by PJ Strebor
“Careful Jardine, a whipped dog still has teeth.”
“Not for long.” She tugged at her waistcoat. “Effective immediately, your flight status is revoked. With no other talents in your bag of tricks you can stay in your quarters and play with yourself.”
“At least I’ll be dealing with something I respect.”
“Get out!” she shouted.
A moment before the hatch slid shut, she just made out his last words. “Your honor, I rest my case.”
CHAPTER 2
Date: 20th June, 326 ASC
Position: Sentinel Heracles (Monitor Corps HQ) Attican moon Peloponnesia,
Athenian core system.
Not for the first time today, Vice Admiral Donatella Waugh paced the floor of her office. In the past year, since taking up her role as second-in-command of Monitor Corps, her frustrations had turned from the occasional annoyances expected in any new position, to an ongoing series of frustrations. She had expected resistance from Hector Jardine, but the level of stupidity shown by the man boggled the mind.
Inexorably Monitor Corps was imploding. With Hector Jardine in overall command of the Athenian Naval Service, she could see no way of preventing that from happening. The untenable nature of the situation only served to fuel her growing exasperation. Her comm beeped. She took a deep breath to calm her rage, before keying her L-M.
“Waugh.”
“Donny, would you step into my office, please?” Admiral Phillip Langford said.
“On my way, sir,” Waugh replied.
Waugh left her office, stopping at her secretary’s desk. “Neil, I’ll be with the Admiral if anyone needs me.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said.
Waugh walked briskly toward the Admiral’s office before being intercepted.
“Where are you off to?” Captain Luis Demianski asked.
“I’ve been summoned by Langford.”
“That could be a good thing,” Luis said. “Maybe he’s decided to retire earlier than expected.”
“He’s not a bad officer, Luis, he’s just caught within a system that no longer works. I’ve caught up on my reports and the damage is growing daily.”
“You’ll find a way around it, Donny. You always do.”
“Hmm. You remember what happened to young Mister Telford?”
Luis’ teeth set. “Yeah. You appointed him to a Captain Cathbad’s boat and one of Jardine’s lackeys countermanded your orders and put him on Courageous.” He shook his head. “Fucking Jardines. Someone should space the lot of them.”
“Are you volunteering, Luis?”
They both chuckled but knew all too well the danger posed to Athens by the current Jardine regime.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Luis said, as he peeled off. “Good luck.”
Waugh marched on until she arrived at the offices of the Commander-in-Chief, Monitor Corps
“Good morning, Abbey,” Waugh said to Langford’s secretary.
“Good morning, Admiral Waugh,” she said. “The Admiral is expecting you.”
The hatch hissed aside and she stepped into the inner sanctum. She snapped to attention.
“For goodness sake, Donny, at ease.” Although he was about her age, there the similarities ended.
“You caught me off-guard, Mister President,” Waugh said.
He pulled a sour face. “We’ve known one another since you were a JG and I was assisting Assemblywoman Rice to get reforms passed through the Assembly. So by now you know my name. Right?”
Indeed, she and President Francis Rixon went back a long way. A brief affair had failed to sour their friendship. Waugh took a breath and relaxed.
She stepped forward and offered her hand. “How have you been, Frank?”
“I am president of a divided house, how do you think I feel?”
“As frustrated as me, I guess.”
“You’ve got that right,” the president said. “The conservative’s stupidity astounds me on a daily basis. Sadly they represent a small majority of the assembly so there’s not much I can do about it. Perhaps in eighteen months the people will vote these lunatics out. Then we can start making repairs.”
“In eighteen months Monitor Corps will be shattered,” Waugh said. “These clowns could not have done a more effective job of sabotaging us if they were Pruessen deep cover operatives.”
“Phil and I have been discussing the matter,” Frank said, “but can find no viable way of stopping the rot.”
Phillip Langford had aged in the last two years. Gone was the fit vital officer she had known for thirty years, replaced by this sagging, beaten man. Waugh could scarcely believe his degradation. The pressures of the job, Waugh expected, had finally gotten to him.
“Phil?” Waugh asked.
“I don’t know what to do, Donny,” he said. His voice, once strong and decisive, had been beaten down to a pleading call for help, which broke her heart. “They keep overriding my orders. I can’t get anything done.”
The Jardine dynasty had done a very effective job of breaking a man ten times their better. Waugh felt the rage growing and pushed it down.
“Isn’t there anything you can do, Frank?” Waugh asked.
“I’m working on it, Donny, believe me,” he said. “I can’t reach any of the conservatives, they’re way too entrenched in their ignorance to listen to common sense. But there are two independents who may be willing to cross the floor. They normally play it safe and abstain from voting, which is strange for colonials, but I’ll see what can be done. Of course it will come at a price, but that’s politics. However, there is no way I can remove Jardine. His family ties run far too deep throughout Athens. The best I can hope for is autonomy for the Corps.”
“Every day Jardine has rule over Monitor Corps, it weakens us,” Waugh said. “So do what you have to do, but do it quickly.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Frank said. Neither of them smiled.
CHAPTER 3
Date: 1st July 326 ASC
Position: Courageous traversing hyperspace, approaching Sentinel Atalanta. Athenian space.
Nathan sat in his rack with his back resting against a bulkhead. Having been relieved of flight status he’d caught up on his reading. Three times a day he worked out in the boat’s gym to break up the monotony. Although both activities killed some of the time he couldn’t escape the mind numbing boredom. He examined another document which scrolled across the screen of his DRP. As usual he read between the lines of the news vids and official navy reports.
The Athenian Assembly appeared to be suffering from the same malady as the Athenian Naval Service. The Assembly’s decision to cut navy funding showed the fundamental shift from the liberal’s approach, to one that resembled a crippling backward stance. Without a thought of the future, the politicians placed the Republic and all of the League of Allied Worlds at risk. When war came, Athens would be unprepared, and Monitor Corps would be all but dismembered.
Nathan found it to be a an appalling truism that people did not learn from history.
His hatch admittance beeped.
Steeling himself for another of Jardine’s games, he took a deep breath.
“Ad-mit,” he said to the pickup.
When the hatch opened Nathan relaxed.
“Got a minute?” Lieutenant Commander Isadora Telesco asked.
“For the boat’s senior engineer, I have many minutes.”
She returned his smile, stepped over the coaming and took the only chair in the room. As a full grade Lieutenant he rated his own quarters, so their private talks remained private. Isi was one of a few colonials left aboard. He put his DRP aside.
“I’ve been meaning to drop in and catch up,” Isi said, “but maneuvering has kept me extremely busy.”
“Training monkeys will do that,” Nathan said.
“Good Lord, if only I had monkeys. This latest batch of trained engineers couldn’t find their asses with both hands. It’s driving me crazy and is bloody dangerous. You don’t put numbsku
lls into maneuvering unless you want an accidental core breach.”
“Are you getting any sleep?” Nathan asked.
“Only when we’re in hyper,” Isi said. “I tell the monkeys to do nothing without my express approval and to contact me if anything, anything at all, looks amiss. So far, so good.”
“On behalf of my wife and kids, I thank you.”
She chuckled. “You’re welcome. Enough about my woes how are you doing Nathan.” She touched his hand and smiled.
At thirty Isi was young to hold down the position of senior engineer. Nathan figured that her natural genius with all things mechanical had played a big part in her ascension. Even Jardine wasn’t so stupid that she could ignore her record. Not a great beauty, but what could be best described as a handsome woman. Her many attempts to bed him had failed, but she was nothing if not persistent.
“I’ve caught up on my reading. I don’t normally read the news,” Nathan said. “It’s too depressing.” He stared into nothingness for a time. “I’ve got to get off this boat, Isi. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet but I have to escape this madhouse.”
“When you figure it out, let me know how so I can do the same.”
“Shall do.”
“So are you coping all right?”
“I’m bored out of my skull.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” she said, her smile becoming lewd. “I know something that could break up your boredom.”
He removed his hand from her grasp. “Behave yourself, Isi. I’m a married man for goodness sake.” His smile matched hers. “Besides, you couldn’t handle me.”
“Wanna bet, flyboy?”
He chuckled at her audacity. “All of my troubles will disappear tomorrow, when I get off this bucket and go on leave.” That thought alone improved his mood.
CHAPTER 4
Date: 1st July 326 ASC
Position: Sentinel Atalanta. Planet Lutra Edipsu. Northern Quadrant. Athenian space.
Status: Shore leave.
Nathan snapped the latches shut on his foot locker and nodded to the waiting crewmembers. As they removed it he finished packing the last of his belongings into a small carry-all. Completed, he sat on the edge of his rack. His two tours aboard Courageous had been hellish. At the Academy he’d made many friends among the republicans. Yes, they were a little reserved and their penchant for not using contractions was simply odd, but they were, in general, a good lot. On Jardine’s boat, such fair and decent people did not exist, except for the odd colonial.
Fucking pompous incompetents. Nathan caught his blood rising and tucked it under control.
Soon it would be all hugs and kisses. Oh, how he missed his family, but the homecomings were always there to soothe his troubled brow and calm his rage. He lay back on his bunk and smiled while recalling his many homecomings. Livy, heavily pregnant, hugging him with an insane fierceness. Flash. Livy holding baby Ellen in her arms, smiling that sweet, sweet smile. Flash. Ellen, dashing to meet him, her bulky diapers making her waddle. Flash. Livy pregnant, Ellen dashing out, spritely without the encumbrance of diapers. Flash. Livy holding baby Garrison, Ellen charging into his arms. Flash. Five years. Only his family kept him going when things turned ugly. Cimmeria, so long ago, had been just such a messy business. Knowing that his darling Livy awaited him, gave him the strength to push through. The kids were a delightful bonus.
Think happy thoughts, you lucky, lucky bastard.
His three-month ordeal had finally ended. On his next deployment he would deal with Jardine in his own way. For now, only happy thoughts.
He passed through two security checkpoints then stood in line for the third. Sentinel security had always been high. On the other side of the clear composite wall families waited, children fidgeted and there off to one side Livy, holding back a four and two-year-old, hell bent on attaching themselves to their father, regardless of regulations. He smiled and waved. The kids went crazy and Livy required all of her strength to contain them.
With the red tape attended to he stepped onto the concourse. He’d taken less than a dozen paces when two midgets streaked out of the waiting crowd. One fleet of foot, her baby brother shuffling. Ellen held Gary’s hand, supporting him. Nathan dropped to his knees and scooped the wailing children into his arms.
“Hello my beautiful children.” He hugged and kissed them amongst delighted cries of “Daddy, daddy, I missed you sooo much.”
“I missed you too, Ellie belly.”
Garrison had always been the more moderate of his two children.
“Hey, Gary, are you good?”
He nodded.
Scooping them up and resting one on each hip he set course for the centre of his universe. A quick peck and a long hug.
“I missed you, so much,” Livy said.
“I missed you more,” Nathan replied. As close to ‘I love you’ as he would ever allow himself to get.
His passion for her burned as brightly as the first time he’d met her. For now the hug would have to suffice. Later, when the kids were down, they would make up for lost time.
CHAPTER 5
Date: 5th July 326 ASC
Position: Running along the northern frontier, two light-years south of the Poseidon Shoals.
Status: Monitor Adroit patrolling the border with the Northern Quarantine Zone (QZ).
Condition: Alert condition three.
Captain Dermot Winstone snoozed in his cabin. Since his appointment to this boat, two and a half months ago, he’d been doing a lot of snoozing. It was all so boring. Go out on patrol, find nothing, return to base. As his first patrol drew to a close, he wondered if his fast track promotion would end up being worth it. The colonial crew required some adjustment. To their credit they were a professionally efficient lot, but their general lack of discipline had no place on an ANS ship.
His father had told him that this was the way to get ahead of the pack, to mark his territory and make a name for himself. Considering his ties with a close cousin in the Jardine community, Winstone could not help but agree. It would take him years to achieve his current rank of Lieutenant Commander within the crowded confines of the Athenian Naval Service. His promotion and transfer to Adroit had been a simple matter of one word from his father into the right ear.
His comm beeped. “Captain.”
“Captain,” his operations officer began, “we have received a distress signal from a Brandon registered freighter.”
Winstone sighed and rubbed his face. “Yes? So, can’t you deal with it?”
“Ah, this is something only the Captain can authorize.” A pause. “On the bridge. Sir.”
Again that trademark colonial attitude. Things were going to change on this boat.
“Oh, very well, Ops. I’m on my way.”
Stepping onto the bridge he dropped into his seat, adjacent to his operations officer.
“She claims to be the Brandon-registered freighter, Geraldine,” his ops officer said. “She says she accidentally got off-course and grazed the shoals. But without further –”
“Shoals?”
She stared at him. “The Poseidon Shoals, Captain. A region of severe spatial instability that runs across the border into the north. It’s been a smuggling route for many years.”
Winstone stifled a yawn. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Ah, yes sir.” She cleared her throat. “We need to investigate, Captain. Whether she is who she says or not, we must respond to any calls for assistance.”
“Very well. Helm take us to, ah, the coordinates.”
“You need to authorize the D-O to clear the coordinates to my panel,” the helm officer said. “Captain.”
That one I will deal with first. She might be a hell of a pilot but her attitude toward a superior officer is deplorable.
“Operations officer?”
“I need to hear the words, Captain. For the record.” She pointed lazily to the topside pickups.
“Very well, Lieutenant, clear the coordinates to the
helm. Helm officer, take us there at best speed.”
“Aye, Captain,” the helm officer said. “Recommend course 149/322/199. Ingression at dead slow, increase speed to two-thirds for 168 seconds before rollover. We should arrive at the coordinates in seventeen point four minutes plus or minus thirty seconds.”
Winstone heard only gibberish. He looked to the ops who nodded.
“Very well, helm,” he said.
They egressed off the shoals seventeen and a half minutes later.
On his readouts Winstone noted that the freighter wasn’t moving.
“Captain, she isn’t pinging,” the tactical officer reported.
“No IFF, nothing?” Winstone asked.
“No sir.”
“Could she be damaged?” Winstone asked. “What do you think, Ops?”
“Anything’s possible. I recommend we adopt alert condition one.”
The thought of having to squeeze into a v-suit made Winstone cringe. But he had to act in a Captain-like manner.
“Tactical, is she armed?”
“My scans are showing no weapons, Captain. But she’s venting radiation from her engineering section.”
So?
His operations officer leaned over and whispered. “The radiation interferes with sensor readings. Captain, I strongly recommend that we go immediately to alert condition one.”
“I think that would be premature, Lieutenant. Helm officer, take us in closer. Let’s see how badly damaged she is.”
The helm officer, disregarding every convention of bridge protocol, turned in her chair and stared at Winstone.
“Captain, she’s undesignated. She could be a line runner or God knows what. And you want me to take the boat closer to a ship, about which we know nothing?”
“I expect you, helm, to follow my orders.”
“Captain, may I at least put us at alert condition two?” his Ops pleaded. “It’s sop for this type of encounter.”
