To Honor You Call Us (30 page)

A few moments later, as normalcy returned to CIC and the Destroyer shaped course to intercept the now defenseless ore carrier, the XO turned to his Skipper.  “Sir, do you mind telling me what the
hell
just happened.”

“Oh, that.”  Max managed to sound almost nonchalant.  “New weapon.  One of our spy ships witnessed a test of it inside Krag space a few months ago, but we didn’t know that it was deployed yet:  code name ‘Remora’ or something like that.  Nasty little fucker.  It’s a stealthed, remote controlled, fusion bomb designed to kill an overtaking ship.  The bastards launch it cold and it comes at you slowly and undetectably just as you think you are boring in at them on their six.  The stealth is so good that the point defense grid doesn’t pick it up and the speed relative to the chasing ship is so low that the deflectors don’t even budge it.  They just let it crawl back until they’ve got it snuggled right up against the hull and then BLAM.  You never see it coming.”  He turned toward Tactical.  “That looked like, what, a one fifty or one sixty kt burst?” 

“Our reading is one-five-two kilo tango, skipper,” Bartoli answered.

“OK, a hundred and fifty-two kiloton thermonuclear burst. 
Inside
the deflectors.  Right up against the hull.  That’s a one hundred percent kill for anything from a medium Cruiser on down.  Who knows how many times they’ve used it without us being the wiser?  No warning.  No survivors.  Just another ship ‘missing, presumed lost.’  If it hadn’t been for your question, XO, they would have got us, too.”  Max shook his head ruefully.  Already he could think of five lost Union ships that had left debris patterns perfectly explained by what he had observed about this weapon.  “Anyway, tuning the deflector for an object of the right size and relative velocity pushed it away from the ship where the point defense batteries were able to get a lock once the deflectors had it.  The weapon’s on board AI figured out that it was about to be destroyed, so it detonated before we could hit it.  We lived.  They died.”  This time.  “That’s the name of the game.

“Chin, raise the Cutter.”  Chin clicked a few keys.

“Cutter, Mori here.”

“Mori, this is the skipper.  Didn’t want you to think you’d slipped our minds.  What’s your status?”

“The Cutter lost some external antennae when that second Raven lit off, but other than that, no damage.  I’ll be at the rendezvous point in thirteen minutes.”

“Excellent.  See you there.  Keep on piloting like that and I might just let you take the Cutter out again some time.  Skipper out.”

Meanwhile, the Ore Carrier, which was the real target all along, continued to plow toward the jump point with dogged, robot determination.  Its destruction was anticlimactic—a straightforward approach from the starboard beam, two shots from pulse cannon number two, and the half-million ton freighter and its bulky but strategically valuable cargo were a cloud of debris.  None of that ore would ever be refined into metal to make Krag guns, Krag swords, and Krag ships.  A small but measurable blow to enemy war production had been struck by the
U.S.S Cumberland
.

For the first time since its commissioning, the
Cumberland
had met the enemy in battle and had defeated him.  Victory.  It really
does
taste sweet.

Chapter
14

14:38Z Hours 26 January 2315

Beep. 
Once again, Max’s work station made the distinctive, not unpleasant, beep that indicated that a routine report or memorandum had just been filed to his electronic In Box.  High priority items went
Boop
and normal items went
Beep. 
Emergency items, of course, went
Beep Boop. 
Or was it
Boop Beep
?  Max hoped he never had to find out.  He had had been writing his After Action Report detailing the destruction of the Krag Battlecruiser, two Corvettes, and Ore Carrier for a little over an hour, trying to find the right balance between bland, passive voice, polysyllabic, Latinate bureaucratese and tooting his own horn and that of his crew in vigorous, active voice, laconic, Anglo-Saxon Standard.  During that time, he had heard that
beep
at least seven times, maybe eight.  That seemed excessive, but Max was focusing on getting his report written, as such things were best done when the engagement was fresh in one’s mind.  Particularly now, when the adrenalin from the encounter with the Krag had worn off leaving nothing behind but the exhaustion that seemed to be his constant companion since he tore open that envelope in the ORDRDRM back on the
Nimitz
six days ago. 

Finally, he completed the report, read over it, made a few changes, and hit the key that made it a part of the ship’s Log and queued it for transmission to the Task Force and to the Admiralty as soon as the ship came off of EMCON. 
Beep.
  One more.  Max pulled up his In Box, which he had not checked for routine communications since sometime yesterday.  The work station screen informed him:  “Your In Box contains 57 items.  Display as summary list or display full text in order of receipt?”  Fifty-seven items?  In less than a day?  That’s more than one for every four people on board.  Max keyed for a summary and scrolled down the list:

Time/Date: 11:12/25JAN15

Sender: Harbaugh

Subject: Daily Sensor Contact Report

Daily
Sensor Contact Report?  The Sensors section has been sending a separate written report every single day listing every single contact?  Doesn’t the Captain already know what the contacts are?  Aren’t contacts already being logged by the Officer of the Deck?  Aren’t all contacts of any significance mentioned in the Captain’s own log?  Come to think of it, he had seen this report from Sensors on each of the previous four days, but it hadn’t sunk in that “Daily” actually meant
daily
.

Next item. 

11:47/25JAN15

Jinnah

Confirmation of Spare Equipment Issuance

He opened the item.  It was a Memo, “as required by Standing Order 14-478,” confirming that the coffee pots and chillers that Max had ordered issued from Spare Equipment had, in fact, actually been issued from Spare Equipment, delivered to the compartments listed along with their respective serial numbers on Exhibit A attached thereto, and had been duly signed for by the senior man in that compartment.  In what universe does the Quartermaster have time to issue a separate written memorandum every time he issues something from Spares?  Logging the Order to issue the equipment and noting the date and time the order was carried out or put into effect is not enough?  Wait a minute.  Standing Order 14-
478
?  That meant that at least four hundred and seventy eight standing orders were issued in the year 2114.  A ship with a real fussy Captain might have a hundred or a hundred and fifty standing in orders in force at any given time.  Thirty to fifty was more typical.  Four hundred and seventy eight (and more likely substantially more) in a single year was beyond belief. 

He scanned through the list of communications he had received in the last day.  Daily reports on virtually every routine activity on the ship, written memos when anything was issued or stored or used or replaced, daily inventories on various consumables, and on and on and on.  No wonder every department on the ship seemed like it was too busy to do its job—it was too busy writing reports. 

And there was a memo from Doctor Sahin, dated yesterday evening.  Max opened it.  It basically said that the doctor had found out from Goldman that one of the sources of stress on the officers and senior NCOs was that they had to prepare too many reports.  He recommended that Max review the reports required by the ship’s standing orders and eliminate the unnecessary ones.  Great minds think alike.

Max pulled up the file that contained all of the Ship’s Standing Orders.  “There are 1,232 standing orders on file.”  Damn, damn, damn.  Max was kicking himself, hard.  Why had he not checked the SSO file sooner?  Stupid mistake.  Correction. 
Another
stupid mistake.  He knew he couldn’t afford many more of those.  “Display in list form, summary form, or as full text in order issued?”  Max chose “list” and spent about a minute scrolling down looking at the reference lines:  “Organization Of Cookware and Utensils In Galley According to Principles of Time and Motion Science; Eating In Quarters Prohibited Save For Personnel Confined Thereto; Use Of The Phrase ‘The Fact That’ In Any Correspondence Addressed To The Captain Or Being Sent To Higher Authority Prohibited; Authorized Nature of Any Issuance of Equipment from Spares or Stores to be Confirmed by Separate Written Memorandum To Commanding Officer; Sliding Down Access Ladders by any Personnel, Particularly Midshipmen, Prohibited; Display In Quarters Of Items Related To Collegiate Or Professional Sports Teams Prohibited; Cleaning Of Side Arms In Quarters Prohibited . . . sweet baby Jesus.  He had never seen such a load of crap.  He kicked himself again.  He
really
should have checked the Standing Orders.  This crew didn’t need to take drugs to addle its brains—they were already dizzy from chasing their own tails. 

The doctor had suggested that he go through the Standing Orders and eliminate those that imposed an undue burden on the crew—careful use of the scalpel.  This problem didn’t need a scalpel.  It needed a bone saw.  No.  A battleaxe.

He pulled up the computer form for a Standing Order, checked the list of previous orders for the correct number, (only eleven so far this year, as Captain Oscar had been relieved on January 4
^th
), looked up one small item, and began to type:

U.S.S. Cumberland   DPA-0004:  Ship’s Standing Order #15-12

Effective immediately:

1.  All previous Ship’s Standing Orders (SSOs) are revoked.  “All” means all. 

2.  The Model Standing Orders for Union Space Navy Destroyers (Small), USAdmPub 13-1885 are hereby adopted
in toto
as the SSOs on this vessel, as modified and supplemented by this Standing Order and such other and further Standing Orders as may be from time to time issued.  Note:  there are 27 Orders in the Model SSOs.

3.  The excessive reporting and memo writing on this vessel stops now.  If a report or memo is not required by a regulation, a Fleet Order, or an SSO,
do not, repeat do not
, write it as I do not want to see it. 

4.  The purpose of this Order is to reduce the paperwork on this ship from its current insane and obscene level to the merely absurd level normally associated with naval operations.  It is not to stop you from communicating with your superiors.  Accordingly, if you have something that YOU feel needs to be communicated up the line, go ahead and put it in a memo and send it.

He hit the ENTER key.  The computer chewed on the document for about half a second and responded:  “Textual analysis indicates that this document deviates from the content and/or style customary for a document of this type.  It is suggested that you may wish to delete this document or to revise it extensively before saving.  Do you still wish to save it now?”  Hell yes.  “Order saved to Captain’s Pending Tray.  Do you wish to Post to Crew immediately, Post to Crew at a specific later time, or retain the Order in the Pending Tray.”  There was only one answer to that question.  Damn the torpedoes, and all that.  “Post to Crew Immediately.”

There.  That should put a stop to some of that insanity.  He shook his head—what else had he missed?  When and how would it rear up and bite him in the ass?   

Max gulped down the last of the cold coffee at the bottom of his mug and looked at his bunk.  God, he was tired.  Maybe a short nap.  Just an hour or two.  He had just about talked himself into it when his comm buzzed.  “Skipper.”

“Captain, this is the Chief Medical Officer.  I am in C twenty-four,” Sahin announced formally.  “I regret to report that we have a fatality.”

“On my way.”

***

Max’s quarters were on B Deck just forward of amidships, while C-24 was one deck below, and aft.  Still, Max was there in less than two minutes, making a point not to look as though he were in any particular hurry or that anything was wrong.  When he emerged from the corridor alcove containing the access ladder he had used to change decks into the main corridor on C Deck, he saw that he need not have bothered.  There were at least twenty people in the corridor, milling about and talking, not to mention blocking his way to Compartment C-24. 

There was only one way to deal with this.  When he was about ten meters away from the crowd he stopped and, using his best parade ground voice (one of the loudest in the fleet, truth be told), barked, “AH TENNN
HUT
!”  Instantly, the milling, babbling mass of humanity froze in rigid, silent, attention.  “I want this corridor cleared.  If you are on duty, get to your station.  If you are off duty, get to your quarters or the Mess or somewhere, just so long as it is not here.  Now, MOVE.”  In eight seconds, the corridor was empty, save for Max and the two Marines that someone had sensibly posted outside the hatch to C-24.

The Marines, having gone back to Parade Rest when Max ordered everyone to leave, snapped to Present Arms as Max reached the door.  When posted as a guard with shoulder arms, Present Arms was the Marine equivalent of a salute.  Max saluted back, the men went back to Parade Rest, and one of them triggered the door.

Max entered, encountering what appeared to be a snowstorm.  Tiny white particles were swirling around in the air like snowflakes in the winter wind.  The computer had put the air circulation system in the compartment on maximum, triggered by the presence of seven people in the compartment and that of unusually high levels of combustion products and particulates.  Max scanned the room.  What happened here was clear to him in about a second and a half.  He had seen it before.  More than once.