Court-Martial (Horatio Logan Chronicles Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “You do what you want. You always do anyway,” Morgan accused her fellow sleeper as she glared balefully at Doctor Windswept.

  “I asked everyone here to come to a decision together. A united front might stave off this … this drama. Maybe make them wake up,” Doctor Windswept stated.

  “For a historian Fara, you aren't really that good, are you?” Morgan said with a glower. “Right now, it's chaos out there. If we come out, we'd just be adding to the mix, destabilizing things further. Or, people will think we're doing it to stop this from happening. Making it up.”

  Fara grimaced as those simple truths struck cords within her. “So, what do you propose we do?” she asked carefully.

  “Call for calm. The president has it right there. We should come out against Childress, though temper our condemnation. Just say he should, for the good of the service and the Republic, step down. Not that he will. He's a megalomaniac, too full of himself and his self-righteous cause.”

  “Won't our statements get lost? And will Childress heed them? I highly doubt it,” Doctor Bright Petal asked.

  “I do too,” Morgan admitted reluctantly. “But that is all we can do.”

  “We can get behind his backers and push them to back off. Pull some of their levers. The same for some of our supporters in the military. People still listen to us. We're the sleepers, we're not completely lost. Old yes, but not lost.”

  “We're a throwback. Sure, our popularity spiked again after Caroline visited the first time, but people think we're archaic now,” Doctor Ch'k'll'r'll said. “I haven't seen the polling recently, but I've heard enough from the young larva. They are keenly interested in the future, and what they can do now. They are intent on getting out of the Republic and seeking new opportunities in the outer Federation.”

  “Frustration levels are intense,” Fara stated.

  “See what you can do,” Morgan said. She turned to their technology guru. “Tron, can you do anything with the ships? The starships I mean.”

  “You are thinking about sending one to get help from Irons and the Federation?” Doctor Ch'k'll'r'll asked. Morgan just nodded but her eyes were locked on Tron.

  “Me?” He held up a hand to his chest. “Nary a damn thing, you know that,” the elderly engineer said with a shake of his head. “First, I don't have access. I can tell you they've ripped out the computers, that's public knowledge. I am having problems believing it was a security measure though. I don't buy it. My money is on Childress locking those ships down so no one can take off and do what you want.”

  “Frack,” Morgan murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “He's one step ahead of us.”

  “Of us, but maybe not intentionally. He can't stay there for long. All he needs to do is slip up at the right time and place and someone will finally pounce.”

  “Here's hoping,” Fara muttered, realizing they weren't getting anywhere.

  @^@

  Lieutenant Commander Gracie Bardot, the ship's acting XO grimaced as a tech team of ONI and cyber security continued to rip at the ship's computer network. They weren't going about it systematically; they were just pulling every piece of hardware they came across. It had taken them a day to realize that the ship's tablets could be infected, those had been scooped up too, as had every memory chip they could find.

  She had pitched three shades of a snit in order to get replacements. If it was bad on this ship she could just imagine how it was on the others in the fleet, though she recognized that Ilmarinen was something of a special case.

  Since cyber security was scared of the virus, they weren't allowed to tie the ship into the space dock's systems to run their life support. They weren't even allowed to offload anything. If they had followed protocol then the ship should have been kept off the station completely, but that would have inconvenienced the vultures raping the ship she thought savagely. It was true though, not that anyone seemed to care.

  She had to run all over the ship, in the dark, to try to keep it running. She was bone tired and sore from some bruises when she encountered hard objects in the darkened corridors and compartments. Twice they'd had to scramble to curtail catastrophe as some over zealot twit tore something out that they shouldn't have. She knew one thing, if she couldn't get off the ship when she bunked down; she'd bunk down in a damn suit. If there were any left, they might have yanked the computers out of those too. She made a tired mental note to check on them.

  A tug? She could sleep in a tug's cockpit, right? She shook her head tiredly as she tried to refocus on the job at hand. It wasn't easy she knew.

  On her third shift of trying to piece systems back together the Bosun had told her that the three salvaged ships had all been berthed and were being torn apart as well. She'd wanted to quit then, her frustration at the situation had been that intense.

  “It doesn't make any sense! None at all!” she spat as she tried to keep some life support on the ship functioning. It would have been easier with an engineering officer on board, but of course they'd all gone on leave.

  “It is what it is Ma'am. We have no say in it,” the Bosun replied with a shake of her head.

  She nodded in agreement to that statement. Just one look around her ship told her that much. It might not be her ship for much longer but she didn't like the idea of turning it over to someone else in such a state. What would they think of her when they saw her like that? It bothered her immensely.

  She rubbed her brow tiredly. Cyber security had boarded and checked the computers in each of the ships thoroughly, she knew that much. They had sequestered all of the files and computer networks even after they were proven that they weren't infected. “Better to be safe than sorry. We don't know what we're dealing with here,” a tech had said snidely as he pulled her private computer. She didn't care about the official files on the machine anymore, nor the reams of paperwork, but there were gigs of pictures and video she had on the drive. Some of it was personal. Some of it was very personal and somewhat embarrassing.

  “This is getting out of hand,” She grumbled.

  “I'm working on getting some replacement parts Ma'am. It takes time. But they took two of my shipments before they even got on the ship!” the bosun grumbled.

  “I'll see what I can do. And maybe get a timetable on a few things. Let's focus on keeping the life support and ops up and running, shall we?”

  “If we can even get that far I'd be amazed,” the bosun replied. “I hate seeing what they are doing to the old girl, it's not right. It's rape,” she said, looking around them. The XO looked at her sharply and then nodded. “I'm starting to regret not taking my own liberty. I would have regretted not being on hand to try to stop it, but seeing as how I haven't been able to do diddly, I think I'd of gotten over it,” she said with a tired grimace. “I just might go on leave or hell, retire early if this keeps up for much longer.”

  The XO looked at her in alarm. “Don't do that to me! Please!” she implored.

  “Well, you could always come with me,” the bosun said with a roguish smile.

  The XO had the grace to blush. “Don't tempt me either. I just might.”

  The bosun snorted and went back to trying to stave off the inevitable.

  @^@

  The more time passed, the more Captain Clayton deeply regretted his involvement in the whole affair as he marched through his darkened ship. The ship was being run on emergency power with minimal systems running. The life support system sucked. He arrived at the bridge and surveyed it with a grimace. There was an anchor watch only; no one even noticed he was there. Wiring was hanging from open stations and ceiling panels. A pair of techs were working on something at the ops station. From the look of it they were trying to rig something up. He decided to ignore protocol and leave them to it as he stepped onto the bridge and took the hot seat. He glanced down at the screen that should have given him the read outs of the major ship's system to only see a dead screen. Not blank, dead with no power.

  He looke
d around and noted most of the screens were like that. It gave the bridge an eerie dark foreboding look he didn't like in the slightest.

  He shook his head grimly at all the problems on his ship. The cyber security teams had wreaked havoc on his ships computers. He even regretted that the ship's A.I. had most likely been destroyed in the carnage. The engineers had pulled some computer servers in from stores to replace the minimum backup life support systems, but it was not enough. Fitz and Simmons had promised to get it sorted out, but replacement parts were in short supply. They had a coder friend, Skye who was supposed to help, but she was on another assignment.

  That meant they either had to bring in Admiral Logan, scratch that, Commodore Logan he corrected himself mentally, fat chance on that, or someone else familiar with the computer network. It would need a complete rebuild at this point he realized, a daunting task. Otherwise, his ship would never fly again. He was of two minds about that possibility.

  He had just found out that some of the personnel on leave would not be returning. Some had resigned, some were retiring, and some were being reassigned to other ships. His ship was being gutted and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He wondered briefly if being left in the crippled factory ship was his punishment for his involvement with Horatio's broadcast. If it was, hopefully it would be brief.

  He shook his head and then left the bridge since there wasn't anything he could do. He decided since he couldn't even do paperwork he might as well find a bottle and crawl into it.

  @^@

  Admiral Zekowitz heard about the cyber security computer antics with the salvaged ships and Ilmarinen through the engineering grapevine. With the ship's crew mostly off Ilmarinen, the bosun and skeleton watch were having trouble keeping it together and were back channeling him for support. He'd used his own sources to get some logistics support from Commander Thistle. That had at least kept Ilmarinen's life support functioning for the moment.

  He shook his head at the overkill, not that he blamed the security experts in the slightest. You didn't go with half measures with such a threat. It was just a little too late for such things. If a copy of the Xeno virus had been on one of those ships it was most likely somewhere in the networks already. It could be copying itself, mapping out everything and finding a way to strike at any time.

  Not that he intended to tell them that. He remembered what they'd done to Horatio. It bothered him a bit, but he knew Horatio too. He knew the man would never allow Ilmarinen to return to Bek if there was a chance the ship had been infected with the Xeno A.I. Which meant it was safe.

  He had no intention of mentioning that either.

  Every day was a struggle to go to work. He had started to enjoy the job, teaching kids, exploring ideas, using the academy computers to explore the engineering files that they'd brought back with Caroline, but now, now it was just intense. Every moment everyone was wondering if something would happen. Twice when a few arguments got out of hand between supporters of Childress and those who supported Irons, the commandant had landed on it hard. He'd been biased of course, meeting out punishment to those who took Admiral Irons side. Each time he had the recipients resigned their commissions in protest.

  Zek shook his head at such waste. Those people, even half trained were the future of the navy. The bug didn't see it that way of course, he just saw it as ridding his boss of potential problem children before they became a threat.

  He was a terror with the staff too, reminding them on an almost daily basis that they could resign, and there was the door. Ensign Blakely had gotten a new assignment just to get away from it. The admiral wished the ape the best of luck, and wished he could have gone along with him.

  Chapter 9

  “So, no one is going to relieve him?” Captain JG N'll'm'll demanded peevishly. He indicated the latest news report. “All is well my eyestalks!”

  “A week has passed since the broadcast. More than a week actually. They issued a statement from Prescott that he wasn't going anywhere, so what was your first clue?” Commodore Ben Ross asked sarcastically.

  “Sorry sir, it's just … hard to believe that no one, not one person can get rid of him,” the flag captain complained. That he was comfortable enough to do so in his senior officer's presence meant a great deal of trust between the duo—even more so considering there were other officers in the compartment with them to hear what he had said. Not one protested it. They had only been thrown together a month prior. The commodore was still smarting over being passed over for promotion a second time. He had one last shot before mandatory retirement and BUPERS had made certain he knew it so he'd toe the line.

  Which was why he had signed on with the group wanting to upgrade their ships despite what Admiral Childress had wanted. His squadron of heavy cruisers needed every advantage they could get if they were going to shine during the next series of exercises.

  His flagship Deer Horn Knife was a case in point. They had made minor but important upgrades throughout the ship to squeeze additional performance out of her. He had been looking forward to more, cautiously optimistic they might get more, but then all hell had broken loose and his flagship was now in limbo.

  “Believe it. The only one to try was arrested. A group tried to arrest him only to be turned back by Sherman. They later disappeared; ONI most likely scooped them up. Heaven knows if they are even still alive,” the commodore said darkly.

  Captain N'll'm'll signaled first-degree agreement and fear. Everyone in the service and even those outside it had a healthy fear of that happening to them or a loved one. There was a reason ONI was feared. “The question is, where do we go from here?”

  “Yeah. I was wondering that same thing myself,” the human commodore admitted. ONI was landing on anyone who stepped out of line. Even discussing it openly could spark a visit by NCIS or ONI or a call from one's patrons. Some officers, mainly those outside the patron system like the mustangs, had given up and begun to resign.

  It had started at the bottom, usually with ensigns and lieutenants. Many of the officers were in shitty positions put there because they lacked patrons or because they pissed off someone who used the patron system against them. Some had been personnel who had been beached when their ship had been laid up for refit. Their numbers were growing however. With them were the noncoms, some were wise enough to put in their retirements, others weren't re-upping when their contracts expired.

  “Someone needs to do something. We need to plan,” the Veraxin said, cautiously optimistic.

  “The problem is ONI has their people on every ship and base in the fleet. Plus, many of Childress's supporters are in the most powerful ships. Do you really want to be the one to spark a shooting incident? Or be on the wrong end of one?” The commodore shook his head bleakly. His brother Reginald was a captain JG in JAG. He'd passed on a few tidbits about the witch hunts going on as a warning to the family to keep their heads down and noses to the grindstone.

  Commander Saint Clair's face worked in a sour expression. “Someone still needs to do something,” Audrey said as she looked out at the fleet. TF 1.2.2 wasn't much compared to the big boys they were assigned to screen. Her ship, the destroyer Strike Fast and Deep, was one of those ships, she knew from her time as a tactical officer on the dreadnought Shogun that her little tin can wouldn't be worth a single salvo, even with her recent upgrades.

  The commodore shook his head. “I know. Believe me, I know. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, but I don't know. It is increasingly unlikely that it's not going to turn into a shooting match soon. I think our common bond is keeping us together but for how long with ONI breathing down everyone's necks and making people disappear?”

  “I think it's also everyone wanting someone else to do the job. To be the one to take him down. We're all keeping our heads down, worrying about our own careers that we're not looking at the big picture. We're soft. We've never had to actually use our ships,” Captain Joan Coglin, captain of the cruiser Deathstrike said.
<
br />   “I hope we never have to, especially against our own people,” Lieutenant Filmore, the commodore's Neogorilla chief of staff said fervently.

  “It may come to that. It might,” the commodore said pensively. “But not today. And hopefully not on our watch,” he said, looking at the group. “I need all of you to keep a tight leash on our people. We need to keep the peace. I know there are a lot of anxious people out there, and some have hair triggers. Just keep it together.”

  “It's not like we can do much. We're a cruiser and destroyer flotilla,” Captain Coglin said in disgust. “Childress packed his supporters into the big boys. We won't stand a snowball's chance in hell if we have to go up against them, no matter how good our footwork is.”

  “I know. Make sure our people know that. Frustration is running deep. We need to find a safe way to channel it. For the time being, we keep the peace,” the commodore said flatly.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  @^@

  “I'm telling you, someone should do something about that bastard Childress! Put a cap in his head, end it and get us back on the right track!” Boyd Covington, mutt and resident troublemaker of their apartment complex, grumbled as they stood in line. It was ironic in a way that they were there for groceries and school supplies for an overdue history project.

  Asa, his elder brother from another litter, had been sent out to ride herd on his little brother since both of their parents were working. He was starting to regret volunteering. “Maybe you are right; maybe you aren't,” he said quietly as the people around them looked at them warily. “But you need to chill, bro,” he warned quietly.

  Boyd looked up at him with defiance in his eyes. “Why? I'm a citizen,” he said with a sniff. “I've got First Amendment rights. They taught us about it in school. And they said that Childress insisted the Republic is separate from the navy, right? That means he can't touch me,” he said as a pair of men got out of a dark sedan and came into the store. Asa saw them and noted that they spoke with a woman who had just finished checking out in their line. The woman turned and pointed to them. He groaned.