the officer’s mess.” Turley made a face. “Half of that area is too blown to hell to fix. We’re going to have to just seal it off and patch the armor over the holes in the outside. We have a few other spots of minor damage, especially in the armor plating, but that isn’t nearly as bad.”

  Jacob shook his head again, trying to shake off ominous feelings that had washed over him. “So we can’t jump out, and we can’t call for help, is that correct?”

  “If you’ll excuse me sir, not precisely.”

  Jacob turned to regard the new speaker in surprise. Ensign Navaja had remained seated and quiet the entire time, but now he was focused on the projection. Without any other real option, Jacob nodded. “Officer Turley, thank you for your explanation. Ensign Navaja, can you please explain what you meant?”

  Navaja nodded and stood as Turley sat back down with a weary huff. “I have already looked over the data left in the damaged computers, and in spite of the problems I have managed to piece together several charts.” He tapped a few buttons on his reader, and Jacob noticed a request for a data transfer appear on his podium. With mild apprehension he accepted it, and Navaja’s data replaced the hologram of the ship.

  A batch of miniaturized star systems, with their names and designations floating below them, appeared to hover above the podium. Jacob ran his eyes over them, in a brief but vain search for a nearby Celostian system. Navaja continued his explanation. “Unfortunately, most of the data I have retrieved has not been for local systems. Most of these systems lie well outside the limit for our riftjump capacity, and attempting to transit there would be suicidal.”

  Isaac raised a hand. “Would it be possible to make the trip with a couple of riftjumps? That way we don’t need to be stuck here.”

  Navaja shook his head and sighed dramatically. He spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he was lecturing a dull child. “No, it is not possible. A riftjump requires a particular wave signature built up to correspond both to the target system as well as the system you leave behind. Jumping into empty space without a system is theoretically possible, but it would be risky since we don’t know what’s out there, and it would be a waste of time since once we get there, we can’t get anywhere else.” Navaja shook his head a second time. “Better stuck here than in a nameless void.”

  Jacob repressed a groan as Isaac glared at the Navigation ensign. Isaac’s tone matched the glare. “Thanks, bridge bunny. You’ve made it all clear now.” Grumbling started to build among the officers, and Jacob cleared his throat before Navaja could respond.

  “Ensign Navaja, could you remove the systems beyond our range then?” The Navigation ensign nodded and tapped a few keys, and all but three systems vanished. Those that remained grew larger in the projection.

  Navaja tapped a button, and one of the three flashed for a moment. “One of the systems happens to be the one where we currently are. We are lucky to have that data, since without it we would not be jumping anywhere.” He tapped another two buttons, and the other two systems flashed. “The other two systems are GRC 11340, and GRC 11567. Both systems are noted as being as empty as this one, though GRC 11567 had a station once. I believe the frontier spacers called it—”

  “Reefhome?” Jacob felt his desperation retreat as he recognized the name. “I remember that place. My dad used to fly through every once in a while.”

  Navaja shrugged. “He likely participated in the local trade there before Telos grew more active in their piracy. Nobody goes there now, though, and I doubt a wrecked spacer station would offer much sanctuary. If we go there we risk never being found by elements of the fleet.”

  “At least it gives us an option if pirates jump in.” Jacob tapped a finger against the podium as he thought it over. A subdued series of conversations came again, this time hinting at relief. The stress of being a sitting target for any pirate happening to wander by would likely have been too much for the already strained crew. “Any port in a storm. Thank you Ensign Navaja.” As the Navigation ensign sat, Jacob turned his attention to one of the Countermeasures officers, the ensign over the Armor section. “Ensign Grayson, can you please report on how long it will take to repair the armor plating?”

  The exhausted looking ensign stood slowly. “I believe we have taken enough damage to require at least three days of EV work, if not four or five. That will only patch the holes, however. The ship needs a dockyard to repair the structural damage.”

  “Understood. Ensign Timmitz, could you tell us if we are running short on spare plates or ammunition? Or anything else?”

  Grayson sat, and Timmitz stood to speak. The Supply ensign’s deep voice showed a remarkable calmness among so nervous a crowd. “The repairs may deplete some of our armor plating, but there will be enough and to spare. Live ammunition might be harder to come by, since we weren’t stocked for a combat cruise, but we won’t be running out of that any time soon. Food, we have about enough for a month if nothing else changes.” Timmitz shrugged. “That’s about all I’ve had time to inventory so far. Anything in particular?”

  “No, thank you.” Timmitz sat, and Jacob was faced with the intent stares of a room full of ensigns and petty officers. He realized, with apprehension, that they were waiting, with varied levels of patience and respect, for him to make a decision about what to do now. He fumbled with his reader and made a quick calculation. “Now we're all on the same page, we are going to get back to work. We’ll continue in system close to our original course; that would make a search easier for a Navy ship that comes looking for us. We can make repairs and perform drills along the way while we wait for contact.”

  Ashford exploded out of his seat, his face lined with rage. “So that’s it? That’s your genius command? We’re going to wait while the pirates line up to jump in and blow us to hell? Great plan, ensign, I can see why we should follow you!”

  Jacob shot an angry look at the Marine, but before he could respond Ensign Triez from the second gun battery spoke up. “I have to agree with the sergeant here, Hull. At the very least we should try to hide. What’s the point of running drills if we’re hoping the Navy gets here first?”

  “Because we can’t count on the Navy being here first, Ensign Triez.” Jacob tried to keep his voice from being laced through with anger, but failed. “And if the pirates do jump in to see what happened to their little hijacking crew, I would prefer to be more ready for them this time. Is that all right by you?”

  Even as Triez dropped his eyes, Taylor spoke up. “What if it isn’t all right, Ensign Hull? What if we ask you to stand down and let someone else lead?”
>
  A burst of mutters followed the statement, which began to grow as Isaac, Laurie and a few others who supported Jacob began to bicker with their neighbors. Jacob locked eyes with the Gunnery ensign again, trying to fight down his own indignation.

  “I don’t have time to continue debating this issue with you or anyone else, Ensign Taylor. If you have problems following orders I suggest you come see me privately. Otherwise, these are your responsibilities. Carry them out.” The mutters continued to rise even as Taylor returned to his seat. Sergeant Ashford had folded his arms across his chest and was glaring at him with an expression of simmering hatred. Taylor’s cool, professional contempt was little better, and Al-shira was grinding her teeth with resentment. It was obvious that so far he had managed to win himself few friends among them.

  Pausing to gather his thoughts, Jacob glanced down at his own reader and found a report from Ensign Mensah in Medical. He tapped a button to bring it up and felt a dull blow run through him. When Jacob looked up again he felt cold that went far beyond the hostility he was facing. “Ensign Mensah has just given me a report that Crewman Amier has died.”

  The room went still, and Jacob glanced down at the podium. He hit the button to turn the projector off and let the silence stretch on. When he looked up he found the officers once again watching him, but the contempt and anger had been cut back in the face of losing yet another one of their own. Jacob spoke again as soon as he was sure he could trust his voice.

  “The pirates lost here yesterday, but we paid an awful price for it. Crewman Amier makes the casualty total rise to eleven dead and twelve wounded in the line of duty. Many of these men and women are people we knew, people we cared about, and were people who will not be able to return home because of some clan leader’s greed.