Back | Next
Contents

2

The trip back to Kemmerine was swift and efficient, which was something Clement liked to see in his command. It was something the Five Suns Navy had gotten slack on, based on his observations.

He had managed to get back to his apartment on Argyle Station and clean it out before he left the Rim, probably for the last time. He edited the pictures of his old crew, the ones with Elara DeVore in them, to delete her image, and printed new ones. He kept his Rim service medals and other personal items with him. What he carried off the station fit in a very small box, and for once, there was no whiskey in it. He found alcohol to be something he didn’t have much desire for these days, and that was a good thing, and a needed change in his mind. He handed the box off to Yan to deal with the shipping.

His future seemed to be very much “out there,” at Trinity, the three new and beautiful habitable worlds that promised humanity so much, not in his old, failing home. The Trinity worlds were a great, resource-rich gift to the Five Suns Alliance and its struggling colonies. A gift he hoped would stop the deterioration of Five Suns civilization permanently.

He arrived in his office on Kemmerine Station Wednesday morning precisely at 0800, seven days after he had left it to go to the Rim. The nineteen-hour sub-light journey back and forth between Kemmerine Station and the Rim stars took its toll on him physically, and he had arrived home more than a bit “space-lagged.”

He had changed the station’s regular work shift earlier by an hour to increase discipline among his new recruits and to (hopefully) motivate them to be more precise in their work. Precision was important, he felt, and he wanted to demonstrate that quality, so regardless of how he felt personally, he felt it was important to show up on time and set the example.

He sat down at his desk, which had been swapped out from the old one that DeVore had when she was in command here, and logged in to start his day. As someone who had betrayed him and the Five Suns, and clearly would have taken his life at the Battle of Trinity if she could have, he wanted as few associations with DeVore around him as possible. The fact that they were former lovers during the War of the Five Suns only complicated things for him, emotionally.

He paged Yan as he shuffled through his messages and updates. She arrived a few moments later from her own office on the other side of the floor.

“Sir,” she said by way of welcome.

He looked up from his morning reports and coms and across to the box of mementos from Argyle Station sitting on the corner of his desk. “Thank you for having this box delivered here, Yan, but I really don’t want these things in my office,” he said.

“Oh,” she replied, surprised. “I thought you’d want all of your military awards in one place,” she said, nodding toward the half-filled display case on the near wall. It had his Five Suns Navy awards and plaques, things he had received in the last eighteen months in his role as Fleet Admiral for the Kemmerine and Rim sectors.

“I appreciate the thought, Captain, but I would like to keep my history as a rebel separate from my role here as Fleet Admiral. No point in mixing the good memories with the bad,” he said, turning his attention back to his monitor.

She nodded slowly. “I see. I’ll have one of the yeomen from the pool remove it. Where should I—”

“Just send it to my quarters, please,” he said, meaning the small one-bedroom flat he had in the officer’s wing of the station.

“Of course sir,” she said formally, and swept the box up off the table. “I assume our 0900 meeting is still on?”

“Unless I see something in these reports that changes things, that’s a yes, Captain,” he said, looking away from her and down at his desk.

“Sir.” And with that she was gone, moving quickly out of the overly large and ostentatious office and into the reception area.


Promptly at 0900 Clement came through the doorway of the conference room to find his reports all waiting for him. Yan was at his right hand, as always; Colonel Gwyneth and Fleet Commander Gracel represented the station’s old-guard commanders; and a promising young officer named Harry Samkange was there from Station Services, a vital cog in the ship-building and refitting process for the Kemmerine Fleet. Clement looked around the table, seeing Gracel and Gwyneth with their gray hair, and then Samkange, a young man just under thirty of African descent with dark skin and hair. There was a sharp contrast of nearly forty years in their respective ages. Samkange was ready for a command of his own, but he had proven invaluable as the refit and construction manager for the new fleet, so for now, that decision was still there to be made when Clement wanted.

The room itself had formerly been part of the large, open expanse of the office that the previous occupant had preferred. Clement was much more conservative and had ordered the conference area enclosed with walls to allow for more privacy, and also just to break up the massive office layout. The ostentatious unused space could have accommodated fifty cubicle stations or even good-sized offices for all the senior ship commanders. As a man who had been forced to fit inside the confines of a rebel gunship for most of his career, he had developed a distaste for wasted space. He made a note to talk to Yan privately about including the fleet captain’s offices in the next round of facilities updates. For now, though, he was focused on getting the most out of the facilities that he had up and functioning right now.

“I think we’ll begin with the construction and refit report, Commander Samkange,” he said as he sat down, still carrying an owly look on his face. He had no coffee, so Yan slid a cup over to him along with a croissant from the meeting supplies on the table. He ignored both her gestures and said nothing.

Commander Samkange started in. “The retrofit program is nearly complete, or at least Phase One is. We have twelve functioning destroyers now with operational LEAP drives and the gravity wave displacement units for inertial dampening in normal space. We couldn’t manage to get the gravity-shield generators installed, though; the ships are simply too small for those to fit.”

“As we suspected,” commented Clement.

Samkange nodded before continuing. “We’ve had better luck with the light cruisers as they have enough room to install both the LEAP reactors and the full gravity-systems generators, so they’ll get both the inertial dampening effect and the defensive shielding benefits.”

“Excellent,” said Clement with a hint of a smile, then he reached out and took the first sip of his coffee.

Samkange looked at his admiral, concern etched across his features at how the next news would be received. “There is one side effect of these refits, though, sir. We only managed to get six of the cruisers fully outfitted. The other four had to be cannibalized for parts and critical systems.”

Clement winced slightly. “I knew that was a possibility, but I was hoping for eight running ships from that group.”

Samkange nodded. “That was our goal too, sir. We did the best we could, but in the end these ships were just too outdated, and we had to make some tough decisions.”

“I understand,” said Clement, taking a bite of his croissant now and downing it with more coffee. “As long as we can get good captains and crews for them, I’ll be happy.”

“I used to command one of those vessels,” commented Gwyneth.

“As did I,” said Gracel. “They were the pride of the fleet back in their day.”

“Things change, Amanda,” Clement said to her, “sometimes faster than we want or imagine.”

He turned back to Samkange. “What’s the status of The Beast?” “The Beast” was the nickname they had all given the Agamemnon, the only truly modern ship in the fleet. She was a huge battlecruiser with a complement of more than fourteen hundred men and women, two hundred of them Marines, and the fleet’s flagship. She had every bell and whistle imaginable, including double LEAP reactors and six gravity-field generators, three for inertial dampening and three gravity-wave projectors for defense. Her ordnance capability was enormous and her belly was full of weapons.

“She’s ready for her final pre-mission trials, Admiral,” cut in Yan, who was, after all, Agamemnon’s captain and rightly proud of that fact.

“You’ll see to that schedule I assume, Captain?”

“Already drawn up, sir,” she replied with a smile, picking up her pad and throwing the schedule com to Clement. He let that sit for the moment as he read the report.

“Very good, Captain Yan.” Clement returned his attention to Samkange again. “And how is the gunship program coming along?”

“Still about a month out from rolling the first one off the line, sir, but once we get to full production we should start commissioning two a month out of the factory.” Clement had ordered forty gunships just like his old ship, the prototype Beauregard, to be built. They would be the fastest in-system ships in his fleet.

“What are you going to do with all those gunships, Admiral? Hold a lottery for who gets to command them and use the money to trim out your fleet?” said Yan, pulling his chain.

Despite himself Clement gave a small smile to his chief adjutant. “That’s a good idea, Captain, but actually I have other plans for that particular fleet.”

“Such as?”

“Well, we’re going to take the current five prototypes that we have in service, use them for patrol of the Trinity system, in case any unwanted visitors show up,” he said. “Then we’ll use the new ships to do the same in Kemmerine, the Rim, and even sell some to Virginis sector if they want them.”

“Good plan, but why patrol the Rim? Everyone’s going to be leaving soon enough to migrate to Trinity, right?”

“That’s wishful thinking, Yan. No doubt some of the population will stay behind, it could be as much as ten percent, and we’ll keep Argyle Station open for just that eventuality. Plus, we don’t want anyone else moving in on those planets. They’re kind of strategic.”

“Don’t want to give any errant Earth Arks a beachhead in the Five Suns?”

“Precisely, Captain,” replied Clement.

Clement turned next to Amanda Gracel. She was clearly somewhere in her late sixties age-wise, with flowing gray hair and a wealth of experience. She was a good officer, if from an older generation than Clement and certainly older than Samkange and Yan. Clement found her helpful as an administrator and would almost certainly use her in one of his future commands, in some capacity.

“Commander Gracel, how is the recruiting and planning going for the civilian transport ships?” he asked.

“Very well,” she said, smiling. “We’ve secured ten military transports from the Virginis and the Core sectors and the conversion to civilian transports has gone well. Each transport will have the capability of moving three thousand migrants and most of their belongings to Bellus, along with their ship crews, of course. Once settled on the Trinity worlds we expect a forty-day turnaround for the return voyage and prep for the next group. The transports have been retrofitted with LEAP reactors and there is more than enough room for livestock in the cryo hold. My expectation is that you’ll be able to do the trip ten times a year. That’s about three hundred thousand colonists per year moving to the Trinity worlds.”

“At that pace it will take us more than a decade to complete the migrations from the Rim worlds.” Clement looked down at his com pad. “By the latest census estimates the Rim population will decrease about six percent per year, but that’s still not fast enough. We have to take into account that many people may want to migrate from Kemmerine, Virginis, even the Core worlds, just looking for new business opportunities and a change of pace. Let’s request five more transports from Core Services; we need to speed things up.”

“Of course, Admiral.” Gracel looked down and made a note on her com pad.

“Oh, and keep in mind that my parents will be going on the first migration trip, so let’s make sure all aspects of life on those transports is well tested.”

“I have one hundred percent confidence, sir.”

“Thank you, Amanda.”

At that he turned to Colonel Gwyneth. “And how are our recruitment programs going, Colonel?”

Gwyneth cleared his throat and sat forward. Clement imagined he would have been quite the pompous officer back in his day, but he was very good at organization and thus quite useful to the admiral. “Ahem, we have more than enough specialized techs at the moment, so many, in fact, that we’re starting to project them out to the future gunship crews coming on line. We also have a glut of senior staff being off-loaded from the Core and Virginis, many of them captains and commanders, almost all of them with long careers but little flying experience.”

“Staff officers,” said Clement, shaking his head. He looked up at Gwyneth again. “Get with Commander Yan and sort the wheat from the chaff.”

He turned then to Yan. “Pick out the most experienced captains and senior officers for the ships we’re taking to Trinity, only those with flying experience. We need sixteen staffs in two weeks for those cruisers and destroyers or we’ll miss our mission-launch window, and no one wants this station full of a bunch of angry migrants waiting for their busses.”

“If I may, sir, we actually need twenty-six full staffs. You forgot about the transports,” said Samkange.

Clement threw up his hands in frustration. “Of course I did.” He quickly recovered his bearings. “Minimum commander rank required to fly the transports, Yan. Everyone else needs to be captain rank, preferably with battle experience.”

“Sir, there aren’t that many left with battle experience; many of them retired after the War of the Five Suns,” said Yan.

Clement nodded. “Just do your best, Captain.”

“Aye, sir.”

Gwyneth cleared his throat again.

“Colonel?”

“There is one more problem, sir.”

“Of course,” said Clement, frustrated. “I’m sure whatever it is has slipped my mind in the last week.”

“It’s the junior officer corps, sir. Hardly any experience among those with the ranks of lieutenant, ensign, etc. All the Core and Virginis are offering us are midshipmen out of their academies at the moment.”

Clement rubbed at his chin. “They’re giving us the newly wed and the nearly dead, eh, Karl? Clearing out the deadwood so they can promote their best and brightest. Well, we’ll just have to promote some ourselves. Any junior officers with flight experience go up one step in rank upon accepting our offer of a commission. And throw in a bonus as well, see if that helps. And let’s make sure we get the cream of the crop from the academies at the very least. Any cadet with flight experience, even if it’s an internship, goes straight to first lieutenant.”

“Aye, Admiral,” replied Gwyneth.

Clement looked around the room one more time. “Anything else?” The staff was silent in response. “Good enough. We leave for Trinity in fifteen days, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s stick to our schedules and make sure everyone gets to Bellus in one piece. Dismissed.”

They all stood to leave but Clement remained seated. “Commander Samkange, if you would stay for a moment?” Samkange nodded as the others shuffled out. Yan hesitated at the door but Clement waved her off, indicating she could leave the conference room door open. When they were all out of hearing range he turned to Samkange, who had sat down next to him.

“Commander, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said, then hesitated.

“Is there something wrong with my report, sir?” asked the eager young man.

Clement shook his head. “No, nothing like that. In fact, just the opposite. You’ve done a fantastic job the last twelve months on the construction and refit program. So good, in fact, that I want to offer you a promotion.”

“I’m flattered, sir,” said Samkange.

Clement continued. “You should be. I want to put you in command of the light cruiser flotilla, all six ships. You’ll be captain of the Corvallis, the flagship of the cruisers. In this role you’ll answer to me, no one else in between us except Captain Yan on board Agamemnon. If I’m out of commission you’ll take orders from her as if they were my own, understood?”

“I do, sir.”

“Good. Just to let you know I consider the light cruisers to be critical on these missions as transport support and security. The cruiser flotilla will be the main line of defense on the migration journeys as well as providing primary security at Trinity. There will be a few of the destroyers available but quite frankly I don’t want them on caravan duty. They’re just not durable enough, even after the refits. I’ll want to keep them for support in-system at Trinity.”

A look of concern crossed Samkange’s face. “Sir, if I may ask, all this focus on security, and military experience—are you expecting to go into battle?”

Clement leaned forward. “Let’s not say concerned, Captain, let’s say cautious. The three Trinity worlds are the most precious commodities in humanity’s little universe. Admiral DeVore wanted them for her own purposes, and even the Earthmen sent out a military force on a fifty-year mission to try and take them. We need to be prepared just in case our name gets called.”

Samkange nodded. “You realize I don’t have any combat experience, sir?”

“I do. But I also noted that you got ninety-four percent on your combat school training, and that’s even better than I got. No one in this fleet is going to have real experience in a battle situation, Harry, so we’ll all be learning as we go. Now I suggest you brush up on your battle training just in case. Oh, and I’ll need you to report to Corvallis by noon tomorrow. That will give you slightly more than twenty-four hours to complete the transition, if you accept, that is?”

“Of course. Yes, I accept, sir. And thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, now just one or two more items. You’re not married, are you, or have a family?”

“No, sir, no time.”

“I see. That’s just as well as this position will keep you away for quite a bit of the time. It may even eventually lead to a permanent assignment in the Trinity system, if we ever get a station set up there.”

“Understood, sir, no issues.”

Clement nodded. “Then one last thing, who do you recommend as your replacement for the construction and refit program?”

“That’s easy. Lieutenant Commander Tereza Ayo, sir. She’s been my number one throughout this program and she knows the specifics of everything we do.”

“Excellent. Tell her that she’s got a promotion too, to full commander.”

“I will, sir!”

At that they both stood and Clement shook Samkange’s hand in congratulations. “Make sure you pop in to Captain Yan’s office and have her handle the promotion paperwork. It will probably take a day or two to make its way to my desk but you can assume acting command on my personal authority immediately.”

“Thank you, sir.” Samkange headed out of the conference room with a large grin on his face. Clement sat back down and pulled up his com pad, checking for new alerts.

“Ah,” he said out loud, “the enthusiasm of youth.”

* * *

Clement waited ten minutes for Samkange to clear Yan’s office, then he picked up his pad and headed there himself. He came in and plopped down on a particularly comfortable leather side chair, his favorite in the room.

“Feeling better, Cranky?” she teased without looking up from her monitor.

“Yes, Captain. And thank you for the coffee and croissant.”

“I had to do something to fix your mood,” she replied, then she poured him a fresh cup from her desktop pot and slid it over to him. He took it. “You really should eat something and have your coffee before you start work in the morning, especially after a leave.”

“Now you’re sounding like a wife.”

She turned her head toward him. “We’ve had that discussion before, Admiral. Maybe someday. But in the mean time you do need someone to keep an eye on you. The Five Suns has put you in charge of two entire sectors and having your blood sugar affect your mood and attitude can be a serious challenge, especially if you have to make quick decisions.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” Clement took a sip of the coffee. It was Sumatran, no doubt shipped in from Yan’s home world of Shenghai, and one of Clement’s favorites. Being a Fleet Admiral did have its benefits, such as picking from the best of the goods passing through the station.

“And I don’t have time to babysit you. I’m suggesting we pick one of the yeomen from the clerical pool to handle your dietary and scheduling needs on a regular basis. I, you see, am busy running a fleet for you, Admiral.”

Clement considered her suggestion. “All right then, I’ll let you arrange it. But I don’t want anyone trailing me around the station with a calorie counter.”

Yan smiled and pressed a button on her desk com. “Already done, sir. You should expect your first meal at lunch.”

“Lovely,” he replied sarcastically. “And well played, Captain.”

She laughed.

“Now to more important things. This mission is about establishing the migration plan and settling our people on the new worlds, but I want us to remember that the natives will not have their rights or freedoms impaired in any way. That would be counter to everything I believe in.”

“I’m not sure I understand that, Admiral, at least the part about rights and freedoms. We already have a mitigation plan and a statute’s in place for that eventuality. You designed them.”

At this Clement sat back in the chair and thought deeply for a moment.

“The thing is, Yan, the natives on Bellus are innocents. They don’t have the depth of knowledge or experience that we have with possible hostiles. So it is therefore imperative that we be their protectors. That means protecting them from both external threats like the Earthmen and internal ones, from people that would exploit them for their own gain.”

“I understand, sir.”

He leaned forward again. “Do you? I fought in the war because the Five Suns was neglecting the Rim worlds, exploiting our people, my friends and neighbors. That’s why this is so important to me. I want you to understand it comes from a very deep part of me.”

“I do, sir. I’ve seen that in you, and I respect it.”

He stood. “I just wanted you to understand where I was coming from, and what my concerns are based on.”

She stood then.

“You have my understanding, and my loyalty in this regard, sir.”

“Good. That’s all.”

Then he walked away from her, satisfied.


Back | Next
Framed