Knight's Move

by Nuttall, Christopher

  The Captain didn't seem nervous around the Marines, she noted, as he spoke quickly to Jess and her subordinates. That wasn't uncommon, but he didn't seem to be blinded by his own arrogance either. Indeed, there was something almost wistful in his gaze, something that confirmed her own thoughts. Knight was hardly an uncommon surname, yet combined with his ridiculously fast promotion it was clear that the Captain had links to the Knight Corporation. She felt another flash of resentment which she pushed aside, ruthlessly. It wasn't as though she didn't have family connections back home.

  In the end, they returned to the Captain’s office, which was attached to the bridge. “I’ve been using it for paperwork,” she confessed, when he noticed the datapads on the desk. “And handling a few other matters.”

  The Captain nodded. “I need to ask you something,” he said, as he sat down on the sofa and motioned for her to sit facing him. “How long will it be before we can leave safely?”

  Sandy considered it, recalling everything she’d had done since she’d come onboard. “Maybe a week, assuming we don’t run into any major problems,” she said. “The yard crews are the real problem right now. We haven't been able to push them into working overtime and bringing in additional crew, it seems, is forbidden. If we do run into any major problems ...”

  “... We might have to put the departure date back a few days,” the Captain said. He scowled, gracelessly. “The Admiral will not be happy. Nor will the Governor.”

  “The Governor?” Sandy asked. “Who ...?”

  “We are to provide transport for her to the Fairfax Cluster,” the Captain said. Her implants reported that he was sending her a file. She accepted it and started to skim through the headings, looking for the important points. Their mission orders hadn't been transmitted to the ship either. “And then we are to start patrolling the sector.”

  Sandy winced. One look at the file was enough to convince her that whoever had assigned Governor Wu to the Fairfax Cluster knew next to nothing about the local environment. The person who had bungled the refugee crisis was unlikely to endear herself to the local government, which – after all – had saved itself when the colonies had been abandoned by the Federation. Cold logic indicated that the Federation had had little choice, but cold logic meant little to the men and women who had put up a desperate and nearly futile defence.

  “But she won’t make herself popular,” she said, before she could stop herself. A certain degree of frankness had been encouraged in the Colonial Militia, but the Federation was a great deal more uptight about such things. “This person will offend everyone.”

  The Captain smiled, rather dryly. “I’d tend to agree,” he said. “But she has been given the job.”

  Sandy made a mental note to send a warning message to her relatives in the Fairfax Cluster. If they presented Governor Wu with a united front, perhaps she wouldn't try to break the unity of the Bottleneck Republic. But, looking at Wu’s record, somehow Sandy doubted that the whole matter could be resolved so quickly. The people of the Bottleneck Republic might only have agreed on one thing – they had to remain united against outside threats – but they clung to it with a death-grip intensity. If the Dragons were no longer a threat, they might well turn against the Federation.

  “We will ensure that she has a relatively pleasant voyage,” the Captain added. “Are our living quarters ready for occupation?”

  “More or less, sir,” Sandy said. “The crew will have taken your bags there by now. Do you wish an Ensign to be attached to you?”

  The Captain shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said. “I can handle my own dressing, I think.”

  They shared a smile, mixed – in Sandy’s case – with a certain amount of relief. She didn't like the tradition of officers using ensigns as personal servants, certainly not on small ships – and Dauntless was quite small compared to a fleet carrier or superdreadnaught. And there were officers who took advantage of their subordinates, despite naval regulations that actively banned the practice. It wouldn't have happened in the Colonial Militia ...

  Of course not, she thought, ruefully. We encourage our officers to look after themselves.

  “I will formally assume command this evening, if that will allow the officers to attend,” the Captain said. “Until then, I will go through the ship’s service logs and see what I can do to get additional yard crew out here. If the Admiralty is keen for us to depart rapidly ...”

  He shrugged. “If not, we can delay our departure by a week or two. It probably won’t make much difference.”

  Sandy couldn't disagree. Given the existence of hyperspace storms, no one – not even a politician – would expect a starship to leave or arrive precisely on schedule. Smart officers always wrote a certain amount of slippage into their movement orders, just to ensure that they had room to manoeuvre if necessary. If the Admiralty had wanted the mission to begin at once, they would have assigned another ship.

  “Understood, sir,” she said. “When will the Governor be coming onboard?”

  The Captain grimaced. “Maybe the day before we depart,” he said. He didn't sound very enthusiastic about meeting Governor Wu. “She will not wish to be confined any longer than strictly necessary. It’s probably for the best.”

  “Probably,” Sandy agreed. She’d served on ships that had carried high-ranking officers and civilians, including reporters. The experience had rarely been pleasant, despite the good food and drink her CO had brought onboard. Most of them had either looked down their noses at the naval crew or demanded far better treatment than the ship could provide. “How much do you know about the Fairfax Cluster?”

  “Not enough,” the Captain said. He looked down at the deck, crossly. There were just too many reports for him to read. “Can we go over it once we know when we will be leaving?”

  Sandy nodded. “It will be my pleasure, sir,” she said.

  “Carry on,” the Captain said. He nodded at her as she stood. “We’ll catch up on everyone else later.”

  Chapter Four

  Glen sucked in his breath as he stepped onto Dauntless’s bridge for the first time. It was hardly the first bridge he’d visited, let alone served on, but it was his. A single large chair sat in the centre of the compartment, surrounded by a holographic display that showed Dauntless and the shipyard’s orbital platforms. Beyond the chair, there were seven consoles, controlling everything from the helm to tactical and engineering. The entire starship could be operated from the bridge.

  Unless something goes wrong, he thought, ruefully. In theory, a crew as small as ten men could operate the starship with the help of the automated systems, but they could be unable to maintain or repair the starship if necessary. Ark Royal had had an oversized crew purely to handle emergencies, something that was currently annoying the bureaucrats, particularly the ones who had no operational experience of their own. Surely the ship didn’t need ten thousand crewmen ...

  The chair swung around, revealing Sandy. Glen smiled at her, although he was pretty sure he detected a flicker of resentment in her expression. He’d taken the opportunity to read her file, only to realise just how many reasons she had to resent him. She had more years in the military – first the Colonial Militia and then the Federation Navy – than he’d had years of life. In a just world, she would have a command of her own by now, just like the other officers he’d overtaken thanks to his brothers. Glen couldn't help feeling excited at taking command, but he also knew that the way he’d taken it would store up trouble for the future. The fact that none of it was his fault would be lost on his detractors.

  “Captain,” she said. “With your permission ...?”

  Glen nodded. Sandy tapped a switch on the side of the command chair, summoning the senior officers to the bridge. Glen waited until they had all arrived and lined up in front of the command chair, then took a step forward, pulling a sheet of paper from his uniform pocket as he moved. The traditional method of assuming command could not be sidestepped unless they were under heavy
enemy fire. And even then avoiding it would be regarded as bad luck.

  He smoothed out the piece of paper and started to read out loud. “From Luna HQ to Captain Glen Knight,” he said. “You are ordered to take command of TFS Dauntless and uphold the duties and responsibilities of a Captain in the Federation Navy. Fail in this charge at your peril. By order of Admiral Rupert Patterson, Chief of Naval Operations.”

  There was a long pause. Glen silently folded the paper, remembering the first time he’d heard an officer use those exact phases. He’d taken command, taken the powers and obligations of a commanding officer on himself. Then, the young Glen had wondered if the new commander really knew what he was doing. Now, he knew, his own crew would be having the same thoughts about him. The CO was responsible for his ship and crew. Whatever happened, the buck stopped with him.

  He stepped over to the command chair, where Sandy was waiting. “I relieve you,” he said.

  “I stand relieved,” Sandy said. She stood, allowing him to claim the command chair. By tradition, only the senior officer attached to the ship could sit in the chair. Normally, it was the Captain. “Welcome onboard, Captain.”

  Glen turned to face the other officers. As if a spell had been broken, they clustered round him, offering congratulations and pledging support. They all looked tired, Glen noted with a flicker of guilt; they’d been pulling additional shifts just to get Dauntless ready for space. Once they were underway, he promised himself, he would ensure that they all managed to catch up on their sleep, even though there was always something to do on a starship.

  “Thank you,” he said, once the congratulations had died away. He’d skimmed their files, but he would need to go over them more carefully later. Most of them had combat experience; a handful were newcomers, barely out of Luna Academy. The cynic in him knew that they would probably get the experience soon enough. “We have been assigned a complex mission.”

  He paused, knowing that he had their attention, then continued. “We are going to fly into a maelstrom of political chaos caused by the aftermath of the war. It will require tact and diplomacy to ensure that the ideals and ethos of the Federation are upheld, without accidentally reigniting the war or starting another one. I expect each and every one of you to do your duty and remember why we’re out here.

  “Dismissed!”

  The senior officers saluted, then headed for the hatch. Glen watched them go, then stepped over to the command chair and sat down. It was probably an illusion, but he thought he could feel the weight of his new responsibilities settling down on his shoulders as he sat. He keyed a switch, bringing up the image of Dauntless, and studied it thoroughly. His new command was a four hundred metre long dagger, floating in interplanetary space. Her white hull was covered in weapons and sensor blisters, ready to track and engage the enemy. The years of hard fighting had taught the TFN how to build warships and Dauntless’s designers had taken full advantage of their experience. The next generation of warships would be even tougher.

  He scowled, remembering some of the debates about the post-war mission of the Federation Navy. Protecting humanity was important, of course, but so was exploration; the politicians, always keen to discover more human-compatible worlds, were already talking about funding new survey missions beyond the former Draconic Empire. And then there was disaster relief, colony support and a hundred other tasks that could only be accomplished by the navy, a navy whose senior officers had grown to adulthood in the fires of a full-scale war. Tact and diplomacy? It hadn't been part of the navy ethos since the Dragons had started mass slaughter of human populations.

  With the ship at rest, the bridge was almost deserted. Glen couldn’t help feeling a shiver running down his spine as he contemplated the empty consoles. On active service, leaving the bridge unmanned was a court-martial offence; here, it was merely a reflection of just how much there was to do to get Dauntless space-worthy. He activated his implants and linked into the local processors, then examined the starship’s current status. Sandy had, if anything, underestimated the time it would take to get the ship ready to depart. The yard dogs had not done a very good job.

  “Dauntless is not expendable,” he muttered to himself, in annoyance. “And we need those problems fixed.”

  It was a recurring problem, which was partly why the decommissioned ships in Luna orbit were being cannibalised for spare parts. The shipyards had known that most of the starships they produced at the height of the war wouldn't survive for longer than a few months, so they hadn't bothered to build a long lifespan into their products. It had been a desperation measure, a solution that had produced hundreds of problems in its own right, but it was no longer necessary. Seeing the habit continue in peacetime was worrying. It put lives at risk as well as the Navy’s budget.

  He downloaded the yard manager’s contact details, then skimmed through his file. There were connections to Knight Corporation, he saw; not enough to be decisive, but enough to ensure that the manager would listen when he spoke. The connections that had placed him in a compromised position might as well come in handy, he told himself as he stood and headed towards his office. If he could bully the yard manager into sending additional crewmen to Dauntless, they could be ready to depart on schedule. And it would take some of the pressure off his crew.

  The Captain’s office was bare; there had been no time to unpack his bags and set up the traditional ‘I Love Me’ wall. It was generally considered a bad sign not to have a display of one’s own medals; it implied that one had no medals. But Glen knew that it was very much a low priority at the moment. He could pin his awards to the wall later, once he had some spare time. And the crew knew him a little better.

  He sat down behind the desk and activated the terminal. One advantage of being a Captain, he’d already discovered, was that he had priority codes to call almost anyone, at least in the Navy. It didn't matter if the manager had his terminal switched on or off; the local datanet would still page him, insisting that he take the call. Glen smiled as the man’s face appeared on the screen. Clearly, he’d been in his office or somewhere else he could answer immediately.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, briskly. “My ship requires additional workmen ...”

  In the end, he was almost disappointed by how easy it was. A mention of the Knight connection, a hint that there might be more work in the future – or less work, if they displeased him – and the manager started to make arrangements to ship more of his workmen over to Dauntless. Glen rolled his eyes as the connection broke, wondering just who in the Navy had decided to outsource starship repair and maintenance to civilian crews. The Navy wasn't that strapped for cash.

  Shaking his head, he called up a series of personnel files and started to read through them. Lieutenant Commander Nathan Cooke, tactical officer, had a long string of commendations, matched by an equally long string of demerits and reprimands for speaking out of turn. He was a superb tactical officer, everyone agreed, but it was unlikely that he would ever see promotion again. Indeed, it was questionable why he’d even chosen to remain in the service. A mercenary group would hire him the moment he resigned, if he approached the right people. Maybe he was just loyal, Glen decided. God knew Glen never wanted to leave the service.

  Lieutenant Helena Li, helmswoman, had shown a talent for both flying through normal space and navigating hyperspace at a very young age, hence her streamlining into advanced navigational courses at Luna Academy. Once she'd graduated, she’d helped chart the hyper-routes leading into the Draconic Empire, laying the groundwork for the eventual invasion of their home system and the Battle of Sphere Prime. Her assignment to Dauntless made sense; the far reaches of the Fairfax Cluster had never been properly charted and the hyperspace monitoring service had no stations there. She might make the difference between life and death if Dauntless was caught up in a storm.

  Lieutenant Commander Douglas Stocker, Chief Engineer, was ...

  His thoughts were interrupted by a chime from his terminal. “Captain, t
he Intelligence Officer assigned to Dauntless has just come onboard,” Sandy’s voice said. “She requests to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”

  Glen scowled. Intelligence Officers, in his experience, were pains in the ass. Maybe there was a decent one out there, but the ones he’d met kept claiming to know everything even when it was clear that their intelligence had been badly faulty. Inserting spies into Dragon-held territory had been tricky, to say the least. The handful of Dragons they’d managed to turn into spies hadn't been able to report much back before they’d been detected by their fellows. God alone knew what had happened to them then, but Glen could guess.

  “Please escort her to my office,” Glen said, even though he wanted to postpone the meeting as long as he could. “I’ll speak to her now.”