Tales From the War (Kinsella Universe Book 5)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “They let the planet get vaporized?” someone from across the table said incredulously; someone wearing Engineering blues.

  The captain nodded. “That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it was that one ship doesn’t have a chance against eighty-five, and the best thing to do is tuck your tail between your legs and run away to live to fight another day. And maybe, by the by, let the rest of the human race know there was a problem.”

  He gestured at the screen, “Chief O’don’ya, run the tape of the real battle.” Master Chief O’don’ya was an older, greying woman, with a stylized ship centered in her master chief's stripes -- she was the senior enlisted person aboard, the Chief of the Ship.

  For the next eleven minutes no one moved; even when it was over, there was only a hushed quiet in the compartment.

  “I’ve heard that portions of that were played at home,” the captain told them. “In which case the politicians have done something very right: we can beat this enemy!

  “We have to be fast! We have to be tough! Losing a planet full of people is a hideous thing, but not as bad as losing the entire Federation! Turbine Jensen knew that, and I am as sure as I can be that the decision gave him as much pain as a human being can endure. Nonetheless, he made the choices he had to, however unpalatable they might have been; choices that give the rest of us a chance to fight and beat these bastards!

  “We, in turn, are going to have to make the right choices as well. Not all of our choices are going to be nice or easy. This is a war for the whole shebang; the war to end all wars -- if we lose, we’ll be dead. Every last mother’s son and daughter of our entire species. This enemy has not asked for anyone’s surrender -- they simply shoot everything that could possibly shoot back and saturation bomb what’s left afterwards.

  “Fleet has never been an easy billet. Speed and accuracy has always counted, but being correct has counted as being more important. This is war; we have attitudes to adjust.

  “Winning, ladies and gentleman! Winning is what counts now! Absolutely nothing else!

  “Battle stations has been just a drill to most of us. Sure, we did the drill well, but we never had to excel. Accurate sensor reports were more important than quick ones. A million differences; but now it’s not just Shenandoah or some ship needing rescue or succor: it’s the human race at stake here; every last one of our families, our friends, our neighbors. People we will never know and will likely never meet, depend on us to keep them alive! We are damn well going to keep that faith! What we do aboard this ship can, quite literally, determine whether or not our species joins the dodos and T. Rex in the dust bin of history.

  “As long as I can lift one finger, so long as I have one breath in my body, I will not permit Shenandoah to fail in that fashion! Never! No matter what it takes!”

  The room was deathly still. “Take the message back to your people! The HDDs provided by Hastings and Nihon will be available to any who wish to review them; I encourage all crew members to do so. I require it of my officers.

  “A few last things.” The captain’s expression went from angry to neutral. “Housekeeping details. In twenty minutes it will be 0700. At 0700 Shenandoah will adjust all clocks and watch-keeping to Zulu time; it will 2100 hours instead. Dog watch will relieve day watch; at midnight, graveyard relieves dog watch. Fleet has allowed ships to keep to local time as a convenience; that has, rarely, caused some confusion about dates and times. As of today, all Fleet ships run solely on Zulu time.

  “Finally, there are a quite a few new faces aboard; some of them in this room. Department heads are all old hands. You get your new people straightened out and settled in. At 2100 hours today, in an hour and a half, we’ll hold the mission briefing for officers. Everyone not on essential watch-keeping duties will be here. You are dismissed.”

  Rachael went to the I-branch space and spent the time working on the computer, reviewing as many details of the area of space they were entering as she could find, and roughed out a skeleton survey plan, as if she were once again on a survey vessel, about to wander uncharted space.

  The mission briefing was a curt run down of the things she’d already heard. At the end the captain leaned on the table in the conference room. “A few last minute things. Our departure was unexpected -- we did not have time to complete our regular resupply. We launched with 72% nominal O-two, 61% of our nominal water storage, and less than 55% of rations. Still, those numbers are sufficient for the projected mission, but without much room for error. We will try to get a slop boat up from our first few stops. Towards the Rim, we will be cranking about 20% of c, and won’t be able to resupply. Past the rim we’ll be going faster and meaner. Obviously we will have to prioritize resupply. Oxygen will be at the top, rations next. Water is off the bottom; I know the distaste for recycled water, but that’s what we’re going to do -- in fact it is what we are already doing. As for rations, priority will be given to what the Fleet considers to be ‘balanced’ nutrition.

  “Speaking personally,” he said, sounding serious, “this is going to leave a considerable shortfall in Shenandoah’s ice cream stocks. We are less than 5% of nominal on that, and there is no restock in sight.”

  Rachael was confused. Ice cream? Who cared?

  The captain continued. “I will, voluntarily, defer my ration until we return and report. I have ordered Stores to hold back a pint of butter pecan, so that I may celebrate on our mission's completion.

  “Henceforth ice cream will be awarded by me as reward for a job particularly well done.” He wagged his finger at the assembled group. “I don’t want any of you to forget and usurp my authority!”

  Rachael thought he’d gone off his rocker; but most of the others were laughing. It sounded more like a private joke than something you would expect if the captain was indeed off his rocker.

  “First tranche will go to the crew that does the best job on the initial survey plan once we get over the Colonial Zone Boundary.”

  Later Rachael was back in the office, with Master Chief Vargas sitting next to her, as they both went over the scans of space beyond the boundary, just identifying stars, types, and assigned rough priorities.

  “What’s the captain’s thing about ice cream?” Rachael asked when they stopped for a break.

  The other grinned. “You had to have been there, Commander.”

  “Explain please, Master Chief.”

  The other shook her head. “It was one of those things. We were a week out on our very first deployment. We were supposed to make a high speed run out to New Texas, turn around and return to Fleet World, without stopping. Two months, more or less. Test of navigation and control equipment; Shenandoah has some hot stuff!

  “Anyway, that seventh night out, one of the engineers ordered some ice cream for dessert. And the mess attendant checked the inventory and reported that there wasn’t any. The engineer just shrugged, but a couple of other people at the table overheard. Next night, one of them was sitting next to Elaine Ward, the Comms wizard we have, when she asked for some. And she got the same answer. The word got around that there was no ice cream.

  “For the next couple of days everyone asked; it was kind of a joke. Then it was like, supercooled water crystallizing. We were little more than a week into an eight week deployment. There was no ice cream. It went from a joke, to a major league craving. The psy-docs say it was a kind of hysteria; I dunno. All I know is that since that mission, none of us can do without ice cream. Depriving this crew of ice cream is going to be a real bummer. And you are going to see some major league effort as people see if they can earn some.”

  “I’ll save you mine,” Rachael said.

  Vargas looked scandalized. “No, sir! The ship’s regs say you can forgo or defer, but you can’t transfer.”

  Rachael had made two voyages on a survey ship -- a University ship, with a Fleet reserve crew, even if it wasn’t a regular Fleet Survey vessel. She’d heard a lot of stories about odd things on other flights. This was like that. She
shrugged.

  The master chief laughed. “You watch, before this mission is done, you’ll be craving it, just like the rest of us!”

  V

  Later Rachael and the master chief had a meeting with Commander Warren where they reviewed their initial findings. “These three stars,” Rachael said, highlighting stars just outside the explored area, along their flight path. “No-brainers. Everyone is going to include them. Most everyone else is working on the question, ‘Where do we go after?’” She looked at Commander Warren. “I think we should also ask, ‘Where do we start?’”

  Rachael tapped the keys and a region of stars was highlighted. “I checked. This area was part of a general survey nearly 55 years ago. It’s kind of dumb-bell shaped, with a dozen suitable planets in the closer end of the dumbbell and two on the far side. The Colonial Service approved colonies on the two best planets in the close area and there are still five or six better than the two on the other half of the dumbbell. They expect those planets will be start to be colonized in the next fifty years or so. No one has been back on the other side since, and even the suitable planets on this side haven’t been revisited. And what’s beyond the dumbbell?” She whisked the pointer across a gap in the stars beyond the three.

  “There’s a void beyond those stars, perhaps forty-five light years across with no stars. The survey team that was out here was short on time and they elected not to check the other side of the void.

  “There are,” she indicated in the previously surveyed area, “a number of systems that were judged less than appealing. On the far side of the dumbbell two have oxygen atmospheres. One is cold, but not as cold as Snow Dance. Moreover, it doesn’t have blocks of rare earths the size of Texas, like Snow Dance. The other is even warmer still -- it has a thick atmosphere. But, it is heavily cratered. After Tenebra, the Colonial Bureau won’t sign off on it,” Rachael informed them.

  “While I would be surprised to find an alien colony on this side of the dumbbell, there are two planets, relatively close together that we could check. One has a surface g of 1286 centimeters per second. Uncomfortable for us. The other is mostly ocean. They might be good prospects to check.”

  Commander Warren looked thoughtful. “So, you want to us to examine the previously surveyed systems?”

  “Yes, Commander, The real question would be how many of the systems we should sample. I think we should run a statistical analysis to decide if we should be checking all of them, or if we can get a statistically significant sample by checking some of them. Our mission is to find an enemy planet -- not all of them.”

  Commander Warren looked surprised. “You don’t think we need to survey all of the candidate systems?”

  “I’m not sure, Commander. I wasn’t in charge of my ship's schedule on either of my survey missions, so I don’t understand all of the parameters that inform mission planning. But there are those on Shenandoah who do, and I think we should consult them.”

  “And then on the other side of the void,” Rachael added, “There are a large number of F, G and K stars over there. I think a statistical analysis could tell us how many we actually need to explore, as opposed to stopping at all of them.”

  “You don’t think we need to explore all systems, Commander?” Commander Warren repeated.

  “No, sir. We should leave it up a statistical analysis, visiting a wide range of systems, but not all of them. We should be able to determine in advance how likely we are to hit an alien system, and then, if we do, we would then be able to further refine our search to find more alien-held planets.”

  “That would likely reduce mission time on the whole,” Commander Warren mused. ”Although we’d be honor bound to explore more systems, so maybe it would extend the mission time.” She turned brisk. “Work up a plan, Commander Ferris, and present it to the command group.”

  “Is that really wise?” Chief Vargas asked. “Skipping systems?”

  Commander Warren gestured at the star map. “Commander Ferris is quite correct. We must ask ourselves where to begin and then where to go from there. We need to find some of our enemies, not all of them. I hope no one thinks it will be a slam dunk -- we find one of their systems and then sail home to a hero’s welcome, the war saved!

  “They will do their best to destroy us, and like as not, will try to do it effectively.”

  VI

  Two days later Rachael and Master Chief Vargas were sitting in the mess hall, savoring bowls of chocolate chip ice cream. It was, Rachael thought, truly remarkable how something normally so unremarkable could become so important. Vargas saw the look on her face and laughed. “Don’t you worry, Commander, they tell us it’s curable. As soon as you walk through the hatch and plant your feet on the ground, the cravings go away.”

  Rachael smiled, and the other woman went on. “Thanks, by the way, from the rest of us.” Vargas waved a full spoon of icy delight. “You did more to get accepted by getting us approved as a study group for the mission plan, than spending a month at battle stations drill.”

  “It seemed like a reasonable question.”

  “Which you thought of and no one else did. And a damned good idea it was, too! No one, not a single person, not even the real team picked one of the previously surveyed planets! Zero, zip nada! Our search plan for the other side wasn’t bad either. Ten of the fourteen systems we picked are on the list; the other four are listed as optional.” Vargas chuckled. “Ops picked ten too, Navigation had twelve. Ops nearly got a rocket for their part; only their chicken-shit caveat kept them from doing extra duty.”

  “Pardon?” Half the time Rachael still didn’t understand the way these people thought.

  “That bit at the end of their report. ‘After inspecting the recommended targets, the mission should be reevaluated and additional selections made or a decision for a quick return.’” Vargas stuck out her tongue. “I’d have given them extra duty just for that. Of course everything is going to be evaluated all along the way. That’s like planning on sunrise sometime in the next 24 hours back on Earth.”

  Rachael felt a presence behind them and turned to look. It was the captain, seemingly much taller than usual. “Commander, Mary,” he said, smiling at Vargas. “Mary, are you up for a little therapeutic probability analysis later this evening?”

  “Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” Vargas said. “I’ve been saving up.”

  He laughed. “I hope you saved a lot!” He turned to Rachael. “Commander Ferris, what are your plans for this evening?”

  “Captain Lemain, I am busy learning my trade. I figure if I crack the books constantly for the next year, I just might make a passable ensign.”

  He wagged a finger at Rachael. “Your boss tells me you are studying too hard! You have to keep your mind sharp, but too much honing will spoil any blade. You’ve got good study habits, Commander and good duty habits -- you need, however, to work on relaxing. So, an order from your captain: at 2100 hours report to Bridge, Captain’s Ready Room. Bring some money. Coins, preferably; we play nickel-dime-quarter poker.” He smiled slightly. “You will play until at least 2400 hours or until you’ve cleaned us out. You will imbibe adult beverages and make bad puns along with the rest of us. Afterwards, you will return to your quarters and sleep until 0800 tomorrow.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  His eyes flashed with humor. “See, you’re a passable ensign already.” He turned and left.

  “The captain’s my uncle,” Vargas said, followed by a sigh. “He says he doesn’t want to show favorites; so he makes my life hell. He can't even say my name right.”

  “Pardon?” Rachael asked, surprised.

  “I was born Mary Vargas. My mother's name is Mary, my grandmother's name is Mary; I have an aunt on my father's side named Mary.” She waved in the direction the captain had vanished. “Take a guess what his wife's name is?”

  “Mary,” Rachael said, laughing.

  “Exactly right! By the time I reached Third Form, I had two nieces named Mary as well. So, I prefer
just plain 'Vargas.'” She grimaced. “He says he doesn't intend to pay any attention to me. If I don't like Mary as a name, that's my choice, but it's silly, because everyone else on my father's side of the family is named Vargas.”

  Rachael shook her head. “Master Chief, he seems to have a point.”

  “I left out one significant fact commander: I like the name Vargas and loathe the name Mary. Just plain Vargas won hands down.”

  Chief Vargas glanced around the open mess. No one was seated close. “Commander, you're our department XO, and as such, you're supposed to deal with a lot of the administrative details.”

  “That's my understanding,” Rachael agreed.

  “Up until now I've been reluctant to apply for a transfer. Commander Warren specifically asked for me; I don't know why. While I have the requisite background, I was in sensors before and I want to be in sensors again. I don't have a problem with Commander Warren, but this isn't what I want to do.”

  The master chief shrugged. “I don't want to put either my uncle or Commander Warren in a place where they could be at odds.”

  “And you'd rather have me as a lightning rod?” Rachael told her.

  “I'd rather have you advocating my case, Commander. I can deal with the lightning myself, if it comes to that. I just want it to come from a neutral party.”

  “A neutral party advocating for you...” Rachael reminded her.

  “A neutral party between the captain and Commander Warren, sir. That's all.”

  “Give me until tomorrow to think about it, Chief Vargas.”

  “No problem, Commander. I've been thinking about this for two months -- I can afford to be patient.”

  Rachael excused herself to freshen up before poker... and to think about the master chief's request. She rather liked Chief Vargas, while Commander Warren had come across as cold and lacking courtesy and respect. She'd been gracious enough, at least so it had seemed, when Rachael had complained about the other's disparagement of her. Still, she had noted an undercurrent, as if the commander hadn't been entirely convinced.