Chapter 5

“What the hell was that that went on your pod yesterday, uh, ‘Pappy?’” Commander Wilcox laughed as I walked into his office the next morning. “I’ve never seen anyone confuse the United States uniformed services oath of office with marriage vows, and out here we don’t have either of those!”

“They caught me completely by surprise, sir, and I had to improvise a bit.” I said with a bit of a sheepish grin.

“I could tell. The look on your face was priceless. Now I don’t have the AI spying on you or anything, but it lets me know when anything unusual happens to one of my people, and that was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure the video is archived properly so I can easily dig it out to embarrass you should the need ever arise.”

“Blackmail. You’re going to keep it for blackmail.” I hung my head in mock shame.

“Seriously though, don’t get in the habit of doing stuff like that, and by all means don’t you start acting like the base chaplain or something. It’s bad enough that private might be coming to you in a week asking for you to adjudicate a divorce, or be his ‘marriage’ counselor.”

I nodded. “I don’t want to get involved in any of that. I’m sure I won’t have time for it.”

“Just be careful. You’re walking a fine line with the way you’re handling family situations and at some point someone is bound to come to me complaining about your activities. I need to make sure I can fend them off, instead of get ordered to come down on you.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Anyways” Commander Wilcox continued, “how are the training modules working for you?”

I exhaled. “I’ve pretty much finished with my list and the rest of the crew are working through those I’ve selected for them. Some of them are hard. I’ll get through some pure science module and can barely stand up. My vision will be blurry, my head will all feel fuzzy and it takes some time to recover. At least the trainer doubles as medical, as there are times I can really use the help. The information I’m getting from those is incredible, though. The Confederacy’s science is way more advanced than ours, and I know I’m going to be able to put it to good use.”

Commander Wilcox looked concerned. “AI is there any danger with these modules? I wasn’t told there would be side effects like these.”

<Training modules developed from Confederacy scientific archives were intended for a different species and have been translated into a format considered suitable for human anatomy. Some short-term discomfort is possible, but we do not anticipate any long-term effects. During Lieutenant Jones’ medical treatments following sleep learning no brain injury was detected.>

“That at least sounds a little reassuring, I guess” I responded.

“OK, AI, you stated that these were from archives. Aren’t there more current modules that may be of more value to us?” Commander Wilcox asked.

<There are no more recent modules available. These avenues of scientific research were considered completed and no further use for them was anticipated. They were archived as a precautionary measure but are currently considered irrelevant by the Confederacy.>

Commander Wilcox and I shared a stunned look. He asked the obvious follow-up “So what is the Confederacy doing with scientific research in things like physics, then?”

<There is currently no research being conducted in that field. No questions have been identified for which adequate answers are unavailable. The field is considered closed, allowing scientists to devote their efforts to other fields of inquiry or practical efforts which are considered more productive.>

There was a long pause as we considered the implications of such an astounding revelation.

Commander Wilcox finally spoke up. “AI, if there are other modules available in the field of physics or engineering, please grant access to them to Lieutenant Jones, and to any members of his crew he designates.”

<Two hundred and thirty seven unrestricted modules will be made available to Lieutenant Jones as soon as they are translated into the appropriate format> the AI responded.

“Well that ought to be enough to keep you busy there, Pappy” Commander Wilcox smirked. My eyes bugged out, as I’d only done a handful of these so far. It would take years to get through all this.

Commander Wilcox continued. “We’ve got some good news on your shakedown cruise, you’re going to be able to make a run to the Earthat system and back so you can try out your toys and run the ship through its paces. You’ll have an escort ship in case you run into any problems, so you’ll have help available if you need it. Of course you’ll have the chance to spend a few days around the neighborhood here to get your legs under you before you make the run. I assume that’s going to be plenty of time to see if there are any problems with the ship and then we can bring you in here and fix whatever isn’t working.”

I was still uncomfortable with the Confederacy naming conventions for planets. I knew “Earthat” meant the Earth’s solar system, but I hadn’t gotten used to that yet.

“Sure, sir, that seems fine. I appreciate you giving us the time to get everything right before we get sent out into the fray.”

Commander Wilcox smiled. “Been there and done that. There’s nothing like making sure you’re trained and ready before the shooting starts.” He paused and smiled. “Now I bet you have work to do, so how about you take yourself and your non-regulation shoulder patch out of here and let me get something done for a change?”

I laughed, having expected some push-back on my morale boost effort, and figured teasing was about the best I could hope for. He could have ordered them removed, but I think he knew what I was doing.

“Sure, sir. See you later” I said as I headed out the door.

Now I had an expanded list of sleep learning modules to sort through. When I got back to my study I sorted through the list to see which ones might be useful, but a lot of the titles referenced things I had never heard of. I set those aside. I picked out a couple that seemed worthwhile, along with one called “Psychodynamic Reflectivity” taking a risk with that one, it might be of interest, and two, it just sounded cool enough to try out. Before I headed into the torture chamber I went through the messages the crew’s officers had sent about their progress and issues, and it actually was lunchtime before I had waded through all of that. I hadn’t gotten to what I wanted to do at all.

Susan was happy to see me emerge from my study. “Hungry? I can get you some lunch.”

“That sounds great. What have you been up to?”

As she got me something to eat, Susan described in a bit more detail than I’d hoped for her budding communications network developing among the crew’s concubines. She was happy about it, and it gave her all sorts of drama and female bonding that I suspected she was missing. As much as I tried to pay attention to it all, I found my mind wandering a lot of the time and had to force myself to listen.

“ ... and then Wanda and Betty just went back to the bedroom by themselves and went to town.”

“Wait, what?” I had apparently missed the interesting bits. Wanda and Betty were the concubines of Ensign Hendricks and here my traditional wife was regaling me with stories about them being together in a bedroom. I’d have never thought I’d hear this sort of thing from her only a few weeks ago.

“Oh, yes, those two are close. Apparently it was part of the deal Wanda had with Jeff when they took Betty on” Susan said, conspiratorially.

Personally I didn’t care at all what went on over in their household or who was doing what with whom. What was more interesting to me was that Susan was accepting of whatever it was, and that seemed like a major accomplishment.

One, it would help her in her role as wife of the commanding officer, and second her shift in attitude might make it easier for us to mesh more easily with society in the Confederacy. At some point I was going to get demands to take on a second concubine, and regardless of what ever happened with that it would help a lot if she wasn’t going to go ballistic when a topic like this got brought up.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue was raised with her before it got to me, given my limited availability, and if she at least didn’t freak out when that happened it would be progress. The calmer we could be when that came to a head, the easier it would be to dodge the question.

“Well, I’m glad things are working out with the families. You all are going to need strong bonds with each other when the Oxford deploys, and the effort you’re putting in now is going to pay off a lot then.”

With that I headed back to the sleep learning chamber to try to get in as much as I could before the 1600 meeting I had scheduled with the officers. I didn’t get to find out what “Psychodynamic Reflectivity” was all about, but “Spectrophotometry and Spectroradiometry” in particular turned out to be fascinating, as I walked away knowing a lot more about identifying different materials by the wavelengths they allowed to pass through them or reflected off them, or were emitted by them, even outside of the visible spectrum. I’d had some passing familiarity with the subject, but the Confederacy’s understanding of it was mind-boggling, and since we were in space now this was probably going to be useful in a lot of ways. Recovery in this case wasn’t even that bad after getting information pounded into me by this technological equivalent of a pressure washer.

After that I headed out to where the AI had reserved a conference room for the staff, just a little later than I had intended because I’ve always been a bit anal about never being late. Even though I got there just a few minutes early, everyone else had already arrived.

“Hey, Pappy!” my Chief Engineer Chris Chandler called out when I came in. Yeah, the nickname had stuck.

“Gentlemen, if I’m not actually insulting gentlemen by using that term in present company. We have a shakedown to get ready for pretty soon and we need to be ready to perform instead of sitting around on our butts all day. I’d like to hear where you are all in your readiness. XO, how about you lead off?”

Ensign Todd Williams was about to stand up at the table, but thought better of it and settled back down. His naval officer pedigree was showing.

“I’ve been coordinating with fleet ops about having any support vessels available for us in the Poseidon system in case we run into problems, as well as using them for signal intercept targets to exercise our equipment on. They’re going to tow two target buoys out to the fourth planet for our use. We will have the transporter pad available for evacuation if needed, and of course we have the lifeboat. I’m not enthusiastic about exercising it, but I suppose we have to. I’ll volunteer if needed. We will have no problem with flight clearance and our operational area will be clear.”

It seemed like my XO was on top of things.

“OK, Engineering, what have you got going on?”

Ensign Chris Chandler piped up. “Well, sir, I don’t have a lot going on until the ship is ready. I’ve got the requisitions in for initial fueling and stores, and logistics tells me it’ll all be ready when we need it. I’d like to do a containment survey before we fire up the ship’s propulsion reactor, but the AI’s tell me there has never been an instance of reactor failure on the initial startup of a ship they’ve built in over ten thousand years. I’ll still do a check before we fire up the engines, but I think we’ll trust the Confederacy since they have more experience in this than we do, if that’s all right with you.”

“That’s fine,” I added.

Chandler continued. “With that, all I have to do is make sure we have everything we need onboard. And to see if we can get something painted on the bow.”

“And what would we paint on the bow, Ensign?”

“Why Ensign Williams’ concubine has just a glorious drawing of a black sheep biting a big penis, and I thought you’d want to have that painted on the ship, Pappy. The AI says they can have a maintenance bot spray it on in no time. Excuse me if I’ve overstepped my bounds here.”

The room erupted in laughter, and it was hard not to join in. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Ah, the heck with it. If you guys want to do it, go ahead. Geez, we’re going to be known as the dick biters and you guys think this is a good idea. Well, you gotta live with it too!”

At least they gave me a little advance warning. Once the ship is done everyone is going to want to have a look at it, since it’s something new. It’ll be this atrociously ugly black mess with crap stuck all over it, and on the front will be picture of a sheep giving a toothy blowjob. Every one of us is walking around with a non-regulation shoulder patch that makes it obvious we’re the guys with the orally fixated farm animal as a mascot, and I just know it ain’t gonna turn out well. But the crew wants it, so here we go.

After everyone settled down it was time to hear about Sensors. Ensign Jeff Hendricks spoke up.

“We’re also kind of in a holding pattern until not only the ship is complete, but until the AI can develop the sleep training modules for our crew operations. While everyone has had access to the modules for the Patrician Class Corvette, we’re different enough that only a bit of that is going to be useful.”

“About the only thing on my plate is that I have one Sergeant and three Privates, and each of those Privates are filling slots rated for a Corporal or Lance Corporal. I’m looking to start giving promotions as soon as I can, as it’s going to help morale and each of these guys is a heck of a lot more than I would expect from an E-1 right now.”

I nodded in agreement. “I’m entirely on board with this, but I don’t want to be handing out promotions outside of mandatory time-in-grade ones like they’re participation trophies. Make the crew earn them, and be selective even if you think they’re worthy of them. If promotions don’t mean anything, they’re not valuable. If they feel they have to go above and beyond to earn them, they’ll not only be precious, but an appropriate award to those who get them. It’ll make them more dedicated. We’ll talk about this after the shakedown so we manage this right.”

“Well Pappy, that makes sense. That’s all I have” he concluded.

I picked up the conversation. “All right, men. We have an easy mission ahead of us, but it’s still a mission. We ARE at war, and nobody can predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, an hour from now, or minutes from now. We can’t treat this or any other mission as a routine exercise. We’re going to prepare for this just like we’d prepare for combat. Game through contingencies. Come up with tentative plans for if things go wrong. Nothing ever goes according to plan, so be ready for what the most likely, and the most threatening situations might be that we could encounter. Being ready is the key to survival in a dangerous universe, and I want each and every one of you and your men to return from every mission. The best chance that’ll happen is if we prepare with excellence.”