Chapter 57: Initial Maneuvers

The ship was quiet. Ensign White and Ensign Munfree sat and adjusted their displays as Blaine began running his fingers over his controls.

“I need thrust,” he called out.

“Engines cycling up from standby,” I heard Lance Corporal Boddicker say. “Thrust will be available in ninety seconds.”

“Releasing stern connections,” Blaine said.

I watched the forward view screen. The screen showed that the ship was drifting a bit.

“Helm?” I called out.

“The port connection caught for a moment,” Blaine replied. “I’m compensating.”

The drift stopped and the ship returned to it’s original position. Ensign Munfree snorted. “I have a contact from Ipanema. Captain Prescott is asking when we’ll launch. He says there is a training course his crew completed.”

“I want to ask how bad his launch was,” I muttered.

“The ship is stable again,” Blaine said firmly. “Engineering, do we have thrust?” he asked.

“One moment,” We heard Boddicker call back. “We had some issues with the flow in the port engine.”

“I thought the starboard station was the problem,” I said.

“It was, but one of the regulators in conduit two on the port side was slow deploying. It was at standby power levels so there was only minimal damage, but Double A wanted to check the plate. He found a burr and has a drone clearing the problem. We need twenty seconds,” Boddicker replied.

“So many problems,” Ensign White moaned.

“It happens,” I replied. “All of the problems have been minor. I would actually have been a bit surprised if there had been absolutely no problems.”

“I’m not sure our missile crews are a minor problem,” I heard my weapons officer mutter.

“We have thrust, but keep it below thirty percent for now,” Ensign Daniels said. “Private Walton is having some trouble keeping both engines stable.”

“I’ll learn how to do it,” Private Walton called out. “But the controls aren’t really designed to handle both engines and I don’t have enough practice.”

“You are doing fine,” Ensign Daniels said. “Now clear the channel. Helm, you have power.”

“Cycling the engines to five percent. Releasing bow clamps,” Blaine said. “Corsica is backing out of the dock.”

The viewscreen showing the area in front of the ship showed Corsica slowly backing away from the bulkhead of the dock. The pace was slow.

“We’re moving slower than I thought we would,” Ensign Munfree said.

“The entrance to the dock is small,” Blaine said. “I have to make sure the ship doesn’t drift or I’ll brush the side.”

“I wonder if that happened to Ipanema,” Kelsey said.

“Bridge, Engineering,” I heard Ensign Daniels call out.

“This is the captain, go ahead,” I said.

“We are going to have to take the bow medical pod offline for twelve hours,” he said.

“Private Ripa stated that it showed a problem,” I replied. “What happened?”

“Somehow a couple of the emitters that handle the nanobots in the pod have corroded,” Ensign Daniels replied. “We’re having some new emitters assembled in engineering, but the only person who knows how to handle the replacement in the pod is Private Ambrose.”

“Make sure that Privates Ripa and Morrison are in attendance during the repair. They need to learn how to do it,” I said.

“We can do that, but only after we recheck all of the flow control plates,” Ensign Daniels said. “We’ve found problems on four already.”

“Carry on,” I said. “And how long until we can use full thrust?”

“Four hours to fifty percent,” Ensign Daniels said. “We’re not sure about full thrust. We’re still checking each component on the engines. Alex and Thomas are very upset.”

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“It could have been worse, but so far everything is repairable. It might actually have been fine. However, the crew back here wants the parts to be perfect. They don’t want a flawed part allowing a minor hit to turn into a catastrophe,” Ensign Daniels replied.

“I like how they think. Make sure they fix it right,” I said.

“I’ll have my crews check the weapons stations,” Ensign White said. “I’d hate to have a station fail in combat.”

“Make it so,” I said as the viewscreen showed that the walls to the port and starboard of Corsica ended abruptly. The ship continued moving backwards and then swung around with the bow moving to the left.

The ship slowed down and came to a halt a few hundred yards away from the dock. We could see the entrance to the dock off the starboard bow.

“Wow,” Ensign Munfree said. “Its real. We’re in space.”

“Helm, we’ve been told there is a training course. Is it showing in your navigation displays?” I asked.

“It is,” Blaine responded. “Do we want to try it when our engines are being repaired?”

“It might be the best time,” I said. “That way we’ll have some practice for when we have to handle a damaged ship in combat.”

“Good point,” Ensign Munfree replied. “Um, Captain, we have Ipanema’s captain wanting a word with you.”

“Put him through,” I said with a sigh.

“Captain Parker,” the voice of Captain Prescott purred out maliciously. “How good of you to actually take your ship out of dock. I was wondering if you planned on fighting from inside that rock.”

“I just offered my crew an extra night at home. Standard protocol was that all crew get twenty-four hours on the planet before the launch of their ship. I gave them an extra four hours or so,” I replied.

“Six,” Captain Prescott growled.

““Whatever,” I replied. “Look, I don’t answer to you. I answer to the Confederacy High Command. The terms they set allowed me to launch late.”

“You should not have been allowed to do that,” Captain Prescott growled.

“What you feel about my decisions does not matter,” I said. “We’ve already had that discussion. Now is there a reason for your call?”

“I just wanted to watch your first run through the training course,” Captain Prescott said. “Ipanema finished it in fifteen minutes with a fifty percent accuracy rating on the simulated shots.”

“This isn’t a contest,” I said. “Our opponent is the Sa’arm not each other.”

“What are you afraid your team will perform poorly?” he taunted me.

I hit the controls to mute the communications system. “Blaine, have you looked at the route? Can we complete it in the same time as Ipanema did?”

“Looking at the waypoints, we can do it in the same time even if we don’t use more than thirty percent power,” he said. “I can’t guarantee the accuracy.”

“I can,” Ensign White said. “It’s railguns only. Those teams I trust,”

“Let’s keep it simple then,” I said. “And I’ll respond to Captain Prescott’s challenge.”

I turned off the mute function. “Were going to head to the start of the course now.”

“Took you long enough to respond. Did you have to have the women find your balls?” Captain Prescott asked.

“My engineering department wasn’t happy with the status of the engines when we were in dock. They are limiting the engine output while they run a number of diagnostics,” I said. “I needed to confirm with my helmsman that he can handle the route with the limited thrust available.”

“Excuses,” Captain Prescott said. “You bragged about the training you put everyone through. There should be no reasons you can’t complete the tasks in front of you.”

“Who said we will?” I said. “And if you are paying attention, we are heading to the starting point. Make sure Ipanema stays out of the way.”

“She’s loitering in orbit around Crucible,” Ensign Munfree said. “In fact, based on the markings I’m seeing around the port engine, they had something overload. Oh, I’ve cut the communications link with Ipanema.”

“So both ships had issues,” I mused.

“Can you link my headset to the railgun teams?’ Ensign White asked. “I want to go over our plans for the firing range. I’ve checked and we can fire real rounds rather than simulated ones.”

“Go ahead with the real rounds,” I said. “I’ll authorize it. We can resupply from the dock.”

“They can even deliver,” Ensign White said. “I’ll ask for four replacement shots. But we should only need two.”

“Captain,” Blaine said. “We’ll be at the first waypoint in two minutes. The AI is recommending that I turn on the positional gravity.”