said with a smile.
“Thank you. I'm putting you in charge of all the Aucharian soldiers aboard, coordinate with my First Officer and Chief Engineer, Liam Grady.” Captain Valance told Jane with a smile. “Your objectives are to ensure the peace is maintained and that no one strays into the sealed sections of the ship. Help with the repairs if you have time, but limiting access should be more important for now.”
“Yes sir.”
“Angelo, I'd like your team to start clearing the hangars. Put anything not in use in storage and get them ready for incoming ships. I don't know what we can expect out here, or what we'll need other than clear space. If you could inventory what we have that would be good too, but it's not top priority.”
“Aye sir. I'll get my people together and we'll start in hangar two.”
“Thank you again, for the purpose of clarity I'm designating Jane as Security Chief, and Angelo as Deck Chief. Welcome to the Triton. ” Captain Valance said with a smile. It was reciprocated by everyone in the room except for Paula, who didn't look quite as sour as she did when she first entered the room.
The new crew members left, leaving Jake and Stephanie alone in the room again. “Lucky,” Captain Valance said quietly. “We're very lucky.”
“That platoon is responsible for getting the Verant operational again. That's pretty good work for a destroyer with a slagged front half.”
“Notice how they didn't say anything about the Minister?”
Stephanie thought for a moment. “You're right. I guess they like government about as much as anyone.”
“That helps. He'll be a perfect pawn.”
“What for sir?”
“Regent Galactic. I'm expecting them any minute now. If we don't have to use him when we meet up with Regent, I plan on using him next time we meet up with the Aucharians.”
Stephanie smiled at him. “I'm surprised at how lost he seemed, like he'd never been on this side of a desk.”
“Politicians, they earn their rank through popularity, not qualification. I doubt he actually did anything resembling hard service.”
Stephanie's smile subsided and she looked out the window to the distant planet.
“What's on your mind,” Jake asked gently.
“Being First Officer. On the Samson it means something completely different. I look at manuals more than anything and outside of security I have no idea what I'm doing. I shudder at the mention of engineering, that whole section of the status display is a mystery to me. I don't even know what DERA system is and we have eight of them. They take up a tenth of the ship.”
“They're diverse energy reactor assemblies and can turn almost any material or force of nature into raw power or use high yield fusion if you have the right staff. The three Wheeler was using were set to run on dense materials like uranium. Cheap but dirty and inefficient.”
“See? All I really know about uranium is that you're not supposed to handle the stuff outside a suit.”
“Stephanie, you've been working with me for what, four years?”
“Coming up on five, sir.”
“It's your decision making process I want in that chair. Everything else you'll learn through questioning and experience. Just do what I do when I don't know something, ask, delegate and make sure whoever you left in charge is making the right choices.”
“If commanding a ship like this were that easy I would have seen a few more of them out here. As it is, I've only seen maybe half a dozen military carriers in my life.”
“You'll have second chair on this one if you stick with it,” Captain Valance said invitingly. “Give it some time, use it as an opportunity to learn, lean on the people you trust.” He stood and put her hand on her shoulder. “At the core of it all, you're First Officer because I trust you.”
“Thank you sir. I'll do my best.”
“Captain, we have a problem. Five Regent Galactic ships have arrived at the system outer limits,” Frost reported over the comm. “And I'm still the only one manning tactical.”
Captain Valance walked onto the bridge and took the command chair with Stephanie close behind.
Price was already on his way to helping Frost at the tactical and security stations. “At least I had half an hour to go through the general tutorial,” he said to himself. “It seems simple enough at a glance.”
“Wait 'till you start looking a little deeper an' try doing somethin' that's worth doin' right. Then we'll see those eyes go as round as saucers.”
“You'd think you'd be rooting for me.”
“You've got a point there,” Frost said with a nod as he brought up their missile and torpedo inventory.
“Liam, how are my reactors?” Captain Valance asked through the intercom. He waited a minute, looking at the tactical screen. “Liam?”
“Aye, here sir. We could bring them online, I'd rather have another twenty minutes though.”
“With hostiles in the area we don't have the time. How about our cloaking systems?”
“They've been reset. Any misalignment or other problems have been corrected, theoretically.”
“Good. Give us some power.”
“All three reactors will be online in about two minutes. It won't be as clean as I'd like, but that can come later. Liam out.”
“Pardon me Captain, but unless I'm mistaken we won't be able to enter hyperspace, use shields or effectively cloak as long as we're docked with that transport,” Agameg Price said, pointing to the main holographic display.
“God dammit, have we been able to communicate with them at all?”
“No sir. I've been trying everything, even the hard line through the mooring point,” Cynthia reported.
“How many souls aboard?”
“One hundred seventy one sir,” Frost reported.
“Fine, take care of it Steph, we should have done something about that an hour ago.”
Stephanie was out of her seat and on her way off the bridge, opening communications to Jane and taking a pulse rifle from one of the four bridge guards. “Chief Eccleston, send two squads of armed units to the port mooring hatch. I'll assume direct command once I get there.”
Captain Valance took a closer look at the tactical display then brought it up on the main holoprojector. “There's a gravity shadow there, but the sensors aren't picking up anything else.” He adjusted the scanners to focus in on a space right behind the five destroyers and switched between different sets of readings.
The silhouette of a three tiered octagonal ship with long girders extending from each corner appeared. “That's new,” he said to himself. The holodisplay marked the main body as nine kilometres wide, each extended arm was an additional twelve kilometres.
It appeared to all spectrums of light, on all scanning systems with a sudden burst of light and the holoprojector showed the outline of a magnetic field over twenty five hundred kilometres across extending from it in all directions.
“I think we're a little out gunned sir,” Frost said quietly.
“That field, it must be how it collects power,” Price added. “It's rotating so it's facing the star.”
“Wouldn't that endanger the ships around it?” Asked Ashley.
“It's not much different from the magnetic field the Samson and most other ships generate. Only instead of redirecting small particles around the ship it collects them along with solar radiation, this ship has a similar, but much smaller magnetic scoop system,” Captain Valance replied. “With those arms it could probably project an even bigger field if it had to.”
The reactors powered up and on the secondary holographic display systems across the ship started turning yellow and green. “Ashley, pilot us towards the nearest moon. I want it between us and that ship as soon as possible.”
“Aye sir,” Ashley acknowledged with a smile.
“Are you sure you're ready to fly the Triton under full power?” Asked her copilot in a hushed, nervous tone.
“Yup, I just got certified.”
