Chapter 2: Promotions

Third officer! Not just Acting Third, either. A full promotion! It had been logged on his record as a 'battle promotion', of course, but a lot of jumps in rank were coming that way, lately. Officially, he was now 'Ship's Officer, Third Class', promoted from 'Ship's Officer, Junior Apprentice'. Fleet ranks were simple things, compared with the 'Admirals', 'Commodores', and so on of the larger civilian fleets, with their gaudy uniforms and stuffy formalities. The great sentient ships of the Fleet needed little in the way of officers, and their command structure was kept simple, flexible.

His was now the responsibility for Skryben's navigation, he reminded himself. His nerves were still shaken by the fierce battle, and would be until he'd had time to meditate. His responsibility, though Captain Jeryth would be looking over his shoulder until he'd really proved himself. Third Officer! With a twinge of guilt, he realized that he'd hardly thought of the two men who had suffered, perhaps died, to open the way for his promotion. That was the way it had to be, of course. A part of FleetAcademy training was a heavy dose of conditioning so that you could accept such losses. Otherwise, the aftermath of battle would be intolerable. Respect for sentient life was a fundamental part of the Ursudine faith that was the philosophical basis of the Empire.

The injured officers might be all right, some day. It wasn't all that impossible. A stretch in Skryben's stasis tanks, holding them at zero time until the end of this voyage, and then lengthy treatments for repair and regrowth at a base hospital. Their injuries were serious enough, he'd seen that as their blackened bodies were carried out by scurrying medics. Still, modern medical techniques verged on the miraculous...

A hefty pay increase went along with his promotion, but that didn't matter right now. Would be nothing to worry about, really, until they made it back to an Imperial base. There weren't many places to spend your pay aboard ship. He didn't care to gamble, unless you counted an occasional small stakes game of sabback with a couple of gunners among the crew who knew the odds on the fall of three twelve sided dice.

Rand suppressed a grin as he moved his armload of belongings from the roomy J.O.Q. He'd had the dorm, meant to hold six or more, all to himself since the beginning of the voyage. Now he was moving on up to the smaller, but private, Third Officer's cabin, next to the bridge. Physically, a climb of only two levels. For his career, it was a real null space jump, one that could well have taken years in more peaceful times. There'd been no formal ceremony, he thought to himself, thankful for that small blessing. Just the Captain's brief words of commendation after the battle...

"Your promotion to Third Officer has been logged," Captain Jeryth's low, metallic voice had told him, the faint semblance of a smile twisting his smooth golden face. "You'll be in full charge of navigation, for the rest of the voyage. You'll also fill in as Communications Officer when needed. Second Officer Teeve and Third Officer Inol have been placed in stasis. They're too badly damaged for our own hospital facilities to handle. When we return to base, they'll be dropped off for rebuild and regeneration. If they come through that in good enough shape, they'll be assigned to other berths. You've been doing good work, and Skryben likes you. Likes you well, indeed... As soon as you've plotted the coordinates for our next jump, you can see to moving your things to your new quarters. Then come back here, just in case our friends get organized in time to follow us."

"Yes, sir." He'd keyed a query into his console: ' how long until we're ready to jump?'

"Twenty four minutes, from... Mark." The voice from his console had been soft, reaching only his ears.

To think that he'd felt lonely, out of place. Why, already, Skryben was like a second home. The great ship was more than half alive. A sentient entity, not just a machine. He'd had no acquaintances on board, at first, only a crowd of unfamiliar faces, and the ship had seemed coldly immense. But then, nothing had been going very well for him in his new career. His grades at the FleetAcademy hadn't been all that good, and he'd had little news from home. His parents had opposed his going into the military. Father had been quietly bitter, and mother had cried...

"But, why? You have a good life all mapped out for you here, working for your grandfather's company. Core Sun Lines has always had a Korsun at its helm. It's a good company, and growing. Your father likes his job as company manager, but he has always expected that someday you'll succeed him. Then, when you're older, you'll be president of Core Sun Lines, like your grandfather, and his grandfather before him."

He'd muttered something about what he could learn aboard one of the Empire's fighting ships. That had been a mistake! She'd seized on it, her eyes glowing with righteous wrath.

"Those ships! They're not natural. It isn't right for sentients to build machines that live, and think for themselves! Now, don't shake your head at me. I'm a signatory to the Ursudine Compact, just as you are. I have been, all of my life, like my family before me. I believe that all sentients are brothers, living in the loving embrace of Mother Galaxy, but those ships aren't members of a sentient race. Why can't you be content to live and work with the ships that our family owns? You've liked working with other races. Your father says that you're more interested in that part of the business, than you are in hauling freight. I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but he and your grandfather have just contracted for another passenger liner. If you change your mind about enlisting in the Imperial Fleet, you'll have your chance to be a member of its crew."

A brand new ship, and him a member of its crew? It had sounded tempting, but where would he be now? Third Assistant to the Purser? Fourth assistant to one of the Environmental Officers? No, this was far better...

He'd tried to warn them of the growing menace to shipping posed by the Vortigen commerce raiders, the damage already done to shipping all over the cluster, but nothing had gotten through to either of them. They'd heard his voice, all right, but no meaning had gotten across. He'd sometimes felt like he was mouthing words in some unknown language. They told him that he was too young to understand, that the Vortigen Hegemony, as the news faxers were starting to call the raiders from the distant Vortigen Drift, was a minor irritation, one that never would be allowed to penetrate this far into the Imperial Cluster. They wouldn't be a menace much longer, anyway. The Ursudines were preparing missionary ships, with teachers who would instruct the Vortigen in the precepts of the Compact...

He returned a crew member's salute absently as he started up the stairs to the next level, conscious of the shiny new ceramic comets on his collar. That had been his first act, after he'd left the bridge, to drop by stores and pick up his new insignia from Quartermaster Aweti. Third Officer! Not that they hadn't saluted him as Junior Third, at least when they felt like it, and weren't too busy, but now he felt that he really rated it. Junior Thirds didn't count for all that much aboard a ship of the line. Too much of an officer to mingle with the crew, and not really accepted by the other officers.

Come to think of it, he was entitled to call one of the crew to give him a hand, moving his things, but he didn't have enough belongings to make it worth while. It wouldn't have been smart, either. Not when every hand was needed to help with ship repairs. As soon as they'd made a couple of more jumps, and were sure that they were clear of any possible pursuers, he'd be turning to with the rest of the repair crews.

His days at the FleetAcademy had been dull, vaguely unsatisfying, his grades only fair. Much of what they taught of ship handling, piloting, inter cultural contact, and navigation was familiar to him from working on company ships, but he'd soon realized that his education had only touched the fringes of what he needed to know. He already had a solid grounding in fusion generator maintenance and repair, too, but null space theory, the arcane knowledge behind the 'infinite translocation' drive, was new to him, along with the care and nourishing of the living ships he would ride. Civilian ships were constructs of dead metal, far less responsive, but also a magnitude less expensive than the great metallo organic creatures of the Imperial Fleet. A hundred things had vied for his attention and study time, until he'd felt that there wasn't enough of him to go around.

He paused at the head of the stairs to catch his breath, suddenly aware that he'd been hurrying faster than he really needed to. There was an acrid odor, lingering in spite of air purifiers working at top speed. The stench of burnt metal and flesh. Skryben had taken several bad wounds, and the medics would be busy for days, carving away dead tissues and regenerating her great body.

There'd been social events at the Academy, of course. They were a required part of the education of a future officer. More parties than he'd had the time or the money to take advantage of. He wasn't yet of age, and none of the Korsun fortune was his to call on. The branch of the SpaceAcademy where he'd studied was on Thraxtel, far from any center of Imperial culture or power. Still, the planet's primary center of human population, Farsheel, was close by. Less than an hour's hop in a flitter. He'd had sufficient access to what few pleasures he could afford on a cadet's pay.

After graduation, he'd expected the usual dull tour of duty on remote posts, servicing the fleets of couriers that carried news and documents between far flung planets of the Empire. Instead, he'd been stunned when the top two thirds of his class had received orders to report by fast courier to Fleet HQ, a dirigible planetoid on the fringes of the Imperial System itself.

The Vortigen! On the attack! That was all he'd heard from the time he debarked at Fleet HQ, dizzy and sick from too many null space jumps, too close together. All across the spinward face of the Cluster, ships were being fired on. Not just freighters and passenger liners, but couriers, scouts, strike/probe ships, and even cruisers! Even a few maulers were reporting attacks, glancing blows from lean, angular ships that struck from out of the void and vanished. Every few hours, it seemed, ships were dropping out of hyper space and limping into port.

Almost as often, repaired and re crewed, they were jumping out again. He wasn't even assigned to quarters, and he'd not so much as seen any of his classmates again. His orders were waiting for him, and he'd found himself boarding the sleekly bulbous strike/probe ship, Skryben.

"Junior Officer," the assignment computer had told him. "Starting at Junior Third, Navigation and Mapping, then rotation through Communications and Weapons positions. You'll be the only Junior Officer aboard..."

There should have been from three to six J.O.'s aboard, one or two for each command position, but such niceties were for peace time. Now, promotions were coming thick and fast. Some, like his, came in the midst of battle. Others came as men and women were transferred to fill holes in ship's rosters, or to make up the crews of newly commissioned vessels.

Rand was brought back to the present by the soft chiming of his cabin's screen.

"Korsun, here," he answered. His breath caught as the screen cleared to reveal the smoothly sensuous features of First Medic Berniss Morss. Now that he was Third Officer, perhaps she would be...

"Third Officer Korsun." She smiled warmly at him from the screen. Her soft voice was like honey, matching well her smooth brown body and the heavy swag of hair that was tied back to fall like a mane down her back. He'd watched her from a distance as often as he could, after his brief meeting with her as he was logged aboard, not quite daring to strike up a conversation. She might have been in her early to mid thirties, but with a Medic you never knew for sure. "Please report at your convenience to my office. There are a few tests that go along with your new status. Really, just a formality."

He stammered an acknowledgment, dogged by a maddening feeling that the edges of his ears were glowing red, and the screen changed back to a pleasing abstract design. He'd detour by sick bay the first chance he had, and see what she wanted. He certainly didn't want to get the Ship's Medic down on him. That wouldn't be smart, even at the best of times, and he'd need all the help he could get to smooth his way after his quick promotion. Besides, he'd at least get to talk to her...