Fleet Academy

by M. Scott Cottrell

  “Oh goody!” She squeaked as she watched him fill his tray and head over to their table.

  “Hey y'all, mind if I join ya?” He drawled.

  “Sure gorgeous, Just have a seat right here by me.” Suzi responded brightly, patting the bench next to her.

  Kevin sat down and dug into his food, trying to talk between mouthfuls. “Man what a day. They’ve had us jumping all day trying to keep people out of the restricted areas. Some people just don’t listen.” He said.

  “What to?” Jenny asked.

  “People keep trying to get into the low g areas. We had three couples get locked into them zero g gym locks already. Get in and can’t get them to equalize and get stuck.” He said. “Horny bastards.” He mused

  “You got something against horny people?” Suzi asked seriously.

  “Not really. Just need to keep it someplace safe.” He replied with a wink.

  “So what would you do with someone who decided to just go at it on the table in the officers’ mess?” Suzi asked with mock seriousness.

  “Probably have to arrest them.” He responded simply.

  “That sounds serious. Hand cuffs and all?” She asked coyly, Matt and Jenny watching the exchange with curiosity.

  “Prob'ly.” He said.

  “Oh goody.” She said standing up and unzipping her jump suit. She hadn’t bothered to put any panties on when they dressed in Matt’s quarters, so as she dropped her jump suit and stepped out of it, she was naked except for her little white deck shoes. She pushed Kevin’s food tray out of the way and stepped onto the table, dropping her butt onto the surface previously occupied by his tray; facing Kevin, with one leg on each side of him. She leaned back and threw her legs high in the air, spread in a wide V. “Here you go big boy. How about some desert. And after you’re done you can throw those little hand cuffs of yours on me and do with me what you will.”

  “DAMN!” Was all Kevin said as he looked down between her legs.

  “Come on. I think we better leave these two alone.” Jenny said quietly, slipping an arm into Matt’s to coax him up.

  “I think your right.” Matt said as he got up with Jenny, the two of them walking out of the mess, leaving Suzi sitting on the table with Kevin’s head busy between her legs. “I sure hope no senior officers come in while they’re doing that, or they’ll both be in hack.”

  “Boy you know it.” Jenny said with a giggle. “Suzi will get her wish for sure.”

  It was oh six hundred when Matt walked onto the bridge to take his four hour rotation on bridge duty. “Here to relieve you Ensign.” Matt said standing to the side of the Ensign from security.

  “Aye sir. All systems operational, nothing to report.” He said getting up from the seat so Matt could sit down.

  “Thank you Ensign. You’re relieved.”

  “Aye sir.” He said turning and departing. Matt flipped through a quick check of his status board and then looked around at the rest of the bridge stations. The navigator station was manned by a cute young Lieutenant JG that he didn’t recognize. The pilots station was manned by a young Lieutenant JG named Hawks, which Matt had seen in training a few times. He was sweaty and looked to be concentrating on the readouts of the small thruster panel mounted on the main pilot’s station. Engineering was manned by a cute Lieutenant of African descent that was busy making eyes at Matt from her station across the bridge. Her short black hair was in tight ringlets, framing her dark skinned face and a pair of sparkling green eyes. Matt noticed that even though she wasn’t extremely large in the chest, her snug jump suit allowed him to see her rapidly hardening nipples as she ran her fingers up and down the zipper of her jump suit and slid her pink tongue seductively over her full lips. She was so engrossed in her seductive thoughts of Matt that she failed to realize that her duty replacement was standing behind her.

  “I know he’s hot Lieutenant, but you should be concentrating on your duty station, not imagining how he is in the sack.” Lieutenant Commander Emerson snapped.

  “Yes ma’am!” The young Lieutenant replied, practically jumping to attention in her seat. “All ships systems normal. Tanker down to two percent remaining. Slightly elevated temperature on the tanker number two engine, but within limits. Stress rating within planned limits. Deceleration holding steady at ten g’s. Velocity down to point one eight two c ma’am.” She finished standing up next to the seat so the Lieutenant Commander could take over the seat.

  “Very well Lieutenant. You are relieved.” She said loudly and professionally. Then before the Lieutenant could turn and leave she whispered. “Besides, no matter how good you imagine it, he’s even better.” She said with a grin and a wink.

  “Aye ma’am.” She answered as she turned to leave the bridge, watching Matt all the way to the bridge door.

  Matt looked down at his console trying not to smile back at Commander Emerson. He looked through all the screens before looking back at the tracking monitor. He noticed that with the reduced velocity the thing, entity, whatever anyone wanted to call it, appeared to be happily circling the sun, making roughly two orbits for every one the Saint Claire was making.

  “Good morning Hawks.” Lieutenant Kispan said brightly as she stepped up to the pilot’s seat.

  “Good morning ma’am.” He replied.

  “Status?”

  “The tanker is running at one hundred percent thrust. Fuel down to roughly two percent. Decel at ten, current velocity at point one eight one six. It’s having some trouble with its number two. Still running full thrust, but the gimbals are getting sluggish and its showing a slight temperature rise.” He reported to her, his fingers never still on the little keypad, adjusting the thrusters to keep things lined up.

  “Very well. Ready to take over.” She said, her voice clearly indicating that she was all business this morning.

  “Aye ma’am.” He said. Slipping out of the seat and allowing her to slip quickly into his place and take over the thruster controls.

  “I have the stick.” She said as she ticked the controls with her fingertips, remotely controlling the thrusters and gimbals of the tankers engines.

  “Very well ma’am. I stand relieved.” Hawks said as he turned and headed off the bridge.

  Things on the bridge stayed quiet until just before zero eight hundred when the Captain walked onto the bridge. “Good morning people, how are we doing?”

  “Velocity point one seven four, Decel at ten and steady, ships systems normal, tanker fuel at point five percent, anomalies on the tankers engines, but still functioning at one hundred percent thrust.” Lieutenant Commander Emerson reported.

  “What is the status of the tankers engines?” The captain asked, swiveling her chair to face the commander.

  “We have some small issues on number two. It’s running a bit high temp and its x gimbal control is getting sticky. It’s still within tolerance, but I noticed that the pilot is having to make more corrections to keep the thrust on centerline. It’s gotten noticeably worse in the last hour.”

  “Thank you eng. Pilot. How is control?”

  “Not good ma’am.” Lieutenant Kispan reported, her jump suit obviously soaked with sweat from the strain of trying to keep things aligned. What she was doing amounted to trying to balance a broomstick resting on your hand, with another broomstick on top of that. Not impossible, but very stressful, especially considering if she lost the angle by more than a quarter of a degree it would tear the engines up and they would be stuck at their current speed forever. The manuver would have been much better done completely by a computer, but the best that could be put together in the time allotted was a computer assist program that required a lot of help from a human touch.

  “Very well. Eng. Let’s go ahead and kick it loose. It’s not worth risking damaging the engines for a half hour of thrust.”

  “Aye ma’am. Throttling down the tankers engines. Keep on your toes Pilot, this may imbalance you.”

  “Affirm… Ready for throttle down.” Kispan ans
wered.

  “Ok. Bringing thrust down to ninety percent.” Lynette said as she punched in some commands on the computer terminal in front of her.

  “It’s getting squirrelly eng!” Kispan shouted

  “Roger. Number two isn’t throttling down. I’m bringing them both back to full thrust.”

  “Ok. That’s settling it out a little, but it’s still hard to hold.”

  “What’s the problem eng?”

  “Unknown Captain. Number two isn’t responding to throttle control. Running what limited diagnostics we have available to us.”

  “Ok. Eng. Let me know what it tells us.”

  “No faults showing. I think we have a fuel valve failure, probably because of the high temp issue.”

  “Ok what options do we have?” The captain asked, her voice much calmer than any of the bridge crew felt.

  “About the only thing we can do is either wait for the fuel to run out or to slam the gate on the engines. If we let it run out, they may not shut down together. If we slam the gate we lose the ability to re-start and have to hope they both die out together, but the die out will be faster than a fuel out.” Lynette told her, swiveling her chair around to wait for the Captain to decide which option to exercise.

  “Pilot, status?” She asked.

  “Getting worse by the minute ma’am. We’re swinging nearly an eighth degree now. I’ve given up on the number two gimbal and am just using one to over control.”

  “Very well. Eng slam the gate.” The Captain said with finality.

  “Yes ma’am. Slamming the gate in five… four… three… two… one… now.”

  The silence was eerie. No one had really noticed that the vibrations caused by the tankers thrust, no longer absorbed by the mass of the tankers fuel load, since it burned off, were now transferring to the Saint Claire, making it gently vibrate, rattling all sorts of things minutely. Kispan relaxed back in her seat after she gave the Saint Claire’s docking thrusters a little twitch, allowing the tanker to slide out of the engine bells and the appearance of floating away. “Tanker disconnected. Separation at two meters per second.”

  “Excellent job Pilot. You deserve a break. Nav, how is our course?”

  The young Lieutenant sitting at the navigation station answered promptly. “Stand by Captain, recomputing now for the change in mass and current velocity… We’re looking good on track. Within a quarter percent. Easily corrected by our own braking thrust. If we start breaking thrust now at seven g’s we will insert into mercury orbit in four point eight days at point oh five c.”

  “Very well, Pilot burn on the plotted course, seven g control point.” The captain ordered.

  “Aye ma’am. Eleven g burn on the plotted course. Firing now!” Kispan said as she entered the commands into the computer.

  “Thank you Lieutenant. Why don’t you get some relief up here and take a break.”

  “Thank you ma’am. Comm., would you locate Lieutenant Kusha and have her report?”

  “Affirmative.” She said as she keyed in some commands and then spoke softly into the boom mike hanging from her earpiece. “Lieutenant Kusha will be here directly.” She answered back after locating the Lieutenant.

  “Thank you comm.” Lieutenant Kispan said with a sigh.

  “Comm. Ship wide please.” The captain commanded.

  “Ship wide ma’am.” The communications officer responded in a clipped tone.

  “This is the Captain. We have completed the first leg of our deceleration. We used nearly all the fuel of the tanker, getting us down to point one seven four light speed. We will do a seven g deceleration for the next five days and pop into an orbit around Mercury at point oh five light speed, where we will meet with a tanker and fill up again, and then home. We are still at an elevated g decel rate, so those areas that are high risk at these rates are still closed. This has been a difficult transit for all of us, and we have broken every duration and speed record the fleet has, not only for this class ship, but all manned ships period. After a few more days the crew and things should start getting back to normal. That is all.” She finished, motioning to the comm. officer, who cut the communications off. “Ok I’ll be in my cabin if you need me. Mister Molter will you join me please?”

  “Aye ma’am” Matt said, getting up from his station and following her off the bridge and into her cabin.

  “Have a seat Lieutenant.” She said motioning to a chair in her sitting area.

  Matt sat down in the soft chair, unsure what she wanted.

  “I wanted to talk about the other day Lieutenant.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “That was not normal for me, I’m afraid that my hormones got the best of me.”

  “No problem ma’am.”

  “Well it is a problem Lieutenant.” She said sitting on the sofa across from him. “I know what the rumor mill is saying, and I’m confident you haven’t been feeding it. That’s not your style.”

  “No ma’am.” Matt said,

  “I just wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you.”

  “Permission to speak freely ma’am?”

  “In this room that is always the case. Go ahead Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you ma’am. It seems to me that even the Captain is human. You can’t help what your body does. I don’t know how you normally deal with it, and to be honest it’s none of my business. What I can say is that you didn’t force me to do anything and I don’t feel taken advantage of. I enjoyed our discussion, and while the rumors are probably not the best thing as far as command structure, the reality is that you have taken a bit of a personal interest in my career, and I think that was just an outgrowth of that interest.”

  “That’s a pretty speech Mister Molter. Did you practice that?”

  “No ma’am. Just what came to mind.”

  “Well Lieutenant, it’s a pretty damn good speech, and you are probably correct. I have taken a distinct interest in your career. You have been singly unique in my experience. I have recommended that you be accelerated into command school. When we get back you will be reporting to command school on station two. In the meantime, how do we deal with our….situation?”

  “I don’t really see any situation ma’am.”

  “Thank you Lieutenant. Now, on to some other business. How is Ensign Light doing?”

  “Fine ma’am. She has been running the suit room with no problems.”

  “Have you considered having her handle the upcoming refuel?”

  “Actually I have ma’am. I wasn’t even going to suit for this one. I was running my own EVA’s after being on the Saint Claire only a couple days. I think she’s ready, and she has some good NCO’s to work with.”

  “Very good Lieutenant. That shows that you have taken the next step into command. I’m pleased to see that you did it on your own. It’s nice to see that my confidence in you is not misplaced.”

  “No ma’am. It’s not.”

  “Ok Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”

  Matt was back at his station and kept himself busy waiting for the Ensign from security to show up at ten hundred hours to relieve him. Once relieved Matt headed down to the armory finding Ensign Light busy at the desk.

  “Hey Light, how’s it going?”

  “Just fine sir. I have a few questions on the next EVA. Who do you want me to take with me?”

  “It’s your department, who do you want to take?”

  “I’d like the Master Chief, Jenkins, Denner and Tasha.”

  “Ok that’s a crew of five. Four workers and one backup. Sounds reasonable. Give the orders. Make sure they come from you, not me. This is your mission.”

  “Yes sir.” She said, the tone of her voice indicating that she still had an issue.

  “What’s the problem?” He asked her as he dropped into a chair across the desk from her.

  “Well sir, I’ve never done a refuel before. Are you sure you want me to do this?”

  “Ensign. This is a training ship. You�
�re here to learn. Best way to learn is to do. You have the manuals, you have the procedures, you have access to personnel that has done it before, all you need to do is your homework and you’re good to go.”

  “Yes sir.” She said, still not sounding confident.

  “What’s the matter Joan?” Matt asked.

  “To be honest sir. I’m not sure I can do this like you did.”

  “Why do you need to do it like I did, just be yourself. You do it your way, your style. You don’t have to do things a certain way because you think that’s how I would do them. Hell half the time I’m just guessing.”