1255 hours CST, June 16th, 2673; the mess of TBC-473

Despite the external size of the torpedo boat, the interior was cramped; most of the compartments were smaller than three metres in any one direction. The only exceptions were the bridge, the engine room, the torpedo bay, the main turret, the mess, and the galley. The torpedo bay was large, but it was cluttered with the sealed-off bays that housed the Mark 15 torpedoes.

The four officers met in the mess. It was the biggest compartment on the boat that all the crew had access to. On the back wall, on what would become the floor of the boat during acceleration, were two large tables. Each was four metres long by one wide, large enough to sit twelve crewmen at once. With a standard crew of forty-six, the crew was forced to eat in shifts.

The walls, deck, and ceiling were painted the standard battleship grey that the navy used in all its ships, the same shade that has been used for centuries. Some colour had been added to one wall; a framed section of wall had a painting, which was created by a past crewman of the Skate, as it floated through an asteroid field. With the Skate being a matte black, the painting did not add much colour to the greyness of the room. The last piece of decor was a large display on one wall, currently transparent and showing the grey wall behind.

“There isn’t much to say about our training mission. We have to pass through five patrolled cubes of space without being successfully engaged. Three of them skirt along the inner system asteroid belt. It also makes some suggestions on what we can use for tactics.” Murphy turned to look at the three junior lieutenants. None of them had served in the war with New Terra Firma; the oldest was six years younger than he was. They look so young. The thought came to him unbidden. It was a thought he had assumed would never be his. I wonder what got them on this boat.

“What tactics does this situation call for?” Murphy asked the three lieutenants. He privately hoped they would come up with more than the standard answers that were written in the book.

The first to answer was the one who looked to be the youngest of the three, Murphy had wondered why Junior Lieutenant Kory Bell was the XO and second-in-command when the other two were older and had more time in uniform. Bell was from the moon of Churchill that orbited around one of the gas giants in the Midway System. He had the highland golden skin tone that showed his ancestry to be the same as most who lived on that station. He was tall and almost frail looking, but he also had some mass from working out, or he never would have made it on a navy ship. The accelerations used during a standard trip in space put strain on the body roughly equal to standard Terra gravity, but the ships of the navy could and often did use higher acceleration. Many people from light-G worlds or stations could not tolerate the higher accelerations.

“I could plot a course that skirts the asteroid belt, sir,” Bell ventured; his voice grew hesitant as Murphy turned his full attention to the junior officer. With his duties of XO and second-in-command, Bell was also the Skate’s astrogator. “We could hide in the clutter.”

“Skirting along?” Murphy asked the question quietly, keeping his voice low. “Why not among the asteroids?”

“That’s dangerous. sir!” Lieutenant Bell sounded shocked at the suggestion.

“Yes it is, but we’re in the navy, not the merchants, Bell. Could you plot a course through the asteroid belt?”

“No sir, I couldn’t,” Bell stammered. His tone wavered under the direct gaze of his new commanding officer. “The…Zephysis. The gas giant, it’s always messing up the paths of the asteroids. Its orbit is almost right next to the belt, and it sends asteroids in and out all the time. That’s why there are three asteroid shepherds in the system.”

“Good,” Murphy replied, not expanding on his answer to Lieutenant Bell.

Murphy looked at the other two officers at the table. “So what are we going to do then? We can’t really skirt the asteroids since it’s the obvious move. We can’t go through them because we can’t plot their paths reliably. We have a bunch of open space there, and while we can go through the first cube without problem, and possibly the second, it will get harder and harder to do so. Any other suggestions?”

He waited for only a moment before he turned to Junior Lieutenant Kostya Sinkovich, his signals officer. “What about something with disguising our communications?”

Kostya spoke with an accent that was a mixture of different dialects, but she was still perfectly understandable. The accent was a by-product of Courtenay. Her home world was an average-sized rocky planet near one of the primary trading stars of the Republic of Terrace. It was remarkably like Terra. Gravity was close enough to normal that her body was average, giving her a height of 165 centimetres, and an average weight for the size. Her dirty-blond hair and brown eyes did not move her much away from the average appearance. She was only a few years older than Lieutenant Bell, having been a junior lieutenant for five years.

“We could change our IFFs to a cargo ship, I suppose, but all they would have to do is look at us, and we wouldn’t match up. But aren’t we supposed to run silent, sir?”

“Not exactly; we’re supposed to use every trick we can and get to the station without being successfully engaged. But that is beside the point, and you’re right. We can’t exactly disguise who we are. That doesn’t mean you’ll be off the hook, Lieutenant.” Murphy looked at the three again, and his eyes went to the last of his officers. So far the third junior lieutenant hadn’t spoken during the meeting.

“Lieutenant Ridgard, any thoughts?”

Junior Lieutenant Davion Ridgard came from one of the many hydrogen-mining colonies around the gas giant of Elkford. The mining colonies did not actually mine the giant; they mostly trimmed off the top layers of the atmosphere and sorted through the gasses for the isotopes they wanted. Davion wanted a different life from the rest of his family, so he joined the navy. He was the oldest of the three junior lieutenants, nearing his thirty-third year; this made him only six years younger than Murphy. Like his new commanding officer, Davion was getting close to leaving the navy for being too long as a junior lieutenant, having been an O-2 for eight years. He was taller than average, as the stations around Elford simulated a lower gravity than Terra’s. At almost two metres in height, he was taller than Bell and towered over Murphy. Like Bell he had to exercise a greater amount with resistance training to remain qualified for work in the navy.

“None that I can see, sir. I don’t think we are able to carry any Mark 15 torpedoes, not even training rounds. If we could, we might be able to use some as intelligent decoys.” Ridgard was the offensive weapons officer. His main responsibility was programming the Mark 15 torpedoes that were the boat’s sole offensive punch.

“OK,” Murphy said after waiting to see if the officers would table any more suggestions. “This is what we are going to do…”

* * *

1330 hours CST, June 16th, 2673; the bridge of the Skate

TBC-473 began its launch at 1330 hours, a little over thirty minutes after the time that Murphy had wanted. While the time was later than what Murphy had asked for, it was still five and a half hours earlier than the planned launch of the rest of the squadron.

The bridge was one of the larger compartments on the boat, but it was still cramped. The forward wall was made of the reinforced, laminated, armoured glass that was as strong as steel. The outer hatches that covered the sloped glass while in flight were resting against the hull, to give the helmsman some sight out to verify what the instruments were telling them about the area around the boat.

Unlike most compartments on the boat, the bridge was laid out perpendicular to the thrust, so the force of acceleration was to the back of most of the seats. The position was to accommodate the view that was provided by the window, and to satisfy ship design traditions going back as far as the Age of Sail. The two hatches to enter the bridge were at the back, behind all the seats. Two ladders ran along the floor to the front. The ladders allowed people to climb in and out of their seats when the boat was accelerating slowly.

The helmsman—helmswoman in this case—Leading Spaceman Hillary Hart, sat at the front of the bridge, her body level with the lower quarter of the window. She checked to make sure nothing was obstructing the front of the torpedo boat as it prepared to go to the air-lock door. Hillary came from the dense world of Olivier. She had the body structure of the lower classes, those who could not afford gravity-lowering devices. Her body was shorter and stocker than average. Her role as lead helmsman on the torpedo boat was earned by her piloting skills as much as by her big mouth. She had pale skin, doe-brown eyes, and brunette hair that hid her personality. She had been with the Terrace Navy for ten years, long enough for her survival instincts to develop to the point to keep her mouth shut around the boat’s new senior officer.

“Sub-light and manoeuvring engines report ready, sir,” Lead Hart said from her station. She was so short that her head did not appear above the headrest of the helmsman’s seat.

Behind and slightly above the helmsman sat the astrogator’s console. Lieutenant Bell was in his seat and was looking over his console, making sure he had everything in order. The junior lieutenant was a bit fussy, and Murphy’s presence was making him recheck his numbers multiple times. The astrogator sat above the helmsman’s position so he could verify that the helmsman was plotting the course he had set. The console’s main display was a transparent map that was partially opaque to keep the helmsman from feeling like she was constantly being watched. The console also contained all the computers and instruments for mapping out the flight of the torpedo boat. Traditionally the torpedo boat’s astrogator also served as the executive officer for the small command.

“Astrogation, is our position locked in?” Murphy asked.

“Aye sir, we are locked to the Charlie for local coordinates and are using her data for initial reference for system coordinates.” With the Skate still inside the tender’s hanger bay, Bell was prevented from taking his own readings and sightings off the various system landmarks to generate his own system reference.

“Very well. Lay in the plot for the closest approach to the inner asteroid belt: five minutes at four G when we launch as the initial acceleration, followed by a one-point-two-G run to the belt. Standard rollover halfway there, but be flexible with plotting.”

“Aye sir, laying in the course now.”

The rest of the active stations on the bridge were laid out in an inverse horseshoe. To the left and behind the helmsman’s seat and facing to the side was the offensive weapons officer, Lieutenant Ridgard. His duty was to plot out the firing paths, launch points, and targets for the massive Mark 15 torpedoes that the Rake class torpedo boats like the Skate carried while on active duty. The Mark 15 was so versatile and complex that the computer system onboard the torpedo boat could not handle any other offensive weapons system. That was the official reason for the limited offensive versatility of the Rake boats. The unofficial reason was a combination of desperation to get the class active during the war, combined with neglect after the class’s commissioning, which left the computer’s software unchanged from the initial commissioning specification. The OWO had other duties as the damage control officer and the environmental control officer.

“OWO, I show on my console that all external pressure hatches are closed and locked. Do you confirm?”

“Aye sir.”

“Begin the overpressure test.”

“Aye sir,” Lieutenant Ridgard responded. He changed the view on his console and brought up the environmental controls to set the internal pressure inside the ship to one hundred six kilopascals, about 5 percent over standard pressure, and the pressure inside the Charlie’s hanger. When the internal pressure reached that point, Ridgard shut down the mechanical portions of the system. If there was a leak onboard the torpedo boat, then the internal pressure would slowly drop as the air bled into the hanger.

To the right of the helmsman was the defensive fire coordinator. A torpedo boat did not warrant an officer in that position during peacetime; the position was filled by one of the higher ranking NCOs onboard the boat: Petty Officer Second Class Rupert Lefebvre. He coordinated the fire of the ten point defense lasers and the seventeen-barreled light rail shotgun. His duty was to ensure that the gunners who manned the guns were prioritizing their targets for the computers properly; he was responsible for keeping the big defensive picture in mind. Lefebvre was another native of Terrace like Murphy, though he did not share the same squat shape as most heavy worlders. He was average in height and weight. He was so average in appearance that he was often overlooked, which had landed him on the torpedo boat. Lefebvre was also the oldest member of the crew at fifty, with thirty-two years of experience in uniform.

“Defense, report.”

“All point defense lasers are manned for manual backup, and are currently withdrawn into the boat. The hatches are closed. The RSG magazine is showing full, but is locked to simulation mode; there are no rounds in the barrels, sir.”

To the left of the OWO was the visual sensors operator. The position was handled by Master Spaceman Sabeen Yosufzai, who had a talent for working with the cameras mounted along the hull of the boat. The cameras were a main component of the boat’s sensor array; the visual sensors were completely passive and undetectable. A Rake class torpedo boat had twenty cameras mounted under the skin of the boat, with view ports that were flush with the hull. More cameras were housed with the retractable laser turrets.

The point defense gunner manned the turrets with backup cameras operators who helped point the computers to the right portions of the sky to help detect variations in the blackness of space. Using standard trigonometry and parallax calculations between multiple cameras, the VSO was able to determine how far away a target was.

The VSO sat next to the OWO so she could point out contacts on her screen to him, to aid in his task of programming the torpedoes. At thirty-two Sabeen was due for promotion. She still kept a chipper attitude and looked forward to either leaving the navy and taking up camera work full time on her home world of Edmonds, or staying with the navy. It did not seem to matter to her which path her life took.

“VSO, confirm that all cameras are operational, verify that all tender personnel not in protective suits have left the hanger,” Murphy said as he continued with his own launch checklist.

“Yes sir,” she said and activated each camera. She had multiple views on her display at once as she verified operations. “All cameras are working, and I see no unprotected crew in the hanger at this time.”

The electronics warfare operator sat next to the defensive fire coordinator in much the same arrangement as the two crewmen on the other side of the bridge. She handled the sensor jamming and other escape techniques that the commanding officer of the boat called for. Flares, decoys, radar, and laser-reflecting chaff were only some of the tools at her disposal. The console also contained the output from the skin temperature sensors, giving some indication on when a laser was cutting into the boat. Master Spaceman Catrin Watts was from the lighter world of Newcastle, but her parents were from Terrace, which gave her a hybrid appearance. She gave the impression of being shorter and squatter than average while being a few centimetres taller than that same average.

“EWO, report your status.”

“All electronic countermeasures are powered but dormant. We have a full complement of decoys, flares, and chaff, sir.”

The signals officer filled out the horseshoe on the left-hand side of the bridge. Her position was the last officer’s position on the torpedo boat and was filled by Lieutenant Sinkovich. She dealt with encryption and decryption of messages from the fleet, monitoring nearby communications, and if possible, breaking the encryption on enemy transmissions.

“Signals, tell Clearwater Prime space control that we are launching and heading out to the operations area. Signal the Charlie that we are preparing for launch.”

“Aye sir, calling both of them now.”

On the other end of the horseshoe was the electronic sensors operator. Her duties included operating the boat’s active radar, hostile emissions detector, and every other sort of sensor not handled by the VSO. She even had a sonar sensor available to her, both for detecting conversations in the air-filled hanger and for detecting vibrations in the gas cloud that got denser as the boat moved closer to the system’s sun. Leading Spaceman Nigella Miller was the last member of the bridge’s combat watch. She also came from a mining station, this time around the airless metal planet of Telwa, near the sun of the Terrace system. She was tall and tanned as befitting the lighter gravity of the station and the higher amounts of ultraviolet light that came through the transparent domes of the station.

“ESO, confirm all active sensors but the navigation radar are dormant but ready.”

“Yes sir, I confirm all sensors are locked but ready. Local radar is unlocked and is inactive till we launch.”

“Good, confirm that all passive sensors are active.”

“All passive sensors are active and ready, sir.”

The final position on the bridge was above and behind the astrogator. This position was filled by the officer of the watch. With the boat getting ready for launch, this was Murphy’s post. His position was above and behind all the other bridge stations so that he could turn his head and oversee everyone’s duties. His console did not have any specific function; instead, it repeated the views from all the other bridge consoles. He could get active feeds from all the sensors, monitor torpedoes in flight, watch the engines, and plot the course of the torpedo boat.

Murphy’s station was the only station that had a chair with a motorized swivel that let him rotate the chair thirty degrees to either side to provide him with better oversight of the bridge’s functions. His station also had two screens that could be moved to either side or stowed out of the way, allowing him unobstructed views of the bridge. His controls were built into the panels on the arms of the motorized chair, within easy reach at all times. The station was at the highest point of the bridge, so it also used the ceiling to provide space for more screens and controls. He also had the benefit of an unobstructed view out the window at the front of the bridge.

During regular watches, not all the positions were filled; it was only during a combat watch that all of them were manned. Murphy was taking the boat out onto a combat training mission, so he ordered a combat watch for launch; he wanted to see how everyone performed firsthand. Everyone was strapped into his seat; during combat operations, unless it was vital for a person to move out of his station, everyone was strapped to his chair by a five-point harness.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Sinkovich said, “they request verification; we’re not supposed to launch for six hours.”

“Who? Clearwater Prime or the Charlie?”

“Both, sir.”

“Put the Charlie through to my console.”

“Aye sir, transferring now.”

Murphy spoke into the opened channel. “Lieutenant Murphy here.”

“Captain Reid here, Murphy. You’re not scheduled to start the exercise for at least another five and a half hours, and not due to launch for at least six.”

“Yes ma’am,” he began, “the exercise is for familiarization of myself with the crew and with the boat. It’s also to familiarize us with torpedo boat tactics. The operation is a fox and hound, with us being the fox. It will be better training if the hounds don’t know where we are at the start.”

“And you think the rest of the squadron needs to respect you at the start, is that it?” Reid asked. Murphy was afraid that would be the attitude. It was time for some fast talking.

“No ma’am. I feel that to realistically train in these stealth tactics the fox needs to start in the bushes, And it will be more valuable training for both my crew and the squadron to prolong the training exercise to its maximum extent. The parameters of the operation call for the end once we’ve been successfully engaged. We can’t have worthwhile training for both the squadron and my boat if we are tracked the entire way from the station to the starting point. Successfully engaged when we cross the starting line and then fly all the way home.”

“You have a point,” Captain Reid responded. “Permission granted to leave the John Charlie to begin familiarizing yourself with the boat. But don’t start the operation until eighteen hundred hours at the earliest.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

“I’ll clear you through for independent operations with Clearwater Prime. Don’t launch till you get clearance from them.”

“Thank you, Captain. One more thing, I request we do a catapult launch.”

There was silence from the other end, and Murphy could almost hear the hesitation on the other side of the communications link.

“You need to practise that as well? Never mind, granted. My crew could use the practise as well. Just remember Clearwater Prime can’t take the wash from your exhaust, and you need to be at least ten kilometres away before firing your main sub-lights. We will also be remaining docked to the station during launch. So, you’ll be launched tangentially to the station’s ring. TRS John Charlie out.”

* * *

“You’re really letting him go out there early?” Captain Reid’s executive officer asked her quietly after the conversation with TBC-473 was done.

“Yes, Carsten,” she said, keeping her voice just as low. “Commander Robertson is just marking time till he’s mustered out. So is Murphy, but at least he’s doing something proactive, even if it is effectively useless.” She turned her head and raised her voice. “Signals, call Clearwater Prime space control and have them clear TBC-473 for independent operations in the area specified by the training exercise. Also put in a call to Commander Robertson in twenty minutes for me.” Reid turned her head to look directly at her XO after the orders were carried out by her signals officer. “If Robertson isn’t in his boat by then and getting her ready by time to launch, I’ll light a fire under him.”