by Jim Rudnick
“Sir, yes, Sir. But there are some reports that I’m a bit … uh … a bit late on getting to—well, to you, I’d suppose, Sir,” he said.
Reports—the bane of every command position in any navy, Tanner thought, as he shook his head.
“Well, then let’s go to the Officers’ Mess, see what Cookie has got for us—and we can go over those reports verbally. Work for you, Captain?” he said and that got both a grin and a nod from Kondo.
Together, they went back down Deck Four, to the closest lift aft, and then down to Deck Nine. A hundred yards ahead toward the aft area was the Officers’ Mess, and they entered, picked up trays and silverware, and got in line.
“Surprised us a bit, this visit, Admiral,” Kondo said, “as we’d have loved to have piped you in, Sir.” He was referring to the age-old custom of the bosun, or officer of the day, piping in a new captain the first time he came on board his own ship. Tanner had been piped in on the Marwick years back and the Atlas too, but now as an admiral, he was not expecting such a custom.
“Not a biggie for me—but for a captain, surely,” he said as he eyed the list of entree items. Sloppy Joe on a weck sounded about right for the day, and he took the side salad as a nod to eating healthy. Of course, the big dollop of blue cheese dressing he topped it with was a bit over the top. But hey, how often does a brand new admiral come onto his flagship anyways?
Once they’d gathered up their food items and had joshed a bit with the serving line stewards, they went off to one side of the mess hall to sit in a booth where they’d not be disturbed. Kondo dug in right away on his own lunch, some kind of a stew that featured Garnuthian turkey, Tanner thought, but the bright orange color of the stew threw him off.
They chatted about the Atlas—her latest issues and the new Seenra installs of a couple of software updates too. Kondo had been hard, he admitted, on his tech installers, and yet the software had gone in perfectly. Instead of that being a good thing, as they both knew, sometimes the perfect installs meant an issue had been overlooked, but so far, so good.
“So, Kondo, these reports?” Tanner asked, but he was sure they’d amount to unimportant issues.
“Okay, first, the new Barony Drive. We know about it, but the circle is pretty small—except that it now includes the complete crew of the Atlas. The Baroness left Neres and wanted to be in Ghayth immediately, so we did just that. Locked onto the gravity well that was the blue plate on the satellite off the sun, pumped the pre-determined amount of orange bio gel into the hopper, and in like seconds, we were off the Ghayth system sun.
“Our own copper plate was installed at the rear of the Atlas, on the outer engine skins fully aft, by the way, and the whole thing was overseen by CWO Hartford. That alien has one amazing brain, Sir. He personally took out the shuttle to place one of our sun-monitoring satellites around the Ghayth sun too so that we could get back in the same few seconds as it took in getting there.
“With permission, Sir—I’d like to do a field-rank promotion for him to second lieutenant—to make him a real live commissioned officer. Seems like the right thing to do—and at the same time, it’d make him the fully in charge officer of the Atlas IT department as well.”
It was a question, Tanner realized, and he thought about that for a moment and then nodded.
“Make it a full first lieutenant though, Captain. Send me the paperwork and I’ll okay it immediately. Reward the best, I’ve always believed in …
“And on Ghayth—are there issues there that the Baroness needed to see to?” he asked, thinking that his marine friend, Alver, was there, and he hoped that he was okay too.
“Aye, Sir,” Kondo said, “the big thing I think was—and I had to sit through the whole damn set of meetings,” he commiserated, “that there’s huge budget expenses on the planet. At least that’s what we were there for—accounting meetings.” He sighed, but his countenance brightened up immediately in the next moment.
“Except, that during the second day of meetings, the Baroness and I were called away to speak with a wing commander and a pilot of his in private. Seems the pilot had gone off course, over on a far southern continent, and had accidentally bumped into the wreckage of a huge unknown ship. Buried in the ground mostly and a total wreck, but he was smart enough to video the loops he did of the wreckage, make encrypted Ansible location settings, and take it all in for about three minutes. The video I have—not with me, Sir but I’ll send it to your PDA if you’d like right now?” he asked.
Tanner nodded and watched as Kondo made some keystrokes on his PDA, and moments later, Tanner’s PDA chimed and vibrated. He held his wrist flat on the tabletop and then keyed in a setting that would display the video in a hologram above his wrist. And a moment later, the Air Force pilot was speaking, and the view was out the front of his fighter. Ahead was an area that was wet looking—like the rest of Ghayth, Tanner knew. But as the ship slowly turned to port, up out of the valley floor close to a mountain range, the skeleton of a large, large ship appeared out of the mists. It had buried its nose into the soft Ghayth fen that seemed to cover the planet, and what was left sticking up and out was mostly bare beams and broken sheets of hull plating. Engines were covered with what looked like Ghayth moss and vines, and pieces of wreckage had flown off at impact and lay around the corpse of the hull itself.
The pilot noted the coordinates for his Ansible location, and then as the impact site was almost on the beach of a large lake, he’d spun up and had done a full three loops around the hull. With nothing to compare what he could see with something he knew size-wise, Tanner had no idea about the actual size of the ship—but it was big, that anyone could tell. Judging from what he could see, the foliage and the growth of the various Ghayth fauna all over the ship meant that it had been there for a long time. Inside he could also see, as the pilot took a complete overpass loop too, that there was green in as far as he could see.
Kondo nodded as the video faded out. “Pilot is sworn to secrecy—no other copies are out there of the find—our wing commander knows to stay mum on this too. So the circle is small, only those two, us two, and the Baroness—wait, I did tell Major Stal too as he is the marine in charge on the planet. Between him and the wing commander, both were instructed—is that the word one uses when a Royal gives an order?— to stay quiet on this. The thing is, and this came from the wing commander himself, a ship that big that low, if it came in at orbiting speed, would have made a crater miles across. Therefore, and I agree too, it came in slowly, looking to touch down. But all there is there—that we can see from our pilots few aerial loops—is a beach and some mountains. So … thinking that there may be more that we’ve as yet not learned about too, Sir,” Kondo said and finished soaking up the last of that orange stew with a chunk of bread.
As he stared at Tanner and chewed, Tanner had to agree.
Any ship coming in at speed would have exploded—so this one was going much slower than one might think which meant that there was a reason for that speed, like a touch down or the like, close to the same spot.
Or that an attacker knocked her down there by chance.
Or that—oh hell, he thought, I gotta go see same.
He smiled at the Atlas captain and said, “What’s next, Kondo?”
And he got the reports that he’d had to do himself for years but much more quickly. A few he could nod and help out his captain by making the needed decisions right there and then. Others, he had to put off and say “send it” to a few.
Lunch was over, and the food had been good and the information solid. As usual from Kondo—who was a great choice he felt to take over the Atlas. But he did miss her—even admirals missed the direct command of a ship.
“Admiral—have you as yet thought about quarters when you’re on the Atlas?”
He half-frowned for a moment and then shook his head.
“I would never take the Royal quarters,” he said as he replied.
“Sir, then next to same is a full set of quarters—same exa
ctly as the captain’s quarters, and while they do have a joining door into the Royals apartment, we can have that sealed off if you’d like, Sir? Seems like the best idea ...” he queried.
Tanner thought about that. Same as the captain’s big quarters, check. But separated from the Royals too, check.
“Good idea, Captain, you can please get that straightened out for me too, soonest.”
This delegating of items to underlings he was learning to love.
But some needs were for admirals only.
He bussed his own area, got a smile from one of the stewards at the dirty dish area, and walked out of the mess with Kondo.
“Okay, Captain … I’m over at the naval base officer’s quarters—and I’ll have my stuff moved over to the new quarters later today. We good, Kondo?” he asked, and he held out his hand to shake. The fact that this man was a great captain was one thing—that he’d found Tanner himself and had proved that friendship over and over was another.
Shaking his hand, Kondo grinned at him. “Admiral—it’s a pleasure to serve under you, Sir!” he said, and then dropping Tanner’s hand, he snapped to attention and saluted smartly.
Tanner returned same and then went aft toward the boarding port on Deck Four, and Kondo went ahead toward the bridge.
#####
He really needed help; that was apparent to Tanner as he again walked around the reception counter in the general administration offices and tried not to look out of place. A lieutenant came over and asked if he needed some help, and he smiled at the young man and said, “A bit, please. I’m looking for vacant rooms here in the building—do we have a map or something that could help?”
The lieutenant looked a bit nonplussed and then glanced over at the bulletin board on the wall.
Signaling Tanner to follow him, he went over and pointed at a simple line drawing up at the top of the board. It looked old and somewhat yellowed, but he pointed at it with a degree of smugness.
“Sir, yes, Sir! This is our building—showing the fire exits that we’re to use should there ever be a fire. And as you can see, up on the second floor, I believe, there might be some space, Sir. When we added the new extension to the building about a year ago or so, some of those facilities were moved over, so they still showed that the second floor was full—but it isn’t really, Sir.”
Tanner looked at it and realized that the building map was well out of date. And an incorrect map didn’t help.
“What I need is a room big enough to hold our Captain’s Council meetings in … are any of the now vacant ones okay for that use?”
From the side, a voice spoke up, and he turned to listen to an ensign who’d appeared at their side.
“Sir,” she said, “the biggest room is at the far end, ‘twould be big enough I think for you to rearrange and get the setups done for the Captains Council meeting later this week. Can I show you that room, Sir?” she asked, her red hair and skin glowing.
Probably a sign that she’s young and in shape maybe—gotta check on how to tell if an alien is healthy, he thought.
“Let’s go—uh, Ensign,” he said, noting her navy rank, the single star over the single stripe.
“Follow me, please, Admiral,” she said, and she strode away with some speed.
He followed a bit behind and only had to salute a couple of times as they made their way down to the far end of the long administration building hallway. They took the stairs up, and she marched ahead again a fair piece down the second floor corridor. Stopping at a closed set of double doorways, she palmed the security panel, and the doors slid open.
He went ahead of her, entered the room, and stopped at the smell.
He sniffed. And sniffed again, and then turned to her and said, “And that smell is …”
She nodded and didn’t smile. “Sir, yes—it’s from the original kitchens that were in here for over forty years. They were moved down to the new wing just a year ago, and this room was stripped of all the equipment. But as you can tell, it needs complete refurbishing—new paint, flooring, tiles, et cetera Sir to make it usable. But Sir, it’s the only room large enough to hold our twenty or so captains, Sir.”
She smiled then at the end of her little explanation.
“Sir, if the admiral would like to use this room—and if I can use your name to get things done STAT—I believe I can get this room re-done so that the meeting this week could be held here—the new home for the Captains Council,” she offered, and that made him think for a moment.
He wasn’t thinking about the room at all—anyone with a degree of attention to detail could handle that matter. It was this ensign that he suddenly liked. He paused and walked the room from one end to the other. He thought about where the table should go, where the video display system should go, and where the Ansible console should go. All choices he knew would be important, so he asked for help from the ensign.
She nodded and moved to the center of the room. “Sir, a good-sized horseshoe table would be best—enough for the captains to have some space plus the ability to view each other at all times. Center area here, I’d think—where the council staff could sit for all their meeting work. Your own seat would be at the top of the horseshoe too, about here, I’d think. Video I know is pretty important so that system should be monitored from the far inner wall and the screens here and here,” she said, pointing at two locations within the room. We’d also want your own staff to be just behind you but up a step so that they too can see the captains and aid you when needed. Lastly, Sir—there should also be a small service area constructed to make available to the captains for refreshments and the like. It’s what I’d imagine the admiral would want,” she said and turned to him a few feet away.
He looked at her and kept the smile off his face for now. “Ensign—tell me about yourself, please?”
When an admiral asks for anything, one complies and in full, he knew.
She nodded and came to attention. “Sir, yes, Sir! My name is Ayla Kiraz, a native of Hope, Sir. My home city is Seven Islands, Sir, in the deep southern hemisphere. I am a grad—two years ago—of the RIM Naval Academy, and I stood number three in my class, Sir.
“I have been assigned for the past six months as a relief officer—filling in anywhere in the admin areas, Sir, that someone is needed. I am twenty-eight years old and hopefully expect to be assigned to ship duty before I’m thirty. And, as a Hopian, I believe you can tell that we all love independent space navy life, Sir!”
She then flashed a salute, and he casually saluted her back.
Hopian, he recalled, meant she was detail oriented and knew enough to know when she didn’t know something.
He remembered the Hopian woman he’d gotten to know just a bit back on Halberd during the prison rebellion and how impressed he’d been with her bearing and independence too.
He smiled then and nodded. “Lieutenant, I agree wholeheartedly with your own assessment of the room—the new home of the Captains Council. And I agree with your own ideas on facilities we’d be needing here. You are therefore hereby ordered to get it done—in time for the meeting in, what, three days?” he asked.
“Sir, it’s four days—and I am only an ensign, Sir, not a lieutenant,” she said quietly.
He nodded at her. “Not anymore, Lieutenant. Get over to the quartermasters and draw new insignias for your collar and cuffs. As of now, you’re my own aide—you work for me and me only. If anyone challenges you, you will tell them that if they wish to complain to do it to my face in person. As of now, I’ll also need some temporary admiral’s office set up here on the second floor too ‘til the new building is up—add that to your list, for both me and you, and I’d expect you’ll be needing some staff as well. Got it?” he asked as he spun on his heel and left the room.
“Got it, Sir” came floating to him as he went back down the hall to the stairs and out onto the landing tarmac to return to the Atlas.
#####
Aboard the CN Majestic, the rows of sleeper tanks were
quiet, all sleepers sleeping, and as it was night shift, only a minimum of technicians were awake though none were walking the rows of cryo-tanks. All quiet and running smoothly and there were no worries in that area.
On the bridge of the ship, plugging away at two lights a day, only the officer of the day was on duty. The fact that it was night didn’t matter; it was his shift, and he was alone. He had already played with some of his games on the captain’s console—the chair that he sat in when on duty alone. There was no helm officer, no Ansible officer, no Science officer—not a single other person on the bridge but him. Experienced, yes, but on this ship, doing this one duty was all that he knew. And he had no idea about much else on the Majestic.
A small icon on the console chimed three times—three meaning please pay attention to me, he well knew—and he sighed as he looked up from his reader tablet and hit the PAUSE button to save his place. Any good story was a great way to pass time on the bridge. This one was a real world buster, and he couldn’t wait to get back to it. Aliens with magical powers and little green women!
He sighed and put the reader down.
On the console, the Collision Notification icon was lit and still flashing—now in bright red.
He looked up immediately at the view-screen and noted nothing ahead. Empty space, far stars, and not a thing else.
He frowned.
Collision notifications were important, but this was obviously a false positive. There was nothing ahead, and he could see that too.
“AI, run an infrared scan—all bands, three seconds each slide, dead ahead—go,” he said and sat back.
The scans were displayed in order from near to far channels, and all showed not a single thing in the way.
The Majestic was not in danger, but the icon still flashed.
He sat on that for a moment and then spoke to the AI. “Bridge AI—please confirm that the Collision Notification alarm is working properly?”
