She took another sip, “He very nearly succeeded. In fact, historians have concluded that save for some really stupid tactical and strategic military decisions on his part, he could have won. That war ended after six years of unprecedented bloodshed, but in a very real sense, the end of the hot war morphed into decades of what they then called cold war. By our standards, those decades were astoundingly violent and deadly, with millions of human beings slaughtered for reasons of race, creed, religion, nationality or simply because they were sitting on one or another means of wealth.”
Another sip.
“Women were property, religion was banned or required, politics became virulently ugly, wealth was accumulated in the hands of powerful enterprises and individuals, and for a century after that war, life on Earth was bitter for the majority of humanity. That century plus of violence signaled the end of the supremacy of the nation state and the birth of a federation of nations, of a world-embracing civilization in which race, religion and nationality were of little import as causes of strife. In short, those wars were a necessary step in the ascent of mankind from its’ infancy toward a level of maturity.”
She looked around at her audience and smiled, “You may be wondering why I am talking ancient, dusty history. I want you – all of you – to think about the aftermath of the civil war. How did the Federation respond to the horrors of war that Nasser and her allies heaped on humanity? In the following years, what was life like on Nasser?”
She sipped from her glass and smiled at her slowly understanding audience. She nodded, “Yes. Life on Nasser was difficult, hard, unpleasant. Actually, most of you who have visited the planet would be of the opinion that Nasser is, all by itself, an unpleasant place to live.” She waited out the rustle of quiet laughter.
“My opinion? We – that is, the Federation, have helped create the situation that today we find ourselves in; we have fostered a spiritually unhealthy climate out of which has sprouted hatred and intolerance, and out of which a few have manipulated the many. This nascent civil war does not have a chance in hell of succeeding. It never did, but a desperate people will often resort to desperate measures. I define the term ‘desperate measures’ to mean, stupid, violent, deadly.”
A final sip, “So, in six months, a year, perhaps two at the most, the armed insurrection will have ended, been quelled, and the offenders of peace punished or in hiding. The question that remains, the one I want you to think about, is, what comes after? Do we further punish a populace that, for all intents and purposes, had no say in what happened? Or, do we act with a modicum of intelligence and, may I say, with a small amount of love. If so, we root out the few who moved this planet into insurrection, and we punish the hell out of them. Literally. For the vast majority of Nasserians, it is my hope that we finally stop treating them as enemies and aliens, and start working to integrate them into civilization. Carefully, very carefully.”
She took one final sip and concluded, “Now that we have solved the Federation’s problems, let’s turn to a related subject, the one that has brought us all together.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, she spoke about each of the people sitting directly in front of her. She didn’t seem to have to resort to any artificial memory aides, seemed to know each of the people she subsequently presented with a medal.
At the end, she brought up PowTech Elliot Kana. While he stood at attention, facing the audience, she spoke succinctly yet eloquently about his actions, both before the missile attack, and after. She quietly concluded, “During the battle of York, the name now given to the attack by armed warships upon the Federal presence in the Nasser system, the destroyer DGE-1756 FSS Défiance jumped into a contested region of space between three defending destroyers and seven attackers. She was immediately taken under fire. Due to her position, her companion ships were unable to support her, and a heavy missile detonated off her starboard bow, crushing her forward compartments, instantly killing her bridge crew and either killing or immobilizing a significant portion of the crew and every single officer on the ship. PowTech Kana was injured, but was able to prevent the runaway port fusion bottle from losing containment. He verified that the engineering officer was alive but unconscious, attempted to contact the bridge, and, when that proved impossible, he communicated with the missile room. NavTech Carson informed him that seventeen enemy missiles were in flight and just moments away from the defenseless ship. PowTech Kana then sat down at his console and reprogrammed the system, allowing him to take control of the ship. It is estimated that it took him less than three minutes to perform what most engineers would say was impossible, yet he managed not only to transfer control of the ship from the destroyed bridge to his console, he was also able to jump the ship back into the region of space it had just left, placing her in close proximity to the single warship in the entire system capable of coming to her aid. He subsequently restored full power to the ship, including the drive, and cobbled together a system that utilized the missile defense sensors to navigate the ship, which today is roughly one month away from returning to space. The actions of PowTech Second Class kana resulted in saving his ship and the surviving personnel on it. I am honored, therefore, to award Power Technician Second Class Elliott Trask Kana the Congressional Medal of Honor. This is the single highest award a member of the Federal military can earn and I feel a great deal of satisfaction in being able to present it to him rather than lay it on his casket.”
She gently slipped the medal around his neck, stepped back two steps and smartly saluted. With a wooden face, Kana returned her salute. It was the single instance where an officer saluted an enlisted man, rather than the reverse. Actually, the officer was saluting the medal.
Afterward, Kana was escorted to a small suite, where he was to stay over until his shuttle returned him to the Défiance. It was larger than the mess deck of his ship, and it felt oddly wrong, as if he was benefitting at the expense of his dead shipmates.
Chapter 30
Lieutenant Junior Grade Shin Ho Lee, the Federal Destroyer Fisk
The Fisk jumped into the region of Nasser and tiredly accelerated toward a berth on Nasser2, the single installation with free space.
In the three months since the battle with the mysterious heavy destroyer, The Fisk had been operating at a very high tempo, trying to find any slightest trace of a hidden base within the system. In that time it made approaches to well over three hundred stellar objects as large or larger than Earth’s moon. Shin Ho calculated that it would take several hundred years to make even a dent in the total number of large bodies, just in that system.
Fortunately, that far from the sun, surface temperatures were close to absolute zero, meaning that even a hidden base would radiate at least some infrared energy, making it relatively easy to spot from large distances; if, that is, the ship was not orbiting one of the other tens of thousands of empty cousins.
Unfortunately, ‘relatively’ meant that it was like looking for a fragment of a needle in a planet-sized haystack.
Now, as the ship decelerated to match orbits with Nasser, Shin Ho stood on the bridge. As a precaution he had ordered the borderline erratic starboard bottle be shut down and the ship was operating on just one plant.
The ship had performed well above reasonable expectations, almost to the level expected by the captain. Shin Ho had come to greatly admire and appreciate his captain’s approach to ship handling, which he believed to be very good; his opinion of the captain’s handling of his crew was off the chart. The Fisk’s crew had never once failed to respond to every challenge, and Captain’s Masts were rare, always merited and justly but humanely administered.
Captain’s Masts were a means of dealing with minor infractions of Navy regulations, and were designed to correct minor infractions of regulations without causing major damage to careers.
Life aboard these ancient warships was difficult at best, and after months of port and starboard watches – four hours on, four off - with additional hours at battle stations, the
levels of stress experienced by the crew were extraordinarily high, yet the Fisk was a happy ship, with a highly-trained and motivated crew.
Shin Ho was a part of the reason for the high levels of training and morale. He was well liked, despite making zero efforts to be liked. He managed this feat by demanding no more from his crew than he was willing to give; if he was asked a question, his crew knew he would be painfully honest. As a result, everyone knew exactly what he expected from them, and knew that if they lacked the tools to achieve his clearly stated goals, they needn’t fear admitting it.
Except, of course, if they were coasting.
He commed the captain, “Sir, we’ve been contacted by system control. It wants to know if we need to refuel before docking.” The captain sighed, “Logically, we’re going into dry-dock, so we don’t need to refuel; however, knowing that in this misbegotten system, chaos is normal, it might be prudent to have full bunkers. Comm me when we are one hour out.”
Shin Ho tried and probably failed to hide his happiness at this decision – it gave him more time in command of the warship.
Nine hours later, the ship’s bunkers were full of fuel, pristine H2O free of any trace of impurities that might gum up the ancient systems. With the captain on the bridge, the articulated and insulated replenishment system slowly retracted into the dock and the ship edged away, preparatory to moving the half-kilometer distance to it’s home for the next two weeks.
Using reaction thrusters, the Fisk moved at a glacial pace further into the massive structure and slowed to a relative stop just three meters from the bumpers that protected both the ship and the structure from over-confident lieutenants.
Anti-grav drivers gently pulled the ship the final few meters up against the bumpers and mechanical arms reached out to embrace the ship.
Captain Chavez triple checked to ensure that the ship was secured and receiving sufficient power from the station before quietly ordering, “Shut down the bottles, secure from docking and assign work details to begin opening up the power room. As soon as I’m satisfied that the ship is properly sorted, I’ll grant port and starboard liberty and look at the leave requests, which seem to outnumber the total complement of this ship. Lieutenant, you have the watch. By the way, should you happen to even think to comm my quarters to inform me that we have been ordered back out, I will personally throw your lifeless body out of the nearest airlock.”
Everyone on the bridge laughed as the captain disappeared into his adjacent quarters.
Shin Ho stood the remainder of the watch, ensuring that all power to the navigation and targeting systems were fully secured, thereby safeguarding the reproductive futures of the human inhabitants of adjacent structures, and that all assignments were actually completed by a crew extremely eager to set foot on something, anything, not called the Fish.
Shin Ho was relieved and promptly went down and aft. He had responsibility for ensuring that the power room was ready for the simple yet difficult task of removing the port fusion bottle and replacing it with one that might not explode.
Since the Federation was technically at war, and literally short many dozens of destroyers, the work had a high priority, and Shin Ho could literally feel and hear the sounds of dockworkers, already working to remove sufficient hull plating to gain access to the ship.
Since a 2nd gen destroyer was too large for the work to be performed inside an aired-up structure, the entire power room was going to have to be sealed off before the inner, airtight panels were removed. Preparatory to that, Shin Ho was to see that the bottle was disconnected and unbolted from the heavy beams that held the massive structure in place.
In theory, a bottle could be replaced in less than thirty hours, but in practice, it usually took longer. This time around however, the crew was motivated to get the initial work done before the end of their watch, allowing them access to the highly limited joys of Nasser2. There was no possibility that they could drop down to the surface, and in fact, the overwhelming majority of the crew would just as soon drop a rock or ten onto Nasser as personally visit the largely hostile populace and planet.
Nasser2 had for over a century orbited a planet that didn’t want anything to do with “Federals”, and as a result, the Navy had constructed a commissary and ‘night club’ – another odd name from the past for an orbiting installation whose days were ninety minutes long.
By the time Shin Ho had secured the work details and sealed off the power room, he had been on duty for over twenty hours. On the other hand, he had been on duty on the Fish for three continuous months; he practically ran to his quarters, changed into his dress B uniform and after conferring with the captain, departed the ship.
The station air smelled funny. It took him a few moments to realize that the station air didn’t smell funny, it simply didn’t smell.
His first priority was food. He found a small area near the main entrance to the huge structure. It contained a large number of small stalls, and the scents wafting past his nose were irresistible, of course by design.
He stopped at a Mexican stand and ordered a taco, something he was well familiar with. It wasn’t as good as one prepared on Earth, but it was the best – and the only – taco he’d had in well over a year.
Next, he ate a sandwich from a delicatessen. It was delicious.
He sat at a small table and had what purported to be coffee from Earth. Along with it, he had an ice cream, something else he hadn’t enjoyed in many months.
He only had six hours, and he’d just used one of them.
He wandered through a long passageway, filled with private companies that in one way or another supported the Navy and it’s personnel.
Boring.
The commissary was mildly interesting, as it had a clothing section, one not filled with uniforms. Still, he was restless and after making a pass through the section he emerged back in the main passageway, ending up at the entrance to the nightclub.
He reluctantly entered. He stood inside and looked around, assuming that he would find members of his crew. He liked his crewmates, he just didn’t want to spend the first free hours he’d had in months with the same people he’d been cooped up with for those same months.
Much to his surprise, he spotted PowTech Kana. He was sitting alone and looked as if that was what he wanted. Shin Ho mentally shrugged and went to the counter where he ordered a juice. With the glass in hand he turned back to find a table. There was a small stage, with a male singer, apparently getting ready to sing, or play an instrument. Kana saw him, and since distance negated the requirement for a salute, but simple courtesy suggested an acknowledgement, he waved.
They shook hands and sat down. Kana was nursing a beer, and they talked about their drink choices for a few seconds before turning to listen to the singer. He was reasonably good, and while neither understood Spanish, they were familiar with the style of music.
During a break Shin Ho asked, “How is your ship?” Kana smiled, “They’re going ahead with repairs. The entire bow was either crushed or bent, meaning they had to grow new frame members. It’s going to end up being a weird mix of second and third gen ship, but it has given them an opportunity to replace the cable runs, emitters and add some new antennas. ‘Course, they’re replacing both the mag bottles and capacitors, so we’ll end up with a pretty decent antique.”
Shin Ho grinned, “And, officers?” Kana shrugged, “Unknown. The captain came from 1st Fleet, meaning he is probably accustomed to new or near-new ships, and no combat.” He spoke without being judgmental, but the facts were not promising.
Fleet was an odd mix. Shin Ho had recently learned of a highly expensive and revolutionary craft called the Dresden. It had been designed to counter the growing threat of energy-weapon armed fighters and featured an incredibly expensive armor that reportedly shrugged off fighter-based lasers. Unfortunately, the development of the craft led to enormous cost overruns that eventually killed it halfway through construction. It ended up going from development to mothbal
ls, and despite the recent, heavy demand for destroyers, frigates, and Escorts, those few ships remained grounded. Shin Ho didn’t know all the facts, but it appeared that they hadn’t performed to expectations, save for cost, where they had excelled. Meanwhile, he was stuck in an ancient ship.
The singer returned and sang another few songs. They listened in quiet comfort. Kana wasn’t an officer, but he’d gone through the same battles, giving the two men a strong bond. Of course, he’d just been awarded the Medal of Honor.
They stayed for two hours, and during a break, they went back to the food court, this time to a tiny stand that promised ‘home-cooked meals’. They weren’t, but the food was good. Neither was particularly hungry, but both wanted to stuff their stomachs while they had the chance.
Hawk Flight (Flight of the Hawk Book 3) Page 17
