1110 hours CST, June 16th, 2673; TRS John Charlie

Finding his way along the corridors and passages of the tender required Phillip to ask one of the enlisted personnel. When he arrived at his berth, he was not happy to find that he shared the quarters with three other torpedo boat senior officers.

He and the other lieutenants shared the room with four bunks, lockers, and desks. The room was undecorated. The battleship-grey walls, deck, and ceiling were completely bare. The bunks were made to regulation, even his own. If he did not know better, he would have checked the sheets and blankets for dust, but in zero gravity, dust would not have settled. The paint on the deck was not marred around the desks, and there were no dents in the cheap and thin metal of the desks themselves.

Phillip had expected that as a senior officer, effectively the commanding officer of a boat, he would have a room to himself. He would have to hold private conversations, one-on-one meetings, with each of the men under his command just to check up on them, and he did not feel it was appropriate to do it here.

“Almost like being a cadet again, though the furniture isn’t as worn,” he said to himself and looked in the lockers, to find them all empty. He placed his bag under one of the desks, behind the chair so it would not float away. He would have to find out which bed, desk, and locker were his later. He would have to straighten out his kit later. With his fifteenth service anniversary past him, and an O-3 rating, he would be shocked if he had to deal with an inspection so soon after boarding.

The briefing time was still fifteen minutes away, and he took some of the time to get out of his more formal shore uniform and into his shipboard fatigues. With the dark-blue pants and crisp white top of the space-going navy, he would not stand out like a sore thumb anymore. He never liked the tie, but it was traditional, and the black pseudo-silk hung straight when he used the tie clip at the bottom.

He came from the world of Terrace, capital planet of the Republic. His home world had a higher gravity than average, around 1.1 G. Humans and animals that originated from the Sol system generally grew shorter and stouter in the higher gravity. Phillip barely topped 165 centimetres, and he had a heavy bone structure. His broad shoulders and almost vertical lines made him look like a stump.

His shorter stature did not come without benefits; he was easier to tailor a uniform to fit, and he did not have to bend down so far to get through some of the shorter hatches. His squat and strong frame did come with the price of speed; he did not run. He hated running and preferred to keep in shape with resistance training.

Fifteen years in uniform had given Phillip the ability to change uniforms quickly in zero gravity. He entered the briefing room at 1120 hours, ten minutes before the start of the briefing. The room was mostly empty. The only other person in the room was one man at the front with the three full stripes of a junior commander. Phillip moved toward the front, guiding himself along the aisle beside the row of chairs toward his new commanding officer. His motions were the special weightless walk that all navy personnel learned.

Phillip pulled himself to some semblance of attention; the navy was as formal as other branches of the Republic’s military. He gave the junior commander a salute. The return salute surprised him by how casual it was.

“Lieutenant Murphy reporting, sir,” Phillip said, doing his best to put the formality aside. On the flag bridge that he was used to, the formalities and customs of the military were more strictly observed.

“Ah, Lieutenant,” the commander said, his words slightly slurred. Phillip winced internally; the reply was too much on the flippant side for him to be completely comfortable. A junior commander was three ratings higher than his current rank, so he had to make allowances.

“I’m Commander Robertson, and I’m glad you could join us.” The commander’s tone did not present any emotion; instead, it sounded rehearsed. “Lieutenant Williams left about a week ago, so I’m surprised to get a replacement so soon.” Robertson’s breath matched his voice. Phillip would be glad to get out of range of it.

“I would have expected you to get a replacement quickly, sir. After all, it is effectively a command position.”

“Well yes, unofficially it is. But the TBCs are not officially ships, so senior officers are not officially commanding officers. Kind of like the head pilot on a bomber, if it’s like anything. They really should be ships. They’re big enough that only the specially built tenders can land them. They have a fair-sized crew, almost as big as some of the highly automated frigates, and they also have a curve drive on them. But they are much smaller than frigates, and the admiralty likes its ships big. They barely had the backing of the fleet when they were needed thirty years ago.

“Their electronics are out of date, and we can’t get parts anymore. They haven’t been updated since they were built, so they can only fire the Mark 15 torpedoes. While they are the most capable weapons system the fleet has, it’s like shooting flies with a machine gun if we waste one on anything smaller than a capital ship.” His tone became monotone before he paused. His bleary eyes cleared slightly, and he gave Phillip a look. “But I don’t have to tell you this, Lieutenant. You should already know this, and if not you’ll find out soon.”

Robertson looked at his tablet and then up at Phillip. “I see that you were on the front line during the war with New Terra Firma. We don’t get many veterans in Clearwater these days. Mostly it’s just administrative people who have made one too many mistakes.” Phillip could hear the bitterness creep into Robertson’s voice as he slurred his words again. “Well, you join the same club as everyone else; the navy is shrinking, and funding is being put into economic projects. Still, I am glad to have you, for however long we’re both here. I’ll introduce you to the other senior officers when they get here.”

Phillip knew a dismissal when he heard one, and those final words from Robertson were definitely one. He gave the commander a salute and took a seat in the rows of chairs in the briefing room, off to one side and midway toward the back of the briefing room. He took the time to secure the seat’s belt around his waist. He did not want to get distracted and end up floating away from his seat.

He did not have to wait long for the 1130-hour briefing to start. There should be another fifteen lieutenants that were the senior officers of the squadron showing up for the briefing, but only thirteen entered the room. Phillip had expected the junior lieutenants that were the executive officers of the boats to show up, but they were absent. A senior lieutenant was the last of the fifteen officers to enter the room.

The squadron’s executive officer took his seat near the front and belted himself to his chair like the rest. The other lieutenants in the room looked to be roughly the same age as Phillip, nearing the beginning of their fourth decade. It was hard to tell, but Phillip assumed they all had access to Terrace’s medical technology.

“Now that we’re all here, we might as well get started,” Robertson said, his words still slurred as he started the briefing informally from the front of the room.

The commander motioned toward Phillip. “We’re lucky to have Lieutenant Murphy with us today. With the retirement of Lieutenant Williams, we were short one senior officer for our boats. I know that will be a relief to Kory.” Several of the other officers chuckled at what must have been a private joke.

“With a new senior officer onboard, we will be going back to training. For the next two weeks, we’ll be getting him up to speed on the torpedo boats. That means we get to leave the tender for the exercises. After that we’ll be going back to regular operations: being outriders for the fleet when it’s on patrol, maybe the occasional independent survey of the nearby star systems.

“For today TBC-four-seventy-three—that’s yours, Phillip—will play the fox to our hounds. Rules of engagement on this first exercise are standard. The hounds are only allowed to use passive sensors; there will be five groups of three, and when a boat is successfully engaged, it is out of the exercise.” Robertson fumbled with his tablet. Fortunately the ship was at zero gravity. He brought up the chart of the local area, dated July 14th, 2670.

“Four-seventy-three will start twenty-one light seconds out by the asteroid field. Group A will be the first group for it to sneak by. Phil, you must transition through the cube patrolled by that group. That box will be eight light seconds on a side. As you can see, each of the five boxes that you must get through is smaller than the previous one, till you get to the final box before the station. If four-seventy-three makes it to the station without being successfully engaged, then it wins.” The commander’s tone showed he did not hold out much hope for the rookie boat commander.

“TBC-four-seventy-three is allowed to use any trick it can come up with. Weapons are set to training levels, of course, and everyone should follow the standard rules of training. If the umpire says you’re out, you better play out. Launch time is in seven and a half hours at nineteen hundred hours. Boats are getting their provisions now. Training will start when TBC-four-seventy-three gets to the initial position, which will be about fourteen hours after launch. Any questions?”

* * *

1245 hours CST, June 16th, 2673; Torpedo Boat Hanger 6

Phillip entered the number six hanger of the tender an hour after the briefing finished. The hanger was large, but the single torpedo boat that was parked and tethered inside the hanger looked like it barely fit. The bay was over 230 metres long, with the torpedo boat being just twenty metres shorter. The hanger was designed to house three of the boats, but with the squadron short two boats, TBC-473 had the hanger all to herself. She was pushed off to the side despite being alone in the hanger, leaving the spot in front of the air lock open.

To the rear of the hanger were several weapons elevators, each more than fifty metres long. The elevators were surrounded by cargo boxes and other containers; these had markings from the general stores of the tender. Phillip’s eyes did not look at the stores for very long, assuming they were to be loaded onto the boat for the training mission; his eyes were drawn to the black shape of the torpedo boat.

TBC-473 did not officially warrant a name, though the crew called it the Skate. The sleek black shape was 210 metres long, 35 metres wide, and 10 high. The hull followed a continuous curve, with no part of the hull completely flat or straight. The visual profile changed as Phillip moved into the hanger. The boat’s hull was mostly unbroken, ensuring that the curve was as smooth as possible. There were thruster ports at the extremes to manoeuvre the boat, and hatches at strategic points of the hull to hide the point defense laser turrets.

Four torpedo bay doors were settled at the back of the boat, each slightly over fifty-five metres long and seven metres wide. A large turret rested on the rear spine of the hull; the barrels of the rail shotgun were currently hidden and protected behind a long hatch running along the back of the vessel. Overall the Skate was stealthy, if not well armed. Its landing gear was out and rested on the deck. The wheels were solid metal to allow it to move along the surfaces of the John Charlie when it was launched and landed. The wheels were secured in heavy channels to aid the tethering chains.

Phillip’s new crew stood before the torpedo boat, in three columns of fourteen. Three junior officers stood with them, but in their own grouping—a total of forty-five men and women under his command. Their appearance did not inspire much confidence in Phillip. The formation looked a touch sloppy, and while the uniforms were clean, they did not have the sharp edges and creases he was used to. The formation’s sloppiness could be explained by the weightless nature of the hanger, but not the uniforms.

Lieutenant Murphy put on his command face as he moved closer to his crew. The senior officer, a junior lieutenant, called them to order and saluted, which Murphy returned. Murphy paused for a couple of heartbeats as he surveyed his crew. The senior officer among the junior lieutenants appeared to be the youngest of the three.

“At ease,” he ordered, and then hid his wince as the crew changed their stance. Murphy made a note to find a way to improve that.

“Good afternoon,” he started as he stood before his crew. There was no official change-of-command ceremony like there would have been had the Skate been a commissioned ship for the navy, but Murphy still felt he had to make a small speech.

“For the next two weeks, we are going to be executing some work-up exercises, to make sure we are ready to handle our duties of being one of the outriders for the fleet. It will start with a simple game of fox and hound; the first exercise is scheduled to start in six hours when all the torpedo boats of the squadron launch. We are to be the fox in this exercise.” He watched the faces of his new crew closely and saw several of them wince. Other faces fell into a look of resignation.

“We are scheduled to launch last for the exercise, which puts us at a greater disadvantage. But if we are going to be playing this game, I plan to win it,” he said, moderating his pitch to have more force behind it. He realized they had probably heard the same speech from other new senior officers.

“I don’t have time for a formal inspection or senior officer’s rounds right now; we’ll save that for the trip outbound. I’ll cut this short as well. The orders are to board the boat and get her ready for launch; I want to be in space in ten minutes.”

The faces of the crew went from resigned to shocked. Murphy let his words sink in. Ten minutes was the launch time for a boat on alert, and the Skate was not on alert. The crew stared at their commanding officer, faces frozen as Murphy gave them time to digest his words. He opened his mouth, and raised his voice.

“Yes, I said ten minutes, so get to it! Dismissed!” The last words were almost a roar, not the high-pitched or shrill cry of an overly excited junior officer, but the low-pitched, predatory roar of a t-lion from his home world of Terrace.

The shock of the firm order gripped the crew for the first few moments before the instincts trained into them during basic and advanced training kicked in. A commanding officer using that tone was to be obeyed, and their bodies had started to move toward the boat almost before they knew what they were doing. Murphy motioned to the three officers and moved toward them. He made sure to activate the magnets in his shoes a little early with each step so that the sound of his walk was firm and distinct.

“Any comments?”

“Uh, sir?” asked the officer who appeared to be Murphy’s XO and second-in-command. He looked to be barely twenty-two. Though he had the single full stripe on his shoulder boards of a junior lieutenant, the epaulets looked to be fresh from supply. “That’s the alert time; we can’t get the engines running in less than twenty.”

“I realize that, Lieutenant. It’ll give the crew a chance to focus on something other than a new senior officer.” His gaze gathered in the other two junior lieutenants. “Meet me in the mess in ten minutes. You three need to know what we’re up against.”