First Command (17 page)

Jonathan nodded, “Make sure you send me the full itemized reports on each malfunction not just the summaries.”

“Aye sir,” Smith replied.

“And let’s see if extra rations will offset that moral problem,” Jonathan continued.

“Aye sir,” Smith replied.

“Mr. Rodriguez,” Jonathan continued looking at his quartermaster. “How are stores holding?”

“Pretty good
Mi Capitan
,” Rodriguez had a habit of dropping Spanlish words into his conversations despite being completely fluent in Chinglish as was a requirement for promotion past Able Spacer 1st. Twirling his ridiculous mustache he continued,

“Stores are holding up nicely. Pilfering has been minimal and we should be set on food, water and conveniences for at least the next four months, though I would advise a resupply with a water tanker at least once a month. Spacers don't like drinking piss water more than anyone else.”
Titans
water recycling was 98% efficient, but after a month or so the water would take on a stale quality.  Spacers called it piss water because at that point the water storage tanks had been fully cycled so they were drinking their own filth. Not a pretty idea.

“As for
munitions
we have expanded our training stocks so if we can resupply that would be
mui benifitio
.”

“Is that necessary?” Sandra Chan asked hesitantly. “We are at 95% ammunition reserve.”

“
Ci
Lieutenant,” Rodriguez replied. “But as we say, never bring a knife to a gun fight, and never have less than 100%
munitions
when facing potential foes.”

“Noted Mr. Rodriguez. Well done,” Jonathan said. “We will signal the Chaucer’s Gap Task Force and have a collier standing by for rendezvous as we transit.”

Rodriguez bowed his head accepting the compliment. He was a career spacer and despite his fondness for brawling, drinking, and whoring, he was very good at his job even if he didn’t do it strictly by the book. To stop pilfering of stores aboard
Broadsword,
he’d smacked the
caca
out of a
punta
Petty Officer who was the worst offender. That had almost had him brought up on assault charges. On board
Titan,
he had repeated the technique on a
punta bendfuk
Technical and the only reaction was a quiet word with the Bosun reminding him that spacers who have been disciplined needed to be fit for duty. This
Capitan,
he understood how things worked below deck, which was why Rodriguez stayed on his best behavior. A Captain who could sniff out trouble like that was worth obeying and not worth crossing. Jonathan flipped to the next page of his holo pad and looked over at the XO who seemed to have zoned out somewhat. Jonathan continued, “Mr. Trendale?”

William jerked at his name. “Um yes sir.” he replied.

Pretending not to notice that the ships number two, whose work was beginning to suffer noticeably, was now zoning out in staff meetings, Jonathan continued,

“I’d like you to set up a schedule for all officers to drill directing the ship under fire in the auxiliary bridge.”

“Ah...,” William looked a bit confused. “Aye sir,” he replied blandly.

No follow up no comments, and no questions. Trendale’s detachment was beginning to wear on Jonathan, and it was worse on the crew. Ass chewings from the XO came in sudden and unexpected waves for the most minor infractions. Jonathan was grateful Trendale didn't make official reports on those incidents, or else he’d spend all day countermanding his XO for bad discipline. Pushing the continued troubles with the executive officer aside for a moment, Jonathan flipped on the holo map display. The map showed the stellarography,  a single star system, with a lone, medium blue star marked Odin, five wormways, two rocky inner worlds -both too close to Odin to hold life, a frozen outer rocky world, and a small, relatively ringed gas giant. A red indicator appeared above the system’s fifth planet a large rocky world on the inner edge of the habitable zone.

“This gentleman and lady,” Jonathan said. “Is our final destination -the New Helsinki system. For some odd reason that escapes me, the inhabitants declared New Helsinki the name of their system, their world and their nation. Despite the more typical convention of referring to systems by the name of their star, but ours is not to reason why. Though the briefing notes say most inhabitants refer to the primary as Rakor or the Sun depending on the region.”

Zooming in on New Helsinki, the planet’s two moons appeared. One moon was the size of a little more than a captured asteroid, and the other a decent size planetoid.

“As you all know from the briefing packets,” Jonathan continued. “New Helsinki is a hothouse world. It is close to its star with a large moon to assert tidal forces, and a smaller one to cause erratic ones. It’s about 80% water. The only land mass large enough to be called a continent is here.” The holo projection changed to a flat global map showing a land mass roughly the size of South America on old earth the middle of which was located on the 45th parallel. What would have been an empty, cold steppe on Solaria was a temperate forest on New Helsinki. The northern half of the main continent beyond the great forest gave way to grassland, and to the south the forest gradually transformed into dense jungles and swamps. The rest of the planet's northern hemisphere was dominated by interconnected archipelagos of tropical clime, and it had islands that ranged from almost subcontinent size to less than a few square miles that stretched to the equator. The southern hemisphere lacked any large islands or land mass. The few places men could stand that weren’t open ocean were a series of small island chains. The temperature at the poles usually hovered at a mild 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 120 was the highest temperature recorded at the equator. Jonathan clicked another button, and an overlay appeared showing major cities, vital installations, and a red shading that appeared over the main continent’s western coastal highlands, and a nearby archipelago denoting the area with insurgency activity.

“Now as you can see the insurgency, who from OMI and the National Police tell us are mostly holdouts from the old regime or newly recruited malcontents, is primarily active in the southwestern highlands of the main continent called Frihitland, and this nearby archipelago. However, lately the insurgency is becoming increasingly active in the cities which is troubling considering the planet was declared secure almost ten years ago.”

“Begging the
Capitan’s
pardon?” Rodriguez asked without fully realizing why, but once he’d opened his mouth he continued. “But these
bastido
guerillas- what kind of urban activity? And, also what kind of rural too? Are they in control or just launching hit and run?”

Jonathan nodded. “Excellent question Mr. Rodriguez. The insurgents are still limited to hit and run raids. The local auxiliaries backed by three divisions of Interior Troops are strong enough to smash anything above a raid, and chase them back into the bush. The reason we’ve been called in is because it is clear the Insurgents are receiving a great deal of logistical support from off world funneled through the Government in Exile. We don’t know who and we probably won’t know, that’s OMI’s job. Our job is to defend the system from an external excursion, and assist the pacification forces any way we can. So that being said, let’s consider our options.”

They discussed possible scenarios for defense of New Helsinki for the better part of an hour. It was the general consensus the most likely scenario was the Swervijik government in exile would attempt to land reinforcements. There would probably be a few regiments worth of New Helsinki ex-pats trained off world to something approaching professional standards. The goal would be to escalate the guerilla war to a full scale civil war, and force the Republic to either A) Violate its treaty with the Dominion and the Confederacy by making large scale military deployments, or B) cut their losses and pull out.

“We’d never pull out of course,” Sandra Chan said. “Not with New Helsinki being a friend and client of the Republic. If we did, all our other allies would feel we could let them down the same way.”

Nathan Gopal shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. “They may but, then again what can they do about it.”

Chan opened her mouth then closed it. Jonathan for his part nodded.

“Right you are Mr. Gopal. Most client states are too dependent on the Republic for defense, trade, and what have ya. There would be a bit of unease if we pulled out, but not enough to make them run right into the arms of the Commonwealth.”

“The devil you know,” Lt. Smith said at slightly above a whisper.

Chan’s viewpoint was a bit naïve, but she was young and inexperienced, and in time she’d come to realize as most people did the Government's ‘friends and clients’ of the Republic didn’t have an exit option. They were completely dependent on Solaria for military protection, and the currency union clause of their treaty made them wholly reliant on the Solar. If some populist promising secession ever did win at the ballot box, the local Governor General, who was an agent appointed by the Senate, had the power to end the client’s right to home rule and declare the system a Senatorial territory until the voters could be persuaded to elect a government the Republic could control. It had happened a few times, but not as many as one would think. The truth was being a Republic vassal was a good deal for systems that before their annexation had been dens of squalor and filth. These colonies were referred to as ‘Thirds’ for some reason. The saying went ‘Thirds’ changed shades, but they were all the same color. Corrupt and predatory governments that sometimes went genocidal with no rule of law, no economy worth shit, and what net worth there was went into the hands of tycoons or off world corporate raiders. Under Solarian law, elections became fair, money worth something, the markets open and regulated, and corrupt officials went to the public whipping post while criminals earned years in the chain gangs building roads, bridges, and other useful things. The former leaders who had tormented their people got their just rewards from a short drop, and a sudden stop.       

Shaking himself from his temporary ruminations, Jonathan looked over to Lt. Krishna who didn't seem to be paying attention to the discussion. Instead, he was examining an OMI report and frowning deeply.

“Something you wish to share with us Mr. Krishna?” Jonathan asked.

Jerked from his contemplation, Krishna looked up. “Ah, well sir I was just looking over this OMI report about Confederacy politics, and it strikes me that someone could be trying to pull a New Ontario.”

All heads turned to Krishna who suddenly looked far less sure of himself.

Jonathan kept his face straight and nodded, “Continue.”

“Well sir,” Krishna said. “If the Insurgency does get worse, I mean really bad, isn't there a possibility either the Dominion or the Commonwealth will move against the system under the ‘responsibility to protect’. Just like the Ascendancy did in New Ontario?” Krishna had a point. Less than half a century ago, as the ETO was reforming itself, a band of radical nationalists detonated a fertilizer bomb in the Government House of New Ontario. The neighboring Di-Nippon Ascendancy had used that as a pretext to occupy the system, arguing they were protecting the inhabitants, who were mostly happy being ETO citizens, from supposed government retaliation. The ETO had let it go because their military was still recovering from the bloodbath that had been the collapse of the Terran Federal Union, and the old Union’s retaliation against Hera during the Secession War gave Di-Nippon more than ample pretext.

“That’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Gopal said, turning to face Jonathan. “Captain, at the very least I suggest we examine the possibility of either the Dominion or the Confederacy taking hostile action..” At that point, he was interrupted by a snort from Trendale.

“Are you both serious?” the XO asked his voice full of biting sarcasm. “The Dominion’s Diktat Cosse is a scared little shit of a man who had a front row seat to the ass whooping that we gave them the last go around. As for the Confederacy, they’ve been isolationist for the last eighty years. Even then, they’re still a bunch of squishy wogs, no metal in them.”

“Respectively sir, I’d agree and disagree,” Lt. Krishna replied. His voice was respectful and defiant. “According to OMI, the Confederacy has been growing more and more unhappy with the Republic and Commonwealth Expansion into what they consider their traditional sphere. The 3rd Dominion war led to a massive public backlash against Solaria and anti-Solarianism is on the rise. Currently, the United Popular Front, a party whose platform includes the annexation of the Keplar cluster in which New Helsinki resides, holds six of the 18 Governorships, and OMI suspects the Elector is sympathetic to their foreign policy. Also, even though it's been close to eighty years since a Confederate ship has fired a shot in anger at anything beside corsairs, the collapse of the Federal Union, the Commonwealth invasion and annexation of Xi, the 3rd Dominion war and the victory the Republic won over the Commonwealth has all led to the Commonwealth to militarize. Their fleet is now larger than the Dominion at its peak, and they have the industrial capacity to up-hull and to be on par with the Republic. On top of that, they still haven't gotten over us kicking them out of the Gotterdam system eighty-years ago. In light of all that, I don't think it’s unreasonable to argue they may have hostile intentions. As for the Dominion, I’d agree with you. The Diktat is probably pro peace, but when was the last time any Diktat was able to stop a rogue Dominion military operation?”