No Way to Start a War (TCOTU, Book 2) (This Corner of the Universe) (2 page)

47. ANELACE received
excellent support and it was used to its full potential.  The ship’s crew can
take great pride in the fact that their ship was combat-capable until the end
of the engagement.  Tragically, nothing further could have been done to save
their shipmates and ultimately their ship.

48. This Board finds
that the loss of the Brevic Republic’s fast ship, ANELACE, was an act of piracy
by Simon Cooper and his crew in vessels PARAGON, RAPTOR, CLOAK, CUTTHROAT,
BLACKHEART and MERCILESS and that ANELACE’s captain, Lieutenant Garrett Heskan,
is, in the opinion of this Board, to be exonerated of all blame for her loss. 
Indeed, in the matter of his command of ANELACE, we commend Lieutenant Heskan
for his courage and exemplary leadership.

49. Lieutenant Heskan
is cleared to assume command of the escort destroyer, BRS KITE, soonest IAW his
orders dated 0619.995.

50. The Skathi star
system will remain closed to all non-military traffic until it can be made safe
for Brevic citizenry.

51. This Board
concurs with Lieutenant Commander Durmont and orders the acting Narvi
on-station commander to position a Narvi corvette off the Skathi tunnel point
for interdiction of any possible pirate vessels sailing from or to Skathi until
the system is re-opened to civilian traffic.

52. Brevic Naval Headquarters
has granted Renard Mining Enterprise’s tug T-17 and Kelen Convoy Defense &
Escort Corporation schooners JOSEPH MAC and HADLEY MAC special consent to
travel inside Skathi during their recovery of RALF-3.

53. The Anthe
Republic Council, acting with full authority of the Brevic General Council, has
authorized JOSEPH MAC and HADLEY MAC to take into custody any Brevic citizen
remaining in the Skathi system for the sole purpose of transporting same to
appropriate Narvi authorities.  Neither schooner may transport non-Brevic
citizens out of the Skathi system under any circumstances.

RECOGNITION OF PERSONNEL

54. The Board concurs
with Lieutenant Heskan and concludes that among many exceptional performances
during combat, some personnel should be singled out for special mention and
recognition. The proposals relating to such recognition are as follows:

a. Spaceman Denise
Gables – Navy Commendation Medal with Valor device for distinguishing herself
through heroism in performance of her duties as a damage controlman.

b. Able Spaceman
Jared Rowe – Navy Commendation Medal with Valor device for distinguishing
himself through heroism in performance of his duties as an able damage
controlman.

c. Spaceman Lee
Thomas – Bronze Star with Valor device for heroic service in performance of his
duties as a gunner’s mate.

d. Petty Officer
Third Class Brian Deveraux - Bronze Star with Valor device for heroic service
in performance of his duties as a sensorman third class, posthumously.

e. Petty Officer
Second Class Tyler Pruette - Bronze Star with Valor device for heroic service
in performance of his duties as a gunner’s mate second class.

f. Lieutenant, junior
grade Stacy Vernay - Silver Star for gallantry in action against the enemy in
performance of her duties as a weapons officer.

g. Lieutenant Michael
Riedel - Silver Star for gallantry in action against the enemy in performance
of his duties as a first officer, posthumously.

55. The Board further
concludes that the following individual should be recognized for his
exceptional leadership during combat:

a. Lieutenant Garrett
Heskan - Silver Star for gallantry in action against the enemy in performance
of his duties as a ship’s captain.

56. The Board
concludes that each crewmember of ANELACE on 0628.995 is eligible to wear the
Distinguished Unit Citation for gallantry, determination, and
esprit de
corps
in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous
conditions.

57. The Board
concludes that the following personnel are eligible to wear the Badge of
Military Merit for wounds suffered in action against the enemy:

a. All personnel
noted in subsections 32 (posthumously) and 34 for reasons stated.

b. Lieutenant
Commander Shane Durmont - Laceration - Wounded during subsequent repairs to and
inspection of ANELACE.

AUTHORIZATION

The President and
Members of the Board of Inquiry into the loss of BRS ANELACE on 0628.995
confirm that we unanimously support the findings, conclusions and
recommendations presented in this executive summary, and Volume 1 of the
official report.

E.G.
Hong

Commander,
BRN

Member

L.
Reyes

Assistant
Chief Officer

Anthe
Construction Yard at Latoro

Member

C.E.
Fox

Inspector,
Space Accidents

Department
of Administration

Member

R.B.
Powell

Captain,
BRN

Member

R.
Jones

Captain,
BRN

President

The red
light from Anthe’s M8V star illuminated the orbital station high above the
system’s only habitable planet.  Inside a small briefing room, the large wall screen
was set to “window” mode but translated the red rays into the friendlier yellow-white
hues of humanity’s home system.  In service for twenty-three years, the Anthe
Orbital Command Station was the second newest command orbital in the Brevic Republic’s
designated “northern” sector.  Only the facility within the region’s core
system, Titan, boasted larger and finer capabilities.

Standing
rigidly at attention inside the briefing room, the lieutenant, junior grade,
flushed as her rank insignia was stripped from her service uniform’s collar.

“I’ve
wanted to do this for quite some time, Lieutenant,” the superior officer said
as he pulled the single, silver bar from one collar and then the other.  After
a slight hesitation, the man awkwardly cupped the old rank in his left hand and
carefully pinned the gleaming rank insignia of full lieutenant in their place. 
“Congratulations, Stacy, you’ve more than earned this.”

Lieutenant
Stacy Vernay’s face, now redder than Anthe’s star, strained to maintain its military
bearing.  “Thank you, sir.  And thank you for being here to pin me.”

“It’s
‘Garrett’ now, Stacy.  We’re the same rank and I’m not your commanding officer…
yet.”  Lieutenant Garrett Heskan stepped back and shook her hand as the
attending crowd began to applaud.

After
shaking hands, Vernay’s right hand instinctively began to salute before she
caught herself.  Instead, she reached out and took her old rank insignia from
Heskan as they smiled at each other.

“Are
you keeping those or giving them to someone?” Heskan asked.  It was a Brevic
naval tradition for superior officers to pass rank insignia to a junior officer
being promoted, as Heskan had just done for Vernay.  The full lieutenant bars
now residing on her collar were the same ones he had been wearing just over a
month ago, the day
Anelace
had valiantly defended the Skathi system from
a nearly overwhelming pirate flotilla.  Heskan smiled wistfully at the memory. 
Poor Ana is gone but hopefully her fighting spirit still resides in those
bars.

Vernay
replied, “Jack already put on JG but Diane gets promoted in two days and she
asked if I would pin her.”  Both ensigns, Jack Truesworth and Diane Selvaggio,
had been scheduled for promotion to lieutenant, junior grade while at Anthe. 
Heskan had missed Truesworth’s ceremony because of the Board of Inquiry but he
had circled Selvaggio’s promotion date on his calendar and ten mass drivers would
not prevent him from attending.

Heskan
grinned.  “Look at you, Stacy, not a full lieutenant for two minutes and you’re
already promoting people.”

“Yes,
sir,” Vernay responded as her face flushed once again.

“It’s
Garrett now.”

Her
blush deepened.  “Not for long.  You take command of Kite later this week and
I’m due to report to Kite the day after.  In fact, I think everyone from
Anelace reports that day.”

BRS
Kite
, an escort destroyer,
was brand new from the shipyard and her christening would come the same day
Heskan assumed command.  The ship’s crew would report the next day to relieve
the civilian shipbuilders currently manning her stations.  Even then, many
civilians would stay aboard
Kite
as Heskan’s military crew at Anthe only
accounted for one hundred fifty-six of the three hundred fifty-one that was her
normal complement.  They would pick up more crew at the Titan system but Heskan
was still faced with the possibility of conducting military operations with
less than a full crew. 
There just aren’t enough personnel available with
the right training in Third Fleet to round out the crew
, he thought.
  Excess
personnel and ships have already been transferred over to Second Fleet to patch
holes in our defenses against the Hollaran Commonwealth
.

“Besides,
you already have a line number for lieutenant commander.  It was long overdue
in a lot of people’s opinions.”

Heskan
snorted and raised an eyebrow.  “I’m just happy that I haven’t been cashiered
yet.”
  Given my history, someone in a high position must be looking out for
me.

Vernay
looked at Heskan sternly.  “That’s nonsense, sir.  Nobody else could have done
what you did at Skathi.  You were in the promotion zone and your performance on
Anelace alone merited that promotion.”

“Okay,
okay,” Heskan said as he held his hands up.  “Maybe you’re right but I didn’t
accomplish anything at Skathi alone; we
all
did it.”

The
remark made Vernay smile widely.  “And we all will do great things on Kite too. 
I’m so excited you managed to keep the Anelace family together, sir.  I just
hope our first officer fits in as well as Lieutenant Riedel did.”

Heskan
sighed. 
Is Garrett that hard to say?  I understand Stacy’s reluctance to
call her former captain by his first name but after everything we’ve been
through…
  “Me too, Stacy, and I’m honored the crew would follow me on to
Kite.  Brevic Personnel Center sure took its time finding a first officer.  I’m
told they’ve selected a lieutenant from one of the ships being taken off the
line near the disputed zone.  The problem is no captain wants to lose a good
officer in the middle of a war and BPC is pretty good about not splitting up
crews in wartime.”  Privately, Heskan had deep concerns about his appointed
future first officer. 
Any lieutenant good enough for the job won’t jump
ship while at war and any lieutenant who does is probably not someone I want for
the job.
  It was a problem, but Heskan still had a final card to play with
BPC to get a fine, young first officer.

The
promotion ceremony’s crowd gathered around the new lieutenant to offer
congratulatory handshakes and salutes while Heskan found himself moving out of
the group to look at the wall screen.  The orbiting ship construction yard,
while visible to Heskan’s naked eye, was little more than a dot circling the
planet. 
Kite is over there, waiting patiently for her captain
.  All of the
nervous feelings he had experienced in the days before assuming command of
Anelace
had returned.  Heskan tried to take solace in the fact that he was an
experienced ship’s captain this time around, but he still felt uneasy. 
It
may not be my first ride in the chair but this chair is a lot bigger than the last
. 
It’s my first command in a war fleet, and we’ll be going into war doing
things nobody else has done before
.

Until
now, the role Brevic escort destroyers played had been long defined: protect
the capital ships of the Brevic Navy.  This usually meant they shielded the
large command cruisers and dreadnaughts of the fleet from missile attack,
sometimes at the expense of their own defenses.  However, for the first time, the
Brevic Republic was deploying spaceborne carriers along with the traditional battle
fleet.  Despite ongoing problems inherent in fighter craft operations at the
speeds required in combat, the Brevic General Council had determined that it
could no longer afford further delays.  The Hollaran Commonwealth had
successfully fielded at least two carriers in their latest attack on the
Themisto star system and had devastated the Brevic task group defending that
system.  The Brevic carriers were needed now.  Some members of the General
Council had even theorized publicly the end of traditional dreadnaughts and the
birth of a new era dominated by carriers. 
History may be repeating itself
,
Heskan mused. 
The only thing for sure is that we’re going to be infants taking
our first steps with new technology in the middle of a war zone.
  Heskan
wondered how many times they would stumble.

The
week passed quickly and the normal pomp and circumstance of launching a new
ship was bypassed for expediency.  The only tradition adhered to was the hurling
of an Anthe equivalent of a champagne bottle toward
Kite’s
bow.  All the
bluster of speeches and the decorum of parades could be skipped, but the time-old
tradition of christening a newly launched naval vessel remained inviolate.

Heskan’s
assumption of command was even less elaborate.  He simply walked onto
Kite’s
bridge and entered the order into the ship’s holo-log in the presence of the
Anthe chief shipyard inspector, two civilian contractors and Lieutenant
Commander Shane Durmont, his escort squadron’s (CortRon) commanding officer. 
Even the new ship’s flag was absent, with BPC still debating its design.

Less
than three hours after Heskan assumed command,
Kite’s
crew began to
report for duty.  First, nineteen crewmembers from the operations section came
aboard, well short of the twenty-nine billets assigned to Operations on the escort
destroyer, and prepared for the enormous task of in-processing the remaining one
hundred thirty-seven men and women of
Kite’s
crew at Anthe.  Once ready,
the rest of the crew streamed in over the course of twelve hours.  All but twenty-eight
civilian contractors left
Kite
, their positions at her stations replaced
by the newly arrived navy personnel.

The
entire surviving crew of
Anelace
had requested transfer to
Kite
,
save one.  That individual, formerly Spaceman Denise Gables and now Officer
Trainee Gables, had been reassigned to the Officer Training School facility at
New London over a month ago.  Heskan had personally contacted BPC and adamantly
requested that the future Ensign Gables be assigned to
Kite
upon
completion of her training, but his bid had been denied.  To his surprise,
Heskan learned that OT Gables had been accepted into the fledgling fighter
pilot program and was concurrently completing both Officer Training School and the
second phase of Flight Training.  Gables, already a fully certified shuttle
pilot, had skipped the first phase completely.

I
could use a competent damage controlman like Denise but I’m glad she’s pursuing
her dreams,
Heskan
thought as he reviewed his ship’s personnel files while sitting comfortably in
a plush chair inside his cabin.
  Still, Kite is so shorthanded that I have
ensigns in lieutenant billets and able spacemen in petty officer slots.
  He
frowned slightly, adjusting the ship’s projected organizational structure.  The
situation would be less dire once he picked up additional crew in Titan, but
Kite’s
performance in exercises during their transit to the system would be grossly
inadequate.

Sighing
heavily, Heskan turned his thoughts toward the first scheduled exercise. 
We
have only two-thirds of our squadron assembled but Durmont is pushing forward
with an exercise
.  In a rare act of generosity, Lieutenant Commander
Durmont had warned Heskan of his intention to hold the escort squadron’s first
exercise as they were sailing for the Titan tunnel point.  “We’re going to be
the best CortRon in the Navy, Lieutenant Heskan, and I don’t want you thinking
just because you’re slightly undermanned that poor performance from Kite is
excusable,” Durmont had lectured.

How
am I going to man Kite’s defenses when I only have a third of my weapons
section on board?
Heskan thought unhappily.  The ugly answer was he would not.  He had seventy-three
crewmembers filling the weapons section and
Kite
possessed sixteen
second-generation radiant stream lasers and sixty-eight quad anti-missile pulse
lasers.   He had discussed the upcoming exercise at length with his weapons
section commander, Lieutenant Vernay, and had concluded that standard defense
operations were impossible.  However, Vernay had conspired with her subsection ensigns,
and more importantly with her chief petty officers, to devise a computer-assisted
solution that would permit the revolutionary Cerberus point defense system on
Kite
to operate many of her defenses automatically.  Although Cerberus appeared to
suffer from several major bugs, the battle computers running the exercise would
only take the system’s simulated abilities into account rather than its true
capabilities.  While definitely not a textbook solution and certainly not
something Heskan would permit in actual combat, the loophole might get
Kite
through her first computer-simulated exercise without Heskan being dressed down
by his commander.  The implications of being forced to try a solution that
might get him past an exercise but would fail in real combat made his head
spin.

Heskan’s
datapad chronometer chimed and he left his cabin.  Walking down the main corridor
of
Kite’s
third deck, he was just meters from the bridge.  Like most
Brevic warships,
Kite’s
bridge and key officers’ quarters were on her middle
deck.  Nestled in the forward center portion of the ship, the bridge was one of
the most protected compartments.  Co-located on the third deck, but much farther
aft, was
Kite’s
second “brain,” Auxiliary Control.  The destroyer’s
third command and control compartment, the Combat Information Center (CIC), was
in the center of the ship one deck below the bridge.

Heskan
entered the bridge and saw a mish-mash of officers, enlisted crewmen and
civilians attending to various stations.  The mixed command crew may have been
a deviance from strict military regulations but Heskan felt the personnel
shortage combined with
Kite
being docked at a major star system’s
command orbital made it acceptable.

 “Capt’n
on the bridge,” Senior Chief Petty Officer Andrew Brown called out.

Heskan
nodded at the acknowledgment.  “Chief, is the shuttle ready?”

“Yes,
sir.  I got Damage Controlman Second Class Percy waitin’ in the shuttle.”  The grey-haired
senior chief was smiling, though his expression quickly hardened as he punched
a comm button on his operations station.  “Wake up, Percy!  The capt’n’s comin’
down now.”  He closed the channel and threw a mischievous wink at his captain.

Heskan
turned to Lieutenant, junior grade, Diane Selvaggio.  “Kite is your ship while
I’m away, Lieutenant.”

The young
lieutenant visibly gulped as she rotated in her chair.  “Yes, sir.  I’ll certainly
be thankful when Lieutenant Scott reports in.”  Lieutenant Joseph Scott was
scheduled to assume command of the navigation section when he joined
Kite
at Titan along with Heskan’s promised first officer.

Heskan
smiled.  “Don’t be so hasty, Diane.  With Lieutenants Vernay and Truesworth off
the ship, you’re gaining valuable command experience today.”

“Can’t
valuable command experience wait until I’m a full lieutenant, sir?” she quipped
before refocusing her attention on her console.

Heskan
rolled his eyes.  “Even when Scott gets here, your battle station will be the
bridge.  Lieutenant Scott will have his hands full leading the second command
team in Auxiliary Control.”  He watched Selvaggio’s hands effortlessly glide
over her console as she fed her navigation computer standardized tasks designed
to calibrate the software. 
Diane has everything going for her but she’s so
damned shy and she’s always understating her abilities.  Stacy told me she
refuses to wear her Distinguished Unit Citation because she feels responsible
for the hit that took out Ana’s port GPs. 
Heskan shook his head unconsciously.
 
A lieutenant commander couldn’t have handled Anelace any better than she did.  I
wish she’d break out of her shell
.

As
Heskan wheeled around to head for the door, Selvaggio grinned wickedly and
called out, “Good luck at the briefing, sir.  Maybe the seat next to Commander
Durmont will be open.”

Heskan
visibly cringed as he strode into the corridor. 
Okay, technically I asked
for that.