Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “At first, Fleet was forgiving, to a degree, about such mistakes. The admiral at Grenada survived the attack and was court-martialed. They shot him a few minutes before his scheduled execution time -- the time his failure to engage had cost the defense -- and the planet.

  “Since then, no one at all wants to stand up to a Special Board if they can avoid it.” He grinned at her and lifted his thumb. “You did good there, too, Ensign.”

  “So, I have to essentially fire someone.”

  “That's it. The XO of a ship handles most of the administrative details, although he or she is supervised by the captain.

  “Obviously, as you learned with Lieutenant Servien, there are degrees of how fired you become. Had she paid attention and done what she was ordered, she'd be alive now.” He laughed nastily. “Back on Grissom Station, going through Fighter Transition of course.

  “Chief Parminter has done nothing terribly wrong, but even those of us who aren't Rim Runners can see he's not up to this. If he's smart, first thing tomorrow, he'll be knocking on your door, asking for relief. If you get in over your head, that's what you have to do. Fleet won't ding a person who says, 'I can't do this, sorry!' Granted, after that, what happens to you won't be as nice as you'd like, but it won't be hell. Parminter, if he's relieved, will likely lose a stripe and get nothing but awful jobs for the rest of the war. And, as they say, it's looking to be a long war.”

  “And I have to do it?”

  He laughed. “If he quits before we get to Bridges, you file some papers, shake his hand and tell him he'll be missed. Piece of cake. If he waits until we arrive, he'll be relieved -- you file some papers and refuse to look at him or talk to him. A little harder, but not too much.

  “People get fired all of the time in civilian life, Ensign. It's no big deal. In the Fleet -- and not, I might add, in the Port or Marine arms -- it's only a big deal if you make a mistake that endangers others. Even then, if you simply goofed, they'll relieve you and send you on your way. It's when, like with Lieutenant Servien, you show off to everyone just how woefully stupid you are, that there are risks. And trust me, Ensign, the captain won't be looking for you to do the paperwork on something like that!”

  “I am going to do my best,” Cindy said emphatically.

  “And we know it.” He grinned. “Right now I'm going to spend a little time aft, fixing something to eat. Want something?”

  “If it's no trouble.”

  He laughed. “First, I fancy myself as a chef. I'm always looking for someone to experiment on. Second, no offense, Ensign, but I'd just as soon you spent your time figuring out things like what you just did, rather than worrying about how long to boil an egg.”

  Cindy couldn't help it. Her mother was an indifferent cook and she remembered one of her earliest questions about cooking to her mother: “How long do you have to cook an egg?”

  Her mother's reply was “Until it's hard.” Even at ten Cindy realized that it was just a little hard to check the hardness of an egg without breaking it open. She gone to the computer, got an answer and, after that, never asked her mother another question about cooking.

  Hearing the gunny's dismissal of her questions was a bit of a surprise. Then she realized the truth. She'd wanted this; she'd wanted this more than anything she'd ever wanted anything before in her life.

  She was still contemplating that, when someone shook her shoulder.

  Startled, Cindy look up and saw the captain. “Sorry, Captain.”

  Irene shook her head. “I came forward and saw you sitting there, unmoving. I was set to give you a purple rocket for sleeping on duty, except the gunny told me, 'She's thinkin' Cap'n -- leave her be.' I looked and saw your eyes were moving over the board every few seconds.” The captain's expression was winter-cold. “In the future, Ensign Rhodes, you need to be more alert when your captain is on the deck.”

  “Sorry, Captain,” Cindy told her boss.

  “Well, you're relieved. Go get some sleep; you have eight hours and I'll wake you for your first set of classroom instruction. Sleep tight!”

  Cindy hardly glanced at Chief Shinzu when she arrived in their compartment. Instead, she showered and collapsed on her bed, wadded up her pillow under her head and slept.

  She woke up a few minutes before she was scheduled to, hastily showered and saw to her shipsuit, then went to fix something to eat. While she was watching a couple of eggs boil, Chief Parminter came to her and asked if he could talk. “I think we can afford to a little more informal, Chief,” she told him.

  “I wish to request reassignment. It is a difficult thing to admit to yourself that it spite of your mental image of yourself as competent and brave -- that you only have a surface understanding of your specialty and that the prospect of hanging out in space, surrounded by our enemies is turning my insides to water.”

  “I think reassignment would be the best option,” Cindy said carefully.

  The chief snorted. Well, what had she expected? “I'll get with the captain and find out what has to be done between now and we get to Bridges.”

  “Thank you, Ensign,” he told her, spun on his heel and left.

  A few minutes later Chief Shinzu appeared and while Cindy ate, the chief ran over the outline of her studies for the next few months. It was heavy on math and physics, with a solid dose of general information as well. “Once you have a firm foundation in math and physics, we'll branch out into general engineering and electronics -- the practical part of the spectrum. If, in the course of your studies you find something of particular interest, let me know and we can focus on it. Eventually you'll find something that you want to specialize in, and you can go on from there.”

  “Fleet operations,” Cindy said bluntly.

  The master chief grinned. “That's like saying you are interested in math or science. Fleet operations entails everything from supply and logistics, training, intelligence... not to mention the part you were briefly associated with: operations scheduling.”

  Cindy contemplated it and sighed. “There's a lot to learn.”

  “There is indeed. Just realize that people have been learning it for hundreds of years. It looks gigantic from where you're sitting now; twenty years from now you'll look back and wonder how you could have mistaken something so small for something so huge.”

  The ship's voice spoke in Cindy's head. “The captain wishes the crew to report to the bridge within fifteen minutes.”

  Cindy finished up her meal and she and the master chief reported to the bridge.

  Twelve people in the compartment at once made it clear just how small they were in comparison to Pixie.

  “As I said before, we'll be on rotating watches for now. I'm the first watch commander, with Chief Parminter as my number two and Junior Chief Wong as our number three. Second watch is Master Chief Shinzu as watch commander, Chief Shore as her number two and Junior Chief Tovi as her number three. Third watch is Ensign Rhodes, Chief Irgat and Junior Chief Leslie. Fourth watch is the gunny, Chief Galan and Junior Chief Melvin. This is the first day of the shift rotation, with Fourth watch off.

  “Master Chief Shinzu and Gunny Hodges each have an extra hat -- they are our training officers and will supervise the professional education of the rest of us -- plus their own. Everyone is hereby authorized to use slack times on watch for professional education... just don't let it distract you from your primary duty. And, Gunny, poker isn't professional education.”

  The gunny chuckled. “It should be part of the required curriculum.”

  “You'll have to make do with off watch times for that.

  “Ensign Rhodes,” she finished.

  Cindy looked at her, curious why she was being singled out. “Your previous CO told you that she stood in loco parentis to you and as a result forbade you from certain activities without her prior concurrence. Fleet Regs also specify that a Fleet lieutenant, who hasn't reached their legal majority age, is considered having reached it anyway.

  “I have never wished to be a par
ent; in my opinion you are mature enough to make those sorts of decisions yourself -- and have become aware of what happens if you mess up. Don't mess up. I can't legally emancipate you, but I herewith delegate the responsibilities in regards to your personal supervision to the XO of Pixie.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Cindy said, understanding.

  “Good. Now, Chief Shinzu and Gunny Hodges, get with the other members of the crew in the next day and come up with a training plan. You can commence those plans at once, but I will have to formally sign off on them. What, seventy-two hours?”

  “That's fine, Captain,” the master chief told her boss.

  The gunny nodded as well. “That's plenty of time, Captain.”

  Chapter 8 -- Bridges

  For three weeks after that, Cindy hardly had time to think. Chief Irgut, her number two on their watch, was a middle-aged engineering chief who, it seemed, knew everything there was to know about propulsion and power engineering. She was patient with Cindy's questions, and never once showed any sign of resentment of having a fifteen year old commanding her, someone who knew virtually nothing about engineering. Junior Chief Leslie was a young man whose specialty was electronics maintenance. He was perpetually cheerful, reminding Cindy of the techs who'd worked in the fighter bays on MacArthur and Rome.

  Everyone was on duty for the transition to normal space at Bridges. It was something she was going to have to get used to: the sigh of audible relief when they found the system still survived.

  Then the gunny walked over to her position on the bridge and nudged Cindy. “Are we there yet?”

  In spite of the fact that she hadn't seen much laughter from the other crew members, this time they all laughed. At their navigation check they'd done three fan transitions in a minute. The gunny and Chief Shore each had to spend a day in the sick bay recovering, while the rest were excused from watchkeeping duties for a day. Everyone, even Chief Shore, had congratulated her on an ability they all wished they had.

  Now she looked up at him and smiled faintly. “Could we stop? I gotta go pee.”

  There was more laughter and the tension on the bridge dropped enormously.

  They had to send Chief Parminter down, and to do that they had to close with the planet, even though Captain Hall had wanted to do everything from a distance. Captain Hall, Cindy, Chief Shinzu and the gunny discussed how they wanted to do it, and the best suggestion was Shinzu's: talk to the base intelligence officer, and, at the end of the discussion on fan detection, let whoever it was know that they had to make a crew replacement and who should they talk to about that?

  The intelligence officer was a taciturn man of about thirty, skeleton-thin and whose bald scalp looked like someone had paste waxed it. He was a full commander and listened without speaking.

  Cindy watched him with interest as Captain Hall gave her report. Cindy wasn't sure what fascinated her about the intelligence officer, but something did. When Irene finished they were all surprised when the commander turned to Gunny Hodges.

  “You staying out of trouble, Gunny?”

  “Yes, sir. I'd ask how you were doing, but then, I don't really need to ask, do I?”

  “No, I'm sorry to say, Gunny, you don't have to ask. Still, I'm alive and kicking; that's the name of the game for all of us. It appears to be a small universe.”

  “It does seem to be, sir. What happened...” The gunny patted his own head.

  “The Port Admiral here is about two meters tall. Since it's clear to me he can't look himself in the mirror any more, I do my little bit. He's always on my case.”

  The commander turned to Captain Hall. “I'm going to need to think about this for a few minutes. Gunny Hodges can regale you with war stories until then. Suffice to say, you'd have done better starting with the Port graveyard watch janitorial supervisor than talking to me. However, like crosses people have to bear, you will have to bear yours. I'll get back to you in a few. In the meantime, you would do well to develop some communication malfunctions between now and then.”

  Irene Hall turned to the gunny. “You obviously know him.”

  The gunny laughed. “You may not know him, but you know of him. That's Tin Tin Roeser. I was on the bridge of Calypso when he superseded Jornaga.”

  Cindy was surprised by the expressions on the other faces. The gunny saw Cindy's confusion and grinned. “Indirectly, I mentioned Commander Roeser to you a few weeks ago. He was the XO of the Calypso at Grenada. When Admiral Jornaga decided that we were going to withdraw without contesting the planet, Captain Stavros -- well, it was clearly something he'd never contemplated. He started screaming at Jornaga... then he grabbed his head and collapsed. We learned later he'd had a massive stroke and was dead before he hit the deck.

  “There we were, hauling away from the planet, watching two of the aliens salvoing hundreds of missiles at Grenada. Tin Tin commanded the weapons officer to fire a missile dead ahead. He'd read the Guam's combat reports at New Texas and figured out where to shoot. Jornaga was literally frothing at the mouth, demanding that no such shot be fired.

  “The thing was, Jornaga's moral authority had evaporated the instant the first bomb hit the planet. The weapons officer ignored him and took the shot. A minute later we turned one of those two aliens into plasma... he jumped right where Commander Roeser had fired the missile.

  “Jornaga grabbed him and tried to grapple with him. Major Starkness told me 'Restrain the admiral, Gunny, lest he injure himself.' So I slipped a pair of cuffs on him, and put him in a restrained position. The man was screaming and shouting -- all he wanted to do was get away, to run as far away as he could.

  “A few seconds later we were outside the fan well, reoriented for a few minutes, and then we jumped and blew the second alien up a fraction of a second later. Grenada took nine hundred and seventy gigaton hits in the meantime. There were no survivors. Ten minutes was all it took to lose the planet.

  “The commander at Trinidad didn't know what to do, so he sent everyone to Earth that had been on the bridge of the Calypso. It is no fun seeing the President of the Federation as your judge, plus Admiral Nagoya and Ernie Fletcher. None at all. I thought we were all dead.”

  He laughed. “I shouldn't have worried. Jornaga had killed two hundred million people with his cowardice. The trial lasted only a few minutes, and they ordered him shot at high noon the next day. Then, President Van de Veere himself ordered the execution be moved up ten minutes... the time that Jornaga had cost the defense of Grenada.”

  The gunny gestured towards the planet. “Ever since, some of the admirals dump on Commander Roeser. They say they have no regard for Jornaga, but the fact is that Roeser effectively shot the man in the head -- and a lot of them resent it.”

  Cindy grimaced. She had some experience in that area herself.

  The gunny gestured at the planet again. “Odds are, he's in the dog house -- or worse. I hate to say this, but we're going to have to be very careful that these clowns actually pass on our warning.”

  The screen flickered and Commander Roeser returned. “I hate doing this, Captain Hall, but events have proceeded apace down here. I have sent a private communication channel message back to Earth with your report and my observations. I am not at all confident it would be passed on otherwise.

  “Events. It is unconscionable that a Fleet officer would allow personal pique to interfere with her duty, but Port Admiral Swanson has. Moreover, she is a petty bureaucrat who shouldn't command a Girl Guide troop.

  “They have read your report and have honed in on the elements they think are important: your lack of watchkeeping certificates. They are somewhat stymied by your order authority, but just now they are working themselves up to overrule the top three men in the Federation. Why they think they will be alive an hour after the word gets home and the response returns here, eludes me.

  “Ensign Rhodes has made a critically important observation. Moreover, a personal review of your mission parameters reveals that your greatest deficiency is that you don'
t have the dedicated I-Branch assets I feel necessary for your mission.

  “As I said, I hate having to ask you to trust me, Captain Hall, but I have a modest proposal.”

  “What?” Irene asked cautiously.

  “I have become a pretty good barracks-lawyer in the last two years. I've had to develop a familiarity with regulations that would have turned my stomach before the war started. I start with the most basic regulation of all: to wit, 'Regulations are for the guidance of commander.'”

  “I know that,” Irene said. “All of us know that.”

  “As you also may know, in the early days of the war there were a lot of promotions that didn't fit BuPers ideas of permissible. Never mind the planets saved, enemies killed and gongs earned by officers who had benefited from extraordinary promotions.”

  “Again, Commander, I'm familiar with that.”

  “Fleet had to do something to mollify BuPers, but at the same time, keep the advantages of the new system. They came up with a new regulation about brevet promotions. Those had fallen out of use for several hundred years, but it simplified things for BuPers.

  “Let me quote the regulation, word for word: 'Officers of particular fitness for a rank, but who otherwise may not have the requisite certifications, may be brevetted to the rank by a commander, due to the exigencies of the service. Such officers shall be evaluated exclusively by the recommending officer. Said recommended officer's ER should reflect either a recommendation by the rating officer that the rank should become permanent, the temporary rank should be continued or the subject officer returned to his or her original rank.'”

  Irene Hall looked at him. “Clearly, I'm missing something, Commander.”

  “If you give BuPers a name you wish to appoint to your crew vacancy that makes it a named draft. Only the originating authority of your orders could amend that draft. If you review the wording of the regulation about brevets there is nothing in there that says that the officer being recommended for a brevet has to be promoted. In fact, there are several places where the word 'promotion' would have clarified the matter.