Solfleet: The Call of Duty

by Smith, Glenn

  “What I wouldn’t give to command a vessel like that.”

  “Probably get lost trying to find the bridge.”

  The woman laughed, then said, “No doubt, considering there isn’t one.”

  Dylan looked at the woman. He’d never claimed to be an expert on the ships of the fleet, but he’d thought he knew enough to know that they had to have a bridge. “No bridge?”

  “No,” she answered, shaking her head slightly. “At least not in the classic sense. It’s been replaced by a much larger facility called the Combat Information Center.” She looked at him and extended her hand. “Commodore Suja Bhatnagar.”

  “Sergeant Dylan Graves, ma’am,” he replied, keeping in mind what he was wearing as he shook her hand. It came naturally enough. He wasn’t used to thinking of himself as a lieutenant yet. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “And I you, Sergeant. I’m always honored to make the acquaintance of a non-comm. I’ve been fortunate enough to serve with a lot of good ones in my time.” She released his hand, stared at him a moment, then asked, “Graves, you say?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any relation to Captain Richard Graves of the previous Excalibur?”

  Was there anyone in the fleet who hadn’t heard of his father? “Yes, ma’am,” he answered after almost giving in to the temptation to lie. “He was my father.”

  “Your father!” she exclaimed as if thrilled by the news.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed, forcing himself to smile.

  “Then I truly am honored to meet you, Sergeant. I have admired your father since my earliest days at the academy.”

  “Thank you, Commodore. I appreciate that.” Why the hell had he said that, he wondered as he looked back out at the ships again.

  “Yes indeed,” Bhatnagar said as she, too, looked back out at the ships. “She is a beauty.”

  Dylan looked right back at her again—at the way she looked at the new battlecarrier with a sort of glint in her eye. Like a proud mother, almost as though the mighty vessel were her very own. Then again, maybe it was.

  “Are you the Excalibur’s C-O, Commodore?” he asked.

  “Who me?” Bhatnagar asked, looking at him as though it were a completely ridiculous idea. “No. No, I don’t have a ship of my own anymore. I used to.” She looked to their left and pointed. “That’s her, right there. The Victory.”

  “Oh.” Open mouth. Insert foot. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, there’s no reason to be sorry, Sergeant. She was badly wounded and nearly crippled, sort of like I am now, but she still brought us all home. I expected her to be decommissioned and scrapped when we got here of course, given her condition, but I’ve just been told she’s to be refit and redeployed.”

  “Oh. Well then...congratulations for that much at least, Commodore.”

  “Thanks. I’ll pass that on to my former X-O. He’s her captain now. As for me?” She shook her head. “I’ve just been promoted to flying a desk.”

  What could he say to that? He certainly knew what it was like to be ‘promoted’ out of a job. Probably better to say nothing at all and just take his leave of her.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me, Commodore, I’ve got work to do.” He offered his hand. “Nice meeting you.”

  Bhatnagar took his hand and said, “It was nice to meet you, too, Sergeant. Take care of yourself.”

  “And you, ma’am,” Dylan returned, glancing down at her leg. Then he let go of her hand and left her gazing quietly out at her old command.

  He meandered along among the dozens of assorted shuttles and other small crafts of various shapes, sizes, and origins that were parked around him. The one he’d been instructed to look for was supposedly nestled somewhere among them. His instructions had included a general description of it, but damned if he could see anything that even remotely resembled what he’d read. He was almost two thirds of the way across the deck when he finally spotted a craft off to his right that he thought might be the one he was looking for. What he could see of it seemed to fit the general description, so he headed toward it.

  Yeah, that was it, parked in a maintenance slot just beyond a heavily damaged Veshtonn atmosphere-capable fighter. The space yacht Selena, a relatively small but gracefully designed craft with an immaculately clean finish. As he approached it an elderly, slightly overweight gray-haired gentleman with leathery skin and a thick but neatly trimmed beard and moustache emerged from its open rear hatch, wiping his beefy hands on a threadbare blue rag that looked heavily stained with oils, greases, and God only knew what else.

  As soon as the man saw Dylan he threw him a friendly wave and stepped down to the deck. “Sergeant Dylan Graves, I presume,” he bellowed with a toothy smile as he extended his right hand, his slightly accented voice so deep that it might have rattled the windows had he yelled out.

  “Yes, sir,” Dylan answered, shaking the old man’s grungy hand without hesitation. His palm felt rough and dry like coarse sandpaper, his grip almost painfully firm. This was obviously a man who worked with his hands...a lot.

  “Captain Benjamin Andreievich Sedelnikov, semi-retired, at your service,” he introduced himself while he pumped Dylan’s arm a bit more vigorously than was necessary.

  Now there was a mouthful to say the least. But he had to try. “Nice to meet you, Captain Andrei...”

  “It’s Captain Sedelnikov,” the man corrected him. “Andreievich is my middle name. But my friends have always called me Benny, so why don’t you do the same. If we’re going to be cooped up together on this little trip, we might as well be friendly.”

  “All right. Benny it is,” Dylan said as the semi-retired captain finally released his hand. He stole a quick glance down at it and was pleasantly surprised to see that it still looked clean. “Please, call me Dylan.”

  “All right, I will.” He turned and headed back to his ship. “Come on aboard, Dylan.”

  Dylan looked the older man over as he followed him, paying particular attention to his clothing, noting the brown tee shirt, the light tan tunic minus its sleeves, which had been cut off to form a vest, and the matching trousers with the brown belt and double brown stripes down the outsides of the legs. All remnants of an older Solfleet naval uniform that had been out of use for several decades.

  “Pardon my asking, Benny, but...you mentioned you were semi-retired. Just how long ago were you on active duty?”

  “Ah. You recognize the uniform?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Da, I thought you might. Your Admiral Hansen mentioned you were a military history buff. Let’s just say for now that I’ve been off active duty for a very long time, but I’ve always been comfortable in the uniform. What’s left of it, that is. Besides, as you’ve probably already figured out, I haven’t completely left the service yet.”

  “That was my next question,” Dylan said as they ascended the ramp. “I was wondering how even a semi-retired officer could be assigned a classified mission.”

  As they stepped into the Selena’s aft compartment, Benny closed and secured the small access panel he’d apparently been working in, then said, “The service was very good to me in my day, Dylan, so I’m always happy to serve however I can one more time.”

  Dylan looked around, realizing for the first time just how small the Selena really was. “So, is this the ship we’re going in?” he asked, hoping that it wasn’t.

  “The Selena?” Benny asked, seemingly surprised by the question. “Nyet,” he said shaking his head. “Absolutely not. She’s far too delicate a lady for this one. Don’t get me wrong now. She’s a fine craft, but she’s not built for such a long voyage. No, we’ll be taking a starskiff. Your Admiral Hansen has promised to take good care of my Selena while we’re gone.” As he looked around at the ship’s interior with love in his eyes he added, “No, I wouldn’t subject this little lady to what we’re going into even if she could get us there.”

  At that, Dylan threw Benny a puzzled look and
asked, “Just what are we going into?”

  Benny smiled once more. “There will be plenty of time for questions on our way, Dylan. Let’s go find our starskiff.”

  Chapter 56

  Commander Royer’s office door slid open. Irritated, she looked up with the intention of educating whoever had walked in on her unannounced as to the error of their ways, but she found Admiral Hansen looking right back at her, so she held her tongue. She set her handcomp aside and started to stand up instead, but he quickly gestured for her to keep her seat so she relaxed, glad that she’d taken the time to clean herself up and change into a fresh uniform after their early morning meeting.

  “Didn’t I give you the day off, Commander?” Hansen asked her as he walked past her desk and over to the window to gaze down at the Earth.

  “I have too much work to do to take the day off, sir. Besides, even if I had gone home I’d have just spent the day tracking Professor Min’para’s use of the library...which, by the way, is exactly what I’ve been doing all day from right here.”

  Hansen looked over at her with disbelief. “He’s still at it?”

  “Yes, sir. Sixty-five straight hours now and still counting,” she specified as she leaned back in her chair. “He’s not showing any signs of slowing down, either.”

  “Speaking of not slowing down, you look a lot more awake and alert than you were this morning,” he observed. “Been taking your coffee intravenously?”

  “Went down to the medbay and got some stims,” she told him.

  “You want to be careful with those things, Commander,” he warned as he gazed out the window again. “They’re pretty addictive.”

  “I’ll be careful, sir. Don’t worry.”

  “So... What’s the status of our traveling duo?” he asked. “Have they left the station yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, turning her chair to face him. “About ten minutes ago, right after they had their dinner. The Wells does close to point five-C, so they should reach Trident station in about eight or nine hours.”

  “Good,” he quietly commented, nodding slightly. “That’s good. The farther away from this station the lieutenant gets, the better I like it.”

  “I thought you liked him, sir. Despite the fact that he’s a smartass.”

  Hansen looked back over his shoulder at her and said, “I do like him, Commander,” and then turned right back to the window again, “that aspect of his personality aside. More than that, I admire him. I just finished reading through his service record again, cover to cover. I found it as impressive the second time as I did the first.” He paused, drew a deep breath and exhaled long and loud. “Which makes it all the more difficult to do this to him. And to his fiancée.”

  “And the farther away he gets, the more difficult it becomes for you to recall him, should you have second thoughts,” she concluded.

  “Something like that.”

  “Sounds to me like you have a guilty conscience, Admiral,” she quipped. It was an old joke. An inside joke. A joke they’d passed between them on dozens of occasions over the years. But this time, rather than sharing a laugh with her, the admiral glared silently at her, clearly not at all amused.

  “Sorry, sir,” she said, reading his expression. “That was a little out of line this time.”

  Given the scope and seriousness of what they were involved in, ‘a little out of line’ was the understatement of the year, and Hansen decided not to let it go that easily this time. “That was more than just a little out of line, Commander,” he confirmed. He turned sharply and took a single step toward her. “So let me make one thing perfectly clear to you right here and now. I don’t enjoy violating orders any more now than I did then. Willful insubordination and criminal conspiracy still leave a very bad taste in my mouth.”

  “I understand, sir, and I apologize.”

  Ignoring her apology and pointing out the window, he added, “And I like what I might be doing to that man out there even less!”

  Damn he’d had a short fuse lately. “Don’t you mean what we might be doing to that man out there, sir?” Royer asked, consciously addressing any doubts the admiral might have had that she was prepared to accept her share of the responsibility.

  “I don’t remember consulting you before I decided to go forward with this mission.”

  “No, sir, you didn’t. But if you recall, I did agree with that decision,” she reminded him. “And I still do agree with it. And it was I who recommended that you order Graves to go in the first place after he’d already declined.”

  “The key word there, Commander, is ‘recommended.’ I gave the order, and to the best of my knowledge Chief of Solfleet Intelligence is still a one-officer billet.”

  “Yes, sir,” she acquiesced. What else could she say to that? Changing the subject she pointed out, “You know, I still don’t understand why you won’t let them use the belt station. It would shave several hours off their trip.”

  Hansen turned back to the window again and paused to regain his composure. Having come online only a few months ago, the asteroid belt station was the newest jumpstation in the solar system—so new that it hadn’t even been given a proper name yet. As a matter of fact, it was the newest jumpstation anywhere within Earth controlled space. It was also the first of the newest generation of jumpstations. Due to the strong flash-gravity force that jumpspace vortexes created when they reacted to a ship’s energized nacelles, jumpstations had always had to operate on the periphery of their respective star systems. But the new belt station employed a recently developed method of gravitic shielding—a sort of anti-gravity wave generation system that acted to cancel out the gravitic flash—which enabled the station to remain nestled between the orbits of Mars and the asteroid belt. So Royer was right. Using the belt station would have saved them hours. But it also would have increased the chances of the wrong people seeing them depart.

  “Out of sight out of mind, Commander,” Hansen explained. “The asteroid belt station handles near constant traffic twenty-four hours a day. All that traffic means too many witnesses. That starskiff is officially registered to this office, so the fewer people who see it jump out of the system, the less likely that I’ll have to explain to Central Command where it went.”

  “Good point.”

  Hansen gazed down at the Earth for another moment, then finally stepped away from the window and turned his attention to Royer’s desktop monitor. “So how’s the no-sleep professor doing with his research?” he asked. “Or more to the point, how are you doing with it? Have you been able to throw him off track at all?”

  “Ah yes, the professor,” she began as she, too, looked at the small screen. She drew a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “Well, I’ll say one thing for him. He’s thorough as hell. I mean, I’ve been able to throw him a few curve balls here and there, but he keeps cross-referencing all the reports and looking for verification on everything. Throwing him off track is one thing. Keeping him off track is not proving to be easy.”

  “That’s all right, Commander,” Hansen told her as he stepped over to her visitors’ chairs and took a seat. “I have complete confidence in you. After all, misleading people has proven to be one of your most highly developed talents.”

  “Thank you...sir,” she said with obvious hesitation, wondering if he’d really intended his comment to sound like the double-edged sword that it had. Was he still angry at her for not telling him about having found and apprehended O’Donnell right away?

  “You’re welcome.” He let her stew for another moment—apparently, he’d known exactly what kind of sword his words were wielding—then asked, “What about Miss DeGaetano?”

  Royer tapped a control and waited until the current visiting enlisted quarters registration ledger she’d called up finally appeared. She scanned down the page until Bethany DeGaetano’s name appeared and, at that very moment, started flashing back and forth between black and green. “She’s checking out of their quarters as we speak, Admiral. Looks like s
he’s decided not to stay after all.”

  “Any indication yet that she’s going to cause us any problems?”

  “No, sir, not so far. I’ll find out where she’s going and make arrangements for continuous surveillance anyway. If she tries anything we’ll know about it.”

  Hansen looked Royer in the eye. “Remember what I said, Commander. No interference. I don’t want anything to make her any more suspicious than she probably already is.”

  “Understood, sir. She’ll never know we’re there...wherever ‘there’ is. I promise.”

  “Good enough.” He stood. “Well, I’d better head home. Heather’s already started dinner and I don’t want to be late.”

  “Heather’s making your dinner?” Royer asked with a disbelieving grin.

  Hansen returned her smile, “Yeah, who’d have thought?” Then told her, “Don’t you stay too late either, Liz, or Karen’s apt to come looking for you.”

  “Just a couple more things to wrap up and I’m out of here. Good night, Admiral.”

  “Good night, Commander.”

  Hansen left her office, knowing full well that she’d probably stay right there and keep working until Karen really did come looking for her.

  Chapter 57

  The Next Morning

  Earth Standard Date: Tuesday, 7 December 2190

  The oldest jumpstation in the solar system, Trident Station had been designed and built to accommodate the smaller classes of military vessels that were in service at the time of its construction. Now relegated almost exclusively to the needs of small commercial and privately owned jump-capable vessels, the station nonetheless still had to maintain its original orbit along the path it shared with the planet Neptune, on the opposite side of the sun, where the relatively lesser but still immense gravitational forces it generated couldn’t do any harm. Had it been what was now considered to be a full-sized station, of course, it would have to have been located much farther outside the system, beyond the Kuiper Belt, whose nearer objects tended to get a little excited during a jump as it was.