Nine Weeks Later Wednesday. 12:05 Cafeteria

The first round of tests went well for everyone that John was familiar and friendly with. Andern however was beginning to show some signs of struggling in a couple of their classes they were in.

“How many more fucking books do we have to read for this class?” Andern threw his backpack on the lunch table next to his food.

“Since you were asking seven.” Jessica got to chow first. She was taking the same class with Alice, but at a different time than John and Andern.

“Nine actually. You forgot about ‘A Review of the Martian Rebellion’ and ‘A review of Low G Infantry Tactics.’” John sat down and put set his backpack under his seat.

“You’re joking me, right? How the hell do they expect me, uhm us, to read all this crap? And by the end of next month.” Andern was beside himself.

“Well, you need to open the books first, then read left to right, top to bottom.” Alice rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, she fit right in with this group of misfits.

“She’s got you there, buddy.” Jessica was laughing as she was gnawing away at a breadstick.

“John, you’re not going to help me?” Andern was defeated, he looked like someone had kicked a puppy.

“I mean, you literally looked at the syllabus three weeks into class. You could just read an hour in the morning, during afternoon break and after classes.” John shook his head.

John had also noticed a trend. Didn’t matter what military cafeteria they were in. Spaghetti was always the best thing they made. And was also something they only made once a month but never for dinner.

“That’s not really all you do on the weekend.” Alice smirked.

“She gives precisely zero fucks about the world knowing what you two do.” Jessica just shook her head.

“She isn’t this blunt outside of this table normally.” John said nonchalantly.

“My grandma is rolling in her grave knowing I’m enjoying this spaghetti.” Alice had smirked at Jessica but then frowned at the food on her plate.

“Ally, chow food generally is disappointing. But one commonality I’ve found from every cafeteria I’ve been too; is this is the best meal they make.” John’s words did not make Alice any happier.

“Hey, are you guys going to the game this weekend?” Alice was the baby of her family having four older brothers, American football was a passion of hers.

“Game’s at 14:00 right?” Andern looked up, spaghetti sauce staining his chin.

“Good lord, you can’t do anything without making a mess of things. And yes.” Jessica found Andern oddly charming and repulsive.

Jessica had claimed to be a lesbian. But she noticed that there was a hint of attraction toward Andern. She didn’t quite understand what meant but kept that information to herself.

“I’m game. Cadets need to wear dress uniforms to it right? At least it’s not going to be hot as balls at the game.” John had finished eating, he was sipping on a cappuccino.

“Awesome. It’s going to be so fun. We finally have a good team after like ten years of suffering.” Three of Alice’s brothers had gone to the academy. Two of them were even on the football team. “John, your like linebacker size. Why didn’t you go out for the team?”

“I graduated high school when I was eleven. The school back home wouldn’t let me play football, then again I never asked to play but I’m pretty sure they would’ve said no.”

“Wait, is that why you were with Naval Intelligence?” Jessica’s blurted out.

“Yup. Commander LeCroix, now Director LeCroix sent my folks a test. He did that to all grads on Alpha Centauri. I aced the test and then passed, albeit barely, the physical test. Well except the height and weight requirement. LeCroix brought me to see Director Aspern, who gave me two more tests to take which I passed. Made me a desk analyst for three years, then became a field agent for the last three years I was there.”

“So does that mean you’re like a full Lieutenant now?” Alice was absolutely floored by all this.

“Nah, I didn’t have a commission when I worked for intelligence, I was a civilian employee. Though me being a field agent blurred the lines. Though there wasn’t a hard rule that said only officers or enlisted people could be agents. They made that rule because of me though.”

Patrice had overheard that whole conversation. That explained how John was at the top of the class ranks academically. Patrice was in the top ten in all of his classes, but only John was at the top across the board. Patrice wasn’t the only one annoyed at this, most of the admiralty board couldn’t believe a low born was at the top of the class.

A single ding was heard by the doors and the green lights turned yellow.

“How the hell was that fifty minutes?” Andern’s ability to manage time was beyond poor evidence by the homework he was working on for their next class.

“Well, most of us were relaxing. We all did the homework before chow last night. You know you could join our study group. You’d be less stressed.” Jessica was standing up and getting her bag.

“Wait you guys have a study group? Why am I just finding out about this?”

“Read your messages dumbass. And we told you about this on the first day of class. 16:30 at John’s room.” Alice was grabbing her empty plate and pack.

“I got a double room by myself, so plenty of space.” John said as he was walking toward the table to leave the food tray on. “Come by today, you’ll be doing better in class and won’t be a stressed-out mess.”

John chastised himself. He should’ve reminded Andern about their study sessions. Sixty minutes a day was typically all that they needed to do. That gave them a bunch of free time typically do with as they please.

16:10 John’s Room

The intercom beeped, then a voice could be heard. “We’re here, we brought a lost dog with us today too.” Alice said.

She loved to rip Andern any chance she got. But she knew he was good people and let him know in her own way. Andern had bailed her out when some upper classman got a little handsy with her. She didn’t really need the help, she had carried Kevin during basic who was roughly Andern’s size. But she was also not going to say no to extra help.

She was also secretly happy Andern was there when that happened and not John. There were times John’s casual demeanor gave way to a barely contained fury. That side of him was a bit scary but exciting too in an odd way. She didn’t need to actually see John destroy anyone much less get written up or worse for defending her.

“Well would you look at that. Look who showed up?” John messed up Andern’s hair.

“Alright alright. Jackasses the whole lot of you.” Andern was pouting. He wanted to watch TV or play video games. Not study.

“Well, let’s get down to business. There’s a cornhole match on ESPN8, the Ocho, that I want to watch before the football game tonight.” Competition was what drove John, this included watching cornhole which was entertaining to him.

“My god, so you watch football, plane races, like four different kinds of car races, corn hole, bowling, golf, hockey, e-sports, void sports…” Jessica was absolutely horrified at John’s choice of television; in fact she had never seen him watch anything besides some sort of sporting or competitive event.

The group got down to business and worked on homework. John had already finished his calculus homework during the lecture. He had got admonished by the professor for not paying attention. He was then asked to solve a question the professor started. John managed to upstage the Professor by finishing the formula correctly and corrected the two mistakes the professor had made when setting up the formula.

Andern was doing well in all his classes except calculus and literature but always seemed out of time for everything. Alice was helping him with the calculus. He was on his own for literature. He needed to be able to sit down for thirty to sixty minutes at a time to write or read. Jessica was getting help from John on her Naval Tactics work. John was just leaning back in the chair looking uninterested in things. He answered questions when they popped up.

Seventy-five minutes later everyone was done. Andern was feeling relaxed and smarter for a change, and he was likely to finish his first draft for his writing paper before the game on Saturday. Jessica wanted to sleep, and Alice wanted to spend some time alone with John.

“Holy hell, chow time.” John’s stomach was grumbling. It was time to eat. “Let’s boogie.”

Jessica and Andern grabbed their stuff. Alice left her stuff there. John smirked as he closed the door. That was a clear cut sign that he was getting laid tonight.

“When are mid-terms?” Andern sounded concerned.

“Two weeks from now. Nice part is no classes that week.” Alice said.

“Yeah, but there’s like two or three tests per class that we have to take.” John wasn’t worried about the tests because of his perfect recall.

“Best part though is fall break, a full week off after mid-terms are done.” Jessica was bouncing down the hallway as she mentioned that.

“There’s twice daily PT during midterms too.” Alice said forlornly. She didn’t want to run or do pushups or climb rope fences anymore, they would be tested like crazy physically and mentally that week.

“I’m doing PTs early, anyone else with me?” John hit the call button on the elevator.

“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m getting before 06:00.” Andern was now annoyed, he didn’t need to be dragged outside early to workout.

“Ok pansy. How about 0700 and 15:00 then?”

“We’re game to try it Monday, if that doesn’t work, then we could change our plan.” Jessica said with Alice nodding.

“So, the girls are cool with it. You’re now the pussy Andern.” John was being a smug asshole now.

“Fine, I’ll try that.”

“Buddy, you’ll have all afternoon and evening to study. It’ll be great.”

The elevator dinged. Patrice and his four friends were in there. While the two groups of cadets weren’t openly hostile to one another. They didn’t want to spend any more time than they needed too.

“Elevator’s full.” Patrice hit the close door button.

“Obviously.” John said as he rolled his eyes as the doors closed. “Amazing it holds your fucking egos.”

They didn’t hear that last part. The other cadets behind them laughed at that. The cadet building was eighteen stories tall. Stories fifteen through eighteen were reserved for the children of high-ranking officers or influential businessman. They were on floor eight. Which is where Freshman typically were housed. But the ‘undesirables’ weren’t much above them.

Six more cadets had joined the four waiting for elevator, the elevator opened up and the crowd piles in. The sound of rumbling stomachs was noticeable. Andern was grinning just before the door opened. John smelled it first. Andern, the sick bastard that he was had farted, and it smelled like rotten eggs. It was nauseating.

“Andern, I swear to god if that was you, I’m killing you.” Alice had been around the group enough to know that he had awful gas.

To be fair to Andern, John had rotten gas too. John generally wasn’t trying to commit war crimes when and where he farted though. A couple of the other boys in the elevator were laughing. The girls were universally repulsed.

“Dude, this is why you’re not getting laid or getting a girlfriend. You disgusting fuck.” John’s nose was burning.

The doors opened and they were free. Alice wanted to punch him, but John noticed some officers in the lobby. He tripped her, grabbed her arm and scooped her up in a princess carry to avoid her getting in trouble. John just kind of smirked and laughed quietly. Every woman he’s been attracted to has been highly impetuous.

“I couldn’t hold it in anymore.” Andern just shrugged as he left the elevator

“That’s a god damn lie, and you know it.” Jessica was pissed, she was rethinking her slight attraction to this asshole.

The group got in line to get food. It was calzone night. This was another one of those rare, good foods the cafeteria served. And because it was one of those nights the place was absolutely packed.

“You see 4 seats next to one another.” Jessica was first through their line and looking.

Behind her Andern’s mouth was being stuffed with a piece of garlic bread.

“You don’t talk. John, you see anything?” Jessica asked.

Jessica was the prim and proper one of the group, even more so than Alice. Andern was an absolute pig. Alice could be a southern belle but typically she was pretty sarcastic and straightforward. Jessica knew John had some piggish tendencies as well, but he seemed to limit when and where it showed.

“Second to last table on the left side of the room.” John was grabbing a couple pieces of garlic bread as he said that.

“How do you know that? You haven’t even looked over there.” Alice was surprised with John, but as she looked exactly where he said sure enough there were open seats for them.

“Magic. See, tables open. Let’s sit down I’m starved.”

Alice rolled her eyes at her hunk as he walked by her. The group sat down. Some idle banter was had as they dug into dinner. Alice was surprised with the calzones. She remarked that her grandma wouldn’t have been disappointed with them. Sixty minutes later they were getting ready to leave.

“Oh shoot. I left my bag in your room. I’ll have to go get that.” Alice said, she winked and smirked at John.

Andern stopped and turned around and looked at both of them. “I don’t like either one of you right now.”

“Your just jealous.” John patted his friends should as he walked by.

“Well, looks like it’s just you and I tonight.” Jessica was looking at Andern.

“You mean?”

“No, pervert. Get your filthy mind out of the gutter. Evening PT. Those two did their weekly PT last night. And apparently getting some extra credit tonight.” Jessica smirked at Alice.

“I hate my life.” Andern was complaining again.

They walked down the hall together. Alice and John said their goodbyes to their friends as they got on the elevator.

Alice leaned up and whispered in John’s ear. “I’m pent up.”

She then slapped his ass. John laughed as he pointed at the camera in the corner of the elevator. He looked at his watch. The opposite sex had to be out of the resident’s room at 20:00. Not a second later.

“We have a hundred minutes when we get back to my room.”

The doors opened and both of them sprinted out of the elevator heading to room 832. The door closed loudly and then a muffled “oh my god” could faintly be heard in the hallway.

Friday. 09:35 Naval Tactics Class

Captain Bjorn’s topic of the day was Donnelly’s folly. This gross tactical failure occurred when a Confederate battlecruiser was very nearly destroyed exposing its broadside to a pirate fleet. There are times when to expose the broadside to an enemy ship, but the timing of this movement was done all wrong. The pirates had four ships, two recently modern but retired naval frigates, a light cruiser that was later described as held together by duct tape and prayers, and the aforementioned older but heavily modified heavy cruiser. A competent commanding officer should have been able to take out two to three of those ships in an engagement with relative ease.

“As you can see at this time stamp, Donnelly began to expose the side of the ship to the heavy cruiser. Presumably this was to get more guns to fire. But at the ranges the pirates were at, along with their ships facing the battlecruiser, this resulted in exposing the more lightly plated broadside. Donnelly had made his ship a much easier target to their heavy weapons ship.”

“While they did do significant damage to one of the frigates. The two cruisers coordinated their attack, blew out the shield emitters, kinetic barriers and burned through the armor plating. Thirteen crew were exposed to the vacuum. Eleven of which were either pulled out of the ship immediately with the other two being trapped behind emergency bulkheads that were sealed.”

John was bored. He was already aware of this incident. He pulled up the after-action report for it and found that it was highly redacted. That was unexpected and piqued his curiosity, this wasn’t normal at all for any report involving pirates. He ran a quick query of pirate interactions over the last two centuries and counted the number of reports that were redacted. Nearly thirteen thousand reports but only forty-five had redactions. None were as heavily redacted as this one.

John ran a query to get a list of command officers on the vessel, with a focus of who received commands afterwards. He ran a query off of those to see if this idiotically timed maneuver was used again by any of these officers. To his surprise there was one. He ran a query to see if any other family members CO’s and had done this. His father and grandfather both did. Though in all fairness to the older two gentlemen this maneuver wasn’t strictly bad, but it was deadly when timed poorly or against certain targets. Donnelly’s executive officer never timed the maneuver properly once in his entire career. This appeared to be the only time it bit him in the ass, presuming he was in command.

He ran one last review of Donnelly himself. Had he ever ordered the ship to expose the broadside like that. There were no records that he had ever ordered this maneuver. Something smelled about the folly now, what if the folly was the executive officers fault? Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that.

“Son of a bitch. This is a cover up.” John said under his breath.

“Cadet Lief. Do you have anything to add to this conversation?” Captain Bjorn looked over at Lief.

The professor had made a mental note of where he sat every day. He knew the young cadet was brilliant and had the makings of a tactical genius. His interactions in class were always enlightening and he seemed to have a firm grasp on void tactics. His presence in this class was also benefitting his classmates too with the added discourse his questions or statements he added. Unlike other high ranking officers, the captain liked seeing fresh blood and insights in the navy.

“Actually, I do sir. Assuming of course you don’t mind my interruption.”

“Stand up, the class is yours son. You can use the left monitor.”

“Thank you, sir. As you can see this is the after-action report for this hot mess of an engagement. This report is basically one black bar after another. Everything has been redacted. Nothing of substance is included here. Now I ran a quick query of all pirate related after-action reports in the last two centuries and there were only forty-five other incidents, out of nearly thirteen thousand that had any redactions in the report. And of those other forty-five, none were redacted to any degree that could be considered similar to this file.”

“So, you’re suggesting a cover up.” A fellow cadet on the other side of the circular room asked. John hadn’t recognized the voice.

“It’s not a sure thing, but certainly circumstantial. But as the old adage goes, if it stinks like a rat and looks like a rat, it’s a rat. The truly appalling thing is this.”

John motioned in front of the holographic keyboard. The screen then began to display the same maneuver taking place dozens of times across seventy-five years. His forebearers had used the maneuver to great success sixty years prior to the incident, and yet the maneuver continues to appear fifteen years after the folly as well.

“This is the first part of evidence that suggests that Donnelly wasn’t in command of the ship when this incident happened. His executive office, Commander Paul Daniels was likely in command and his actions likely caused the damage to the ship and loss of life to occur.”

“That’s an interesting theory Lief. Your evidence does suggest it too, but isn’t fair to say that investigations into this incident have occurred?” Another cadet asked. John thought he had recognized the voice; they were a member of Patrice’s clique.

“Yes, they have. And as you can see, the two commissioned inquiries into it are equally useless in trying to uncover anything of important or to explain what actually happened. One of these reports being redacted out can be brushed off as someone overeager to black out things or a mistake in redaction. We’re past the point of a conspiracy theory. Both of these reports being redacted to this degree is sufficient ammunition to prove a coverup.”

John made some more motions and brings up a video, with no audio of the convened admiralty board two days after the incident.

“This video coupled with the report to the left, which ironically is the only bit of information that wasn’t redacted shows the captain in a wheelchair with some sort of medical device attached to it. To be honest I wasn’t sure of what it was. But if you look at the list of injuries the crew received as a result of the attack. The captain’s injuries are, curious. While I’m no doctor I believe what I’m reading here is he suffered a stroke and liver failure. Neither of which are consistent with void combat or the injuries suffered on the bridge.”

“Hmmm. This is troubling.” Captain Bjorn was legitimately nervous.

The cadet found something that now blows up the notion that Donnelly was a failure of a captain. What’s more Bjorn was well aware of how influential the Daniels family was. They would almost assuredly be made aware of Lief’s assertion surrounding the events.

“It actually gets worse sir.”

John made some more motions and several more documents came up.

“This is the nail in the coffin so to speak, well from my position that is. A vice-admiral, a two-star admiral and a three-star admiral’s unredacted comments surrounding the inquiry. This documentation here was not tied back to the folly, though they are clearly talking about him giving the date and time stamps. The official inquiry suggested that Donnelly was incapacitated enroute to the attack, but no one confirmed that under oath. Ultimately, they didn’t believe Daniels’ testimony, but didn’t want to disparage him, or his admiral of a father. They knew they were using Donnelly as a scapegoat for this fiasco. His medical condition made him too weak to mount a strong defense, and his JAG representatives did do him any favors either.”

Bjorn’s mouth fell. That the navy conspired against a captain wasn’t exactly news. That had happened several times in the past. The admirals all hated Donnelly, a decorated and distinguished captain up to that point. The sole reason for this hate was because he came from the slums of San Francisco. He dared to rise above his station in life. But that the conspiracy was as widespread as it resulted was shocking.

“Cadet, what actions would you take, presuming of course you were the judge jury and executioner?” Bjorn was curious to see how Lief would resolve the situation.

“Before I’d do anything I’d want to see those two inquiries in their full unredacted glory. Presuming my theories are all accurate, I’d say at a minimum I’d posthumously demote the admirals to the rank of ensign due to conduct unbecoming an officer. Their vitriol and venom directed at a man who dared to be a good captain is not only distasteful but dishonorable. I would also stop teaching this as Donnelly’s Folly as it’s clear that he wasn’t responsible for this. He was likely in the med bay recuperating or was in surgery at the time of attack.”

Bjorn agreed with the assessment. He couldn’t fault the cadet for the recommendations thus far. All fair and accurate.

“Now depending on what’s in the unredacted documents. Assuming Daniels was in acting command of the vessel due to the CO being medically incapacitated then it stands to reason to assign the blame for the damage and ship casualties to him. The folly ought to be renamed the Daniel’s Folly and a posthumous demotion to Commander would be recommended. That’s also assuming he wasn’t involved in the conspiracy. Should that be proved, then a posthumous bad conduct discharge and demotion to ensign. Though I could make a strong argument for conduct unbecoming for not being honest in the initial inquiry.”

John took a breath. “Daniels’ father was Admiral Charles Daniels. He was smart enough to recuse himself from the investigation, but it appears his office was the one that ordered the redactions. Again, we’re running with assumptions here, but it looks like he may have helped cover up this after the fact. A posthumous demotion would also be warranted. Probably to Captain but there’s an argument to be made to Ensign as well.”

John made a motion on his keyboard, it shut down command of the left screen and also sent an email to LeCroix requesting the unredacted records. LeCroix could provide that authorization because he was outside of the normal chain of command being alerted to such a request.

“Well now. That was fascinating stuff Cadet. I dare say I’ve never seen anything like it my tenure here. Any last words on the subject.”

John was back in his seat. “The maneuver in question wasn’t the problem. It was the timing and target choice were. And we ought to do right by Donnelly and call this incident by a more accurate name.”

“Well said. Well then, I must say Cadet Lief here absolute ruined my lesson plan today. Why don’t you all take the rest of the class off. Give thanks to your fellow classmate on your newfound study period. You are dismissed.”

The class was stunned and excited to get out of class early. It was Friday and for most it was the last class of the day. The weekend was here early. John was getting his things together and heading towards the isle when he heard Bjorn call for him.

“Cadet Lief a moment if you’d humor me.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Son, in thirty years of teaching this lesson I’ve never quite seen anything like this. Now I say this not as a threat, but the Daniels family has its hooks in command. You’d be wise to not poke the bear as it were.”

“I’m not afraid of poking bears sir. Been told I excel at doing just that. As for any retaliation, I doubt they’d try.”

“Son, I’d be careful nonetheless.”

“Thank you, sir. But I got this covered.”

John saluted and walked toward the exit. Bjorn just smirked; he had pulled up the Cadets file while he was talking. He knew he had graduated very young and worked in Naval Intelligence. He also noticed how his time as a field agent was heavily redacted but where he was assigned wasn’t. He was at Terra Nova, which could imply he saw or did things. But Bjorn was worried, as awful as that massacre was, Terran politics on the home world were every bit as deadly.