by Britt Ringel
* * *
Three days and two exercises later, Twist stood near the same spot where Lieutenant Hayashi had greeted him, waiting on an arriving shuttle to come to rest. When the spinning red lights inside the hangar finally extinguished, the shuttle door cracked open to reveal a smiling Ensign Kirkpatrick.
Twist waved amiably as Kirkpatrick made his way down the ramp with two oversized bags. When the ensign closed the distance, he dropped his luggage, came to attention and saluted energetically. Only an upturned corner of his mouth and the enthusiasm of his statement hinted at their friendship. “Ensign Vix Kirkpatrick requests permission to come aboard, sir!”
Twist smiled openly and returned the salute. “Despite my protest, Captain Weis says permission is granted.” The two men shook hands.
Kirkpatrick looked around the hangar. “Where is the Operations commander? Don’t tell me that ‘The Voice of the Republic’ has also managed to transfer me to Weapons somehow. Isn’t it enough that I’m being forced to serve aboard the same ship as her son?” he quipped.
Twist blushed slightly. “I can always ask her to send you back to that defense fortress in Metis.”
Kirkpatrick shivered. “It’s in Sponde now. They towed it there a couple weeks ago and thank you, no. I saw how long those death traps lasted in our fight three months ago.” He struggled to pick up his bags. “But seriously, why is the weapons section commander greeting me instead of Lieutenant Lovejoy?”
“After you drop off your bags, I’ll take you to him. We just came off an exercise a couple of hours ago and you know how the damage controlmen always finish up last.” Twist looked toward the ceiling in exasperation as Kirkpatrick struggled dramatically with his belongings. Finally, he pulled one of the bags from his friend.
“So, how’s the ship?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“It seems good,” Twist replied. “Captain Weis and Lieutenant Hayashi are both low key. They’re patient and we need that because this crew is on the young side. Most of us are coming from ships that have been taken off the line with battle damage.”
“What’s Lieutenant Lovejoy like?”
“He’s a fellow Thalassan so he’s pretty gung-ho.” Twist rolled his eyes but offered no further comment.
“What?” Kirkpatrick asked, catching his friend’s expression.
Twist bit his lower lip and then admitted, “Lovejoy’s default picture on the wall screen in his quarters is of Mom accepting the Tribute Trophy at Bree.”
Kirkpatrick burst out laughing. After several seconds, he wiped at his eyes and blurted out, “That’s the same as mine!”
The duo took the same route that Twist had taken three days earlier. Typical for Brevic warships, all of the officer quarters, save the captain’s and first officer’s, were on the same deck. Colloquially called “officer’s country,” the section resided on Falcata’s Deck One, along her port beam. The quarters, spaced evenly between the eight GP turrets along the perimeter of the ship, served an additional function, as damage sponges. If Falcata took fire that her duralloy armor failed to deflect, the non-vital living quarters would be the first compartments hit.
“The good news,” Twist said as they reached Kirkpatrick’s assigned room, “is that we still have some time to bring everything together.” He opened the portal and allowed Kirkpatrick to step inside. The room was small but larger than Kirkpatrick had been afforded on Determined. He watched his friend walk through the room before dropping his bag on his bunk. Twist tossed the other bag next to the first.
Kirkpatrick jerked his head toward the messy bunk across the room. “Whose is that?”
“Ensign Dominick. He runs the helm section under Navigation,” Twist answered. “I really haven’t had time to get to know him.” He gestured down the corridor. “Ready to meet your boss?”
Kirkpatrick moved to the full-length mirror in the room. He studied his uniform while asking, “How do I look?”
“Ugly,” Twist remarked, “but plenty good enough to be an Ops officer.”
The trip to Lovejoy took several minutes. During the latest exercise, Falcata had taken simulated laser fire on her starboard quarter, near her propulsion drives. Two of the four Allison-Turner Type-50 drives had suffered “damage” and Operations was compiling an after-action report.
When Twist entered the main starboard engineering compartment with Kirkpatrick in tow, he saw Lieutenant Lovejoy speaking with Lieutenant Owens, Falcata’s chief engineer. Lovejoy waved them forward while in mid-sentence.
A nervous Kirkpatrick asked quietly, “Do I report in to him here?”
“Yeah,” Twist responded. “Do it but don’t make a big deal of it.” He doubted that failing to report in, given the circumstances, would make a bad impression with Lovejoy but it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Heya, Caden,” Lovejoy greeted.
A grease-smudged Owens merely nodded as she wiped her hands on her overalls.
Twist jutted a thumb toward Kirkpatrick. “I’m bringing you your little lamb, sir.” Kirkpatrick offered a snappy salute and issued his reporting statement.
Lovejoy returned the salute but begged off. “Never mind all that, Vix. It’s just good to have my Ops-A commander in place.” The full lieutenant looked again at Twist with a smile. “Great work on the requisition forms, by the way, Caden. It took me a full five minutes to figure out why you were combining Javelin guidance chips with the GP software updates but that’s disgustingly clever. How’d you come up with that trick?”
Twist shrugged humbly. “I used to do something similar when working through logistics at my dad’s construction outfit.”
“Well, I’m stealing the idea because not only is it going to get us faster updates but I can use the credits allocated for wartime expenditures—”
“—To buy those software updates and save a lot on routine maintenance,” Twist finished while nodding his head. “Thalassan taxes in the construction business are steeper on routine maintenance so we always got creative when trying to avoid using that money.” He looked around the large compartment. Owens had wandered off to speak with a maintenance crewman.
“Well,” Twist said as he turned for the exit, “here’s your ensign. He was an all-star on Determined so be sure to set your expectations super high for him.”
* * *
Lucy Holt had been aboard Falcata only six minutes but already knew her work was cut out for her. Lieutenant Hayashi’s welcoming had been professional if cool but the ship was in the middle of an exercise and the officer’s detached greeting had been understandable. Hayashi had explained that Falcata’s WEPS was tied to the bridge but Captain Weis had given her ten minutes to get the ship’s newest weapons officer situated down in Missile Control.
The first officer had done little more than escort her through the ship to the precipice of the missile section when an authoritative voice over Falcata’s main channel announced an imminent point defense action. Hayashi pointed toward Missile Control quickly before jogging off toward the center of the ship. After watching the shocksuit-clad officer disappear around a corner, Holt nearly face-planted into the door when it failed to open.
A hell of a way to start things off, she grumbled. She inspected the door controls; they had been locked. A datapad-swipe later and the doors retracted to reveal her bane.
Petty Officer First Class Lewis Fenton lounged in his shockseat, restraints removed and helmet off.
Holt watched the man’s head swivel toward the door with a look of irritation. The look transformed into fright before morphing into a haughty confidence. “Welcome, L-T,” Fenton said as he waved leisurely before lifting himself from his shockseat. “We’re pretty casual down here,” he added, brushing crumbs off the front of his shocksuit. “I figure the crew isn’t going to work well together if we’re all wrapped up on formality, right, L-T?” He gave her a broad smile and winked before pointing to the vacant chair opposite of his. “You can sit yourself over there.”
Holt’s eyes followed h
is finger. “That’s the weapons manager’s console, PO.” Her eyes returned to the station Fenton occupied.
Fenton waited several, long moments before responding indifferently, “Oh, sure, you want the subsection commander’s chair. I just figured that you didn’t want to disrupt the entire subsection during an exercise.” A patronizing smile chastised her. “We just normally wouldn’t want to break our gunners’ concentration in the middle of a fight.” He made a grand gesture toward the console before quickly snatching a bag of snacks and his datapad from its surface.
Holt walked close to Fenton and hit the seat’s shocksuit release button. The compartment on the back of the chair popped open: empty. She sighed.
“Um, I’m using it, L-T,” Fenton explained. “The suits haven’t been taken out of storage for a while and this one had the latest inspection tag.”
She walked across the room and opened the other storage compartment. She found the inspection sticker near the suit’s collar. It read 0519.984. “This suit hasn’t been inspected in over ten years.”
Fenton nodded with empathy. “See what I mean? Those lazy bastards just opened the gate and let this old warhorse out of the corral. You should’ve seen the condition of my quarters when I got here a month ago.”
Holt tucked a dark lock of hair behind her ear. She looked at the screens on the manager’s station. A layer of dust covered the dormant surface. She slid a finger across a screen, drawing an unhappy face.
“I’ll get Spaceman Walton to clean that off,” Fenton volunteered.
Holt felt muscles in her jaw tighten. She stuffed the shocksuit back into the compartment and slammed the hatch closed. Finally, she turned and said, “Gunnersmate Fenton, you’ve had four weeks to do this. I’m leaving now and you have until three hours after this exercise before I return. If this compartment, along with the entire Missile subsection, doesn’t resemble something comparable to a Brevic weapons section, you’re going to have a serious problem.” Without further word, she exited the control room and stalked down the hall.
Ahead of her was a petty officer second class wearing the orange armband of a SEET member. Before the petty officer could speak, Holt ripped a red sticker off his clipboard and slapped the “KIA” emblem onto her chest in a single, fluid motion. The man was still gaping at her as she stomped down the corridor.
* * *
The trio cut loose with raucous laughter as Holt finished her story. “They even decompressed each missile launcher compartment and let the trash blow out to space.” Her laughter dropped off as she popped a chip into her mouth.
“It’s my fault too, Lucy,” Twist admitted. “When I talked to Fenton last week, he assured me that the missile section was ready to receive you. What’s worse is Chief Devore said she looked over the section herself.”
Kirkpatrick placed his drink on the table. “I warned you, Caden. Misha served with Chief Devore on Cavalerie and told me all about her. Your senior NCO is trouble.”
“What’d she say?” Holt asked.
“Damage Controlman Third Class Metz said that Devore was—,” he made air quotes as he spoke, “—highly effective at watching out for herself.”
Holt frowned. “That’s pretty scathing considering that’s an E-4 talking about an E-7.” She thrust her fork at Kirkpatrick. “She took a big risk saying that to you, Vix. You better protect her.”
Kirkpatrick nodded. “I will. Misha’s already worth her weight in gold. She has A-section running like clockwork.”
On Falcata, the operations section had been divided into three, equal subsections: A, B and C. Each was comprised of eight spacemen led by a junior petty officer, except in A-section’s case. Petty Officer Third Class Misha Metz could have pouted when Kirkpatrick’s appearance supplanted her position as A-section’s leader. Instead, she had eagerly shifted her responsibilities away from leadership to assisting her new ensign while also serving to mentor and shape the young officer’s development.
“It’s a tough situation for me though,” Twist declared angrily. “If I can’t trust Chief Devore then I’m not sure what to do.”
“Set her straight,” Holt urged.
“I’m not ready to pull that trigger yet, Lucy,” he responded. “Aren’t you worried that you’ve poisoned the well with your NCO now?”
Holt placed her fork onto her plate and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re my section commander, Caden, so I don’t want to tell you how to run Weapons.” Her statement carried no animosity despite the fact that she had held their present rank longer than he had. Such circumstances were common as Brevic ship captains had a wide latitude over the command hierarchy aboard their ships. Much like Misha Metz, Lucille Holt had accepted her position on Falcata with aplomb, trusting that success at the top of the weapons section would be rewarded throughout the entire chain of command.
“I know but I value your opinion,” Twist assured. “We’re all in this together, especially us officers, so tell me what you think.”
“Well, my mother retired from the marines as an E-7. The day I became an officer, she told me that the worst thing I could ever do was try to be friends with my NCOs. She said if a friendship developed, that would be great, but if I actively tried to make them my friends, I’d appear weak and not only would that kill their confidence in me but it’d bring down the whole section.”
“Aren’t you worried about Fenton working against you?” Kirkpatrick asked.
Holt tilted her head. “A little,” she confided. “And Fenton’s been in the Navy a lot longer than I have.” She flashed white teeth in a quick smile. “However, I know the section commander and word is that he’s willing to listen to the officers under him.”
“I hear he’s simply a talking head,” Kirkpatrick stated devilishly.
Twist delivered a sharp elbow to his friend’s side. “You’re probably right, Lucy. I’ll track down Devore after the captain’s daily meeting.” He glanced at the dining facility’s chronometer. “Which I need to start heading to if I don’t want to be late.”
* * *
Captain Weis preferred short meetings. In the two weeks Twist had been aboard Falcata, Weis had opened his meetings the same way each time: a brief greeting followed by a general report on the status of the war from Lieutenant Hayashi. Weis would then run down the ship’s status and discuss the major areas he wanted his crew to focus on for the upcoming day. He then fielded any questions or concerns.
Twist’s expectations for the usual meeting were shattered when Weis entered the small briefing room off the bridge and announced, “We’re breaking orbit within the hour for the Carme tunnel point.”
During the last forty-eight hours, a frigate and second missile destroyer had dove into New London. More ominously, Task Group 3.1, centered on Avenger, had appeared overnight at the tunnel point from Bree and was making way toward Carme.
Falcata’s senior officers exchanged anxious looks as Weis explained. “Our orders take us through the Carme system to Kalyke. We’re being inserted into a reconstituted destroyer squadron, DesRon Fourteen, which has been attached to Task Group Two Point Six.”
Lieutenant Hayashi immediately asked, “What is Two-Six’s composition, Captain?”
Weis sighed. “Just our destroyer squadron, a cruiser squadron and our escorts, a total of eighteen ships.”
“No dreadnaughts?” Hayashi asked in disbelief.
“Second Fleet is running a little low on them, Kat,” Weis said as he looked around the room. “The Hollies have suffered attrition too. Brevic Intelligence expects no more than one dreadnaught in opposition.” He gauged the room and added, “And no carrier support.”
Twist felt an immediate wave of relief rush through him. Judging by the expressions around the room, everyone felt the same as he.
“Plus,” Weis offered, “Third Fleet sent us Task Group Three-One and that means Admiral Hayes will be the overall commander.”
Twist considered the implications of having a heavy carrier support Kalyke�
��s defense. With Avenger’s fighters present, we may not even enter into a laser engagement. We need to rerun a point defense exercise though.
Weis finally took his seat at the head of the table. “Kat, we can skip today’s general briefing. I want tomorrow’s to focus on Kalyke and what Hollie ships we think will be participating in the battle.”
“Captain,” Falcata’s SENS officer said as she raised her hand lightly, “when do we expect action?”
“We are to arrive in Kalyke within the next four days and be prepared to repel a Commonwealth attack inside of a week.” Weis again looked at the young faces peering back at him. “We’ll be ready, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve trained hard over these past weeks and you can bet Admiral Hayes will be running exercises of his own while we sail.”
Twist nodded enthusiastically, catching his captain’s attention.
“In fact,” Weis said with a smile, “maybe Lieutenant Twist can share some of his insight about the admiral during their time together in Sponde.” The captain leaned forward, eager for a parcel of information that could assuage the fears welling within his crew.
I don’t know what to say, Twist thought. “Uh, he kept his carrier group apart from our conventional group.”
“That’s standard practice,” Hayashi interjected. “The Hollies have been doing that too.”
“Yes,” Twist agreed quickly. “He also used his fighters to break up an anti-ship attack but we won’t have to worry about that since the Commonwealth is running out of carriers.” He rubbed his chin. “He also kept our two task groups within ten light-minutes of each other…”
A silence grew in the room as Twist searched futilely for more insight.
“Well,” Weis said after the silence persisted. He cleared his throat. “We know how Sponde turned out for the Hollarans and we also know that Hayes saved his carrier during the spoiling attack in Commonwealth space, so with experienced hands like Hayes and young Caden here, we’ll be more than a match for the Hollies in Kalyke.”
