Midshipman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 1) Read online

  I stepped inside. Lieutenant Lisa Dagalow, on watch with Captain Haag, nodded civilly. Though she’d never gone out of her way to help me, neither did she lash out like First Lieutenant Cousins.

  I couldn’t help being overawed by the bridge. The huge simulscreen on the curved front bulkhead gave a breathtaking view from the nose of the ship—when we weren’t Fused, of course. Now, the other smaller screens to either side were also blank. These screens, under our puter Darla’s control, could simulate any conditions known to her memory banks.

  The Captain’s black leather armchair was bolted to the deck behind the left console. The watch officer’s chair I’d occupy was to its right. No one else ever sat in the Captain’s chair, even for a drill.

  “Midshipman Seafort reporting, sir.” Of course Captain Haag knew me. A Captain who didn’t recognize his own middies in a crew of eleven officers had problems. But regs were regs.

  “Take your seat, Mr. Seafort.” Unnecessarily, Captain Haag indicated the watch officer’s chair. “I’ll call up a simulation of Hope Nation system. You will maneuver the ship for docking at Orbit Station.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” It was the only permissible response to an order from the Captain. Cadets or green middies fresh from Academy were sometimes confused by the difference between “Yes, sir,” and “Aye aye, sir.” It was simple. Asked a question to which the answer was affirmative, you said “Yes, sir.” Given an order, you said “Aye aye, sir.” It didn’t take many trips to the first lieutenant’s barrel to get it right.

  Captain Haag touched his screen. “But first, you have to get to Hope Nation.” My heart sank. “We’ll begin at the wreck of Celestina, Mr. Seafort. Proceed.” He tilted back in his armchair.

  I picked up the caller. “Bridge to engine room, prepare to Defuse.” My voice squeaked, and I blushed.

  “Prepare to Defuse, aye aye, sir.” Chief McAndrews’s crusty voice, from the engine room below. “Control passed to bridge.” Naturally, the console’s indicators from the engine room were simulations; Captain Haag wasn’t about to Defuse for a mere middy drill.

  “Passed to bridge, aye aye.” I put my index finger to the top of the drive screen and traced a line from “Full” to “Off”. The simulscreens came alive with a blaze of lights, and I gasped though I’d known to expect it. Stars burned everywhere, in vastly greater numbers than could be imagined groundside.

  “Confirm clear of encroachments, Lieutenant. Please,” I added. After the drill she’d still be my superior officer. Lieutenant Dagalow bent to her console.

  Our first priority in emerging from Fusion was to make sure there were no planetary bodies or vessels about. The chance was one in billions, but not one we took lightly. Darla always ran a sensor check, but despite the triple redundancy built into each of her systems, we didn’t rely on her sensors. Navigation was based on an overriding principle: don’t trust machinery. Everything was rechecked by hand.

  “Clear of encroachments, Mr. Seafort.” Technically Ms. Dagalow should have called me “sir” during the drill, while I acted as Captain, but I wasn’t about to remind her of that.

  “Plot position, please, ma’am. I mean, Lieutenant.”

  Lieutenant Dagalow set the puter to plot our position on her star charts. The screen filled with numbers as a cheerful feminine voice announced, “Position is plotted, Mr. Seafort.”

  “Thank you, Darla.” The puter dimmed her screens slightly in response. I’m not going to get into the age-old question: was she really alive? That one caused more barroom fights than everything else put together. My personal opinion was—well, never mind, it doesn’t matter. Ship’s custom was to respond to the puter as a person. All the correct responses to polite phrases and banter were built into her. At Academy, they’d told us crewmen found it easier to relate to a puter with human mannerisms.

  “Calculate the new coordinates, please,” I said. Lieutenant Dagalow leaned forward to comply. Captain Haag intervened. “The Lieutenant is ill. You’ll have to plot them yourself.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” It took twenty-five minutes, and by the time I was done I’d broken out in a sweat. I was fairly sure I was right, but fairly sure isn’t good enough when the Captain is watching from the next seat. I punched in the new Fusion coordinates for the short jump that would carry us to Hope Nation.

  “Coordinates received and understood, Mr. Seafort.” Darla.

  “Chief Engineer, Fuse, please.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Fusion drive is ... on.” The screens abruptly went blank as Darla simulated reentry into Fusion.

  “Very well, Mr. Seafort,” the Captain said smoothly. “How long did you estimate second Fusion?”

  “Eighty-two days, sir.”

  “Eighty-two days have passed.” He typed a sequence into his console. “Proceed.”

  Again I brought the ship out of Fusion. After screening out the overpowering presence of the G-type Hope Nation sun, we could detect Orbit Station circling the planet. Lieutenant Dagalow confirmed that we were clear of encroachments. Then she became ill again and, increasingly edgy, I had to plot manual approach myself.

  “Auxiliary engine power, Chief.” My tone was a bark; my grip on the caller made my wrist ache.

  “Aye aye, sir. Power up.” Mr. McAndrews must have been waiting for the signal. Of course he would be; Lord God knows how many midshipmen he’d put through nav drill over the years.

  “Steer oh three five degrees, ahead two-thirds.”

  “Two-thirds, aye aye, sir.” The console showed our engine power increasing. Nervously I reminded myself that Hibernia was still cruising in Fusion, that all this was but a drill.

  I glanced at the simulscreen. “Declination ten degrees.”

  “Ten degrees, aye aye, sir.”

  I approached Orbit Station with caution. Easily visible in the screens, it grew steadily larger. I braked the ship for final approach.

  “Steer oh four oh, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Sir, Orbit Station reports locks ready and waiting.”

  “Confirm ready and waiting, understood,” I repeated, trying to absorb the flood of information from our instruments.

  Dagalow said, “Relative speed two hundred kilometers per hour, Mr. Seafort.”

  “Two hundred, understood. Maneuvering jets, brake fifteen.” Propellant squirted from the jets to brake the ship’s forward motion.

  “Relative speed one hundred fifteen kilometers, distance twenty-one kilometers.”

  Still too fast. “Brake jets, eighteen.” We slowed further, but the braking threw off our approach. I adjusted by tapping the side maneuvering jets.

  Our conventional engines burned LH2 and LOX as propellant; water was cheap and Hibernia’s fusion engines provided ample energy to convert it, but there was a limit to how much we could carry. To go faster we would spend more water. We’d spend an equal amount slowing down; nothing was free. Theoretically we could sail to Hope Nation on a few spoonfuls of LH2 and LOX, but not in our lifetimes. How much time was worth how much loss of propellant? That depended on how much maneuvering lay ahead. A nice logistics problem with many variables.

  Mine was not a smooth approach. I backed and filled, wasting precious propellant as I tried to align the ship to the two waiting airlocks. Captain Haag said nothing. Finally I was in position, our airlocks two hundred meters apart, our velocity zero relative to Orbit Station.

  “Steer two seven oh, two spurts.” That would move our pencil to the left, still parallel with the nearby station. It did, far too fast. I had forgotten how little fuel is needed for a correction at close quarters. Hibernia’s nose swung perilously close to the station’s waiting airlock.

  I panicked. “Brake ninety, one spurt!”

  Lieutenant Dagalow entered the command, her face impassive.

  Lord God in heaven! I’d compounded my error by pulling away the tail of the ship, instead of the nose. “Brake two seven oh, all jets!”

  The screen darkened as Orbit S
tation loomed into our shadow.

  Alarm bells shrilled. The screen suddenly jerked askew. My hand flew to the console to brace myself for a jolt that never came.

  Darla’s shrill voice overrode the screaming alarms. “Loss of seal, forward cargo compartment!”

  Ms. Dagalow shouted, “Shear damage amidships!”

  The main screen lurched. Darla’s voice was urgent. “EMERGENCY! The disk has struck! Decompression in Level 2!” I was sick with horror.

  Captain Haag pushed his master switch. The alarms quieted to blessed silence. “You’ve killed half the passengers,” he said heavily. “Over a third of your crew is in the decompression zone and is most likely dead. Your ship is out of control. The rupture in the hull is bigger than the forward airlock.”

  I’d done more damage to my ship than even Celestina had sustained. I closed my eyes, unable to speak.

  “Stand, Mr. Seafort.”

  I stumbled to my feet, managed to come to attention.

  “You didn’t do all that badly until the docking,” the Captain said, not unkindly. “You were slow, but you got the ship into correct position. You failed to anticipate decisions, and so you had too much to do in a short time. As a result you lost your ship.”

  “Yes, sir.” I’d lost my ship, all right. And with it any chance of making lieutenant before home port.

  He surprised me. “Review the manual again, Seafort. As many times as it takes. By next drill I’ll expect you to have it right.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Dismissed.” I slunk out.

  It was the worst day of my life.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Amanda.” She was perched on her bed in her ample cabin on Level 1, while I sat on the deck nearby.

  I was off duty, and ship’s regs permitted officers to socialize with passengers. Sensibly enough, the Naval powers had decided to endorse what they could not prevent.

  “Nicky, everyone makes mistakes. Don’t punish yourself, just do better next time.”

  My tone was bitter. “Vax and Alexi dock the ship and come out alive. I’m the senior midshipman and I can’t.”

  “You will,” she soothed. “Study and you will.”

  I didn’t tell her how Lieutenant Cousins would have to coach me all over again to prepare for the drill. When he was done I’d be lucky if I could remember how to dress myself. I writhed in disgust. I didn’t normally panic; I handled some problems reasonably well or I wouldn’t have made it through Academy. But knowing everyone’s life depended on me was too much. I knew I’d never be able to cope.

  Morose, I settled into a chair. “I’m sorry I bothered you with this, Amanda.”

  “Oh, Nicky, don’t be silly. We’re friends, aren’t we?” Yes, but that’s all we were. I’d have liked to be more, but there were three long years between us and she didn’t seem interested. “Why do they torture midshipmen with those drills, anyway? That’s what the Pilot is for.”

  “The Captain is in charge of the ship,” I said patiently. “Always. Pilot Haynes, like the Chief Engineer and the Doctor, is staff, not a line officer.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he’s not in the chain of command. If the Captain fell ill, the first lieutenant would command, then Ms. Dagalow, then Lieutenant Malstrom.”

  “But you’d still have the Pilot to dock the ship. Everybody can’t be sick or gone.”

  “But the Pilot wouldn’t be ultimately responsible. It’s not his ship.”

  “Still, it’s silly to expect boys just out of cadet academy to know how to fly the ship.”

  “Sail. Sail the ship.”

  “What’s the difference? You know what I mean.”

  I tried to explain. “Amanda, we’re here to learn what the lieutenants and the Captain do. That’s what the drills are for.”

  “I still think it’s silly,” Amanda said stubbornly. “And cruel.” I let it be.

  3

  “TURN THAT THING DOWN, Alexi.” I got myself ready for bed. It had been a bad day all around and I was cross.

  “Sorry, Mr. Seafort.” Quickly he lowered the volume of his holovid. Just a year younger than I, Alexi Tamarov was everything I wanted to be: slim, graceful, good-natured, and competent. But he was addicted to his slap music, while my own taste ran to classical composers: Lennon, Jackson, and Biederbeck.

  I regretted my temper, but still, I thanked Lord God I was senior and had the right to order the music turned low. I’d have managed somehow even if I weren’t in charge, but life had enough trials without that. As senior, I had my choice of bunks and got first serving at morning and afternoon mess, and I supposedly controlled the wardroom, though I was aware my authority was precarious at best.

  In a Naval vessel, midshipmen were thrown together with little forethought. Fresh from Academy or with years of service, we were expected to live and work together smoothly. By ship’s regs it was the senior middy’s duty to run the wardroom, but tradition gave any middy the right to challenge him. In that case the two would fight it out. Because conflicts were inevitable and their resolution necessary, officers turned a blind eye to the scrapes, black eyes, or bruises a midshipman might develop from interacting with his fellows.

  Vax Holser and I had an unspoken understanding; he bullied the other middies, and we left each other alone. We both knew that if I pulled rank on him I’d have to back it up. I ignored his calling me “Nicky” with barely concealed contempt; beyond that, we both avoided the test.

  Vax stirred, opened one eye to glare at Alexi. I hoped he wouldn’t start anything, but he growled, “You’re an asshole.”

  Alexi made no reply.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.” Alexi knew he couldn’t tangle with Vax.

  “Tell me you’re an asshole.” The trouble with Vax was that once he started he wouldn’t let up.

  Alexi glanced at me. I was noncommittal.

  “I don’t feel like getting up, Tamarov. Tell me.”

  “I’m an asshole!” Alexi snapped off the holovid and threw himself on his bed, facing the partition. His back was tight.

  “I already knew that.” Vax sounded annoyed.

  In the unpleasant silence I glumly recalled my arrival a few weeks before. Lugging my gear, I’d reported to Hibernia at Earthport Station, the huge concourse orbiting above Lunapolis City. Preoccupied with loading the incoming stores, Lieutenant Cousins glanced at my sheaf of papers and sent me to find the wardroom on my own.

  As I bent awkwardly to open the wardroom hatch a figure cannoned outward through the hatchway, propelling me across the corridor, duffel underfoot, papers flying. I fetched up against the far bulkhead in disarray. My shoulder felt broken.

  “Wilsky, get your ass in here!” The bellow came from within.

  The young middy froze in horror as I swiped helplessly at a cascade of papers. He darted forward and bent to help me pick up my documents. “You’re Wilsky?” was all I could think to say.

  “Yes, uh, sir,” he said, glancing at my length of service pins, knowing instantly that I was his senior.

  “Who’s that?” I beckoned to the closed hatch.

  “That’s Mr. Holser, sir. He’s in charge. He was going—” Wilsky grimaced as the hatch sprang open. A huge form loomed over us.

  “What the devil do you think—” The muscular midshipman frowned down at me as I crouched in the corridor stuffing papers back into their folders. “Are you the new middy?”

  “Yes.” I stood. Automatically I checked his length of service pins. When I got my orders I was told I’d be first middy, but mistakes happen.

  “You can put your—” His face went white. “What the bloody hell!” With dismay, I realized that no one had told him. He’d thought he was going to be senior.

  Remembering, I sighed. Our first month had not been easy, and I had seventeen more to endure before landfall. I couldn’t physically overpower Vax Holser. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how I could tolerat
e him either.

  “It is precisely because of that, Mrs. Donhauser, because the distances are so great and the voyages so long, that authority is made so rigid and discipline so harsh.”

  Mrs. Donhauser listened closely to Khali Ibn Saud, our amateur sociologist and, by profession, an interplanetary banker.

  It was a quiet afternoon some two months into the voyage, and I was sitting in the Level 2 passengers’ lounge.

  “I’d think distance would have the opposite effect,” she countered. “As people got farther from central government, bonds of authority would be loosened.”

  “Yes!” His tone was excited, as if Mrs. Donhauser had proven his point. “They certainly would, if all were left alone. But central authority, our government, reacts, you see? To maintain control it provides rules and standards and insists we adhere to them regardless of circumstances. And our government is willing to invest time and effort in enforcing them.”

  The lounge was decorated in pale green, said to be a calming color. From the look of Mr. Barstow, sound asleep in a recliner, the decor was effective. The size of two passenger staterooms, the lounge could seat at least fifteen passengers comfortably. It was furnished with upholstered chairs, recliners, a bench, two game tables, and an intelligent coffee/softie dispenser.

  I was only half interested in the debate. Mr. Ibn Saud’s theory was not new. In fact, they had presented it better at Academy.

  Mrs. Donhauser appealed to me. “Tell him, young man. Isn’t it true that the Captain is his own authority here in midspace? That he answers to no one?”

  “That’s two questions,” I answered. “Yes, and no. The Captain is the ultimate authority on a vessel under weigh. He answers to no one aboard ship. But his conduct is prescribed by the regs. If he deviates from them, on his return he will be removed, or worse.”

  “So you see,” Ibn Saud said triumphantly, “central authority is maintained even in the depths of space.”

  “Foo!” she threw at him. “The Captain can sail slower, faster, even take a detour if he wishes. Central government has nothing to say about it.”