Dione's War Part 1: End of Order

by J.J. Mainor

  The rear hatch opened and a young ensign, dressed for ceremony stepped out. “I present Vice Admiral Singh and Rear Admiral Duffy.”

  With a glowering look, Petron brought his crew to attention. The admirals and their entourages proceed off the shuttle and approached the Captain.

  “Request permission to come aboard,” Singh greeted.

  “Permission granted.” Petron’s hand shook, and those directly behind him, noticed his attempt at subtlety when he wiped his palm on his pant leg before offering it to his superiors. No doubt both admirals already knew of his apprehension. They might have even relished it as a reminder of the power their ranks carried.

  “As you know, I’m here to interview you and your executive officer,” Singh began. “Admiral Duffy will be conducting an inspection.”

  At that news, the crew heard their captain’s heart freeze in his chest. These inspections seemed to be all the man lived for; yet for the fact his crew didn’t share his exuberance, they worried him far more than the Vandals did. As he followed the admirals out, he muttered a subtle threat to the men and women he was about to leave behind.

  “I hope your quarters look better than they did yesterday.”

  The hatch closed behind the departing brass, and with no one left to call for dismissal, the Legacy’s greeting party broke up and vanished rather organically.

  Corbitt leaned in for one last private word with Amber. “Think there’s time to sneak into his quarters and sabotage his inspection?”

  “I doubt it,” Amber returned. “Maybe he’ll fail on his own.

  * * *

  Singh led the Captain into his office and took over the desk. Sadiq followed in shortly, greeting the Admiral with attention and a salute.

  “At ease, Commander.”

  With his hands hidden behind his back, Petron nervously picked at his fingernails and cuticles. Normally when Duffy inspected the ship, he followed with a clipboard taking notes of his own and deciphering the unfolding outcome of the event. No one could ever discern if the Rear Admiral wanted the attention or not. He always seemed annoyed that these captains hovered throughout the process, but if they left the man alone to work uninterrupted, he would accuse them of not caring about their ship and their standards. Printed regulations were no help, so most of the captains like Petron erred on the side of selfishness and chose to follow.

  Singh’s investigation running concurrent with the inspections complicated the process and frustrated Petron who felt like the inspection had slipped from his control. But what could he do? Singh outranked Duffy; she expected the Captain’s attention even if it weren’t demanded, and Duffy would understand.

  Yet while Petron panicked over all the possible disciplinary outcomes from this visit, Sadiq could think of nothing but the disk in his pocket with the recordings from every officer aboard Legacy.

  This wouldn’t be the first time the man’s incompetence was brought to their attention. Petron’s first few months of command saw the resignation of his first executive officer, demotion of his second as well as three of his department heads, and requests for transfer from about seventy percent of his officer pool. Complaints had been filed on a daily basis, and Sadiq himself once requested a meeting with Singh; but all the concerns and complaints were summarily dismissed. He had been told Petron had the highest inspection scores in the Fleet so it was assumed the Captain did something right. The findings from the Admiral always suggested the complaints stemmed from inferior officers who couldn’t handle the rigor of the service.

  When it was suggested Sadiq learn to deal with Petron’s command style or resign his commission, he quietly returned to his position like a good soldier. Like the men and women under him, he tried to remember why he served in the first place. It was easier ignoring the Captain’s quirks if he simply ignored the man, imagining the people of Earth were the true captain.

  With those people now few in numbers, he knew that motivation would be difficult to grasp going forward. Though it was doubtful the admiralty could afford to lose a ship’s captain, he was sure they would agree with him now, if they saw the man had lost the confidence of everyone under his command.

  Sadiq would be the first to make his case, sitting across from Singh while Petron was driven from the room to chew his fingernails nervously, wishing he could hear through the soundproof door. If the door were constructed of less firm matter, he might hear his XO relate his refusal to report to the bridge after red alert was called and again when they were reassigned to protect Earth. He might hear stories of key officers down in their quarters making beds and cleaning their rooms like grade-school children.

  If he could see inside, Petron might notice the Admiral stroking her chin and nodding her head as Sadiq laid out his failures throughout the mission. He would have caught the look of satisfaction across the XO’s face as he poured out all his frustrations.

  At the end of it all, Petron would have seen the Admiral toss the disk into the trash without viewing one segment of testimony. He would have heard the admonishments leveled at Sadiq.

  “Everyone under your command should be capable of doing their jobs. You can’t expect to have all your best people at your disposal in a crisis, Commander. What if your Chief Navigator was injured? What if your Chief Engineer died in battle? As the executive officer of this ship, it is your job to make sure the department heads are training their staff”

  The Admiral droned onward, but the moment it sounded as if Sadiq was to blame for everything that went wrong, the Commander tuned the rest of the speech out. Once it was over and the Commander dismissed, his defeated look and slumped posture should have been a hint to the Captain about to take his turn in the hot seat.

  Petron could not divine the direction of his own meeting from that look however. The end of Earth meant enough blame to spread to everyone, or he might get lucky and his XO took it all. He did not look forward to his turn with the Admiral.

  * * *

  By the time Singh, Duffy, and their staff boarded their shuttle, word was already around the ship concerning the results of their visit. Commander Sadiq met briefly with the department heads and section chiefs to brief them on immediate changes ordered by the admirals. Then each man and woman returned to their teams to brief their people.

  Corbitt assembled with his fellow pilots and the rest of the flight crew as Lieutenant Commander Park returned. Overall, the news he had for his team was good for the Captain, not so much for anyone else.

  “As you’ve heard,” Park began, “Legacy passed inspection.” The hangar bay filled with the sounds of disappointment as everyone knew what that meant. “Admiral Singh took it as confirmation of the Captain’s command ability. Sadiq wouldn’t come out and say it, but the Captain blamed his entire crew for the failure back at Earth and the Admiral agreed. If you can believe it, Petron earned a commendation for passing inspection while everyone else gets an Article 13 for failing to perform duties.”

  The disappointment turned to outrage. Corbitt couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like their screams and moans had been joined with those from throughout the ship. Then again, the anger and frustration went beyond the usual bullshit of Petron taking credit for their work while blaming them for his failure. There was anger over billions of people losing their lives. There was collective outrage over the misplaced priorities of the admirals. These crews had to work through their own grief and agony quickly, while Admiral Singh worried about reassigning blame to save her career from leaders who no longer existed.

  “There is good news for a few of us,” Park continued. “The cruiser Futura failed her inspection this morning. Their captain was immediately demoted. After blaming Sadiq for the failure of the Legacy, they decided to promote him and give him the command.”

  Had there not been so much anger, the flight deck would have echoed with their collective laughter over the irony. The Futura earned respect among flight crews throughout the Fleet fo
r having one of the highest kill ratios during combat. Their captain had the most success toward her targets, and yet it was her inspection scores unravelling her career. Word of her demotion would surely ricochet with a shocked gasp knowing swept floors and painted bulkheads were more important than battlefield victories.

  But those victories came with a price. The Futura lost too many people to do without, including two of their fighter pilots. When Sadiq departed for his new commission, he took a handful of Petron’s crew with him, including Amber.

  After Park’s meeting broke up, and Amber returned from her quarters with her things, Corbitt greeted her with a friendly, farewell hug.

  “You’re lucky,” he told her. “You get to escape our idiot captain.”

  “Depends on how you look at it,” she said. “You get to leave in the morning on escort duty, and I get to stay in orbit preparing for reinspection. I tell you it’s not fair when I just prepared for inspection over here.”

  “If you don’t want to go,” Corbitt joked, “we can trade places.”

  She chuckled. It was a meek chuckle, but it was the first bit of humor anyone found since putting the Solar system behind them. They both knew orders were orders. Especially without replacements for lost crewmen anymore, there would be no more questioning of assignments. They had to go where they were told, and if they had to serve under a poor captain there would be rare opportunities for transfers.

  Amber boarded the shuttle with the now Captain Sadiq and the rest of his scalps. He watched it lift off and float across the flight deck, waiting while the inner door closed between them. It was a funny feeling, but somehow Corbitt suspected this might be the last time he ever saw his friend and comrade.

  Captain’s Triumph

  Without Sadiq, the Legacy was a ship without a rudder. Lieutenant Commander Hoskins from supply was promoted to commander and placed as the XO, but his former job didn’t make him the most ideal person for the role. He had proven himself at managing ship’s inventory expertly and making sure supplies and equipment went where needed as needed. Managing people was a different experience altogether.

  His former crew all held jobs familiar to him. Hoskins could be hands-on when needed, helping his people and guiding them through tasks they were so far unfamiliar with. On the bridge, he had no previous experience operating any of the stations around him. He couldn’t help the navigator with calculations. He couldn’t advise his armorer if one of the missile tubes jammed.

  As the executive officer, those around him should have counted on him for guidance. They expected to lean on him when their own knowledge reached its limits, and they expected him to have their backs when they knew orders were wrong. Instead, the senior officers now relied on each other when their expertise overlapped. They made up the rest when they hit the wall. To them, Hoskins was more dangerous than an ensign with the ship’s compass.

  Coming from supply hurt him further with the men. While he earned respect in his former job when it came to general ship-wide supply issues, he had a reputation as an asshole among the enlisted when it came to personal supplies. Not a single uniform requisition didn’t result in a complaint to command. No one could get a bar of soap without a four day process of paperwork.

  In all fairness, the supply chief was personally responsible for every item that went through his hands. If command discovered a form with a single box that wasn’t checked, they didn’t go to the individual who submitted the form. It was far too easy for someone to claim they didn’t submit it in the first place, and there had been incidents where supply chiefs submitted forged paperwork to hide shortfalls within their inventories. Instead it was the supply chief charged for the item. After all, it was his or her job to make sure that paperwork was properly filled out before releasing supplies and materials.

  But those outside of Supply didn’t understand the pressures of those within. They only understood the hoops and hassles dumped upon them to obtain the simplest of items. Hoskins might earn their respect as the XO, but he had a long way to earn it after their experiences with him in supply.

  Captain Petron was no help. Just like with Sadiq, he disappeared from the bridge whenever he could. Most of the time he hid in his office, granting his usual dismissive attitude to anyone wishing to bother him. Other times, he made his familiar rounds of crew quarters, inspecting his ship ahead of the next visit from Admiral Duffy.

  Formal inspections were conducted once a quarter. After one such inspection, a captain would normally count down the days he was safe before the next quarter began. On most ships, standards relaxed until the day before the new quarter when the captain would again worry his senior staff, fearing the Admiral would show up on the first day.

  Petron, however, never let up on his crew. Though it never actually happened, and everyone knew he bullshitted them, he often claimed the timetable was nothing more than a guide. He would lie to his senior staff that Duffy might start the inspection cycle at the end of the previous cycle to get a head start, especially if he expected to take extended leave.

  In reality his fears were two-fold. Loosening standards, even for a week set a bad precedent in a service that required attention to detail in everything these men and women did at all times. One line they were fed way back in boot camp questioned their pride in service if they couldn’t take pride in their own living spaces.

  More selfishly for Petron, he feared the crew would rely too heavily on him for their jobs if he didn’t keep busy with his own; especially his new XO who tried to grab his ear whenever they passed.

  They finished their first escort mission. A handful of mining and scientific vessels had been led to a small, cold world. It wasn’t a pleasant place by any means, but it had a breathable atmosphere. The planet itself was geologically stable, and it was described in the scientific database as snow-free near the equator two-thirds of its year (if the scientific database could be trusted). The new colonists would grumble, but they could survive.

  As they prepared to depart for home, maintenance discovered a problem in Legacy’s environmental systems. It wasn’t immediate, but it would become a crisis if they waited to correct it.

  Petron, as usual wouldn’t advise Hoskins while the bridge was under his control. The officers around him were a little more forthcoming with suggestions, even if they held a hint of disdain in their words.

  “If the Vandals venture this far from their territory, they might spot our ship on sensors,” one officer advised him. “If they do, we risk exposing the colony. It’s a miniscule risk, Sir, but we can’t afford any chances at this point.”

  “There is a system six light years from here,” another noted. “Database notes a moon around one of the planets with an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Once maintenance makes their repairs, we can replenish our own supplies from there.”

  “If it’s habitable,” Martinez interrupted, “don’t we risk exposing a possible colony site?”

  “Negative. Surveys couldn’t find liquid water. Squeezing it from the atmosphere is too much work when we have access to worlds with water already on the surface.”

  It sounded good to the Commander, and he didn’t have many options anyway. The course was set and the ship redirected. Petron was notified, though he acted as indifferent as he did to any decision he didn’t want responsibility over.

  It took the better part of the day to reach the moon. The space between the stars was easy enough to cross. Their engines, powered by the decay of the artificial Tysonium atoms, created an intense gravity field, warping space around them. By targeting that field, they could pull the desired destination closer. When the two points neared, a singularity of sorts formed to bridge the remaining gap, much like a wormhole. At least that’s how it was explained in boot camp.

  Light years could be crossed in minutes, but they had to be careful when activating their gravity fields. Small objects like asteroids could be pulled into the singularity with them, beco
ming dangerous projectiles when they exited at the destination. It was a quirk that allowed them to tow smaller craft with nothing but sublight engines at their disposal, but it was not desired when the Trojan lacked human control upon entering normal space.

  The problems of the drive were worse when larger planets and small moons came into play. Too large to follow ships through the singularity, instead, the warped space and heightened gravity would tug such objects out of their normal orbits.

  Any star system worth visiting was a system worth protecting. They couldn’t risk upsetting the natural course of any planet that might someday prove valuable, so there were standing orders not to enter or exit a star system with the gravity engines. Unless there was an emergency warranting the risk, standard practice was to arrive at the edge of the known planetary system and use their sublight engines to complete the journey.

  Still, the journey to the desired moon would have been made in half the time with a more experienced commander in the chair. It was the price of the nonexistent morale and the lack of respect for the commanding officers. The officers hesitated at their stations. They were distracted. Their grief and anger only grew worse in the silence permeating the bridge. Mistakes were made with increasing frequency, doubling the normal travel time.

  By the time Legacy entered orbit, the environmental systems failed completely. The maintenance crew suggested an orbit well within the atmosphere so that they might open the outer vents and recycle the internal air with what they could grab from the moon.

  They made it sound so easy, Hoskins didn’t question the suggestion. Since the more experienced beneath him didn’t care if he failed in his command, no one voiced the dangers in the intended orbit. They merely offered the standard “yes, Sir,” to the order and followed the vague instructions.