A Call to Duty

by David Weber

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Travis said, kicking off toward the rack of kits. Belatedly, now, he remembered where he’d seen her before. She’d come in twice during the past fifty hours, telling Craddock to get someone on some problem Travis hadn’t quite overheard the details of. Both times Craddock had promised to get someone over to wherever she needed help and then sent her on her way. Both times, judging from her current glowering expression, he hadn’t bothered to follow up on his promise.

  Apparently, she’d gotten tired of taking yes for an answer.

  Neither of them said a word as she led the way through the maze of passageways to one of Vanguard’s thousand-plus junction boxes. Waiting there was a young woman in a tech jumpsuit, looking equal parts tired and annoyed. “Here we go,” the lieutenant said brightly as she caught a handhold and braked to a halt. “You two know each other? Never mind. Spacer Second Class Suzanne Marx from Communications, this is Spacer Long from Gravitics. I’m Lieutenant Donnelly. Lieutenant Lisa Donnelly, in case one of you is planning to write me up later.”

  She pointed to the junction box. “You see this box? This box is interfering with the telemetry subsystem for one of my aft missile guidance systems. Half of the cables coming in are owned by Gravitics; the other half and the box itself are Communications property. I can’t seem to get either of your chiefs to take responsibility for the area, and I’m tired of asking.” She leveled a forefinger each at Marx and Travis. “You two are techs. They’re your systems. Fix the damn thing.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Now.”

  Travis looked at Marx. It was clear she was thinking along the same lines he was: not only was this not how things in the RMN were supposed to be done, but Donnelly was probably skating at the edge of an actionable offense by cutting through protocol this way.

  It was also abundantly clear that Marx was just as reluctant as Travis was to point any of that out.

  He took a careful breath. “You have a key?” he asked.

  Marx’s lip twitched, but she nodded. “Yeah,” she said reluctantly, pulling it out of her tool pouch. “How about you start on the cable traces while I check the connections?”

  The job ended up being trickier than Travis had expected. The trouble was a malfunction in one of the multiplexer nodes, triggered when the relatively long-duration network diagnostic packets interfered with the shorter-duration data pulses from Gravitics and Communications. The result was an intermittent corruption of Donnelly’s missile telemetry data stream, occasionally causing the stream to vanish completely.

  It only took Travis and Marx five minutes to fix, but nearly an hour to figure out. Maybe one reason, Travis reflected as they replaced the faulty node, that Craddock had blown off the job in the first place.

  “Excellent,” Donnelly said as Travis and Marx closed and sealed the junction box. “And now I believe you were both off-duty. Dismissed, and go get some rest. You’ve earned it.” With a curt nod to each of them, she swung herself with practiced ease down the passageway.

  “What did she mean before about writing her up?” Marx asked. “I didn’t think we could write up officers.”

  “We can complain to the bosun about mistreatment,” Travis told her. “It’s not technically a write-up, but that’s probably what she meant.”

  “Oh.” Marx cocked her head. “Are you going to?”

  Travis looked at the box. Technically, he knew, Donnelly had overstepped her bounds by grabbing him and Marx directly instead of putting the request through their respective chiefs.

  On the other hand, Travis had seen plenty of cases where turf wars, personality conflicts, and simple inertia had snafued up the system. And it wasn’t like the job hadn’t been necessary, or that Donnelly had dragged them out of their racks. “I don’t know,” he told Marx. “You?”

  Marx sniffed and shook her head. “Too much datawork. And afterwards you’ve made yourself a new enemy. As long as our chiefs don’t get wind of it, I say we let it drop.”

  “I suppose,” Travis said reluctantly. Donnelly’s actions seriously offended his sense of how things should be done, but Marx’s argument made sense. And questionable methods or not, Donnelly had gotten an important job done. “So. I guess I’ll see you around?”

  “It’s a small ship,” Marx said. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

  Ten minutes later, as he fell asleep in his rack, Travis found himself rather hoping that they did.

  “It showed up midway through the watch,” Creutz said as Ouvrard studied the readout. “Dinks says it’s a mistuning in the ring, with an associated misalignment. She’s not really sure whether the mistuning is driving the misalignment or vice versa, but she’s pretty sure it doesn’t much matter. Either way, it’s trouble.”

  “No argument there,” Ouvrard said, scrolling the readout back to the top and checking the summary graph. As if Phobos didn’t have enough troubles. “So is the ring at risk?”

  “The ring itself, no,” Creutz said. “But it’s definitely putting strain on the hull.”

  Ouvrard scowled to herself. So much for the geniuses who’d claimed that a ship this size could run on a single impeller ring without unpleasant consequences. “How much strain? Are we in danger of losing some hull plates?”

  “Dinks hasn’t the foggiest,” Creutz said. “She’s trying to run some simulations, but the data’s pretty limited and there’s nothing in the archives that really applies. Still, so far things are pretty tame.”

  And there should be plenty of warning if something did start to go belly-up. Ouvrard assumed.

  “Nothing we can do about it out here, I suppose.”

  “Not really,” Creutz said. “It’s part and parcel with the whole screwed-up design of the damn ship. Fixing it would take a trip back to Manticore and probably another month in dock.”

  “And we’d probably end up with Phobos being taken away from us,” Ouvrard murmured.

  “Probably.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, Creutz stirred. “Speaking for myself, Ma’am, I say damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.”

  “You mean continue with our mission?”

  “Ah . . . yes, Ma’am. That was a historical reference—”

  “Yes, I know,” Ouvrard said, feeling a mischievous smile playing around her lips despite the seriousness of the situation. “Really, Armand, you need to develop a sense of either irony or the absurd.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Ma’am,” Creutz said with a lopsided smile of his own. “Though if MPARS wanted me to have a sense of irony they should have issued it to us.”

  “Better,” Ouvrard said approvingly. “Well, keep Dinks on it. And have her start looking for a fix.”

  “I thought we agreed there wasn’t anything she could do,” Creutz said, frowning.

  “That’s what the book says,” Ouvrard confirmed. “But Lieutenant Stroud comes from a long and distinguished school of book-be-damned tinkerers. If there’s a rabbit anywhere in that hat, I’m betting she can pull it out.”

  Creutz frowned a little harder. “A rabbit in a hat?”

  “Historical reference,” Ouvrard told him, unstrapping from the engineering station. “I’m heading to the impeller room. If any of the nodes blow up, do let me know.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Creutz promised. “I’ll be sure to hand-wave it to you as you fly past.”

  “Nice,” Ouvrard said approvingly. “You’ve definitely got potential.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” Creutz said. “Perhaps someday I’ll master the skill well enough to run for Parliament.”

  “Please,” Ouvrard protested. “I just ate.”

  Hanford had hoped Rafe’s Scavenger’s fusion plant would stumble along for at least a few more hours before they had to shut it down.

  It didn’t last nearly that long.

  And they never had a chance to shut it down.

  The failure was about as spectacular as it was possible to have and still live through it. One minute everything
was humming along more or less smoothly; the next, it was like someone had drop-kicked them in the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy. The ship was still shuddering when the scream of the depressurization alarm erupted, rattling the bulkheads and hatches. Wincing with the sound and the throbbing pain where he’d been thrown against the passageway bulkhead, Hanford fumbled for a handhold and changed direction toward the bridge.

  The siren had gone silent, but the red warning lights were still flashing when he arrived. Shankweiler was already there, strapped into the copilot station, her hands dancing frantically across the controls. The pilot’s station was empty; glancing around, Hanford spotted Gratz, who was supposed to be on duty, floating limply against the wall. “What’ve we got?” Hanford demanded as he slid into the pilot’s station and strapped himself in.

  Or rather, tried to do so. Only one of the three straps was still intact, the others torn loose from their anchors. Apparently, Gratz was away from his post because he’d been thrown there by the ship’s violent motion.

  “What do you think?” Shankweiler snarled back. “The reactor went critical and the automatics ejected it.” She jabbed a finger at the mass of red on the monitors. “Only they didn’t eject it fast enough. It was way closer to the hull than it was supposed to be when it blew.”

  Hanford swore feelingly. “Damage?”

  “Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Shankweiler said tightly. “Bad news: the reactor room and six adjacent compartments are completely gone. The backblast through the open section fried a few more compartments—still trying to sort out how much to which ones, but life support is definitely one of them. The spare O2 cylinders are probably gone, too. Pretty much everything on the starboard side of the hull is toast, including the shuttle. Still trying to figure out who’s still with us, but it looks like at least half the crew may not have made it.”

  “God Almighty,” Hanford breathed. “What the hell is the good news?”

  Shankweiler hissed out a breath. “Half of us might still be alive. We’ve got the air in here, and probably a little more in some of the other intact parts of the ship. And we’ve got our survival suits.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Hanford felt his hands curl into fists. A dead ship in the middle of nowhere, and only their survival suits standing between them and death. “I guess,” he said, striving to keep his voice calm, “it’s time to send out that mayday.”

  “Already done.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  There had been a time in Manticore’s history, Lieutenant Commander Allegra Metzger knew, when a battlecruiser’s tactical officer was not only highly regarded, but considered essential to the performance of her ship. Even more importantly, at least to some in the Navy, the TO slot had been the stepping-stone to the coveted rank of captain and the prestige of command.

  But those days were long gone. True, on paper the TO had a considerable range of noncombat duties, most of them involving the sensors, tracking, and whatever else was happening beyond the ship’s hull. And on the smaller ships—the corvettes and destroyers that patrolled the space around Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, and the main asteroid mining areas—those duties were still important.

  But not on the battlecruisers. Not when the three that weren’t in mothballs still spent most of their time in Manticore orbit trying to keep undermanned stations and underequipped systems in some semblance of readiness. Here, the tactical positions tended to be awarded to Parliamentary sons and daughters, or else to solid but unimaginative officers at the end of their careers.

  As for the whole stepping-stone thing, the stagnant ship numbers had effectively put such hopes and dreams to rest. The men and women who already held command posts were for the most part not willing to graciously give them up, and while such assignments weren’t officially their decision, enough of them had friends in high enough places to postpone the inevitable.

  Metzger had had such dreams once, back when she’d first entered the Academy as a starry-eyed cadet. She’d envisioned herself in command, and had worked her butt off with that goal glowing like an approaching sunrise in front of her.

  But slowly she’d come to realize that academic prowess and sheer competence alone weren’t enough, not even with the Navy’s supposed commitment to meritocracy. The rich, powerful, and noble always found a way to get to the front of a steadily shrinking line. The best of the best still floated to the surface, but they had to go through a lot more interference along the way.

  Some of Metzger’s classmates and, later, her fellow junior officers had become embittered over that reality. But Metzger herself had long since learned to take it in stride. She enjoyed the challenges and cat-and-mouse aspects of military tactics, there were enough drills and practices to keep her from becoming stale or overly bored, and she got to be on Vanguard’s bridge where the action was.

  When there was any action, of course, which was admittedly rare. The gravitic vane accident had been the most excitement they’d had in months, and even that had been over almost before it began.

  Still, with Vanguard actually on the move now, even if it was just a quick hyperspace hop over to Manticore-B to join Gryphon Fleet, there was always the chance that something interesting might happen.

  She did, however, hope that any such interesting incident wouldn’t involve any actual gunnery work. Especially given the results of their recent exercises.

  The officers and chiefs responsible for Vanguard’s missiles, lasers, and autocannon had done their best. But the antiquated, patched, and repatched state of the ship’s equipment had simply proved too much for them. The captain’s grading on the various tests had ranged from good to adequate to poor.

  Metzger scowled down at her soup. Or at least that was what the captain’s report would say. But that wasn’t exactly how it had happened. Most of the officers had done competently enough, as had most of the chiefs. But some of the officers, and way too many of the crew, hadn’t. Not even close.

  But the captain of a Navy ship had to also be a politician. Especially these days. Mars’s fate was a wake-up call, a warning that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his friends were ascendant, and that when it came to resources and manpower, MPARS held a strong advantage over the RMN. Some of the less-than-stellar officers involved in the gunnery tests were well-connected, and Davison couldn’t afford to nail their hides to the bulkhead. At least not officially.

  She was wondering yet again how the captain would walk that fine line when the emergency-maneuver klaxon suddenly sounded in the wardroom.

  By the time the spin section slowed to a halt two minutes later she’d finished her soup and was on her way up the lift to Axial Two and Vanguard’s bridge.

  She arrived to find Captain Davison strapped into his station. The XO, Commander Bertinelli, was floating beside him, talking rapidly in a low voice. “Reporting for duty, Sir,” Metzger announced, giving the status boards a quick look as she headed for her station behind the helm. Vanguard, she knew, had been accelerating toward the Unicorn One space station, which was still half the system away. That course was changing now as Vanguard’s bow pitched around against the background stars, bringing the ship maybe a hundred seventy degrees from her original course.

  Metzger studied her displays as she strapped in. As far as she could see there was nothing out there but floating rocks. “Do we have a situation, Sir?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, TO,” Davison said gruffly. “XO, has Gravitics been able to squeeze anything more out of that flicker?”

  “Nothing so far, Sir,” Bertinelli said. “TO, get the captain a fine-sweep on the forward octants, will you?”

  “Forward octant sweep, aye,” Metzger acknowledged, keying for the sweep. On some ships, she knew, the bridge crew had served together long enough that they conversed with each other by name instead of by position. But Captain Davison was old-school, and still insisted all bridge personnel be addressed according
to standard practice. His friends and apologists suggested the formality was modeled on the Peerage’s own habit of referring to themselves and each other by estate titles instead of family names. The captain’s detractors and Vanguard’s more cynical crew members held to the theory that Davison was so close to retirement he didn’t think his officers’ names worth making the effort to memorize. “May I ask what exactly I’m looking for?”

  “Good question,” Davison growled. “Gravitics lost a wedge out there—a mining ship named Rafe’s Scavenger, about twelve light-minutes astern. No idea yet whether they lost the whole ship, lost the wedge, or just shut it down for some fool reason.”

  “Understood, Sir,” Metzger said. Standard procedure in such cases was for the Navy ship who’d spotted the event to start setting up for a rescue mission while awaiting the slower light-speed data that would take a few minutes to catch up with the instantaneous gravitic pulses. If there was a reactor flare or some other indication of catastrophe—

  And right on cue, a tiny flare flickered just off-center of Metzger’s fine-sweep. “Flare,” she snapped. “Bearing—”

  “I see it,” Davison interrupted. “Reactor failure?”

  “Sure as hell looked like it,” Bertinelli said. “TO, what does CIC say?”

  “CIC confirms reactor failure,” Metzger said, peering at the sensor data and analysis now scrolling across her displays. “No way to tell at this range whether it ejected in time or took the ship with it.”

  “If it took the ship, it didn’t take all of it,” the communications officer reported. “Getting an emergency beacon . . . and also a radio call.” He clicked a switch.

  “—gain I say mayday,” a woman’s tense voice blared from the bridge speakers. “Mining ship Rafe’s Scavenger, twenty-five crew, unknown number of casualties. We’ve lost our reactor, wedge, and life support. Urgently request assistance from any ship within range. Repeating: Mayday; again I say mayday. Mining ship—”

  Davison gestured, and Com switched off the speakers. “Astro, can we get to her?” he asked.