Battlecruiser Alamo: The Price of Admiralty (4 page)

"Twelve hours? Sir, I don't have most of my crew..."

"The Kepler arrived not an hour ago with the balance of your crew from Titan, and most of your Martian personnel are already here at the station."

Marshall looked around the office, before turning back to face his superior. "Commodore, tell me the truth. Is this really urgent, or is this politics? Because if it is urgent, I will find a way, some way, to get this done. But otherwise tell the politicians to go to hell. It was going to be hard enough to put this crew together in two weeks, never mind twelve hours."

"Cornucopia Mining had a three-ship expedition out at Lalande to explore the possibility of using its asteroid belt. They were a month overdue, but rather than report it to us, they sent another ship, the Yukon, to take a look. That one arrived back at Callisto this morning, half its crew dead and shot to pieces, claiming that a hostile fleet had attacked them."

"Christ. Still doesn't explain the urgency though. Those crews will be just as captured – or dead – in a week from now."

"The Patrol's talking about delaying the transfer of Thermopylae and sending it out there for a look. Never mind that it is a trio of Martian vessels that have gone missing, they're out to score some points."

Marshall jerked up from his seat, half-shouting, "That's a violation of the Triplanetary Fleet Charter.
Everything outside Sol
is meant to be our responsibility."

"And if we falter in this first time, we might never get another chance."

"Damn politicians," he spat out the last word.

The Commodore nodded, "My sentiments precisely, Captain. I'm transmitting your orders now, to you and to Zubinsky. If he tries to block you, feel free to refer him to me." The old man paused ominously, looked down at his desk for a moment, then back up at Marshall.

"This is important, Danny. Damned important. We're hanging onto the Fleet by our fingernails right now. Only enough funding for a year of operations to test the concept. If we're going to make it work, we need a success. This is exactly the sort of mission that the Triplanetary Fleet was established for."

He raised his hand,
interrupting Marshall before he could reply,
"I know you were in it for the exploration, and that's important too. But getting the largest asteroid mining corporation on side? That could make all the difference come budget time. Make this one good, Danny. We're counting on you. Mariner out."

The screen went dead, but Marshall continued to stare at it for a moment. No pressure, just the future of the entire fleet resting on the success of a single ship with a crew of misfits and rejects, sent out to combat unknown forces in a system no-one had been to for a decade. He smiled, then looked down at the desk for a specific button. He found it, tapped it down, and rested back in his chair. This one he had to get right.

"Attention all stations. This is Lieutenant-Captain Marshall. By authority of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, as of this time and date," he paused for a heartbeat, "I am assuming command of this vessel. The watch officer will note the change of command in the log. As of this moment, Alamo is a constituent element of the Triplanetary Deep Space Fleet.”

“All officers and men who are to remain on board will report to their duty stations immediately. Those of you who are returning to Callisto are thanked for their service up to this point, and will disembark during this watch. Senior Lieutenant Mulenga, Lieutenant Dietz, Senior Lieutenant," he paused again for a second while he desperately attempted to remember his Executive's last name, "Zakharova to report to the Captain's office immediately for priority briefing. That is all."

He punched again for the duty communications technician, ignoring the urgent buzzing – then pounding – from the door. The flustered looking face of Weitzman appeared on the monitor.

"Weitzman, you're staying, correct?"

"Yes, er, sir."

Marshall smiled. "You're going to have a busy day, Spaceman." He had to fight to stop himself calling the technician Corporal. If he couldn't keep the new ranks straight, no-one else would either.

"First of all I want you to contact the Kepler and have them come alongside to transfer the crew they have for us. With a little luck they won't have offloaded at the station yet. And put me through to the ship's commanding officer as soon as you can – I need to poach a deck officer from him."

The original plans had him retaining the current deck officer, but the last thing Marshall wanted was a man who would hock his stores – or worse, not care when others were doing it around him. The pounding on the door was getting louder.

"Then contact Mariner Station and have them put out an alert for all Alamo crewmen to report on board immediately. All leave canceled, that sort of thing. Clear?"

The young man looked from left to right, as if attempting to find an escape route from his current situation, but he nodded, "Aye, sir."

"I'll have a lot more people for you to contact, so you'd better stand-by. I don't think you've got a relief until, ah," he looked down his crew roster, "Spaceman Muttai reports on board."

"No problem, sir."

"Good." The pounding was getting worse to the point that he could hear it through the pickup. He signed off, then opened the door to reveal a furious Zubinsky standing in the threshold.

"Flight Commander, I presume you have read the order from the Combined Chiefs?"

"You bastard," the older man spat at him.

"I haven't got time to work out what that means." Marshall looked down at the desk and started calling up personnel charts.

"I'll tell you what it means..."

Marshall sighed, slammed his hands down flat on the desk, and stood up. "I don't have time for this, Commander. Twelve hours from now I need to be shaping for Lalande 21185 on a high-priority rescue mission. When I had two weeks, I had some leeway to deal with your bullshit, but I simply don't have the time to play your stupid games. Not when there are hundreds of lives at stake."

Zubinsky's hackles almost visibly fell. Marshall continued, "I know it hurts to lose your command, but it's over, Zubinsky. Now I need you to organize the transfer of the crew that are remaining in the Patrol to Mariner Station with their possessions within the next few hours. I've got a lot of crewmen coming on board, and I'm going to have enough chaos without all of them underfoot."

The older man's eyes narrowed, "What about transfer protocols? Don't you want my men to show yours around?"

"What sort of a handover can they do in twelve hours? We'll have to do this one on the fly."

Zubinsky nodded. "Very well, I will see it is done." He turned to walk out of the office, then looked back at Marshall, "I'll be back to get my things in a little while. Captain, this ship has been my home for seven years. Take care of her."

The door slid shut behind him, leaving Marshall alone in his office.

Chapter 4

Lalande 21185 had a briefing pack that was long on scientific technobabble but depressingly short on the things he actually needed to know. He'd already dumped the information on planetary orbits into the tactical systems in the hopes that Caine would be able to make something useful out of it, but the systems on the blasted-up Yukon had provided far too little information on the identity of the attackers and their courses.

He went back over the list of previous expeditions again. First scouting run by UNSS Discovery back in '98, one of the first systems visited by an FTL vessel, then a second, more detailed survey that was co-sponsored by a corporate conglomerate based on the Lunar Republic in '23. A few occasional visits by ever-smaller prospecting companies hoping to find something that the majors had overlooked, the occasional visit by one side or another during the War, but nothing since then.

As for the system itself, nothing impressive. One
fairly
large asteroid belt, but nowhere near as rich as Proxima, just a gas giant with a barely habitable moon and a lot of airless rocks. Jupiter, if it were seven light-years away.

He folded his screen back down into the desk, running through the information in his head again. A system that no-one had bothered occupying or seriously exploiting, or even visited for years. Just another one of the dozens of solar systems in range of humanity that didn't have a habitable planet or easy-to-get-at resources, or even an alien race to provide some interest. A couple of visits and file away for potential future use, that future being somewhat ill-defined.

Why Cornucopia might be interested in using the system was another question entirely, and not one that was listed anywhere in the briefing pack on the original expedition, just something about resource exploitation. It smacked of desperation, the ever-expanding search for new and exclusive mining territories.

Marshall looked back at his watch; almost time for his first full staff meeting. Hopefully it would be less frosty than his first meeting with his new Executive Officer – just thinking about that gave him a brief chill.

Almost on cue, the door to his office chimed. He pushed the contact to open the door; it slid open to reveal a brief burst of activity on the bridge, and the blonde-haired Senior Lieutenant Zakharova standing in the door.

She'd managed to find the time to change into her Triplanetary uniform now, but it was obvious from her demeanor that she didn't find any particular joy in wearing it. She stood at parade rest in front of his desk, with a look boiling on insolence.

Marshall waved a hand in the direction of a chair, "Take a seat, Lieutenant. Something come up?"

Zakharova ignored the proffered chair, continuing to stand. "I thought it might be productive for us to talk prior to the staff meeting, Com...Captain."

"Don't worry about slipping too much, Lieutenant. As long as you make the effort. It's going to take us all a little while to get used to the new administrative structure."

"About that. I've just been informed that Sub-Lieutenant Santana is to be replaced with an officer from the Kepler. He had an excellent service record under Commander Zubinsky, and I would like to know why you did this without at least consulting me."

Sighing, Marshall replied, "As the commander of this vessel, Lieutenant, I am not obligated to 'consult' you about anything I do not choose to talk to you about. Frankly I threw him off the ship because the mechanism does not exist for me to court-martial him yet, and I don't think we need the bad press at the start of the voyage. The ship got robbed blind while he was too busy sulking in a rapidly emptying hangar deck; I'd rather have an officer who wants to be here. Or, frankly, no officer at all. Which brings me to my next point."

Confusion flashed across her face. "Sir?"

"You, Lieutenant Zakharova. I checked twice; you actually requested transfer to the Triplanetary Fleet. Yet you seem as if you have no desire to be here. With everything in such a state of flux, if you wish to instead return to Callisto, I feel sure that the Patrol will take you back at your previous rank. I'll even have a word with a few people to smooth the path for you."

She sat down on the chair with a careful poise, and placed her hands on the deck. "I had no great love for Commander Zubinsky, Captain. But I wanted his job, and I worked hard to get it."

Marshall
scratched his jaw, replying,
"You think that we should switch places?"

"I honestly do not believe that you are as qualified as I to command this vessel. Your career has primarily been spent flying fighters, your command experience of larger ships is extremely limited. I have been Executive Officer of Alamo for three years. I cannot help but attribute this decision to the political move to have two commanding officers from each constituent planet of the Triplanetary Confederation."

It took him a moment to formulate a reasonable reply. Oddly, Marshall didn't find himself particularly angry by his deputy's comments; to an extent he could understand her frustration.

 "Lieutenant, I appreciate your candor. Your experience on this ship makes you potentially an extremely valuable member of my command team."

"Potentially?" she said with a harsh tone in her voice.

"Let me finish. I have no intention of stepping down in your favor. I can assure you that I would not have taken this assignment if I was not confident that I could carry it out."

She leaned forward on the desk. "That doesn't mean you are the best man for the job."

"Lieutenant, the situation is as it is. You can take it one of two ways. Either you can sit at your station and stew, doing the minimum and earning a series of service reports that will reflect your poor attitude – and I assure you, will rapidly lead to you being transferred from this ship – or you can impress me and your superiors in the fleet sufficiently that when the next command becomes available, you are the natural choice for the job."

"Jam tomorrow?"

"Damn it, Lieutenant, you know all this yourself. At least you should. You want a command of your own, prove you are up to the job."

Zakharova stood, pushing the chair back with her legs. "I will consider what you have said."

"Good." He paused. "And one more thing, Lieutenant. This is the first and last time you question my ability to command this ship, whether in public or private. Or you'll end up walking home. Am I clear?"

"Perfectly, Command...Captain." She walked out of the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Marshall called up her personnel record again, going over it for the third time that day. Based on that, and on her difficulties at dealing with the situation, well, Caine should probably be sitting in the Executive's spot right now.

Still, her record seemed good. Joined in the last year of the war, couple of decorations, steady progression through the ranks of the Patrol. Good grades in Staff College. On paper, she was a reasonable choice, and her anger had at least a little merit.