First Command (7 page)

Key flipped to another page in the file in front of him, his deteriorated motor functions made touch screens an impossibility.

“Which you did, but not completely.” Keys said grimly

“Aye sir,
Valiant
was a
Warspite
class cruiser 85,000 tons with a complement of 900 able spacers and 200 marines. Of that number 332 were killed, and 183 injured - almost a third of the ship's company.”

“Moreover,” Keys said, “You disobeyed an order to abandon ship and then took command of said ship while the Captain was absent technically a mutiny. The circumstances are certainly in your favor, but you didn’t attempt to alert the Captain to his mistakes nor did you at any point attempt to call him back to the ship to reassert command.”

“No excuse sir, the situation was a crisis and I did not have time to observe regulations.”

Keys nodded. “After the
Valiant
incident you were placed in command of a supply depot, to keep you out of the public eye and also because the navy doesn’t look fondly on mutineers even technical ones. Do you feel you were treated unfairly?”

“No sir” Jonathan answered.

“Honestly?” Keys asked allowing surprise to creep into his voice.
“I’m not naive sir. No matter what the inquiry said I knew my career would suffer, but I did the right thing and that alone is enough for me.”

“A noble sentiment.” Keys replied “I have just one question, knowing what you know now, would you have handled the situation differently, and before you ask permission- to speak freely is given.” Jonathan paused for a moment. He’d considered this very question multiple times, mulling it over normally after one too many drinks. Yet he always came to the same conclusion. 

“Aye sir. If I were to do it again, I would have done it exactly the same as before.”

Jonathan braced waiting for some kind of reprimand, but it was not forthcoming instead Admiral Keys just smiled.
“If you had said anything else boy I would have asked for your resignation. Instead, its my pleasure to present you with this.”

With the greatest of care, Admiral Keys reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a small velvet case and a thick piece of parchment folded over and held closed by several antique wax seals. Jonathan’s eyes went wide at the sight of the parchment and wider still at the seal, a reared Crag Dragon holding crossed marshal’s batons, the personal symbol of the Admiral of the Fleet.

“First the formalities” Keys said rising slowly and shakily from his seat.
Jonathan stood too. No one sat when an Admiral stood however imperfectly.

“Jonathan Pavel by the recommendation of the Fleet, the Senate has confirmed upon you the rank of Lieutenant Captain effective this day January 25
th
in the 841 Year After Man Left Earth. Congratulations son.” At Keys beckoning, Jonathan took the velvet case. Inside were the two full circles and two hollow circles of Lt. Captain- the Solarian Navies most junior command rank.  Jonathan did his best not to collapse. For thirteen years, he’d dreamed and worked toward this day, but after the
Valiant
he was sure he wouldn’t make captaincy for another decade, if at all. Getting a hold of himself, Jonathan snapped to attention, and saluted “Thank you sir.”

Keys returned the salute after a fashion and smiled again. “Don’t thank me too much, boy, it was Rear Admiral Hopper who recommended you.”
Jonathan was stunned. Rear Admiral Harry Hopper popularly known as Hatchet Hopper had been the Commanding officer of TF-BB032, the man who had confined Jonathan to quarters after the
Valiant
incident.

“Don’t act so surprised, lad. Old Hatchet can spot a good officer the way a hound can sniff out a grounder, and it seems your former CO Captain Dalvier has tendered his resignation thus removing any controversy in promoting you.  If you’ve seen the papers lately, you’ll know you're no longer the Navy’s black eye. All things considered compared to this recent scandal, you were actually a pleasant scandal. Which brings us to our next issue.”

Keys gestured to the parchment, as he sat down.

“That Lt. Captain is your official orders instructing you to take command of
RSNS
Titan
within the next week, and proceed within the next two weeks to the New Helsinki system.”

Jonathan heart gave a lurch.
Titan
was one of the ships caught up in the
Hydra
scandal. His face must have shown his thoughts because Keys nodded.

“Aye boy, the Admiralty wants to get the ships involved in the
Hydra
debacle out of dock as soon as possible, and although I’m among the minority of Officers that wants to pin a medal on your chest for
Valiant
you still have some detractors in the Senate and the Admiralty. “
“Two birds with one stone then sir,” Jonathan replied “Give the new Captain under a cloud one of the ships under a cloud and send them someplace out of the public eye.”

“Basically” Keys agreed “but as you’re probably aware Admiral of the Fleet Ho does not waste resources. Tell me what do you know about New Helsinki?”

Jonathan searched his mind; he’d always had a good head for figures and stellar cartography.

“It’s one of the systems in the Dominion concession isn’t it sir?”

“Aye it is but it isn’t” Keys answered “When we finished trouncing the Dominion ten years ago New Helsinki was a Dominion ally, and it’s dictator Yohaun Swerjick was a particularly brutal chap. During the war, we occupied New Helsinki, and deposed Yohaun. After the peace accords were signed, we strung the bastard up for his assorted war crimes. Swerjick had maintained a good relationship with the Dominion Diktat by loaning him several divisions of his elite ground troops for the Dominion’s ‘peacekeeping operations’.”

Jonathan shuddered internally. The Taos Dominos idea of peacekeeping usually involved Napalm, and Sarin Gas as a means of effective crowd control.

“At any rate, New Helsinki is one jump from Chaucer’s Gap, and the most direct route under Solarian control into the Kelvin Sector. Making it extremely important for trade.”

“I’m sensing a but sir.”

Keys nodded

“Aye. New Helsinki has six wormways. Three lead to independent systems the Republic has been trying to entice into Client state status since the end of the war. One leads to the Agora system- a sparsely populated place but Dominion territory. The other leads to Novi Toulouse a Confederate system. Due to our treaty with Dominion and in the interest of harmony with the Confederacy, we agreed to leave the systems demilitarized save for Forces vital to the security of Solarian interest.”

“In that case sir sending in a warship even a destroyer seems a bit provocative. Surely the Custom and Rescue service has some cutters they can spare if the Governor General needs more ships.”

“Therein lays the problem my boy. Since we annexed the place a low level insurgency has simmered. Nothing the Interior troops and CRS couldn’t handle, but over the last year things have began to escalate. There are more bombings, assassinations, running battles throughout the urban centers and rural areas. What was a fledgling insurgency of local fanatics has turned into a simmering one that is well armed and well funded. OMI recently tagged huge sums of cash being funneled through Red Lands Trust to the Yaguard Swerjick, Yohan's son and heir, and leader of the New Helsinki government in exile, which has taken up residence in the Locke System.”

Jonathan nodded. The Locke System was Earth Treaty Organization territory but lacked any central government or comprehensive system of administration. The System had been founded on Libertarian political ideals, and thus was a barely coherent hive of anarchy. The ETO and its predecessor governments allowed Locke to exist in such a state because it lacked any habitable worlds, and provided a annoying but necessary service of being a place where the shadier business governments and corporations needed to conduct could be handled with minimal interference and away from prying eyes. The system also played host to a number of people who any civilized system would hang. New Helsinki’s Government in Exile was one such group.

  Admiral Keys continued his briefing. “The funds, are coming from Red Land to Locke where through various round about ways they are making their way to New Helsinki in the form of weapons, and supplies. Needless to say, the Premiers are nervous, as is the Fleet, OMI, and everyone else of substance. The local G.G. Li Curtis wants a Task Force and a Division of Marines, but we can't commit force like that without provoking the Dominion the Confederacy or both. Therefore, your orders are to take your ship under independent command, and render all support to the Solarian forces already in system. Currently, your deployment will be a standard eight months but that may be extended.”

Jonathan nodded in understanding. It was a complex and delicate situation if he failed. He was already under a cloud, and the Navy could wash their hands of him. If he succeeded though, that would silence at least some of his critics.

Delicately taking the orders from Keys desk ,Jonathan stood and saluted,
“My orders are received and understood sir, I will report to
Macran
as soon as I’m able.”

“Very good Elcap” Keys replied using the Navy shorthand for Lt. Captain “You may carry on.”

Jonathan turned and left the office. It was only years of training and his belief in the need to have at least a modicum of dignity that kept him from doing cartwheels on the way out. He was going back to space, back to where he belonged, and in command of a warship a life long dream come true.

Chapter II

Levelflats, Solaria, Solarian System, Solarian Republic

The Oldtown District

January 26
th
841 A.E. (2802 A.D.) 09:45 Local time

The sight never failed to fill any observer with wonder.  The great cable as thick as a building climbing into the sky as far as the eye could see and farther than that. Every half hour or so an observer could watch the lifts themselves the size of small buildings either coming up or descending along one of the cable’s four tracks. Jonathan shook his head, it was a sight he sorely missed. Levelflats was Solaria’s fourth largest city, and a navy town through, and through. Levelflats lay roughly four hundred miles from Singking, at the mouth of the Serpentine delta. It sat at the end of where the great river on whose banks Singking had been built emptied into the Sea of Vikaran. The city was named Levelflats because when the first settlers staked a claim they had found that for more than a hundred square miles, there was nothing but floodplains, and mud flats. The mudflats and floodplains were gone now, and in their place was a great port city of seven million people. Levelflats was the heart of Solarian Industry, and a hub of cross continental trade between the Tiananmen continent across the Sea of Vikaran to the cities of Solaria’s second largest land mass, and agricultural breadbasket, New Albion. Daily barges sailed down the Serentine from the mines of the Aboreia highlands bringing raw materials to Levelflats’ ever-busy factories. Other barges brought off-world goods from First Landing, while ships anchored in the shallow Chun Hu bay carried goods back and forth across the sea.  In addition to its sprawling warehouses, harbor fronts, and industrial parks, the city had a greener more pleasant side. The Chins, the original Landed family who had owned the Delta Estate which Levelflats now dominated, had originally planned to grow rich by making it an agricultural hub. This plan ultimately fell through because of the climate. Despite being in an extremely fertile flood plain, the Serentine delta was also an extremely humid area where high-pressure fronts moving off the Tanah Besar Step collided with moist sea air. As a result, it rained in Levelflats 366 days out of the 400-day Solarian year. Seeing that any attempt to grow crops would ultimately prove futile as even the most moisture resistant strain of plant would eventually drown, the Chins had instead sought to industrialize the Estate and turn it into the commercial and industrial hub it had become. Refugees of the smog choked Tri-City on Earth, the Chins had been fixated on making sure that what was sure to become a great commercial and industrial hub didn’t turn into a slum-riddled cesspit of pollution. As a result, they had aggressively sought to surround all industrial zones with green space investing heavily in state-of-the-art drainage systems. The result was a handsome city where even the lowest factory worker lived in a neat low-rise apartment building surrounded by emerald parkland. Levelflats’ true source of wealth was that it was located less than two hundred miles from the equator, and as a result held the honor of hosting the oldest of Solaria’s four orbital tethers - what had been called space elevators in times gone by. The Space elevator concept was actually very simple. It was a space station or asteroid secured to the surface by a large tether. Once secured, elevators could climb the tether in a matter of hours without the hazards involved in a chemical rocket launch, and able to carry far more than a rocket or shuttle ever could. The Levelflats tether was attached to the orbital station of
Macran
the Solarian Navy’s primary base in the Solarian system. The station was a city in itself. Levelflats boasted a population of seven million, while
Macran
had nearly four hundred thousand souls permanent and transient, and it was growing. Jonathan glanced at his chrono. He’d booked himself a spot on the 10:30 lift plenty of time for him to run his final errand before ascending to space once again. Turning down Giliad Street, Jonathan was glad that he’d already checked his luggage. All the possessions he had fit into three suitcases, but they could be a chore to lug around.
Jonathan found his destination easily enough. He’d been here frequently as a cadet. Overwatch was only twenty minutes outside the city, and easily accessible by maglev. The building was plain stone with a red tiled roof. Unremarkable except for the single large North Star carved just below where the roof peaked. What struck people unfamiliar with such structures as unusual were the doors. The front and back of the building had nine separate heavy wooden doors, while twelve more lined each side. A steady stream of people identifiable from the clothing as spacers, Navy men, even a few Marines entered through the front and exited out the sides. Jonathan glanced around and he saw a wizened old Commander leaving, but other than that he was the only officer. Shrugging Jonathan approached the door. He knocked and a man in plain brown monks robes opened it.