Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (6 page)

“Thank you, that was very informative,” he said when the last report was finished. “As you know, the day-to-day running of this ship is in the captain’s hands, and as I’m not big on meetings, I’d rather we had a social evening once a month to get together and relax.” He saw that this sat well, and suspected they had more than enough meetings to go to as it was.

“The captain will update me as needed,” he said, “but one thing I’d like to say—you are all qualified to do your jobs, so don’t come to him with your problems, come with your solution.” That got a laugh around the room, since most had heard it before: it had become something of a maxim within his old unit, and spread to others.

He turned to the captain. “Captain, with your permission, I’d like to poke around the ship on my own and try to find my way around.”

“I have no objections sir, but could I ask why?”

“No particular reason, I just like to know my way around, and who’s doing what to whom, so to speak.”

The captain nodded. “I’ll tell the crew.”

“Good, but tell them no jumping up and down when I walk in. I’m not inspecting anything, nor will I report to you anything not to my liking. This is your ship, and I’m just naturally nosy.”

“Very well, Admiral, I’ll so inform the crew.”

“Thank you. When I find out where the poker game is, I’ll let you know, but bring your money, we don’t take markers.” That got another laugh, but more than one officer looked at one another, thinking it funny that the admiral would know about the poker game.

During that night’s game, Scott learned that few newcomers knew how old he really was, or the history of how he’d got here, but when the old-timers heard, they laughed as well. More than once the skipper had joined in, when invited, and he was one hell of a player. By midnight ship’s time, he left instructions to be awakened at 0600 and went to bed, or tried to. Someone had beaten him to it, and she wasn’t about to let him waste time sleeping.

After breakfast the next morning, Scott got his first look at the bridge, hearing the familiar, “Admiral on the bridge” as he stepped through the door. The marine guard and the captain saluted, but the rest carried on with their duties. The captain indicated a seat behind and above his, where he could sit and see everything. In an emergency Scott could take over from the captain if he or the XO became incapacitated, so Scott familiarized himself with each operation. The bridge was laid out in a large horseshoe shape, and starting from his left side was engineering, environmental, then damage control. On his right were communications, navigation, and then weapons. In the center, right in front of his and the captain’s chair, was the helm, with two men on duty at all times. In front of that, dominating the whole bridge was an open area for the holographic projector to display outside space. Although this was called the “bridge,” it was in fact the CIC, or combat information center, and buried deep inside the hull at the base of the main superstructure behind tons of steel, plastic, ceramic, and shields. Too many times ships were put out of action due to a hit on the bridge that killed or wounded the captain and senior officers. That would not be the case here. When he’d walked in, the place was a hive of activity as they and the rest of the fleet prepared to move out of orbit. Within an hour after his entrance, the fleet moved from moon orbit into deep space for its first shakedown cruise, working out different positions for the escort ships and designating a deployment code for the computer.

“How many ships do we have on picket duty around the warp points?” Scott asked after they were underway.

“Fifteen at the three known warp points, sir, roughly in an enclosing formation.”

“How far apart?”

“Fifteen hundred nautical miles sir,” Captain Jack Bingham answered.

“Bit far apart aren’t they?”

“We have no way of knowing exactly which WP the alien ships will come out of at this point sir.”

“Right, I see.”

“Their instructions are to observe and report, not to intercept or engage. Is that all right, sir?” Bingham asked. In the absence of a fleet admiral, he’d taken it upon himself to make that decision, and Scott concurred.

“Nav?” he called. “At the known speed of the alien ships, how long would it take them to get from the closest warp point to Earth orbit?”

“Just under ten hours, sir,” came the answer a moment later.

“Let’s say eight to be on the safe side. Now then, describe a spherical volume of space, using Earth as one side of the sphere and the warp points as the other. I want to operate and shake down within that volume. I also want to be able to get from any point in the volume of that sphere to wherever the alien ships might be in six hours or less at our maximum speed.”

“Got it, sir,” navigation answered. They waited, and a few moments later, the answer popped up on the screen.

“All right, gentlemen,” Scott said. “That is the maximum distance we can move away from Earth and operate for this shakedown. From any position within that sphere, if the alien ships are spotted and we get the word in time, we can intercept them before they reach Earth. That’s assuming we’re at the maximum distance. Closer, and we add to the margin of safety.”

Captain Bingham agreed that it was a good plan. As long as they stayed within that volume, they could always reach Earth before the aliens. After that, Scott sent a quarter of his fleet off to act as aggressors, adding two squadrons of Kat’s air wing as wild cards, and started the first set of war games. They played hare and hound, ambush, counter strike, and stand-down surprise attack, gradually shaking the bugs out of the system. More than one ship had to limp back to moon base for repairs, two having to be towed in by a deep space tug, but all in all, there were surprisingly few problems that couldn’t be repaired by the crew. Week after week, he kept them at it, sometimes catching everyone by surprise by sounding the alert eight minutes after standing them down, or in the middle of the night. Imperceptible at first, then faster.

They started working together and making fewer mistakes, like pilots who came in at the wrong angle, too low, or crossed the ship’s drive path. Five fighters were wrecked because of that, and Kat’s recommendation was that they coast when retrieving spacecraft. Scott and the captain disagreed, because if they were under attack, cutting or starting the drive could put more than just the fighters at risk. They did, however suggest that on retrieval, the drive system would be cut to slow ahead. This was tried and found acceptable to her and the pilots, since the gravity wakes were minimized. She did place a restriction on all hotshot pilots who thought otherwise, threatening demotion and galley duty for the next one who thought he could cut across the wake, or try surfing along it. That had the desired effect, and Scott kept to himself any reservations he had about Kat using threats, having found it counterproductive. Letting one of them get killed was the preferred method. Once that happened, few if any would pull the same stunt again.

One section of the ship that hadn’t been tried, except in simulations, was the main batteries, and although they looked like WWII main guns off a battleship, it turned out they were giant mass-driver cannons, particle beam projectors, and pulse laser cannons all in one. Each barrel could independently target and fire, both up and down, and swivel from side to side like the old battleships, and were mainly intended for long-range engagements, in this case, out to half a light second. Scott’s misgivings concerning the lower hull were put to rest when he discovered the underside was a mass of point defense weapons emplacements, both medium and short range. These were intended to protect the ship from any fighter or bomber attack, should they penetrate, or manage to bypass the shield. With all the activity going on aboard the ship, launching and retrieving fighters, bombers, and ships up to the size of small, fast attack destroyers for repair, it was impossible to surround the whole ship with a defense system. By its very nature, it would hamper fighting ability, so a carefully arranged shield system had been installed, which could open and close to cover vulnerable sections of the ship, and critical areas such as the bridge. This left holes in some parts of the shield, answering the reasoning behind the point defense system.

“Can we find something to use as a target?” Scott asked, thinking that a nice fat asteroid would do nicely.

“Nav, do we have anything out there?” Captain Bingham asked.

“Checking, sir!” the navigation officer replied. “The bombing range at the polar ice cap on Mars would be the closest we have at this time, sir.”

“Will that do?” Bingham asked.

“Bit big, isn’t it? I was thinking of something along the lines of an asteroid.”

“I don’t think I’d like to mess around with one of those, skipper, we might blow it off course and send it plunging toward Earth.”

“You have a point there, Mars is it. I don’t think we can move that, do you, Jack?”

“Not much chance of that Admiral,” Bingham answered with a laugh.

“All right, nav, plot us a course and relay it to the fleet.”

“Aye-aye sir, plotting course to Mars,” he repeated.

“Comm. Make a message to all ships. Well done. Stand down to yellow alert. There will be no more combat alert for two watch cycles.” He could almost hear the sighs of relief. “That should give them time for a break, and a chance to catch up on their sleep.”

“I’d say so, Admiral,” Bingham agreed, smiling slightly.

“Comm. Also send a message to all officers on the ship. There will be a dinner in the admiral’s quarters at,” he eyed the ship’s clock, “1900.” That was three hours from now, and it would give him a chance to catch up on some “paperwork.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral, sending messages now.”

Scott turned to Bingham. “Captain. The ship is yours. I’m off to do the three S’s and catch a nap,” he lied.

“Aye, aye, Admiral. The ship is mine,” Bingham answered.

“Admiral off the bridge!” the marine guard intoned the traditional words, and cycled the hatch open for him.

He did manage to catch a short nap, plow through a pile of message slates and reports and take a shower, shave, and sh … shampoo as they say. It did help to have CPO Hardwick and two stewards to help him, and he was a little surprised to see Hiro as one of the stewards. The other he didn’t recognize, but since he was Hiro’s brother, so to speak, Scott didn’t question the choice. They chatted in Japanese while he dressed, and listening, he discovered that being his steward was their secondary function. Their main duty was to be his personal security detail, and they would rotate each shift so the others could also fulfill their duty to him. Scott thought about it, understanding that it would do little good protesting, and possibly insult them if he tried to change it. He did have a word with CPO Hardwick and explained the situation to him. The old CPO nodded in understanding, yet Scott was curious as to why they should show such deference to him. But Scott figured it was because they liked him and respected not only his rank but also him.

The dinner went off without a hitch, with toasts to the respective governing bodies and the traditional sit-down toast to the King. Scott found that one a bit amusing, but kept his thoughts to himself. The junior officers were suitably intimidated at being in such exalted company, even if most looked as if they were of the same age as them, but even sitting down at the same table with legends such as Admiral Drake and some of the other “Immortals” was something only a few had ever dreamed of. Most of the midshipmen and ensigns were all FNG’s and a few years ago were fat, dumb and happy living in “la la land,” as one marine put it.

They’d all lost someone, or knew of a child or friend taken by the aliens. They also knew what their so-called government was doing about it … nothing! Scott Drake and his people, who they were now part of, were the only defense Earth had. They also knew as most soldiers do, that they could never go home again. For one, the government would never let them, and two, they could never live in that dream world again. Most were still, nominally at least, Muslim, yet few practiced, especially the praying five times a day part. One recruit had done that in training, right in the barracks, even after being told they had to do it in private, just like the rest of the religions had to. That didn’t make sense to him, since there was only one religion, Islam, or so he thought.