For Honor We Stand (32 page)

“Yes, Mr. Hewlett.  It was.”

Silence sat heavy in the room while the Midshipmen’s minds processed what they had learned, connecting what they had heard about the famously elusive Midshipman with what they had heard and observed about their Captain.  At first, it seemed that the man who had been their Commanding Officer for these past few months could not possibly be that boy grown to manhood.  But then the traits of the boy of legend and the traits that marked this Captain, traits that were already legendary on board the
Cumberland
, started to fit together.  The tenacity.  The courage.  The resourcefulness.  The defiance.  The refusal to be beaten.  They all made sense now.  Not only was it possible that this man was that boy grown to manhood, it was impossible that he be anyone else. 

Hewlett, the only one of the Mids who was already standing, almost as a reflex or an instinctive response, drew himself up to attention.  And saluted.  When he looked back on that moment, he could never identify quite what it was that moved him on that day.  Whatever the cause, whatever he felt, the other boys felt it too.  As one, they came to their feet, brought themselves to the most prefect attention Tanaka had ever seen them manage, and saluted.  Trying to ignore the lump that had just formed in his throat, Max returned the salute with solemn precision. 

“Thank you, gentlemen.”  He managed to keep the strong emotion from showing in his voice.  Most of it, anyway.  “I must be doing all right, then.”  He smiled at the boys warmly.  There was nothing he could do or say that would add to what had taken place, which—to any wise leader—means that there is only one thing to do.  “Carry on gentlemen.  Chief.”  He started to turn toward the hatch.

Before Max could complete the turn, Tanaka said, “Thank you, Captain.”  He saluted as well.  Max returned the salute and left.  Both men knew that military courtesy did not call for a salute in that situation.  Neither gave it a second thought. 

Max walked back to his quarters.  Those logistics reports were still waiting for him.  He shook his head unconsciously.  Something important had just happened.  Something changed.  He felt different.  Some part of the turmoil that for years had raged deep in his innermost self had quieted.  Not all of it.  Not even most of it.  But, some of it.  In one corner of his being, where there had been anguish and pain and fear, there was now peace. 

It felt good.  It felt very good. 

Chapter
8

00:37Z Hours, 21 March 2315

“Middle Watch,” also known as “Graveyard Watch” (a term which the Navy, understandably, discouraged), was the least-loved watch of the day.  It ran from Midnight (00:00, often referred to as “four balls”) to four in the morning (04:00), the period of the human diurnal cycle when intellect, strength, stamina, and alertness are at their lowest ebb.  It was a well-known naval statistic that, of the seven watches stood during any twenty-four hour period, it was the Middle Watch that consumed the most coffee and high-sugar snacks.  It was also the Middle Watch in which the crew committed the most Mandatory Logging Discrepancies, the term the Navy uses for errors and omissions of sufficient magnitude to require that they be logged by the head of the offending department.  And, not coincidentally, it was the watch in which the largest number of non combat-related deaths occurred.  Space is dangerous, the high energy systems and toxic materials needed for its conquest even more so; accordingly, there are hundreds of ways to die on a warship, many of which do not involve contact with the enemy, but which require only a moment’s inattention or an apparently trivial error to invite a visit from the Grim Reaper.

And this Middle Watch was to prove more difficult than most.  Today was the first day of the “Leadership Training” ordered by the Captain for the men he privately called the “Sweet Seventeen.”  When First Watch ended thirty-seven minutes ago, and the five of that seventeen who stood that watch went off duty, none of the seven assigned to stand the Middle Watch came on.  Further, under the terms of the new Standing Order, none of the seventeen was available to answer any questions, solve any problems, or explain how to repair the minor malfunctions that were supposed to be fixed “in department” rather than by Engineering staff.

The Captain’s theory was simple and, at least in the opinion of Doctor Sahin, ingenious.  For one day in three, the other 198 officers, men, and boys would have to figure out how to operate the ship without the aid of the Sweet Seventeen.  And, on the other two, the seventeen’s contributions to the running of the ship would be limited to what they could do during their regular watches which would force the rest of the ship’s compliment, if not to stand on their own two feet, then to use the seventeen as a walking stick rather than as a wheelchair. 

No one in the Sensors Back Room (or Staff Support Room as it was referred to formally) had any inkling of what the Captain was doing or why.  It was in that compartment that twenty or so men monitored the input from the arrays of sensitive instruments that
Cumberland
used to monitor its environment, locate its enemies in order to evade or flee or destroy them, managed those instruments and systems, and saw that the Sensors Officer in CIC had on demand whatever sensor information was needed by the man in the Big Chair.  It was also in that compartment where the rubber of the Captain’s plan first met the road of reality.

  “Chief Klesh, the computer is telling me I’ve got a twitch on the LCDA,” announced Able Spacer First Class James Smith, referred to by everyone as “Greenlee” (from the name of his home world) to distinguish him from the other two James Smiths on board.  The Chief Klesh to whom he made the announcement was Chief Petty Officer First Class Tadeusz Kleszczynska, of Swiatzpols, the senior man in the compartment now that Ensign Harbaugh, one of the Sweet Seventeen, was unavailable.  Klesh was the fourth most senior noncom on the ship. 

The Chief got up from his station and stepped over to Greenlee’s console.  Looking over the Spacer’s shoulder he could see on the “Alerts and Messages” Display a flashing notification stating “Local Compression Detection Algorithm analysis of fluctuations in this vessel’s compressed space to normal space interface indicates the likely presence of another compression field within a three light year radius.”  When another ship was using a compression drive within a few light years, residual superluminal distortion propagated through the space-time continuum to exert a minute effect on the
Cumberland
’s
own compression field.  While these effects were not visible on any display given the large amount of random fluctuation that was always present, the computer had an algorithm that could detect whether a systematic component was present in the random noise.  In this case, the computer had just made such a detection. 

“Can you localize it?”

“Negative Chief.  I’ve asked the computer for bearing information and it comes up blank.”

“And what does that mean?” 

“I don’t know, Chief.  There’s never been an algorithm detection on my watch that Lieutenant Goldman or Ensign Harbaugh didn’t handle.”

“OK, when you don’t have experience to rely on, you fall back on theory.  Think about how the system works.  How does the algorithm derive bearing information?  Under what conditions would it not be able to make that kind of computation?”  The Chief’s area of expertise was mainly in repairing, maintaining, and calibrating the sensor systems, not in interpreting the readings, but he hadn’t had his fingers stuffed in his ears for the twenty-two years he had been in the Sensors Back Room of eight different ships.

“An initial detection is of the distortion only.  Bearings are derived from phase shifts in our own field over time.  There are distinctive patterns associated with different bearing changes and the computer uses those changes to do a target motion analysis, first to derive a bearing, and then to derive a range.”

“Right.  Now, when would that system not give any useful information?”

“Oh, I get it, there has to be a bearing change for there to be a bearing detection.”

“Good.  Now think back on your basic tactical geometry.  What are the three conditions under which a moving ship will observe no bearing change on a contact?”

“One, the contact is dead ahead.  Two, the contact is dead astern.  Three the contact is on a congruent course with your ship:  identical course, identical speed.” 

“Exactly.  Now, we need to make a call:  notify our officer in CIC what we’ve detected and provide him with a recommendation.  You tell me, Spacer Greenlee, what exactly have we detected?”

“We have a Local Compression Algorithm detection of a superluminal target under compression drive, no bearing change, indeterminate distance.”

“Right.  What’s the recommendation we make?”

“Sorry, Chief, I don’t know.”

“Anyone else know?  We’re not talking n-space topological mechanics here, people.  You’re the guys who can read the emission lines in a drive spectrum—it’s just a bunch of decorator toothpicks to me—you should be able to figure this out based on the simple geometry of the thing.”  An Ordinary Spacer Third Class raised his hand.  “We don’t raise our hands in here, Onizuka.  Just speak up.”

“Just speaking up” wasn’t the easiest thing in the worlds for Onizuka, but he cleared his throat and spat it out.  “Resolve the ambiguity, sir.”

Klesh kept himself from smiling and nodding.  “How do we do that?”

“Pick a new course, ninety degrees from our current one on any axis.  No matter whether the target is ahead, astern, or on a congruent course, unless he can match our course change immediately, even if by chance we head directly towards him, there will be an immediate bearing change.”

“Bulls eye.  Now, Greenlee, you watch your console closely because CIC is going to want to know pretty damn quick what happens when we change course, if that’s what they decide to do back there.  OK, I suppose I’m supposed to make the notification.”

The Chief went back to his console, pulled up the display at which Greenlee was looking, and referred it to the Sensors Station in CIC, and then hit a button in a row of three, each of which was over a colored light, one red, one amber, one green.  The one he pressed was over the amber.  On the CIC Sensors console at which Ensign Hobbs had the watch at this moment, the “SSR STATUS” light went from green, indicating all is well, to amber, indicating that the Sensors officer needed to do two things.  First, he should look at the SSR ATTN display, which always showed what the Back Room thought the CIC Officer needed to be looking at—at the moment, the LCDA detection screen and some related graphs and information.  And, second, the man in CIC should communicate with his Back Room.  There were lots of ways to do that, but when the amber light went on, the usual method was by voice link.  It was up to the man in CIC to initiate the communication because when the light went on he could easily have been involved in a discussion with the Captain or another CIC officer which the Back Room would not want to interrupt.

Hobbs opened the link and spoke quietly into his headset.  “SSR Sensors, CIC Sensors.”  State who you are calling, then identify yourself.  Otherwise, if there was some kind of glitch somewhere or you punched up the wrong channel, you might wind up trying to discuss a sensor contact with the Breads, Rolls, and Biscuits Chef.

“SSR Sensors, Klesh here.”

“What’s up, Klesh?”

“We show a Local Compression Algorithm detection of a superluminal target under compression drive, no bearing change, indeterminate distance.  Recommending course change, delta niner-zero degrees on any axis, to resolve ambiguity.”

“Understood.  Why don’t you go ahead and monitor the main CIC voice pickup so you hear what we’re doing.  If we change course, you’ll want to watch that detector closely.  We’ll want to localize him Alfa Sierra Alfa Papa.  We don’t want to run into the guy.”

“Affirmative.  We’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Thanks.  CIC out.” 

Hobbs then examined the SSR ATTN display, spent a few seconds scanning the raw data, ran a few cross checks and decided that the call checked out.  A good CIC officer wasn’t just a parrot for the calls made by his Back Room.  He used his independent judgment and experience to verify the call before he announced it in CIC because, according to the old saying, “once you say it, you own it.”  It would be his responsibility.  “Blaming the Back Room” was not only a cardinal sin and a good way to lose the loyalty of the people whose loyalty you need most, it was something that skippers frequently criticized in FITREPS.

“Officer of the Deck,” he said.

In the middle of the night, with the ship on compression drive deep in interstellar space and light years from any star system, neither the skipper nor the XO was in CIC.  The ship’s nerve center was, instead, presided over by the “Officer of the Deck,” a duty that rotated among all the ship’s officers save the CO, XO, and the Chief Engineer, the Chief Medical Officer and the Marine Detachment Commander (the first three being too busy and the last two lacking the necessary training and experience to con a warship).  For the duration of this watch, the Officer of the Deck was Ensign Levy.  As it happened, this was Levy’s first time to perform this duty.  Accordingly, when Hobbs asked for his attention, Mr. Levy had exactly forty-one minutes and nineteen seconds of experience in the Big Chair.

“Yes, Mr. Hobbs.”