The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1)

by Martin Bourne

  Prince stared. “Sir, promotion to field rank requires authorisation from the Admiralty.”

  “No, but I can make out a field promotion, if I judge it tactically advisable. If the Courage Admiralty chooses not to confirm that appointment after this campaign is ended, that will be just too bad for Captain…Commodore Charest.”

  Prince grinned. “Aye, aye sir.”

  Cromarty smiled. “I was sure Commodore Charest would be more malleable to your suggestions sir.”

  Courage felt vaguely ill.

  “Any other objections raised,” he said heavily, “ones with any substance?”

  “One or two other Captains have submitted reports sir,” said Cromarty, diffidently. “Commander Prince and I were about to sort through them today.”

  “Reports?”

  “I’ve skimmed through them already sir. There is nothing that warrants your immediate attention.” Cromarty’s tone was extraordinarily light.

  Courage frowned, pursed his lips, and then stifled a sudden violent yawn. Clearly he had not paid all of the sleep debt off yet.

  “When we have sifted through them all I can present a précis of their contents at the beginning of blue watch,” Cromarty continued.

  Courage considered. “Very well. Carry on.”

  The two aides saluted, forcing him to do the same. He looked at them for a few seconds, and then turned and left. He was fortunate to have aides that had all these personnel complications covered. The only problem was that he suspected they were equally adept at handling him.

  Chapter 22.

  Light Depot Ship Belofte, Persephone orbit.

  The hydroponics bay was first, foremost and irrevocably a place of plants. On every side carefully modulated squirts of water and nitrates fed miniature blooms and tubers. Fast growing plant life busily ingested carbon dioxide and pumped out oxygen. In secret places under soil it greedily stored complex food chemicals. The sudden appearance of a small village of survival tents and their Human occupants detracted very little from either the function or the essential nature of the hydroponics bay.

  But all Humans have a nest-building instinct. It didn’t matter if what they called home was a mansion, a cave, or a sectioned off piece of artificial farm. Little touches, here and there, soon began to give the place a settled look. A sign above proclaimed that this was a ‘Delaney Academy adjunct’. Ben had put some vidscroll around his portable habitat with the slogan ‘Do not disturb, genius at work’. Lilybeth and Packer had carefully constructed a small waterfall out of emergency ration tins and erected it as a centrepiece. The place now had a familiarity. It was humble, it was crude and it reeked of decomposing nitrates - but it was now home.

  The computers in the Hydroponics bay were dedicated to nurturing plant growth. When Josie arrived computer techs were just finishing up the installation of an additional communal vidscreen.

  “Well, at least we now have some kind of link to outside of the ship,” said Packer, patting the top of the new unit.

  “Are you sure?” said Lilybeth, peering at the worn surface. “This looks older than the Confederation.”

  “287 D.E. according to this tag here,” motioned Marilyn. She wrinkled her face. “Makes no difference how old it is if it works.” She flipped a switch. “And it does. Lessee…yeah shipboard announcements, fire drills, duty rosters…yeah all here.”

  Packer leaned over. “Hey Jose - someone with a sense of humour has assigned you to a squadron.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, look here, on today’s duty rosters. ‘Ensign Josephine Tallion, to report to flight bay 15, CM-1121 squadron, at 0200 red shift.”

  Josie nearly stumbled in her rush to look at the vidscreen. There it was in black and white, or as it was displayed on a Belofte surplus special, murky brown and off pink. It was true. She had been given a billet.

  “What? How? Which position?” she burbled.

  Packer pointed the entry out. “Number three seat on number five drone,” he read out. “You’re to report to a Lieutenant-Commander Ruwewang.”

  Both Marilyn and Lilybeth sat bolt upright simultaneously. “Ruwewang?” said Marilyn. “Not THE Lieutenant-Commander Ruwewang?”

  Packer checked the vidscreen again. “That’s what it says.”

  Constance sauntered over. “You’re with Ruwewang?” she said, an amused smile twisting her lips.

  “THE Ruwewang,” repeated Marilyn, her eyes wide, “I didn’t know she was on Belofte.”

  “Wow,” breathed Lilybeth.

  Not for the first time Josie felt lost.

  “Ruwewang…Ruwewang…” mused Packer, “the name does seem familiar.”

  “It should do! The woman is famous,” replied Marilyn.

  “Infamous more like,” asserted Lilybeth.

  “Oh yes,” said Packer, clicking his fingers. “I remember hearing about her!”

  Josie gave up. “I haven’t. What’s the matter with her?”

  “Oh, Tallion you’re hopeless!” said Constance, her voice dripping with scorn. “Don’t you even attempt to keep up with scuttlebutt?”

  Marilyn leaned closer. "Josie, Ruwewang has the most awful reputation. She’s mad! Absolutely stark, staring, stirring, space-crazy!”

  “Yes, isn’t she the one that calibrated the power feeds on her laser cannon so that it played the national anthem every time it charged?” asked Packer.

  “That’s right!” said Marilyn. “She’s done lots of weird things. It’s a wonder they haven’t pensioned her off by now.”

  Attracted by the commotion, Ben slouched over. “What’s going on?”

  “Josie here has been assigned to third seat on an Epee drone with 1121 squadron,” explained Packer.

  Ben gripped her by the shoulder. “Hey Jose, that’s great!”

  “Yeah but the first seat on the drone is Lieutenant-Commander Ruwewang,” continued Marilyn.

  Ben pulled his hand away as if Josie had suddenly developed an extreme electric charge. “Ruwewang? Not ‘mad matriarch’ Ruwewang?”

  “Ok, what terrible story do you know?” asked Josie resignedly.

  Ben looked perplexed, but recovered quickly. “I heard that when she was on Resolute they found her prowling around the flight decks with a loaded pistol. She was convinced there were saboteurs onboard. Apparently she roused the whole crew and wouldn’t let anyone go to sleep until every drone bay had been searched.”

  “Are you sure this is the same person?” asked Josie hoping against hope.

  “It’s not a common name now is it?” replied Constance, her voice dripping with derision.

  “Ruwewang,” said Lilybeth, still awestruck, “I heard she munches on circuit boards during flights.”

  Packer gave an exasperated snort. "Oh come on! That is too much! No-one eats circuit boards!”

  "She does so!” interjected Ben. “I know someone whose aunt was her roomie back when she was a cadet, and she said…” The argument spiralled on in the background. Josie took no notice. All that she knew and cared about was that she had been given a billet. A real billet! That meant advancement, change and career progression. She was off and running!

  And practically it meant flight pay.

  She had to get out and think about this. She mumbled an excuse, an empty one as everyone was now too busy swapping anecdotes to pay her any attention. They had moved on from Ruwewang to detailing the attributes of other famous eccentrics in the Confederation navy. Josie slipped quietly away and made for the tech sheds.

  Unfortunately there was yet another a major move going on. Technicians and link warriors were scurrying around moving hunks of drone from one place to another. There were far too many people and far too much noise! She needed to be some place where she could think in peace!

  “Are you alright Ensign?”

  She looked up and felt the colour rise in her cheeks. It was Donal Courage.

  “Err, Yessir. I was just looking for somewhere less…well…”

  “Crowded?�
��

  “Yes sir.”

  He smiled. ”I understand. You need to be on your own to think about your new assignment. Follow me.”

  He invited with his hand. Surprised, she followed. They walked along twisting corridors and up small elevators. The flow of people thinned out steadily. Eventually they climbed onto a gantry. The level indicator was the highest Josie had ever seen. Half way along Donal reached up and released a catch in the ceiling. A hatch opened and an old fashioned ladder dropped down.

  “Up you go. Be careful at the top.”

  Josie took two rungs up, and then looked back uncertainly.

  “It’s quite safe.”

  “Is there a light?”

  “On the left at the top, but you won’t need it just now.”

  Mystified, she continued up. She felt Donal clambering up behind her. Should she be doing this? It was an adventure, but felt a little…well…compromising. She climbed on, her exhilaration heightened by the smoky undertone of danger.

  Her doubts dissolved when she emerged into a compact and well-lit room. It was quite sparsely furnished – just a chair, a vidscreen, an access point, and some strange artwork on the walls. The most salient feature though was an overarching ceiling of transparent plastisteel, through which the inky black of space was vastly arrayed. Her hand fell away from the light switch. It would have been sacrilegious to suffuse the bright stars and the dulled reflective glamour of Persephone with artificial light. Jupiter’s satellite hung low down, pitted and brooding and majestically natural. Even though they were in close orbit they were still way too far away to see any mark Humanity had made.

  “Impressive?” asked Donal, now stood by her side.

  "Very....it's amazing." She rotated, eyes still raised to the heavens. "What is this place?”

  “It’s the upper observation dome. A lot of early spaceships were built with them. It was thought the illusion of an open night sky would be more comforting to Human senses. Obviously an old Earth thing – everyone off Earth spends their whole lives enclosed in artificial boxes and most of them prefer it that way.” His voice turned reflective.” “It’s odd that people who live in space don't like looking at space. Nobody but me has been in here for some time. I guess not many people even know it exists."

  Josie ran her finger across a wall. “It’s been cleaned recently.”

  Donal cocked his head to one side and grinned. “That would be me.”

  Josie liked that little head tilt.

  “I like to come up here sometimes – like you just to get away from it all. I did think of making it my office, but well…that would mean a troupe of people calling round every five minutes.”

  “Which would spoil it.”

  “Yes,” He stared into space for an instant. “Anyway, I’ll leave you here to think. There’s a secure computer link over there if you need it. Take as long as you like.” He started back down the ladder.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s alright. Everyone needs time on their own occasionally.”

  “No, I mean thank you for allowing me into your special quiet place. That’s quite a privilege.”

  He paused and looked uncomfortable. “Don’t mention it.” And he was gone.

  How curious. He really was…well, no time to think on that now.

  Then a thought struck her. How had he known she had an assignment? Oh, but of course. He was in charge of flight ops. He must have seen it on the schedules.

  Still, there were a lot of drones and warriors. He must have just noticed by chance. Or maybe he had looked out for her specially. That was interesting. Maybe…

  No time for that now! She had to check up on the unit she had been assigned to. She had already carried out a fairly thorough analysis of each squadron that had passed through Belofte’s current deployment, just as a matter of course. She probably knew as much about CM-1121 squadron as anyone. But of course that was before. She was a part of the unit now, and if she wanted to stay there she needed to go over every detail again - particularly the enigmatic Lieutenant-Commander Ruwewang. She’d only skimmed the personnel records before – it had seemed too intrusive to go too deeply into them.

  She tied her perscomp into the ship’s main computer and requested information on attached drone squadrons. From there she brought up CM-1121 squadron and pored over the details, trying to intuit every nuance.

  The squadron was a long service regular naval unit, not one of the hordes of reserve and militia units called up for the emergency. That didn’t necessarily mean that it was more competent. The Virtue Confederation had officially been in a state of emergency for ninety of the past hundred years. Reserve squadrons were always being called up. It was not uncommon for them to see more active service than the so-called regular units.

  Reading between the lines, CM-1121 had a solid if unremarkable combat record. They had been deployed into the Rim area nearly five years ago and had served on two ground stations and four different Depot Ships in that time, the latest being Amethyst, which had been their home for the last nine months. They had been chronically understrength for most of that time, but not because of battle casualties. Their problem had been getting spare machines and personnel.

  They were equipped with the ‘Epee’ class light attack drone, a type pretty much everyone conceded was rapidly becoming obsolete. It was an all-offence drone, little more than a few scanners and drive units tacked onto a giant laser, with very rudimentary countermeasures. The crewing arrangements reflected the relative importance of the attributes. Seat one was the gunner and invariably the commander. Seat two assisted in keeping the main weapon working at peak efficiency and receiving and processing targeting information. The remaining nominal functions all devolved to seat three, her assigned station. She would have to handle scanning, propulsion, electronic warfare and systems engineering all at the same time.

  Perhaps that was why she had been assigned. The argument with Constance and Lilybeth back at Delaney came to mind. She hated to admit it, but Constance was right about specialisation. The ability to multitask had been essential a generation ago, when drones were smaller and less powerful, and one or two people could easily handle them. In newer designs every system was more sophisticated - scanners, guns, propulsion and especially countermeasures. Handling more than one was too much for a single warrior. What the new designs needed was more link warriors, all dedicated to one system. New recruits obviously wanted to be in squadrons with the best equipment, and that meant specialisation. Generalists like her were becoming rare.

  Theoretically she would have a lot to do, but in practice she would be mostly driving the drone. Epee’s rarely spotted their own targets. They relied on targeting information being transmitted to them from scout drones. One third of the squadron’s Epee’s were Epee-R’s, ‘R’ for ‘reconnaissance’. Their huge laser had been replaced with a small self-defence weapon, the extra space freed up being devoted to a proper sensor suite controlled from seat two. As for electronic warfare, Epee’s were usually deployed well back, well out of the way of the enemy, so hopefully she shouldn't need to use it much. Systems engineering would be even less called upon. The drones would be kept in premium condition by the techies on board. The only time systems engineering would be used would be to repair or redirect systems in the event of damage. That was unlikely. The increasing firepower of drones meant that even a single hit from most Trig weapons could easily take out a flimsy light drone like an Epee. There was a good reason so few link warriors sported a circuit board symbol on their arms these days.

  Next she turned to the squadron’s personnel. Full details of personal files were, naturally, locked from casual scrutiny. Even with her newly assigned permissions as a member of the squadron, all she could glean was a basic roster and a description of crew positions and ratings. It seemed to be a fair mix overall, but there were a staggering number of warriors with only a few low-grade bronze ratings.

  Like her.

  CM-1121 had just been
assigned a new commander, a relatively young one on his first command from the Depot ship Tycho. The old commander's contract had run out and had not been renewed. That likely meant he hadn’t been very good, or had made some monumental mistake. Not renewing contracts was the usual way of getting rid of officers who hadn’t performed. Convenient too. It cut out the need for expensive, time consuming and politically dangerous court-martials. It even spared the blushes of the people disposed of. After all, they hadn’t actually been dismissed. There could be many reasons why they had not been re-employed. Plenty of ways they could comfort themselves.

  With some trepidation she looked up Lieutenant-Commander Ruwewang, only to find that her entire service record had been placed off-limits. All the files did was to confirm the woman’s rank, her identity as a gunner and drone commander, and reveal she was also a recent addition to the squadron, transferred over from a squadron on Sapphire. Given the horror stories she had been regaled with the paucity of detail was worrying. Most warriors positively wanted their past exploits and commendations to be known. There wasn't even a picture of her on these records.

  Just what was she in for?

  *******************************

  Ruwewang turned out to be a tall, rangy woman with a severe Belter haircut and an even more severe expression. The man next to her was small and podgy with a fixed implant of a smile. Ruwewang looked Josie up and down, her gaze like concentrated x-rays.

  “So, you're the new pilot, eh? Another rookie wet behind the ears.”

  Josie saluted. “Ensign Tallion, reporting for duty.”

  “Our previous pilot bailed on us. Silly little chit of a girl couldn’t take the pressure. Think you can?”

  “Err – I hope so Ma’am.”

  “You’ll have to handle the other systems too. I know nothing about countermeasures and I don’t care much about sensors. You make sure I don’t have to deal with either, and take the drone where I want, and that’s all I’ll need from you.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to break you in. Make sure you can do the job. Be at drone bay 15 at gold 2, promptly. I’ve arranged a little jaunt.”