Chapter 38: Missile Antics

The door to the missile simulation room opened quietly. The instant it finished moving I could hear shouting from inside.

“Don’t rush!” a female voice shouted. It sounded like Morgause, but the anger in the voice surprised me.

“I’m trying,” was the response. This clearly came from Ingrid, and sounded more than a little petulant.

There was a bit of a buzz emanating from the room. Worriedly I rushed through the door and looked around.

I could see that Morgause and Ingrid were sitting side by side at a control station. They were looking up at four large screens. Two of the screens were filled with text. I was not in a position to read it, but I could see the text messages changing as the two women operated the controls.

“Captain?” Brent asked me as he turned and noticed me standing just inside the door.

“I did say I’d try to be here,” I said. I looked and could see that all four missile teams were in attendance. “Sorry its late.”

“It’s not really late,” a man said. “The girls are the second team to try this simulation.”

“Damn!” Ingrid screamed. “I finally get everything lined up and now we’re told to switch missile bodies?”

“Brent? How complex is this simulation?” I asked.

“It has you switch out the missile booster section and then the warhead,” he admitted. “It’s a way to check and see if both the main and the loader understand the controls.”

“Is that all?” the man who had spoken earlier asked.

“Actually if I understood how missiles work, that is effectively all you are expected to do. The loader pulls a booster and sets up the burn times and homing. The main gets a warhead and arms it. The loader assembles the unit and pushes it into the tube,” I said.

Brent smiled. “You studied more than some of our loaders did.”

“After our conversation last night?” I asked.

“Remember, they weren’t part of that,” Brent said.

I nodded. “I need to apologize for not being here when you started.”

“That’s a good point,” another of the loaders said. “Where were you?”

The door to the simulation room has opened while the man was speaking. I heard a young voice cry out in joy. “Daddy!”

A pair of arms wrapped around my legs as Lenore strode into the room. “He started out stopping by the engine simulation and talked to Ensign Daniels. Then he worked with the railgun teams on their simulation and introduced them to the weapons officer, Ensign White. He visited the bridge to talk to the helmsmen and watch them run a simulation and just before coming here revisited the engine simulation to see the people there work.”

“Where?” the loader asked.

I reached down to pick up Angelique and put her on my hip. “This is the last of the simulation rooms I’ve visited today. I’ve been out here for...” I paused and looked up at the ceiling.

“AI, what time is it?” I asked.

“It is now ten-forty-four,” the AI responded.

“Nearly four hours,” I said.

“You’ve been busy,” Brent said. I could hear surprise in his voice.

“I have to be. We only get a few weeks for training and then we’ll be in an actual starship. At that point mistakes could be fatal, so I need to know who can do what,” I said.

“Done!” Morgause called out happily. “AI how does that compare to Brent’s time?”

“The team of Brent Boswell and William Rich completed their first simulation in fifty-six seconds. Your team finished at one minute three seconds,” the AI responded.

“Seven seconds?” Morgause called out plaintively. “How can we reduce that? What is the expected time for this drill?”

“The official qualification time on this exercise is eighty-five seconds,” the AI said. “The best time by any team was thirty-six seconds. It should be noted that the team that did that had two extra people helping. The best by a two person team is forty-nine seconds. The main contributor to your delay was rushing getting the warhead into position. You had to realign it and that cost you time both to notice the fault and then to perform the realignment.”

“So it was a good time,” I said. “And it was your first run through. Once you get more practice, I expect you’ll have no trouble taking off the fifteen or so seconds extra you took.”

“I’m not sure,” Brent said. “I’m thinking back to my run and can’t find any errors Will or I made that cost us seven seconds.”

The man looked over at the four men who were still standing around. “Hank, David, its your turn to take the simulator on. Same basic problem. We’ll be cruising on patrol and enter battle. You’ll receive a command to ready a missile, only for the requirements to change. The simulation ends when the correct missile enters the tube.”

Two men nodded to Brent and started moving towards the control panel. Morgause and Ingrid stood up and stepped to their left, leaving the station. They walked over to join us as Lenore came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders.

“Daddy, what is this?” Angelique asked.

“Hey! What’s a child doing in here?” Ingrid asked.

“I did tell everyone that concubines were allowed to visit and watch as long as they did not interfere,” I said. “In this case my concubine brought her daughter with her. For now, I have no problems with this, but in general we’ll have a no children allowed policy on the Corsica.”

“Never?” Ingrid asked.

“Oh, I’ll probably allow all concubines and children to visit occasionally. We’ll set it up like some strange open house day. But no children on board during patrols. Things are going to be dangerous enough,” I said.

“Did anyone bring concubines?” Lenore asked.

Brent looked uncomfortable for a moment and then pointed to the back of the room. I looked over to see three women wearing nightgowns sitting on the floor.

“Now, that doesn’t look comfortable or welcoming,” I said. “AI can we have a few extra chairs put into these simulation rooms so that visiting concubines have a place to sit?”

“Affirmative, they can be installed tonight,” the AI responded.

“And second, could we perhaps invite the concubines to join us?” I asked nicely.

William, Brent’s loaded nodded. “I can call mine,” he said as he turned to look at the women. “Stacy, come join us.”

One of the three concubines stood up. I could see little flashes of light around her ear and nose as she moved. “Wow, lots of piercings,” Lenore whispered.

“What about the other two?” I asked.

“What’s happening?’ Morgause ask as she and Ingrid joined. “Oh, hi Captain.”

Lenore started laughing. “Oh, lèse-majesté. What will you do?”

“We’ll have a class on military decorum later,” I grumbled. “Right now I’m more interested in getting everyone skilled in how to operate all the equipment available to us. I can build the respect, but if we can’t operate the ship, we’ll go nowhere fast.”

Lenore began massaging my shoulders. She looked over at Morgause. “Mark was asking if the concubines could join us.”

“Is that all?” Ingrid asked. “Lisa, you can join us. You don’t have to just huddle in a corner.”

Another of the young ladies stood up. This one walked over and immediately put her arms around Ingrid’s waist. “You done?” she asked in a very girlish voice. The woman was a bit plump and in her mid-twenties, but her voice was that of a little girl.

“A different team is running the simulation,” Ingrid said patiently.

“Oh,” Lisa said.

William turned to his concubine. She had walked up behind him, but refused to join the group. “They don’t bite,” he said.

“I have no idea what I would say,” William’s concubine said. “I’m not a citizen. I’m here just to make you happy.”

“You do,” William said. He pulled the woman into a side hug. Now that she was closer I could see the myriad of piercings on her ears and nose. I was actually a bit surprised to see that her lips were untouched by metal.

“I don’t want anyone thinking the concubines aren’t people and deserving of respect,” I said.

“But they can’t do anything,” Anders said.

“That’s not exactly true. My training sessions included a breakdown on the rules for concubines. They cannot handle a weapon or operate any part of the ship that pertains to the weapons. I think that the AI might allow a concubine with the right training to work in the engine room or at the helm,” I said.

“Concubines can work those positions, however, it is preferred that they are supervised by their owners if they are on a warship,” the AI said.

“So concubines can be on ships? I remember you saying that, but I thought they would stay home,” William said.

“This gets a bit tricky,” I said. “First, the military originally established a rule that only a limited number of concubines were allowed. Which would have meant we could have five or six concubines on board Corsica. However, I checked the regulations and they are vague enough that I can set the rule. Now, no pregnant concubines are allowed.”

“Why not?” Brad asked.

“We are talking about a combat ship. A healthy concubine can help out by bringing meals to people who are at their station, or helping clean up debris. A pregnant concubine isn’t really in a position to help much,” I said.

“And you already pointed out that children don’t belong on a warship,” Brent said. “Oh, I can’t argue with that. But what rule are you going to set in regards to concubines.”

“Every member of the crew is allowed to bring up to one concubine. Obviously since every female concubine is pregnant at this point it won’t happen for our first cruise, but a year from now I expect we’ll have concubines on the ship,” I said. “Now it won’t be a luxurious trip. The Patrician Class is cramped. I’ve already started looking into how we can set up a sleeping area that will accommodate that many concubines comfortably. The sleeping area for crew is bad enough.”

“How bad?” Morgause asked.

“Triple bunk beds, which you share with two other members of the crew most of the time. There are nine beds on the ship for twenty-three enlisted crewmembers,” I replied.

“Ouch,” Brent said. “That’s not a lot of space.”

“Remember that thanks to the replicators, we don’t have to have laundry, we can just replicate a new uniform each morning,” I said. “But space is at a premium. I’m going to look at what kind of recreational areas we can have set up, but I expect its going to be mostly card or board games and reading. Sports will take up too much space.”

William sighed. “I want to hate it, but that makes sense. So you will allow concubines? And even sex on board ship?”

“If I ever find someone having sex with their concubine while they are supposed to be on duty, we’ll see the limits of military justice. However, if you are not actively on duty, I have no problems with you spending time with your concubines. And it may be possible to have two very small rooms set up for privacy. They’ll be like brothel rooms, not much more than a door and then a bed, but it will have some privacy,” I said.

Brent stared at me. “You know, I don’t like you,” he said.

Lenore gasped, but Brent raised a hand and brought silence to everyone. For a long moment the only sound was that of David and Hank trying to get the warhead aligned in the simulation.

“Let me finish,” Brent said. “Look, Captain Parker is the youngest man here. He’s probably the youngest man in the pickup.”

“Actually one of the crew of Ipanema is younger,” Lenore said.

“Really?” Brent asked. “But that’s not important. What is important is the fact that I resented Captain Parker. He has six concubines, while I have two. He was a student with no accomplishments. I was a top student in high school and was about to graduate college in three years with a master’s degrees in civil engineering. I even had an architectural firm that was recruiting me to work for them. So when I saw this boy given command, I resented it.”

I nodded. “I figured more of the crew would be like that.”

“Its hard to be like that when the man you want to hate works harder than you do,” Brent said. “You have made it clear that we matter. You came up with this simulation idea. I asked the AI about that. Did you know that most crews only get sleep training until they arrive at their destination? This trip was a bit unique because they planned to train the marines during the journey, but you managed to add training for us.”