Warpath (39 page)

“At ease,” Finn
said. He looked at the locker they were arguing over and pushed the
top door. It popped open. Then he pressed the bottom door, which
opened as well. “There are two lockers here, not one. The top one
is Row E, the other is Row D. Read your intro packets, pay attention,
stow your gear, and get to your stations, we depart in two hours,
twenty minutes.”

“Sir, yes, Sir,”
said both of them without much enthusiasm.

“You will address the
Chief properly!” shouted an enlisted man who was in the middle of
sorting his possessions into a locker.

“Sir, yes, Sir!”
the pair repeated, standing at attention.

“At ease,” Finn
said, leaving the locker compartment and continuing on. “I’ll
never get used to that.”

“I think you will,”
Ashley said. “You’ve changed. You’ve grown up.”

“Maybe,” Finn
replied. “I think I just understand how important discipline is
now. There are thirteen grades of enlisted people below me. I didn’t
realize how powerful that was until I looked at the full command
chain.”

“I know, this is the
military,” Ashley said. “No more changing vacsuit textures on
duty, I always have to set a good example, and we’re in charge of
so many people. More you, though.”

“Yeah, Agameg and I
seem to be in charge of forty percent of the crew in one way or
another. Anyone wearing uniforms with blue, white or white and blue
is one of ours. Thank God Ayan is going to help out for the first
while.”

“From the Triton?”
Ashley asked. “She’s a crazy multitasker.”

“I’ve seen over the
last few days,” Finn said. “I don’t know where she finds the
time to sleep.”

“Speaking of which,
have you seen your room yet?” Ashley asked.

“I have a sink, a
cupboard, two drawers, a single bed and a locker. Oh, and a door,
which is more of a luxury than expected. Agameg’s quarters are
right against mine, exactly the same.”

“Oh, you too, huh?”
Ashley said. “Looks like Chiefs and Lieutenants get about the same
digs. Well, except for the Lieutenants across the hall. I got a peek,
they’re two to a room, so they miss out on a row of cupboards and
get a few more feet for an extra locker.”

“What about Minh?”
Finn asked. The noise of the forward berthing finally started to fade
as they approached the main hallway. It was the widest place to walk
on the ship other than the hangars or supply loading areas.

“His quarters have an
extra closet for his flight gear and some weaponry, but somehow the
ceiling is shorter. His head brushes the roof, and I have to duck a
little.”

“I always thought you
were taller,” Finn said with a smirk.

“A centimetre,”
Ashley replied.

“All stand at
attention and check your nearest viewer, please,” announced
Lieutenant Commander Liara over the public address system.

“Oh, here we go,”
Ashley said.

Finn was already
standing at attention, and elbowed Ashley, who snapped to as soon as
she realized that she was surrounded by crewmembers that had dropped
everything they were doing to do the same. A display appeared on the
black and white walls every three metres.

On the display, Ayan
was standing beside a simple control stick inside the Solar Forge
with Jake beside her.

“I present Haven
Shore Founder, Captain Ayan Anderson. She is doing us the honour of
christening the ship,” Liara continued.

“Oh, this means we’re
late,” Ashley whispered through lips she kept mostly still.

“We’re just
de-tethering from the Solar Forge, they won’t miss us for a few
minutes,” Finn replied in the same fashion.

A fellow in ancient
butler’s finery handed Ayan a bottle of Black Sail Rum, and she
held it up so everyone could see for a moment. “Oh my God, that’s
Frost,” Ashley said.

Finn took a closer look
as the butler opened a small round cover, and she carefully dropped
the bottle inside. “You’re right!” It disappeared, and a few
seconds later a green light turned on beside the joystick.

Half the images in the
hallway showed a close up of the bow of the Revenge, so the name
could be clearly seen. “The rig Captain Anderson is using to launch
that bottle against the hull was developed by Chief Frost, and built
by our crew.”

“I name this ship the
Revenge. May she conduct our sailors and soldiers safely to and from
war. May she be a beacon of hope to our allies, and a dreaded
nightmare to our enemies,” Ayan said as she carefully aimed the
launcher. She pushed the trigger and the bottle surged forward from
the launcher.

“Is that even fast
enough to break?” asked a crewman to Finn’s left.

“Oh, God, she
missed,” breathed another.

Finn watched as the
bottle moved through empty space. For a moment it looked as though it
would miss its target entirely, striking on some random part of the
ship or, even worse, flying past it entirely.

A new view angle
revealed that it was indeed close to the target, and the bottle of
old fashioned rum shattered right in the middle of the last E in
Revenge. “A perfect shot! Now the last tethers will release, and we
will be free of the station. We are officially ready for final prep,”
Liara announced. Finn could barely hear her over the cheers and
applause of the crew.

Captain Valent and
Captain Anderson kissed briefly, and then they walked away in a
hurry. The displays along the corridor disappeared, with the show
over, but people were still applauding. “Square away, and to your
stations!” Finn shouted, even though he was smiling. He glanced at
his command and control unit. “Yeah, we’re running late now.”

“Race you to the
bridge?” Ashley asked, lurching into a run.

“Make a hole!” Finn
shouted as he chased after her, and the crewmen and women moved aside
to let them rush by.

There was no
extravagance aboard the Revenge. It was true that Jake had moments
where he wished he still had the Warlord, but by the time they were
under way, heading out of the solar system under power alongside the
Triton, he started to fall in love with the simplicity of his new
ship.

Knowing you’d done
everything you could to improve the design of a ship in the schematic
stage, and experiencing the ship first hand were two different
things. The centre of the ship had the narrowest hallways and the
most cramped spaces. The corridors were wider closer to the outer
hull, where heavy equipment, supplies, munitions, and larger groups
of crewmembers had to move on a regular basis. The ship was made to
go into war, to take damage, and the triple hull design certainly
made that clear. The original design of the ship by Regent Galactic
was actually much better than Jake would have guessed. The touches
and modifications that Ayan, Jake, and a few other crewmembers made
to the blueprints were mostly to accommodate the ship’s extended
purpose. The Battlecruiser was converted into a carrier. Two hangars
with short launch bays and extra armour plating made the ship look
much more significant. More powerful weaponry that drew very little
power but required more space for ammunition gave the ship better
survivability in a multi-target fight. He felt confident that the
ship would be able to protect the crew, but he was aware that there
was much left to do.

The crew quarters had
been cleaned up, the computers were replaced, they added the bridge
in the middle of the ship, and there were some other minor changes,
but, for the most part, the inside of the ship hadn’t changed much.

There were a few
problems that he had to work out with the Admiral before they made it
past the furthest asteroid belt from the sun, however. The bridge of
the Revenge was almost centremost inside the ship. Some of the design
and layout reminded him of the First Light, with the least important
components nearest to the outside of the vessel, most of the crew and
critical components under multiple layers of armour.

The narrow bridge felt
older than he expected, with dark floors, secure doors on the sides,
and an escape hatch at the rear that led to five man pods. Some of
them still had to be installed, one of the drawbacks of finishing
things while they were under way. Navigation and scanning departments
had their consoles at the front of the bridge, tactical to his left,
engineering and damage control to his right. Right in front, but
several steps down from the captain’s seat were the communications
consoles along with operations and three other stations. Each
department was given two stations, and there were another four behind
his captain’s seat. It was only cramped if everyone stood up at the
same time.

The Flight Operations
Deck was still being configured, a task that Lieutenant Commander
Stephanie Vega took upon herself. She wanted to know everything about
the operation of the ship, and was studying at a break neck pace. As
one of the people in charge of the Flight Operations Deck, where
fighters and other ships from the Revenge would be directed, she
would be one of the top experts on its operation when it was
finished. The new opportunities and workload that came with being
Jake’s First Officer seemed to ignite something in her, and he
couldn’t wait until he could see what she could do as a commander
on his ship.

He was sitting on the
bridge, running through the status of their new thrusters when he got
the call he was expecting. “Admiral McPatrick for you sir, on
secure laser link,” Liara announced.

“I’ll take it in my
quarters, you have command Minh-Chu,” he said.

Minh-Chu got up from
one of the consoles in front of him that he’d rigged for temporary
flight operations and took the command seat. “Not much going on
with everything strapped up in our bays anyway.”

Jake passed from the
bridge, across one of the main corridors where two heavily armoured
guards saluted him, and into the Officer’s quarters. A few more
steps, and he was in his quarters. They were furnished with a half
table against one wall with cupboards above, a bench that served as
more storage space against one side, his double bed, which he’d
already come to call his ‘barely double’ bed, double locker
between the door and the table against the wall, and a soft easy
chair. He pulled the easy chair a few centimetres closer to the table
and gave up on trying to get it right in front of the middle,
settling for slightly off-centre. “Display holographic data there,”
he pointed to the table.

He opened the cupboard
door over his bed and retrieved a cup.

“Jake,” Oz said.
“Congratulations.”

Captain Valent filled
his cup with a thick brown nutrient drink. The mini-kitchen unit
displayed it as a Chocolate Nutriment Beverage, and offered it in hot
or cold temperatures. He tasted it and immediately wondered if it
would be better hot. “Thank you,” he said. “But I think there
may be something wrong with my mini-kitchen. The drink mixer says
this is supposed to taste like chocolate, but all I’m getting is
chalk. Forma and chalk.” He took another sip anyway. The last few
days had run him ragged, he could use something fortifying.

“So, you know what
this is about,” Oz said. “You got Agameg, Finn, and Lieutenant
Commander Erron. Not to mention, Governor Anderson hand picked your
new medical staff.”

“You mean those four
bots and three medical technicians?” Jake said, sitting in the easy
chair. It was just wide enough, if the arms were any closer together,
they’d pinch his hips too much.

“Hey, picked by the
Governor, they’ve gotta be something special,” Oz replied. “But
back to your two Chief Engineers and Lieutenant Commander Erron.”

“You saw the
enlistment files. One maintains the ship and keeps operations running
smoothly, the other monitors and continues to develop the systems.
Very different jobs.”

“Yeah, but Agameg
could continue developing your systems from the Triton.”

“That doesn’t make
sense from where I’m sitting,” Jake objected with a wince that
was mostly from braving another gulp of his nutrient drink. “What
if something goes wrong? Developing new tech can be dangerous. We
both know the Triton is the ship we can’t afford to lose.”

“All right, but
Lieutenant Commander Erron? Liara is probably the top communications
and legal officer in the fleet,” Oz said. “The Triton will be
taking the lead in diplomacy, we need her here.”

Jake smirked at the
small hologram of Oz on the table. “Should I tell her your first
tactic in negotiating to get her back was to understate her talents?
We both know the only reason she’s a Lieutenant Commander is
because she’s still under Order Agent watch. As soon as we’re
sure she’s not spying for the other side, she gets Commander rank.
She can run hacks and get through information faster than anyone I’ve
seen, and she doesn’t have problems running a brain-bud. Even with
a direct connection to the ship, she doesn’t show any signs of data
addiction disorder, hell, she doesn’t even seem mildly distracted.”

“Kadri,” Oz said.
“You have your own genius in communications, she’s just as
amazing as Liara.”

“She’s wasted on
communications. Kadri doesn’t have the legal training, and she has
a science background. On the Warlord she was playing double duty –
communications and scanning officer – but on the Revenge, there’s
no way I could stretch her. I need her as our eyes, and I need Liara
as our ears. Don’t worry, I’ll pair ensigns with them so new
communication and scanning officers will be in training. Besides, you
have three lawyers aboard the Triton, and I hear you’ve got five
new scanning officers in training, all with experience. I read staff
updates too.”

“Where you find the
time, I’ll never know,” Oz replied.

“What can I say? I
don’t miss my direct connection with the ship because I like
reading,” Jake replied. “One of the many things I’m discovering
about myself on this journey of self-rediscovery. I’m afraid you’ll
have to do with the great big crew you’ve got over there.”