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7

A week into the interstellar traverse from Kemmerine Station to the Trinity system, things aboard ship had settled down to a non-frantic pace. Yan and Lubrov had developed a working daytime routine of running the Agamemnon with quiet efficiency. The two of them were coordinating split shifts at the con, overseeing ship operations from the command console with a couple of hours each day of overlapping duty time. OOTD Shepard had the honor of holding the con during the graveyard shift, something the admiral had personally ordered to give the young man a bit of experience.

Clement noted the two women under his command (from two different military backgrounds, the Five Suns Navy and the Marines) got along well enough professionally even if that was not shared in a close personal relationship. Frankly, in Clement’s eyes, they didn’t have to be the best of friends to work well together, and he didn’t expect them to take that relationship off-line. They served two different purposes in his mind, Yan being the well organized and efficient one, and Lubrov being the one that worked best at keeping the crew sharp and running them through their paces. They each had their pros and cons, but he felt completely comfortable having the two of them as his captain and her XO.

He didn’t want Yan to know this, but he actually believed Lubrov would be the one he would consult in a crisis. He’d read her file again and saw her top-level rating from the Five Suns Naval War College on Atlas. Each command program candidate in the Navy had to do a full semester at the college, and Lubrov had excelled in the class of 2509. Yan had been less distinguished in the ’11 class, but still well above the median, just not as shiny as Lubrov.

Captain Samkange of the Corvallis had also been in that ’09 class with the colonel, and he’d finished just outside the top ten candidates, while Lubrov had finished in the top three. The first two finishers and many of the others in the class of twenty-five cadets from ’09 had been with the Five Suns Navy at the Battle of Trinity. Clement had to assume they were either dead (by his own hand using the MAD weapon) or exiled on the inner habitable planet of Alphus. In any case, he felt he had three excellent subordinates following him in the chain of command.

He tried to stay off the command deck as much as he could and let the crew do their jobs. An admiral with all that rank bling on his uniform could be a big distraction on a working deck. He tried to tone it down as much as he could, not being one for putting on much of a show, but there was no denying he had an impact on the crew whenever he came to the CAC, even on those that had served with him in the Rim Confederation Navy, like Mika Ori or Nobli.

He assumed a more casual schedule, what with things so locked down and the ship running with such efficiency. Dinner with his parents had become a semi-regular occurrence, mostly held in their finely appointed stateroom. They had both come around on the migration, and he’d even managed to convince his father that they weren’t going to be stealing any land from the natives. Still, reluctance remained, which was common among the migrants. They were leaving the only homes they had ever known to take a long, unprecedented journey through interstellar space to a new promised land that they had never seen. It required a great deal of faith on all their parts.

After a pleasant but quick lunch with his parents Clement had taken to making his rounds to different stations around the ship, checking in on junior officers, getting personal anecdotes on the running of the ship that weren’t in his daily reports, and generally just keeping himself busy. He found being an admiral had its drawbacks, and at times, he even found himself bored.

His first stop on this day was the weapons bay and control room, an area of the ship that dwarfed what he had ever experienced on his tiny gunship, the Beauregard, now safely tucked away in the Agamemnon’s huge landing bay. He stepped into the control room unannounced, there to find the stations being manned by the young Lieutenants Telco and Tsu, who had come aboard on the first mission to Trinity as final semester cadet candidates. Clement had seen fit to promote them both twice since then.

“Gentlemen,” he said as he stepped on the deck. Both Telco and Tsu turned and snapped to attention.

“Admiral! We didn’t expect you today,” said Telco, looking surprised, as if he’d just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Clement glanced at the station monitors behind each of the men.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise inspection if I told you I was coming, now would it?” the admiral said with a smile.

“No, sir,” replied Telco.

“Lieutenant Tsu,” said Clement, acknowledging the other young man in the room with a nod. “At ease, both of you. I’m not here for any serious business, just to get your personal overview of what you think of the weapons systems here aboard Agamemnon.” Both of the young lieutenants relaxed a bit then and Telco turned from his console and blanked it, speaking first as the senior weapons officer.

“She’s quite a bit different than anything we had on board the Beauregard,” said Telco nervously.

“That much should be obvious,” replied Clement with a smirk, trying to get the young men to relax.

“She’s just got so many systems compared to what we ran before on the Beauregard. We have scatter mines, we have kinetic rounds, we have the Rods of God, our conventional missiles, antimissile torpedoes, DEW weapons, nuclear warheads . . . that’s a lot to keep track of, sir,” rattled off Telco.

“I’m sure of that,” said Clement, “but tell me how are you two working together? I mean, who handles what responsibilities?” He looked to Lieutenant Tsu for an answer this time.

“Well, sir,” started Tsu, also clearly nervous. “Telco here handles all the electronic systems. He’s responsible for charging the Directed Energy Weapons, coordinating missile release loads, arming of the mines, etc. I mostly focus on making sure that the physical maintenance is done. Things like making sure the torpedo tubes and missile launchers are properly maintained and loaded, that there are missiles ready to load and go at any time, and that we have the nuke case available whenever the control keys are released by the senior officers.”

“Those would be Captain Yan and Colonel Lubrov on this trip,” said Clement. “I won’t be getting involved in any of that unless one of them isn’t available. I guess you would call it admiral’s privilege, but it’s more like I’m excluded from all the fun.” They all laughed at that. Clement quizzed further. “How many support techs do you two have working for you?”

“Seven,” said Telco. “They’re all cross-trained. Most can handle almost any procedure, be it loading or arming mines or charging the coil cannons. It’s a good crew and when neither Tsu nor I are on duty we have no problem handing things over to them. We have a tight crew and everybody has everyone else’s backs.”

“That’s great,” said Clement. “I just wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly.”

“Sir,” spoke up Tsu, “do you think we’ll be needing all this weaponry when we get to Trinity?”

Clement hesitated a second before answering. “Well, son, I hope not, but you never know. We know the Earth government sent one colonization ship with that first ark we faced down, and you never know, there could be another coming right behind it. But we’re hopeful that’s not the case, and none of our longwave scanning indicates anything heading our way. But, as I said, you never know.”

“Will we be establishing a permanent military outpost at Trinity, sir?” asked Telco.

“Eventually,” replied Clement. “I mean, that’s the plan. I wouldn’t be bringing almost all of the remaining Kemmerine fleet here if we didn’t plan on establishing some naval presence. But we don’t really have the facilities yet to establish a full-on space station over the Bellus colony, so we’re likely going to have to do things by caravan for a while. The smaller ships like the gunships and perhaps even some of the destroyers could eventually make camp on the surface, but I would really like to avoid spoiling the natural beauty of the Trinity worlds with military maintenance bases. Right now the Agamemnon will function as the base for the Trinity system, to protect her, to protect her worlds, her native sons and daughters and the new settlers that we’re bringing in from the Rim worlds.” Clement crossed his arms then and leaned against a console, taking a casual stance and looking down on the vast weapons bay. “This is quite impressive,” he said, “and I can’t think of two better officers to be handling this part of the mission then you two.”

Telco smiled. “Well, sir, when you need brawn and not brains you can come to us.”

“The brains are already up there on the command deck,” chimed in Tsu.

“I assume by that you mean Lieutenant Adebayor? Are you two still a couple, Mr. Tsu?”

“I guess that depends on who you ask and what day it is,” replied Tsu. “We’re both pretty young and clearly on different career paths right now,” he said with a chuckle.

Clement nodded. “Understood. All I know is we couldn’t have gotten through the ordeal we had on the first Trinity mission without all three of you. You two were both vital then and I consider you vital now. You’re both fine young officers and quite frankly you would probably both make excellent candidates for the Marines, but if you want to go that route you’ll have to bring it up with Colonel Lubrov.”

“That has been mentioned to us as a possible career path,” said Telco. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to make that decision yet, sir.”

“Well, if either of you want to make your home base here in the Trinity worlds, there will likely be a lot more work for Marines on the ground than weapons officers in space. You both would probably get a lot more opportunity to advance a lot quicker under Colonel Lubrov’s command than you would under Captain Yan, but that’s a decision you can make in the coming months. I’m not putting any pressure on either of you to leave, just so you understand.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Telco.

“Thank you for the advice, Cap—I mean, uh, Admiral,” said Tsu. “In the end, though, sir, we want you to know that when it comes to your conventional weapons, we have this ship locked down. Anything you need, whenever you need it, we’ll get it to you.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” finished Clement. Then he shook both their hands, patted them on the shoulders, and turned to head out. “Oh, just one more thing,” he said before leaving. “You should knock off running dueling war game simulations on the tactical computers. We used to do the same thing when I was a young officer, but, you just never know when you might need those systems for a real combat situation in a pinch.” Then he smiled and stepped out of the weapons bay, sure that he was leaving two embarrassed young men behind him.


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