How stupid could you be to do that? He thought. Apparently the guy had thought he wouldn't get caught, just down check the parts and get fresh ones. Or maybe he thought he'd win them back in another card game? Jethro shook his head mentally. Whatever the guy had been planning, it hadn't worked out as he'd hoped, he'd gotten caught. He and others like him were serving as reminders to the rest of the military personnel to toe the line.
“Remember to smile for the cameras,” Sergei said over the link. Jethro looked his way. The liger pulled his lips back to smile, showing off his very pearly white teeth. Jethro looked up at him and snorted softly. The liger might have been a big baby about the pain after the local anesthetic wore off, but he liked the results. His eyes returned to front, but he opened his scanners and took a look at the camera crews clustered in strategic locations behind the assembly and off in the corners. He'd overheard the various media outlets arguing over who got what position. Fortunately someone had brokered a deal for them to share a feed from several of the choicest positions.
Jethro frowned. He knew his thoughts were rambling, but there really wasn't much else to do, unless he wanted to do paperwork through his plants. Tempting but no, he wanted to remain sane after all. Though, come to think of it, the Gunny might be doing just that. Valenko, from his expression, might be running a combat sim, or playing chess, who knows. He was tempted to look into seeing if one of the squad was willing to play a game...
“Eyes front!” Schultz said over the link and out loud as the lights dimmed. The flags dipped and fluttered as the officers marched to the stage. “Attention, officer on the deck!” he said. “Crewwww salute!” The Marines stiffened to attention and then saluted. The ceremony was about to begin.
...*...*...*...*...
The Ceremony began with the national anthem of the Federation of Sapient planets. It's score rose through the various beings watching, each feeling a drifting sensation and a weltering of pride and honor as they heard it's score. The song meant many things, a return to old, a return to duty, honor, and country. Civilization. The rest of the universe may have forgotten civilization existed, but they hadn't. Not anymore anyway, and never again would they forget. Not if those in that room and those watching could help it.
Commander Logan was dressed in his full white dress uniform, complete with fruit salad. The old man smartly marched to the podium with the other acting department heads following at neat intervals behind him in parade. He smartly turned the corner and then took the steps to the podium. The others followed, each stopped to salute the flag of the Federation, then the Eden flag, then exchange salutes with the Commander. Finally they turned and stood behind him in an orderly row, hands behind them.
Firefly and several of the AI were only AI avatars, but they moved and acted as if they were truly there. When all ten of the department heads were assembled the captains took their turns on the stage. Finally the Commander finished the last one and waited for Captain Mayweather to take her place.
“It's not often we do this, in fact, this is the first time we've officially recognized such a fleet exercise. The past few weeks have been the most comprehensive test of the Navy and Marines in seven hundred years. It was long overdue.”
He waited until the chuckles of consternation ended. He reached forward to rest his arms on the podium. “You all did well. That's straight from me, the old man. Not one accident, no major issues, a few minor things, but we expected it. Now we have a yardstick for next time. I'm damn proud of all of you. Good job. We'll sort out who got what shortly, but I wanted you all to know that. And no, contrary to the scuttlebutt going around, no we're not doing this every thirty or ninety.” He smiled slightly as the crowd cheered.
The civilian dignitaries in the bleachers or on the stage looked around in confusion. They noticed the relief on some of the naval personnel and clapped as well.
“We will,” Logan motioned for them for silence. “We will be doing this yearly however.” That little qualifier earned a groan. “Thirty and ninety day are maintenance, training, and logistical headaches as it is. The ORS, Operational Readiness Surveys you all know and love. Keep things up, keep your people training and on a schedule and you won't have a problem. Screw around or screw off, and well, you will regret it.” His cold eyes surveyed them all for a long moment. That seemed to sober the group. “Now, as to who won what...”
One by one the ship's commanding staff came up to receive the trophies awarded for performance, both to those who did the best and worst. The razzies were embarrassing to their crews. When the awards were finished the Commander turned.
“And now, for what you've really been waiting for,” he said as the lights dimmed and the dome over their heads changed. The triangular panels went from opaque to clear, showing them an incredibly starry night.
The national anthem played once more, this time with fireworks in space. The images of the fireworks were broadcast all over Anvil station and to the other system colonies. When they terminated, Commander Logan turned one last time to the assembled troops.
“Assembly! Attention!” Gunny Schultz called as acting Chief NCO. The assembly snapped to attention. “Assembly, salute!” Schultz barked. They did so as one. Commander Logan proudly returned the salute. He broke the salute with a snap and then went to parade rest. “You've done your best, you should be proud. Liberty rotation commences shortly. You've EARNED it. Assembly concluded. Good job everyone,” Commander Logan said. The crew went wild with cheers. He smiled as people patted each other on the back or shoulder. “Dinner's waiting!” someone called. That got a laugh. The crews were given time off and a celebration dinner party to relax and unwind.
Chapter 9
Shortly after the crew began a much needed liberty rotation, performance evaluations for promotion were started by the officers of each ship. To some it was annoying, they wanted to continue going over the exercises, checking to see where they had done well or needed improvement. For some, the mandatory evaluations were a much needed distraction, though they weren't thrilled by the additional paperwork blizzard it all entailed.
The evaluations were performed by the senior staff heads of each department, then handed up their chain of command for approval by the XO and Captain before they were sent off to the G-5 Lieutenant Commander Decius for further review and final approval. If a promotion was approved it would go through on the first of the month and would be marked by a ceremony.
The bridge staff were very much aware that if they got too cute they might lose someone the ship might need, but they also didn't want to stand in anyone's way who wanted to move on and up the career ladder. Fortunately, or in their case unfortunately, there were no new ships ready so they were all staying put. At least for now.
They had come to rely on the dog eared paperback copy of promotion and evaluation wording, commonly known as the blue and gold book kept in the ward room's tiny library. The nostalgic paperback book was an anarchism to times past, a more up to date copy was in the ship's e-book library database. Still the officers tended to turn to the ancient copy, if only to feel in touch with officers of the past.
Captain Mayweather set her coffee cup down on a coaster and stared pensively at the list on the tablet in front of her. She, like her staff knew their time together was possibly fleeting. A year, maybe two might pass before something changed, but it inevitably would. Someone somewhere would be transferred, have died, or moved on, and then there would be a vacancy to fill. Or the ships currently back under construction would need them. It was frustrating, training people just the way you wanted, only to lose them and to have to start all over again. She resented it, but she didn't want to stand in their way if they really did want to get a command slot. She just hoped it would be worth it when they did.
But for some, they were dense, they just didn't seem to get it. Take their current topic of discussion, Lieutenant Able.
“Next up, Brighton Able, Jig. I'm pretty sure he's a pass, he's just had a promotion a few months a
go when he came on board.”
“Able, Able... name is familiar, face isn't. I don't like not knowing my officers,” Mayweather grumbled. She thought about bringing up his dossier with her implants but instead brought them up with the tablet in front of her. A stern clean shaven human male stared out at her from the tablet. “He hasn't sat dinner often,” she said.
“He's graveyard Captain.”
“Ah.” Still that didn't explain why, she thought. Able was one of three officers that turned her down when she had invited them to supper to better get to know them. The Chief and XO had reasons when they did so, they each had duties to perform, and the occasional problem in engineering tended to complicate their lives. But Able?
“He's good at what he does, in that narrow field. He's a by the book type though, no leaps of imagination, little initiative, and a bit of a bully when it comes to rank,” the AI reported.
Mayweather frowned. “He's pulled rank?”
“On a few people other than Corporal Jethro. I've had to snip him down once when he pulled rank on a newly arrived Ensign.”
“Oh?”
Firefly sighed. “Unfortunately, this situation with command isn't getting better,” The AI responded. “None of you have had the chance to go to school. Some of you that are teaching academy classes are only slightly further along than your students.”
“Which I see no way of fixing.”
“Sleep teaching and experience in the role has helped somewhat, but it's nothing compared to the institutionalized training of the academy. ROTC is a pale comparison,” the AI agreed. “If we can get San Diego's academy online things are going to be interesting indeed.”
“So...”
“So, getting back to the point, Able is a good paper pusher, narrow minded, but not suited for promotion at this time. We don't have a position for him anyway.”
Mayweather's eyes narrowed ever so slightly “Ah,” was all she said. She could tell when the AI or XO were trying to throw her off something. Diverting her attention away from the peccadillo’s of this Able. “Able's encounter with the Ensign?” she said, not letting them get away with it.
“He's resentful of the new crop of kids coming out of the college. They seem to know it all,” Shelby replied, smiling slightly. They had a few midshipman like that, but running them until they dropped or humbling them a few times in tac sims tended to get that out of their system in a hurry.
“And in some cases they do,” Purple Thorn said. “Know more I mean,” she said as all eyes turned to her. “Remember what Commander Firefly just said, each of us are growing into our role with no prior experience. A few of us came up through the ranks, but we came up fast. Now we have to work at it. It can be a constant struggle, especially for those not suited for the role.”
“More time in grade. In some ways, the admiral's leaving is a blessing. The forced slow down has forced us to concentrate on the units and installations we have while giving you more time in grade to pick up seasoning,” Firefly stated, nodding. “We were growing too fast, pushing people up through the ranks before they had the necessary skills to handle the job. Now that is changing.”
“Which I suppose is good in some ways,” Mayweather said, sitting back. “But having a cap on the rank structure is a pain in the ass.” In some ways the minimum time in grade before a promotion was a good thing. There was of course a way around it, a promotion out of the zone. Since the fleet wasn't growing as fast and she'd filled all her holes in the crew that wasn't necessary.
“From what I understand, each rank took time before the Xeno war. Usually a few standard years depending on the tract an individual chose. Command tract was faster, you took more chances and there was a great deal more pressure. The higher the rank the longer time in grade before you moved up. And don't get me started on a Captain's billet,” Shelby said, eying the Captain with a slight smile.
“Yes, I know, I have the name but not the actual rank Commander,” Mayweather replied, nodding a little to her XO. It was an unusual situation, her XO technically outranked her. But Commander Logan had come up from engineering while she'd taken the command track right off. She'd been appointed to Captain Firefly when the admiral had made it available. She'd taken it over the objections of some of her command crew. Of course many of them went on to commands of their own. Albeit on smaller ships, she thought with a slight smile of satisfaction.
“Can we swap Able? Stick him in another position and see how he does? Or borrow him a few times? Shuffle him around a bit? See if we can knock some of this narrow minded crap out of him?”
“Sometimes having a narrow minded nitpicker is good. There are places for such people. You want them in cases where we need not only zero defect mentality, but also where it takes rigid concentration to get a job done,” Firefly replied. “Though I do believe Commander Logan is correct. The man is getting bitter and stale where he is.”
“Then by all means, shuffle him around, see where he can excel at. Maybe some of his starch will rub off and he'll settle down with more exposure and seasoning,” Mayweather replied, giving her blessing. “I'm just surprised he didn't get such exposure on Centurion.” She picked up the tablet. “His entire time there as an Ensign and he didn't stand a watch on the bridge once?” she asked and then tisked tisked.
“You want him on the bridge?” the tactical officer asked carefully.
“Not if he's not suited to be there. I'll just put a call in to Centurion later. There has to be a reason he was stuck in a dead end job,” the Captain said, making a note for herself. “Moving on...”
...*...*...*...*...
The squads and ships with the best scores were given three days liberty. When they returned the other ships had their turns, ships rotating to take their place as needed.
As things settled back down into the old routine, Valenko's squad went back to tinkering. They hadn't had a lot of time to go over their ideas, but that hadn't stopped Ox from coming up with a few and putting them on file.
Valenko, Sergei, the medic Gusterson, and Ox each received the first production shields. Each shield emitter was a stacked series of progressively smaller octagons in a pyramid shape, one over the user's wrist, the other on the elbow. A two centimeter thick structural piece connected the two, and had straps to connect the shield to the arm. When the shields deployed masts telescoped from the top and bottom out of the center structure with hoop wires that connected to the emitters. The shield when fully deployed formed a diamond shape.
The shields were heavy, about 50 kilograms without a power pack. With a superconductor power pack the weight jumps to over 110 kilograms. “Not something you want to haul around on your arm. We'll have to beef up the servos and actuators in the arm in order to cope. Otherwise they'll get fracked up and worn,” Riley commented.
“Couldn't it be on my right arm? That's the arm I use to... you know,” Sergei joked, miming a particular dirty act as he smiled.
“Shove it Sergei,” Ox grumbled, shaking his massive head. “Left arm. Right is your natural hand and you carry your plasma weapon and do tasks with that.”
“Right. Left.”
Ox shook his head, ignoring the jab.
Gusterson ignored the byplay. He was testing the shield in his armor. They were concerned about him, even in powered armor he was a slight Neo, under 100 kilograms himself. But a lot of that 100 kilograms was muscle, implant enhanced muscle. He seemed okay, swinging the shield about and then deploying it.
“The shield plugs into your arm for power and control. We're still testing it,” Ox replied just as Sergei's shield glowed to life. They could hear a slight whine warning them it was charged and ready.
Sergei held his straight up and concentrated, activating a new icon on his HUD. The shield deployed in under a second, the top mast nearly poked him in the face before he twisted his arm away. “Damn! Warn a guy!”
“You activated it dummy,” Riley snorted. “Don't run...” he sighed as the liger activated the shield. The shie
ld burst to life in a blue glow, forming a wavering translucent shield twice as big as the hardware.
“Damn!” Sergei said, eyes wide. He moved it around. “Takes some getting used to,” he said.
“Glad we prepped the grav panels in here,” Riley grumbled, watching the liger warily. “Don't screw around with it,” he growled.
“No problem Sergeant, just giving it a test drive,” Sergei said. The shield went down.
“What happened?” Riley asked.
“Shut it off. It uses a lot of juice,” the liger replied.
“Well, he's smarter than he looks,” Riley said.
“Hey! I resemble that remark!” the liger growled. Riley snorted. “So um, what's this one?” the liger asked, clicking on a submenu item.
“Wait!” Riley said, hand up, already too late. He sighed as a blade of energy formed for a brief moment and then the shield went dead. It jerked and sparked once then went dark. “Frack me,” he moaned.
“What the hell was that?” Sergei asked. A light was out nearby, and something fell from the ceiling making him duck instinctively.
“Energy blade. A mod we're working on,” Ox replied.
“Energy blade? You're kidding me!” Sergei said turning in shock to the Tauren. The bear pointed to the ceiling tiles in line with the gauntlet. “What?” Sergei asked, then turned his head to look. Tiles were cut and dangling. Some were smoking a bit. “Um, oops?”
“Yeah, oops,” the bear rumbled.
“We have a problem controlling blade length. You just sucked it dry and fried the emitters,” Ox said. He looked at the ceiling. “Guess we'll have to fix that.”
“Yeah,” the liger said.
“And by we I mean you,” Ox said.
Sergei opened his mouth to object but a look from the bear shut him down. He hunched his shoulders. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I'll do that,” he muttered, ears down.
Jethro: First to Fight Page 16
