The Reign_Mara_a Passion Uncontested

by Lance Berry

  “Tactical?”

  Mara had just finished checking her console, and was surprised to read the Warner still had a partial complement of live-round antimatter torpedoes aboard. Apparently, the maintenance crews hadn’t gotten around to fully disabling them and moving them off-ship. “Tactical is on-line, all weapons systems ready. And Captain…we do have a half-complement of live torpedoes aboard.”

  The other cadets seemed just as surprised as Mara by this news, but Katie did her best to seem unfazed by it. “Just give me the Cliff Notes version, Tactics, I don’t need your life story,” she said authoritatively, yet there was still a bit of tease in her voice. Mara had to control a smirk, and managed a civil nod toward her “captain.”

  “Apologies, Captain,” she replied easily.

  “Operations, status of all departments?” Katie asked the young man at the console, whose name tag read “Singh.”

  “All departments report ready, Captain.”

  “Communications, signal Yard Command that we are ready for launch.”

  The com officer looked at her oddly, wondering whom he was supposed to signal, when his console beeped and a pre- arranged message displayed on it. “Uh…Yard Command declares we are clear for launch,” he said, somewhat embarrassed.

  Katie checked the dsp display fitted into the arm of her command chair. “Navigation, set course for heading one-three-seven by one-four-six. Helm, wormhole level of three. I want us there with expedience.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the temp navigator and helmsman replied in turn. As they worked their consoles, the Warner shuddered ever so slightly as its engines came to life and pushed it forward. Once they started moving though, the low whine of the engines turned to a steady, reassuring thrum. The ship had no problems generating a wormhole, and upon Katie’s command, it dove in and shot forward to its destination.

  Once the Warner settled back to standard sublight speed after exiting its wormhole, the viewscreen settled on the main asteroid belt which encircled the Sol system’s four innermost planets. The belt was comprised of millions of tons of rock which were remnants of planets which might have been, had the origins of the Sol system turned out differently. In effect, it was a type of celestial cemetery.

  A beep issued from Katie’s armrest dsp, and as she checked it out, Mara noticed that Tellner had just finished tapping in commands to his own hand-held unit. Mara’s lips pursed together thoughtfully as she realized the commander wouldn’t be verbalizing his orders; he’d be transmitting them to the arm console on the center seat, and it would be up to each cadet to carry out the issuances surely and efficiently.

  Katie raised her head and looked forward once more, trying to sound confident as she gave her first true command order.

  “Navigation: plot a transient course through the belt and into two of its Kirkwood gaps. Let’s try the ones at…” she paused for what seemed like a long moment as she checked and rechecked dsp readings, “…bearings five-three-five and five-eight-nine.”

  The young man at navigation nodded slowly as he tabbed in the course bearings to the navicomp while simultaneously doing the mental calculations for the heading. “Aye, Captain,” he said after a moment.

  “Captain, should I raise shields?” Mara asked.

  “That’s a negative,” Katie replied, and she was unable to hide the disappointment and mild trepidation in her voice.

  “Helm, once you have the heading, take us in at two-thirds sublight,” she said.

  “I’d prefer to make it back to Earth in one piece,” Tellner stated from the bridge’s rear, before the helmsman could reply.

  “One quarter sublight,” Katie corrected, her voice rising in pitch an octave or two. She faked clearing her throat, then sat up a little straighter in the chair, trying to appear more authoritative. Mara exhaled lightly, as she and the others realized her friend’s mistake. With the speed at which some asteroids in the belt moved in their orbits, something as big as a Heavy Cruiser would have to move at a decent clip in order to not get tagged going through, yet still slow enough that it wouldn’t inadvertently run into something.

  The helmsman’s console beeped a confirmation, and the young woman stationed there glanced over her shoulder at Katie. “Course plotted, Captain. Moving in at heading zero-two-eight by five-oh-six.”

  With that, the Warner moved forward, the asteroids taking on a more menacing appearance as they slowly began to fill the viewscreen. Mara huffed, realizing a light sheen of sweat dampened her brow. She glanced at Tellner, whose attention seemed focused more on the central viewer than any of them, and wiped her palm quickly across her forehead. She rubbed the damped hand on her pants leg, then considered that although she had been ordered not to raise shields, she still had other options. She surreptitiously plotted in a targeting solution for several close asteroids. She rethought her course of action, though; if indeed the Warner fired either lasers or antimatter into the belt, the resulting explosion would do little more than create additional debris for the Heavy Cruiser to maneuver around. No, this command decision belonged to Katie alone.

  The Warner finally moved into the belt itself, and Mara would have paid a thousand credits to be able to view the ship from the outside; a massive war behemoth attempting to move gracefully and cautiously through thousands of kilometers of deadly spinning rock. She had to give credit to the helmsman, Crane. Her jaw was set, rigid, and her eyes darted studiously between her helm console and the viewscreen. Her hands didn’t shake in the slightest, and she input commands to the console with an assuredness Mara hoped she would possess when the time came for her to take a turn in that position.

  The ship moved at a cautious yet brisk clip through the first portion of its obstacle course, and after several minutes, finally cleared the initial part of the debris field. There were several sighs of relief, and Mara noticed Tellner nodding approvingly just before he tapped in more commands on his own dsp.

  The center seat’s armchair console beeped once more, and Katie looked at it, her face this time showing some relief as she raised her eyes again. “Helm, keep us within this first Kirkwood gap, traveling in a path parallel to the asteroid belt’s rotation for five hundred kilometers.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Crane answered, then looked to her navigator for confirmation on the path they’d be taking. Once the course was lain in, the second half of the asteroid belt which lay before them swung by lazily to the left side of the screen. A section of that and the one they had just come through now showed on the central viewer as the Warner settled comfortably into position within the first Kirkwood gap.

  These gaps—large spaces swept free of asteroids by the proximity of Jupiter’s gravity—were the only safe section of the asteroid belt for the vessel to traverse. In this instance the Warner did so effortlessly, staying its course smoothly as it sailed between the two bands of detritus which boxed it on either side. Within a short while however, it was time for the vessel to make its path through the next obstacle course, and Katie had the navigator plot another route into the succeeding ring.

  All on the bridge watched the central screen as Crane calmly brought the Warner into a curving arc for entrance into the new asteroid ring. But the ship had not even fully made it in before the tactical console emitted a series of sharp, steady warning beeps. Mara’s eyes fixated on the console readout, never leaving it as she firmly called out to Katie, “Captain!

  We’re too close on our port side to two of the asteroids! One of them’s about to clip us!”

  “Position?” Katie sharply replied.

  Mara started to answer, but the navigator called out first, cutting her off. “Fifteen kilometers off our port, coming in fast at a thirty-three degree angle—twelve seconds to impact!”

  “Helm, move us off—!” Katie’s mouth worked silently a second as in her head she rifled through various options and discarded half of them before adding, “Twenty-five yaw to starboard!”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Crane replied as she began putti
ng in the commands. But before she was able to set final vector, there was a dull thud against the hull, followed by a severe rocking of the craft—and then surprisingly, another, which seemed to come somewhere from the back of the command deck. The bridge shuddered and everyone had to hold on tightly to their consoles to keep from being thrown to the floor.

  “Christ,” Tellner exclaimed angrily as he viewed the fiasco from the bridge’s rear, where he was doing his best to hold up cadet Siesto, who had grabbed onto him for support. He heedlessly tossed the young woman aside and made his way across the shaky deck to grab the rear of Katie’s chair. Katie looked up at him fearfully, not knowing what to expect. But Tellner paid her no mind, didn’t even look at her, as he continued onward to the helm. “Crane, get up—now,” he ordered, and Crane half-stood, half-fell out of the chair. Tellner plopped down into the chair as on the viewscreen, deadly giant rocks seemed to close in from all sides, almost heedless of the personal orbits they once held…seemingly intent on crushing the Heavy Cruiser and all who served within. Another strike, and the viewscreen clouded over thickly with digital breakup, the image of the asteroids now barely visible.

  Tellner quickly and assuredly reached over and began tabbing in what Mara could only guess were egress vectors to get the ship out of the ring as quickly as possible. He set a stern glare upon the navigator as he tapped in his last command and pointed to a portion of the console. The navigator nodded, taking control of his board once more and set in a course as Tellner returned to command of the helm. Sure enough, with the two working in concert, the debris field began to clear on the hazy viewscreen as the Warner quickly rose above the deadly ring, the central viewer barely able to show a portion of the belt spinning serenely below them, with Mars only a few million kilometers away.

  All the cadets sat quietly at their posts, scarcely daring to breathe. Crane got to her feet but said nothing, her eyes lowered to the floor as Tellner tapped a slow, deliberate beat on the console with his fingers, a contemplative look on his face.

  His lips were curled partly downward in a slight frown as he stared ahead at the image on the viewscreen, but said nothing.

  At the rear of the bridge, Siesto managed to finally pick herself up and dusted off, her eyes then expectantly looking toward Tellner, as all others were.

  The commander finally stopped drumming his fingers.

  “Damage report, Ops,” he said evenly, not looking back at the station he was addressing. To his credit, cadet Singh immediately swiveled his chair around to face Tellner and reported in an assured, measured tone. “One of the asteroids struck near our engine casings, Commander. The first outer central casing on the port side is cracked. It would be unwise to generate a wormhole, as it would most likely be too unstable for transport. The second asteroid hit our conning tower…it’s down to only thirty percent functionality. We could repair both freespace…except we’re lacking both materials and crew.”

  Tellner nodded grimly. “Yes. The materials we’d normally be carrying for freespace repair have been removed from our hold and sent back to Hephaestus for reassignment as necessary for other, newer Cruisers.” He seemed to be thinking aloud to himself, more than actually replying to Singh. But then the commander turned partway in his chair to look at the youthful Indian male. “How’s it look for projecting a null field around the ship? Can we make it to Hephaestus?”

  Singh nodded affirmatively. “We can generate, but I should remind the commander that this class of ship only has a null field capacity of level three. We can make it to the Shipyards in a couple of hours, though.”

  Tellner nodded in acceptance. “Well done, Mister Singh,” he said and stood, finally focusing on Crane. “Eyes up, Cadet.”

  Crane obediently raised her eyes to meet his, ready to receive whatever rebuke she thought was coming. “Reclaim your seat,” Tellner calmly ordered, and she did. Tellner addressed her directly, yet it was clear by the slight increase in volume that the message was for all of them. “You did as you were ordered. You carried out the command confidently and without hesitation. Your only fault, as both helmsman and navigator,” he said, cutting the young man next to Crane a quick, harsh glare, “was in not paying more attention to your navicomp system.” He now turned to more directly face the group as he continued. “The navicomp is designed to offer alternative course headings. It would have informed both stations that the ship was plotted to a direction too close to objects within its immediate vicinity. Other options would have been quickly assessed and chosen, and it would have been the helmsman’s duty to offer said options to the captain. It then falls to the captain to either accept or discard the option, but a good captain always listens to those serving under him or her in order to make the most informed decisions.”

  Mara was attempting to pay strict attention to everything Tellner was saying, when another beep issued from her console.

  She turned to it, somewhat annoyed at being distracted from the commander’s lesson, but leaned closer to make certain she was reading the display properly…

  Tellner stepped forward, now more directly addressing Katie. “When a crisis situation arose, Cadet Long, your decision making became sloppy. You can’t hesitate when choosing an egress vector to get you out of trouble. This ship is running on a quarter complement of a Heavy Cruiser’s standard, but you still have lives counting on you—“

  “Uh, Commander—?”

  “Elliot, I am speaking here,” Tellner snapped in reply.

  “I understand that, sir,” Mara said firmly, determined not to back down from him while still trying to keep a respectful tone in her voice, “But I think you should see this. My board’s picking up something which I don’t think should be there.”

  Tellner’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, but he briskly walked over to her console, all eyes on the bridge following him as the cadets strained to hear the conversation between Mara and the commander as she turned back to the tactical console and pointed to the small blip which the computer highlighted amongst all the thousands of asteroids in the belt’s second ring.

  “Scanners just picked this up a second ago. It looks like a ship, which may or may not have been in the belt at the same time as us. I don’t get a reading on where it came from, it was just… sort of there.”

  “Nothing is ‘just sort of there’, Elliot,” Tellner chided, but leaned over her nonetheless as he typed in a command for the computer to reassess its findings. Within a second, the Cruiser’s smartware checked and double-checked its readings once more, and came to the same conclusion it had previously announced: there was another ship in the asteroid field, holding position not a thousand kilometers away from the Warner. Its design was indeterminate, but it was roughly the same size as the Heavy Cruiser. Tellner mentally checked off facts he knew about ships operating in this area and came to a grave conclusion: there were none. All other HC’s used for cadet training this day were in various orbits around Luna, each waiting their turn. Other Cruisers—standard vessels with full complements—orbited the Hephaestus Shipyards above Mars.

  Any others were in combat engagements far from the Sol system, or remained in their assigned protective circle above Earth. There should be no other ship anywhere near here.

  Looking at the tactical readout again and seeing how this new vessel was boxed in between two asteroids and was closely keeping itself so as it ghosted their orbits, meant the vessel had more than likely been hiding behind one of the rocks, and slipped out from cover to observe the Warner more closely after the first asteroid struck it. Since the new ship wasn’t moving in to help, it was obviously assessing how badly the Warner had been hit; how helpless it might be. Which left only one option as to what kind of ship this could be…

  Tellner stood upright once more, attempting to keep a secure game face on as he turned to cadet Mills, stationed at the communications console. “Send a message to Hephaestus, alerting them to our status. Ask them for positioning information about all ships in the area. Tag the message
as urgent. Also tell them to have a crew standing by to receive our ship and a transport to retrieve the cadet class once we get there.” He then turned to Katie. “Out of the chair, Long…we have business to take care of.”

  With a dejected look, Katie stood and moved away from the command chair. As she headed over to join Siesto at the bridge’s rear, Tellner claimed the center seat. “There’s another ship out there, when there shouldn’t be,” he informed the group. “This isn’t part of our training exercise—whatever that is is a real and potential threat if it’s not one of ours.” To Tellner’s surprise, few were the worried looks which greeted him. The class seemed to take the information in stride, and he was proud of them for it.