Heart of Steel: Book II of the Jonathan Pavel Series (13 page)

“To all men upon this earth death cometh soon or late.

What better way for a man to die than facing fearful odds.

Before the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods.”

Jonathan opened his eyes and extinguished the candle. His was a sacred trust. The Navy trusted him to lead his ship and all the souls aboard through the void. His crew would trust him with their lives. He would very soon once again be the one thing he had always wanted to be - First Master After God, the Captain of a Solarian Republic Navy Warship. The doubt faded, as did all other feelings. In his heart of hearts, Jonathan knew he could do this.  He was born for this. Jonathan sat for a while in the dark of the cabin. He wasn't a true believer who approached religious doctrine without question, but prayer and the spiritualism of the Stellanauta gave him peace, and deep down Jonathan believed he had been too far and seen too much not to feel as if he was but a tiny cog in the vast design of an all powerful creator. Putting his thoughts aside, Jonathan rose and began to prepare to disembark. When Jonathan had first come aboard
Leaf Hopper,
its CO Petty Officer Chatson made it clear he regarded Jonathan as no more than cargo. Though his hostility was unwarranted as Jonathan had never met Chatson, he was the designated commander of the ship, which meant he technically outranked Jonathan. Jonathan for his part had decided not to give the temperamental little man any more reason to dislike him, and retreated to his cabin for the voyage. The cabin was barely more than a ten by eight foot cubicle, but it had its own convection oven, shower cubicle, and chem toilet. Jonathan had reveled in it. Growing up on a tramp freighter, he’d often spent time in small, confined spaces and felt most comfortable there. In fact, Jonathan hadn't set foot outside the cabin since
Leaf Hopper
had left
Macran.
Something that he’d discovered had driven Petty Officer Chatson bonkers.
Leaf Hopper
was a standard tender that you would find in any Navy. Two hundred and fifty feet long, she carried six external cargo modular nodes, a crew of five with room for two passengers, and a data core for the mail and correspondence. Tenders were slow boats. They didn’t get anywhere fast, but they got there. The crews were usually tight knit and discipline was lax. So it had come as no surprise to Jonathan when six hours away from
Sound of Fury,
he’d received a thank you note from the ship’s engineer for helping him win the pool. Apparently, the crew had picked dates when Jonathan would emerge from his cabin, and either demand better quarters, or try to order the CO about. The fact that the crew hadn’t seen Jonathan since leaving space dock was unheard of, and apparently worth fifty Solars to the engineer who had politely inquired if Jonathan wanted a share. Jonathan had declined, as he felt the man was entitled to the winnings. He seemed to be someone who often took long odds and those rarely paid off. Jonathan finished collecting his things as
Leaf Hopper’s
engines flared, slowing the tender into orbit of the gas giant. Zhong, aside from shielding Solaria from rogue asteroids and comets, served as an ideal place for the Navy to park it’s mothball fleet. This kept the old fleet from cluttering up badly needed dock space at Macran, or become a navigation hazard riding at Grav Anchor in Solarian orbit. The Navy needed the space too. After the Third Dominion War was over it gave the Navy  a large territory to police along with the threat of other foreign foes, including the now very real threat of the Colonial Confederacy. The Solarian Republic had commenced a steady naval build up over the last three decades. As a result, the Navy now had, at any one time, close to six hundred hulls in service. This made it more cost effective to keep older, unneeded or damaged vessels in storage rather than in active service. It was a practice that dated back to the navies of age of sail on Earth, and it still served a useful purpose. There were about a hundred and fifty hulks orbiting Zhong, including the wrecked hull of Jonathan's old ship the
Titan
and his new vessel
Sound of Fury.
Though
Titan
was sadly fated to languish until a dry dock opened up for her, or more likely she was hauled off to the breakers,
Sound of Fury
stood ready to awaken once more. It was like the ancient leviathan of Terran legend stirring from a long slumber to once more prowl among the vast gulf between the stars. The mothball ships around Zhong were stored in such a way that they could be pressed back into service with a minimum of time, effort, and resources. Rather than pulling the mothballed vessel into dry dock to reactivate it, a service ship would dock with the decommissioned vessel and re-pressurize it, while technicians made repairs and restarted the critical systems. Once the ship was functional again, crew and supplies could be brought on by tenders, like
Leaf Hopper,
which was tasked with servicing three of the ships orbiting Zhong, filling up their fresh water tanks. Once refilled, a warship’s water reclamation system could go up to six months without topping off again, longer on the bigger ships. Of course the water would get pretty rank by month six. It was considered not just wasteful, but also dangerous to leave mothballed ships tanked up. Space was cold and leaving frozen water lying around was never a good idea. Jonathan had seen ice break metal, bend steel and render electronics inoperable. Before going into mothball ships were drained of their water reserves and scrubbed as best they could be of any moisture. It did make refiling them a bit of a chore.
Leaf Hopper
was the last of three water refilling missions
Sound of Fury
was scheduled to receive. Jonathan zipped up his bag reflecting on his anxiousness to get to work with his new command. Jonathan had spent the flight reviewing the
Sound of Fury
history and service record. As Vice Admiral Hopper had told him,
Fury
was a
Horatio
class Light Cruiser with her hull number LC-1196. She was one of the last of the
Horatio’s.
She had been laid down in Oldport Drive Yards in the orbit of Solaria in 818 AE, ten years before Jonathan had entered the academy. She’d been in commission for fifteen years before being put into mothball. She’d served with some distinction during the tail end of the Third Dominion, and a flare up along the Commonwealth border. She’d been meant to have a lifespan of 30 years, and had been put on the shelf not because of her record of service, but because of her design. The
Horatios
had first entered service almost forty years ago at the tail end of the Second Dominion War. The class had been designed as a stop-gap measure to fill the tactical role that was eventually taken by the
Olympian
class destroyers.
Fury
and her sisters were twice as large, less well armored, and less well armed than the
Olympians
like
Titan.
Fury
grossed 38,000 tons measuring 1,000 feet from stem to stern. She had a crew of 650 not counting her Marine contingent.
Fury’s
build was a bit abnormal. She lacked a superstructure. Her bridge and combat information center was located in a low rise blister amidship.
Fury
was powered by two fission cores, one fore and one aft, which gave her a top speed almost twice as fast as most other ships in the fleet. If she ran her reactos on red, she could even keep up with the newest of the CRS frigates. Her armament consisted of eight rail guns in four turrets, which were located top and bottom - fore and aft, making them capable of a 360-degree rotation. In addition to her big guns, she carried twenty-four plasma cannons - twelve on each side, three forward torpedo tubes and twelve
Menace
multi-purpose
missile launchers. Defensively, the
Fury
showed the shortcomings of her class. She carried only four Syrkowski Kinetic Barriers, three primaries and one back up, which forced her to rely more heavily on her 36-inch battle steel plates. One of
Fury’s
more interesting features was her expanded armory and hanger. She could carry a full light raider company of 250 Marines, and eight combat gunships. This brought her total complement to roughly 800 souls. Part of the thinking when the
Horatios
were being designed was they could be used as shore and commerce raiders. Fast, heavily armed and armored ships that could sweep aside enemy defenses, destroy freighters and strike space installations as well as soft targets ground side. Jonathan had examined the
Fury's
schematics in some detail. He could see why the
Horatios
were considered a problematic design, but in the hands of a good captain and crew they could be highly versatile and deadly vessels.
Jonathan had wanted to review his new crew personnel files to get the measure of the officers he'd be working with, and the men he’d be leading, but some dunce at the Office of Personnel had failed to send him the correct files.  By the time they had realized it, they’d simply sent the files via tight beam laser transmission directly to
Sound of Fury
. They had managed to send him a partial list of names of which officers would be assigned to
Fury,
but Jonathan would have to wait until he was on board to review their files. Jonathan wasn't particularly bothered by the files being mislaid.  It was standard military operating procedure, and had been so since time immemorial, Situation Normal All Fucked Up. Jonathan could hear the echo of the
Leaf Hopper’s
docking collar sliding
into place with
Sound of Fury.
Gathering his duffel bag and pulling his peaked cap down on his head less it float off in low-g, he exited his tiny cabin. Exchanging stiff formalities with the
Leaf Hopper’s
CO, Jonathan stepped into the docking tube and floated toward the ship pushing his bags ahead of him. A few minutes later Jonathan heard the melody of Bosun's pipes as he grabbed the handle bar and swung onto
Fury’s
deck. Jonathan returned the salute of the commander standing opposite of him.

“Permission to come aboard sir?” Jonathan asked.

“Permission granted, skipper welcome to the
Fury.”

Jonathan went through the brief ceremony of presenting his orders. He then broke into an enormous grin.

“How the hell are you George?”

Commander, George Pai, Solarian Navy Reserve and now
Fury’s
XO also broke into a grin, “Pretty good skipper all things considered.”

George Pai and Jonathan had know each other since they were both midshipmen at Overwatch. George was an easy going Steader who stood five foot eight, exactly one inch taller than Jonathan, with sandy blond hair, coffee cream skin and good natured dark eyes. George had opted for an engineering career tract at the academy, and after graduation had done extremely well until a coolant system malfunction on the battle cruiser
Cao Cao
had cost him his right leg. Medical science had saved his life, but unfortunately the malfunction had taken his leg up to the hip making a regrow almost impossible. So instead, George had opted for a cybernetic and an honorable discharge, with the usual stipulation that he’d remain on active reserve for twelve years.

“I see we are a little short on staff,” Jonathan said glancing behind George.

“Yup, we're missing our Marine contingent, our tactical officer, our ship's surgeon, and our chaplain. We are also short a third of our crew. Transports are scheduled to arrive over the next two to three days. We should be fully crewed by the end of the week. Let me introduce you to the officers we have thus far.”

George and Jonathan worked their way down the line of assembled officers.  Lt. Commander Harold Okai, a lanky rawboned Landed with a freckled face, brown hair and green eyes, who spoke with a clipped New Ballarat accent was
Fury’s
Chief Engineer. Next to him was Lt. Kendra Hilper, Okai’s assistant. She was a blue-eyed porcelain skinned Provo with pronounced oriental features similar to Jonathan's own. She looked to be from Xi refugee stock. Lt. Commander Tai Heath,
Fury’s
Electronic Warfare and Communications officer, was a serious-eyed young Steader with the dark hair and tan skin common to his class.  Lt. Ernest Tang, a well built Provo in his mid thirties with a drawling New Bali accent, was
Fury's
navigator and also a reservist. Next to him was  ship's Assistant Tactical Officer Lt. Alan Sing who looked closer to sixty than fifty. The ribbons on his undress khakis denoted him as a combat veteran and a mustang. Several of his awards were reserved for NCOs.
Fury’s
senior NCOs were the quartermaster Warrant Officer Jorg Hu, a fresh faced Steader who looked closer to 18 than his 23 years of age.  The Bosun Master Chief Petty Officer Terrance Knowles was a broad shouldered, dark skinned Provo with intricate facial tattoos, and surprisingly a clipped accent that Jonathan recognized as
Terran
.

“Right then, staff briefing tomorrow at 0900 to be followed by an inspection. Dismissed.” Jonathan said.

“Except for you George, we have a lot to talk about.”  

Jonathan and George retired to Jonathan's cabin, which was twice the size of the one on his last command and had a private gym attached. Something Jonathan intended to make regular use of. Rank had its privileges, but also its responsibilities. It wasn't wise for the CO of a ship to let himself grow physically soft. It was bad for discipline and morale. How could crewmen respect a Captain who didn't have the self respect to take care of himself.