Barbarians at the Gates (11 page)

“I didn’t want to be a hero,” Marius protested. “I just did what needed to be done.”

“I know that, son,” Kratman said with uncommon gentleness. “But most of the people on Earth don’t know you as I do. They have to see it differently…and with all those piranhas among the Senators, you have to know that no one, not even the friendliest Senator, does anything for free.”

Marius ruminated on this for a minute. “Thanks for talking with me. I’ll keep all this in mind, I promise.”

“Just watch your back, all right?” Kratman pleaded. “I’ve seen far too many of my old officers and men taken out by Justinian—and his allies—as it is.”

* * *

Tired and emotionally drained, Roman Garibaldi staggered out of the Examination Hall hours after he’d entered. It felt as if he’d been in the room for years, as if his personal universe had shrunk down to the examination room and the terminal he’d used to answer the questions. All hope of a First had faded, to be replaced by the desperate hope that he might just have scraped a Third. A Fourth or below usually meant repeating the fifth-year at the Academy, though Roman wasn’t sure if that still applied in wartime. He returned to his room, collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

Hours later, he awoke, ordered a small meal from the food processor, and then fell back asleep after eating it. He felt at loose ends; now that the exams had been completed, he had to wait until the proctors had completed reviewing their answers. All that mattered was passing the exams.

He tried to keep the thoughts of war from his mind, but he just couldn’t. Would doing worse on his exams mean he’d be sent immediately to the front? Or would he be kept back as an incompetent?

The following morning, he was awakened at the usual time and ordered to report to the Assembly Hall. He wasn’t the only one, as he noticed almost all of his fifth-year class had been summoned.

As he and the others poured into the compartment, he saw holographic test results hovering in front of his eyes. There were no Fourth or Fifth results, he noted at once; the unlucky cadets would probably be spared public humiliation. He scanned the Thirds and saw a couple of familiar names, but his was missing.

Bracing himself, he scanned the Seconds, yet his own name wasn’t present. Thank goodness!

Taking a deep breath, he looked at the Firsts and saw, clearly, ROMAN GARIBALDI. He’d done it!

Friends shook his hand or hugged him, eager to share their congratulations, or demanding to know where he was going. He accessed his implants and searched for his orders. They were waiting for him in the network.

“
Enterprise
,” he said in delight. The Federation Navy’s latest flagship had been his first choice, although he’d known that even with a First, the odds weren’t high. “I’m going to the
Enterprise
!”

“Congratulations,” Cadet Sultana Narayanan said. Her accented voice was amused. “So am I.”

Roman grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. At least he wouldn’t be completely friendless when he arrived. Between them, he was sure they could learn the carrier’s ways and fit right in. He barely heard the speech from the proctors, warning the non-First cadets that their orders were still being cut and that they’d be informed as soon as possible. He was going to the
Enterprise
!

“Come on,” Raistlin said. All differences between them had faded, for Raistlin had made a First, too. “Let’s party!”

The Federation Navy’s standard doctrine for building and deploying carriers was developed during the First Interstellar War and refined over the following centuries. It should therefore be asked, loudly, why that doctrine was ignored when it came to building the Star Carrier designs
.

-
An Irreverent Guide to the Federation,
4000 A.D.

FNS
Enterprise
, Sol System, 4092

“We’re coming up on her now,” the pilot said in a bored tone, sounding as if he’d flown the mission hundreds of times before. “You may wish to come forward and watch as we approach.”

Roman wondered how the pilot could be bored—wasn’t the
Enterprise
the most famous ship in the Navy?—but accepted his invitation with alacrity, even though it was against regulations. There should have been a second pilot in the cockpit, but all kinds of safety rules were being violated in the desperate struggle to prepare the Retribution Force for its mission. He settled into the spare seat and watched as the carrier slowly came into view. He’d seen images, of course, long before the war when he’d prepared his request for assignment, but the image didn’t even come close to the reality. A civilian might have regarded the huge carrier as ugly, yet Roman saw the
Enterprise
as beautiful, form melded with function in a way he found nearly impossible to describe.

Seen from their approach position, the carrier looked like a flattened cylinder, surrounded by launch and recovery tubes for her ten wings of starfighters. A pair of starfighters swooped down towards the shuttle, passing close enough for him to track them, before wagging their wings and flashing off into the great darkness. If the shuttle’s IFF codes hadn’t checked out, Roman was certain their welcome would be a great deal less friendly. The entire Solar System was still jumpy after the Battle of Earth.

The shuttle altered course, heading towards one of the rear landing decks; Roman gasped as he took in the mammoth drive units at the rear of the ship. Each of the drives—there were no less than
eight
placed around the massive cylinder—could provide a realspace velocity of 0.8C, even if the other drive units had been disabled. No other starship in the Federation Navy, even a superdreadnaught, could soak up so much damage and keep going. As the shuttle swept towards the landing deck, he saw the point defense blisters and missile tubes that gave the carrier her offensive and defensive punch. If necessary,
Enterprise
could go toe-to-toe with a superdreadnaught.

There had always been an
Enterprise
in the Federation Navy, even before there had been a Federation Navy. USS
Enterprise
had served as the flagship of the multinational task force that had stopped the Snakes at the Battle of Century, back during the First Interstellar War. She’d been lost the following year at the Second Battle of Ramadan, but by then she’d created a legend. FNS
Enterprise
, the first starship built specifically for the Federation Navy, had led the fleet that liberated Zion and gone on to serve in all of the remaining battles of the First Interstellar War. Since then, the name had been passed down the ages, even during the Inheritance Wars. The war that had threatened to tear the Federation asunder had seen the odd spectacle of ships called
Enterprise
fighting on both sides of the war. And there were those who believed that the First Battle of Sapphire would have gone the other way if the
last
carrier to bear the name had taken part in the fighting.

The shuttle passed through the force field around the carrier and set down on the landing deck. Roman didn’t have to be told to grab his holdall; he did so and headed over to the hatch, ready to disembark just as soon as it hissed open. The carrier’s internal atmosphere struck him the moment he stepped out of the shuttle with Sultana Narayanan hot on his heels. The
Enterprise
was clearly a ship that was frantically preparing for war. A handful of shuttles were scattered on the deck, while a pair of starfighters were being disassembled by the landing deck crew.

He felt the thrumming of the carrier’s drives echoing through the deck as he hastened to the secondary hatch. They’d been warned not to remain on the landing deck for any longer than strictly necessary, and with all the activity he’d seen thus far, he could easily see why.

Once the airlock cycled, he saw an older woman wearing a commander’s uniform waiting for him. His implant had been loaded with a complete crew manifest for
Enterprise
, but he would have recognized Commander Rosemary Duggan without it. She was a tall woman with short, dark hair and a grim, bulldog expression. She wore her uniform as if it were a weapon with which to beat her foes to death whenever her captain might command. As the XO of the
Enterprise
, she was God, as far as her subordinates were concerned.

“Lieutenant Garibaldi reporting for duty, commander,” Roman said. Sultana echoed him a moment later. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted,” Commander Duggan said. She had a sharp voice, biting off her words as if each cost her a credit. “Welcome aboard.”

Roman saluted the flag, then the starship’s crest of arms and finally the commander herself. Commander Duggan returned the salute slowly—he just knew that her eyes were crawling over them, looking for some flaw in their bearing—before nodding. He had the impression that they’d just passed a test of some kind.

“You both earned Firsts at the Academy, so I assume that you have the ability to follow orders,” she said. “I want you to understand something. You do not have the experience that comes with your ranks, not yet. We will be working on giving you that experience as rapidly as possible, both in manning your stations and in working with the enlisted crew. You will be at the bottom of the totem pole until you convince me that you can handle the responsibility. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, commander,” they said together.

“Good,” Commander Duggan said. “
Enterprise
is the finest ship in Home Fleet, but we’re being detached for the Retribution Force. That means I am going to work you to death over the next few weeks. We’ve had to assign half our enlisted men to other ships to make up for shortfalls in personnel, so we’re drawing on newcomers from the Naval Reserve. The captain”—her tone sharpened—”understands that mistakes will happen in such an environment. But our tolerance of mistakes will fall sharply as we shake down and prepare for operations. By the time we depart the Solar System, we will have a working ship. And I will not hesitate to put you off the ship if you fail to measure up.”

She smiled, a most unpleasant expression. “Do either of you want to leave the ship now and save me the trouble of filling out the paperwork to have you reassigned?”

“No, commander,” Roman said.

“Oh, what a pity,” Duggan said as soon as Sultana had echoed him. Her voice hardened. “Put your holdalls in your cabin, then report to me in Compartment 667-565 in ten minutes. Consider finding it your first test. Try not to be late.” She turned and marched down the corridor, leaving them alone again.

Roman and Sultana exchanged a glance, and then both of them started trying to find Officer Country. It would have taken hours if he’d had to search, but a simple query from his implant to the ship’s computer provided helpful directions.

Once they got there, Roman found out that despite the starship’s colossal size, the cabin was small, barely large enough for both of them. It contained a small fresher and an even smaller food processor. He’d expected as much, though. Junior officers weren’t given large cabins until they were promoted several grades...he shook his head. This wasn’t how he’d expected to spend his first day on the
Enterprise
.

“So,” he said, once he had carefully stowed his holdall under the bunk, “where should we find her?”

A quick check revealed that the compartment number Commander Duggan had given them was useless. It didn’t match any real compartment number in the entire ship. Roman stared at it, feeling panic start to bubble up within his mind. How could he hope to rise to high rank if he couldn’t solve a simple puzzle? It seemed impossible to link the number she’d given them to anywhere on the ship...

It was Sultana who figured out the answer. “Computer,” she ordered, “locate Commander Duggan.”

Roman had to laugh as the ship’s computers helpfully provided the answer. Commander Duggan was waiting for them somewhere within the ship’s interior. They followed the directions through a maze of passages and internal tubes—passing hundreds of workers from the nearby Baxter Shipyard—and finally reached a compartment deep within the starship’s innards. Duggan looked up at them as they crawled out of the tube and smiled.

“You took your own, sweet time,” she said. “How long did it take you to realize that the reference was bunk?”

“When we compared it to the ship’s plans,” Roman admitted. “The numbering system was completely different.”

“A word to the wise,” Duggan said. “The ship’s
official
plans and the reality are somewhat different. The interior of the ship isn’t detailed on any database outside the ship and Navy HQ. Why do you think that is, I wonder?”

Sultana crinkled her forehead, perhaps guessing. “To prevent spies from learning how to navigate through the ship?”

“Nothing so elaborate,” Rosemary said. She looked totally at ease as she spoke, even though the noise of the drives was growing louder. “When they were building the ship, they discovered that some of the planned design was...imperfect.
Enterprise
was the first of her class, and there are always teething problems. In the end, they redesigned the affected sections and altered the interior to allow them to complete the ship.”