3
Two days later Clement took a break from all the planning and organizing, which was frankly bogging his mind down, and made an impromptu “inspection” of Agamemnon just after lunch, leaving Yan and everyone else back at the office.
He stopped on the observation deck to take a look at his new behemoth, and she was a beauty to behold. Thirty-three decks of exotic titanium alloy metal superstructure with a conductive ceramic and nanotech skin, fully teeming with activity. He watched as the exterior construction crews in EVA suits swarmed over her, checking every seam and seal for flaws, the occasional spark light from a coil weld flashing in his eyes. Her stout rear propulsion units had five nozzles, three for the non-FTL ion plasma impeller drive and two more for the conventional chemical maneuvering thrusters. She was a mighty beast, broad and fulsome in her design. He could only imagine what the tech crews inside were doing to test and validate her internal systems.
He exited the lifter and took the station rail car to Agamemnon’s dock, number 39A. The car came to a stop in front of an open cargo bay door and Clement got out. All the bustling workers in the area stopped and took notice of the station’s Fleet Admiral in their midst, many of them saluting, even though that wasn’t standard protocol. Clement returned some of their salutes and then wearied of the task and simply began waving the workers away as he made his way through the stop-start of the crowd.
He hurried from the officer’s lift to Agamemnon’s command and control deck. Unlike the traditional “bridge” that was perched on top of a Navy ship, the CAC was nearly in the center deck of the enormous battlecruiser. As the lifter doors opened he stepped onto the primary hub of his new command.
“Admiral on the deck!” yelled the officer of the deck, following Navy tradition. At that, several heads whipped around from the many stations set around the CAC in a circle and they all stood to attention.
“At ease,” Clement said, and they all resumed their duties, though with an eye on their Fleet Admiral.
Clement stepped up onto the command platform and a female Marine officer immediately stepped up and saluted him. “Colonel Marina Lubrov, Admiral. I’m leader of the Marine contingent on Agamemnon and I currently have the con in the absence of Captain Yan. Will you take the con, Admiral?” she said. Lubrov was tall and thin, as Ukrainian descendants often were, with light brown hair which she was wearing down over her shoulders in a casual style. She had the high cheekbones and striking eyes common for her Slavic ancestry. From what Clement could tell she was probably under thirty years old, a young age for a Marine colonel, but such were the times in the Kemmerine sector that young officers with talent could advance quickly through the ranks. Clement remembered reading her file, but as far as he knew he had never met her. Those kinds of introductions were often better left to the ship’s captain.
“Not necessary, Colonel,” said Clement and returned the salute. Lubrov broke off her salute but still stayed at attention. “At ease, Colonel. I’m here to do an inspection. As you know we are less than two weeks away from our first migration mission to the Trinity system. I’d like a tour of the CAC and a basic breakdown of the ship’s systems, if you have time?”
“Of course, sir.” Lubrov assumed a more casual pose, hands behind her back, waiting.
Clement looked around the large room. It was bigger than any space on any Navy ship he had ever served on, fully three decks tall with multiple workstations arrayed in a nearly full circle. A huge multisided visual display projected above the deck, visible to all corners (and any station) at all times.
“I didn’t expect you today, Admiral,” said Lubrov. “Your schedule looked full. If we’d known you were coming, we could have prepared a more formal greeting.”
“No need for that, Colonel, but thank you for the thought.” Clement looked to the captain’s station, a large, curved console lit up from below displaying a variety of ship systems, star charts, and visual displays at a fingertip’s touch. There were also papers strewn about the console in a haphazard matter. When Lubrov saw where the admiral’s attention had been drawn, she quickly gathered the papers up off of the console and stepped aside to the XO’s position. Clement stepped up, taking in the console. It came up to just above his waist, about ninety centimeters tall. “Run me through the console, would you, Colonel?”
“Of course, sir. You have a variety of views possible from here, sir,” started in Lubrov, by way of explanation. “On your left are ship’s internal systems. You can bring up any one of them, or multiple views, by dragging and dropping them in the primary display area, where they will pop up in a 3D heads-up display for you to view. At the top of the console you have access to tactical maps, deep-space scans, weapons status, and a variety of other command functions. To the right are your science displays, including speed of the ship, course, distance from the nearest star, etc. The simple touch of your fingers on the display console will automatically configure the desktop to your personal preferences. You can save your configuration with a simple voice command.”
“Thank you for the tutorial, Colonel,” said Clement as he began reconfiguring the desktop, moving communications, propulsion, navigation, helm, weapons, gravity systems and science displays so that they were within an arm’s-length reach at all times. On a whim he brought up the propulsion and weapons systems. The two systems displays floated in the air just at his eye level, and could be rotated or expanded at his will. Propulsion was dark, save for a thruster test set to run at 1600 hours. Weapons showed the ship was stocked to sixty percent capacity, with a large complement of missiles (over six hundred, including twenty nukes) that would eventually be available, though the nukes would be the last weapons loaded. The rest showed an inventory of rods (formerly called Hell Lances, the nomenclature changed by Yan to “Rods of God”), DEW weapons, and other kinetic weapons such as scatter mines. Clement waved the displays back down to the console and said, “Save configuration, Clement 1.” The console computer gave him an affirmative beep.
He came around the console then and stood at the safety railing to look at the other stations, taking in the CAC. He’d seen it before in various stages of construction, but never this complete and functional. Lubrov joined him at the platform railing and Shepard took up a position just behind him.
The CAC was arranged with stations and duty officers for each of the ship’s main functions spread equally around the room. Clement counted twelve stations with their own consoles. It had three entry points, the lifter station just to the left of the command platform, plus two large adjoining access corridors, one to each side of the room at about forty-five degrees to the command console.
“Any of these stations can be relocated at any time, depending on your preferences. Of course they are currently configured to mine, and no doubt your preferences will be different,” she said.
“No doubt. There will be plenty of time for that later though, Colonel.”
“Of course, sir.”
Lubrov motioned for Clement to follow her, stepping down onto the deck and showing the admiral the main display screen. The large, circular plasma hovered over the center of the room, giving all stations access to the same view. They toured the different command stations, Clement stopping at each one to meet the duty officers and make small talk with the people manning them, asking about their lives, their enthusiasm for the mission, etc., all to make them more comfortable, not him.
Clement noted that almost all of the stations were manned by junior officers, not department heads. “That will have to change,” he said to Lubrov, once they were together in the admiral’s private office behind the command platform. He and Captain Yan had identical working offices side by side.
“That won’t be popular, sir. Most of the department heads prefer to work at their primary station locations and just report up through the duty officers.”
Clement smiled, but he was not happy. “I prefer to have my department heads on the deck when I am on duty, Colonel. I find if there are decisions to be made or arguments against a certain policy that they are best conducted in person. It’s hard to read a person’s intent over a com line or on a small portrait display.”
“I understand, sir, but I think—”
“Please prepare a memo to the staff about my new preferences. They are to be implemented on Monday,” Clement finished over the top of her. He had very little patience at the moment, and he wondered if it was because of the new low-calorie diet Yan had put him on. He made a mental note to get that changed as soon as possible.
Lubrov hesitated a second, then continued. “We do most of the staff assignments on Tuesdays, sir. It might be better to—”
“Monday, please, Colonel. And read in Captain Yan on my changes. I want all of us on the same page. We’ll have nearly a month of travel time to the Trinity system to get things down, but by the time we get there I expect us to be perfect.” The two officers looked at each other across the desk. There was no doubt which one of them sat in the admiral’s chair.
“Monday then, Admiral.” Lubrov looked down and made a note on her personal com pad. “I’ll have the duty list to you by Sunday evening. Will you be taking up your quarters onboard by then?”
Clement thought about that. “Not quite yet,” he said. “I’m expecting some important migrants to arrive on the station soon. I think it would be best if I stayed on the station until they’re on board.”
“Of course, sir. Any special accommodations I can arrange for them?”
“No. I’ve already arranged a VIP guest cabin for them.”
“Of course, sir. Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. Please inform Captain Yan that I expect her to move her personal quarters to Agamemnon by Sunday evening. As of Monday morning this ship is on operational status. Our mission begins then.”
“Very well, sir,” said Lubrov, then she stood to leave. “With your permission, Admiral?”
Clement looked up at her. “Just one more thing, Colonel,” he said. “I prefer that my senior officers, my female senior officers anyway, wear their hair in a less casual way if they keep it long. I’m not saying you have to cut it, but it should be properly pulled back and . . . restrained in some way. And just so you know, I insist any male officers above cadet keep a clean-shaven face when on duty, and no neck beards or man buns. It’s different with the tech ratings of course, but I want my senior staff to be an example of discipline.”
Lubrov didn’t flinch at the comment, and stayed rigid in light of what could be considered a criticism. “Understood, sir,” she said evenly. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Clement leaned back in his chair. “Of course.”
“With respect, sir, you yourself are currently sporting the five o’clock shadow look, and often do so for days at a time, I’m told. Isn’t that technically a beard?”
Clement thought about that for a second, then shot back, “I’m the admiral of the fleet, Colonel.” Lubrov waited for more, saying nothing, but her face was expectant. They stood there staring at each other for a few moments, Clement unwilling to give in on the point, but impressed by the challenge the colonel presented. He could tell she was a proud officer and not afraid to speak her mind, just as her personnel file had stated. He liked that in her.
“Anything else before I return to my duties, Admiral?” The question was asked respectfully enough, but Clement noted she was pointing out to him that she had better things to do than spar with the Fleet Admiral.
Eventually he replied, ignoring her challenge. “Tell me, Colonel, do you know the current location of Chief Engineer Hassan Nobli?”
Lubrov was nonplussed. “I believe he’s in the reactor room, sir, as he is on most days. He doesn’t mingle with the crew much, and he rarely reports in to me when I have the con.”
“I see. I’ll have to have a talk with him about being more social. Um, what deck is the reactor room on?”
“Decks 11, and 12 and 14,” she said. “It’s a big room. But the entrance is on deck 11, sir.”
“Thank you. You’re dismissed, Colonel,” he said. At that Lubrov turned to finally leave. “Oh, and Colonel . . .” She stopped and turned back to him. He looked down at his desk console, pretending to read coms. “You’re correct about my personal grooming. As Fleet Admiral I will endeavor to set the prime example.”
“Of course, sir,” Lubrov said with a nod, and then was on her way.
Clement twirled in his chair a bit after she was gone, looking around the room, marveling at the sheer scale of everything. It wasn’t at all like the close comfort of his former command, the Beauregard. She was a ship that if he allowed himself to admit it, he was much more comfortable on than this monster. Still, Agamemnon was a necessity in case any new adversaries showed up in the Trinity system. He found that a disturbing thought, so he got up and went to the command platform again.
“You have the con, Colonel,” he called to Lubrov. The colonel turned and snapped off another salute, which was unnecessary but appreciated.
“Acknowledge. I have the con, Admiral.” With that Clement departed, heading for the reactor room and to have a quick chat with his favorite, if eccentric, chief engineer.
When Clement stepped into the Agamemnon’s reactor room, it was empty. All the control consoles were dark except one. Clement stepped up to the lighted console and saw that it was a system’s diagnostic, running quietly in the background of the primary propulsion computer. The room was huge, every bit as impressive as the CAC, only more so because this one contained not one, but two LEAP reactors. These models were huge compared to the boiler-sized chamber they’d had on the Beauregard. These were easily twice that size, maybe more, he estimated. He was about to call out to see if anyone was on duty, perhaps lost in the distant mist of the ship’s power center, but just then he heard a familiar sound, banging, metal on metal. Someone was using a hammer, and Clement thought he knew who that someone might be.
He walked past the first reactor. The inner chamber door was sealed and all was quiet. After a brief pause, the hammering resumed, and Clement could see from his position that the second reactor chamber had its door open. As he walked toward the yellow-colored metal cast reactor he heard a second hammer distinctly pounding. If it was just Nobli, he was using both hands. If it wasn’t, he had a companion, which was a surprise. Nobli almost exclusively worked alone.
He came up to the open chamber door and stuck his head in. “Nobli, are you in there?” he called. His voice echoed in the hollow metal sphere. Clement could see a small arc light at the far end of the chamber illuminating the wall of the reactor, but couldn’t make out any silhouettes.
Presently there were footsteps and out of the darkness came Nobli and a young woman, obviously his new tech. Nobli stuck his head out of the reactor door, his hair a mop of messy curls, his glasses cocked off to one side and his face covered in grime. In short, he looked happy. “Clement! What the fuck are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m working?”
Clement threw up his arms in a helpless gesture. “Nobli, can’t you at least pretend I’m an admiral for once?”
“Ah, shit, I guess so. What can I do for you, Admiral?” he said, leaning casually against the chamber door. It was as formal as Nobli ever got.
Clement pointed to the deck. “Down here,” he said. Nobli let out a sigh and came down the three-step ladder to the deck. His tech stood at the door opening. “You too.” She dropped her hammer and came down the steps as well.
“What’s this all about, Admiral?” said Nobli.
“Inspection,” replied Clement.
“Inspection? Cut the bullshit, Clement. I don’t have time for this. We leave in less than a week and if I can’t get the outflow tubes on this thing to work correctly, we’ll be doing it swimming with one arm all the way to Trinity. It’s got to be fixed.”
Clement hesitated a second before responding, looking back and forth between Nobli and his tech. “With hammers?” he said, incredulously.
Nobli shrugged. “The nanotube goo they use in these reactor castings sometimes leaves some edge flashing. I’ve found that the best method for removing it is to pound it back into the hull of the reactor. Plus, this stuff is almost impossible to trim off. And this piece is partially blocking one of the outflow tubes, so . . .”
“I see.” Clement turned his attention back to the tech. “And you are?”
“Technician Assistant Third Class Kim Reck, sir!” she said with enthusiasm.
Well nice to meet you, Tech Reck. You can resume your duties. I have things to talk with Engineer Nobli about.”
“Sir!” said Reck again, practically shouting it. Clement waved her off and she scrambled into the dark of the reactor chamber. Presently the distant pounding resumed.
Clement looked to Nobli. “I never expected you to get a sidekick. I’ve only ever seen you work alone.”
“Well, you need to get used to it. That girl is the find of the century. She’s a natural specialist in electromagnetic systems and she’s smart enough to fix anything around here, and I mean anything. If I could clone her I’d make another hundred of her and we could run the whole damn fleet. She may be a little rough around the edges, but so was I once.”
“Once?”
Nobli shrugged again. “Point taken, Admiral. Now what can I help you with? I’m a busy man.”
“I can see that. I just want an update on the status of this ship, and of course the rest of the fleet.”
Nobli nodded. “Let’s do it in my office,” he said. He stuck his head inside the reactor chamber again and yelled, “I’ll be in the office, Kim. Carry on until I can get rid of the admiral here.”
“Got it, Hass,” came back the echoey response. Both men started for Nobli’s office, the engineer leading the way.
“Kim? Hass?” Clement commented. “Pretty familiar. Is there something going on here I should know about?”
“We’re just friends and coworkers. She’s way too young for me, and besides, I’m still seeing Maggie.”
“Ah, I see.”
Maggie was a bar maid at the Battered Hull, Clement’s favorite Navy bar on the station. She and Nobli had hit it off after the first Trinity mission. He had assumed everything was good between them, but the interaction with Tech Reck had given him a different impression, now resolved.
Nobli’s office was twice the size of the one he had on the Beauregard. They stepped inside, Nobli sitting behind his desk and Clement taking up a side chair.
“So what do you want to talk about?” pressed Nobli, obviously put out that he had to waste valuable engineering time talking to his commanding officer, even if they were friends.
“First, give me an update on my flagship.”
Nobli nodded. “She’s ready to go. All of her conventional propulsion systems are ready and tested, I’ve got a good crew, and morale is high. Even the new people seem motivated. I am thinking about releasing Lieutenant Tsu to other duties, though. Frankly, there were enough station techs with way more experience on these systems than him that were anxious to sign on for the mission. I’ve filled out the duty rosters pretty quickly. Tsu mainly acts as my gopher, but I don’t think he’s very happy down here.”
“Sounds like a change is in order,” said Clement, pulling out his com pad and quickly sending out a reassignment order for Tsu. The young man had been useful on the first Trinity mission, but it was important that he find a good, permanent home on the Agamemnon. “Done.” Then he put the com down on Nobli’s desk.
“As for the other systems?” asked Clement.
Nobli looked up at him from under his round wireframe spectacles with a skeptical look on his face. “I suppose by that you mean the MAD weapon?”
“I do.” The MAD weapon, which stood for “Matter Annihilation Device,” a term Nobli had coined, had been ingeniously improvised by the engineer on the first Trinity mission. It had been a tricky fix, involving coating normal metal pipes with a carbon nanotube goo used in the LEAP drive pipes that could handle the tremendous release of matter/antimatter energy the reactor produced. Clement didn’t pretend to know all the particulars, he just knew that it worked and that Nobli was at least a minor genius for figuring it out. That fix had allowed Clement the ability to access the LEAP reactor’s energy plasma and project it as a weapon, using a systems app on his command console onboard the Beauregard. Ultimately, all Clement really knew about it was that it was the most powerful weapon any known civilization had ever developed. The Beauregard’s smaller reactor size had limited the weapon to mostly single-use scenarios. Agamemnon, though, would be a different proposition.
“I have the app already programmed into your command console. It will be activated when the ship starts the voyage to Trinity and we turn the LEAP reactors on. So, you’ll once again have the power to destroy the gods who created you.”
Clement tried to smile, knowing this was a difficult subject for Nobli and not something he had agreed with installing on Agamemnon. “I doubt I’ll use it for that purpose, Hassan, but we may need it someday, and having it active on this battlecruiser is the safest strategy I can think of,” he finished.
Nobli stopped then and looked at his friend. “This kind of power, it can only be used if there is no alternative. You understand that, don’t you, Jared?”
“I do. When I had to use it at Trinity the first time, it almost broke me. All those lives lost. But did we have another choice?”
Nobli shook his head, expressing sympathy for his friend. “No, we didn’t. If we hadn’t used it Elara DeVore would be building her little empire on the backs of native slaves and the resources of the Trinity worlds would be cut off forever, and that would have condemned the Five Suns to starvation and death on a massive scale. You probably saved billions of lives with that single act, Admiral. And you should be rightly proud of that.”
Clement nodded in agreement, but still, almost two years later, the decision to destroy so many people at one time played on his conscience. The Five Suns fleet had probably lost almost six thousand souls to the MAD weapon, and untold thousands were lost on the Earth Ark ship he had destroyed. Yan had told him once that she estimated there were probably thirty thousand soldiers on the Ark. It was a statistic he found he didn’t really want to know.
Clement looked down at the floor of the office, thinking. Knowledge about a weapon with that kind of power had to be severely restricted to a need-to-know basis. Clement had determined there were precious few people he trusted enough to share that information with. He looked back to Nobli.
“Are you satisfied that the MAD technology is still a secret?”
Nobli nodded. “It is among this fleet, I’m sure of that, but DeVore had many of her scientists working on weapons applications for the LEAP energy. They would have figured it out eventually.”
“Fortunately, she took all of her top scientists with her to Trinity, and now they’re probably spending their days spearfishing for their dinners.” Clement paused then, reflecting on the pain of the betrayal DeVore had burdened him with, both as a ship captain and as her former lover. It was impossible for him to ignore, but as time went on he felt the personal pain less and less, and he still held out hope it would one day be completely gone. Today was not that day.
“What are you going to do with her, Jared?” said Nobli softly. They had all been friends once. She had even set Nobli up on a couple of disastrous dates with some of her girlfriends back in their Rim Confederation days.
Clement sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. My focus right now is on this mission. Elara DeVore is something, someone, I don’t have time to consider right now. And for the moment, her exile on Alphus is the best thing for all of us.”
Nobli leaned closer to his friend, sensing his internal struggle. “If you don’t mind, I have a suggestion, friend to friend, not engineer to admiral.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening, as a friend.”
“Good. Jared, you have to stop thinking of her as your friend, as the woman we fought with and flew with and that we all loved in some way, you, obviously, differently than the rest of us. She’s clearly not that person anymore, not after fifteen years. You need to, as much as possible, just think of her as Admiral DeVore, traitor to two nations, the Rim Confederation and the Five Suns Alliance. If you can do that, and I know it will be hard, then perhaps by the time we get back to Trinity you can be clear, and make a decision on the fate of Admiral DeVore, rather than Elara DeVore.”
Clement looked at his friend. “You’re a very wise man, Nobli. How did you get this far in life without sharing this kind of wisdom before?”
Nobli spread his hands. “Who knew, right? I’m just your friend, Jared, as well as your engineer and a loyal crewmate. I’ve seen you suffer through this situation for a while now. This is how I’ve been coping with the memories, the good and the bad.”
Clement took in a deep breath. “Sound advice. I’ll meditate on that for a while.”
“That should help. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to my hammering. I don’t want Tech Reck to have all the fun.”
Clement laughed out loud, the first time he’d done that in a while, then dismissed his engineer. As he headed to take the lifter to the deck housing the admiral’s cabin, he was grinning from ear to ear for the first time in weeks.