Ride The Rising Tide (The Maxwell Saga) (9 page)

“
Aye aye, Senior Chief,” Steve acknowledged, and walked forward. The doctor met him at the curtains.

“
Have you removed all your body hair?” she asked briskly. Her head was already as bald as Steve’s own. The ship’s commissary had run out of razor blades and depilatory cream under the demand. The Captain had ordered a special resupply shipment, which had been floated across from a cutter.

“
Aye aye, Ma’am.”

“
Very good. Go behind that partition, take off all your clothes, and toss them in one of the bins you’ll find there. One of my medics will inspect you very carefully to make sure all your hair is gone, and remove anything you may have missed. It’ll be embarrassing, I know, but we’re all going to go through the same thing.”

“
Aye aye, Ma’am.”

He soon found she wasn’t joking about the ‘very careful’ inspection. It even involved bending and spreading the cheeks of his backside, while a sarcastic Medic wielded a trimmer to remove some hairs he hadn’t known existed before now.

“Ow!”
he protested as the trimmer plucked a hair from its follicle. “I thought you were supposed to be gentle with your patients.”

“
Consider this a beauty treatment, not a medical one,” the medic retorted. “At least it’s free! Salons charge an arm and a leg for this sort of thing.”

“
Gee, thanks – I don’t think!”

“
All right, stand up again and listen good. There’s a decontamination module on the far side of that airlock, with the converted cargo shuttle on its other end. You’ll go through four compartments in the decontam module before entering the shuttle. When we’ve all been through, the shuttle will undock, leaving the module attached to the ship for disposal.”

The medic handed him a washcloth, a nailbrush, and a sponge on a long stick. “The first compartment is a decontaminant spray. It lasts for five minutes. Use the sponge on your back and the washcloth on everything else. Scrub every square centimeter of skin, and under your finger– and toenails, as thoroughly as you can. The spray will itch slightly on regular skin, and burn a little on the more sensitive bits, but there’s nothing we can do about that. Believe me, female crew members will have a lot more to complain about than we do! Do a thorough job — keep scrubbing as long as the spray is flowing. If they find any mold contamination in the shuttle, we’re all going to do this all over again, as many times as it takes. They’ll keep us up here forever if they have to, rather than let us spread this stuff around.”

“I hear you,” Steve acknowledged.

“
When the spray shuts off, toss the sponge, washcloth and nailbrush into the disposal slot and walk through the door to the second compartment, closing it behind you. You’ll find a box of breathing masks. Put one over your nose and mouth, making sure it’s an airtight fit, and plug its hose into the socket beneath a big square green button. Push the button, then breathe in and out as deeply as you can, alternating between nose and mouth, for two minutes. A medication mist will flow into your airway and lungs under pressure, killing off the mold spores you’ve breathed in. It may smell or taste funny, but you’ll just have to put up with that. It’s necessary.

“
When the flow cuts off, toss your mask into the disposal slot, then go into the third compartment, again closing the door behind you. You’ve got three minutes of hot water spray to rinse off the decontaminant. When the water shuts off, go through to the final compartment. Take a towel from the rack, dry yourself, wrap the towel around you, then enter the shuttle through the airlock. Underwear, flip–flops and utility coveralls will be provided there. Clear?”

“
Aye aye.”

They waited for a few moments until a diode flashed green on the panel next to the airlock, and a buzzer sounded. The medic silenced the panel.

“That tells us the person ahead of you has left the decontam spray room. On your way.”

“
Aye aye.”

~ ~ ~

Supper that night turned into a comical affair. Everyone was issued portable ration packs, as the cargo shuttle could not provide regular mess facilities. They plugged them into a long bank of sockets to heat up, then sat down to eat on the lower beds of the double bunks that had been hastily installed along the bulkheads.

The decontaminant spray had penetrated everyone’s nether regions. Steve found the resulting irritation very uncomfortable. He couldn’t resist rubbing his backside against the blanket as he moved, changing position frequently in an effort to scratch the itch. Suddenly he heard Lieutenant–Commander Wollaston burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Commander Komenos asked irritably, wriggling in his turn.

“
We are, Sir. Look around you. We’re all jiggling and twitching as if we’ve caught a communal case of Saint Vitus’ dance! Medieval medics would have had a field day watching us.”

The Commander couldn’t suppress a sudden snort of laughter. “You know, you’re right!”

Gradually the mirth spread until everyone was convulsed. Several were laughing so hard they had to put down their food trays on the bunks or the deck so as not to spill their contents. The fact that everyone kept rubbing their buttocks against the bunks even as they laughed only added to the comedy value of the moment.

At last the laughter died down. Still grinning, Commander Komenos observed, “Oh, well! We’ve lost our ship and everything we had aboard, but at least we’ve kept our sense of humor! If we can laugh even at something like this, we should be able to get through the next week or two without developing too many cases of cabin fever.”

“I’m thinking of recommending all of us for the LSA, Sir,” Senior Lieutenant Cellini called.

“
LSA? The Lancastrian Star in — what does the ‘A’ stand for, Doctor?”

“
Not the Star, Sir — the Lancastrian Sore Ass award!”

Their laughter exploded again.

When it had died down, Commander Komenos said, “I heard some news this morning. I know you’ve all been wondering what’s going to happen to us after we’ve been decontaminated. Well, the Sector Admiral has asked for another
Goddess
class transport to be activated from the Reserve Fleet and sent here to replace
Hebe
. She should arrive within five to six weeks. While we’re waiting for her, our division–mates will just have to work harder and faster to cover the gap left by
Hebe
being taken out of service.

“
We’ll be at least a week in here, if not longer. After we’re cleared, we’ll receive a new kit issue from top to bottom, then be given a couple of weeks leave on Vesta.” A muted cheer came from most of the ship’s company. “When we return from leave, we’ll assemble at the Orbital Dockyard and begin preparations to activate our new ship. We’ll all be transferred to her in the same ranks and positions we held aboard
Hebe
. It’ll take a couple of weeks’ hard work to get her ready for recommissioning, whereafter we’ll continue with our duties as part of Transport Division Nineteen. Each of us will be posted away at the termination date of our original assignment to
Hebe
, so there’ll be minimal disruption to our career progression.”

~ ~ ~

Eight weeks later the recommissioning ceremony for LCS
Demeter
, the replacement
Goddess
class transport, took place in her docking bay.  It was the only pressurized compartment aboard her large enough for the entire ship’s company to parade together. Dockyard staff manned essential positions while the crew assembled.

Commander Komenos began by addressing the crew. “You all performed very well during our recent difficulties aboard LCS
Hebe
. Considering what might have been, I think we were all very fortunate.” Grim nods from his audience.

“
I thought you might like to know the latest news from Lancaster about the mold that affected our previous ship.” There was a ripple of interest among the Spacers. “They talked to everyone who helped set up the lifeboat refurbishment facility. It’s one of the standard reconfigurable maintenance units at the Fleet Dockyard there. One of the techs involved is interested in geology, and bought a collection of mineral samples from Tartarus. They were radiation–sterilized and surface–sealed, of course, as per standard interplanetary protocol, because Tartarus’ mold problems are well known. The tech carried one or two of them around with him from time to time, because they’re attractive stones and he liked to show them to his friends.

“
He says he must have dropped one while setting up the unit. By the time he noticed it was missing, his work there was over, and he couldn’t get back inside to look for it. It lay there unnoticed, lodged in a deck grating, until the first lifeboat was brought in and crushed it — investigators sent in robotic scanners that found smears of rock on the grating. They presume that a few mold spores survived the sterilization and sealing, and were lying dormant in a crevice of the stone. When it was crushed, the outer sealant layer was broken, releasing the spores.

“
The accumulated grime in the bilges of the facility appears to have provided an initial breeding ground for them. Because it’s an automated facility, no human operators are present after initial setup, so no one noticed. Most of the mold died as it outgrew its nutrients, and automated cleaning systems disposed of the traces. However, the lifeboats’ air ducts provided just enough warmth and moisture for some spores to survive and slowly multiply. Since the lifeboats are sealed before being dispatched, the spores were confined until the seals were broken, as we did when we plugged our new lifeboats into our environmental systems.

“
Fortunately, that type of maintenance unit is designed for use with potentially hazardous chemicals. Because of that, its environmental systems are self–contained. They exhaust to vacuum, not into another structure. That prevented the spores from spreading to neighboring units. Nevertheless, as a precaution, they took that unit plus those on either side of it, put that tech’s collection of minerals from Tartarus aboard, and dropped the lot into Lancaster’s star. I daresay they were tempted to put the tech aboard, too!”

He waited for the laughter to die down. “The Board of Admiralty has approved disposing of
Hebe
and the remaining refurbished lifeboats in the same way. I’m sorry our former vessel will meet so ignoble an end, but it’s impossible to decontaminate a spaceship thoroughly enough to be sure that all the mold has been dealt with. Even exposure to vacuum isn’t guaranteed to do it, because an air pocket might remain in an inaccessible part of the ship’s structure.

“
This has been a very expensive episode for the Fleet. We’ve lost a ship, her equipment and all her cargo, plus sixteen refurbished lifeboats; and the Dockyard at Lancaster’s lost three robotic maintenance units, which it’ll have to replace. The total financial loss exceeds three billion credits. On the other hand, I’m told every Stores officer in the Vesta Sector is rubbing his or her hands in glee. It seems they all have the usual discrepancies on their books, items that can’t be located or accounted for. Suddenly, to their utter joy, a half–million–ton Fleet transport is about to be deliberately destroyed, without any opportunity to inventory her cargo. I daresay all those missing items will be recorded as having been shipped to
Hebe
— so much so that she might be ‘officially’ filled to three or four times her rated capacity before she’s towed away!” That drew more laughter, particularly from the Stores personnel.

Captain Benvenuti, Commanding Officer of the four ships of Transport Division Nineteen, deputized for the Sector Admiral, reading the orders to recommission LCS
Demeter
as part of the active Fleet. The Commonwealth Anthem played over the speakers as its flag was broken out from the staff erected beneath the ship’s seal, painted on the bulkhead of the docking bay.

Commander Komenos read his orders, concluding, “I hereby assume command of LCS
Demeter
. Executive Officer, set the watch!”

Lieutenant–Commander Fabricius saluted, then turned to face Senior Lieutenant Dickerson. “Officer of the Deck, set the watch!”

Dickerson saluted, then turned to the Duty Quartermaster. “Quartermaster, pipe the watch!”

The sound of a bosun’s call floated piercingly from the speakers. Steve and the other members of
Demeter’s
crew marched smartly off parade, then double–timed to their duty stations.

They were back in business.

“
All right, form up in three ranks, quick as you can!”

The speaker was a short, stocky woman, well–muscled, wearing the three chevrons above two curved stripes of an E–7 Chief Petty Officer. She carried an electronic clipboard in her hand, and waited impatiently for the new arrivals to form ranks.

“Welcome aboard LCS
Baobab
. She’s a
Tree
class depot ship, supporting a mixed squadron of four
Songbird
class heavy intra–system patrol craft and four
Insect
class orbital patrol boats. I’m Chief Petty Officer O’Neal, Chief of the Ship aboard LCS
Grasswren
. She’s the command ship of the
Songbirds
. I’ve been asked to square you away this morning. I’ll check off your names and confirm your assignments, after which these Spacers,” and she indicated several men and women standing behind her, “will lead you to your designated accommodation. Spacers assigned to
Grasswren,
stand fast until I’ve finished with the others.”

She went down the three long ranks, checking off names on her clipboard, making sure that each Spacer did, indeed, possess the qualifications and skills they were listed as having, and would therefore be competent to fill the positions to which they’d been assigned. Steve could only approve of her caution. He knew of several cases where someone had been wrongly assigned on the basis of a foul–up with their records.

She stopped before him, glancing at his nametag, then at her electronic clipboard. “You’re Petty Officer Third Class Maxwell, the new cutter pilot for
Grasswren?”

“
Yes, Chief.” He came to attention, as always keeping things formal until he learned how much he could relax with a senior.

“
Says here you’re qualified as command pilot on cutters, gigs and cargo shuttles. Is that right? How much experience d’you have?”

“
That’s correct, Chief. I’ve just come from LCS
Demeter
, a
Goddess
class transport. I was one of her pilots. I’ve got two and a half years’ Fleet experience on small craft, including training time, plus Merchant Service piloting experience before I enlisted.”

“
Good.” She grinned at him, and he allowed himself to relax. “We need you badly. Our last pilot’s enlistment ran out two months ago, and she took her discharge. Since then we’ve had to make do with any qualified person the depot ship could spare for us — and she didn’t always have them to spare. We rely heavily on our cutter, so you’ll have plenty to do. We’ll also be taking aboard a couple of trainee pilots from Radetski, for you to hold their hands while they get some stick time in space.”

“
I’ll look forward to it, Chief.”

She glanced at his chest. “When did you get the Operational Effectiveness Ribbon? It’s not mentioned on the transfer orders we received.”

Steve blushed slightly. “
Demeter
won the Vesta Sector’s operational evaluation for auxiliary vessels last year. It was announced the week before we left, so all those who were in her crew that year were authorized to put up the ribbon with immediate effect.” He nodded to his neighbor in the formation. “PO Garza’s wearing it as well.”

“
I get it. The paperwork’ll catch up with us soon enough.” She took a sideways step. “You’re PO1 Garza,
Grasswren
’s new Engineering Head of Department?”

“
That’s right, Chief. I finished my assignment aboard LCS
Demeter
last month, and I heard that BuPers was asking for volunteers for a short–term six–month assignment to the United Planets mission to Radetski. They had slots for an engineering NCO and a pilot. I mentioned it to Maxwell, and we both decided to put in our names. He had three months left aboard
Demeter
, but there were sufficient other pilots available, and we’re buddies, so we thought we’d try to stick together. We figured six months here had to be more interesting than twiddling our thumbs in a planetside admin or training assignment.”

Not to mention that ninety days or more serving with a United Planets peacekeeping mission qualifies us for the Fleet Expeditionary Service Medal
, Steve thought to himself.
That was a real good idea of Nick’s. It’s the next best thing to a combat star. It’ll count in my favor during the officer candidate selection process.

“
Besides,” Garza added, “Maxwell was in on the start of the Fleet’s participation in the mission here. He figured he’d like to be in on the last act as well.”

“
You were?” She looked back inquiringly at Steve.

He explained how he’d come to Radetski in 2837 aboard LMV
Sebastian Cabot
as a merchant spacer, when she was chartered to serve as a Fleet Auxiliary hospital ship to collect wounded children from the planet and take them for advanced treatment at Vesta. “I remember LCS
Baobab
from those days, too. I’m surprised to find her still on station.”

“
She’ll be handed over to Radetski in a few months, along with her patrol craft, as soon as the planetary government officially establishes its new System Patrol Service,” O’Neal explained. “Locals already form more than half our crews. I’m glad you know something about why we’re here. Most of the kids you helped to evacuate for treatment are back now, and the orphanage you helped found through Operation Sweet Tooth has grown to eight separate establishments. We’ll have to make time for you to visit them, and share your story. They’ll be interested to hear it.”

When she’d checked everyone off her list and the others had filed out of the docking bay, O’Neal gathered around her those assigned to
Grasswren
. “All right, listen up! I’ll give you a quick overview of our ship. LCS
Grasswren
is seventy years old, but still in good shape. She was mothballed in the Reserve Fleet for over a decade until she was reactivated for this peacekeeping mission, along with three others of her class. They’ll be handed over to Radetski six months from now, as soon as the planet’s crews for them are fully qualified. Her Commanding Officer is a regular, Senior Lieutenant Parasurani, and the Executive Officer is a reservist from Vesta, Warrant Officer Dhruv. For all routine administrative matters, see your Department Head. On a heavy patrol craft they’re all NCO’s, of course, not officers. If necessary they’ll refer you to me, and I’ll escalate matters to the Exec if required. Got that?”

A muttered chorus affirmed that they had.

“Good. If you don’t mind hard work, you’ll enjoy yourselves aboard
Grasswren
. We keep pretty busy, and there’s lots of variety. Your six months with us will fly by. Remember, you don’t live aboard except during patrols, which usually last three to seven days. You only have locker space on board for enough working dress to last that long. Stow the rest of your gear in your lockers aboard
Baobab
. Spacer Degrasse here will take you to your accommodation.”

She stopped Garza and Steve as they made to follow the others. “I’ll take you to the PO’s quarters. You’re in luck. The
Tree
class were designed to act as depot ships for up to a squadron of eight destroyers if necessary, so with eight much smaller patrol craft to look after,
Baobab’
s got plenty of spare accommodation and facilities. You can each have a cabin to yourselves.”

“
Thanks, Chief,” Garza acknowledged. “Can we have adjacent cabins?”

“
No problem. Grab your dunnage and follow me.”

~ ~ ~

The next five months were a blur of activity. Steve found himself doing so many different things that he sometimes wished for time to catch his breath. His studies were threatened accordingly, but he forced himself to complete his assignments on schedule, submitting them to the Education Officer aboard LCS
Baobab
for grading by Fleet University’s AI software in the ship’s computer systems. He was determined to finish his degree by the time he qualified for Commonwealth citizenship, even if it meant less sleep in the short term than he’d have preferred. Fortunately, hypno–study made the lecture material much easier to retain.

Most days he made several trips in the cutter. He took boarding and search parties to vessels entering or leaving orbit; transported stores and equipment from the depot ship to and from the patrol craft in parking orbits nearby; ferried supplies and replacement personnel from orbit to the troops of the peacekeeping force on the planetary surface, and collected their departing personnel; and assisted depot ship personnel to maintain a chain of positioning satellites, essential for both orbital and ground navigation.

He also supervised student pilots recruited by the planet’s new government of national unity as they tried to master their craft without the aid of simulator training. This was far more nerve–wracking than he’d expected. After the third orbital near miss between his cutter, in the hands of a student pilot, and a passing spaceship or satellite, he begged permission to conduct future training flights as far away from obstacles as possible. Chuckling, Senior Lieutenant Parasurani agreed that he could postpone them until the ship’s patrols of the far distant system boundary, which took place every few weeks. That gave the neophytes trillions of cubic kilometers of empty space in which to maneuver. Meanwhile, Parasurani submitted an urgent recommendation that Radetski purchase a cutter simulator for instructional use.

~ ~ ~

“Grasswren
cutter to O’Reilly Base, five kilometers out and closing, request landing instructions, over.”

Steve decreased the power to the reaction thrusters, slowing the cutter as he passed a thousand meters over a wide, winding river that watered the farmlands in this area. The early morning sunlight cast long shadows from the trees on its bank.

The radio crackled. “O’Reilly Base to
Grasswren
cutter, what’s your cargo? Over.”

“
Grasswren
cutter to O’Reilly Base, I’ve got those parts for your sick bird, over.”

“
O’Reilly Base to
Grasswren
cutter, that’s fast work! We only sent up the order yesterday. OK, put down right next to the shuttle. It’s the only one on the field right now. Someone will meet you there to get the parts offloaded. Over.”

“
Grasswren
cutter to O’Reilly base, understood, out.”

The Marine Corps assault shuttle was parked near a temporary storage building, its system access hatches open, showing that it was undergoing maintenance. Steve set his cutter down near it in a cloud of dust as a transporter rolled up.

Steve walked down the rear ramp, to be met by a Sergeant who climbed out of the cab of the transporter. Four Marines jumped down from the rear of the vehicle and ran past him up the cutter’s ramp.

“
Hi, I’m PO3 Maxwell,” he introduced himself to the harried–looking Sergeant. “What’s going on? Where are all your other shuttles? There’s normally a dozen or more here.”

“
I’m Shankill,” the other replied, holding out his hand. “All our shuttles are busy. Three of our patrols got hit last night — one ambush, two booby–traps. Trouble is, they weren’t wearing armor thanks to this damn fool ‘hearts and minds’ project the brass are trying out. They reckon, now that the terrorists have been confined to only one small area, we need to look less threatening than armored troops. Sounds good on paper, but when we’re not protected and the terrorists show fight, we take casualties! We’re trying to get our wounded out and secure the areas involved, but it’s slow, dangerous work. The shuttles are serving as makeshift armored ambulances and providing cover. They’ve spotted at least six more booby–traps so far. Looks like a deliberate, concerted effort to kill or wound as many of us as possible. Fortunately, no one’s been killed — not yet, anyway.”

Steve frowned. “The ‘no armor’ thing must be something new. When I got here five months ago, the rule for patrols was still ‘all armor, all the time’. When did it change?”

“A few weeks back the peacekeeping force got a new boss. He wants civilians to love us. Trouble is, the terrorists were losing big–time around here because their weapons couldn’t touch us. Bead carbines won’t hurt someone in combat armor, and mortars and rockets have to score a direct hit to do any damage. That’s hard to do with unguided weapons, which is why we’ve been able to contain them and press them back into their last remaining mountain stronghold. I reckon as soon as they heard about the new policy, they started planning these attacks. I bet we’ll be back in armor after this, and hearts and minds be damned!”

“
Let’s hope so. I prefer carrying live Marines to ferrying them up to orbit in body bags! Why haven’t they let you go in and clean out their remaining stronghold?”

Shankill spat on the ground in disgust. “Politics, of course! The United Planets head honcho reckons it’ll be better for the planet if Radetski’s own forces do that after we hand over to them. They’ll be seen to be masters of their own security that way. I — ”