“It wouldn’t have been Ensign Rosen’s fault.”
“Ask anyone and you will hear that I harbor not the least iota of human compassion in my bosom. And it’s a very small bosom. That observation is probably true, Lieutenant, but that doesn’t mean some compassion doesn’t hide out in the grey sludge between my ears. It is indeed not the ensign’s fault and it was a decent thing of you to say so. I’ll be getting a purple rocket for having someone like that in my department -- and the XO is going to get a huge purple rocket, even if the number is one for the rest of the crew.
“We routinely run orientation flights, and those flights are routinely less comfortable than most fan transitions -- no cycle time, and about two minutes apart. Then we wait an hour, turn around and do it again. Obviously, the review of crew records hasn’t been adequate. Now, get some sleep. I expect you are not familiar with it, but we’ve been dealing with bad transition reactions to High Fan for centuries. We have medicines that can treat such reactions of ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of people.”
“And the one in ten thousand who can’t be treated?”
“Cindy Rhodes and another transition-immune pilot had to cobble together a new computer aboard their ship -- a cruiser-class vessel. The only navigation-capable computer they had working was a shuttle’s computer that could only travel on High Fan for a few minutes at a time -- we don’t want shuttle pilots gallivanting all over the sky. It took a while to fix the programming, Lieutenant. The ship made fourteen paired transitions to High Fan in a half hour. Twenty percent of the crew were killed, just from transition shock. What I’m trying to say, gently, is someone like that is beached. There are worse things in life than turning Portie -- like death. Get some sleep. You have more questions for me?”
“None that won’t wait.” He was barely able to stay awake.
When he awoke, it was like he’d just skipped back in time. Ensign Rosen was at her desk.
Steve sat up, “How are you, Emily?”
“Fine. I have a bunch of meds to carry with me, to take before we have our next fan transition. I’m supposed to warn you to monitor me for that.”
“I will, Emily.”
She sighed. “I guess I have no choice, about the Steve and Emily thing.
“You don’t really know me,” she concluded, sounding sad.
“I will get to know you if we’re to work together. Now, I need to shower and shave, and get ready to report to Commander Booth.”
“Everyone left in the rump department will be reporting to her shortly. Our two suitemates didn’t make the ‘essential’ cut.”
Steve felt like a new person after his shower. Ensign Rosen showed him the mess afterwards. She pointed out a series of tables in the back. “Those are for junior officers, ensigns and junior lieutenants. Everyone else gets to sit where they want... which is a joke, as the next couple of table rows are for first lieutenants, steadily moving to higher ranks, the closer to the front of the compartment you go. If you haven’t heard it, you will: the difference between a junior and senior lieutenant is that a junior is told where to sit and a senior knows his place. An ensign doesn’t have a clue.”
She paused. “I looked at your public records. One day a secondary student without a diploma, the next enlisted in the Fleet, slated for an officer cadet ‘quickie’ class. People like me hate the likes of you. I spent three years at Fleet Academy learning what you’d have learned in ninety days. What you purportedly would have learned.”
“They told me I’d learn to be a fighter pilot, that’s all I cared about.”
“I’m not knocking your choice. And if I know anything about the Fleet, you’ve never really been asked for your opinion. Back in the days of the ‘Great Age of Sail’ back on Earth, they had trouble crewing the ships. So they sent out parties of the crew to ‘impress’ new crewmembers. In spite of the modern meaning of the word, back then it meant an instant involuntary enlistment. And they took all healthy males between fourteen and forty... and likely looking lads and codgers younger or older.
“Our recruitment for Thebes was like a more polite version of what they used to call a ‘press gang.’ We’re desperately short of pilots, as a great many of them get killed right off. They are trained in a few basic skills, trained rather better as pilots, and then used up. That means they’re killed.”
Steve nodded. This wasn’t a surprise.
“You don’t even need a basic flight certificate to get into fighter transition -- the first task in transition is that those with flight certificates train up those without. If you graduate from fighter transition, you’re given a certificate showing that. If you survive your first deployment there’s an ‘advanced fighter pilot’ certificate. Then, you’re given a choice: stay with a fighter squadron, or not. A few of the best are sent back to transition as senior instructors. Another choice is a short course at the Academy: they graduate you in two years and you’re a line officer.
“Do you understand what I mean by ‘line officer?’”
“Not entirely.”
“You wear a white shipsuit... like we both are wearing now. Your task is to supervise crewmembers, enlisted, and if you’re promoted, officers. Like you are now. The main difference between pilots and everyone else in the Fleet, officer or enlisted, is certificates. You are qualified, according to common practice, Lieutenant, to be a fighter pilot. You are not qualified to be a line officer. One hurdle that ensigns have to pass to make lieutenant is pass at least one of the watchstanding certificate exams. You have to have two such exams to make senior, and all of them to make lieutenant commander.”
“And I have none,” Steve said, acknowledging the obvious.
“Not very long ago a very remarkable thing happened at Grissom. It was commanded by Port Rear Admiral Litvinik, who’d lost a leg as a Fleet officer. He had a perfectly functional prosthetic, but he also kept a wooden pegleg. One of his last official acts before he was killed in the AI revolt was to court-martial a Port officer. The sentence was unique. That officer ‘walked the plank.’ They put a slab of wood out an airlock door, strapped a maneuver pack to the officer’s shoulders and he was ‘returned to Earth.’ Buck naked... spaced.
“The interesting thing was his crime. He thought he knew more about an officer’s qualifications to stand Aloft watches than Ernie Fletcher or Ito Saito. A Port captain, with no watchstanding certificates. He’d have done better shooting himself in the head.
“The officer in question was Cindy Rhodes, who, that Portie averred, wasn’t qualified to stand watch. Worse for him, when he had first tried to say she wasn’t qualified to stand watch, she really wasn’t qualified. If you haven’t heard about her, you should read up on her. You might also read up on the other ‘special project’ officers. You stand out.”
“Me? Is that why everyone is looking at me?”
“Do you realize that you made junior lieutenant faster that Willow Wolf? Even Cindy Rhodes? Everyone is wondering who this new person is, how he got a white shipsuit with a full ring so young -- and when they learn whom you are, the questions will redouble. How come you are a lieutenant? Where are your certificates?”
“I’ll work on them,” Steve said fervently.
“Except they worked on them for years. I myself have worked on mine for years. There is a word that explains their feelings: jealousy.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Don’t be crazy; of course I am. On the other hand, I was told in sick bay you made the call to them nine seconds after fan transition and in some cases where there are more serious complications than what I suffered, seconds are critical. So I’m prepared to be prejudiced as well as jealous. And I surely haven’t spent all this time preparing so I can walk the plank.”
They got up to leave, and a first lieutenant made a beeline to intercept them. “You have the advantage of me, Lieutenant. I don’t know your name.”
“Lieutenant Steve Yardley, assigned to Commander Booth.”
“Working in her sh
op?”
“Working for the commander directly.”
“A little young, eh?”
“We all have to start sometime, Lieutenant.”
“And who promoted you to lieutenant?”
“That was Admiral Merriweather.”
“You’ve met the admiral? Face-to-face?”
“Twice. Once just to hear her speak, but the second time she spoke directly to me.”
“Lieutenant,” Emily said, addressing Steve, “We have a department meeting shortly. I doubt we want to arrive late.” She turned to the senior lieutenant. “Sir, if you are going to be at this much longer, could I have your name, to relate to Commander Booth as to why we were tardy?”
“First Lieutenant Roger Ward; be on your way.”
They walked down the corridor towards the bridge. “Having an ogre for a department head can be handy,” Emily said with a laugh.
Steve spoke his mind. “I don’t think people understand her.”
“Do you know that she was the one who figured out how to detect ships on High Fan?”
“That must have made her right popular with every Benko-Chang physicist, propulsion and sensor officer in the Fleet.”
“Worse: a bridge watchstanding certificate requires certificates in all those fields. Every Aloft officer in the Fleet, above the rank of full lieutenant. She is cordially hated everywhere.”
The meeting was very long. Commander Booth briefed everyone with the details that she’d told Steve the day before. At the end, he was unprepared to be singled out.
“Lieutenant Yardley, I gave you a request for more questions to ask the Koopianers.”
“Sir, most of the simple questions have been asked. I have two more, though. If they have telepaths, do they have a way of shielding their leaders from that? And second, how do they think they can help the Federation? I ran some simulations of their population -- it has to be less that ten million, and perhaps a much smaller fraction than that.”
“And what is your evaluation of their explanation of why they fled?”
“Commander, the five words they sent with the photos are a primal scream. We screwed up; they screwed up, we screwed up some more, and when their stay-behinds reported that, everything went off the rails.”
“Any other comments?”
“When I was thirteen I was taken to San Antonio; my uncle gave a guest lecture there. One thing I saw there were fireflies. I was barely thirteen, sir... and I was entranced. I could not imagine anything more beautiful -- until I saw that picture of one of their city streets. It’s like having an avenue lined with trees filled with fireflies. I asked myself, what’s not to like?”
“They were genetically modified.”
“Nature genetically modifies each of us, and I doubt if my teachers were lying: our genome is modified each and every day of our lives, in thousands of different ways. Each planet humanity has visited that has life has DNA life. The difference between the Koopianers and nature is that the Koopianers had some idea of what they wanted and they had some idea how to get there.
“We have animals like cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens -- all of our typical farm animals that we have domesticated -- that’s another word for genetically modified. Our food grains -- that’s a big ditto.”
Commander Booth bit her lip. “Good analysis, Lieutenant.”
She looked around the dozen people gathered at the table in the conference room. “In two days we’ll rendezvous with the Koopianer vessel -- it’s as close as we want to let it get to Earth. There are a number of very paranoid scenarios that preclude letting a people known for gene manipulation into direct contact with Earth.
“Please, we will break into two groups. One group will speak directly with them, on their turf. Those people can’t expect a return home in the near future; they will be quarantined. I’ll head that group. Lieutenant Yardley, you will be with me. The rest of you can send me your individual request if you wish to accompany us.”
“Me, sir,” Emily said, popping to her feet.
Commander Booth laughed. “Bring your meds, Ensign.”
The commander looked around the room, a look of distaste on her face. “That’s all for now. I expect an individual appreciation of events from each of you. You have twenty-four hours. Yardley, you and Rosen, remain.”
The others left and Steve was aware of Commander Booth’s steady regard. “Do you have anything to say, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
“I volunteered you for hazardous duty.”
“I signed up with the expectation of becoming a fighter pilot. This looks a lot safer than that.”
“More than a hundred thousand men and women died on Grissom; we made some bad assumptions.”
“Then it behooves us to do better.” Steve met the commander’s eyes as he said that. Not challenging, but not looking away either.
Commander Booth turned to Emily. “And you volunteered of your own free will? You’re a Fleet brat?”
“A Portie Fleet brat. I’m sorry, Commander. I thought everyone would volunteer when I did.”
Commander Booth laughed and said something that croggled Steve’s mind. “When you are an ogre, it’s helpful in sorting out those with courage and those who are time servers. Twice Admiral Merriweather has warned me that I’ve been slipping of late. Evidently not. In fairness, the thought of being exposed to the sort of plague the Koopianers would be capable of is enough to make me sweat.”
Steve laughed. “At the risk of my career, my immortal soul and a dollar, I’ll bet you that the Koopianers have never developed a weapon like that.”
“Just so that you understand that while most of the senior officers of the Fleet agree with you... we can’t afford a mistake.”
Steve nodded. “Yes, Commander.”
Commander Booth turned to Ensign Rosen. “I could hope that they would all jump to their feet and volunteer; perhaps a few will, in the quiet watches of the night. I doubt it.”
“I can’t understand it, sir. I just can’t fathom it,” Emily told her.
“Take the sensor watchkeeping certificate. An idiot can pass that the first time out. And you’ll be promoted, Ensign Rosen.”
Steve saw her glance at him. Commander Booth cracked a smile. “In theory, I could promote you to senior lieutenant, with or without any certificates. The expectations for you would skyrocket, Ensign. Lieutenant Yardley has no idea what’s ahead of him. You do. Please, take this in the kindest possible way: Been there; done that! If I had it to do over again, I’d have taken the usual route.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Lieutenant Yardley, I’ve transmitted your latest questions to our guests. Those are more personal questions than your first. Understand one thing, Lieutenant. One reason you have the rank you do is that we include the name and rank of the questioner with the question.”
“And you didn’t want to send, ‘Recruit,’” Emily said bitterly.
“Before you go making judgments that aren’t valid, Ensign, Admiral Merriweather promoted Lieutenant Yardley, and then assigned him to me. I briefed him and he asked his first question just as I finished. I submit the possibility that Admiral Merriweather might have known what she was doing.
“I’ve been the beneficiary of such ‘magic’ judgments of qualifications. That, and I’ve seen the results and I can’t argue with them -- not even in regards to myself.
“Return to your quarters. You, Ensign, were assigned twenty-four hours of bed rest. Please, I’ve gotten two purple rockets already today. Spare me another. Think.
“Both of you, think. I’ll forward the answers to Lieutenant Yardley’s latest series of questions. I will assume, Ensign, that you’ll read them in your bunk. Don’t disappoint me by winning the ship’s ballroom dancing contest in the interim.”
Chapter 8 -- Union Reunion
Steve spent most of the next hours trying to think. When he received the answers to his questions, Emily asked for them as well. At least, he thought, she
stayed in bed. He commented on that and she laughed.
“Growing up, I thought my father was a dunce, and my mother was an officer to be emulated. She was an admiral, after all, and my father just a commander. Imagine my surprise when I got old enough to see their Fleet public records and I learned my mother is a moron and my father had been repeatedly down-checked for initiative. Down-checked for initiative! Good God! Only Porties would do that!
“You will learn, Steve. Save up on sleep, the Fleet has needs that frequently are extreme. At Gandalf, before the attack there, Turbine Jensen called a battle stations drill. He routinely kept people past the watch change; he wasn’t a favorite. After the attack, the crew remained at battle stations for a couple of days. Jensen had to make people rest by direct order. It might have been the first time, but it’s been far from the last. Rest when you can.”
“I have an assignment.”
“On the wired ships, before the revolt, the ship’s AI reported officers who stayed awake too long. That’s no longer happening, but if they think you are trying too hard, you will be sat upon. Hannah Sawyer did that and got purple rockets.”
“I would like to be like her.”
Steve was unprepared for Emily to come out of her bunk and stand in his face. “Are you a moron? She got herself killed! Every one of her commanders got fatal dings to their records after that -- only Donna Merriweather has been promoted since -- and she survived by saying ‘no’ to the idea. Over and over again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No one wants to say it officially, because the policy of the Federation is to do to them what they’ve done to us -- we’re blowing up their planets as well. Hannah Sawyer and then Cindy Rhodes have both objected... they feel that we’re not human if we do the same things the aliens do.”
“What else can we do?” he asked, feeling helpless.
The Odyssey and the Iliad (Kinsella Universe Book 7) Page 14
