Ep.#15 - "That Which Other Men Cannot Do" (The Frontiers Saga) (9 page)

Captain Nash paused, noticing a raised hand. “Mister Sennott, is it?” he asked, pointing to the young man.

“Yes, sir. Gunnery Specialist Sennott. I thought our guns couldn’t fire on friendlies?”

“It was a joke, Specialist.”

“Ah, of course, sir. My apologies,” the young man replied, appearing somewhat embarrassed.

“But since we’re on the topic, try not to put too much faith in the auto-fire interrupt systems. Nothing built by humans is ever perfect, and the comrade who inadvertently wanders into your field of fire will appreciate your diligence.”

Captain Nash raised his data pad to read the names. “I will be in command of Cobra One, also known as Cobra Leader. Lieutenant Commander Rano will be my XO. Annatah and Jahansir, you’ll be CO and XO of Cobra Two. Harral and Lucco, you’ll be CO and XO of Cobra Three. Orel and Keupek, you’ll be CO and XO of Cobra Four. You six will report to me for your pre-assignment briefings. The rest of you report to Lieutenant Commander Rano for your ship assignments. Once you’ve received your ship assignment, you may board your ships and settle in. But please, do not touch anything. Just take a look around, get familiar with your ships, and wait for your COs to arrive. Your first flight will be at fourteen hundred, Tannan Mean Time, or three hours from now. Welcome aboard, gentlemen.”

Captain Nash watched and waited, as the men broke apart into two separate groups. Six of them forming up on him, while the others swarmed around his XO, Lieutenant Commander Rano. His attention turned to the six young men now standing in front of him, their expressions a mixture of pride, excitement, and anxiety. “Gentlemen, I’d like to congratulate you all on your promotions,” he began, as he passed out rank insignias and data pads to each of them. “Your job will be the hardest. Not only will you have to learn to fly your ships with the least amount of simulator training time ever, but you’ll have to manage your crews at the same time. To make things even more difficult, your instructor, myself, has less than one hundred flight hours in this type of ship. Granted, they handle a lot like the Scout-class on which they were based, but they are very different, believe me. They are faster, more maneuverable, and have much bigger teeth. Luckily, as you know, they are also far more automated. So if you get overwhelmed, better you fall back on your auto-flight systems rather than put your crew, and your ship, in danger. Just remember, always fly your ship first, worry about your crew second, and the enemy third. It is almost always better to bug out and survive to fight another day.”

“Sir?” Captain Annatah asked, “You said
almost
always. How do you know when it
isn’t
a good idea to bug out?”

Captain Nash offered a half smile. “Trust me, you’ll know.”

* * *

“My name is Captain Gilbert Roselle, and I am the commanding officer of the Jar-Benakh. I am an arrogant, egotistical, loud-mouthed, hard-ass son of a bitch of a captain, if ever there was one. I will tolerate nothing short of your absolute best effort, as I will always give you mine. I will never ask you to risk your lives unless I am willing to risk my own as well, and I will never put you in harm’s way without due consideration. But make no mistake, you have all volunteered to serve on a combat vessel, at a time of war. For that, each of you has already proven that you are worthy of my respect. Just try to keep it that way.”

Captain Roselle glanced at his XO, who could barely control the smirk at the corner of his mouth. He turned his attention back to the one hundred men gathered in the middle of hangar deck four. “You men will be trained in the basic operation of this ship. You will be relentlessly drilled, over and over, until you can perform your jobs in your sleep. It will seem excessive to the point of frustration, but believe me, your first time under fire, you’ll thank me for it. You, in turn, will help train the next one hundred, and the hundred after them, and so on. Eventually, a few months from now, this ship will be properly staffed, and ready for anything.”

Captain Roselle paused for a moment, his expression turning even more serious. “Some of us will die. That is a foregone conclusion on a combat vessel in a time of war. Try as we will to prevent it, it will come. The best advice I can give you is to not fear death. Only fear failure, and me, of course.” Roselle snickered as he turned to his XO. “How’s that for a pep talk, huh?” he said as he stepped down from the podium.

Commander Ellison stepped up to the podium to take over. “Gentlemen, your duty assignments are posted on the data displays on the wall to your right. You will find your berthing assignments there as well. Once dismissed, find your bunks and stow your gear. Review your procedures and restrictions. I caution you not to wander into areas of the ship which you are not authorized to enter. The Ghatazhak take security very seriously. Neither they, the captain, nor myself tolerate stupidity very easily. Your first meal call will be at twelve hundred, ship time. You will report to your duty assignments at fourteen hundred for orientations. Your training officers will give you your training schedules at that time. See that you adhere to them.”

Commander Ellison allowed the slightest smile to form on the corner of his mouth. “Welcome aboard the Jar-Benakh.”

Captain Roselle watched the men as they crowded around the data displays on the wall, each of them eager to see where they would be serving.

“What do you think?” Commander Ellison asked as he approached.

“I think we’re fucked,” the captain grumbled.

“I don’t know, Gil. They seem like a good group of able-bodied young men.”

“Not one of which has any military training, let alone combat experience.”

“Everyone’s got to start somewhere, Gil.”

“Hell, half of them don’t even speak English.”

“Give them time,” the commander replied. “Meanwhile, we’ve got plenty of translators. At least most of them have technical backgrounds.”

“Yeah, as long as all they have to do is push buttons, they’ll be fine,” Captain Roselle grumbled as he turned and headed toward the exit.

“The first hundred are the most qualified of all the volunteers that have come forth so far,” Commander Ellison reminded him. “That’s why we are starting with them. These guys will probably end up as department heads.”

“Yeah, I know,” Roselle replied, still uneasy about the situation. “How are the mark fives doing?” he asked as they entered the corridor.

“Fourth one is going in today. They should be ready to start calibration and testing by the end of the week.”

“Good,” the captain replied. “I’ll feel better once they’re up and running.”

“The hull repairs will be wrapped up by tomorrow afternoon.”

“What about the broadside cannons?”

“The mark threes arrived from Karuzara last night…all twelve of them. It’ll take another two days to finish installing the tracks, so we should be able to start installation three days from now,” the commander explained.

“I wish I could see the face of the first captain to be on the receiving end of them,” Roselle said with a devious grin. “Gonna surprise the hell out of him, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“Any word on the jump missile program?” the captain asked as he came to a stop outside the elevator door.

“Only that they are conducting the first test firing tomorrow.”

“Let’s not waste any training time on the missile systems until we know for sure what we’re going to be firing, Commander. It’s bad enough we don’t have adequate training time to begin with, let alone having to waste time retraining them.”

“Already planned on it, sir. They’ll be concentrating on launcher maintenance for now.”

“Great,” Captain Roselle said as the elevator doors opened and he stepped inside. “I’ll be in command.”

* * *

“Heavy One Four reports target drone is deployed,” Mister Bryant announced.

Admiral Dumar glanced up at the tactical display in the Karuzara Command center as the flashing red icon representing the target drone separated from the steady blue icon of the cargo jump shuttle.

“Target drone is on course and speed,” the tactical officer reported. “Missile targeting system has a lock on the drone. We have a good targeting data link with the weapon. We are ready to launch.”

“Board is clear,” the sensor operator reported. “No other ships in the area.”

“Launch the jump missile,” the admiral ordered. The admiral turned his attention to one of the many view screens on the far wall. The missile launcher tilted upward slightly, then pivoted to the right a few degrees. The launcher’s rails lit up as electromagnetic energy surged down them, propelling the missile off the rails and into space. On the next screen to the right, the admiral could see the tail of the missile come to life, bright yellow thrust blasting out the back of the missile as it accelerated away. Then, only a few seconds later, the entire missile disappeared in a blue-white flash of light.

The admiral glanced at the tactical display, where the icon for the missile also disappeared. He then turned his attention to the view screen displaying the feed from the targeting drone. There was another blue-white flash of light. For a few seconds after, he could see a faint white dot of the missile coming toward the camera, growing in size as it drew closer. The screen flashed yellow, filled with scrambled image fragments, then went black, the words ‘Loss of Signal’ displayed in its center.

“We have missile impact,” the tactical officer announced. “Waiting for confirmation.”

“Targeting drone is gone, jump missile is gone,” the sensor officer reported. “I’m picking up debris in the area of the target drone’s last position. Type matches the drone, spread matches the trajectory of the weapon. We have a confirmed kill.”

Admiral Dumar turned to look at Lieutenant Tillardi, who was standing at the back of the room, looking like a proud father. “Nice work, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now, make us two hundred more.”

Tillardi smiled. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

“Turn two, complete,” Captain Nash reported as he powered back his gunship’s main propulsion system.

“Return jump in ten seconds,” Lieutenant Commander Rano replied. “Think they’ll get it right this time?”

“I hope so,” the captain replied, “but I’m keeping my hands on the controls, just in case.”

“Jumping.”

The cockpit windows turned opaque for a brief moment.

“Contacts!” Ensign Doray announced from the tactical console directly behind the pilot’s station. “Cobra Two! Fifty meters to port and closing!”

“Two, Leader!” Captain Nash called over the comms as he pulled the nose of his ship up and brought his engines to full power. “Pitch down and break left! Three! Down and right! Four, up and right!” Nash glanced out his window as Cobra Two slid in under him, then fell away and back left as Nash guided his gunship up and away from the approaching ship, narrowly avoiding a collision.

“Two is falling away and left,” the ensign reported. “Three falling away to the right. Four is climbing with us and fading right as well.”

“Damn it,” Captain Nash cursed. He took a deep breath, then lowered his nose level with the system’s ecliptic and reduced his main engines to zero thrust once again. “Cobra Leader to all ships. Form up on me. Standard diamond. One high, Four low. Be ready to transmit your flight logs to me.”

“
Four copies.
”

“
Three copies.
”

“
Two copies… Sorry, sir.
”

Nash looked at his XO. “It’s a simple maneuver. Everybody comes back around on nineties from one another, arriving at one hundred meter spacings.”

“Maybe we should start with thousand meter spacings?” his XO wondered.

“So that we’re spread out over four kilometers? We won’t be able to concentrate our fire power that way.”

“All these maneuvers are programmed into the auto-flight systems, you know. That’s how they’re going to do it in battle…with the auto-flight.”

“I know,” Captain Nash agreed. “But they have to be able to do it manually first, and that’s going to require practice.”

“And if they should have to defend this system in the meantime, shouldn’t they have
some
experience executing such maneuvers using the auto-flight systems?”

“Of course, but if those systems fail…”

“Perhaps we should mix it up? Sometimes let them use the auto-flight to execute the maneuver. It might help them see where they went wrong during manual execution.”

Captain Nash thought for a moment, as he adjusted his gunship’s course heading. “Good point.” He sighed. “Okay, we’ll do the next one with auto-flight.” He keyed his comms. “Cobra Flight, Cobra Leader. Rendezvous at Echo four seven and prepare for another mock attack run.” Captain Nash looked at the lieutenant commander. “We’re going to keep doing this until we get it right.”

“Give them time,” Lieutenant Commander Rano said. “They’ll get the hang of it.”

“They’d better,” Nash replied wearily. “Their lives may depend on it.”

* * *

Master Sergeant Jahal scanned his data pad, then looked back at his commander. “All twenty of them met the thirty-second deployment maximum. Total time from jump-in to jump-out was less than two minutes across the board. The average was ninety seconds.”

“How long does it take for a chaser to travel from the launcher to its target?” Commander Telles asked.

Jahal raised his brow skeptically. “I’ll tell them to get it under one minute.”

“At least.” The intercom on the commander’s desk beeped. “Yes?”

“
Sir, Admiral Dumar’s shuttle just landed.
”

Telles looked at his master sergeant in silent accusation. “Were you aware that Dumar was coming?”

“Negative,” the master sergeant replied.

The commander pressed his intercom button again. “The admiral’s destination?”

“
Word from the ground crew is that he is headed to see you, sir.
”

“Very well.”

“Surprise inspection?”

“If he were a Ghatazhak general, I suspect that would be the case. Besides, such inspections are not in the admiral’s nature.”

“He does seem more of a ‘big picture’ kind of leader,” Jahal reasoned.

“See that those times are improved,” the commander insisted.

“Yes, sir,” the master sergeant replied.

“Once you do, run the same insertion drills during the night, and in varying terrain and weather conditions, as well,” the commander added. “I want under a minute in
all
conditions, not just favorable ones.”

“Of course.” The master sergeant turned and exited the commander’s office.

Commander Telles placed his data pad on his desktop, then stood as he heard one of his office staff announce that the admiral was ‘on deck.’ The admiral entered his office seconds later, followed by one of his security detail personnel, who closed the office door behind him and waited outside.