The station governor felt them out with small talk about the navy, how things were going before he worked his way around the possibility of the navy leaving.
When she realized what he'd been beating around the bush about she turned and rolled her eyes to Matilda. The other woman smiled ever so slightly, hiding her amusement as she dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “Oh my,” Matilda murmured.
“Enrique, you know we'd tell you something like that. I wouldn't leave you in a lurch. The answer is, no the navy will still be here. Or at least the majority of the navy,” Doctor Thornby said, doing her best to assure him it wasn't so. “What they, I mean we are doing is setting up a Marine facility and recruiting post on a neighboring star system's planet. We're also posting a picket to keep an eye on things.”
“The ship you mean? Then why does Firefly have to go?”
Thornby frowned. “Firefly is still our largest ship with a fully functional class 4 milspec replicator. The other ships do not have its capacity. Also Firefly will serve as a reassuring diplomatic presence while they get the base and defenses up and running before eventually returning to Pyrax for rest and refit.”
“So they will be returning,” Enrique said, sounding relieved.
“Oh of course!” the doctor said with a smile. “What made you think they wouldn't?”
“There are some odd rumors going around.”
Thornby sniffed in disdain. “Yes well, you know the nature of rumors. Some are true, but most aren't worth the time it takes to listen to them. Some are used for... other purposes let's just say. In this case no, Firefly will be returning.”
Enrique nodded. “That's good to know.”
Matilda shrugged and waved an airy hand. “Well, they have to. I mean our industry is here. The yard is here.”
“Correct,” the doctor said, nodding to the college dean. “And the college of course,” she said.
“Oh of course.”
“Agnosta doesn't have the manpower or industry in the system. Granted they've got about the same amount of resources in their belts as we do, but there's an intense radiation field emanating from one of their stars that makes it hard to mine. From what I was told the materials would be irradiated with radiation as well. Oh it can be done in time, but it would be cost prohibitive. Everything you pulled would be irradiated too.”
“Ouch.”
“So why not stay here?” Enrique asked.
Matilda frowned. “Because we, look...” She frowned for a moment, collecting her thoughts. She took a sip of water then tried again. “Marines need to learn to adapt to various battlefields. There's no telling where they will deployed in the future. Virtual reality only helps so much, eventually you need to experience the real thing. Trust me on this, there's a world of difference from a computer sim and the real thing. Some of my interns are learning that the hard way. I've had several wash out because they couldn't hack it.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh they may stay in the medical field, some will eventually make good low grade doctors, pediatricians, specialists that do not need to handle trauma or surgery, but they will never meet their full potential. It's a pity.”
“True.”
“I for one am glad they will be setting up Agnosta soon. That will par the ROTC classes down a bit and give us some breathing room in the classes and dorms,” the dean said with a sigh.
“Until they ship them back for advanced courses,” the doctor teased.
Matilda's face soured in a grimace. “You would mention that,” she grumbled. She was actually hoping San Diego would be online by then. She made a note in her implants to get on Horatio about it again.
“Well, hopefully the campus on San Diego will be up and running by then. Do you have the staff problems sorted out?” Thornby said, almost reading her mind. The dean started and then snorted.
“Almost,” Matilda admitted. “We've made some headway on the critical staff but I've still got a few holes to fill. I need a good history professor there, one who's flexible.”
“Ah.”
...*...*...*...*...
The assistant on duty sighed as he opened the email from the Captain of the Sun-Yat. Lieutenant Commander Harris was in his usual snit, he was constantly agitating to get off the corvette Sun-Yat and on to something bigger and better. He wasn't the only one, many of the captains were. The 2nd Lieutenant acting as a adjunct to Logan brought it up in a private meeting.
“What's Harris's problem this week? Not enough computer memory for his sims again?” Logan asked with a sigh.
“No sir. He really shouldn't be trying full fleet exercises in a corvette, the computer can't handle it,” the adjunct replied.
“Tell me about it. I still can't believe he burned out an entire cluster farm.”
“It took some doing sir. Something about too much realism,” the adjunct confirmed, nodding.
“Realism?”
“He went so far as to model variables such as crew, morale, speed, specific damage, weapons, supplies, fuel, astrography, captains and their skill levels, the list goes on and on sir.”
“Talk about overkill! How big a fleet did he try to sim? Something on our level currently?”
“No sir, actually a bit beyond it. Super dreadnaughts.”
“Oh.”
“And throwing in the movement of individual crew members along with parasite craft and their load outs blew the bank. He hadn't even gotten into an engagement, just loading the fleet did it.”
“Wow. Ambitious.” He frowned again. “And definitely overkill.”
“Yes sir. But he's learned from the experience, or so his Chief engineer has said. Or so she hopes,” the adjunct said ruefully. He'd seen the request for replacement computer parts. Not all of it was for replacements, apparently he wanted to triple the computer package on the ship. He for one, wasn't sure where they were planning to put all that hardware in such a tiny ship.
“Biting off more than he can chew. Well, I'll have a talk with him. He really shouldn't be trying that in a corvette. What was he thinking?”
“It's eating him alive sir, being on a small corvette,” the Lieutenant said, pressing his advantage since her boss seemed in a good mood. “He has more time in grade than Mayweather and he's marginally better than her in fleet ops, the last exercise proved that. She's a damn good tactician and day to day Captain, but she doesn't have the sim training he does. She's still in lone wolf mode, the 'doesn't work and play well with others'. Some of the other captains think of her as a glory hog.”
Logan frowned. “Tough.” He had no intention of upsetting the applecart and swapping the two like Harris wanted.
“Sir, about the academy, specifically the crusher. If we oh, pull Harris and have him as the temporary commandant, then he could pass on his limited combat skills to the class.”
“He didn't serve as, no wait, he was tac officer on Firefly wasn't he?” Logan asked. One of the requirements for the advanced command course was someone who had real combat experience.
The Lieutenant nodded. “Yes sir.” He'd heard about the cruiser's original bridge crew.
“All right.”
“And we could make him Captain of the Damocles. That would free some of your workload up,” the Lieutenant slipped in slyly. He knew how much the Commander hated the paperwork that went with juggling so many positions. He hadn't seen how he could relieve himself of some of that burden now that they had more officers in the pipeline.
Logan rubbed his jaw. Slowly he smiled. “And since the ship will be in dock another 3 months until we get more of the new parts into her, he can focus on the crusher.” Damocles had done okay in the initial war games but she'd come up short when they'd tried to do a full drive burn. Also her starboard weapons mounts were still... hinky. Her port side shields were nonexistent. Stretching the nodes from the other quadrants to cover the weakened side caused a lot of problems... and fatally weakened them. A third of the bow nodes were close to their mandatory overhaul already, and
the ship had spent most of the past three years in drydock laid up.
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Get it sorted out.”
“Aye sir.”
“That leaves a hole in Sun-Yat though,” Logan reminded him. Which was true, Sun-Yat was a corvette though. She was small, normally commanded by a 1st Lieutenant, not a Lieutenant Commander like Harris. Horatio frowned. He had been under-utilizing the Commander's talents. He sighed, sitting back. He still had a ways to go in learning to delegate, to let his people take up some of the slack. He'd been almost a one man show for over a century in Anvil's Engineering department, running the Fusion reactor through his implants. Now was a good time to ease up.
His problem was his fear of their failure. If it was bad enough, it could and probably would mean lives lost. The political fallout he could deal with or ignore. It was the lives that mattered. He shook himself as the Lieutenant continued.
“Yes sir, but she's down for routine maintenance for a week. I was thinking we could transfer first Lieutenant Waters to the post and the move someone else into his post.”
“Musical chairs,” the Commander grumbled. “Is Waters agreeable to this? He's rather fond of Warthog.”
“I didn't know that sir.”
“She's a reserve ship, he's a reserve officer. They signed on together when the pirates came calling.”
“Oh.”
“Next time do your homework before you get in with the bright ideas,” Logan growled. “But I agree, don't go asking them until you get approval from me.”
“Aye sir,” the very confused Lieutenant JG replied carefully.
“While we're playing musical chairs I suppose we can swap some people around with command of the stations.”
“Sir?”
“Admin people need refreshing too. And we've got that lovely fort to man. Look into staffing that. That and the crusher. The crusher requires people with good tactical scores and combat experience. Navy personnel. Preferably combat veterans, but we don't want to lose too many from command posts. Good luck with that too.”
“Aye sir,” the Lieutenant said ruefully. He made a note to talk to the G-5 Decius. He really was in over his head and he realized he was probably in for a chewing out by the Centilian Lieutenant Commander for taking over his department. If he was around. The Centilian had been thrown for a loop after his rescue from the White star with Commander Vargess. He'd done well while the admiral had been here, but his body had been drawn to the surviving Centilian clan here in the system. Since he was a rare find, a member of their species who hadn't bred yet, his bloodline was pure and therefore precious, they needed it to reinforce their species and halt the down slide of inbreeding. Doctor Martel was involved in the project. To top it off, after they molted and mated, the species were forced into hibernation for a full 3 months. He'd have to check on that, they were incredibly grouchy when they first awoke. He winced, now he wasn't happy about opening his mouth.
“Don't get me started on personnel to command the bases and facilities in Agnosta,” the Commander said, now smiling ever so slightly. He really should have cut the lad off and had him send a suggestion memo to Decius. The Centilian was feeling a bit overwhelmed being pulled in so many directions at once, but he should be the one to go through all this and sort it out. “Make sure G-5 is in on this.”
The Lieutenant threw his hands up in the air. “I surrender sir,” he said. Horatio chuckled.
“Just don't think about trying to slip yourself in one of those positions. For now you're needed right where you're at son,” Horatio said, patting the young man on the shoulder.
“Yes sir,” the Lieutenant replied with a fatalistic sigh.
“And write me a memo castigating Harris for damaging his ship with that sim. Remind him it reflects poorly on his career.”
“Aye aye sir.”
“Anything else?”
“Just another complaint about Captain Aisyah binti Tam on Wendigo from her first officer Lieutenant Ssri'allth. She's a Neo-orangutan and prefers it hot and humid, as a Naga, he prefers it dry and hot. Too much humidity gives him lung infections.”
“Boy I don't envy that crew,” Horatio muttered, imagining it. He sighed. He had quite a few requests to transfer from the Neo-orangutan's command. Both Neo-orangutans, Aisyah and Maya where Ensign Musa bin Osman was first officer. “It must be like a sweat-box there, good place to lose weight.” The Lieutenant smiled. After a moment his boss waved a dismissive hand. “I know, I've heard it all before. I think maybe we can use your idea to solve that problem too. The two fight over the life support but did well otherwise. And Aisyah gave Ssri'allth full marks. I'll think about it.”
“Aye sir.”
All three of the officers in question were outstanding. Sure the Neo-orangutan's were quiet and standoffish. That was their nature after all. But they were also devilishly clever. They were subtle, and the Ensign was a known prankster. His soulful innocent act fooled a lot of people on first glance. His pranks were funny, rarely ever mean or demeaning. They tended to build morale on the ship rather than cut it apart. Maya's crew tended to take bets on when a newcomer to their ranks would finally realize who was subtly hazing them. Twice the XO had led them astray, making the victims think that another had been involved. That had also been a source of humor and good natured ribbing.
Of course most crewman would have filed a complaint long ago if the XO hadn't been so good at his job. He listened, helping the homesick cope with their first deployment, or helped get a few much needed time off when the occasion arouse. His tactical suggestions during sims wasn't lost on the crew either. They had bested ships like Wendigo and even Sun-Yat once, ships that were three times their tonnage and nearly four times their firepower. That bought a lot of slack with the crew.
He also could take a joke, realizing when to back off when the crew started to prank him in retaliation. The crew was impossible in dock, setting up some rather elaborate hilarity on some poor unsuspecting schmuck wherever they went.
Like a lot of officers the three resented the changing events. All the captains had taken the shitty jobs of gunship Captain in order to gain experience and the promise of bigger and better ships to come. That had changed the instant Destiny had jumped out of the system 2 years ago. Morale had been a bitter thing for some time, and Destiny's return had been a needed jump upward. Some of the gunship captains had been resigned to their lot in life, but a few were now looking for new opportunities once more.
It wasn't just the captains though, their executive officers had also anticipated a rapid rise in rank. In some small way, the admiral's departure had helped them, cooled their over eager anticipation, taught them patience. He hoped the lessons lasted.
“Get Decius on the line. We'll hash this out. If he's not conveniently available get an appointment for ASAP. And damn it, if he's busy for longer than 2 days then he better damn well say so and we'll find a temporary replacement. Enough is enough.”
The Lieutenant gulped. He hadn't expected such a drastic reaction. “Aye sir.”
“We're going to need one anyway when the good Lieutenant goes down for his three month nap. Which means you may be wearing more than one hat soon.”
The Lieutenant blinked in consternation. “Me sir?” he asked, voice squeaking slightly.
The old man eyed him. “Yes you. Unless someone else becomes available. Since you've got such an interest in it, I'll put it to Decius. Unless he has someone else in mind, you'll probably be it.”
The Lieutenant nodded slowly. “I'll try not to let you down sir.”
“Do that. And remember, Decius wakes up in three months and everything is subject to his approval. His and mine. Keep that in mind before you go upsetting the apple carts and playing musical chairs and causing uproars.”
“Yes sir. But I think it's past time we did some shifting about. Maya and Wendigo aren't our only problem children sir. Firefly is settling in nicely, but the other smaller ships...” he shrugged helplessly.<
br />
“And with the new construction coming online, we're going to need some familiar faces in the hot seat. People with experience, not fresh faces out of ROTC. Understood.”
“Are we still sending Firefly to Agnosta sir?”
“Yes,” Horatio said curtly, straightening.
“No offense sir. I'm a bit concerned though about the defenses.”
“Well, let's see. Commander Vargess has reported Fuentes at near ninety percent now, so she's our roving reserve. Well, her Warthog,, and Damocles,” Horatio smiled ever so slightly.
“Captain Harris has Sun-Yat is on defense at the southern Seti alpha 4 jump point, Maya and Captain Tan'ash are on station at the Agnosta jump point. Captain Naomi Samuels has just returned to active duty and I'm handing her Centurion since she's in her builders trials. She's sitting on the Gaston jump point. That leaves Hecate about to launch without a Captain, and Wendigo on the beta 101a1 jump point.”
“Yes sir. Plus another 4 sublight gunships, 2 corvettes, and 2 frigates back under construction sir. We'll need crew and officers for each of them before they launch.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Horatio said testily. Decius really was dropping the ball he realized as he checked the personnel files. There was a lot of data on his people, but no one was tapped for various positions coming available. There was no planning. The Centilian might be keeping that in his head, but he wasn't sure. He'd have to have a quiet talk with him.
“I'd prefer more weight on the beta jump point sir. Is that why you want the first orbital fort there?” the Lieutenant asked.
Horatio nodded. “And the second will be at the Agnosta one. We're going counter clockwise, adding one fort to each jump point in turn.”
“How many sir?”
“As many as we can afford,” Horatio said. “They don't need drives and we can build them as big as we want. The interior space can have parks, hell, anything we want in them. Manning them will be a pain at first, but we'll figure it out.”
“Aye sir, I suppose we will,” the Lieutenant said wryly.
Jethro: First to Fight Page 30
