“That's not really moving in. You have to find a place to kick your heels up, pick somewhere to put all your creature comforts. Eventually you'll need some time off and it might be good for you to have a quiet space you've made your own.”
Jake thought for a moment, his gaze resting on the enshrined drinking glass. “Between you and me that's hard. On one hand the Samson was my first ship, my only ship. At the same time I'm taking on all these memories, and as much as Jonas and I would probably get along if he were still here, drawing on his experiences, catching myself doing little things he used to do just messes me up sometimes. Some psycho annalist would say I'm hanging on to the Samson because I feel like I'm losing myself. On the other hand I like how Jonas thinks, the experiences he had with his friends, with Ayan. He knew how to be with people, taking charge was his problem while I'm the opposite. Ever since I woke up on the Samson I've been in charge, it's what I had to do to survive, but being with people, feeling like one of their mates instead of their captain, well, it just didn't happen.
“Ash told me she got a big smile out of you the other day. She was on cloud nine for hours.”
The memory prompted a little grin from Jake as he nodded. “She was showing me an ad she'd found in a data burst Liam brought back from his recruiting run for Kawaii Cats. I couldn't help but wilt when I saw it. She's threatening to buy one on her first trip off ship.”
“Oh no, with a talking kitten on board the whole crew will be helpless if we run into a Regent Galactic cruiser.”
“It's insidious, it really is,” Jake laughed. “I don't want any pets on board, not just yet, anyway. This is a warship after all.”
“I have to agree, but eventually someone's going to bring a teacup poodle, or trained rim weasel aboard.”
“I know, we'll have to keep any pets assigned to people who have officer class quarters or family quarters eventually, but for now the policy has to stand. There's still so much we don't know about this ship, compartments we haven't even opened yet. No one's so much as glanced at the Junior Officers quarters and there are four hundred sixty billets there.”
“I think Stephanie's security team will take care of anything on four legs easy enough. Last I read their instructions were to detain and contain anything not walking upright. That woman thinks of just about everything where security is concerned. That is, if she isn't watching you. I don't think there's a person from the Samson who hasn't noticed a few changes in their Captain.”
“How are the crew taking it?” Jake asked, running his finger along the edge of the encased keepsake on his desk.
“Well, they don't know what to expect but knowing that you're more open to suggestions seems to help. People still channel a lot of their ideas through me though. They seem to think I have a lighter hand.”
“Little do they know,” Jake shook his head and smiled.
Alice smiled back. “Little do they know,” the pair shared a knowing look, between the two of them it was difficult to decide which had the more ruthless command style. During ship wide simulations they often switched handles, used each other's voices all in an effort to be fully aware of how the crew responded to each commander. Alice looked back to the small trophy. “So, any idea what you're going to do with your memento?”
“I was going to leave it somewhere in the office since we both use this space. I still don't know where.”
“I like it where it is. It should be somewhere everyone can see it, I think.”
“Makes the decision simple. Speaking of decisions, I've chosen a few targets for Triton to hit when we're ready. One will solve our wormhole generator problem. Price and Finn managed to find more combat damage, it would take weeks to machine the parts since they're too dense to materialize. Not to mention we don't have a machinist that's worked with the technology before. Liam is going to try and rig a solution that'll get it working until we can find a port we can buy the parts from or pursue another solution.”
“The learning curve would kill us on time if the engineering crew can't improvise something.”
“Exactly. So I'm putting a plan together using the Triton, the Samson, and the Cold Reaver along with a few fighters in a support role. I want to steal a wormhole generating hypertransmitter. The intelligence Frost got his hands on lines right up with the transmission data we're tracing.”
“So you've managed to find a transmission node? One small enough to steal?”
Jake smiled at her and nodded. “The Samson can pick it up with the maxjack if she has enough cover. There's a station nearby but if we hit fast and hard enough, distracting with the Triton we'll be able to snatch it. That's only if we can't buy the parts on a recruiting run.”
“Good chance of that. Wormhole generator parts that'll work in the Triton's existing systems are rare.”
Jake nodded his agreement and went on. “In the meantime, there are some supply routes we can hit with hyperspace layover points. I've managed to narrow the list down to military targets that run a lot of wetware assets.”
“You mean slaves.”
“It's not clear. The information we have indicates average head counts per square meter, and there are too many for the ships to carry active crew and no slave cargo. The routes and shipments are significant enough for any disruption to hurt. The loss of these assets won't go unnoticed. That presents another problem.”
“We don't have any allies to offload extra cargo to or to take anyone we liberate in,” Alice finished for him.
“Exactly. So we'll have to take on slaves first, try to take on any cargo that could help us and destroy what we can't resell. After that we'll have to find an ally fast.”
“Unless we take the hypertransmitter first.”
“With the crew still untried?” Captain Valance asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You've seen them in simulations and live drills. They follow orders, their reaction times are fast even by my standards after just a couple of weeks. They're dedicated.”
“I want to start on a solid victory, and if we go after this transmission node and come up against something unexpected we'll have turn and run early. We might not even get a chance to launch the Samson or any of the other ships, it might come down to going in cloaked and getting out if there's no way to the hypertransmitter.”
“You have a point. It's got to be pretty well protected. What are the chances we'd make it without major casualties?”
“Less than fifty, but I'm working on refining the plan. I'd still rather see what the crew can do to a supply convoy first. A softer target,” Jake said, turning on a holographic navigational chart. It flickered on and hovered over his desk. “Here, this would be perfect. Lower chance of there being slaves, but the average mass index of the shipments going through show that they regularly ship heavy materials through this point, probably munitions and supplies that are too complex or dense to materialize on site. Steal it or wreck it, Regent Galactic will feel the pinch.”
“There's still about a five percent chance of wetware cargo,” Alice pointed out.
“True, but we can't get hung up on the what ifs. This crew is together because a lot of them stayed to do some damage to Regent. We'll just have to run ship wide sims that include taking on a few thousand slaves, just in case.”
“I'll set it up during my shift. The crew won't like it, but I'm sure they'll rise to it.”
“Good, I want to be as prepared as we can be.”
“When do you think we'll hit this layover point?”
“I'm giving the Engineering team two weeks tops to get a fix in place for the wormhole drive. If there's no way they can get it done on that deadline, then we'll have to do it all on hyperdrive. Still, we won't start talking about it to the general crew yet, there might still be a couple Regent Galactic spies on board.”
“Stephanie's doing her best to catch them, she's tearing her hair out at the Intelligence department though, they just don't know what they're doing.”
“I know, we'll have to do something about that. Don't get pulled into it though, it's taking the both of us in overlapping fourteen and sixteen hour shifts to run the Triton and we haven't chosen a day watch first officer yet.”
“About that, should I give Price the official rank below me on night watch?”
“No, he's being paid as a first officer and doing the work, so there's no need to force a rank on him that'll just make him nervous. Besides, he's pulling triple shifts when no one's looking just because his race doesn't have to sleep for days at a time. If we promote him I'm afraid he'll never sleep again.”
