“I’ll catch up with you later,” he promised. “Good luck.”
“You too,” Sultana said.
Roman turned back to the internal tube. According to the plans loaded in his implant—the same plans he’d been warned couldn’t be trusted—the first place he had to check was only two decks down from his current position.
Over the course of an hour, he realized what the commander was trying to teach him. He didn’t know his way around the ship, not instinctively, and relying on his implants was asking for trouble. He got lost twice before he stopped listening to his implant and started to go by the markings on the bulkheads. Slowly, he realized just how the carrier’s open areas went together. It wouldn’t be long, he hoped, before he figured out the logic of the internal tubes as well.
The FNRS-47 files were particularly confusing. At the Academy, he’d been told that keeping up with the FNRS-47 files was important. Regulations clearly stated that there had to be an individual FNRS-47 form for each replaced component on the ship that accounted for its removal from stores, installation in the required unit and then removal and disposal once it had started to wear out. The Federation Navy designed components to be as durable as possible, but there was a strict pattern of replacement for every compartment in the starship, to the point where cadets had joked that ships were effectively rebuilt over the course of the year.
But in this case, it hadn’t taken him long to realize that Enterprise’s files were hopelessly out of date. Puzzled, he made a note of the discrepancies and went on to the next section.
The commander had ordered him to introduce himself to the fighter jocks, so he found his way down to Fighter Country and checked in with the CAG, the Controller Air Group. The CAG seemed underwhelmed to meet him, and only reluctantly organized a meet and greet. Roman was reminded, yet again, of his own inexperience. Many of the fighter pilots he met had fought in the Battle of Earth, and had been transferred to Enterprise only two or three days ago. The others had seen action out on the frontier. He could just tell, somehow, that they weren’t too impressed with him. The Marines weren’t much better, even though they seemed a hair friendlier.
“I trust we’ll be seeing more of you,” Major Shaklee said with a grin. The short, stocky Marine winked at him. “Young officers are encouraged to spend time in the gym, brushing up on their training with us. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time down there.”
Roman felt like frowning, but he hoped the Marine hadn’t realized it. RockRats kept themselves healthy, but they didn’t go in for physical sports and rarely contributed athletes to the Federation Games. Luna Academy had insisted that all cadets learn to spar and encouraged them to develop skills in the martial arts, yet he’d never had the time to really work on it. The Marines, on the other hand, would ensure that he did more than the regulation workouts each day. And encouraged generally meant ordered.
He was thoughtful when he reported back to Officer Country and discovered that Sultana had completed her share of the tasks before him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise—she had always had more patience for detail work than him—but it still rankled, somehow. It was surprising when Commander Duggan cut off their attempt to report to her and focused, instead, on something different.
“You did all the tasks,” she said flatly. “Why did I give you those specific tasks?”
“You wanted us to get used to the ship,” Sultana hazarded.
“Could be,” Commander Duggan said absently. “What do you think, Lieutenant Garibaldi?”
Roman hesitated, and then took the plunge. “You wanted us to know the ship and its personnel,” he said finally. “I don’t just mean finding our way around, I meant actually knowing them…”
“Close enough,” Commander Duggan agreed. “You have to learn to understand that the crew—all the separate crews that make up a carrier’s personnel—are human. There are young officers who fail to realize that enlisted personnel are mortal, too.” She shook her head. “You are expected to spend some of your off-duty hours—which will be few and far between for the first few weeks—socializing with your fellow officers. Marine and Navy alike.”
She grinned, a completely different expression than her smile from before as it completely lit up her face. “And as for the forms?”
“There isn’t time to fill them in,” Sultana told the commander.
Roman lifted an eyebrow.
“I checked with the engineering officers,” she told him. “They don’t have time to do all the paperwork.”
“And that is the second lesson,” Commander Duggan added. “There are tasks on this ship that are genuinely important, and tasks that regulations claim are important. When we’re in the middle of a desperate refit and working up period, we don’t have time to worry about the paperwork, not with the level of redundancy built into the ship. We will catch up on all of that while we’re in transit, by which time we should be functioning as an intact unit.”
Her gaze softened. “You’ll meet your fellow lieutenants in the Officer’s Mess in”—she made a show of checking her wristcom—”forty minutes. I suggest that you each have a quick session in the fresher, and then study their files. After that, we can make some proper assignments for you. You’ll both eventually end up in the tactical section—you’re command track—but for the moment we need you elsewhere.”
Roman nodded. “Commander, if I may ask, where are we going?”
“Nothing has been said officially,” Commander Duggan said, “but I suspect from the scuttlebutt flying around the fleet that we’re on our way to Harmony to make Admiral Justinian see reason. I just hope we get worked up by the time the hammer comes down on him. I’d hate to miss the show because we couldn’t get there in time. And believe me, the captain will really hate it.”
“Yes, commander,” Roman said. It would be nice to believe that Admiral Justinian would surrender without further ado, but he’d seen the executions at the Academy of Justinian’s distant relatives. They’d all been made to watch. Somehow, after seeing that, Roman was sure the admiral would refuse to surrender. “We won’t let you down.”
“See that you don’t,” Commander Duggan said. “Enterprise is the finest ship in the fleet, and we mean to keep it that way.”
Chapter Nine
The problem with not having fought a major war for decades is that it is difficult to tell an experienced commanding officer from an inexperienced officer. The Federation Navy has thus developed an alarming habit of promoting officers for political rather than professional credentials.
FNS Enterprise, Sol System, 4092
“Attention on deck!”
Marius stood with the other officers as Fleet Admiral Cuthbert Parkinson entered the Enterprise’s briefing room. There had been no other choice for the flagship, not after Enterprise had been assigned to the Retribution Force, which worried Marius more than he cared to admit. The star carriers were, in some ways, a revolutionary design, but they had their weaknesses, weaknesses that would be as apparent to Admiral Justinian as they were to Marius Drake.