An Officer’s Duty (42 page)

“In particular, if you have a need to come to the
Murphy
side for anything that will take longer than five minutes, you will arrange to swap ships with me,” Salish stated briskly. “Otherwise, it’s not a good idea.”

“That makes sense, sir,” Ia said. “Does each crewmate also have a corresponding swap partner?”

“Yes. Your quarters will be in front of the bridge, once Lieutenant Piezzan clears them out. I do encourage hobbies, but they have to be something that’s quick and easy to pack away. His is painting watercolors, and he has a lot of them pinned to the walls with magnets. Do you have any hobbies, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. I make beads.” At the quirk of Salish’s brow, Ia elaborated a little. “I make them from a special material
crafted on my homeworld. I receive shipments of them, boxes at a time, from my family, tint and reshape them in my spare time, and ship them back home. It’s a way to keep in touch with my people, and a way to contribute to the family income.”

“Considering the shipping costs, these beads must be astronomically priced,” Salish murmured, unlocking the bridge with a wriggle of her fingertips. “I read that your homeworld is on the backside of Terran space.”

“It is, sir. But they’re special beads. There’s a bit of a…religious offshoot, I suppose you could say, back home. It’s a harmless religion, but the beads are considered holy symbols,” Ia hedged, lying smoothly. “That they’re made by my hands, a soldier serving in the military so far from home, makes them all the more special to my people. So I agreed to do it, the last time I was home. Do you have any objections, sir? I do follow the Lock and Web Law very closely while I’m working with them.”

Salish settled herself into the command chair of the bridge. She transferred the datachip to the workstation and tapped in a few commands while she gave Ia’s question some thought. “No, I don’t think I’ll have any problems with that. Provided of course that I see the beads in question, as I am responsible for anything that gets brought on board this ship. And provided that you do make damn sure you obey the Lock and Web Law at all times, even while we’re at dock.”

“Aye, sir. I’d be happy to show you the beads as soon as I have the chance…but I do ask that you respect their sanctity as holy symbols, sir, and not mess with them,” Ia bartered. “Other than that, I always follow the Lock and Web, sir. You don’t serve for a year and a half in space without seeing the reason why at least once.”

“Good meioa,” Salish murmured, praising Ia. “Okay, I’m ready for your biometric scan.”

Ia obligingly leaned forward, placing first her left hand on the scanner pad, then her right.

“Once you’re logged in, you’ll be able to come and go as you please. More to the point, you’ll be able to log others in and out, though for the first five base touches, I’ll be overseeing your half of the crew,” the commander told her. She pressed a few more keys, then nodded, giving Ia permission to straighten up again. “On board the
Audie-Murphy
, we run a double crew
of twenty-eight: fourteen on your side, fourteen on mine. One com, one noncom, one yeoman to back us up—since you and I are both pilots—and the rest are enlisted.

“On board the
Mad Jack
, our immediate superior, Captain Yacob, oversees the off-rotation crews for not only the
Audie-Murphy
, but the
Kublai-Khan
, the
Ed-Freeman
, and the
Yzing-Chow
, our sister ships. We have our own particular off-rotation pool under him, but we can and do draw from the others if one particular ship gets heavily hit,” Salish told her.

“Off-rotation crews,” Ia murmured. “That means the ones who are on medical rest, right?”

“Yes, and a few spares. Plus we cycle them out, wounded or whole, for the span of a full patrol every fifth cycle. Those who have healed up get put on the repair crews for the other ships that call Bay 16 home. We fly patrols for six days at a stretch, and come back here for two, unless we’re badly damaged and have to come into port early, like we did this last time,” Salish told her. “It’ll be your job as pilot to avoid as much damage as possible.

“The same goes for boarding enemy ships—and out here on Blockade, if it isn’t an Alliance military ship, isn’t a duly assigned and previously known mining or transport vessel, or isn’t being escorted by at least three patrollers from at least two different governments, it’s presumed to be, and almost always is, an enemy ship,” Salish warned her. The console beeped, and Ia’s ident flashed on the screen, updated with her new duty posting information. “
Ah
, here we go. You’re now registered as the second-in-command. Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ia murmured. “So…since I’ll be in charge of boarding parties, what are my standing orders?”

“Our priority is, if it’s an unauthorized ship and it shoots at us, we disable it if we can, kill it if we must, and blare its location and identification to the rest of the fleet the entire time we’re fighting it. If it runs from us, we disable and board it; if the crew fires on us during the boarding, we shoot to kill unless our orders are to take prisoners for interrogation, rather than the other way around,” Commander Salish stated. “If it stops and submits to being boarded, we board with extreme caution and search it stem to stern.

“Finding contraband means disabling the ship—you’ll want to go over the ship’s manual with the list of what qualifies as
Alliance contraband, versus what is considered an internal matter, something for a particular government. Then, for all instances, we bind the crew if there are any survivors, and call for a tow so a larger ship can handle the matter. We don’t usually take on prisoners, since we only have room for a maximum of four prisoners, and that’s only if we cram them two at a time into each ship-half’s brig. Mostly, we just shoot at things that run, and board things that don’t.

“We also occasionally cut deals with our fellow Delta-VXs, swapping patrol segments at random. It’s to try and shake things up, keep the frogtopi from figuring out our patrols,” Salish told her. “And we can vary things up within our own routes. Usually it’s only by a system or two, but three or more will get you hauled in front of a board of inquiry—at which point, you’d better have found and shot down an enemy ship, if you expect to get off scot-free. I’ve only heard of it happening half a dozen times, and two of those, the officer who made that decision got a couple strokes of the cane for it.”

“You said at least three military ships, from two governments. Any particular reason?” Ia asked her.

Salish nodded. “Two or three decades back, they got hold of a couple of derelict Solarican military vessels and patched them up enough to be spaceworthy, then started ‘escorting’ ships through the Blockade. They succeeded twice before the Solarican contingent realized they were using defunct call signs and alerted the rest. These days, you have to get an escort from at least two Alliance governments if you’re not a duly authorized work vessel posted to the Interdicted Zone. One of our jobs is to check and double-check with each Blockade member’s registry if we see ships being escorted. Even then, most of the intermittent visitors are well-known. I’ll get you a list to memorize, the same with the list of names and faces from our off-cycle crew.”

“I’ll have it done by the time we launch,” Ia promised. At the older woman’s questioning look, she shrugged. “I noticed the departure time listed at the hangar entrance. It won’t be any worse than cramming for my piloting lessons. What’s your policy on calling home?”

“Never while we’re on patrol, and mandatory once per base touch—yes, it’s mandatory,” Salish told her as Ia raised her brows politely. “Morale is the single most important factor on
Blockade. You call someone you like and you talk to them for up to half an hour, that’s the rule. You can call out more than once, but only the first one is on the Navy’s tenth chit. Or the Marines’ tenth, depending on which Branch is footing the bill.”

“Good thing Blockade pay is above average, then,” Ia quipped, smiling.

Salish didn’t quite return it. Her mouth twisted up, but that was about it. “Yeah, well, you’ll earn it. We have only two duty shifts, which means we’re on alert twelve hours at a stretch—when you’re on and we’re not at alert, you’ll be overseeing four crew on my side of things, while four of yours will be off-shift and resting or asleep, waiting to be up and awake when it’s my side’s shift. We also rotate duty watches every two hours, and all of us are trained for multiple positions.

“So that’s two gunnery posts running at all times, at least one of them installed in the bridge, plus a ship’s systems post usually run from the engine room, and a spare on the offside ship, with a full crew running on yours,” the commander summed up. “The spare is usually the one who ends up cooking for everyone on both sides.”

“How many in a boarding party?” Ia asked her.

“With a known ship we’re set to inspect, just four. With an enemy ship, eight—that’s including you, by the way. That’s why our standing order in hand-to-hand combat is shoot to kill. This isn’t
Space Patrol
, Lieutenant,” Salish warned her. “There are no closing credits, and unless we get the whole crew back to base alive and unharmed, there are no happy endings. If we’re
lucky
, our problems wrap up at the end of each bad encounter when the tow ship arrives. But unless it’s time to head back to base, the very next episode begins without any pauses or commercial breaks.”

“Trust me, sir. Even as a child, I knew that the real military was nothing like the way it’s portrayed in the entertainment business,” Ia promised.

“I hope so. Let’s get you settled in and familiar with the controls,” Salish offered, shifting out of the seat. Somewhere beyond the bridge, a heavy
clunk
rattled through the ship. The commander winced and cursed. “Goddamn techs…If they put an extra dent in my hull and we fall behind schedule, I
swear
heads will roll.”

“You did say a number of them were off-rotation soldiers,” Ia pointed out, settling into the chair. Out of habit, she fastened the restraints, even though the ship technically wasn’t going anywhere for two more days.

Salish sighed. “Yes, and while some of the techs are Navy, which makes me feel slightly better in regards to their technical competency, some of them are Marines—the ratio will vary, patrol to patrol, depending on who’s healed up and ready to ship out the next time their ship’s in port. We get rotated out once every five patrols ourselves, for four patrol sets, then on the fifth one we switch to being backups for everyone else.

“Speaking of which, you’ll need to meet Commander Jeston and the other lieutenants. They’re our backups, this set. The COs of each ship rarely get hit as much as the boarding officers, so there are more lieutenants than commanders running around, taking their turns at getting healed up. But we do get rest weeks, same as the crew—they’re mandatory for anyone on ships as small as ours,” Salish told her, “and they thankfully don’t count as Leave time.

“My first rotation offside will be on your third patrol. Commander Jeston will take over for that week, and then on your fifth patrol, we’ll see who’s free among the junior officers to spell you—that’s another reason why we’re expected to pack light. We’ll get you assigned a set of relief quarters on the
Mad Jack
by the end of the day. You’ll need to swap out with other lieutenants, and it’ll feel more like a hotel than a home, but at least you’ll be able to take a much-needed break,” Salish promised. “They don’t expect officers to work on the ships, so you will get some actual rest between patrols.”

Ia smiled wryly. “Unless the Battle Platform falls under attack.”

Salish chuckled. “Well, aren’t
you
a ray of sunshine? Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. The space lanes get awfully cluttered with debris whenever someone goes up against one of these things. A pity they’re so expensive to build and maintain, compared to building and repairing a bunch of Delta-VXs…”

JANUARY 4, 2494 T.S.
SS’NUK NEH 1334 SYSTEM

Ia stayed in her bunk for a few minutes past the end-lurch that was the emergence from the hyperspace tunnel. Her stomach insisted on it, churning unhappily at having been woken by the OTL klaxons. Worming a hand free of the covers she slapped the button that locked the narrow, cradle-like bed in a stable position and released the webwork of restraints holding her in place. Everyone strapped in for OTL; going without restraints and cushioning of some sort meant the risk of being pasted
against a rearward bulkhead by the abrupt acceleration forces sucking a hypership into its wormhole.