Chapter 45: Facing a Major Test

I had announced that the crew needed to show up at ten hundred hours. As was my usual pattern I walked into the bridge simulator thirty minutes before then. For once I was alone, as all of my ladies were still sleeping. The orgy that Lenore had demanded had run far past midnight. I was still a bit sleepy, but the content smiles on my slumbering concubines warmed my heart as I took my seat and powered up the displays.

The displays were flickering into life when the doors opened up behind me. I concentrated on pulling up a crew listing so that I could set up a randomized team selection when a voice spoke. “So this is what the bridge looks like? Its small.”

“There is a limit on how much space a ship has, and if you’ve studied the Patrician class closely you’ll know that the ship is no bigger than the home pods we are using,” I replied to Captain Prescott.

“Why such a small ship?” the man asked as he walked past me and looked at the controls at the tracking station.

“Materials cost money and the mass probably influences the cost of operating the ship. I don’t know much about the class, but it appears to have been a courier ship of some kind. Probably mostly used to move small cargos that had a high value,” I replied.

“We were told these are warships,” Captain Prescott said. He had moved forward to look at the helm controls. “And this is useless. Your people should be taking the sleep training and then engaging in meetings. How many people do you have who can run the helm?”

“Three who are trained to be regular helmsmen,” I heard Ensign Munfree say.

“Only three?” Captain Prescott asked.

“Any battle or incident that causes us to lose all three would probably require that the ship be totally destroyed,” I said. “However, I know that Ensign Munfree has reviewed the sleep training. I believe three others have finished the basic courses on their own initiative.”

“Who?” Ensign Munfree asked as she walked over to the communications station and powered it up.

“Alexander Ambrose, Roger Reynolds and Ingrid Ivarson,” I said.

“How do you know?” Chaz asked as she sat down and then turned the chair around so she could look at me.

“I asked for a log of what courses every crewman takes. Most have completed at least basic level training for at least one job outside of their currently assigned area. I wouldn’t want them to have to perform during a fierce battle, but they can likely handle routine tasks. We’ll work on the rest once we are aboard Corsica,” I said.

“You should be working on that now,” Captain Prescott said. He was leaning over the helm station. “And why is there a joystick? The training did not show one.”

“It’s a change we had put in. All three of our regular helmsmen wanted it rather than the original touchpad,” I replied.

“But the touchpad is what the sleep trainer showed,” Captain Prescott said. “How can they use the joystick?”

“Practice,” I replied. “It actually has better feedback than a touchpad could, although it takes a very steady hand to get the most out of it.”

“And you authorized this change?” Captain Prescott asked. “On what authority?”

“I am going to be the captain of Corsica. That gives me all the authority required,” I replied calmly.

“Don’t you have to clear it with a superior officer?” Captain Prescott snarled.

“Internal modifications to displays and controls can be authorized by the captain of a ship,” the AI called out. “The ship will have the modified helm when Captain Parker takes official command of the ship tomorrow night.”

Captain Prescott’s lips curled. He turned back to the helm controls as the doors behind me opened. I could hear a large number of people entering. Most were talking in hushed whispers.

The whispers quickly stopped. I could hear the sounds of people walking into the room. “Why is he here?” I heard Brent ask.

“He stopped by to look at the simulation room,” I said. “And as long as he does not disrupt the training, I have no issues with that. Now is everyone here?”

“Morgause will need five minutes,” I heard Ingrid call out.

“Why is she late?” I asked.

“She had a problem with her concubine,” Ingrid said sadly. “I think she may be forced to dump him.”

“Ouch,” I said. “I’m not going to punish her for that if she arrives in time to participate, however, I do want everyone here to understand that on Corsica, there are to be no problems involving concubines.”

“None?” Vernon asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“I already announced the rules regarding concubines. Each crewman can have one concubine on the ship as long as the concubine is not pregnant. However, I never want to hear that any of you touched someone else’s concubine without permission and I don’t want the concubines trying to harm anyone. As long as that holds, we’ll keep the policy in place,” I said.

“The official rules are one concubine for each five crew,” Captain Prescott said.

“Do you want to be the man who decides who gets to bring a concubine on a cruise?” I asked him. “It will probably not be comfortable to pack a large number of concubines onto the ship, but I expect it will be better for morale. And the concubines can help with scut work.”

“Perhaps,” Captain Prescott said. He walked away from the helm and moved to the far side of the room. “But weren’t you here to test everyone?”

I looked around the room. “Ensign White, take your station. Crew, as you know tomorrow night we’ll be in the Crucibleat system and officially boarding Corsica. Today is going to be your final time in the simulators we have been using. Accordingly we have put together some scenarios that should test your knowledge and training.”

There was some muttering from the crew standing arrayed along the backwall of the simulator. Robert Bruce stepped forward and the turned around to face the rest of the men. “Quiet!” he shouted.

Everyone stopped talking and stared at him. “Look,” he continued in a forceful voice. “We all signed up to be citizens of the Confederacy. Part of that involves being in the military. Captain Parker provided nearly four weeks of intense training. Now its time to show that we paid attention.”

“Thank you Sergeant,” I said. “If I might finish though?”

My crew just looked back at me as I scanned the room. A couple appeared nervous, but the muttering did not resume.

“Now, what we’ll do is select one team for each simulator at random. We’ll run through the simulation and then switch teams. Engine and Rail gun teams, I’m afraid you’ll be going twice. Helmsmen, one of you will have to run through the process twice as well,” I said.

“But that means they’ll have the best score,” Michael complained.

“Each simulation will play out differently and we’ll take the best score for any team that ends up going through more than one,” I said. “Also this is all pass or fail. We pass as a group if we reach the end of the simulation. Failure means we were destroyed.”

Everyone was silent as they processed what I just said. I looked over at Ensign Daniels. My first officer nodded.

“The simulation will be a patrol. We’ll have to visit a number of systems and scan for potential Sa’arm ships. The goal is to visit all the systems and return with solid information,” I said.

“So you don’t have to destroy any ships you encounter?” Captain Prescott asked.

“It depends on what kind of ship we encounter. If we run into a hive sphere, any attack we make would likely result in our destruction. Our reaction will depend on what we encounter,” I said.

I heard a snort from my rival captain. I chose to ignore his antics and turned to Ensign Munfree, “Call out the first teams.”

My communications officer smiled and turned to her console. “For the engine room, we have Linus’ team.”

“Good luck,” I heard Vernon call out.

“We won’t need it,” Linus more replied.

I turned to glare at the two engine team captains as Chaz continued. “Missile team will be Brad’s team. Railguns will be Robert and Terrence will be the helmsman.”

“Me?” Terrence asked. “Why not Blaine first?”

“Those are the names that came up when I asked the AI to set up a random selection,” Ensign Munfree said.

“It’s a solid group,” I replied. “Terrence take the helm. Men, if your team was named, head to your simulators. We’ll start in five minutes.”

“Where should we stand if we are not involved?” Blaine asked.

“Stay in the simulation room, but stay out of the way,” I said. “There is plenty of room in here.”

“Not many chairs,” Captain Prescott observes.

“This is actually a bit larger than an actual bridge,” I replied as the crewmen assigned to the first simulation left the room. “But hopefully none of these simulations will be extremely long. And it will give the crew a chance to see how I hope to operate.”

“Poorly,” Captain Prescott said in a voice dripping with disdain.

“Don’t you believe it,” I heard Blaine reply sotto voce.

“I’ll contact the bridge when the other rooms are ready,” Ensign Daniels said. The older man saluted me and then pushed through the crowd still standing near the entrance.

“Do we have the simulation ready?” I asked Chaz.

“We do, but I have to ask what you were thinking,” my communications officer replied.

“I wanted to be sure no one could predict the sequence. There are ten possible events. Each ship will encounter two or three of them in a random order.”

“Well, the system says it has the first sequence set up. Terrence will take control just before we exit a jump,” Ensign Munfree said.

I looked at the primary viewscreen. Captain Prescott was standing in front of it facing me and blinked as he noticed that I had focused my attention in his direction. A moment later he realized that I was looking at something behind him.

My fellow captain turned around and then immediately took a step back as the screen lit up showing what appeared to be lines of light flowing toward us.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Visual representation of the ship in jump space,” Terrence said. “It’s not real, but someone insisted that humans needed a visual reference to the fact that they were moving. Captain, I’m showing that we are six minutes from emergence.”

“Understood,” I said. “Comm, alert all posts. Weapons, are we ready for emergence?”

I could hear Kelsey whispering something into the headpiece she wore. At the same time the overhead speaker sang out a tone. “Everyone, we will emerge into the Quizat system in six minutes. All stations should prepare for emergence.”

“You realize that the engine room techs are still powering up their stations,” Ensign Daniels called out over the comm system.

“They have time to get ready,” I replied. “And this stops them from goofing off.”

“Captain, rail gun and missile stations report ready for emergence. Do you want us to preload?” Kelsey asked.

I tapped on my chair controls to call up the mission display. The text that was displayed said that after emergence we were supposed to do a fly-by scan of a planetoid and then check a planet orbiting within the system’s habitable zone.

“We should be emerging near a planetoid that does not have any Sa’arm presence. Have both the rail gun and missile teams ready, but do not preload,” I said. “Helm, once we emerge immediately go to three quarters max power on the engines.”

“What heading?” Terrence asked. “And we are now four minutes out.”

“I’ll call out if we need to turn, but always be prepared for emergency evasions,” I replied.

“Captain,” I heard Ensign Daniels say. “All simulators are running. The engine room crew is ready to switch to standard drive.”

“Helm, call out the break out,” I said firmly. “Weapons, be prepared for action.”

“Two minutes,” Terrence replied.

“Tracking is up and prepared, do you want me to send out a pulse when we break out?” Ensign Munfree asked.

“Hold off,” I replied. “We don’t know what we might see and using a pulse will make us a very visible target.”

“The energy released by the break out isn’t small,” Terrence said.

“It’s not quite as visible though, or as concentrated. We can concentrate on passive sensors when we first emerge,” I said.

“Passive sensors only,” Ensign Munfree called out. “Time to break out?”

“Thirty seconds,” Terrence replied. I watched his hands start to dance over the controls. “Everyone, we appear to have picked up some engine flutter.”

“Engine room?” I asked.

“We had a momentary loss of flow,” Linus replied. “Ronald is trying to stabilize the system.”

“Helm, will this cause a problem?” I asked.

“It shouldn’t, but we might end up tumbling if there is a spike just as we emerge. I’m already working on compensating,” Terrence replied. “Emerging in five ... four.”

“Engine flutter rising,” I heard Ensign Daniels call out. “Ronald open up the restrictors and add some magnetics. We can’t allow it to...”

“Breakout!” Terrence shouted. “Engines not stable, we’re going to tumble.”

“Make sure tracking is compensating,” I called out. “Weapons, the rail gun will be useless, recommend that we load at least one missile for emergency defense.”

“Prepare a chaff missile, but don’t load,” Ensign White commanded. “We don’t want to try to extract a missile if we don’t have to.”

“We need a better form of point defense,” I said absently. “Engine room report!”

“The magnetic field in the third flow conduit overcharged,” a voice I recognized as Ronald Hampton’s replied. “The automatic stability controls refused to shut down the field. I had to cut the conduit out, but that took too long.”

“Have we stabilized the flow?” I asked.

“The first and forth conduits are working fine. I shut down the second and third while I try to get the magnetics to reset,” Ronald replied.

“The adjustment plates in the third conduit warped,” Thomas Truit called out. “I’m not sure what pulled them out of position, but the coils are too deep into the conduit. I have a pair of repair drones working to remove the damaged plates.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Fifteen? Twenty minutes,” Thomas answered. “I couldn’t even send in a probe until the flow was shut down, and these plates are designed to hold their configuration even if the engine takes a direct hit.”

“Tracking? How does the local area look?” I asked.

“No Sa’arm activity within a light minute,” Ensign Munfree said. “I have found the planetoid nearby and there are indications that Sa’arm ships are orbiting habitable planet.”

“Engine room, please expedite the repairs,” I called out. “Helm, have you regained control?”

“The ship still wants to dive to the left, but I can hold it to the desired route. Should I try to duck under the planetoid?” Terrence replied.

“Not with the engines the way they are. We’ll circle it in a clockwise pattern at twice normal orbital distance. Try to keep the emissions down, no active sensor,” I replied.

“Captain, I’m going to recall the chaff missile. Do you think a dolphin might be useful here?” Kelsey asked.

“Dolphin?” I heard Captain Prescott ask.

“Fire it before we come out of the sensor shadow cast by the planetoid. Aim for twenty degrees left and five above the habitable planet. That should move the Sa’arm and allow the passive sensors to show us what we are up against,” I replied.

“Decoy,” Ensign Munfree called out absently.

“On it,” Kelsey called out. “Brad, load a dolphin, use one of the marathon boosters.”

“How much time to we have?” Brad asked. “The marathon is at the bottom of the magazine queue.”

“Terrence? Can we reduce orbital speed?” I asked.

“I can give him just over one hundred seconds,” he replied. “The planetoid is only so big, and if we brake more we’ll send up a heat plume that would reveal to the entire system where we are.”

“We’re working to have it ready in one hundred,” Brad said.

“Launch as soon as its ready,” I told Kelsey. “Engine room report?”

“It’s a bloody code error,” Linus said. “The bloody code for the magnetic plates pushed the plates too deep into the conduit.”

“Warren?” I asked.

“Linus was reviewing what orders the computer was giving the engine. We’ve found that there actually is an error in the code,” he replied.

“And the aliens never found out about it?” I asked.

“I get a feeling they don’t run the jump drives at the speeds we do. It only becomes a problem at very high speeds while the jump drive is active,” Warren said.

“We need to find a way to fix that permanently,” I said firmly. “Do we have anyone with the skills?”

“No,” Ensign Daniels replied. “I understand the basics, but the programming language the Confederacy uses is not one anyone on the ship knows. We’ll have to work with the AI to see if a permanent fix can be developed. As it is, this repair would more likely be Alexander’s in the future. He’s the machinist. Thomas specializes in the Electronic repairs and adjustment.”

“How did this not get discovered earlier?” I asked as I looked over the displays in front of me.

“The flaws in the second and third flow conduit magnetics are known,” the AI called out. “However, failures are extremely rare as they only occur if there is a slip in the power flow through the first conduit within ten minutes of an expected emergence.”

“How can that be?” I asked.

“The AI anticipates the return to normal space,” Ensign Daniels replied. “That’s the problem, its making adjustments based on what it might need in a few minutes and ends up pushing the plates into the heart of the flow, where they quickly jam and then build up a magnetic field.”

“Make sure that all engine room workers are aware of the problem. We’ll have to add training to make sure that we have someone watching the flow and prepared to pull the plates back manually before this happens again,” I said.

“I can see I have a challenge,” Alexander said quietly. “Can I create a mechanical stop that prevents this problem?”

“We’ll see,” I said.

“Missile away,” Kelsey said. “With one second to spare.”