To Honor You Call Us (7 page)

“I noticed that the corridor and CIC weapons lockers have been removed.  I want all weapons lockers that were issued to this ship restored and stocked by zero six hundred. 

“I reviewed the Armorer’s log and there is no record of any officer on this vessel having his side arm serviced or his boarding cutlass sharpened in over a year.  I’ll personally inspect the side arms and boarding cutlasses of every officer when he goes on duty starting at zero six hundred tomorrow, that’s for all three watches, and I pity any of you who fail.  And, all of this goes for the Senior Noncommissioned Officers, as well.  Ratings of Petty Officer First or higher will carry arms just like the commissioned officers. 

“Major, what about your Marines?”

“Captain, we’re cocked, locked, and loaded for Krag.  Every member of the Marine detachment, including myself, carries an M-88 Pulse Rifle or an M-72 COB Shotgun, plus Model 62 or Model 1911 side arms, boarding cutlass, eight M-304 grenades, and combat knife when on duty.  Every man sleeps with weapons within easy reach.  Plus, well, sir, being
Marines
, sir . . . .”

“Right.  Every one of your men has one or two little personal surprises for any Krag that manages to get on the ship,” Max said, grinning.  He always liked the Marine approach to warfare.

“You got it Captain.  If they poke their little black noses onto the
Cumberland
, we want to welcome them properly.”  The Major produced a very wicked-looking six inch, double-edged dagger from his sleeve, twirled it deftly in his hand, and made it disappear back into his sleeve in less than two seconds.  

“We must never forget, gentlemen, that the purpose of this ship is to kill the enemy.  Killing is what we’re about, and every man and boy on board must be able to kill and be ready to kill at any moment.  Our crew, our whole crew, including the cooks and the youngest Midshipman, needs to be reminded continually that they’re warriors, not stewards on a passenger liner. 

“Because, gentlemen, if we are not ready to kill the Krag, I assure you that the Krag are ready to kill us.”

Max let that sink in for a few seconds.  Then, he touched a control on the table in front of him, causing a three dimensional display of the sector to appear over the wardroom table.  “Now, our mission.  Most of you know that we’re now on course for the Charlie jump point in this system,” a blinking circle appeared around one star.  “That jump leads to Markeb B.  From there, we will make our way jump by jump using an indirect route,” circles blinked around nineteen stars in sequence, tracing out a long, irregular arc, “through these uninhabited systems to reach the Free Corridor unobserved. 

“Intel informs us that the Krag have been making up production shortfalls and resource shortages by obtaining substantial war materiel in the Free Corridor.  They are buying raw materials, food, machine tools, and some pre-munition chemicals from neutral systems through human and neutral alien intermediaries, transferring them to their own freighters in deep space, and transporting them back to the Krag Hegemony.  The initial sellers never know that this stuff is going to the Krag. 

“Our orders: while respecting all recognized territorial space claims and neutral shipping, we are to conduct a War Patrol in the Free Corridor, where we are to attack and destroy any Krag vessels of any description or other vessels that we can positively determine to be carrying Krag cargo, as well as any other enemy targets of opportunity that may present themselves, provided, however, that we can engage them with a reasonable probability of success.”

Max noticed that a young Ensign, a
very
young Ensign, was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, as though he wanted to ask a question but was afraid to interrupt.  Max looked at the young man.  “If you have something to say, Ensign, say it.  That’s why I called you together here in person rather than just sending you written orders by email.”

“What about resupply?  Sir, I don’t know if you know this about this Destroyer class sir, but the Khybers have short legs.  The book says that we have an unsupported endurance of seventy-five days, tops.  With twenty-one days to get there, twenty-one days to get back, factor in a week for unexpected delays or if we have to come back by a longer route, that leaves only thirty-three days on station.  If they don’t send a tender in after us, it’s going to be a mighty short cruise.”

“You’re Ensign Thieu, the Supply Officer?”  The young man nodded.  “Good question.  Keep asking them.  It’s probably going to be shorter than that.  That seventy-five day endurance is a pretty optimistic figure, isn’t it?”  The Ensign nodded again.  “I’ve looked at the your stores inventory and it looks to me more like sixty days of consumption under intermittent combat conditions plus another five or six days of emergency rations.  That about right, Thieu?”

“Yes, sir.  That’s about how I calculate it, sir.”

“Fortunately, the Admiralty has thought about this problem.  They’ve prepositioned supplies, including weapons reloads, fuel, spares, and provisions in three separate locations for us in our operational area.  The locations are not in any Union database and are known only to me.  With what we’ve got on board and what’s been squirreled away for us, we’ve got what we need for about one hundred eighty days of intensive operations.  That’ll give us all the time we need to learn the lay of the land, scout out what the enemy is doing, find his ships, and blow them and their valuable war materiel to flaming atoms.  This ship is going to be doing what she was designed to do, gentlemen, bring the war to the enemy and hurt him where he lives—war production.  Questions?  None?  We’re adjourned.” 

* * *

A few minutes later, three Chief Petty Officers sat around a small table in a tiny office for the use of CPOs known as the “Goat Locker.”  They were not happy.  “Ship’s going to hell on a maglev rail,” said the first.

“You got that right,” said the second.  “First thing young Captain Row Bye Shit does is stop the crew from doing the one thing that it’s really good at.  You can’t have a taut ship if the men don’t have pride in her, that’s for sure.”

“And discipline’s going to go out the airlock, to boot,” the third chimed in.  “All this namby pamby nonsense about encouraging the men and not crossing the line and not punishing for not doing their duty . . . there’ll be hell to pay for it.  With this bunch, you’ve got to be on them every second and they’ve got to know that if they don’t do their duty there’s more waiting for them than harsh language and being put on report.” 

“On top of that, this young torpedo jockey is going to get us killed, every man and boy of us.  I can feel it.  He’s reckless.  And this deployment is a suicide mission.  It’s all right out of some third rate Trid Vid:  resupply caches known only to him, independent operations in the Free Corridor, destroy enemy shipping . . . all bullshit!”  The first one was starting to get worked up.  “That’s not what Destroyers do.  We’re
escorts
.  We operate with other ships.  Right in the training manuals it says that the functions of a Destroyer are primarily to screen larger ships from attack by fighters and other smaller ships, scout the route ahead, and operate as sensor pickets for the task force, not run around on our own in a distant sector cut off from all support like some over-long tree branch just waiting to get chopped off.  There’s only two ways this ends.  We’re all either cold dust between the stars or louse bait in some Krag POW camp.”

“Unless we do something about it, first,” said the second.

“Aye,” said the other two.

Chapter
4

11:10Z Hours 21 January 2315

The hand-addressed envelope in the captain’s safe had been confidential remarks from the Admiral himself addressed to Max’s attention and for his eyes only.  Max was sitting in the office section of his Day Cabin, a moderate space consisting of a desk and office chair, a few chairs for visitors, a few assorted other tables and chairs, and a small waiting room outside a door.  Max considered the Admiral’s comments while he waited for his next appointment due in a few minutes.

As always, the Admiral had said a lot in comparatively few words.  Max knew he would reread the note several more times before he squeezed all of the meaning out of it.  In particular, on top of some very interesting remarks about a few of the officers assigned to him, he found the Admiral’s comments about his own attributes troubling:  “Normally, a Navy Cross means a plum assignment.  In your case, however, certain conduct both in space and in the dirt causes me to have serious reservations about your judgment.  You know the incidents of which I speak.  As things stand now, the prospects of your rising above your present rank are extremely slender. 

“Still, you do seem to have a fire in your belly.  There is always the
remote
chance that this command experience will be the crucible that turns poor metal into steel.  So, against my better judgment, I am giving you this opportunity.  It is opportunity mitigated by serious challenges:  former CO is a loon, former XO a sycophantic martinet, ship shines better than it shoots and has performed miserably by every measure, NCOs are likely to try mutiny or sabotage if you change anything, and even the conscientious officers are green and not terribly proficient.  But, it is not all bad.  The ship is one of the best designs to come out of the yards in decades.  You will find reason, too, to thank me for the officers whom I have recently transferred to the vessel.  You are being given lemons.  Go make lemonade.  And kick some Krag ass while you’re at it.”

The Marine posted outside his door stuck his head in to let Max know that Dr. Sahin was here for his appointment.  “Send him in.”   

The doctor entered, approached Max’s desk, did a fair approximation of a salute, and started to take a seat. 

“Doctor, wait.”

The doctor froze.  Sahin was in something approaching combat gear, but his weapons belt had a twist in it and his boarding cutlass was attached to the wrong loop on the uniform.  Also, the sleeves were fastened in such a way that, if the ship lost pressure and the doctor had to put on his pressure gloves, they would not make a proper seal with the sleeves, the uniform would not hold pressure, and he would die.  “Doctor, first, you need to review the training file on this particular uniform.  You’ve got a few things wrong.  And, second, military courtesy dictates that you don’t sit in the presence of your commanding officer until and unless he invites you to do so.”

“I apologize, sir.  I have been serving almost exclusively in a hospital for my entire naval career.”

“I understand.  You’re probably going to want to brush up on these things now that you’re on a combat vessel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please be seated.”

The doctor sat. 

“Doctor, you’ve sure got an unusual background for a Chief Medical Officer on a warship.  Undergraduate degrees in Philology, Theology, Xeno-Botany, and Xeno-Herpetology, Master’s Degree in Interstellar Relations from the University of New Istanbul, second in your class at Johns Hopkins Medical School on Earth, Residency in the Trauma Unit of Beijing General Hospital.  And, according to your record, no one’s quite sure how many languages you speak.”

“I find it rather difficult to reckon myself, particularly as so many ‘languages’ are in reality only dialects or variants of other languages.  Suffice it to say that I can converse with virtually all of the humans and most of the aliens in the part of space to which we are headed.  The only language which gives me difficulty is the particular argot spoken in the Navy.” 

“As smart as you are, you won’t have any problems picking it up.  Now, on top of what your records say, Admiral Hornmeyer has notified me unofficially that you have personal contacts in the Free Corridor that might be able to put us on the trail of Krag purchases and ship movements.  Now, how in the big bright galaxy is that?”

“Captain, as you know, I was born on Tubek.  But, at the risk of sounding like a well-worn literary cliché about Arab and Turkish traders, my father’s ancestors for many generations have been merchants and traders from New Istanbul in the Markeb sector.”

“I’ve served on Patrol Vessels in that area.  Any company I might have heard of?”

“The firm was Harun Sahin & Sons, founded by my grandfather.”

“That’s not one I remember.  But, I’d remember only the largest ones and the ones who gave us trouble.”

“I am certain that our company would have been neither of those.  It was in that broad medium tier of firms.  We kept anywhere between five and seven ships running all the time, usually about half a dozen charters and the two owned by the company with family members on board.”

“Well, that wouldn’t make it one of the big players but that’s still a pretty good sized company.  Anyway, what kind of trading did your folks do?”

“There wasn’t any specialty, really.  They stayed away from contraband and extremely bulky goods such as ore and grain, but on the whole they simply looked for items in one system that they could buy and sell for a profit in another.  It really didn’t matter what, although I remember carrying a lot of precision machine tools, gourmet olive oil, and fine art Pfelung glassware.  The routes tended to be among the worlds of the Free Corridor and between the Free Corridor and the Union worlds in the Markeb and Tulloi sectors.  Because my cousin and I were to take over the business when my father and his brother became too old to run it, we frequently went along so we could be introduced to their business contacts and so the contacts would get to know us.”