you in the Scout Force.”
“Fine. Captain Hasselrode, see to it that Ensign Blake’s orders are amended assigning him to Scout Force. I think we can make better use of him than Base Services. Your specific assignment orders will be cut today. Check your terminal for where to report. That will be all, Ensign. Welcome to Scout Force.”
Kelly shook the admiral’s hand, saluted, turned, and left the office, resisting the urge to jump for joy as he exited. He also reflected on how much the admiral knew about him. He didn’t think it would be wise to underestimate RADM Craddock’s knowledge on any subject.
RADM Craddock went back behind his desk and asked, “John, where do you think he would be best used?”
“Sir, I think he would make a good second officer on the Vigilant. It’s coming out of refit at the end of the month. LCDR Timmons and Ensign Blake would make a good team. The Vigilant has a good Chief, and Blake seems intelligent enough to learn the insides and out of the ship from a seasoned senior chief.”
“Good, see to it. It’s a pity he had to run afoul of Old Bugger Off. He would have made a damned fine Fighter Force commander. I really should do something about her. She has ruined more than her fair share of good officers. I think I may make some calls.”
Chapter Two
Ensign Blake expected he would move into quarters on the Vigilant; however, the Vigilant’s extensive refit had the crew’s quarters strewn with wiring, piping, and boxes. The yard was running a little behind schedule. There was so much activity on the Vigilant that it was unsafe and inconvenient for the crew to be onboard.
It didn’t take Kelly very long to unpack his few belongings and get settled into the base bachelor officers’ quarters, the BOQ or the Q, as it was more readily known. He caught up on his messages, tried to watch some of the local programming, but wound up falling asleep on the couch. He woke up in the morning and had just enough time to get cleaned up and dressed. Kelly left the Q and proceeded to the building where LCDR Timmons had his shore office. He took the elevator to the sixth floor.
It was unusual for a crew not to be aboard helping with the refit, but Captain Hasselrode had been stoking a fire under the refit and repair directorate officer-in-charge. The refit crew chief had asked the crew to clear out and give them total rein and freedom of action onboard. It was unusual, but not unheard of. The plus was the refit would be completed on time, but the down side was the crew would not be there to see how the refit crew had installed components and changed things from the way they were before.
The office door to room 615 said In-Port Office, GRS Valiant, PC-155. Kelly turned the knob and entered. Seated in the middle of the office was a female yeoman. She looked up as Kelly walked in and came to attention.
“Good morning, sir. Are you Ensign Blake?”
Kelly answered in the affirmative. He looked closer at the yeoman. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. She had strong, chiseled features with high cheekbones and a trim, athletic figure. Her dark hair was done up in a neat bun, high on the back of her head. Kelly clearly saw a Central American heritage; she looked like she could have stepped down from an Aztec temple wall carving.
“Welcome, sir. I am Yeoman Benitez. The captain is expecting you. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll let him know you have arrived. She moved over to an office door to the left of the anteroom and knocked.
She opened the door and announced Kelly’s arrival, closed the door and turned back to Kelly. She told him the captain would see him now and went back to her desk.
Kelly entered LCDR Edgar Timmons’ office, marched up to the desk, saluted, and reported in. LCDR Timmons saluted quickly, got up from his chair, walked around his desk, and gave Kelly a firm, but not crushing handshake. LCDR Timmons was a big man. He wasn’t much taller than Kelly, but he was built like a bear.
“My name is Edgar, but you can call me Captain. Glad to have you onboard, Ensign Blake.”
“Yes sir, I don’t know if this office qualifies as onboard, Captain, but I’m sure glad to be here.”
“Be seated, Ensign. You have a good file here. For someone that hasn’t been in the service for very long, you have an unusually large and noteworthy file. You have top block ratings in all your schools. You got good grades at the Academy. I see you’ve been awarded the Space Medal and the Joint Meritorious Service Medal. Those are quite impressive medals. I know how you got the first one; that action is why you’re here. You’ll have to tell me how you got the other someday.”
LCDR Timmons looked up and saw Kelly was sitting at attention. “Relax, Ensign. You're going to do all right in Scout Force. The Vigilant is a good ship and we'll teach you how we do things in the Scouts. You could serve with a lot worse.”
He paused for a moment and continued, “I want to tell you a little bit about why we’re out here. I know it’s not taught well enough in the Academy. It's important to know why you may be asked to put your life on the line way out where the stars are few and far between.”
“I know you learned about the Milky Way in Astrography. I’ll bring you up to date, but first let me cover a little history. You know the Milky Way is a bar spiral galaxy and Earth’s solar system is in a small spiral off of the nuclear center of the galaxy, not one of the bigger spirals further outward. Even though our galaxy is called the Milky Way because of the apparent cloud of stars, there are vast distances between the stars. These areas we call dark space. This is where we Scouts operate best.”
“I’m sure you learned about the first galactic human settlements over a century ago. When our first long- range probes and scouts went out, they found our little corner of the galaxy was largely unpopulated and mostly devoid of life. We quickly populated human settlements on the few habitable planets in this part of the galaxy. Huge settlement ships were built and they carried mankind out into the far reaches of space. We populated the 10 closest worlds first and spread out from there. Those first settlers had it hard. We lost a lot of good people. Life on the frontier was rough, before your parents came up with reliable long distance FTL communications 25 years ago. There are now over 150 human-inhabited worlds and moons in this arm of the Milky Way.”
LCDR Timmons made a sudden turn from his subject. “How are your parents, anyway? I hope I get a chance to meet them some day. I’m a big fan of theirs.”
Kelly’s parents were quite well known scientists and inventors. “They’re fine, sir, as best I know. I’ve been out near the K’Rang frontier for months and haven’t communicated with them in a while. I expect to get back in touch now that I’m here.”
“Good! Where was I? Oh, yeah. It wasn’t until our scouts pressed further out-spiral that we ran into the Moosilian Empire. The Moose, as we began to call them, were fairly benevolent and we signed the First Intergalactic Treaty with them in 2133. We agreed to the establishment of a buffer zone between our races. Trade is allowed and encouraged, but they don’t want us moving any excess population in there. Our patrol forces on the frontier guarantee we don’t trod in each other’s space. It’s held up pretty well.”
“Our scouts surveying in-spiral found a similar situation. Life is not as common as most early philosophers, authors, and scientist expected. One scout pushing out further in-spiral on a deep-space patrol found a curious artifact floating in open space. It was a spinning, glowing triangular dipyramid. They scanned it from all sides, recorded all they could, and would have brought it back to the nearest star base if it hadn’t been twice the size of their ship. After a great deal of study, the best human brains determined it was a no trespassing sign. The scouts had run into the frontier of the K’Rang Empire.”
“While the Moose are a benevolent race, as you know, the K’Rang are not. They are a rat nasty bunch and want nothing to do with humanity. In fact, their standard response to meeting a human ship in space is to immediately annihilate the human ship. No warning, no get out, they just blast away.”
“Actually, rat nasty is a somewhat inappropriate description of the K’Rang. They are actually evolved from a cat-like species. They walk on two legs, but retain many feline traits and characteristics. They have the fur, claws, teeth, and balance of a cat. They can leap three times their own height. They are incredibly quick. A K’Rang warrior can cover short distances with incredible speed. If they get in close they can make full use of their claws and fangs. In space they react similarly. They like to get in and duke it out at close range. Something we have learned to use to our advantage.”
“After the Capricorn War, which we and the K’Rang fought to a draw, we withdrew back from the frontier,
