This Corner of the Universe (26 page)

Vernay
was down on her knees, peering into the station console.  “Probably not, sir. 
I think this panel is shot, no pun intended.”

Heskan
activated his commlink again.  “Boats, I need you to send someone to the S-Two turret
to meet up with Lieutenant Vernay and help move Spaceman Thomas down to the
medical bay.”

Heskan
motioned Vernay toward the bridge door as the chief’s acknowledgment came over
the communicator.  He leaned back into his command chair and pondered what his
next actions should be when Ensign Truesworth’s console beeped audibly.

Voice
laden with concern, Truesworth called out, “Sir, we have a tunnel drive
disturbance at the Narvi point.”

Heskan
tensed up and replied, “At the beacon?  Was there a freighter scheduled?” 
If
whatever is diving out of that tunnel point is unfriendly, we’ve had it
, he
thought sullenly.

Truesworth’s
expression erupted into a wide grin and his voice filled with relief.  “I’m
picking up a ship’s beacon thirty light-minutes distant.  Her beacon is green
and IDs herself as the destroyer, BRS Repulse.  Ana’s SnapShot confirms a ship at
the tunnel point but there’s too much interference from the Beta Field to know
if it’s a DD.”

Heskan
returned Truesworth’s smile and said, “I guess that’s the cavalry.”  He rubbed
the bridge of his nose as he questioned, “But to get here now they would have
had to left days ago.  Why would they have done that?”

“Incoming
message, Captain.  It’s for you.”

This
will be interesting,
he
thought.  “Put it on screen, please.”

Lieutenant
Durmont’s face appeared on the main screen.  He was standing at a side station
on the bridge of
Repulse
and Heskan could see the ship’s captain in the
background.  “Lieutenant Heskan, what the hell is happening in this system?”  His
expression was furious and voice thick with irritation.  “Get away from that
missile boat, Lieutenant!  I say again, break contact and make way to
rendezvous with us.”  In the background, the ship’s captain looked toward
Durmont, said something and the message immediately cut off.

Heskan
shook his head in disgust.  The message was, of course, time-late.  When
Repulse
entered the Skathi system, thirty minutes ago, the first light from the battle
they saw was also old.  At the time Durmont had sent the message, he had been watching
Anelace
make her nearly suicidal charge against
Blackheart
. 
Durmont
saw that engagement and his first reaction was to jump in and countermand me. 
He sent the message before stopping to consider that, first, the light he was
seeing was thirty minutes old and the battle was already over; and second, any
message he sent would also require thirty minutes to travel the distance
between us to reach me. 
Heskan shook his head again. 
The idiot second-guesses
me and then sends one-hour late orders. 
Anger began to build up inside him
as he thought about how to phrase his reply.

“Captain,”
Truesworth said, “another message coming in now, on screen.”

It
was Durmont again.  This time his countenance had resumed its calm arrogance.  “Lieutenant
Heskan,” he stated, “you will break off any current engagements and proceed at
best speed to Repulse.  We’re coming in-system and will coordinate efforts with
you against the outlaw ships.  I want a full report as soon as practicable.”

The
jerk still refuses to call me Captain… he probably resents that all of his ship
commanders get the honorific “Captain” title and he doesn’t. 
Heskan rubbed his eyes slowly as
he thought
.  It would be so gratifying to call out Durmont for his initial
botched, hour-late orders but that’s not going to win me any congeniality awards… 
Heskan looked at the laser hole burned into Vernay’s console. 
To hell
with it.

Smiling
as he looked at the main screen, Heskan then assumed an expression of confusion
and recorded his message.  “To Lieutenant Durmont, I don’t understand your
orders, sir.  We’ve been out of battle a short time now and our battle with the
pirate missile boat ended over half an hour ago.  Your orders are very
confusing unless…”  He trailed off and then let his expression transform from confusion
to understanding.  “Oh… you must not understand the basic principles of time
lag in a hyper-distance environment.  You see, sir, comm messages travel at the
speed of light but—”

Heskan
cut himself off and stopped the recording.  “Send that, Jack.”

Truesworth
burst out laughing while Selvaggio’s expression was one of pure horror. 
“Message is away, Captain.”

Heskan
worked hard to stifle his own laughing
.  I’m going to pay for that but I
don’t care.  Now that I’ve had my ship shot up, it’s not like I’ll be working under
that moron for long anyway
.  He breathed out hard in an attempt to regain
his composure for his second message.  After several seconds, he started
recording but his stern expression immediately collapsed into riotous laughter,
which cascaded to both his bridge officers.  A full minute later, Heskan wiped
his tears from his face. 
Okay, gotta get through this.
  He forced
himself to a somber expression and tried not to rush through the message.  “To
Lieutenant Durmont, second message received and provided necessary clarification. 
Orders are understood and we will set an intercept course for you.  I estimate
our rendezvous time in one hour and forty minutes.  We’re still compiling our after-action
report and I will send it to you as soon as it’s ready.  Heskan out.”

The after-action
report was all Heskan needed to regain a somber mood.  If the damage to
Anelace
was catastrophic, the casualty list was horrific.  Of
Anelace’s
crew complement
of fifty souls, sixteen had been killed in action and another eight wounded, four
seriously.  Including the five KIAs when the freighter,
Orphan
,
self-destructed, Heskan had lost twenty-one crewmembers, nearly half of the men
and women under his charge.  The numbers bothered him almost as much as the
disgust he felt at himself for surviving unscratched.

He was
not the only one.  In the medical bay, Lieutenant Vernay was relieved that she
had had to keep her helmet’s visor down as she traveled in and out of pockets
of vacuum inside
Anelace
.  She had set the normally transparent visor to
a darkened state, ostensibly to protect her eyes from glare but in reality, to
mask the tears rolling down her face.  Moving Spaceman Thomas past the wreckage
of DC-One and the AIPS control room had been difficult but at least Thomas had
been mercifully unconscious and blissfully unaware of the arduous trip to the medical
bay.  Captain Heskan’s 1-MC announcement that a Brevic destroyer had entered
the system and was coming to assist helped set her mind at ease from the
immediacy of combat but it also allowed her thoughts to linger on the aftermath. 
With
Repulse
in the system, it looked like the nightmare was ending.  In
the back of her mind, she knew the real nightmares would be just starting— tonight.

“On
three, ma’am,” Able Spaceman Rowe said.

They
counted down together and set Thomas onto an available medical bay bed.  The
bay was eerily quiet.  Only two other injured crewmembers were present along
with Spaceman Bonner, who was under heavy sedation.  Both of the injured were
engineers with broken legs whose duties required them to stand.

“Gabes,
can you do without Rowe for a bit?” Vernay asked.  “I have another injured man
I need to get down here.”

Spaceman
Gables nodded her assent while working a sturdy-splint onto one of the
engineer’s legs.  “Yes, ma’am, there just aren’t that many injuries.  It seems
that either your compartment was missed and you lived or was hit and you
didn’t.”  She paused to consider the state of her own battle station and spoke
quietly to no one in particular, “I guess I’m an exception to that.”

Forty
minutes later, Vernay entered the bridge.  Heskan was on his commlink
discussing
Anelace’s
broken heart with Lieutenant Jackamore as she
walked to her station and waited for the conversation to end.

“We
just need life support and enough propulsion to run the compensators and to stop
us, Brandon,” Heskan said as his eyes met with Vernay’s.  “Once we’ve got that,
let’s start working on getting containment fields up in the middle of Ana so we
have breathable atmosphere in most of the ship.”

“Yes,
sir” came through the speaker in the command chair armrest. “What about repair
priority?”

Heskan
paused for a moment and then sighed in resignation.  “Don’t worry about it yet,
Brandon.  I think… well, I think Ana’s a write-off in her condition.”  He
closed the circuit and looked around the bridge. 
Sorry, old gal.  You
fought magnificently and you deserved better than this
.

“Sir?”
Vernay asked softly.

Heskan
did his best to mask his pained expression as he looked over to Vernay.

“Captain,
both of my gunners are in medical with severe injuries.  I can man one of the
turrets if you want but I might be more useful helping with basic damage
control.”  Vernay continued, “I’m fully rated in DC and at the Academy, damage
control was my officer trainee additional duty during Operation Vigilant
Warrior.”  VW was a month-long ship simulation at the Brevic Naval Academy that
simulated shipboard operations for the graduating class.

It
made sense but Heskan had decided that he had been trapped on the bridge long
enough.  “No, Lieutenant, I need you here.  I have to look at the damage and you’re
now the acting first officer.  Stay here and take the bridge.  Call me
immediately if something happens.”

“Yes,
Captain, I have the bridge,” Vernay answered.

Heskan
strode from the bridge as Vernay took her place in the captain’s chair.  Before
the bridge doors could close, he thought he heard Vernay’s voice lightly tease
the two ensigns, something about looking sharp and making her coffee.

Heskan
intentionally took a path to Engineering that was out of his way.  He wanted to
see the worst hit parts of the ship.  Starting with the upper deck, he
carefully picked his way through the shattered AIPS room and DC-One station. 
Much of the ceilings of both compartments had caved in, leaving wide gaps that
were open to space.  Because the port hallway leading to the P-One and P-Two GP
lasers was completely inaccessible, he toured the starboard side and found both
turret control rooms had suffered moderate damage.  He had to circle all the
way back to the single, functional elevator near the bridge as the forward ladder
had been crushed when the AIPS room went.

While
touring the upper deck, he realized the damage he had already seen would have
put
Anelace
in a shipyard for months and that the worst was still to
come on her lower deck.  Auxiliary Control was likewise devastated, although
this time it was the floor that bent upward and contorted, exposing open space
through large gashes.  Unlike AIPS, Heskan was confronted with the remains of the
crewmembers who had manned this station.  He reluctantly moved on after a
fruitless search to find something suitable to cover his comrades’ bodies. 
Heskan greeted those in the medical bay and then quickly moved through the
enlisted berths toward the bow.  Debris stopped his progress before he could
traverse the twenty-eight meter long corridor.  Ahead of him were the mangled remains
of the final enlisted berths and twisted metal of what was supposed to be the
ship’s gym.  Heskan peered through the tangled jumble to stare at only empty
space where the rest of
Anelace’s
bow should have been.  Shaking his
head in disbelief, he retraced his route and headed aft.

His
last stop before going to Engineering, the shuttle bay, was thwarted just past navigation. 
Once again, debris blocked his path.  He estimated that he could probably pick
his way through but he did not need to further verify what he already had concluded:
Anelace
was a lost cause.  In Engineering, he conferred with Chief Brown
and Lieutenant Jackamore to ensure
Anelace
would remain habitable for
the next few hours before his crew departed for
Repulse
.  The men agreed
that after life support and propulsion were completely stable, recovery of the
dead had next priority.  Crew evacuation would take place through the starboard
main access portal and a casualty collection point for the fallen was assigned. 
Chief Brown immediately ordered his remaining operations crewmembers to begin
the grim task of retrieving
Anelace’s
dead.  Those not involved in that
effort were tasked with “sanitizing”
Anelace
for abandonment.  Computer
drives with sensitive information were erased and her reactor core was prepared
for its eventual overload.  As
Repulse
approached, each crewmember would
have twenty minutes to gather personal possessions before exiting the ship;
most needed less time than that.  Satisfied with the plan, Heskan returned to
the bridge to wait.

As
the two Brevic ships closed on each other, communications became more practical. 
Durmont had surprised Heskan by sending just one additional message during the
last ninety minutes, a message informing Heskan that Durmont had been promoted
to lieutenant commander and to address him in future communiques indicating
such.  He had not sent repeated requests for status updates on
Anelace
or for an explanation of what had happened that left the corvette in such a dire
state.  The ships, just light-seconds apart now, had come to a relative rest
next to each other.  Although he dreaded the upcoming conversation with Durmont,
Heskan knew there was no way around it. 
Take heart, Heskan, just a few more
days of dealing with the arrogant, little bastard and you’ll be transferred to
some planet-side desk job on the other side of the Republic. 
Heskan ordered
his sensor officer to open up a channel to
Repulse
when she arrived and
transfer it to his quarters.  As he entered his quarters and sat at his desk, he
thought of everything that had happened in the last six hours and realized how
incredibly tired he was.  All the stresses of battle and its aftermath had
caught up to him.  As he waited, he decided it would be nice to no longer be a
starship commander; too much worrying, too much responsibility and too few benefits. 
Maybe he would be lucky and be posted to a planet without a dome where he could
walk in the sun and fresh air after work… His eyes popped open in surprise as
he realized that he had dozed off at his desk.  He looked to his comm screen
and breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Durmont was still not present.  A
quick check of the chronometer revealed that he had been asleep for close to
twenty minutes. 
I made him wait so I guess now he has to show me who’s the
boss by making me wait
, Heskan thought.  It was another five minutes before
the screen flickered and Lieutenant Commander Durmont’s face appeared.  Judging
by the background, Durmont was in his quarters this time.

“What
happened to my ship, Lieutenant?” he demanded without preamble.

“We
took heavy casualties during our engagements, Commander,” Heskan snapped back
testily, “and we’re down to twenty-seven personnel, four of those are
ambulatory wounded.  I’ll let the crew know your first concern was their
well-being, sir.”

Durmont’s
eyes widened in shock.  “You’ve lost half your crew?  Fighting just two pirate
ships?  Why did you make that suicide charge against the missile ship?  You’ve
got a lot to answer for, Mister Heskan, and the buck stops here!”  Durmont
pounded his desk with his index finger to drive his statement home.

The
buck stops here?  Does that expression even fit this situation,
Heskan absently wondered.  He
put his hand up in an effort to stop Durmont’s assault.  “It was five ships,
not two, and I think all your questions will be answered in detail by my full
debriefing.” 
And, at the pending Board of Inquiry, I’ll have to deal with
for losing a ship.

“Suffice
it to say,” Heskan continued, “there was a significant pirate presence in this
system and I believe there’s still a functional pirate base somewhere in the
asteroid field closest to the system’s star.”

Durmont
sat in silent contemplation as Heskan waited.  Eventually, Heskan grew tired of
the silence and asked, “Not that I’m complaining about
Repulse’s
sudden
appearance but what are you doing here?”

Durmont
sat back and smiled the smile of a man with a secret.  Again, he made Heskan
wait while he was presumably lost in deep thought.  The seconds passed until
Heskan had finally had enough. 
My career is ruined so why am I playing this
jerk’s mind games?
  He reached to switch off the channel but was stopped by
Durmont’s answer.

“We’re
at war, Lieutenant.”

This
time, it was Heskan’s turn to look shocked.  “What?”

“The
Hollaran Commonwealth didn’t back down at Anesidora and the whole thing blew
up.  Reports are conflicting over who fired first… each side claims it was the
other, but our fleet sent to break the blockade was annihilated,” Durmont said
sourly.

Heskan
felt his stomach drop.  That fleet was supposed to be an indestructible show of
Brevic superiority. “How many ships?”

Durmont
shook his head.  “The task force was five heavily reinforced squadrons: thirty-four
total ships.”

Heskan
stared at Durmont in disbelief. 
Thirty-four ships? That’s over twenty
percent of Second Fleet!
  “Squadron compositions?” he asked in a muted
voice.

Durmont
rattled off the casualty list from memory.  “Two dreadnaughts, two command cruisers,
two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, twelve destroyers and ten frigates.”

Heskan’s
head lowered as he absorbed the news. 
All lost, including their crew. 
What, maybe eighteen thousand people? 
Still coming to terms with the loss
of so many lives, he asked again, “So why is Repulse here, sir?”

“For
you,” Durmont said simply.  “Effective immediately, you will turn over command
of Anelace to your first officer and accompany me to Anthe where you will
assume command of BRS Kite and be attached to CortDiv Two which in turn will be
part of my CortRon.  We’ll be providing escort for our new carrier group
centered on Avenger, in Expeditionary Task Group Three point one.”

Heskan’s
head jerked up.  “What?  The carriers are up and running?”  Space carrier
aviation was in its infancy and all the problems associated with carrier combat
operations including fighter launch and recovery at speeds over .1
c
were
still being solved.

Durmont
nodded, “Yes, Lieutenant.  The Hollies had operational carriers at Anesidora
and they were a nasty surprise.  Everything is being rushed through at Titan
and Lysithea to hopefully give us parity.”  He shrugged, “I have no idea if New
London will have fighter pilots ready for them.”