Galactic Rim Chronicles: SCS Liberty

[Condottiere]

Koenig had been, willingly, coopted into the Helmsman career path, that the very best pilots were selected for, guide the five kilotonne plus Leviathan starwarships, while Lee had defaulted to the smallcraft sub branch.

Unlike his more Maverick inclined compatriots, Lee preferred to keep flight operations as smooth and manoeuvre free as possible, rather than take the opportunity to demonstrate a smallcraft's capability to pull off acrobatic feats, to impress their other rivals. Which was why Koenig had him instruct Kobayashi the finer details involved.

Despite qualifying for smallcraft specialization, there was the added complication that to navigate larger vessels than ninety nine tonnes, the Confederation Navy just added payload and fuel pods to the smallcraft, that somehow retained it's smallcraft characteristics, but tonnage ran over to the spacecraft category.

Ninety nine tonne engineering hulls, with six tonne bridges, had three thirty five tonne drop tanks, another two thirty five tonne payload pods, and provision for another twenty six tonnes external cargo, in whatever form it took.

Designed for inner zone close escort operations with Fleet Squadrons, reconfigurable to long range sensor picket patrol in the outer zone, and area defence in the middle zone.

The six tonne bridges were quite comfortable for smallcraft flight operations, arguably a little tight for jump operations, though usually as part of a squadron or fleet transition, that aspect is usually controlled through the Squadron or Fleet Astrogation staff, as part of an overall strategic movement.

Another role for this craft is that of communications vessel, for non fleet courier missions, and as the most likely Confederation Navy starwarship that most would encounter, outside of the five kilotonne frigates.

 

[Condottiere]

While the ten cadets chosen for these training sorites were supposedly at random, to see how they would react when without senior officers to guide them, the fact that Lee, Koenig, and Kobayashi found themselves selected seemed rather deliberate, and seven other cadets from different classes, though the same year.

Koenig's dynamic personality soon took charge as the unelected skipper, Lee became the principle (and outside Koenig and Kobayashi) the patrol ship's pilot, while Kobayashi slipped easily into the role of the astrogator.

The other cadets were an assortment from Technical, Logistics, and Gunnery, so it was obvious that the mission was a combat simulation, without the supposed safeguards from whoever would the Legal or Security specialists.

The Academy assigned supervisor would be a retired Confederation Navy officer with a starship master's certification, including medical skill, whose primary role would be observation, and would only interfere if the patrol ship, but not necessarily the cadets, was in danger, a presence hovering in the background, that the cadets were supposedly to ignore.

The three gunnery cadets were assigned to the three weapon stations, two engineer specialists exiled to the engine compartment, and electronics specialists crowded into the bridge, to take over the sensors and communications panels.

Kobayashi examined the rather precise coordinates they were to exit, in a star system four parsecs away, refuel, conduct a routine patrol, and then return to the Home system.

Since all the cadets were all considered a peer group, Koenig called a council of war and discussed the order.

"Ambush?" opined Lee.

"Something we shouldn't be able to escape from," Koenig said ruefully.

"It's a trap," observed Kobayashi.

 

[Condottiere]

"The orders are rather precise as to the time of departure, and the location of arrival," said Kobayashi, thoughtfully.

"Four parsecs means that we arrive with tanks almost dry, and considering where we are supposed to exit, chasing the local gas giant, to fill up with hydrogen," Lee calculating the likely flight path.

"But," mused Koenig, "do we need to exit at those astronomical coordinates?"

Lee looked at Kobasyashi, who did have a better appreciation for the nuances of hierarchy and orders.

"Yes," she said rather firmly.

Koenig seemed somewhat introspective, as he digested this viewpoint.

Finally, Koenig seemed to come to some sort of decision.

"Can we arrive at those coordinates, but way earlier than expected?"

"No. Which is probably why the departure time was explicitly mentioned in our order; latitude would be given for the usual jumptime uncertainty, " clarified Kobayashi.

"What," drew out Koenig, "if we deliberately misjumped?"

"No!" reiterated Kobayashi, deeply shocked at this breach of astrogational etiquette, if not commandment.

 

[Condottiere]

"We could end up actually dead, not just academically."

Lee continued, "And, it's not just us three, you're responsible for another seven cadets, who aren't involved in our mess. In fact, why are they assigned to this ship?"

"Mari, I think you should pull up their files, and find out."

Mari looked hesitant, and then proceeded to the communications station, where she started typing in a string of commands. Kobayashi was a gifted hacker, but the Navy needed her genius for astrogation more.

"Bounce the signal around, so it can't be traced back to us," advised Koenig.

"Don't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs," Kobayashi shot back, and then inexplicably blushed.

A few minutes later, the cadet profiles were projected in the command station main screen, crowded by the three Flight Branch cadets hovering over the console.

"Well," said Lee, "that explains why they would be grist to the mill of this conspiracy: they're all at the bottom, or close enough that it makes no difference, of their respective classes."

"That does not mean that a misjump would be an inevitable outcome, even if I deliberately tweaked the astrogation results," pointed out Kobayashi, "the Academy might work to attrition half the cadets, but doesn't admit incompetents."

 

[Condottiere]

"Many believe that what they term jumpspace is a higher dimensional plane of existence, that allows jump drive equipped spacecraft to coast to a specified point in space, and then exit it."

"It is, in fact, a lower two dimensional plane, with a third dimension somewhat analogous to our fourth of time," explained Kobayashi.

"We don't really understand it, and just repeat practices that millenia of experimentation and usage seem to indicate that we can safely utilize, to travel far distances, within a week."

"Current term being thrown around is the Subverse; it subverts our understanding of Einsteinian physics."

"Yeah," muttered Lee, "it's nuts."

Kobayashi favoured Lee with a look of disdain.

"I can narrow down our time of arrival, but widening that window, deliberately, introduces greater uncertainty." finished Kobayashi.

Koenig pondered his options, and his long silence did not instill his companions with optimism.

"You know," offered Lee, "we could do a breach birth."

 

[Condottiere]

"This subclass doesn't have a Deep Space Manoeuvring System," interjected Kobayashi.

"It's not impossible, but it requires patience and a careful vectoring of the manoeuvre drive," explained Lee.

"The ship would be positioned in another direction than expected, and we could have a running start, once we pop out of the Subverse."

"If we do get ambushed, the Confederation Navy would consider us too large to run, and we're too small to win," analyzed Koenig.

"They can't set it up with a cruiser, too important for such a role, and too few in number to waste on such an exercise; unlikely a destroyer division," considered Lee, "frigate with close escorts to block an escape."

The jump bridge had been crowded with the remaining cadets, listening to the litany of doom that their leadership troika had been dishing out. Some looked panic. One took out her communications device, and started frantically typing.

Lee grabbed her device.

"No matter what the skipper says, there is no texting in the campaign room."

 

[Condottiere]

Koenig moved to quell the alarmed, and looking increasingly mutinous, crew of fourth year cadets.

"We all know what this is all about, the live exercise for a simple four parsec translation, wilderness refuelling, and return, has been coopted to ensure that subsequent events paint us as rather incompetent, if not negligent, which would give whoever is the captain, and his command staff, a failing grade."

"The rest of the crew, being aspiring Confederation Navy officers, who should have noticed this, and brought it to the attention of the commanding officer, would be collateral damage," Koenig concluded.

While some of the cadets looked stricken, the rest appeared to have accepted their fate, probably well aware where they stood in the academic tier. It wasn't that they weren't capable of being naval officers, it was more that the Confederation Navy would only induct so many in peacetime, and they would be accepted as enlisted personnel, and could work their way up the ranks.

This was assumed to have to do partially with the power parity between the Party, Security, and the Army, since there seems to be some vague supposition that a navy with too large an officer corps, may be tempted to launch a coup.

The female cadet who had frantically tried to text during the initial revelation, now sidled up to Koenig, pushing aside Lee with the words, "You're in my way."

"Hey, I just met you, here's my contact code, so call me, maybe, after this fiasco is over."

Koenig smiled at her, took the data, and turned away to the flight bridge.

"Where do you think you're going?" came the low growl from Kobayashi's throat.

 

[Condottiere]

Lee watched Koenig and Kobayashi starting a heated, if discrete, discussion, with a lot of hand movements and emphasizing from Kobayashi.

"You know," Koenig confided to Lee, "I'd like to meet one of those alien greenskinned Orion slavegirls, whose only wish is to dance and keep you happy; maybe the Zhodani maidens are like them."

He sighed, hopefully.

"Well, you could get Wuan Technology to recreate one, and even include cat ears," Lee condoled, if you can't visit the Consulate.

"In either case," Lee commented, "they'd be human, not alien; also, slavery is illegal in the Confederation."

Koenig glanced in the direction of Kobayashi, who seemed to be viciously attacking the keyboard of the astrogation computer with long fingers trained in in the hard technique of kung fu fighting.

Those strikes were fast as lightning, but did it with expert timing.

In fact, it was a little bit frightening.

 

[Condottiere]

There was little doubt that Kobayashi was brilliant at astrogation, and quite possibly, would be immediately assigned upon graduation to one of the Shanghai class battlecruisers to gain experience, skipping the intermediate assignments of fleet courier, deep strike destroyer, and clipper galleon or deep strike cruiser.

She'd shave the time that travelling in the Subverse tolled, as far as manipulating the jump drive could be done with the astrogation algorithm.

In the larger starwarships, the unoccupied members of the Flight Branch would also be composing the answer(s) to the astrogation equation, seeing who'd have the neatest solution, though for the piloting specialists it was more practice, in case they were in a situation without an astrogator to do it for them.

Capital starwarships usually had the entire subdepartment of astrogators calculate transitions for all the smaller starships, especially the fleet couriers.

Since the lazy buggers usually had nothing else to do, thought Lee.

"Do you want to hear a joke?" asked Koenig.

"Sure."

"A human, a Vargr, and an Aslan, are sitting at a table. There is a juicy steak in the middle. The human goes to the fresher, but when he returns, the steak is gone. The Vargr is licking his lips, and the Aslan accuses the Vargr of eating it, but the human doesn't believe the Aslan. Why?"

"'Cos he's lion," answered Lee.