Ensign Blake expected he would move into quarters on the Vigilant; however, the Vigilant’s extensive refit had the crew’s quarters strewn with wiring, piping, and boxes. The yard was running a little behind schedule. There was so much activity on the Vigilant that it was unsafe and inconvenient for the crew to be onboard.
It didn’t take Kelly very long to unpack his few belongings and get settled into the base bachelor officers’ quarters, the BOQ or the Q, as it was more readily known. He caught up on his messages, tried to watch some of the local programming, but wound up falling asleep on the couch. He woke up in the morning and had just enough time to get cleaned up and dressed. Kelly left the Q and proceeded to the building where LCDR Timmons had his shore office. He took the elevator to the sixth floor.
It was unusual for a crew not to be aboard helping with the refit, but Captain Hasselrode had been stoking a fire under the refit and repair directorate officer-in-charge. The refit crew chief had asked the crew to clear out and give them total rein and freedom of action onboard. It was unusual, but not unheard of. The plus was the refit would be completed on time, but the down side was the crew would not be there to see how the refit crew had installed components and changed things from the way they were before.
The office door to room 615 said In-Port Office, GRS Valiant, PC-155. Kelly turned the knob and entered. Seated in the middle of the office was a female yeoman. She looked up as Kelly walked in and came to attention.
“Good morning, sir. Are you Ensign Blake?”
Kelly answered in the affirmative. He looked closer at the yeoman. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. She had strong, chiseled features with high cheekbones and a trim, athletic figure. Her dark hair was done up in a neat bun, high on the back of her head. Kelly clearly saw a Central American heritage; she looked like she could have stepped down from an Aztec temple wall carving.
“Welcome, sir. I am Yeoman Benitez. The captain is expecting you. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll let him know you have arrived. She moved over to an office door to the left of the anteroom and knocked.
She opened the door and announced Kelly’s arrival, closed the door and turned back to Kelly. She told him the captain would see him now and went back to her desk.
Kelly entered LCDR Edgar Timmons’ office, marched up to the desk, saluted, and reported in. LCDR Timmons saluted quickly, got up from his chair, walked around his desk, and gave Kelly a firm, but not crushing handshake. LCDR Timmons was a big man. He wasn’t much taller than Kelly, but he was built like a bear.
“My name is Edgar, but you can call me Captain. Glad to have you onboard, Ensign Blake.”
“Yes sir, I don’t know if this office qualifies as onboard, Captain, but I’m sure glad to be here.”
“Be seated, Ensign. You have a good file here. For someone that hasn’t been in the service for very long, you have an unusually large and noteworthy file. You have top block ratings in all your schools. You got good grades at the Academy. I see you’ve been awarded the Space Medal and the Joint Meritorious Service Medal. Those are quite impressive medals. I know how you got the first one; that action is why you’re here. You’ll have to tell me how you got the other someday.”
LCDR Timmons looked up and saw Kelly was sitting at attention. “Relax, Ensign. You're going to do all right in Scout Force. The Vigilant is a good ship and we'll teach you how we do things in the Scouts. You could serve with a lot worse.”
He paused for a moment and continued, “I want to tell you a little bit about why we’re out here. I know it’s not taught well enough in the Academy. It's important to know why you may be asked to put your life on the line way out where the stars are few and far between.”
“I know you learned about the Milky Way in Astrography. I’ll bring you up to date, but first let me cover a little history. You know the Milky Way is a bar spiral galaxy and Earth’s solar system is in a small spiral off of the nuclear center of the galaxy, not one of the bigger spirals further outward. Even though our galaxy is called the Milky Way because of the apparent cloud of stars, there are vast distances between the stars. These areas we call dark space. This is where we Scouts operate best.”
“I’m sure you learned about the first galactic human settlements over a century ago. When our first long-range probes and scouts went out, they found our little corner of the galaxy was largely unpopulated and mostly devoid of life. We quickly populated human settlements on the few habitable planets in this part of the galaxy. Huge settlement ships were built and they carried mankind out into the far reaches of space. We populated the 10 closest worlds first and spread out from there. Those first settlers had it hard. We lost a lot of good people. Life on the frontier was rough, before your parents came up with reliable long distance FTL communications 25 years ago. There are now over 150 human-inhabited worlds and moons in this arm of the Milky Way.”
LCDR Timmons made a sudden turn from his subject. “How are your parents, anyway? I hope I get a chance to meet them some day. I’m a big fan of theirs.”
Kelly’s parents were quite well known scientists and inventors. “They’re fine, sir, as best I know. I’ve been out near the K’Rang frontier for months and haven’t communicated with them in a while. I expect to get back in touch now that I’m here.”
“Good! Where was I? Oh, yeah. It wasn’t until our scouts pressed further out-spiral that we ran into the Moosilian Empire. The Moose, as we began to call them, were fairly benevolent and we signed the First Intergalactic Treaty with them in 2133. We agreed to the establishment of a buffer zone between our races. Trade is allowed and encouraged, but they don’t want us moving any excess population in there. Our patrol forces on the frontier guarantee we don’t trod in each other’s space. It’s held up pretty well.”
“Our scouts surveying in-spiral found a similar situation. Life is not as common as most early philosophers, authors, and scientist expected. One scout pushing out further in-spiral on a deep-space patrol found a curious artifact floating in open space. It was a spinning, glowing triangular dipyramid. They scanned it from all sides, recorded all they could, and would have brought it back to the nearest star base if it hadn’t been twice the size of their ship. After a great deal of study, the best human brains determined it was a no trespassing sign. The scouts had run into the frontier of the K’Rang Empire.”
“While the Moose are a benevolent race, as you know, the K’Rang are not. They are a rat nasty bunch and want nothing to do with humanity. In fact, their standard response to meeting a human ship in space is to immediately annihilate the human ship. No warning, no get out, they just blast away.”
“Actually, rat nasty is a somewhat inappropriate description of the K’Rang. They are actually evolved from a cat-like species. They walk on two legs, but retain many feline traits and characteristics. They have the fur, claws, teeth, and balance of a cat. They can leap three times their own height. They are incredibly quick. A K’Rang warrior can cover short distances with incredible speed. If they get in close they can make full use of their claws and fangs. In space they react similarly. They like to get in and duke it out at close range. Something we have learned to use to our advantage.”
“After the Capricorn War, which we and the K’Rang fought to a draw, we withdrew back from the frontier, established our mutual sensor and mine fields to provide advanced warning of any incursions, and pretended each other didn’t exist. No armistice or cease-fire was signed. We withdrew to lick our mutual wounds. Neither side able to gain the advantage. Neither side wanting to provoke the other has existed for quite some time. That situation, unfortunately, has changed.”
“Four months ago, a survey team from Hodgkin’s World, Inc. in Capricorn, flew in to examine some not so nearby star systems for human inhabitability. Mark Carter, Hodgkin’s World, Inc. president and CEO, wanted to export some excess population and gain some territory. His survey ship stumbled on a solar system the K’Rang were terra forming. As stupid as it was, Carter mounted an expedition of his own resources to take this world and the K’Rang terra forming technology for his own. Needless to say, K’Rang reinforcements showed up and wiped out the pitiful Hodgkin’s World, Inc. fleet, but not before the Hodgkin’s forces had killed all the K’Rang terra forming party. Fortunately, Mr. Carter paid for his stupidity and perished along with his fleet. Right now, we are calling it even, but our intel tells us that is not the K’Rang view. They haven’t done anything yet, but it could be just a matter of time before they retaliate.”
“The K’Rang are no pushovers. They fight well and are fearless in battle. They have good tactics and adapt quickly to battle situations. We lost many ships to them in the Capricorn War. We captured a few of the K’Rang, but no matter what we do, they die in captivity. Our best minds think they just choose to stop living and die. We know more about their physiology than their military or society.”
“We watch them. They watch us. So far nothing has happened. Half our Fleet intel guys say nothing will happen. Half say they are waiting for us to show vulnerability. Either way, we patrol and make sure they know we are there. They do the same thing. The longer this impasse continues, the more we build up forces and supplies along the frontier.”
“Our mission is to find out what the K’Rang are up to. We are not out there to start a war, but, hopefully, to keep one from happening. Keep that in mind as we patrol around the frontier. The buffer zone we and the K’Rang have set up is wide enough so any incursions won’t be a mistake.”
“We also have strict orders pertaining to any confrontation with the K’Rang. This is why I am having this long chat with you this morning. It is imperative these orders be followed completely.”
Kelly had the sudden thought he was about to be told the K’Rang were to fire the first shot.
“No, Ensign, I'm not about to tell you the K’Rang get to shoot first. I can see it on your face. No, our orders are that we will not engage in any confrontation with the K’Rang unless they are firmly on our side of the buffer zone and we have an overwhelming numerical or tactical advantage. Our leadership wants to make sure we defeat the K’Rang in any engagement.”
Kelly said, “That's the same guidance we had on the Bolivar, sir. Three to one was our minimum force ratio for an attack. I understand.”
“Good. Do you want some coffee? Have you had breakfast yet? No? Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”
Kelly actually hadn’t had time to answer his new captain, but he followed LCDR Timmons out the door and out of the building anyway.
Kelly and his boss stepped out into the bright sunshine, Kelly lagging slightly behind. Once on the street, LCDR Timmons looked back and said, “Come on. If it’s one thing these repair and refit guys know how to do, it’s eating well. They have a mess hall here serving some of the best grub I’ve ever eaten. As you can tell from my frame, I’ve eaten quite a bit.” With that, LCDR Timmons let out a loud guffaw. Kelly was to learn the captain’s sense of humor was one of his best qualities.
“I talked to the admiral when he assigned you to me. I was a little concerned about you when I learned you had been transferred here from Fighter Force. Of course, when the admiral told me you had wound up on the bad side of Old Bugger Off, I didn’t worry. She has tossed aside more good officers than one should have the right to.”
Kelly said, “I understand I am in a good and large company of officers. The admiral told me the General had done me a favor by transferring me to the Fleet. Funny, it didn’t feel like it at the time.”
“Well, don’t worry about it. You have a chance to make a clean start here. Make the best of it.”
“I’ll give you my best effort, Captain.”
“Well then, it’s settled. My standards are very simple. I’m always willing to accept peoples’ best effort. I don’t demand perfection, just excellence. Come on, let’s eat.”
LCDR Timmons wasn’t lying. The mess hall was fabulous. The decor was as up to date as they came. The decorations must have been brought in from Earth. They had real eggs made to order; pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, ham, kippers, baked beans, fresh fruit, and a pastry tray the head cook on the Bolivar would weep over. They also had some obvious and unfamiliar local delicacies. He avoided those. Kelly ordered an omelet, bacon, hash browns, and picked up some pastry as he moved down the line. LCDR Timmons ordered his three eggs over easy, with bacon and sausage on the side, home fries, and three pancakes. LCDR Timmons had a good appetite. They picked up juice and coffee and made their way to a table.
“The Vigilant is a good ship…or at least she will be when she comes out of refit. I am a little concerned about not being there during these last few days. No telling what the refit guys will mess up that we’ll have to sort out on patrol. I guess it can’t be helped. I saw you have an Electronic Engineering degree. That will come in handy. I’m sure the yard will get a few things wired wrong and the computer never works right for a few days after refit. You and Chief Watson will have to sort out those things as we do work ups. We aren’t big enough to have an engineering officer, so you and the chief and our chief machinists mate will have to sort things out. We will have most of our crew back, but we’ll have about a 50 % turnover before our first patrol. We’ll need to do a lot of work to get the crew ready for patrol.”
“I’ll do my best sir, but it will take me a few days to get the hang of a ship with more than one person on it.”
“Don’t worry about that Kelly, Chief Watson will show you the ropes. I know. He taught me. We’d be lost in space and adrift without our chiefs.”
“Tell me more about the Vigilant, sir.”
“Well, she’s the second ship built in the Valiant Class of scout ships. She’s got the Diomede anti-matter/gravity engine, which will go five power light speed, almost six if we tune her right. The yard is supposed to be applying the tune up as part of the standard engine control program. I guess that will give Chief Miller something to play with. He is our Chief Machinists Mate. He knows the ship inside and out. In fact he worked for the Bureau of Ships’ team that designed her. Even though we aren’t supposed to be on board right now and in the way of the refit crew, Chief Miller is there, helping the refit crew chief get her ready. It took some convincing, but now their refit crew chief wouldn’t have it any other way. That way, he’ll catch most of the major problems. The minor ones will be the responsibility of you, me, and the crew.”
“She’s having the new twin particle turrets installed in place of the old single plasma turrets. It doubles our firepower and triples our range. I’ve heard from the Valiant’s captain they don’t track on target properly until you tweak the fire control computer some. That is your problem to solve. We don’t use weapons much in our work, but when we need them, I want them working at 100 % efficiency.”
“Our sensor suite will be upgraded, too. We’ll have ten times the range with our long-range sensors and four times the sensitivity on our short-range sensors. The planetary sensors will be able to reach 1000 meters below the land surface and any depth underwater. We’re supposed to gain a significant increase in sensor capability in plasma-charged space, such as a nebula. Some of the gas clouds used to leave us blind. This upgrade is supposed to take care of that for us. Now, if someone tries to hide in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant, we can find them.”
“We have a cargo hold along the top dorsal fin. We hardly ever carry cargo. Its main purpose is to hold a launcher for 20 missiles. It loads in as a complete unit and takes up the entire compartment. The guidance system is tied directly into sensors. We won’t see the launcher until wartime, though.”
“Sir, how does she handle? How about acceleration, turning radius, and G-forces?”
“Relax. Most of the time, we only travel in straight lines. If we have to skedaddle, because we got caught or stumbled into something we shouldn’t have, the computer flies us out. We have artificial gravity and a stabilization system. You don’t feel acceleration and G-factors. It won’t be the same as it was in the cockpit of a fighter. When we do work ups, I’ll give you the controls so you can get a feel for the ship. It is possible to fly the ship, but we don’t do it often. The Vigilant has a crew of 48. We aren’t strapped into acceleration couches as we do our jobs. We can’t jink around in space like a fighter. You’ll also find the mass and momentum is different from a fighter. You’re a smart guy. So I’m sure you will find some tricks the designers never imagined.”
Kelly scratched his chin, “I hadn’t thought about the fact the crew isn’t harnessed in. That does make a good bit of difference. I’ll remember and adjust my thinking.”
“You’ll figure it out. When we get back, the yeoman will get you all in-processed. Get the quartermaster to outfit you with a proper set of uniforms. That one looks a little big. We tend to wear coveralls on patrol. They are quicker to get into and take up less space on board. I find them more comfortable. There are some additional duties I get to assign to you as the exec. I’ll have Chief Watson see to it you have the ship’s new schematics to use for bedtime reading for a while.”
“Now for the crew. The crew consists of two officers, six chiefs, and 40 lower ranks. The ship is divided into five sections-the bridge, gunnery, sensor, engineering, and mess. There is a chief in charge of each section. They manage their sections and assign their people to watches and other duties. The Chief of the Ship, Chief Watson, is a twenty year Fleet veteran. What he doesn’t know about Scout class ships isn’t worth knowing. He could probably disassemble, diagnose, repair, and reassemble any component of the ship. Not only that, but he can teach others how to do it, too. You outrank him, but if you are smart, you won’t argue with him or question him on anything he says. I don’t. He’ll treat you with the respect your rank deserves, but if he makes a suggestion you should give it a good long think before you do it some other way.”
“Its okay sir, I’m not your stereotypical ensign. I had a good crew chief on the Bolivar. I learned the value of listening to people who knew more than me. After all, there are so many of them.”
This produced another guffaw. “Ensign, I think I’m going to like you. We should do well together. One last bit of guidance, if I ask you something, tell me what you know, not what you think or guess. If I want your opinion or a guess, I’ll ask you for that specifically. Otherwise, stick with the facts. There will be times out there where I won’t have time to work through a hypothesis. If you don’t know, say so. Come on, finish up. I’ll introduce you to the crew.”
Kelly looked down and realized LCDR Timmons had cleaned his plate while talking to him, but Kelly’s breakfast was only half eaten. He wasn’t sure how the captain had done that because he had talked almost the entire meal, but never talked with his mouth full. Kelly wolfed down his breakfast, wiped his mouth, and got up with LCDR Timmons to carry their trays to the conveyor. The conveyor led to a replicator that would melt down the trays, plates, utensils, and refuse, and reform them into new serving ware and utensils for the next meal.
The two walked out of the mess hall and back to LCDR Timmons’ office. Chief Watson was waiting for them. He looked young to be the Chief of the Ship. He looked to be in his late 30s. He was tall and wiry, six feet and just under 180 pounds. He had the look of someone who knew instinctively exactly what to do in any given situation.
“Chief, this is Ensign Kelly Blake, our new Executive Officer. Take him under your wing and take care of him.”
Chief Watson gave him a handshake exactly matching the pressure of Kelly’s grip. Kelly took it as a sign the chief didn’t feel the need to compete with him.
“Glad to have you aboard sir. Captain, when you are done with the Exec, I have the yeoman and quartermaster standing by to in-process him and get him outfitted.”
Chief, I’m done with him for now. Blake, go with the chief. Meet me back here at noon for lunch and then we’ll go over to see what the refit crew is up to.”
“Aye aye, sir. Chief, I guess I’m all yours.”
“Come with me, sir. If I can have your pocket terminal, we’ll get you officially signed onboard and transfer all your preferences onto the base network and the ship’s computer.”
Kelly handed over his pocket terminal, it was scanned into the admin terminal, and handed back.
“Sir, once you get on board, your quarters’ control preferences and your personal terminal will all be as they were for you on the Bolivar. Of course, you can modify them once you get on board, if you choose. Yeoman Benitez will make sure all your records are squared away. She’ll make sure General Bugarov didn’t do anything to your records that isn’t exactly according to regulations. The General has a history of leaving time bombs in people’s records that don’t go off until later. Yeoman Benitez here was with the base admin office before coming to us. She has seen it before and knows just what to look for. Now if you’ll follow me, we’ll get you some new, better-fitting uniforms and an issue of shipboard equipment. Sir, seeing your wings, did you bring your flight safety equipment?”
I did, Chief, but it will be a few weeks before it arrives. I’m sure it was sent by the slowest means possible. I would be surprised if it wasn’t arriving on a sub-light speed kinetic ore carrier.”
Well, sir, we’ll see if we can expedite it so you have it before we start work ups. This way to the Quartermaster.”
Kelly and the chief walked down the hall to the Quartermaster’s office in the rear of the building. No one was present.
“Billings,” yelled Chief Watson, “Where the hell are you?”
A head popped up behind the desk.
“No need to yell, I’m right here. I dropped my pocket terminal and was just picking it up.” The Quartermaster, Chief Billings, saw Kelly and came to attention.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t see you. Please come in, sir. Take a seat. Give me a minute to bring up your data on the terminal. This data is a week old. Have there been any major changes since this data was last updated, sir?”
“I can’t think of anything that has changed.”
“Great, sir, I’ll pull all this together for you and have it delivered to your office or your quarters, whichever you prefer. We won’t be able to store things on the ship until the refit crew is done. In fact, the storage lockers are sitting in the refit bay next to the ship. They probably won’t be installed until the end.”
“Could you send the uniforms to my quarters and the rest to my office, Chief?”
“Yes sir. I’ll have this done before close of business today. Your new uniforms should be waiting for you when you get back to your quarters this evening.”
Sir, if you’ll come with me, I’ll introduce you to some of the crew. Only about half the crew is on hand. We’re trying to use this slack period to give the crew liberty and training. We spend a lot of time out on patrol, so we have to take advantage of these opportunities as they come up. Normally, we’d all be humping on the refit, but seeing as the refit crew is running behind schedule and our pointing out where they were screwing up our ship was slowing them down even further, they kicked us off. It gives us some unexpected slack time to take advantage of. We’ve got half the crew in training and the rest on leave. In a week, we’ll swap the two groups. Ah, here we are.”
They had come to a door in the hallway. The chief opened the door and the two walked into a darkened room.
“Sir, this is the gunnery trainer. We are training the gunnery section on the new particle turrets.”
As Kelly’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see three small cubicles with terminal screens and a series of controls. A person got up from one of the terminals and walked over.
“Sir, this is Chief Pennypacker, the Chief Gunner’s Mate. Chief, this is our new Exec, Ensign Blake.”
“Glad to meet you sir. Welcome to the particle gun transition trainer. I just finished a training simulation for our gunners and they are on break right now. As we are changing out the old energy turrets for the twin particle turret, we need to train up on the new system. Come over here, sir, and I’ll give you a demo.”
They walked over to one of the cubicles and Chief Pennypacker had Kelly sit down. The chair formed to his shape and a diagnostic ran on the terminal in front of him. A message came up, saying the system was online. Indicators for rate of fire and ammunition level were on the bottom of the screen. Across the screen top was a horizontal azimuth indicator. Elevation was indicated along the left side, and on the right was an indicator of range to target. In the center was a red dot and cross hairs.
“The turret rotates through 360 degrees. It elevates through 175 degrees. You lose a little bit of elevation dead astern because of the engine fairings. To overcome this blind spot, there are guns mounted on the fairings firing dead astern. Anybody trying to run up our exhaust will face a nasty surprise. There are three of these turrets at 120 degrees around the axis of the ship. Unless they are in close and coming in directly at a turret, two turrets can bear on a target at one time. In the case where a target is coming in directly on a turret, however, the ship will automatically roll to bring two turrets to bear. In addition to these, we also have three forward firing category III plasma cannons. These are our big bored and long-range guns. They can fire farther than the particle guns, but don’t do as much damage since shielding technology has improved. Occasionally, you can ionize the shields on an older ship, blinding their sensors. That doesn’t happen much any more. They will probably be changed out for particle cannons on our next refit.”
“The hand controls here move the turret. Turn the yoke clockwise to move right, counter clockwise to move left. Twist it up to move the gun up in the turret. Down to move it down. There are firing buttons on both sides of the yoke. As you move the guns up past vertical, the turret will spin to keep your field of vision from inverting. It can be a little disconcerting the first few times you do it. If you are prone to space sickness, it will have you puking until you adapt. You can set it to blank the video until it completes the spin, but most don’t want that. Here, let me set up a demo for you.”
Kelly leaned forward to get the feel of the simulator. The screen was concave and gave him about 180 degrees horizontal and 120 degrees vertical. He found the screen to cover just to the edge of his peripheral vision. It was almost like the forward view out of an F-53 cockpit. The yoke fit his hand well and the triggers fell just where his index fingers naturally landed.
“Sir, I’m going to give you slow targets so you can get the feel for the turret first, then I’ll speed them up as you get proficient. This should be a snap for a fighter pilot like you.” Chief Pennypacker winked slyly to Chief Watson behind Kelly’s back.
Kelly got ready and scanned for the first target to show up. It came in from lower right. An indicator arrow in the center of the screen pointed toward the target. Kelly tracked onto it, fired, and watched it erupt into a fireball. A series of single fighters came at him from all points of the compass and he readily finished them off. Chief Pennypacker increased the frequency of single fighters and still Kelly dealt with them. His training as a fighter pilot came in very handy. Chief Pennypacker then started throwing two at a time at him. It was a little harder, but he still kept them from getting closer than 50 kilometers to the notional ship. Four-ship groups got Ensign Blake sweating. He got most of them, but a few got through to firing range of the ship. At this point the lights came up.
Kelly uncoiled from the simulator and said, “Sorry, Chief, I guess I’m going to need some more training. I think I would have caused some holes in the side of the ship by letting those last groups get in to us.”
“Sir, that’s okay. You just became our best gunner. You even outshot my best score. Can I get you to help me train our gunners?”
“Really? I did that well? I think with a bit more practice with the system, I could have gotten those last two four-ship groups.”
“Sir, you were doing so well, I ran the full three turret scenario at you. If the other turrets had been manned, they would have picked off the ones you missed. You did real good.”
“Thanks, Chief, I think I need a shower now.”
Both chiefs burst into laughter, and Chief Watson led him back out into the hallway.
“Come on, sir, let me show you to your office.”
The two walked back down the hallway to the anteroom outside LCDR Timmons’ office. Chief Watson walked around the Yeoman’s desk, opened the door in the back of the anteroom, and held it open as Kelly walked past. The office was small, but adequate. There was a desk with built in terminal, a couple of chairs, a wardrobe, and a door to his right. A large window overlooked the shipyard. Kelly saw two large crew bags in one corner. He assumed that was his ship equipment. Chief Watson walked over to the door on the right. He opened the door and said it was the hallway to the command group head. Kelly looked in the head and saw it was equipped with a toilet, sink and shower.
Cushy, thought Kelly. He didn’t think he’d be using the shower much, but it was nice to have it there, anyway. He saw three more doors into the hallway and assumed they went into the main anteroom, captain’s and chief’s offices.
“That’s about the end of the grand tour. When you and the captain go over to the ship after lunch, you’ll meet more of the crew. I’ll leave you to get settled in. One last thing, sir, I don’t know if you’re aware Armstrong is on a 27 and a half standard hour clock. Be sure to allow for the difference in your schedule. It usually throws off newcomers until they adjust. The yeoman runs the coffee fund for us, keeps track so we pay our share, keeps the pot fresh, and will even bring it to you if you wish. I’ll be just across the anteroom if you need me, sir.”
Kelly thanked the chief and looked over his new office. His office on the Bolivar had been a shared desk in his four-man cabin. He looked out over the shipyard at the classes of ships being worked on. He saw at least two Scout-class ships, and wondered which was the Vigilant. As he looked closer, he realized that one of the Scout ships had double gun turrets and the other still had the single gun turrets. The one with the new turrets must be the Vigilant. He also saw three assault landing ships. They were big, clumsy, almost prehistoric looking things, when compared to the Scout-class ships.
The Vigilant was black and sleek, almost deadly looking. It was so black it seemed not to reflect any light. Faintly tubular in shape, it looked a little like a triangular bar, but with the corners rounded and tapering slightly toward the front. The turrets were mounted on this rounded corner part. He saw the glass windscreen at the nose of the ship and liked that feature. Fighters were one of the few classes of space-going craft that still had glass in their cockpits. Most other ship designs had foregone the glass viewports on the bridge for sensor arrays feeding internal monitor screens. Kelly liked the ability to use his eyes, as well as the ship’s sensors. As he looked just aft of the bridge, he saw two protrusions on the top and the bottom of the ship’s side facing him. He assumed there was a matching one on the opposite side. Those were the particle cannons. All along the sides of the ship were strange antennae, blisters, and protrusions. Those must be the sensor array. It would take him a while to feel about this ship the way he did about his fighter, but he thought it would grow on him.
Remembering what Chief Watson had said about the local time, he checked his watch, which adjusted to local time automatically on worlds with centrally broadcast time. He had over an hour to go before lunch. He logged onto his desktop terminal to check messages. He found copies of his orders assigning him to the Vigilant, his clothing and equipment issue record, orders for six additional duties he’d assumed as the Executive Officer, and an expert turret gunner certificate from Chief Pennypacker. He chuckled inwardly at that. There was an invitation to Admiral Craddock's quarters for evening cocktails on Saturday. He’d have to make sure his new mess dress uniform was squared away for that. At the end of a long list of Base administrative announcements, about things for which he had no use, was a message from Ensign Tammy Nielsen.
He opened the message and Ensign Nielsen’s sunny face appeared. “Ensign Blake, I’d like to invite you to a party we are having in the junior officers bar at the O Club on Lunaday. If you haven’t figured it out by now, Armstrong has an eight-day week. The extra day is wedged in between Saturday and Sunday. We call it Looneyday here. Saturday is a workday and the weekend starts on Looneyday. The party starts at 2000 hours. I’d really like you to come. You’ll have fun. We have a pretty good group of junior officers here. I think you’ll fit right in. Dress is very casual. Let me know. Bye!”
Well, his social calendar was filling up fast. Drinks with the admiral on Saturday evening and drinks with his peers and a cute blonde on Looneyday. “Sounds like a winner to me.” He took a moment to send a message to Tammy that he would be coming to the party.
In the time he had before lunch with the captain, he pulled up the reference documents for all his additional duties, scanned through them, and downloaded them into his pocket terminal. He had a lot to learn.