To Honor You Call Us (12 page)

“Klesh, sir,” he answered, smiling.

“Chief Klesh, where is the coffee pot for this compartment?  And the drinks chiller?”

In a voice that did not entirely conceal his disapproval, the Chief responded, “Both removed at Captain Oscar’s orders, sir.”  That figures.  Men who stand rotating four hour watches around the clock are expected to stare at sensor readouts,
in a darkened room,
for two hundred and forty minutes, and not fall asleep at their stations without coffee or drinks to sustain them?  Riiiiiiight.   

Max went to the nearest comm panel.  He stabbed the button savagely.  “Quartermaster.”

“Quartermaster’s office, Chief Jinnah here.”

“Chief, this is the skipper.  Does this ship have the standard issue of coffee pots and drink chillers for a vessel of this class?”

“Absolutely, sir.  We have twelve CDP 15-9 fifteen cup units and five CDP 25-7 B twenty-five cup units—one for every compartment that has at least seven men regularly assigned, as per regulation.  And I’ve got the drinks chillers, too, four different sizes, one for every compartment with more than five men assigned, again exactly as per regulation.  I think there’s about twenty-two or twenty-three of those, sir.  I requisitioned them myself before we embarked on our shakedown cruise.”

“Mugs and cups, too?”

“The regulation number, sir.”

“And, Chief Jinnah, if I wanted those coffee pots to be used to actually make coffee and those chillers to be used to chill drinks and those cups and those mugs to be available to hold beverages rather than collecting dust somewhere, how would I go about finding them?”

“They are all in the Spares Bay.  I can get you the grid numbers if you want them.”

“All there at Captain Oscar’s order, I suppose.”

A resigned sigh came over the comm.  “Affirmative, sir.”

“Chief Jinnah.  Make this your priority.  I want those coffee pots, and those chillers issued and stocked by fourteen hundred hours.  Issue the cups and mugs, too.”

“Yes,
sir!
”  Something told Max that the Chief liked his coffee.

Max punched another key.

“Enlisted mess, Chief Lao here.”

“Chief, this is the skipper.  I need coffee and beverage service in the Sensor SSR ASAP.  Are you the man who can make that happen?”

“Affirmative, sir.  Just have the men key in what they want on the ‘Tray Request’ Menu, and the senior man in the there key in an authorization, and I’ll have it in there in under ten minutes.”  Most of the senior NCOs on this ship seemed to be on the ball, at any rate. 

Greenlee explained to Max that Captain Oscar had prohibited beverages at stations because he thought they didn’t “look shipshape” and because of fears of spillage (absurd because all the consoles are hermetically sealed).  Accordingly, some of the men in Sensors had to be shown how to pull up the tray request menu from their consoles.

While all this was going on, Chief Klesh had brought Ensign Harbaugh up to speed and Harbaugh had been to every console to see what each man was doing and to get a look at what each sensor was reading.  Max put him on getting crash training to the five men who were new to the department with the rest of the people there either helping those five or running training exercises until the next jump.  “And, after the jump, when you’ve determined everything is clear, everyone but two of you go back to running exercises while two watch the consoles.  All the senior people rotate through keeping an eye out. 

“Harbaugh, Klesh, put your heads together and see if there’s anyone off duty who would be helpful in increasing these men’s proficiency in a big burning hurry.  If so, get them in here.  You have my leave to wake anyone in this department from both of the off duty watches.  Harbaugh, when the next watch comes on, put them to work doing the same thing this group is doing, and have them do the same for the next group.”

“Yes sir.”  Harbaugh seemed eager, anyway.

“And, Harbaugh, effective immediately, you’re the new Sensor SSR Commander.  I need green lights across the board from this room and I need ‘em yesterday.  Anything you need to make that happen, you come straight to me.  Understood?”

“Understood, sir.” 

“Carry on, then.”

Max left Sensors just as the coffee and drinks arrived—Max had not ordered anything for himself—and started for the Wardroom.  He still craved that coffee and chicken salad sandwich.  He was just bellying up to the Dark Roast pot—at least that idiot Captain Oscar hadn’t banished coffee from the wardroom—when his percom beeped.  He looked at the screen.  “NDED IN BRG.”  Needed in Brig. Great.

One of the benefits of serving on a small vessel was that everything was close to everything else.  Climb down one level to C Deck, walk forward about eleven meters along the one corridor that ran along the center of the inhabited portion of that deck and turn right into the second to last hatch.

There to be met by Major Kraft, the Marine Commander.  As always, Kraft seemed to be enjoying his job.  “Captain, that little hook we put in the water a few hours ago has already caught us some fish.  We got Tung, Kapstein, and Larch-Thau on visual surveillance trying to plant a thermoflasher in the Atmosphere Processor Primary Manifold.  They’re in there.”  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the closed security door.

The Primary Manifold was a ton and a half, fifty-eight cubic meter bewilderingly complex apparatus that ducted all of the air recirculated from the ship after it came in through the primary air return duct, scrubbed out the carbon dioxide, and then analyzed its composition, and adjusted it.  If the air was too dry, the manifold added water vapor, if it was oxygen depleted, it added O2, if there was too much argon, krypton, or radon, the air was routed across a catalyst bed that removed it, and so on.  The unit was triple and, as to some functions, quadruple fault redundant and the ship carried ample spares for any component of the unit that could wear out or break.  For that reason, and because it was so large and heavy that carrying a spare was impractical, the huge unit itself was one of the few pieces of critical equipment on the ship for which there was no backup and no replacement.  In the unlikely event that a manifold was destroyed—usually by enemy action—the ship would go on Emergency Atmosphere Scrubbers and had two or three days to get back to base or be rescued before the air quality on board got bad enough to harm the crew.  It was the perfect sabotage target, which is why Max had put it under surveillance.  If the thermoflasher had detonated, it would have instantly melted the entire unit to worthless, unrepairable, unsalvageable slag. 

“What do you want to do with them, Captain?”

“What I
want
is to throw them out an airlock.”

Kraft smiled as though the idea appealed to him.  “Well, sir, as we
are
in a combat zone and as planting the thermoflasher was ‘an overt act tending to give aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war,’ it
is
within your authority.”  On a Destroyer, the Marine Detachment Commander was also Chief of Security, which made him the resident expert on the laws and regulations pertaining to crime and punishment on board ship.  Kraft had, in fact, served in the Marines’ JAG Corps, retired, and was serving as a an Assistant Planetary Prosecutor on Houstonia when it fell to the Krag while he was attending a continuing legal education seminar in a nearby system.  He promptly re-enlisted and requested a combat assignment.  “I could gin up the paperwork for you and the XO to sign in no time at all.  Hell, I bet we could have these three bastards sucking vacuum before dinnertime.  It won’t be any trouble.  Happy to do it.  Sir.”

“Major, as appealing a prospect as that may be, I don’t think that executing three senior Chiefs on my first day in command would be the best of ideas.  For now, make sure they are in separate cells and that they can’t communicate with each other or anyone else.  Feed them normal rations and let them have full terminal access, just disable the ability to send anything.  They’ll keep for a while.”

“Yes, sir.  But if you change your mind and want them outside, dancing with the stars, you just let me know.”

“You’ll be the first, Major.”

Max went back into the corridor and rolled his wrist to look at the time display on his percom.  Still forty-five minutes away from the jump point.  He’d have time for that coffee and sandwich after all.  And maybe some pie.  He wondered if the pecan pie on this ship was any good.  The way things were going, he doubted it. 

Chapter
6

14:29Z Hours 22 January 2315

Much to Max’s surprise, the pecan pie was top notch.  After all, the Navy was never short of nuts.  The ship’s progress through space was also more than satisfactory. 
Cumberland
had made ten jumps in just over eighteen hours, wearing two of the three watches to a frazzle.  Crews were used to making one or two jumps a day, at most, not one jump every hour or two.  So, when Max asked Engineer Brown if he needed to take the jump drive down for maintenance, he took the hint.  The Engineer gamely replied that since it had never been put through so many jumps in so short a time, he would be more comfortable if he could tear it down for inspection, which was at least a twelve hour process.  Max concurred that it was better to be safe than sorry, and so kept the
Cumberland
to .52 c as it crossed from the Alpha to the Bravo jump point in the Van Berg Minor system. 

Max decided that his plan to cross each of these systems in just a few hours was too optimistic.  This crew was not up to the pace of all those jumps that quickly.  But, he still wanted to get to the Free Corridor before he was expected.  So, he arrived upon a compromise.  The ship would travel at 10 c on compression drive about half way across each system and at roughly 0.5 c for the remainder, allowing the crossings to be made in anywhere between nine and ten and a half hours.  It was clear that this crew needed the extra time in transit for training.  Lots of training.

All of the jumps so far had been uneventful, and Max had noted that the Sensor Department was performing more briskly and accurately with each jump.  It was still not up to the standard he had been accustomed to on the
Emeka Moro
and other well worked up ships on which he had served, but had already risen to adequate and was rapidly approaching fair.  Earnest and assiduous drills and training were taking place all over the ship from reloading missile tubes in the bow to targeting the “Stinger” aft-firing pulse cannon.  And Max had visited those parts of the ship where her key functions were performed, all the while encouraging, exhorting, teaching, and occasionally ordering changes to procedures and practices that weren’t working.  This was how he had spent the entirety of the Middle Watch.  A little touch of Maxie in the night.

Things were improving.  But, for reasons he could not put his finger on, Max could see that they were not improving as rapidly as they should, given this crew’s undoubted ability.  Perhaps it was some mental barrier left over from Captain Oscar. 

Max even managed to find the time to eat a hot meal, the main course of which was something called “Navy Noodle Casserole,” a moderately savory collation that consisted mostly of noodles and cheese, but also contained visible quantities, very finely chopped, of various frozen vegetables.  The official description of the dish mentioned meat as one of the ingredients, but if meat was present it was in quantities below the threshold detectible by modern scientific means.  It didn’t taste bad, and at least someone in the galley had enough sense to make sure to pack some zing into it in the form of onions (frozen, reconstituted), garlic (same), various other spices, and cayenne pepper.

After that, he managed a shower and a five hour nap before returning to CIC in time for the next jump, this time from Van Berg Minor to Tesseck A.  This crew was getting good at jumps and this one went even smoother than the one before, the CIC crew benefitting from the rest.  Systems were being restored more quickly and smoothly with each jump.  The jump completed, Max again craved food and drink, this time boiled crawfish and beer.  Good luck finding
that
on the
Cumberland
.  As Max was trying to figure what food and drink might satisfy his
envie
and could be found on board, he noticed Kasparov suddenly tilt his head, reflexively touch his earpiece to listen to someone in his Back Room, and then quickly punch a few buttons on his console, all in less than a second and a half.  Max knew exactly what came next.

“Contact,” Kasparov nearly shouted, “designating as Uniform one, probable ship, approximate bearing zero-one-five mark zero-niner-zero, working on ID and range.” 

Oh, shit.  No way was this a Union ship.  “General quarters.  Ship versus ship.”  Max gave the order that sent the entire ship to Battle Stations.

Klaxons immediately erupted, loud enough to grab one’s attention but not so loud as to be distracting.  In the background, Max heard the ship wide address system broadcasting the voice of the Able Spacer who manned the Alerts station:  “General quarters, general quarters.  Set Condition One throughout the ship.  Close all air tight hatches and secure all pressure bulkheads.  All hands to action stations:  ship versus ship.”  The overhead lights dimmed slightly and red lights went on in various places, to provide a visible reminder to all and sundry that the ship was on alert.  The crew quickly prepared themselves and their vessel for a possible space battle with another warship:  racing to the battle stations assigned to them for that kind of combat, closing hatches that divided the ship into seventy-eight separate airtight compartments each of which could sustain life if the others lost atmosphere, arming weapons systems, and securing items that could become dislodged in a battle.