The Terran Fleet Command Saga BoxSet

by Tori Harris

  Chapter 15

  TFS Theseus

  (On standard autodeparture from the Yucca Mountain Shipyard Facility)

  “We are clear of the entrance tunnel and free to maneuver, Captain,” Ensign Fisher reported from the Helm console as TFS Theseus took to the sky for her first operational flight. To ensure adequate in-flight separation from commercial air and space traffic during their short trip to TFC Headquarters, Theseus’ AI had coordinated with both Los Angeles and Denver Air Route Traffic Control. Although the ship was still required to file a flight plan similar to those used by other aircraft, TFC starships generally received priority routing and were granted much more autonomy to choose their altitudes and flight paths — as long as they could do so without posing a danger to other aircraft or those on the ground. Aboard Theseus, the result was a graphical display of exactly where the destroyer was and was not allowed to fly, updated in real-time on the massive wrap-around view screen lining the front of the bridge.

  “Very good, Ensign. Proceed as filed,” Prescott replied with the calmest and most professionally detached tone he could muster at the moment as the warship made the transition from AI-control to being ‘hand flown’ for the first time.

  The autodeparture had been uneventful, from the standpoint of nothing unexpected having taken place, but nerve-wracking nonetheless for everyone involved. This included Yucca Mountain Control, which had technically still been responsible for the ship until control authority was passed to her crew. The entire departure — from the first, tentative application of reverse thrust to exit Berth Ten until her dramatic passage through the massive blast doors at the end of the two-kilometer-long entrance tunnel — had taken less than two minutes. Now, as Fisher pointed the ship’s bow forty-five degrees above the horizon, Theseus leapt effortlessly into the morning sky above the Amargosa Valley, the breathtaking scale of her power beginning to tell for the first time.

  “Dear God,” Fisher muttered under his breath, already feeling like the ship was getting a little ahead of him only seconds after leaving the shipyard. “This thing really does scare the hell out of me.”

  “Easy, Blake,” Prescott soothed, “just another day at the office. Her flight characteristics should be almost identical to Ingenuity’s, right?”

  “Yes and no, sir,” Fisher replied, manually rocking the massive warship along her longitudinal axis in an effort to get a better feel for how she responded to control inputs. “For lack of a better term, the ‘feel’ is just … different. For one thing, there’s no lag at all. Ingenuity was responsive, sure, but this thing responds instantly — no hesitation whatsoever. I also can’t feel the ship’s movements in the seat of my pants quite like I could with Ingenuity.”

  “Ah, well that part does make sense. The gravitic systems have dramatically more power available, so you shouldn’t expect to feel the same delay you did with Ingenuity. When you make a control movement and place a G-load on the ship, inertial dampening should happen in near real-time. We should also be capable of more aggressive maneuvers without exceeding the 6-G crew limit internally.”

  “That all sounds great, sir, but right now I’ll settle for her and me coming to some kind of an understanding,” Fisher laughed.

  “Captain,” Reynolds reported, “Lieutenant Lee — Marine First Lieutenant Jackson Lee, that is — reports that his two squads are suited up and ready to deploy. They will be waiting in two of the Gurkha ASVs until you give the go order.”

  “But they’re not actually deploying in the Gurkhas, correct?”

  “That’s correct, sir. With their new combat EVA suits, they prefer not to mount up for short-range deployments. That way, they don’t all bunch up in one spot and become a single target of opportunity. Two of the Gurkhas will still deploy with the Marine squads for fire support, however. While the squads are waiting on the hangar deck, the ASVs provide a convenient place to strap themselves in until they get a ‘green deck’ signal.”

  “Understood. With any luck, their services won’t be needed, but I’m pretty sure two squads of Marines — well, these two squads of Marines in particular — should provide quite a deterrent in case we run into any problems.”

  “We’ve got enough problems waiting for us topside, sir,” Reynolds said. “I’d appreciate having at least one part of our mission turn out to be a cake walk.”

  “That reminds me … Lieutenant Lee,” Prescott called, raising his voice so that the young lieutenant at the Science and Engineering console could hear, “we need to come up with some way to refer to you and your brother so that everyone knows who we’re talking about.”

  Although TFC had a relatively short history, as well as relatively few installations to which young officers could be assigned, it was still unusual for two siblings to share a duty station, let alone be deployed aboard the same ship. Strangely enough, TFC Navy Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Jayston Lee and his fraternal twin brother, TFC Marine First Lieutenant Jackson Lee, were originally from Alice Springs, Australia, less than forty kilometers from the Pine Gap Shipyard Facility. Pine Gap, along with the nearly identical facilities at Yamantau Mountain in Russia and Yucca Mountain in the U.S., had been the construction sites for all of Fleet’s capital ships. The only exception had been Ingenuity, which had been constructed with great fanfare and in full view of the public near Tokyo, Japan as part of the massive disinformation campaign surrounding the MAGI PRIME program. After receiving his commission as a TFC officer, Jayston’s first assignment had been to join the crew of the Theseus at Yucca Mountain to assist in her fitting out and then ultimately deploy with the destroyer. Jackson, on the other hand, ended up being assigned to a “black” engineering project working on a prototype for a new type of combat EVA suit being put through its paces at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The fact that the two brothers had ended up aboard the same ship had been purely coincidental, as was the fact that, like Theseus herself, today’s mission would be the first operational use of the new combat EVA suit.

  “I was thinking we could call your brother ‘Lieutenant Jackson,’ or maybe ‘Lieutenant Jacks,’” Reynolds said. “Do you think he’d have a problem with that?”

  “Oh, we should definitely go with ‘Jacks,’ ma’am. Our mum tried that one time and he absolutely hated it,” Lee laughed.

  “Well, there’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one,” Prescott said with a smile.

  “No, in all seriousness, Captain, it won’t be a problem. Believe it or not, we had an instructor at the Defense Force Academy come up with the same solution, and it has stuck with him ever since. In fact, I’m sure his platoon already calls him Jacks … to his face at least.”

  “Alright, there you have it,” Prescott chuckled. “Please let our Marine platoon commander know that he is officially dubbed ‘Lieutenant Jacks’ until further notice. We’ll give him a chance to air his grievances later.”

  “Aye, sir,” Reynolds replied, reflecting that it might have been a better choice to pick on the Navy lieutenant rather than the Marine one.

  Whenever possible, military air and spacecraft were required to attenuate their sonic boom footprint during overflights of populated areas. For today’s flight, Theseus’ AI calculated that the ship’s gravitic fields could prevent its sonic booms from reaching the ground as long as her airspeed remained under two thousand six hundred kph. This rather leisurely pace also allowed ground-based controllers to more easily keep the massive ship clear of other traffic during its transit. After quickly reaching her relatively low en route altitude of forty-five thousand feet and at just over Mach two, Theseus covered the one-thousand-kilometer distance to HQTFC in just under twenty-four minutes.

  As the ship neared its destination and began its descent, Prescott somewhat uncharacteristically stood and walked around to the front of the bridge. “Listen up for just a moment, everyone. Without going into too much detail, I feel it’s important to give you an idea of what’s going on at Headquarters, and why we are taking the ship there to pick u
p Admiral Naftur and Ambassador Turlaka rather than simply shuttling them over to meet up with us. The political situation worldwide has become unstable in the wake of the Guardian’s, uh … shall we say ‘invitation’ for Earth to join the Pelaran Alliance. Unfortunately, that instability appears to be affecting TFC just as it is all other governmental bodies around the world. Recently, a number of decisions have been handed down by the Council that threaten to undermine our ability as a military force to provide for Earth’s defense. You should also be aware that the contingent of Marines who normally provide security on the Headquarters campus were dismissed last week and replaced with what you might refer to as a private military force. Frankly, it is unclear whom these troops are taking orders from at this point, so it is difficult to predict how they might respond to our arrival. I don’t want to sound alarmist or dramatic, but there is at least a chance that they may try to prevent us from accomplishing our mission of evacuating the two Wek. We cannot allow this to happen. As you know, Admiral Naftur, as well as the TFC Admiralty, believe that putting Naftur in direct contact with the Resistance forces offers our last, best chance of preventing an attack on Earth.

  “Why am I telling you all of this? Well, that’s where things might get a little dicey. Ultimately, our military forces take their orders from the Leadership Council, and we absolutely recognize their authority to issue lawful orders per the TFC charter. We don’t have time for me to deliver a lecture on duty and professional ethics at the moment,” he paused, smiling wanly, “so let me come straight to the point. The situation with the Leadership Council has become so unstable that it is unclear — to me at least — that they are currently in a position to issue lawful orders. If, therefore, I am ordered by anyone not in our TFC military chain of command to stand down and not retrieve Naftur and Turlaka, I do not intend to comply.”

  Prescott paused to allow the gravity of what he was saying to weigh on his officers for a moment, then continued. “Please understand that it is not my intention to use force to extract the two Wek unless it is absolutely necessary, and, even then, we will endeavor to use nonlethal means as long as doing so does not endanger this ship and her crew.

  “If any of you is uncomfortable with what I am about to do, please relieve yourself of duty immediately so that we can replace you before our arrival. You have my word that there will be absolutely no repercussions of any kind if you make this decision for yourself. Let me remind you, however, that if you do decide to stay, our oaths of office say absolutely nothing about following the orders of our superiors. That kind of language typically appears only in the oaths used by enlisted troops. This has been the case for most professional military forces around the world for centuries and the reason for it is simple. As officers, we are expected to think for ourselves and exercise sound judgment at all times. As you have all heard a thousand times, ‘I was just following orders,’ is never a valid excuse for misconduct of any sort.”

  Prescott paused again to look around the bridge in an effort to gauge the reactions of each of his young officers. Seeing a room full of poker faces, he decided it was time to move things along. “So there you have it. We still have a few minutes remaining, so please take a moment to consider what your captain may be about to do, then follow your conscience and decide for yourself. Any questions?”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence during which no one seemed to be willing to speak — or even look around the room — for fear of committing themselves one way or another. Finally, irritated by the drama and unwilling to tolerate the silence any longer, Lieutenant Lau spoke up. “Captain Prescott, I believe I heard you say that if the Council orders us to leave the Wek admiral and ambassador here, you would violate their order. I assume that means such an order has not yet been issued,” he said, stating the fact as a question.

  “That is correct. It was Admirals Sexton and Patterson’s hope that we might be able to get in and out before that happened, but there is certainly no guarantee either way. Look, I understand your question, Lieutenant, and I share your hope that we beat them to the punch, but I need you to make your decision as if you will be knowingly violating an order from the Council.”

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Schmidt said, raising his hand slightly to get Prescott’s attention. “I’ll speak for myself, but I’m betting everyone here feels the same way I do. We understand the significance of violating an order from the Council, but in a combat situation, wouldn’t it be a little unusual for us to start getting direct orders from them anyway? Their role is to set strategy, not start issuing operational orders. Besides, that seems like more of a question for the attorneys to debate after we’re all safely back home and no longer under an immediate threat of annihilation from the Resistance. I’m sure we all appreciate your giving us the opportunity to consider the consequences for ourselves, but there is no way anyone here is going to take you up on an offer to sit this one out.”

  There were emphatic nods and expressions of agreement from the other four officers, each of whom were eager to end the tedious discussion and get on with the business at hand.

  Prescott looked directly at each one, making sure there were no signs that they were simply going along with the group in spite of their own personal convictions to the contrary. “Very well,” he finally replied, heading back to his command chair without further comment on the issue. “Lieutenant Dubashi, status please.”

  “All systems in the green, Captain,” she reported immediately. “Both standard and C-Drive transitions are available. C-Jump range 98.7 light years and stable. We are on our final approach to the target — just over zero two minutes from the planned drop zone.”

  “You’ve been waiting to report that C-Jump range, haven’t you?” Prescott grinned.

  “Yes, sir, every time I look at it, I think it’s an error of some kind,” she replied, shaking her head in wonder.

  “Hah! Don’t jinx us, Dubashi,” he chuckled.

  The notion that mystical forces like “fate,” or “luck” had a very real impact on life aboard ship could be traced back across thousands of years of maritime history. The only thing that had really changed in more modern times was that such things were rarely discussed openly for fear of ridicule (or from an unspoken fear that doing so was bad luck in and of itself). After all, such things were nothing more than foolish superstition … were they not?

  “Tactical?”

  “Lots of civilian traffic within fifty kilometers of the target, Captain,” Schmidt reported, “but they’re all at a safe distance for the moment. Otherwise, the threat board is clear.” Schmidt and Lau had already devised a system by which they could share the workload across the two Tactical consoles, including who should speak up to deliver status updates to the captain, without verbally communicating with each other. It had taken only a few minor modifications to their user interface, and really wasn’t much of a challenge for young officers long accustomed to dealing with a continuous stream of complex communications without ever saying a word.

  “I’m really not expecting any airborne threats, but if you see any fast-movers heading in this direction, even if they are a thousand kilometers out, I want to hear about them immediately.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Lieutenant L—.” Prescott checked himself, then started again. “Lieutenant Jacks, bridge,” he announced. The ship’s AI seamlessly inferred the intended recipient of the captain’s call based on his recent conversation and routed the call accordingly.

  “Lieutenant, uh, Jacks here. Go ahead, Captain.” It was obvious by the tone of the young officer’s voice that, while he was still a little surprised that the bridge had decided on a name change, he understood that now was not the time to question why. Besides, he was pretty sure that his ‘little brother’ (born five minutes later) was in some way responsible. The Marine had long since grown accustomed to the name “Jacks” anyway, and didn’t really mind it. Nonetheless, he took solace in the thought of evening the score with his brothe
r when the time was right.

  “Just over zero one minute remaining, Lieutenant. Remember, we want zero casualties on this op. Do not fire unless fired upon. The use of lethal force is not authorized at this time. Understood?”

  “Understood. No worries, Captain.”

  “Let’s make this quick. Good luck. Prescott out.”

  “Sir, the AI is running the approach from here, but I’ll be on the controls just in case,” Fisher reported. “Rapid deceleration in zero seven seconds. Use of the Anti-G Straining Maneuver should not be necessary.” Shortly thereafter, the background noise of Theseus’ sublight engines increased slightly in pitch and volume, accompanied by a noticeable, but not uncomfortable increase in G-forces as the ship smoothly transitioned its nearly two million tons into a hover over the preselected drop zone.

  “Drop zone reached, sir,” Fisher continued. “We are stabilized in a two-hundred-meter hover. Gravitic fields have been reduced to minimum extension and are clear of the flight deck.”

  “Wow,” Reynolds muttered to herself, astounded by the almost routine, businesslike manner with which her ship was accomplishing feats that still looked and felt like the stuff of science fiction.

  “Green deck, XO,” Prescott said calmly.

  “Aye, sir. Executing,” she replied, entering commands on her touchscreen to relay the appropriate orders to both the flight deck and the two Marine squads hunkered inside their Gurkha assault shuttles.

  ***

  Marine First Lieutenant “Jacks” and his second-in-command, Master Sergeant Antonio Rios, had just completed a final set of equipment checks for each of their two squads when the go order was received. Side and rear cargo doors opened immediately on both Gurkha assault shuttles, both of which were already positioned for launch on Theseus’ aft flight apron. In just seconds, each of the ASVs had disgorged its squad of fourteen troops, then released the clamps holding them in place as their controlling AIs prepared to follow the two groups of Marines to their target location.