Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship (5 page)

"Navigation, you have command authority for the warp transition," Jackson said. "You may engage at your discretion."

"Aye, sir, we have command authority," the chief said while pointing emphatically at something on the screen and nudging the junior spacer's head with his elbow.

"Emitters are charged and ready, Captain," Lieutenant Peters said.

"Good, good," Jackson said absently as he watched the timer count down to the five-minute mark. The emitters for the warp drive, an apparatus in its fifth iteration on human ships, were able to charge in a remarkably short time. Jackson liked to wait until the last minute to begin applying power so that there was less chance of a variance developing between the fore and aft arrays before they were slammed with power from the drive's capacitor banks. If for some reason they didn't charge in time the ship would simply overfly the jump point and either come back around or move off-course to begin diagnostics. It wasn't Fleet procedure, but neither were about two dozen other standing orders Jackson had on the
Blue Jacket
.

"Go ahead and spin the gravity down to one half G," he ordered when the clock showed three minutes to go. OPS entered the appropriate orders and he could immediately feel the pull of gravity lessen.

"Gravity set to one half G," Peters confirmed.

Since the warp drive worked on the principle of gravimetric wave manipulation, standard procedure was to reduce power to the primary gravimetric field generator. It eliminated the risk of the two systems interfering with each other. While in warp, most of the ship would feel a nominal one-half G while the compartments at the fore and aft would experience around one-fifth G. If the crew ever forgot to reduce the field the ship would do it for them or it would not allow them to initiate a warp transition.

"Stand by for warp transition!" the salty chief at Navigation bellowed, causing everyone else on the bridge to start slightly. Jackson grinned to himself as he knew the chief's exuberant announcement was carried shipwide by the computer. There was a sharp klaxon alarm that blasted once and then Jackson could see the forward emitters begin to glow bright blue as the capacitors dumped an incredible amount of energy into them. The main display automatically began to dim the areas around the three visible emitters as the glow quickly increased from blue to brilliant white and visible distortions could be seen arcing between them, creating a ring of gravimetric energy around the prow of the ship that was inverse to the one happening at the stern.

In less than a second the main display dimmed completely and there was a violent shudder as the warp field stabilized and the
Blue Jacket
simply disappeared from the Alpha Centauri system in a brilliant flash of light from the residual protons left by the warp transition.

Chapter 4

The next four days passed quickly as Jackson, Celesta, and Daya Singh made a thorough inspection of the ship to verify the remaining depot checklist items from the work Jericho Station did and to give the new XO a chance to tour the ship and meet the crew. By the end of the fourth day Jackson was sure she wouldn't remember the names of even a tenth of the crew since she’d probably shaken the hands of over eleven hundred spacers during her tour.

She'd impressed Jackson with the fact she had obviously been studying the
Raptor
-class specs in her downtime and was willing to crawl into the dingiest access hatch without a moment's hesitation. She was attentive and remembered even the most mundane detail she was told by the ship's technical staff. Jackson allowed himself just a sliver of hope that he'd finally been assigned a decent exec. It was only the way in which she'd been placed on his ship that gave him pause. Stevenson may have been a slovenly, lazy, piss-poor excuse for an officer, but he was loyal to a fault and didn't balk at Jackson's more ... unconventional ... approach to commanding a starship. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he doubted that Stevenson had actually asked to be transferred. The man simply had no ambition and a transfer to Fourth Fleet meant he would need to start living up to Fleet standards. Like bathing every day.

"Fucking bitch," he muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Celesta asked, a look of shock on her face as she looked up from the report she was reading.

"No!" Jackson said quickly. "Sorry, Commander. I was talking to myself."

"I see," she said, obviously not convinced.

"So what do you think of the
Blue Jacket
and her crew?" he asked, wanting to change the subject.

She maintained her icy silence for a moment before answering. "At roughly six hundred meters long and over a hundred meters at the beam, I'm honestly a little surprised at how cramped everything is on the lower decks," she said.

"Well, the outer hull is nearly two meters of solid alloy," Jackson said. "Then you have another ten meters of layered protection before even getting to the inner hull. All the machinery and storage areas take up most of the space, which means the crew has to live in some fairly cramped quarters."

"I understand that, sir," she said. "It was just an observation. The last cruiser I was on had much more room and we weren't tasked with cruises even half as long as this ship sees."

"I've read about the ship you were on, Commander," Jackson said with a chuckle. "It was only commissioned five years ago. A lot of advancements in ship design since this destroyer was built, not to mention a shift in focus."

"How do you mean that, sir?" she asked.

"Your cruiser was contracted, designed, and built by companies on planets within Britannia," he said. "While it may give an obligatory nod to CENTCOM and Haven, it was built with the intent that it would never leave Britannic space. This ship was designed at a time when there was still the outside chance it would actually have to fight, not just carry the flag."

"I would disagree with you on principle, but I think I see where you're coming from," she said with a frown. "Most newer First Fleet ships are beautiful to look at, impressive in their size and technology, but I don't see the hardened systems or multiple layers of redundancy I've seen on the
Blue Jacket
."

"I don't necessarily disagree with the new approach," Jackson said with a shrug. "With all the planets and resources out there for the taking, humans haven't fought with each other for centuries. We've never seen any evidence of another potentially hostile species and the expansion of the com drone network means less and less trips out for manned ships. I think we may see CENTCOM dissolved in our lifetimes and Fleet operations turned over to private contractors."

Celesta shuddered at that. "I certainly hope not, sir," she said. "I would hate to see Fleet be broken up and sold to the highest bidder."

"As would I," Jackson agreed. "The signs are there, however. Each year it gets harder and harder for the Senate to agree on the operational budget, never mind anything remotely resembling weapons R&D. But I suppose that's well above my paygrade."

"It's interesting speculation nonetheless, sir," Celesta said. "If you have nothing else for me, I think I'll turn in before my watch starts."

"Of course, Commander," Jackson said with a nod. "Dismissed." She nodded to him and walked out of the office. He hit the control to lock the hatch and to extinguish the illuminated indicator that let people know if he was in or not. He made the pretense of pulling up some overdue fitness reports and going through them. Absently he keyed open a locked drawer at the bottom of his desk, reached past the antique sidearm sitting in its holster, and wrapped his fingers around the neck of a squat, heavy bottle. He pulled it out and set it on the corner of his desk without actually looking at it, continually shuffling around words in the report statements, all the while watching the clock closely out of the corner of his eye.

When First Watch officially ended he leaned back in his chair and stretched, yawning hugely. Shrugging to himself, he grabbed a short plastic cup off the shelf by his desk and poured a generous two fingers from the bottle into it. He swirled it around in the bottom, bringing it to his nose, giving a little shudder as he did. This was genuine Kentucky bourbon from his home planet, not the rotgut he suspected his engineering staff was making in stills down in the lower decks. Alcohol was strictly forbidden on Fleet starships for obvious reasons, but there never seemed to be a shortage of it once a cruise started.

Jackson took the first tentative sip, letting the amber liquid play across his tongue before tilting his head up and letting it burn all the way down to his stomach. He followed that with another, more generous sip before setting the glass back on his desk. There were only four bottles left in the case in his quarters so he would need to conserve what he had until he could figure out a way to get another shipment, or at least get some of the acceptable commercial spirits available on any civilized planet they came across.

He continued pecking at the keyboard for the better part of an hour, draining two-thirds of the bottle away without being consciously aware of it. When he finally grew bored of pretending he was working he shut off the interface to the ship's personnel server and brought up a playlist of soft jazz, piping it into the speakers in the ceiling at a low volume. He grabbed the bottle and, with teeth set, screwed the cap back on before replacing it in the locked drawer. As the soothing music washed over him, the familiar self-loathing rose up in him at his inability to control himself. Sighing heavily, he killed the music, pulled a pillow out of a wall locker, and stretched out on the sofa that ran along the bulkhead. It wouldn't do at all to have his crew see him stumbling bleary-eyed back to his quarters.

****

"These are your new mission parameters," Aston Lynch said, handing Jackson another sealed envelope with hardcopy orders enclosed.

"You couldn't have given me these before we left Alpha Centauri?" Jackson asked as he plucked at the seal on the envelope's flap.

"Operational security, Captain," Lynch said in a condescending voice that earned him a hostile glare from Jackson. "If these had been available while still within range of the com drone network the mission could have been compromised."

"Mr. Lynch, I have a hard time believing anybody would really be that concerned that you are traveling to Tau Ceti," Jackson said, his head pounding as he tried to read the small print on the sheet in front of him. "These are just navigational updates. What could possibly be so secret about these?"

"Look closer, Captain," Lynch said. "There are also emission security protocols and very specific com instructions for once we arrive."

Jackson just rolled his eyes and passed the sheet over to Celesta. "Sort it out, Commander," he told her. "If anything appears to be too far out of the ordinary please inform me."

"At once, sir," she said and began reading through the document.

"Is there any particular reason we're deviating course and stopping outside of the system instead of flying the normal route?" Jackson asked.

"That is sensitive information, Captain," Lynch said.

"I understand that," Jackson said, rubbing his temples with his left hand. "But the bridge is a secure location and they're going to find out sooner or later ... unless you planned to confine them to quarters and fly the ship in yourself."

"Just follow the orders given to you, Captain," Lynch sneered. "Everything you need to know is in them and nothing more."

"Your course correction has us transitioning into real space outside the system, but not so deep in space that there aren't navigational hazards," Jackson said with more patience in his voice than he felt. "That's why we have pre-determined routes into, and out of, star systems. If I feel like you are putting this ship at unnecessary risk I will ignore these orders and stick to our original course. That is, of course, unless you can give me some assurances otherwise."

"The spot in which we will transition is clear," Lynch said quietly, still seeming unaware that every ear on the bridge was straining to hear what he was saying. "It's an area that's been used for these types of handoffs before. The data Commander Wright has in her hand will confirm the details of that."

"Very well," Jackson said, not feeling like dragging out the conversation any longer than it had already gone. "I will review the orders and make the necessary adjustments. If I have any other concerns I will contact you, otherwise be prepared to arrive in approximately thirty-six hours."

"Thank you," Lynch said, stepping over and whispering something in Celesta's ear before continuing off the bridge. Despite a burning curiosity, Jackson didn't ask what he had said and she didn't offer to tell him.

"While these orders are a bit unusual I don't see anything in here to be overly concerned about, Captain," she said, handing the orders back to him. "We'll be rendezvousing with another ship in that area so I think we can assume it's clear of any hazards."

"Maybe," he said, unconvinced, before raising his voice. "OPS! Scan these orders in and ensure they're properly disseminated."

"Yes, sir," Ensign Davis said, grabbing the sheet from Jackson and heading back to her station. The scancode on the orders would access the data all the different departments would need to execute them from the secure server that had been loaded at Jericho Station. The hardcopy orders were an archaic method to ensure the server couldn't easily be accessed until it was necessary.

"If it's as simple as the orders seem to indicate, once we deliver Lynch we'll be on our way to our next port of call," Celesta said quietly, leaning in towards Jackson a bit so she didn't have to raise her voice. He self-consciously leaned away from her and simply nodded at her assessment, not wanting to breathe on her.

"Provide me a synopsis of the order updates and send it to my inbox," he said, standing up. "See if you can dig out who we're supposed to be meeting up with in all that cloak and dagger nonsense I was reading in there. I'll be in my office."

"Aye, sir," she said, the narrowing of her eyes barely perceptible as he walked quickly off the bridge.