Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6) Read online

  “What did you do?” Something that had irritated Admiral Nagoya. But not a great deal of irritation.

  “I picketed his house. Admiral Nagoya lives next door to my family.”

  “You picketed his house?”

  “Yes, Commander. I don’t agree with how the war’s being conducted. I wrote ‘Not my War’ on a sign, called Sat News and marched back and forth on the sidewalk in front of his house for about ten minutes. The news people arrived and took my picture, and then Marines came and arrested me.”

  “You are how old, Ensign? What kind of experience do you have?”

  “I’ll be sixteen in four months. I was a secondary student at Maunalua High. A sophomore. I was in the University track.”

  “Interests?”

  “History and economics. I hadn’t made up my mind which I liked more.”

  “And why does Admiral Nagoya think you will make a decent operations officer? How long have you been in the Fleet?”

  “I told the rat bastard to his face that I didn’t want to be a part of this. That I’m not like these aliens that go around killing every last man, woman and child they can. I didn’t hold with blowing up every one of their men, women and children.

  “He laughed! The bastard laughed at me!”

  “That, Ensign, answered exactly nothing of what I asked you. I don’t ask lightly. Answer me.”

  “I told you, the rat bastard laughed at me! The next thing I knew I was given a choice: be shot or join up. The bastard kept laughing and laughing. He had one of his aides swear me in, and then he wrote out my orders long hand, told one of his people to see that I was transported to Rome forthwith and just kept laughing. I’ve been wearing this uniform for three days; I need a shower, I want to change clothes. I want to punch that rat bastard in the nose.”

  The intercom popped and the crew chief spoke to Lynn. “Commander, are you two going to just sit there chewing the fat the rest of the morning, or can I get my bay cleared here?”

  “Pirate, you ever have a senior chew you out?”

  She laughed. “A time or two, Commander.”

  “Took a while, did it?”

  “Aye, usually a minute or two.”

  “You have a choice, then. Be patient, or learn how long it takes me to rip you a new one.”

  “Put like that, Commander, I find I can be patient for about another eleven minutes. Then I have a courier coming in that I need the slot for.”

  Lynn hit the display button for communications, and then killed the umbilical connection. “So, Ensign. We need to talk, you and I. This isn’t the time. You will, however, start at once learning your job. Please look at the display in front of you.”

  “I see it.”

  Lynn rolled her eyes. “It’s two feet away from you, two feet high and two feet wide. I should hope you can see it! Now, centered, on the bottom, is a red square that says ‘Master Start.’ Push it.”

  There was about a half second delay and then the bird started to come alive. “Well,” Lynn thought, “you weren’t just jaw-jawing; you were looking at the panel. You didn’t hunt for that button; you’d seen it and remembered it.”

  She continued to talk to the ensign. “There is a row of five LED readouts above Master Start. From the left, they are the fuel status, the oxygen status, the carbon dioxide status, electronics status and the engine status. These are called ‘the cascade.’ That is, some may change with time, as the indicated status changes and that's okay. Some, like electronics or engines, any change is a bad thing. Right now, they are all green, but two, that have blue flecks at the bottom.

  “Take note of the small blue fleck at the bottom of the fuel status cascade, a similar one at the bottom of the oxygen cascade. It didn’t take much fuel to fly here from Rome, but it took some. I breathed on the way. Blue is okay but if the cascades start to bleed, you have problems. Red on any of the meters is a serious matter.”

  “The lines are all green except those two that are blue,” the ensign reported.

  “That means we can go. Sit back, relax. Enjoy the view.”

  “I can’t see anything outside the cockpit.”

  “Outside, Ensign Rhodes, is the vacuum of space. It will kill you if you come into contact with it. The preferred weapon of our enemy is the gigaton thermonuclear weapon. I don’t know personally anyone who has seen one detonate, because if you can see a nuclear detonation of that magnitude with the naked eye, you’re dead. Even if you’re far enough away from the weapons effects not to die instantly, you’d be blind -- then you would die. We have instruments that allow us to see what’s around us electronically; better by far.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Lynn changed the detent on the comm system and spoke to Flight Operations. “Razor Leader, ready to fly.”

  “Fly, Razor Leader,” the feminine voice in flight control said, “you are cleared for launch. Nothing is close; we’ve dumped the local environment to your comp.” There was a pause, and then the flight controller chuckled, “Thank you very much for your visit, Razor Leader. Come back early and often!”

  Lynn smiled. You just hate to get involved with upper rank politics, but the closer you got to the bastards, the less able you were to maneuver clear. Ensign Rhodes was a good case in point.

  Lynn switched back to the internal circuit. “Ensign, a fighter launch is called ‘going down the rail.’ We are fired off MacArthur using a rail gun catapult; five g’s for two seconds. Then there’s a fraction of a second where the computer makes sure we’re actually moving clear, then it cranks up our fans and we go another minute at two g’s to get well clear of the ship. You will want to put your head back against the seat rest, put your hands on the seat rest grips and hold tight. If you aren’t holding tight, your hands will come loose; people have knocked themselves out; you can end up with broken bones. If your head isn’t securely against the rest, you can be rendered unconscious and even get a broken neck.

  “If it happens once and you survive, you are subject to an inquiry, where we decide if there is any hope for you. A second time means there is no hope; we find something else for you to do.

  “Flying, Ensign, is simple. Flying a fighter is an art. Surviving combat is an artistic application of luck. We are now at minus five seconds. Hold tight!”

  They went down the rail, then a few moments later boosted away from MacArthur.

  Lynn told Rome she was going to park and check out the scenery. The flight controller chuckled and gave her a safe vector away from the ships.

  “Ensign, do you understand that not only your life is on the line just now, but others as well? That I just can’t go forward with what I know at the moment? I have a question to ask of you. I want you to think about it, I want to say a whole bunch of things before you answer it, ask all the questions you want and then I want you to think some more. Please, as a favor to a lot of people, don’t decide quickly, even if you think you are positive.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Good. Now, first thing, tell me exactly what happened with Admiral Nagoya.”

  “I waited outside his house, until the news team arrived. Then I walked up and down on the sidewalk with my sign while they took pictures. Then the woman reporter with them asked me questions about what I thought of the war. I told her that we were civilized humanity and that we weren’t unthinking monsters like those we face. We learned our lesson a long time ago about genocide. We’re better than that.

  “I’d been talking to the reporter for a few minutes, and then Admiral Nagoya came out of his house. I’ve known him for five years. I mean, not well, but I’ve been to parties at his house and he’s been to parties my parents held.

  “He asked me what my grievance was and I told him, with the news people there, recording. He looked at me a long time; really long. Then he waved at me and told a Marine to arrest me. One of the news people asked him why and he said that I’d spoken sedition and treason. The newsperson asked if they were going to confiscate their data
disks and the admiral shook his head and said that the news crew were grown-ups and could make their own choices. He said I was going to go before a Special Board, charged with Race Treason for saying what I’d said. He smiled at them and told them they could imagine what would happen to someone who broadcast those views.”

  Oh yeah! Race Treason cubed! “But you never went before a board?”

  “I don’t think so. I was taken to Fleet Headquarters, and was put in a room by myself for about an hour. Then Admiral Nagoya came in and asked if I had the courage of my convictions. I told him that if good people said and did nothing when others did evil then that was a worse evil. He asked me if that was a yes or a no. I said it was yes.

  “A few minutes later, I was in a room with a bunch of admirals and other people. A lot of stars and glitter, a bunch of suits. My parents were there, too. Admiral Nagoya asked me to repeat my opinion. I did. I looked the bastard in the eye and told him exactly what I thought of how they are running the war. That’s when he started laughing at me again, in front of all those people.”

  Lynn reached down and ran her hand over the two brass spheres Donna Merriweather had given her, after Donna had asked Lynn if she would be willing to lead a squadron for Second Rome and Lynn had agreed. “Two big brass ones,” she’d been told.

  The ensign did have passion and fire, after all. It was funny, really. Ironic and bitterly funny. Why had she forgotten that passion and fire were where you found them and not where you expected? And came in as many guises as there were people?

  “Admiral Nagoya told me that it was the official policy of the Federation that we are going to exterminate our enemy as they are exterminating us. Did I have anything else to say? I told him, I told all of them, that we had to think of another way, because I wasn’t like the aliens, and I didn’t think most people are either.

  “He told me that I had a choice between an involuntary enlistment or a Special Board. He told me that if I agreed to enlist, he would see that I would become an operations officer. He asked me if I knew what an operations officer was. I didn’t. He told me that operations officers make the plans for conduct of the war. That if I really wanted to have an impact on war planning that was what I should do.

  “I’m not stupid; I don’t want to die. So I told him yes. That was three days ago.”

  “Is that what you really want to do? Operations?” Lynn asked the ensign. “I mean, is that what you really, really want to do?”

  “If it means I might be able stop what they’re doing, yes, Commander, I do. The only way anyone will listen is if I do good.”

  “Do you know what I mean when I say, ‘First Rome, Second Rome?”

  “No, Commander.”

  “We name our battles, Ensign. So we can remember them, so we can learn from them. Mostly, so we can remember. This will be Rome’s third deployment. Those deployments... Well, I’m here to tell you, we fought some hellacious battles. Hellacious.

  “First Rome. You’ve heard of Hannah Sawyer?”

  “She blew up one of their planets.”

  “Well, at least you stopped there; given your opinions, I was thinking you’d say a little more.”

  “I told you, I’m not stupid. You were there, right? With her?”

  “I was there. I’m here; ipso facto, I wasn’t with Hannah on that last mission. God, I’d have given anything if I could have been! Any of us would have! A dozen of my mates were with her. Like her, they’re not with us any longer.

  “Rome launched with seven hundred and fifty fighters, a hundred and fifty-five tankers, and twenty-five miscellaneous smaller ships, mostly Command and Control and electronic intelligence gathering platforms.

  “After First Rome, we had sixty-two fighters and fifty-nine out of the original nine hundred and fifty pilots. Everything else was gone. Rome didn’t take any hits, though.

  “Second Rome. We changed the configuration. Eight hundred and forty fighters, forty squadrons. Two hundred and ten tankers, our usual elint and triple C and I platforms. We had learned a lot, Ensign, that first time. Too much of that was because Hannah Sawyer figured it out. We came back from Second Rome with four hundred fighters, two command ships and all of the intelligence platforms. No tankers, though. They know what tankers are and they go gunning for them.

  “The numbers, Ensign. We lost 92% of our pilots on First Rome. We lost 61% on Second Rome.

  “Now we’re going out again, pretty much the same configuration as last time, but now we have Athens as well. Athens isn’t a carbon copy of Rome; they have half again as many fighters and twice the tankers. Another seventeen thousand men and women, at risk.

  “Ensign, do you know how fighter squadrons are organized?”

  “No, Commander.”

  “Twenty-one pilots. We were supposed to be augmented by twenty-one weapons control officers, but they botched that. But, the classic squadron: we fly with seven elements of three fighters, typically an element leader is a senior lieutenant; pilots are ensigns and junior lieutenants.

  “There is a squadron commander, in this case myself. Usually a full commander, but we’ve dipped down to lieutenants, as the need presented itself. Someone the others will follow without question. Then, there’s the squadron executive officer -- the person who takes over when the squadron commander dies.

  “Except, I’m alive and I’ve lost six execs. Donna Merriweather commanded this squadron before I did and quit picking an exec after she lost her third one. Still, if I were to ask for volunteers, I’d have a line. A gentleman by the name of Mongo Zodiac holds the position currently. He’s two meters of Ozark Marine. I have no idea how he can fit his frame into a fighter cockpit.

  “After the exec is the operations officer. You, Ensign, have no idea what an operations officer does in a fighter squadron. None.”

  “Planning?” the ensign asked.

  “Yes, planning. Think about what I said about survivability and planning, Ensign. The operations officer is the chooser of the living and the dead. The operations officer decides who goes out and when and where they go. True, a lot of the time it’s a squadron effort and there is no choice. Or it’s a situation where you have to send what you’ve got -- so you send them. But, particularly in the beginning, we get mission tasking from the Flag. The operations officer looks at that tasking and decides who could most likely carry out the particular mission assigned to the squadron.

  “And, until today, the operations officer has been a pilot, someone who went out with the rest of us. Squadron commanders have a very low life expectancy. In order to do our jobs, we have to lead. The exec’s job is to hang back out of the way, and take over if the squadron commander is killed. Operations officers feel they need to prove to everyone that he or she can do what they ask of the others. I have never had an operations officer who’s survived more than two combat missions. Usually, the exec and I get together and do it and when I lose my exec, I do it myself.”

  There wasn’t anything said in response, it was kind of like a black hole had opened up in the second seat.

  Which was a good thing, because there was a beep from the comm system. “Razor Lead, Rome. Captain Merriweather needs you back, ASAP or sooner, Commander Shapiro.”

  “Roger, Rome. En route.”

  Lynn made a relatively gentle turn, and then slowly piled on the g’s. The changeover was faster; she just hit the brakes like she would normally.

  When she was down, Lynn keyed the intercom. “You still with me, Ensign?”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “When we egress, I’ll have someone show you to your quarters. Unpack, shower, put on a clean shipsuit and report to me in my office in an hour.”

  “Aye, aye, Commander. Except I have no clean uniforms.”

  “We’ll deal with it.”

  Once they were down, Lynn got out with her usual verve; the ensign had more trouble with the straps, but she got down quickly enough. Lynn gestured to Shinzu, the woman who commanded her maintenance crews.

/>   Shinzu was short, a woman of Chinese extraction, but whose family had been on the Rim for generations. “Shinzu, see to my back seat ensign. Have someone take her to berthing, get her quarters, then show her where those are. Have them carry her ship bag. That’s stowed in the trashcan. Have whoever show her the laundry.”

  “Aye, aye, Commander. Scuttlebutt says they’ve relieved Captain Merriweather.”

  “Relieved or transferred? Mendoza on MacArthur was relieved. Given the boot, relieved.”

  “Transferred. No notice, no objections to be tolerated, no nothing. Out the door by lunch. You better hurry, she wants to see you.”

  Lynn looked at the girl climbing out of the aft cockpit. “One hour, Ensign Rhodes. In my office. Be presentable. A clean shipsuit would be nice.”

  She hated to say such a thing, because there wasn’t a single person in the launch bay that wouldn’t hear it and who wouldn’t pass it on. On the other hand, no matter what the ensign had said, Lynn had been in the ensign’s face. She didn’t smell. A shipsuit with a wrinkle would have a dozen boffins peering at it, wondering what had failed.

  Nope, her people would take away from what Lynn said that their boss was dumping on the newbie. About half of them would count that as a thumbs-up; while the other half would be suspicious of someone who was the target of their boss’s ire. Of course, if they knew the ensign was an involuntary enlistee with zero experience, taking over the number three slot in the squadron, they’d have all hated her guts. Count your blessings, girl.

  Half way to the ship’s office, Jack Marley caught up with her. “Commander, I heard we got another pilot.”

  Lynn stopped. Command decisions, so far as she was concerned, were decisions you had to make with zero time for thought. Command decision time. “You heard wrong. We have our new ops officer, straight from Admiral Nagoya.”

  She saw his eyes tighten, saw him start to hunker down.

  “Jack!” He looked at her; she could see he wasn’t happy.

  “Jack!” she repeated. “In spite of our frequent bull session comments, the men and women who lead us aren’t stupid. Not for the most part. Nagoya is as good of a commander as there ever has been. Now he’s had a flash and it’s an extraordinarily good flash. He’s sent us a non-flight qualified ops officer. She can’t go down the rail, Jack. She has to sit back here and chew her fingernails when we’re up. Someone who is going to give the job the 110% it needs, without the urge to show off her balls.”