The Space Navy Series Books One & Two: Including the Kindle novellas Josiah Trenchard and the Might of Fortitude & Josiah Trenchard and the Morgenstern

by Jonathon Fletcher

  ‘Did you think that I wouldn’t check you out?’

  Noir remained steadfastly silent.

  ‘You’ve had absolutely no practical experience of close combat, ground based tactics, zone clearance or anything that wasn’t a simulation,’ Trenchard began. ‘You have however, excelled as a bridge officer in several battles and your understanding of tactics in ship-to-ship combat is second to none. Admiral Fife’s recommendation was very clear on that! I’ve had years of experience entering hulks like that.’

  Trenchard’s finger shot out sideways, pointing at the looming space station that sat in front of the ship like a broken Rubik’s Cube.

  ‘It is my command decision that in this instance, you are better positioned as watch commander of the ship whilst I secure the factory; especially given the particularly delicate nature of the situation over there… and on my boat, my word is fucking law! Understood?’

  Noir fumed for a moment and then simply replied, ‘Understood.’ Then when Trenchard refused to break eye contact, she added a terse, ‘Sir!’

  ‘As I said, the Conn is yours Commander Noir. Pugh, you’re with me,’ Trenchard snapped.

  Trenchard began to climb the exit ladder from the control room. Pugh gave Noir a reassuring smile and then followed Trenchard up the ladder. Noir stood for a moment, her face burning. Then she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts and turned back towards the officers who were all staring at her, open mouthed. At her stern gaze, everyone busied themselves about their watch stations once more. Noir walked over to the V.R. Conn, stepped up and began strapping her legs into the braces.

  ‘Schmidt. Plot a course that puts us behind one of those blocks of ice. Helm, once the drop-ships are launched manoeuvre us into position, carefully. Then I want all non-critical systems powered down so that we’re undetectable. And some-one get me some damned coffee!’ she snapped.

  Trenchard and Pugh reached the core of the Might where the ladder split into two, ascending and descending towards the fins that held the two drop-ships and the waiting squads of troopers. They paused for a moment, floating in the zero gee at the entrance to the shafts.

  ‘Get your squad into the drop-ship and head for the starboard airlock on the station; I’ll take the port side. Work your way in and post guards at any critical areas. Whoever gets to the station’s control centre first, powers up the systems and brings the life support systems and defences on-line. Understood?’

  ‘Yes Sir,’ Pugh replied.

  Trenchard stopped and looked Pugh straight in the eyes. ‘Lieutenant Commander… Look, I know things have been difficult for you since the mutiny.’

  Pugh dropped his eyes to the floor and muttered, ‘Sir.’

  ‘I understand why you did it, but I think that you were misled. Captain Bird could be… persuasive.’

  Pugh looked back up into Trenchard’s face, a tiny ray of hope lighting in his eyes.

  ‘He was a hard man to say no to. He was commanding and authoritative. The crew will learn to trust you again, but you’ll have to work at it. You must give them something to trust. This mission is your chance to shine. Show them a brave face son. Show them a leader. Actions speak louder than words. Make them understand that you’re not afraid to put your balls on the line and they’ll begin to trust you again.’

  Pugh smiled and said, ‘Thank you Sir.’

  ‘But if you disobey even one of my orders, I’ll cut your nuts off with a blunt old rusty knife and feed them to you! Understood?’

  Pugh nodded. Trenchard made a move towards the ladder.

  ‘Sir?’ said Pugh.

  Trenchard turned towards him again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What did you mean by the “delicate nature of the situation over there”? What’s in that station?’

  Trenchard took a deep intake of breath. ‘It’s classified; direct orders from Admiral Fife.’

  Pugh looked like he wanted to know more but didn’t push it. He simply nodded.

  ‘Let’s just say,’ Trenchard continued, ‘that I wouldn’t go opening any secured storage boxes in a hurry if I were you.’

  The two, stubby drop-ships powered towards the space station, their thrusters glowing brightly in the darkness. Inside the leading ship, Trenchard was strapped into his seat as were the other troopers. The two pilots were concentrating on their heads-up-displays and tactical holograms. Trenchard looked about him at the white-faced troopers. They were mostly kids, fresh out of training. None of them had any real experience in actual combat, apart from McGagh. For the last few days he’d had Pugh drilling them in the simulator on Cairn but that was nothing compared to actual combat experience. At least they looked the part, dressed head to toe in black body armour with domed shoulder pads and a tough helmet with protective visor.

  One young man caught his eye. He was only ranked as Able Spaceman. Trenchard had previously reprimanded him for wearing a pin badge of a kitten that had been given to him by his girlfriend. At Trenchard’s behest, his unforgiving comrades now knew him solely as “Mrs Fluffy Kitten” or as these things were prone to evolve, “Pussy” or “Kitten Boy”. The nickname would be hard to shake off.

  ‘What’s your name son?’ Trenchard asked, being sure to make eye contact with the young man.

  ‘Mrs Fluffy Kitten, Sir!’ said the trooper, remembering the reprimand that Trenchard had given him.

  ‘I mean your real name son,’

  The nervous young trooper lifted his head and stared at Trenchard in utter terror. ‘A.S. Gerry Cox, Sir!’

  ‘This is your first time on a combat drop, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes Sir,’ Cox gulped, his lower lip trembling slightly.

  The conversation was drawing attention from others nearby. Good, thought Trenchard. It was just what he wanted.

  ‘Has your rifle been inspected and cleaned?’

  ‘Yes Sir, twice. Checked by Lieutenant Stofan Sir!’

  ‘Good. Remember your training. It’s the discipline and procedure that will save your life. Just remember your combat drills and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Yes Sir.’

  The atmosphere inside the drop-ship was beginning to thaw a little but it needed a final push. They were no use to him if they were so worried that they panicked under fire.

  ‘Know any good jokes?’ Trenchard asked.

  Cox shook his head, unsure where this was going. ‘I can never remember them Sir, at least, not the funny ones.’

  Trenchard smiled broadly and settled back into his seat. ‘There was this young fella, just about your age, a real streak of piss…’

  A few of the nearby troopers giggled. Cox started to smile but he was still unsure of himself.

  ‘Anyway,’ Trenchard continued, ‘he sits down on a park bench next to a rough looking old bloke. After a while he notices the old bloke staring at his hair. See, the young fella has this brightly coloured Mohican hair do; nine inches high and all spiky and shit.’

  By now everyone in the cabin was chuckling. Even the pilots had wry smiles on their faces, ear-wigging what was going on behind them.

  ‘After a few minutes the young fella gets pissed off at the old man for staring at him, looks him straight in the eye and says, “What’s wrong with you, you old fuckwit? Have you never done anything crazy in your life?” The old man chews this over for a moment and then finally replies, “Yes son. When I was in the Space Navy, I got really drunk one night and had sex with a parrot. I just thought that you might be my long-lost son!”’

  The whole cabin exploded with laughter. Even Cox was laughing out loud by now.

  While the cabin was still full of raucous laughter, Trenchard leaned across towards Cox and whispered, ‘Follow your training son, and you’ll live to be that old fella on the park bench. You’ll be okay, don’t worry.’

  Then Trenchard gave Cox a friendly wink. The atmosphere inside the drop-ship had eased considerably by now. The troopers were still on edge but they weren’t dwelling on dark thoughts. Much better, t
hought Trenchard. Telling a joke was an old trick that he had learned from his days in old Skelat’s platoon aboard the Hand of Valour. It had served him well over the years. He let his mind wander back to the old days and as usual, it wasn’t long before the barren and dusty wastelands of Mars filled his mind.

  He was shaken out of his meandering thoughts as the engine noise of the drop-ship suddenly rose and Trenchard could hear the steering thrusters on the nose and tail firing, turning the ship ready for docking.

  ‘Okay everyone. Get ready,’ he shouted.

  All the troopers grabbed their rifles and placed their hands onto the buckle of their harnesses, ready to move. There were a series of sharp clicks as visors were dropped into place. There was a jolt and a clunk as the drop-ship docked with the space-station and a steady hiss of air as the air-lock was pressurised. After a few seconds the red light above the hatch changed to green. Trenchard looked towards the pilots. One of them craned his head around and gave Trenchard the thumbs up.

  ‘You’re good to go Sir!’

  ‘First team, Lieutenant Chertok you’re up front,’ yelled Trenchard.

  Twelve of the troopers released their harnesses and stood up. They headed towards the hatch, clanking on the metal deck in their mag-boots. They were followed by an officer with two red stripes, Lieutenant Boris Chertok, the Russian who Trenchard had met briefly during simulator training. He was tough as old boots and was one of the few who had seen a little combat. At a nod from Trenchard, Chertok operated the hatch control and the hatch slid open with the sound of grating metal, revealing only darkness beyond.

  ‘Good god, it’s cold,’ Chertok announced, grinning back at the rest of the squad. ‘I hope you all put your thermal undies on, because you’re going to need them!’

  CHAPTER 17 “COLD IRON”

  Inside the airlock, it was indeed very cold. The space station had been shut down for years and the life support systems were waking up as slowly as a teenager on a school day. The airlock area was only just warm enough to support human life. The trooper’s breaths came out in clouds of steam and a thick frost sparkled on every surface. There was no gravity inside the station, because the main systems hadn’t been activated and the station was dead still.

  The first team of troopers fanned out in the entry area with their weapons covering the exits. Their magnetic boots clanged on the freezing metal floor sending echoes down the foreboding connecting corridors and spraying clouds of sparkling ice crystals into the air. Lieutenant Chertok followed the squad through and waved them forwards. With a click, the motion detecting lights blinked into life, making the troopers squint for a few seconds with the brilliance of the light reflected off the iridescent frost. For some strange reason the lights were set into the floor.

  Once the exits were covered, Trenchard strode through with the second squad of twelve troopers. He looked around himself, taking in his surroundings. The cold air smelled stale and musty like the damp basement of an old terraced house. It was low in oxygen and he was breathing heavily. He looked up and saw something that shouldn’t be there; a dirty footprint on the ceiling above him.

  ‘Shit!’ he swore out loud. ‘We’ve come in the wrong bloody way up. That’s going to cause hell when we get the gravity started up again. I’ll be having a word with the pilot when this is over.’

  Looking about him he now saw other clues that they were upside-down. A warning sign next to a door, ceiling vents next to their feet and a fire sprinkler that he had almost trodden on.

  Chertok looked expectantly at Trenchard. ‘Orders Sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Split your squad into two and take the corridors to the left and right. Leave guards at every major junction and work your way around towards the main control room. I’ll take my squad straight through and meet you there.’ Then Trenchard looked over to a trooper who was carrying a small bag attached to his front harness. ‘Release the omni,’ he ordered.

  The trooper opened the bag carefully and pulled out a small triangular device about five inches on either side. At the press of a switch, three fans, one at each corner, activated and the device floated up into the air above the trooper’s heads like a child’s toy helicopter. In the centre of the triangular device a clear plastic hemisphere glowed dimly.

  Trenchard waved at the device, squinting into the dome. ‘You got us?’ he asked out loud.

  In the control room of the Might of Fortitude, Commander Noir studied a glowing hologram that was being projected into the air at the front of the bridge. It showed the troopers from the point of view of the hovering triangular robot.

  ‘The omni-bot is functioning within normal parameters,’ she said rather coldly. She was still smarting from Trenchard’s earlier reprimand.

  ‘A simple yes would have done Noir!’ Trenchard grumbled, never one to take any nonsense from a junior officer.

  The Ocular Mobile Naval Intelligence robot, or “omni-bot” for short, was essentially a floating probe. It allowed the ship to keep track of the mission visually, whilst scanning for a range of other data simultaneously.

  ‘Keep your eye out for bogey men,’ the image of Trenchard said with a grin.

  ‘I’ll be the first to shout if I see any monsters Sir,’ Noir replied through tight lips.

  On the other side of the station, Pugh’s squad had entered via another airlock the correct way up. They had walked through several frozen corridors to find themselves in an unusually shaped room. Pugh gazed around the room they were now standing in. It was a giant tube, like standing inside a massive baked-bean tin. Each end of the tin had an over-sized circular airlock. Right in the centre there was a circular ring or track that ran around the entire circumference, encompassing the room.

  ‘Those are the biggest air-lock hatches that I’ve ever seen. What is this place?’ Pugh asked out loud.

  ‘No idea,’ replied Lieutenant Stofan, Pugh’s number two. ‘Something to do with the carbon nano-tube construction maybe?’

  ‘It’s the cutting room,’ came a gruff Irish voice from directly behind them.

  Pugh and Stofan turned around to where the voice had come from. Standing behind them was the mighty frame of Patrick McGagh. He was looking rather smug.

  ‘What?’ Pugh asked, feeling more than a little confused.

  ‘They pass the carbon nano-tube cables through one hatch and out the other. The ring in the centre is a sonic cutting device, specially designed to cut the nano-tubes. That’s the control station,’ said McGagh, pointing to a panel of switches on the wall.

  Pugh and Stofan exchanged astonished glances.

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Pugh.

  McGagh shrugged. ‘I watched a documentary on the telly about building the space elevator. They did a whole section just on this room. I had a lot of time on my hands when I was locked up…’

  Pugh thought about this. McGagh had indeed been locked up in naval prison for fighting, just before he was transferred to the Might of Fortitude. His explanation had the ring of truth.

  ‘You’re a man of hidden depths,’ remarked Stofan.

  ‘I’d say more hidden shallows!’ grinned McGagh.

  ‘Come on,’ said Pugh. ‘We need to push on. There’s a lot more of the station to cover.’ With that, he headed for a hatch that was set into the side of the curved room, followed closely by the rest of the squad.

  Back inside the main airlock, Trenchard looked around at the troopers.

  ‘Move out,’ he ordered. ‘Keep in touch if you spot anything… unusual.’

  ‘Define unusual?’ Chertok asked with a grimace.

  ‘Anything that looks like you shouldn’t mess with it,’ replied Trenchard testily.

  Chertok diligently split his squad in half and each group clanked off down corridors to the left and right. Trenchard waved his squad forwards down the central tunnel. The omni-bot followed after them, humming very gently and bobbing slightly in the air as it went, having difficulty compensating in the zero gravity.

  A
fter making their way through several frosty corridors, Trenchard’s squad eventually reached a door which said, upside-down at the bottom, “Main Control”. The door opened after the second attempt with a shower of ice crystals that hung suspended in the air like freezing fog. The troopers stepped gingerly into the room. The control room, although upside down, was largely unimpressive and utilitarian. It held several consoles and bolted down chairs. At one end, there was a huge plexi-glass window that looked out across the cubic void enclosed by the station; the factory shop floor where the carbon nano-tubes were constructed before they were passed to the cutting room.

  Trenchard made his way over to the wall and with effort, he clumped up the wall and then righted himself on the floor, the opposite way up to the other troopers. He scanned the main console and found the panel that he was looking for. He brought his left wrist up towards his mouth, pressed a button on a black wrist band and spoke into a small microphone.

  ‘Trenchard to all troopers; I’m about to fire the retros and bring the gravity back on-line. Hold onto something. Out.’

  All the troopers in the control room grabbed onto anything that they could get their hands on and braced. Most of them chose to stand beside a wall that they could conveniently slide down. Trenchard spoke again into the bracelet cuff-link communicator, ‘…and in three, two, one!’

  He activated the control. There was a short pause and then a judder as the rocket jets fired and the station began to slowly spin around its central axis. Slowly and steadily gravity began to take hold. The troopers found themselves gradually sliding down the walls and ending up crumpled but unhurt in a heap on the floor. Trenchard checked that all the troopers were unharmed before examining the frozen control panel in front of him.

  ‘Right, where’s the on switch?’ he asked out loud, as he brushed frost away with his gloved hand.

  In a large storage room, next to another airlock, Pugh’s squad had just recovered from the gravity coming back on.