Athena Lee Chronicles 7: The Martian Inheritance (7 page)

The ship made the jump to light speed an hour after I left the bridge. I sat in my tiny quarters and reviewed my actions on the bridge. I contemplated an utterly shocking idea: did I actually want to be a regular Navy officer and not just an engineer? I really had enjoyed sharing input with the captain and getting to see how the bridge operated. “Wilson, what do you think? Would I make a good regular service officer?”

The little terrorist was quiet for so long I thought at first he might not have been around. “Athena, I think that you can do anything that you put your mind to. Remember life back on Firefly station? You set out to save yourself and you did it. There were way too many times to count when you almost gave up and quit. Securing that frigate to the asteroid was one of the hardest things that you’ve ever done. I watched as you burned out drone after drone trying to get the ship to stand up straight. Even after we got everything bolted down you kept on working. You have real character Athena. That’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck around so long. You, out of everyone in the galaxy, are my best friend. I know that I can be a little goofy and strange sometimes, but I really do care about what happens to you. Many others set goals and try to meet them. You become one with the goal. Perfection like that is hard to achieve these days.”

“Wow, Wilson that is probably the longest and most inspirational speech that you’ve ever given me!”

“Even counting the one after that kitchen equipment almost crushed the life out of you?”

“I thought we weren’t going to discuss that incident anymore? Who have you told about it?”

“Nobody recently.”

I shook my finger in front of my face. “You better keep it that way too. This ship has really good trash compactors.”

There was silence so I guess he either agreed or didn’t want to risk continuing the conversation. I sat staring at the wall in my quarters for what seemed like hours, thinking. Eventually the alert signal on my link woke me from the stupor I was in. Checking my messages I saw that I was needed on the bridge.

I didn’t run. But walking quickly I re-entered the bridge. The Captain was in his Ready Room arguing with an officer I had yet to meet.

“…she isn’t one of the crew! Captain I protest this action. Under navy regulation 4395.65.1 you can’t just add a crewman to my roster and make me use them. You have my recommendation: this is a yard job. We should have stayed and repaired it while we were still in port.”

“Commander Erlang, are you refusing my direct order?” Captain Gorshin looked at bit pissed.

“Sir, I am protesting the order under navy regulations as is my right under UCMJ rules!”

“It’s pretty much the same thing.” Taking a deep breathe the Captain looked the officer in the eye. "This isn't the first time you've questioned my orders; you've done so repeatedly, and even disregarded my orders completely when you thought you could get away with it. Enough is enough. Consider yourself relieved of duty, Commander. You will be confined to your quarters for the duration of this mission.” The Captain pressed a button on his console. The two door guards entered the bridge.

“Please take Chief Engineer Erlang back to his quarters. He is now relieved of duty pending court-marshal proceedings. Have Commander Huggins report to me later about his disposition. Place a guard on him for now.”

The Marines nodded to the Captain and turned to the now shocked officer. “Captain, I protest! You can’t do this! It’s against naval regulations…”

“Commander you forget. I am the Captain of this ship, and there is a certain leniency that is allowed captains to complete vital missions. Take him away.”

The Marines took Commander Erlang by both arms and began dragging the officer off the bridge.

Captain Gorshin spotted me and smiled somewhat wanly “Athena, good. He sighed. “I’m sorry you had to see that. He’s been pushing me for ages and ignored any number of warnings. Can I convince you to accept a temporary assignment as Chief Engineer? Relieving him leaves me with a big problem: Chief Engineers are hard to replace.”

I nodded slowly as I tried not to act shocked by the confrontation. “Sir, of course as long as I remain able to complete my mission.”

“Let’s discuss the mission then, shall we? Go on into the Ready Room and wait. W
e still need to have that briefing about it, but first
I need to get a few more officers up here.”

I wandered about the Ready Room studying the pictures on the wall until the door opened and Lieutenant’s Baal and Mutai entered the room followed by the Captain.

“Everyone please take a seat.” We all took a moment to sit.

“Now that we are on our way and in jump, we can have this meeting. I doubt that anyone on board is working for the other side but orders are orders. Commander, you and the Lieutenants’ primary duty is to liaise with the Mars defense forces. They operate independently of their assembly. They are very much like the Ancient Japanese Samurai. They serve under a strict code of honor, loyalty, and bravery. They have gone against their own politicians on at least one occasion. They’ve never been puppets to the cities. Lieutenant Baal?”

“Their defense force has a technological edge over the rest of the galaxy. As a colony, Mars has been around longer and had the very best to start with. Many of our colonies had to ‘bootstrap’ their way back to the stars. In some areas they may even be more powerful than Old Earth was at the end of the colonial period. We really need them on our side. We expect our trade agreement will carry on. You two may be asked to renew that. The capture and deportation of Commodore Vakulinchuk is also a priority, but let the Marines take care of that. If you have to get involved stress to the Mars authorities that this is a matter of Honor. They may allow you to leave with him.”

“The Lieutenant has a point. The Martians act very different than what we’re familiar with. Here, we’ll be the ‘country cousins’ -remember that and everything should work out. Expect some possible Imperial interference. They have a large embassy and are still more than a tiny bit peeved at us over leaving the Empire. Stay clear of their personnel if possible.” He looked at each of us as if evaluating us. “Kinno, please stay a moment. Lieutenant Baal is going to go over the intelligence from the meeting that you missed. Athena, I believe that you have an engineering department to oversee and some thrusters to repair?”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll get right on that.” I stood up and headed for engineering.

The walk down to the engineering department seemed a whole lot longer than before. “Wilson, what do you know about Commander Erlang?”

“He was originally a network engineer in the old PPL. After the war he obtained more formal engineering training and passed the required entrance exams when he reenlisted after the Massacre. He was assigned as an instructor here after you left. This would have been his first full space deployment.”

“First and last if he can’t remember Rule number one.” All I could think was ‘what an idiot.’

“There are rules? What is rule number one?”

I had to laugh. The few crewmen passing me looked at me very carefully after I laughed for no reason. The crazy woman was back! “Wilson, rule one is to always remember that the Captain makes the rules.”

The engineering department looked entirely new. New paint covered everything, even the floor. Every piece of equipment was immaculately clean. Hopefully it all still worked. Clean is one thing, well maintained another. “Officer on deck!”

I turned and saw an old friend behind the main console. “At ease. Ellery, good to see you! I see you still have your new rank. No fights with Marines yet?”

“No, Ma’am. No fights with Marines. I enjoy being an officer. Thank you again for that.”

“No thanks are needed Ellery. You did a great job and deserved the promotion. Is there anyone else from the old crew here?”

“Unfortunately, no. The others went back to Imperial service. I stayed because of you and the Captain.”

“Well, I have both good and bad news for you then. Commander Erlang has been relieved for cause. He is under house arrest so ignore any orders from him from now on. Captain Gorshin has placed me in charge of the section on a temporary basis.”

The engineering crew all stood around in shock. Under arrest? What had the man done? “That is actually great news Commander! Can I ask what he finally did to warrant being relieved?”

“The charges aren’t formal yet but, let’s just say that he broke rule number one.”

“Oh…”

“Get everyone together. We have a project already. The lateral docking thrusters need to be replaced. Inventory shows that we have enough spares to do the job. The Captain does not wish to slow down, so we will be doing the work while still in Jump.”

“Commander, with all due respect, that’s crazy! Don’t we need a yard to fix them?”

“Not really, no. What we have to do is pull all the deck plates and bulkheads around section 42. This should allow access to the conduit system. That’s almost certainly what burned them out, most likely it was a leak in the number 12 lines. If I remember correctly we didn’t replace those when we repaired this section several years ago. Using a bit of leverage we should…”

The discussion ended up going on for several hours. I had to use holograms and a few charts to get my point across. Most of this group of crewmen had spent too many years polishing things and not actually repairing anything.

Chapter 10

Once we got the deck plating removed along with half the bulkheads on the walls, replacing the thrusters was super easy. I eventually had a chance to talk to Ensign Ellery out of range of tiny ears. It seems that Commander Erlang had been the biggest ‘brown nose’ on the ship. He was the darling of IG inspections. The engineering logs were kept up to date, every ‘I’ was dotted and every ‘t’ crossed. The equipment was kept grease free and every surface had fresh paint every month. His office was like a showroom for the betterment of organization. One look INSIDE one of the impulse engines told a different tale. I was surprised the ship even managed to deploy! Much less jump out. I almost shuddered in fear of what could have happened. The commander must have thought that the ship would be anything other than a teaching tool that never left the system. It must have shocked him half to death when the order came to leave the system. “Hmmm …I wonder. Wilson? Take a look at the engineering control system see if there are any ‘funky’ orders.” By the Gods now I’m talking like him!

Wilson’s reply was almost instantaneous. “Athena, you were right. Just before we attempted to leave the station, an override command was issued to the thruster conduits. They could not handle the resulting energy flow and burnt out destroying the thrusters in the process. A shutdown command was sent as soon as the thrusters failed. Someone subsequently sent an administrator erase command that should have wiped all traces of the program. However, these commands were sent from engineering terminals. After all that trouble a few years ago you had me set up a system to record any changes made to the mainframe or power systems. Remember? No one ever bothered to remove it. We have a digital record of him entering the commands and video of him doing it.”

“Good work, buddy. Make a record of that and send it to the Captain with my compliments.”

“Already done.”

“Cool. Thank you.”

I kept a very close eye on the engineering crew as they put the deck and walls back together. I really didn’t know how deep the rot went. “OK, people good job! Be sure you police the area and get all the equipment back to the shop. I know you are tired and hungry, but one more thing. All hands meeting at 1000 hours in the main shop area. Mandatory folks! I want to see all of your happy, tired, and smiling faces. Lets get out of here.”

In record time we were cleaned up and cleared out from this part of the ship. I’m sure that many of the regular crew would be happy to have deck to walk on again. My link signaled a message from the Captain as I headed ‘home.’ I changed directions and went back toward engineering. The message said to meet him in CIC.

CIC was located in the middle of the ship. It was an armored pod that could survived almost anything thrown at it, enabling the crew inside to fight the ship if the bridge was lost. The Captain and Commander Huggins were staring in disgust at the vid of the Chief Engineer sabotaging his own ship. “Captain? You called for me?”

The captain waved a hand at the screen. “Sorry to dump you into this mess Athena. The Commander and I have been watching this video again. I’d forgotten that we put this recording program in the system. We’ve been just a school for so long that this sort of thing is unimaginable.”

“Sir, I think that fact explains why he did it.”