Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  Once again Cindy found herself in the right hand seat. The two of them were silent for the first hour of the flight as they boosted away from Grissom station, and then they went to High Fan. It was a short flight, just ten minutes or so, the greatest distance on High Fan, and then they were down.

  “Lieutenant,” Cindy asked finally. “I have a personal question to ask you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It's about me. I've always heard how High Fan makes people sick to their stomach. I can feel it, but... it's not anything that really bothers me.”

  The lieutenant laughed. “I have to admit, that wasn't the question I was expecting. The effect varies from person to person. Those it barely affects are, well, they are worth their weight in gold. At Epsilon Eridani, Willow Wolf's ship, the Warlock, made a simply incredible number of fan transitions in a very short time. Maybe a half dozen members of the crew, besides her, were still on their feet when she was finished. Some of her fellow crewmates were seriously sick and spent days to a week in the infirmary afterwards.

  “The thing is, of course, was that they were still alive. They probably wouldn't have been if she couldn't take it.” She grimaced. “That was the first time the aliens used their High Fan homing missiles. I'm not sure why they don't have more of them, and I'm not sure why they only target ships and not fighters or Earth -- but it's why we kept Earth.”

  Cindy blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean those homing missiles come on really fast. If you were inside the fan limit -- pretty much you were toast. Even outside the fan limit, you had to be sharp and if you saw one coming your way you radically tried to change your vector so it couldn't close, before you went to High Fan. Hannah Sawyer saved us there, too, although David Zinder helped as well.”

  “Pardon? Didn't she die a year or more ago?”

  “Eighteen months. But she figured out how to mess with them. You figure out their vector, jump to just outside the fan limit of a gas giant, so that the missile's vector takes it inside the limit before it can react. Then you flit before it arrives. It sounds simple, but in practice -- it's tough. Willow Wolf kept us alive on Dragon, no doubt about it. I don't know how she bears it.”

  “I don't think I understand,” Cindy replied.

  The lieutenant turned to her. “She was married. Her husband was Dragon's navigator, and stationed on the bridge with Captain Sophie and the others. He died with the rest of them. I lost someone I cherished more than anyone else when that happened as well. A Marine.”

  Her voice cracked. “I hadn't even known him for a day -- and then he was gone.”

  She shook her head, as if fighting cobwebs. “You and I, Ensign, are in the same boat. We have to justify the faith of a lot of very important people. You and I are unique.

  “One of the last things Stephanie Kinsella did before she retired from the original Fleet, way back in the beginning of things, was come up with the entire watchkeeping certificate system as it exists today. Before that, there were specialty certificates, but nothing that tied them all together. She tied them together.

  “I am, Ensign, the first officer to command a named ship of the Fleet without a bridge watchkeeping certificate since Kinsella's day. And as poor as my qualifications are to command, they are head and shoulders better than yours.

  “I will never fault you for the past... just the future. You and I have a lot of work to do before we return home.

  “In theory I have sufficient preparation to pass that exam by the time we get to Adobe. Adobe is two and a half months away and we'll only make one stop on the way for a navigation check. If I study hard, I should be able to make a passing grade. You wouldn't have the certificates that would permit you to take the certificate exams you need to apply for the bridge test.” She laughed. “If that makes any sense.”

  “It does. I know how little I know.”

  “Of all of the things a person can know, that's perhaps the most important,” Lieutenant Hall agreed.

  “So, I won't take the watchkeeping exams at Adobe... not on our way out. You and I, Ensign Rhodes, will be fully prepared by the time we return, however. We will both sit our exams side by and side and we will make them oh and ahh about how good our scores are. We will take their tiny little minds and shove them where the sun doesn't shine and where there is a plentitude of manure... where the mushrooms live.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Hall!” Cindy said with enthusiasm.

  “That's the spirit!” she paused. “I thought you were going to ask about the Master Chief's request to share a compartment.”

  “It's my understanding that space is limited and that we have to double up.”

  “All except lucky me.” She laughed, “Unless I change my mind.” She looked at Cindy. “A good part of me died there on Dragon. I got to know people for a couple of days or barely one. Most of them are dead now. When my family died... I took it better. I hadn't seen them in a couple of years and it didn't seem real that Barrio was gone, or Corinth, for that matter, where I'd gone to secondary school.

  “Dragon -- that was real. I felt it in every bone in my body when we took the big hit. I felt it in every bone in my body when we took the debris hit in my compartment. We decompressed, you understand?”

  “I don't understand, except from what I've seen on HDD.”

  “You have no idea. One second the compartment was as usual, and then you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The sudden decompression freezes all of the moisture out of the air -- it's instant fog.

  “For a Rim Runner like me, it's instinctive. I'd practiced thousands of times when I was a kid. You see the fog, and you grab the nearest bubble and put it on. You don't hesitate, you don't stop to think -- you just do it.

  “Dirty-feet stop to think. Others of the weapons control officers were busy entering firing solutions and couldn't afford the distraction. Nine of ten of the people in aft starboard fire control died in less than a minute; a great percentage of them fire control officers. I programmed my position to go to automatic, and went to another and got it going, and another and another...”

  She sighed. “They were coming in dumb, most of them. Only a few figured out that they couldn't fly straight before we got them. Normally a position on automatic gets about one in ten; you need a person to override it and take a shot sooner or later than the computer would. But they were coming in stupid, and every position I put on automatic scored. Others, in the other fire control positions, got the message and they went to automatic as well. We really ran up the numbers on them!”

  “In my dreams, I'm brave like people on HDD shows are. But... all I did was watch the battle and cry,” Cindy told her.

  Lieutenant Hall cleared her throat. “Obviously you don't understand that that's why you're here?”

  “They want a cry baby?” Cindy asked, angry.

  “No. You sat there through the entire thing. Everything. You watched what was going on. Good God! Who wouldn't have cried at what they saw? Sure, if you had something to do, you could focus on the task at hand and manage. More than once, before we took the debris hit, I wiped away tears.

  “And afterwards? You asked exactly one question -- what had happened to your people? Ensign Rhodes, if you were afraid for your own life, if you were worried about your future; that thought would never have occurred to you. And after you learned what happened to them? The next thing you did was try to take the General Education placement exam, so you could qualify for the Fleet. You didn't run and hide; you did what any reasonable person should do: try to get in the fight.

  “Remember what Admiral Jensen said he did afterwards? He went to his compartment and trashed it. That, Ensign, was because he was angry and frustrated at himself that he didn't do better.

  “I was lucky -- the big hit wrecked Dragon. There was enough damage control work to do that it would have taken months. I was part of a crew that went as far forward as we could go, before the damage was so bad that there was no way to go further. I worke
d until I dropped; then they came and got me and hauled me off to Earth for that stupid ceremony and now here I am. I haven't had a chance to sit down and come to grips with what happened yet.”

  Cindy sat silent for the rest of the flight, trying to work things out in her head. There was so much on her plate! One thing she refused to revisit -- her age. Okay, she was young. So what? Did she think that mattered? Only when she was trying to cover up her failures. The rest of the time she thought she was just as competent as anyone else.

  Maybe -- but probably not.

  Chapter 7 -- Getting Underway

  They reached Pixie and Lieutenant Hall was blunt. “We need to get underway at once. I've been going for four days now, with just a few hours sleep. I'm going to sleep. I will, however, supervise Ensign Rhodes as she pulls us away from the dock, sets our preliminary vector and gets us going.

  “At that point, all of us, except Ensign Rhodes, will stand down.”

  “Captain,” the Marine interjected. “I'm Master Pilot certified. I'll be happy to spell the ensign. I can even help get us out of the dock.” He grinned. “You all saw to it that me and my mates have had plenty of time to sleep the other day. I'll be glad to pay some of that back.”

  Cindy saw Lieutenant Hall turn pale, turn and leave the compartment almost at a run.

  “Sir...” Cindy started to say to the Marine.

  He interjected. “Ensign, I'm a gunnery sergeant. Call me 'gunny' or 'sarge.' Never sir.”

  “Sergeant, Lieutenant Hall lost someone important to her on the bridge of the Dragon. A Marine.”

  The other nodded. He looked at her for a moment and then turned to the others. “It's 2012 Zulu. As Captain Hall has said, you will stand down until the 0800 Zulu tomorrow. Report here.” He nodded to Master Chief Shinzu. “I know you're number three, and I'm stepping on your toes. Sorry.”

  Chief Shinzu grinned. “I'm told I have large bones and that I'm far heavier than most individuals of Japanese extraction, for all that I'm not as tall as you. Still, Gunny, when you tell people what to do, there won't be as much hesitation as if I'd told them.”

  “This once, Master Chief,” the Marine promised her.

  She laughed and turned to Cindy. “I will see that your ship bag is stowed. You will be happy to know that we have an extensive supply of shipsuits. I'd be obliged if you would shower and change before coming to bed.”

  Cindy stuck her tongue out, and everyone in the compartment laughed.

  The gunny ended it. “You all have things to do. Go do them.”

  A few minutes later Cindy was sitting in a position on the Pixie's bridge, indicated to her by the gunny.

  He smiled cynically. “About now, you're asking yourself 'How in the world am I going to take a one hundred and sixty meter dumbbell out of the dock without dinging it?’”

  Cindy grimaced. “And if I don't even know the ship's dimensions? Or its shape?”

  “Tomorrow if you don't know, I'll do something your father should have done, long ago: I'll turn you over my knee and paddle you. I'm sure you wouldn't want this ol' Gunny up on charges for striking an officer, would you?”

  “No, I don't want anyone charged. I've seen enough of that in my very brief career in the Fleet.”

  “Six days?”

  Cindy counted on her fingers and sighed. “I lost track. About that.”

  “Time flies when people you know are dying. Get used to it.”

  Cindy shook her head. “I keep feeling sorry for myself and telling someone about it. All their stories beat mine. I think I'm just going to forget it.”

  He shook his head. “Never forget it. That's what this war has become: payback. We can't forget.”

  “Do you understand that I'm here because I don't agree about payback?”

  “Yes. On the other hand, you're rational. While you don't think it's right to blow up planets, you're going to do what you have to do to save our species from extinction.”

  “I was going to say, 'reluctantly' but that's not right. I will do what I have to do. But I do have reservations.”

  “Don't we all!” he said with a laugh.

  “Now, Ensign, lets see if we can get Pixie out of dock and on the way.”

  He explained what he was doing, including disconnecting the boarding tube with the shuttle. Cindy spoke up about that. “What will happen to the shuttle?”

  “They know it's here. Someone will be sent to fetch it. While you don't have the expertise to know where we are, suffice to say this is a major Fleet shipyard. We are not out here by ourselves, not by a long shot.”

  Cindy watched as he laid in the course for Adobe and went to High Fan. “That's it? We're on the way for seventy-some light years and that's all you have to do?”

  He turned to her and regarded Cindy for a moment. “My sisters have rug rats; I never did. Have you ever babysat?”

  “Yes, I've been a babysitter.” It was still a rite of passage after all the centuries.

  “And when you babysat an older kid, one near the limit of when you need a sitter... did you ever have to answer the question about why you were there?”

  “Too many accidents can happen to someone alone. A second person is insurance.”

  “That,” he agreed. “You were there for insurance, Ensign. In case something happened, you were there to act in lieu of the kid's parents. I don't know how it was described to you, but my sister told me once that she paid her babysitter about a buck for the work the sitter did and the rest for what the sitter would have to do if there was an emergency. Insurance.”

  “Yes, I heard that. It seemed to make sense.”

  “It does make sense. If nothing else, it gives the parents a fig leaf to drape over their metaphorical parts when they have to leave the rug rats behind.

  “Ships, Ensign, have very competent AIs. Those AIs will tell you everything is fine -- right up until reality hits them in the face and then they are clueless, and all too often, helpless.

  “We're here to handle out-of-nominal events. We are here to deal with the situation if we drop back to normal space for our navigation check and Pixie can't find us in known space. We are here as insurance.”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “So, we're the computer's babysitter?”

  “Something like that. Have you talked to Pixie yet?”

  How quickly we forget! “No, Gunny.”

  “The AI aboard this ship is the top of the line. The computer is the same size as the one Dragon or the other wired ships have.”

  “Rome?” she asked.

  “It was in process. There were a lot of changes to the electronics, and there's the wee, small problem of performing surgery on sixteen thousand people. With the forthcoming battle, it was thought it would make sense to put it off. You weren't privy to the discussions, but Jensen and others were upset about the decision. The fighters were within latch-frame of the Earth a good part of the time. It would have helped considerably if they could have coordinated the battle more closely with FTL, computer-assisted communication.”

  “And we're on High Fan now?”

  He laughed. “You're not sure?”

  “It seems like every time I go faster than light, it affects me less. I can barely feel it.”

  The gunny laughed harder. “Don't tell anyone about it -- they will all be jealous. I've been FTL a zillion times. I still want to puke for the first few minutes. Gentle fan transitions make life so much easier -- even if it leaves you a great big fat target when you come off of fans.”

  “I just barely felt it. Lieutenant Hall said it was a valuable trait.”

  “Lieutenant Hall, our wonderful captain, is a master of understatement, Ensign. About one in a hundred doesn’t feel FTL like the rest of us. Did she mention how much you'll be worth as a pilot or weapons control officer? As a Master Pilot who can do both?”

  “I'm not a pilot or a master anything. But yes, she said people like me were worth their weight in gold.”

  “You are. Of course, first that w
ee, small hurdle to overcome -- one the rest of us will have to deal with that you likely won't.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “It's important, you see?”

  Cindy nodded.

  “So, we'll do like the Port clowns so much like. We'll 'parameterize' the effect. That is, when we drop from High Fan for our navigation check, before we return to our base course, we'll do a number of rapid, no delay transitions to see just how much you can take. Pity about the rest of us.”

  “That doesn't sound good,” Cindy said, uncertain.

  “Ensign Rhodes, for those of us more sensitive than others, it won't be good. Some of us may wind up in sick bay -- but it's something we need to know so we can plan for the eventuality that those rapid transitions are what stands between our lives and death.

  “You are unlikely to have been exposed to it, at least not that I've seen. When a member of the Fleet is asked to choose between going to the hospital and killing our enemies or avoiding all of that -- they take the hospital and death to our enemies. Sure, they'd rather avoid that result, but if there is no other option they will gladly do it to score against our enemies. Gladly.”

  “I am so out of my depth,” she said forlornly.

  “Ensign, that's the truth of it. Yet, a great number of people -- including me -- think that if you apply yourself that there may well be nothing out of your depth. Take is easy, take your time and deal with issues as you can. That's what Rim Runners do; that's what the Fleet does. One step at a time, going from the simple to the complex.”

  “I will,” Cindy told him simply.

  He grinned. “You bet. Want to play some gin rummy?”

  Cindy blinked. “Pardon?”

  “Right now we're cruising along at 360 times the speed of light. We're going to keep doing that for the next twenty-six hours, when we'll make a course change, go another some odd hours, depending on some random number generator in the computer, then stop again and head in the general direction of Adobe.”

  He waved at the bridge controls around them. “If anything out of nominal happens, the computer will let us know before we're likely to notice it. The computer doesn't get short of sleep or even out of nominal for sleep, like you are. The only external event we're concerned about just now is if we detect a ship traveling on approximately the same course as we are -- which might, although probably not, indicate a shadower.”