Valor At Vauzlee (15 page)

Satisfied with her exterior inspection, she told the pilot to enter the open door at Flight Operations Bay One.

The pilot deftly maneuvered the shuttle into the bay and they felt the craft settle as the gravity in the bay was increased while the outer door closed. As soon as indicators showing outside air pressure and quality entering the green range, Jenetta opened the hatch on the shuttle, jumped down, and headed for the bay entrance.

A young officer, opening the airlock door just as she reached it, recognized her instantly. Ensign Jassan Willis jumped back, startled, and braced to attention. He couldn't believe that just nine months after graduating from the Academy he was face to face with the most famous officer in all of Space Command. He stood at least five inches taller, but felt incredibly insignificant just then.

"Lt. Commander Carver requesting permission to come aboard," she said quietly as she saluted a young officer who seemed to be about the same age as she still appeared.

"Uh, permission granted, ma'am," he said, his nervousness obvious in both voice and actions as he returned her salute.

"Who's in charge here, Ensign?"

"Um, I'm not sure, ma'am. As far as I know, the most senior officers left are the chief engineer, Lt. Commander Rodriguez, and the chief medical officer, Lt. Commander O'Neil. But since neither medical officers nor engineers are line officers, and can't technically command a warship, I don't believe that either has announced he's assuming command."

"And Lt. Commander Rodriguez is where, right now?"

"I heard he's somewhere up near A Deck."

"I'm not familiar with the layout of this vessel class. Show me the way."

"Aye, Commander."

Willis escorted Jenetta to a lift that would take them up to Deck Five. They rode in silence, the ensign stealing furtive glances every so often as if he expected Jenetta to disappear if he looked away too long. On Deck Five, they took a transport car forward through the ship until they reached Section One-Forty-Eight. Another lift delivered them up to A Deck Corridor 0, where a Space Marine sergeant standing in front of an emergency bulkhead blocked their way. It had slid into position to seal off the corridor when pressure was lost on the bridge. The sergeant's eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped slightly as he recognized Jenetta. He closed his mouth and snapped to attention as she approached him.

Jenetta returned his salute and told him to stand easy.

"I'm sorry, Commander," the sergeant said as he relaxed slightly, "it's not safe to proceed further. Commander Rodriguez has ordered me to stop anyone not suited up in E.V.A. gear from venturing beyond this point, for their own safety."

"Where is Commander Rodriguez, Sergeant?"

"He's on the bridge, ma'am, assessing the damage so that repairs might commence."

"I was told that the bridge was destroyed."

"No ma'am, not destroyed. I understand that the hull was breached, and most of the bulkheads between open space and the bridge were destroyed or seriously damaged. Everyone on the bridge died of asphyxiation when the atmosphere was evacuated, but the bridge itself is mostly intact. Commander Rodriguez is suited up, trying to assess the exact situation."

"What about the rest of the ship?"

"I only know that we have serious hull breaches on at least four decks and lesser hull damage in some hundred-seventy or hundred-eighty other places. We lost eighteen when the bridge was breached and at least thirty more in breaches from other torpedo strikes."

"At least?"

"That was the last figure that I heard, ma'am. Lieutenant Ashraf, the ship's first watch helmsman, is collecting casualty and damage information. I'm sure that she has more up to date information than I'm able to provide."

"Is Lieutenant Ashraf currently the senior line officer?"

"I expect so, ma'am."

"Where do you think she'd be right now?"

"You should be able to find her down in Auxiliary Control & Communications, ma'am."

"Carry on, Sergeant. Ensign, show me the way to the AC&C."

Following the ensign down two decks, then five sections towards the stern, Jenetta was escorted to a room that resembled a slightly more compact version of the ship's bridge. The AC&C could handle most bridge functions in the event of an emergency such as this one. Placed almost in the dead center of the ship, the AC&C was heavily shielded and protected from most damage by outside hostile forces. For that matter, the bridge itself was extremely well protected by having eight deck levels above it and ten below. Several compartments, all with reinforced tritanium bulkhead walls and radiation shielding were situated between the bridge and the outer hull on A Deck. It was only called A Deck because it contained the ship's bridge, not because of its relative position within the ship. Only an extremely destructive torpedo strike could have penetrated far enough into the ship to breach the bridge's extremely protective shell.

Lieutenant Ashraf, sitting in the command chair with her back to the door, was talking to Commander Rodriguez on the com as Jenetta and Willis entered the AC&C center. A head and shoulders image of Rodriguez, standing on the bridge in an E.V.A. suit, filled the monitor at the front of the room. Image resolution was low and the picture shaky, meaning that it was most likely coming from someone's helmet cam. Rodriguez, presently speaking, probably wasn't receiving a reciprocal image.

"…It's a real mess up here, Lori. There are bodies everywhere. The first torpedo penetrated the hull and blasted away a large section of hull armor and a couple of interior bulkheads. The hole opened the first corridor on the larboard side of A Deck to space, but emergency bulkheads closed to preserve the ‘atmo' in the rest of the ship. The damage was severe, but not life threatening at that point. But then a second torpedo must have come straight into the new opening and wiped out everything that remained between the hull and the bridge. The bridge's reinforced tritanium walls were breached behind the control panels near the tactical station. The hole is large enough to have evacuated the air supply within seconds. It appears that everyone managed to reach an emergency air mask, but they didn't have E.V.A. suits, so the sub-zero temperature of space got them before they could override emergency controls and force open the bridge doors.

"Okay, Paul, thanks. The Prometheus is sending over their hotshot XO to take command, so I'm just trying to hold things together until he gets here."

"Roger, Lori. Rodriguez out."

The link went blank for a second, and then the viewscreen changed to show the ship's logo. Ashraf immediately turned her attention to a growing holo-tube list of battle damages.

The ensign with Jenetta had been shifting his weight nervously from leg to leg, trying to figure out how to alert his fellow officer to the Commander's presence without interrupting the communication, while Jenetta had been content just to listen to the conversation. When Ashraf made the comment about a hotshot XO coming over, the ensign closed his eyes and wished he were somewhere else. He finally coughed when she turned to the holo-tube, then said, "Excuse me, Lieutenant. Commander Carver has arrived."

Without turning away from the holo-tube that she was concentrating on, Lieutenant Ashraf said, "Have him brought up here, Ensign Willis."

"Um—
she's
up already, ma'am."

Ashraf turned around in her chair with a shocked expression on her face.

Jenetta said somberly, "The hotshot is aboard."

Ashraf shot up out of the chair as if the seat had suddenly become electrified, and came to rigid attention. At five-foot eight-inches, the olive-skinned officer with almond-shaped eyes and collar-length raven-colored hair was taller than Jenetta. "Commander, I'm terribly sorry for that remark," she said. "It was rude and almost borders on insubordination. I apologize."

"Relax, Lieutenant," Jenetta said calmly, as she suppressed a smile. "Let's just put it down as being the result of battle stress and forget about it."

"Yes ma'am; thank you, ma'am," Ashraf said as she relaxed her stance, and looked at Jenetta's face. Her face reflected her relief for just two seconds before it suddenly changed again to mirror surprise. Her chestnut eyes narrowed slightly as they took in Jenetta's rank insignia on her shoulders and then the pip on her collar. There couldn't be more than one line officer below the rank of captain in all of Space Command who was permitted to wear a collar pip. "Excuse me, ma'am, but are you
Jenetta
Carver?" she asked.

"Yes, I am."

For Lori Ashraf, it was the first bright spot in an otherwise horrible day. Her eyes widened and she stood a little straighter again as she said, "It's a real honor to meet you, ma'am. I'm one of your biggest fans."

"Nice recovery effort, Lieutenant," Jenetta said. This time she couldn't suppress the amused grin.

"No, I mean it, ma'am. I didn't know you were the one being sent over. I didn't even know that you were a lieutenant commander. You were just an ensign during the court-martial. I watched every minute of the trial, and we all cheered like crazy when you were acquitted."

"I was passed over by the promotions board for eleven years because they believed that I was dead. Space Command and the Galactic Alliance Council decided to make up for those lost years."

"I'm happy to see that Space Command has rewarded your incredible accomplishments after putting you through that god-awful court-martial, and that you're our new commanding officer. What are your orders, Captain?"

Jenetta was momentarily taken aback by Ashraf's use of the title, although she didn't let her surprise show on her face. She knew that she was there to reestablish the command structure and turn chaos and confusion into order and control, but she hadn't really thought of herself as the captain of the ship. That's exactly what she was though, albeit a temporary position. The lives of every one of the two-thousand two-hundred crewmembers aboard the heavy cruiser were now her personal responsibility, and until relieved, she was the highest authority aboard ship. She inhaled deeply and expelled it. "Let me see a list of our damages," she said.

"Here you are, ma'am," Ashraf said as she handed Jenetta the holo-tube she had been studying.

As Jenetta scrolled down through the reports, she asked, "How complete is this list?"

"I believe it to be about ninety percent complete, although it covers one-hundred percent of the
major
damage. Engineering bots are crawling over every square centimeter of the exterior and interior hulls trying to identify damage points, however minor, and Commander Rodriguez has a dozen men suited up and performing more detailed assessments of the serious hull breaches where we took torpedo hits."

"According to this, the sub-light engines and temporal field generator are fully operational?"

"That's correct. The temporal field generator repository suffered no damage at all, and the sub-light engines have been certified fully operational by our engineering department, despite a few energy weapon punctures of the larboard engine nacelle housing. We terminated our attack only because the main bridge was hit and all senior command officers were lost. Nearly all of the enemy ships had stopped firing by then. I was down here with most of the bridge personnel that didn't have the watch."

"Well, first things first. Our injured personnel are our top priority. They must be taken to sickbay to receive treatment."

"Done or being done as we speak."

"Good. Next, let's designate an area to serve as a temporary morgue. What would you suggest?"

"Um, we have an empty cargo hold."

"That'll do. Have all bodies brought there. Is the Engineering section manufacturing new plates for the hull?"

"I— guess that they will as soon as Commander Rodriguez finishes his inspection."

"Get me Commander Rodriguez on the com."

Ashraf walked to the communications console and pressed several contact points. When an image of Rodriguez appeared on the com screen, she said, "Commander Rodriguez? Stand by for Commander Carver. Here he is, ma'am."

Jenetta suspected that Rodriguez wouldn't be able to see her, so she didn't look into the lens on the com unit. "Commander Rodriguez, this is Lt. Commander Jenetta Carver. I've been placed in temporary command of the Song by Captain Lawrence Gavin, the task force commander. Are new bulkhead plates being manufactured to repair the breach of the bridge?"

"Not yet, Commander. I'm still on A Deck, forward of the bridge."

"Was your chief assistant killed or injured in the battle?"

"No, ma'am"

"Isn't he able to operate without your direct supervision?"

"Normally, yes, but this isn't normal. He's not experienced in tritanium bulkhead plate manufacturing."

"Then I strongly suggest you get your donkey off A Deck and down to engineering if they need
you
to commence the most critical repairs on this ship. And in the future make sure your assistants get the training they need to ensure this ship isn't lost if you're injured or killed."

"Aye, Commander."

"This is a war zone. I expect the bulkhead walls on the bridge compartment to be completely repaired and the bridge re-pressurized and ready for use within six hours."