First Command (16 page)

Jonathan nodded. If the other crewmen had not intervened and things had escalated, he didn't doubt Able Spacer 1st Wu would hesitate to throw the wretch out of the airlock, but they hadn't.

“Noted Able Spacer 1
st
. I then here by charge Able Spacer Wood with assault of a fellow crewman’s person. Able Spacer Wood how do you plead? Bear in mind the penalty for perjury.”

The evidence against Wood was overwhelming, and the witness list included the ship’s senior NCO. If he denied any wrongdoing, then in addition to the crime he was guilty of he’d also be punished for perjury. That punishment was flogging -100 lashes.

Wood hung his head, “I plead guilty sir.” His speech had a strange whistle to it because of his broken teeth.

Jonathan nodded. Wood was not a complete idiot then. “Able Spacer Wood you have assaulted the person of another crewman the circumstances of which grant me wide latitude in punishment. I sentence you to be keel hauled for 24 hours, and if anything like this ever happens again Mr. Wood I won't space you. I will build a scaffold in the main mess and kick the stool out from under you myself.” Wood shrank into himself. He was a ten-year man, and a competent enough Spacer but a disgrace to the uniform while drunk.

Looking back to Able Spacer 1st Wu, “Ms. Wu are you satisfied with this justice? “

She nodded, “Aye sir.”

“Very well, Bosun carry out the sentence,” Jonathan said. The two Shore Patrol men escorted Wood out of the brig toward the airlocks. Wu followed them out returning to her station, and as Hartic turned to leave Jonathan rising from the desk motioned him over.

“Bosun,” Jonathan said. “I know you and Mr. Wood will have a little chat about how to properly treat fellow crewmen before you put him in his suit. Just make sure he’s still conscious when you heave him outside.” 

Hartic smiled, “Noted sir.”

Jonathan for his part returned to the bridge relieving Trendale from watch. Meanwhile, Able Spacer Wood after a thorough ‘discussion’ with the Bosun which left him with cracked ribs and a broken nose, painful injuries but not life threatening, was stuffed into a space suit and heaved out of a air lock, still tethered to a ten foot communications antenna. He had enough air for three days and water, but no food. The tether would keep him next to the ship while it was in motion without bumping into the side. Able Spacer Wood also had no radio, and Bosun Hartic had ‘forgotten’ to turn on his air filter that left him able to smell his own natural by-products. For a full day and night Wood was condemned to float in the inky blackness of space, fully aware that sometimes tethers broke and Captains rarely sent rescue parties for spacers condemned to be keel hauled.

For his part, Jonathan didn't intend to give his keel hauled crewman a second thought. Hartic would haul him in when his sentence was up, probably. Jonathan settled into his command chair and pulled up the charts on Kaplan. The Kaplan star was a red giant, one million times the size of Sol in the Terra system, which made it fairly small as far as red giants went. The rocky inner worlds had been consumed by the expanding star centuries ago, but the system had three Gas giants. The closet to the star named Triumph actually sat in the habitable zone as did its 48 moons. Most of those moons were rocky asteroids, but eight of them actually had enough mass and basic building blocks that they were prime candidates for terraforming. Four more were chock full of valuable minerals, enough to warrant domed mining colonies. In addition to the terraformed moons, which after a hundred years of careful climate engineering were now fully rated E class equivalent to Earth quality, The Orbit of Triumph was full of orbital smelters, research stations, transit ports, and zero-g hotels. The Solaria system had a population of roughly twelve billion people, but Kaplan was closer to fifteen and spread out all throughout Triumph’s orbit. Because of its vast resources, many considered Kaplan the oldest of Solaria’s daughter colonies -the Jewel of the Republic. Jonathan had ordered Lt. Krishna to download the transmissions of the numerous Nav Bouys in the system and run scopes as soon as transit was complete. Despite refinements and tinkering, scopes- the means by which ships in deep space could ‘see’- hadn’t changed very much since they were first invented four centuries ago. A warship could ‘see’ roughly five light minutes in its general vicinity instantly. Beyond that, it took the computers more and more time to calculate what was in the system. Usually a warship in a stable orbit could scan an entire system in three days, of course by the time it built out the data everything on the other side of the system would have moved. Nav Buoys helped take up the slack. In addition to providing waypoints for vessels, every Nav Buoy in the Republic held a scope set comparable to that of a Battleship. The hourly data dumps the Buoys made to the systems central traffic control, which were then accessible to all Solarian Navy and Custom and Rescue Service vessels, helped to build out a up-to-date and accurate picture of traffic within the System. Bringing up the 3D holo display, Jonathan could see that as usual traffic was extremely heavy in system. Light cargo carriers, tankers, mobile refineries and passenger transports buzzed about Triumph’s orbit like bees from a hive. Further out beyond the Gas Giant’s gravity well, cargos and passengers were transferred onto a dozen trans-shipment stations each a veritable city in space itself. From the trans-shipment stations, heavy clippers, the backbone of bulk commerce throughout human space, would move a wide assortment of cargos and goods out of system. There were smaller ships heading on the outbound and the inbound. Also, the economics of commerce across the vast distances of space meant that even the smallest independent merchantman could find demand for his services. Watching those ships outbound trajectories, Jonathan keyed the button that added his own vessel to the display. Despite Lt. Halman’s constant whining,
Titan
had made good speed leaving Solaria four days from
Macran
to the Kaplan wormway was nothing to sneeze at. The current course Halman had plotted accounting for the position of Triumph and her two brothers this time of year would get them to the Verge wormway in two days. From there it was two days to the New Teja system. New Teja’s main world Buena Vista was in close position to the wormway this time of year so it may be a slower three days through New Teja to Chaucer’s Gap where the sheer distance between the wormways made it three more days to New Helsinki their ultimate destination. Jonathan scrolled through the information on each of the systems they’d pass through. New Teja was heavily inhabited. The former capital of the Teja Protectorate, which had been absorbed by the Republic roughly a century and a half ago shortly before the end of military rule. It was almost as old as Solaria and quite prosperous. Buena Vista was a rare jewel of a world that required no terraforming, though it was half the size of Old Earth and had only lakes and seas with no true oceans. Both Verge and Chaucer’s gap lacked habitable worlds or any worlds at all. Verge was a blue dwarf with a massive asteroid belt, a star system still in its infancy. Though the close proximity to Kaplan and Solaria Prime meant those asteroids were being exploited relentlessly. Chaucer’s Gap was a binary system lacking in worlds considered habitable to humans. Due to its added gravity well, it had ten wormways making it an intergalactic crossroads. As such, it was heavily garrisoned not only with a standing Task Force centered around a battleship squadron and a light carrier flotilla, but half the Marine Expeditionary force was headquartered there and along with three Army divisions. The majority of the military in the system was based on a world called Scarva, orbiting the larger of the two stars. Scarva was a hostile place for life, but life thrived nonetheless. Humans could live there with modern technology, but terran life found itself eaten or baked by radiation in hours. In addition to the military presence though, Scarva was a prime world for hydrogen extraction due to its three moons all of which were rich in the essential fuel element. This created enough economic demand for Scarva to have a civilian population of close to 100 million. Examining the available data, Jonathan smiled as he tweaked the
Titan
course.

“Mr. Krishna,” Jonathan said. “Transmit message to Verge System Naval station, my compliments to Commodore Perry. Request three live target rafts…”

Chapter VIII

On board
RSNS Titan
DD-0023 Verge System, Solarian Republic,

Railgun Battery A

February 8th  841 AE  (2802 AD) 12:00hrs

“FIRE !!!!” Chief Petty Officer Felman bellowed. Above him a piercing whine barely audible through the crew’s noise canceling headphones, and above the gun crew, the magnetic rails of Gun Battery A accelerated the half ton depleted uranium slug out of the barrel at almost .25 c nearly a quarter the speed of light. Gunnery Specialist Marum Libby, the Batteries fire control operator, activated his old style mechanical stopwatch.

“60 seconds to target” Libby said.

The target in this case wasn't an enemy warship, but a 1,000-foot asteroid designated T-00119, with a cheap hydrogen engine strapped to it. Verge was full of mined out asteroids and resource desolate comets. The local Navy station which consisted of a supply depot, a repair yard and a few tugs spent a good portion of its time wrangling the more useless among them for target practice. Outfitted with a hydrogen engine and a basic rocket control system net, a small asteroid could easily mimic the maneuvers of a war ship at battle speed.

The slug sailed through the empty vacuum of space at speeds no man could survive. It didn't require a warhead because the kinetic energy built from its flight would impact with such force any warhead would be redundant. At the 60 second mark the slug closed on its target and…missed!

Libby stopped his watch “Time.”

“No hit.” Felman said.

“Confirm no hit,” replied the spotter.

Felman swore, “How far off?”

“It was close sir,” the spotter said. “200 miles off target.”

Felman swore again, “Alright signal fire control. Let’s reload and get ready to go again.”

On board
RSNS Titan
DD-0023 Verge System, Solarian Republic,

Briefing Room

February 8th  841 AE  (2802 AD) 19:00hrs

The briefing room was located just off the bridge, and wasn't nearly as spacious or luxuriously upholstered as the wardroom. Jonathan flipped through the report in front of him. All things considered, the gunnery practice hadn’t gone too badly. Rail Gun and Plasma cannon crews were well within the medium range of an acceptable rating. Missile and torpedo crews a little bit lower on the scale, but there was time for improvement. Considering that up to this point the crew had only had the ability to drill in simulation, Jonathan was quite pleased. Closing the report on his memo pad he looked up at the assembled officers. All were present for this discussion save Mr. Halman who was on watch.

“Well,” Jonathan said. “We certainly can do better.” There was nodding around the table. Acceptable was a far cry from excellent. When it was your life that depended on it, you wanted your gunners rated excellent.

“Mr. Gopal,” Jonathan continued. “Please continue simulated drills on all weapons and fire control stations, and we'll work out a schedule for live fire practice once we’re on site. I’m sure CRS has some target rafts they won't mind loaning us, not as good as asteroids but we will make do.”

“Aye Sir,” Gopal replied. “Sir, should I set a prize for best performing battery say one week off KP duty?”

Jonathan smiled. Lt. Commander Gopal was starting to get a real knack for leadership. He should go far in the Navy. “Excellent idea Mr. Gopal. Also, set a punishment for poorest performing, say an extra week of KP duty.”

Kitchen policing, or KP duty as it was called, was literally the cleaning of the mess and kitchen after each meal. On ship, sections were assigned to it on a rotating basis although the Bosun, who was in charge of assigning the schedule, frequently substituted other spacers in as a disciplinary measure.

“Mr. Smith,” Jonathan said. “How is she holding with us putting her through her paces?”

Qin Smith shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He still didn't like meetings or talking in front of people, but he had grown noticeably more relaxed and less skittish. It helped that his CO was quite patient and understanding of the drawbacks of the complex machinery that ran the ship. Too many officers at all levels expected things to work when they told them to - almost as if the machines were magic and the ship’s engineering department were magicians.

“Sir,” Smith replied. “She’s holding together nicely. There were a couple of minor glitches here and there, but nothing serious. We managed to isolate that power surge on A deck, and we found a small flaw in the main plasma junction to port side. I’ve got my men crawling through every nook and cranny running spot check diagnostics. Bad for moral, but good for training sir.”