He read it quickly, then looked up.
"This looks like fun," he said, deadpan.
"Yeah it will be a shock, but I think they need one. We need to get this ship back in the Fleet as soon as we can. So, as it says, they get 48 hours to get their sections in order."
"If they make it — and pass — it will be a morale booster. If they fail-"
"If they fail, well, they're gone, Alonzo. This isn't trivial, but it's doable with some effort."
"Agreed."
"OK then, ready to be the deputy chief asshole bitch?" she asked, smiling only slightly.
"That is my job, Captain," he answered with a broad smile.
"Ok then - all officers in the hangar at 1300."
"Very well, Captain. Anything else?"
"Nope. Let's get to work."
After Bass left, Joanne came out to the outer office. Admin Tech Anthony Wallace again stood as she appeared.
"Technician Wallace, is it not?"
"Yes, ma'am. Welcome aboard, Captain."
She smiled.
"Thank you, Wallace, you're the first. May I call you Anthony?"
"Tony would do fine, Captain Henderson."
"Ok good, thank you."
She paused.
"I know the usual protocol, but I do not want you interrupting your work to get up every time an officer enters. Your work is important to me and the smooth operation of the ship. Someone with a star or from outside, fine. But for the ship's officers, you can greet them from your chair."
"As you wish, ma'am."
Wallace had expected to dislike the new skipper, but he was beginning to think the opposite.
"Fine."
"Any special requests, Captain? Coffee instructions? Schedule?"
She thought for a second.
"No. I'll probably get my own coffee, but just in case, I take it dark roast with one sugar — real sugar. I will generally be on the Bridge by seven, then up here maybe nine. I will establish set office hours later, but while we're still here in orbit, it will be hit or miss. What is your usual schedule?"
"Seven to four, ma'am. I take an hour for lunch around noon."
"That's all fine. Anything else on your mind?"
He seemed to hesitate before answering, unsure of whether to speak or not.
"Go ahead, Tony," she encouraged.
"Well, Captain, a lot of the crew are nervous. We had a rough time on the line, and then they fire Commander Ali. They're not sure what to expect."
"That's good, Tony, they should be a little nervous. But between you and me they're about to find out."
She started for the door.
"I am going to check the Bridge, take a look at the duty cabin, and then I will be in the hangar with the officers. You know how to reach me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Very well. Carry on, Tony."
"Yes, ma'am."
Wow, he thought, this is going to be interesting.
The lights in the hangar were bright, and the buzz of nervous conversation filled the space. They knew Henderson was here, some had actually spoken to her, but they didn't know what this gathering was about.
Bass preceded her into the hangar, calling the room to attention as he did. Joanne followed, moving to the center of the room, in front of the dozen or so chairs they had hastily arranged. As the officers stood, she turned to Bass.
"Commander Bass, what is the status of the ship's crew."
"We have 112 assigned, Captain, 17 officers, 9 FPI staff, 9 chiefs, and 76 ranks. There are 25 on leave, 3 in sickbay, the rest are present on board. All are accounted for, ma'am."
"Very well. Sit everyone, at ease."
They sat, but there was very little ease in the room. She and Bass remained standing.
"When did those leaves start?"
"Two days ago. Most are seven days."
"Anyone scheduled to leave in the next two days?"
Bass checked his tablet.
"Yes, ten."
"Let's keep them here for now - for a couple days, anyhow. If there is a family or other situation: birth, death, marriage, that you feel is deserving of an exception go ahead and grant it. Otherwise, they're staying."
She turned back to the officers, giving them her best disappointed schoolteacher stare.
"I won't dwell on your last stint on the outer patrol line except to say that it wasn't Intrepid's finest hour."
She let that sink in for a moment.
"I am planning no firings or reassignments, not yet anyway."
She began pacing back and forth, something she did when speaking before large groups.
"On your NetComps, you have a document from me which lays out the known deficiencies in each department. You have two days - forty-eight hours - to get your sections nominal. In my opinion, all you need to fix these deficiencies is yourselves, but if you find you need supplies or whatever I will get it for you."
She stopped pacing and looked over the 13 officers in front of her. She sat in the chair Bass had placed for her at the front.
"My eagles may be shiny and new, but obviously I am not. I've been at this for a while both in the Fleet and at HQ. I know bullshit when I hear it, and I know what to do with it. People will say I am tough — bitchy even, sometimes — and they're right. But I am not arbitrary, or capricious, or stupid."
Her emphasis on the last word brought several heads up.
"Get with the plan according to the book, and we will be successful. I understand imperfection, but I don't tolerate incompetence."
She looked at her NetComp.
"OK, it's 1325. At 1330 day after tomorrow the XO and I will be knocking on your doors."
They stood as she did.
"Dismissed."
Lieutenant Larry Covington stood with the rest of the officers as Captain Henderson left the hangar bay with XO Bass. He wasn't sure he liked her hard-ass attitude, but he understood what she wanted. He liked the direct approach, at least: get it together or get gone. His classmate Ensign Rick Court caught his eye on the way out.
"Bitch!" he said, not quietly enough.
Covington looked at him. "Looking to get rank-locked again, Court?"
"How are supposed to get all this shit done in two days? She's just gunning for me."
"Every section has issues, Ensign Court, you can't possibly think it's personal."
"Bite me, Covington. I was better than you at the U, and I'm better now."
Larry shook his head in disbelief at what he was hearing.
"Christ, Rick, will you never learn? Read the list and get it done and you'll have no problems."
"Just another bitch thinks she better than me."
"You mean like Hansen?"
"Yeah, the hero chick never had it better than she did with me and she never will."
"Shut up, Rick. You're embarrassing yourself."
With a long eye-roll, Larry turned forward, towards the Nav work area where he had a fairly short list of deficiencies to work off. Count slammed his fist into the wall as he headed aft to the Maintenance workshops. His list was the longest of all.
Covington's promotion to Lieutenant came on schedule a year after his graduation, but Court's did not. His direct supervisor set him 'rank-locked' because of issues in his section and his behavior. He was turning out to be a problem officer, and XO Bass was not going to let him advance until he cleaned up his act.
Before long, he could be heard yelling at the chiefs and techs in his section. Their arguments that most of the list came from Ensign Court's own instructions were not well received.
Antares
En Route Beta Hydri
Tuesday, May 24, 2078, 1900 UTC
Carol sat at the small desk in her quarters and pulled up her messages on her tablet. She had an hour or so until she was due for another shift at the Conn. They were now ten days out from GJ 1061 and no longer under a minimum EMR restriction.
Among the usual mundane administrative communications, both Fleet-wide SLI
P and local ship issues, there was a personal SLIP from Rick Court. His previous message had been yet another self-congratulatory, self-promoting treatise. She wondered all along what corners he was cutting that he didn't mention, as that was his usual technique at the University.
Now, she knew.
This latest message was an angry, accusatory screed vilifying Intrepid's new Captain, Joanne Henderson. On her arrival she had apparently turned the whole ship upside down with a long list of deficiencies in nearly every department. But, in Rick’s mind, she had done all that for the sole purpose of getting him fired. She had met Henderson a couple times, and she struck Carol as a good officer, tough maybe, but smart and honest.
Carol didn't understand why Rick was still sending her messages. She hadn't responded to him in months, but the messages kept coming every couple of weeks.
After Inor, Carol knew she was a different person, as her emotional maturity paralleled her professional growth as an officer. Weeks ago, well before her conversation with Dan Smith, as her more mature assessment of her previous relationship with Rick crystallized in her mind, she likewise began to see who had been literally right in front of her all along: Powell. It was hard now to face what she had been blind to all those years. But she forced herself, literally sometimes in the mirror, to see to see with new eyes what David had actually meant to her.
She sat at her desk for several minutes, mentally composing and disposing drafts of the messages she wanted to send. Some of the early versions of the Court message were too harsh, a little too vitriolic. She wanted to be clear and direct, not cruel.
SLIP PERSONAL
TO: INTREPID/ENS RICHARD COURT
FROM: ANTARES/LT CAROL HANSEN
I PROBABLY SHOULD SAY I AM SORRY TO SEND THIS BY SLIP BUT I'M NOT. IT CAN'T WAIT.
I WANT TO BE VERY CLEAR ABOUT THIS.
WHATEVER YOU MAY THINK THIS HAS NEVER BEEN GOOD FOR ME. WE'RE DONE.
I HOPE SOMEDAY YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS WILL MATCH YOUR AMBITIONS.
CAROL
END
Was it too harsh, she wondered? For Court, probably not. She sent it.
Next, she worked on what to say to Powell. Some versions were too soft, too gauzily romantic and she knew that didn't really sound like her, nor did it speak in a voice he would hear. Leaning back in her chair and looking at the ceiling, she thought back to their time together in the eager pack of cadets that was their study group. She kept coming back to that day in October, the day David walked away and found he could not come back, the day he quietly stood at her side for that last time. She missed that calm, steady presence in her life. It occurred to Carol, as she looked back on it, that there may have been a chance in that moment to change her direction, and in doing so change his. Maybe, but she wasn't ready to see it at the time. Enough mental hand-wringing, she told herself, just write the damned thing.
SLIP PERSONAL
TO: SIGMA/CW2 DAVID POWELL
FROM: ANTARES/LT CAROL HANSEN
NEXT TIME I WILL STAY FOR THE SUNSET.
CAROL
END
Too obtuse? No, he would understand. She sent it.
Time was getting short. Her mind was clear, and she felt confident by the time she left her quarters for the Bridge. She knew she had made the right decision. Her soul was now quiet, and hopeful, her heart now firm in its resolve. Time would tell what might come of her choice. But she would trust time, since it had brought her to where she could see what her heart needed her to see. And she would trust David, because, well, she always knew she could.
Sigma
GL 887
Wednesday, May 25, 2078, 1820 UTC
There were no known planets around what was originally known as Lacaille 9352 before Sigma arrived. Afterwards, there still weren't any. They found several dwarf planets, all icy frozen rocks well outside the very small habitable zone. But nothing very interesting and no evidence of the enemy. Still, they spent their allocated five days cataloging the system's larger objects and watching for the enemy.
Ensign Leah Farley was responsible for the Communications systems on Sigma. She had a small group of operators who worked the Comms position on the Bridge, and an even smaller group of maintenance techs that coddled and prodded the delicate SLIP, laser, and radio communications systems. She was short, not quite five feet, thin, but carrying around a sizable halo of very dark curly hair. Her fair complexion and bright blue eyes were something of a surprise against the dark mass around her head. She came from a prosperous family, lawyer father, surgeon mother, and had earned her undergraduate degree in Economics at Penn State. She worked a year or two at a large management consulting firm before dropping her spreadsheets and entering up the officer-transition course at SFU.
Navigation Ensign Travis Buckley, on the other hand, came from a small town in central Tennessee, the third and last child of a single mother who was a nurse. He got his Mechanical Engineering degree from Middle Tennessee State and went directly from there into the SFU program. Somehow the east-coast liberal orchestra-lover and the mid-south country music fan hit it off in officer training and were frequently together in their off-duty moments. Travis looked vaguely bearish with his height, full but neatly trimmed beard, and longish hair. He had that drawl voice that could fill a large room with no need for amplification. He also had a dry sense of humor that took Leah a while to fully appreciate.
Today Travis was dealing an after-dinner game of Spades in the wardroom, Leah on his left and FPI Lieutenant Tsubasa Kondo on his right. David came in for coffee, his work on the GL 887 census done for the day.
"Hey, Powell, join us?" Buckley asked.
David looked at the table, seemed to consider turning down the invitation, then said "Sure. Haven't beaten anybody at Spades since the U."
"And so, the gauntlet is thrown!" Leah said, laughing.
They played for an hour, and Powell did well, but Travis was a new challenge for him. Farley and Buckley had been in an offset class for officer candidates who already had college degrees, which ran from January to December 2077. Powell was gone from SFU before they arrived, so they had known him only as the mysterious 'guy who left and never came back.' But they had some classes with Carol and other friends of David's.
"So, David, heard from Hansen?" Farley asked.
"Um, no. She's pretty busy on Antares I suppose," he responded cautiously.
"She figured out she's in love with you yet?" Travis asked, just a touch of conspiracy in his voice.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Has she?"
"Not that I know of. But she and Court are split up now."
"That shithead?" Travis said with disgust. "That creep is the biggest clump of human night soil I've ever met. Don't know what Hansen could have seen in him."
"Can't say I disagree," David said evenly.
Leah rolled her eyes.
"Jesus, David, you're so cool about it."
He shrugged. "No choice, Ensign Farley. Sure, I think the world of Carol Hansen, most people do, but face it: She's an officer, and I'm not, and she's on Antares, and I'm here."
"And she's famous..."
Travis let that line drop.
"Yeah, there's that, too. My guess is she hates that part."
"Court must be pea-green with envy!" Leah said.
"More like baby-shit green of you ask me," Travis responded.
David laughed pretty hard at that one.
The next morning David was at work in the Intel section, reviewing some of the questionable objects the FleetIntel spectra matching software had flagged. As he lined up the next suspect object's spectra against the Liberty spectra on his display, his phone buzzed quietly. Looking at it, he saw he had a personal SLIP message. He didn't get many messages, so he picked up his coffee, leaned back in his chair, and opened the message.
SLIP PERSONAL 20780524
TO: SIGMA/CW2 DAVID POWELL
FROM: ANTARES/LT CAROL HANSEN
NEXT TIME I WILL STAY F
OR THE SUNSET.
CAROL
END
He managed to set the coffee down without spilling as he snapped upright, but just barely.
Next time I will stay for the sunset.
He could almost hear her smooth alto voice speaking in his head. His mind was suddenly racing, parsing, and absorbing the meaning of those few words. He remembered clearly, and painfully, their last moment together right before he went home that day and his life changed.
Next time meant she wanted to see him. I will stay for the sunset could only mean that she wished that she had stayed with him then, and not left with Court. She said so much, he thought, with so few words. He remembered the conversation with Buckley and Farley last evening. Had they known something?
He stood up and left the workroom without a word, leaving Abe and Sally to wonder what had just happened.
The Comms office was aft, just behind the hangar near the SLIP equipment. Most office spaces on Fleet ships were in the area the officer managed. Even in a world nearly devoid of 'paper' work, there was still a need for space for a supervisor to work uninterrupted, and to have private conversations when necessary. Leah Farley looked up from her tablet as Powell appeared in her door.
"Ensign Farley, do you have a moment?"
"Sure, Mister Powell."
David stepped in and closed the door behind him. Leah's eyebrow raised slightly, her curiosity now engaged.
"What's on your mind that no one else can hear?"
"You're very perceptive, Ensign Farley. Good thing they put you in Comms."
She laughed, then asked "So, what's up?"
David paused a second, then just passed his phone over to her. She read the message, her face showing surprise as she did.
"OK, so?"
"There's a lot of meaning in those words that only Carol and I would understand. Coming right after Buckley's comment last night, I wondered if she had said something to you."
"Don't believe in coincidences, Mister Powell?"
David shrugged. "Not really."
Silver Enigma Page 23
