1:00 a.m. local time, June 16th, 2673; Asteroid Falls Resort Hotel, Clearwater

The bright colours of the rooms were a change from the battleship grey that the two new occupants were used to. The two officers from the Terrace Space Navy did not look like officers this early in the morning. They were in casual clothes.

“I’m glad we’re finally here,” Lieutenant Phillip Murphy said to his long-time girlfriend.

“So am I, Phil,” Senior Lieutenant Anna Li said as she walked with Phillip past the door and into the room. Her arm was linked with his as they stepped into the room; both of them had their shore bags over their free shoulders.

“It’s the first time we’ve been able to get leave together, Anna. I’ve been waiting six months to get here with you,” Phillip said as he dropped his shore bag onto the plush couch that sat along the back wall of the common room for the suite. The pale-blue couch was in style for Clearwater, but Phillip did not like how it contrasted with the rest of the colours of the room.

Anna tossed her shore bag over with her partner’s. She turned her body and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down those few centimetres necessary to give him a kiss.

“I know; those five years were lonely without you, Phil. I love Terrace, but it was too heavy without you.” She leaned against his slightly taller form.

“I think the past six months have been worse than having you so far away,” he said to her. “With you on the command ship and me in the dreadnought squadron, we hardly had a chance to even meet up. And if we saw each other, we had to pretend not to know each other.”

“That reminds me, I forgot to sync my personal communicator with the planetary net when we landed.”

“Oh, you know, I forgot to as well. Well, we can do it in the morning, right?”

“I suppose we can. After all, who would be looking for us? You did update the OD that your plans changed?”

“Oh yes, I typed him a message on my PCD when the shuttle landed.”

Anna raised her eyebrow at her partner. “You did? That’s good. It’s sure to go out when you sync with the network,” she said sarcastically.

“Are you saying you told the command ship that you’re no longer at the Solar Winds?”

“Why, of course I did, Lieutenant, what a thing to say. I wrote the message as soon as we cleared immigration. Now, you better report into the bedroom before I tear your clothes off,” she said with her arms still around him.

Phillip’s smile could only increase. “Wouldn’t that be assault on a junior officer?” he asked as he reached down to pick her up.

The communications console on the wall chimed a pleasant tone as it signalled an incoming call. The two turned to glare at the wall console as it flashed on and off. The console had not displayed the caller information yet.

“Whoever it is can call back at a decent hour,” Phillip muttered. The woman in his arms threw her hair clip at the console, connecting with the Ignore button. The accuracy Anna displayed had always surprised Phillip.

She was in the process of shaking out her long hair and wrapping her arms around Phillip’s neck again when the communications console buzzed and flashed an angry red. Phillip could only sigh as he looked at the panel. He knew there was no way he was going to be able to ignore it. Whoever it was had enough pull with the hotel staff to cancel the “do not disturb” mode.

He set Anna down on the ground as he saw whom the call was for, Lieutenant Phillip R. Murphy. He could not keep his groan to himself as the caller information came in. It was his boss, Commodore Brown.

“How did…,” Anna said as Phillip moved over to the console and hit the audio only button.

“Hello?” he said, doing his best to make his voice sound like he just woke up.

“Phillip, sorry to wake you.” The commodore did not sound sorry, but a flag officer’s voice never did. “Transfer orders have just come in. You are going to have to cut your leave short and report to your new assignment.”

“Bu—” The word came unbidden to his mouth. “But” was on the long list of words you did not start a sentence with when you were talking to a flag officer. The fact that he just started his leave six hours ago was not an excuse. “Yes sir,” he corrected himself. Anna rolled her eyes skyward and glared at the communications panel, sharing a look with Phillip.

“I hate to lose you, Phillip; I was hoping to move you into Rob’s place when he went back to Terrace at the end of his tour.” Phillip was startled by the words; he definitely knew something was going on. He turned to face Anna and shared a worried look with her. Commodores do not tell lieutenants that they are getting transferred, and they generally do not let slip the plans they had for a junior tactical officer’s career path, especially if it involved a promotion.

“Commodore?” he said and tried to sound more attentive. “Something in your voice is telling me that it’s bad.”

“Phil, that’s one of the reasons why I don’t want to lose you. You’ve been on my staff for five years, long enough to know my habits and mannerisms. You’re right, it’s not good. You’ve been assigned to the ATBC-twenty-three, the TRS John Charlie.” The commodore paused. Phillip frowned as he looked into Anna’s eyes. She mouthed the words, “A tender?” He was a tactical officer with good reviews, and he was being transferred to what was effectively a noncombat ship.

“That’s not the worst of it, sir.”

“You’ve been with me too long if you can tell that, Phillip. Being pulled out of a tactical slot and shoved onto the tender is bad enough. You’ve been assigned to the torpedo boat squadron that is attached to the tender.” He let that sink in again. Phillip sat down hard on the sofa. Anna winced as she put her hand on his shoulder and sat with him. The torpedo boats, small boats that had no place in the large-ship navy that the Terrace Space Navy had become, were the place that junior officers were placed on their way out to make room for younger and more politically savvy officers.

“The TBC-four-seventy-three is your assignment; scuttlebutt in the fleet says that the crew like to call her the Skate.” Phillip had to think. His stomach had fallen. The torpedo boats were boats that did not get names in the navy, so the crews had taken it upon themselves to give them names.

“Oh,” Phillip said, his voice empty as he forgot the proper courtesies when addressing a senior officer. He was into his ninth year as a lieutenant, and lieutenants in their ninth year without hopes of a promotion were usually mustered out of the forces.

“Yes, you will be the senior officer on the four-seventy-three, so you’ll have command of a sort, at least when you’re away from the station and the fleet. It’ll be your first command.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll get moving.” His voice was sharper now as he forgot to act as if he had been sleeping. He moved his hand over to squeeze Anna’s.

“That’s good, Phil. That’s one of the reasons you were a valuable member on my staff. Nothing got you down for too long. I hope that we’ll be able to work together again, out.”

Phillip laid his head back against the cushion of the sofa, and then turned to look into Anna’s brown eyes. The woman beside him sighed and stretched.

“And we just got here,” she said and stood up to grab her shore bag.

“No need for you to cut your leave short, love,” he said to her as he stood up to wrap an arm around her and reached over to take the shore bag from her hand. “I’m the one who had his leave cancelled, not you.” His voice had a small amount of bitterness in its tone. He knew enough not to try to hide that from her.

“Now’s not the time for that, Lieutenant,” Anna said, her voice firm. “I know you wanted to continue with the navy, but these are the cards you were dealt. Besides, I’m sure the admiral won’t mind if I report back to the station with you. She didn’t seem to want me to take my leave at this time, despite regulations. Without me the fleet’s signals section is short for one shift.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “Not that we have much to do with the fleet docked at the station.”

“No,” Phillip said, firmly taking the bag from Anna’s hand. “I think you should take your leave now. After all, we don’t know when we’ll get a chance to be on station again. It could be a six-month cruise or a year this time.” He wrapped both arms around her to give her a kiss on the forehead.

“Besides, it’s an opportunity for me,” he said. His natural optimism started to add some cheer to his voice again. “It’s a TBC, not a TB. It does have a curve drive in it, which means it’s a Rake class boat. That’s the newest torpedo boat class we have. That’s sure to look good on my résumé to any merchant shipping company.”

* * *

0700 hours CST, June 16th, 2673; Clearwater Prime

The blue skies were behind Phillip as he found himself nearing the end of the journey he started half a day earlier. The shuttle he was on was nearing the large station that rested in the L2 Lagrangian Point formed by Clearwater and its sun.

Phillip’s eyes looked along the quintuple rings and single disk that made up the station. The shuttle was close enough that the navy officer’s eyes could distinguish the long, slender ships that were loosely docked to the station’s upper rings. Clearwater Prime was one of the more recent stations to get gravity plates and no longer needed the large rotating rings it had been constructed with to simulate gravity. From farther out the station looked almost like a marching band baton, with the original construction of the station at one end and a large iridium-rich asteroid at the other end, and a long spine connecting the two.

Phillip’s eyes could still pick out the ships, despite being close to forty years old. Instinctively his eyes spotted the dreadnought TRS Rapier, where he had been assigned as the junior tactical officer on Commodore Brown’s staff. For five years he had been learning the tactics of the large offensive ships. With the increased life-spans brought on by advances of medical technology, officers served longer in their postings than they had in previous eras. In a star system without Terrace’s advanced medical knowledge, he would have been taken for no older than thirty, and may never have had the same posting for more than three years.

The twelve offensive dreadnoughts were docked to the uppermost ring of Clearwater Prime, and Phillip received a good view of them as the shuttle used the station’s gravity source to pull it toward the disc. I hope this isn’t the last time I see them like this, Phillip thought to himself, keeping his face passive as he looked out the window, his eyes moving over the fifth ring and the capital ships docking there. He found the relatively short fleet flagship, the TRFS Glasgow, where Anna served as the admiral’s signals officer. Her posting was for fleet-wide communications.

He did not dwell on the flagship, as it did not hold his interest, and the shuttle was soon past the fifth ring and moving closer to the next ring. The antigravity plates on the shuttle vibrated as the craft moved farther down into the gravity well. Phillip’s eyes searched for the three-kilometre-long tender that he was newly assigned to. He finally found it hidden with the other auxiliary ships, but he was unsure that he spotted the right ship. She was longer than the dreadnoughts he had come from and longer than the battleship-sized flagship, but the tender was shorter than the fleet’s carriers.

As the shuttle moved past the fourth ring, the fleet’s ships were lost from sight. Phillip turned back to the large pocket-sized tablet he carried with him. He went back to his reading, a thesis on torpedo boat tactics from the war with New Terra Firma. Stealth is our key. Do everything to remain hidden until we attack, then run like hell.

He was so focused on the tablet that he did not even notice when the shuttle docked roughly with the station. He moved his body instinctively as the shuttle rocked. He did not even notice that he was no longer in zero gravity, but instead in the slightly above-normal gravity of the station’s lowest habitable section.

The station was huge, and the shuttle had landed in an air lock before it was moved through a series of heavy doors and into the pressurized interior of the station. With the size of the station, Phillip’s trip was nowhere near the end. It would take him a couple of hours to go through the station’s disk to the spine, and then upward to the fourth ring, where the John Charlie was docked, and then finally out to the edge of the ring to join the ship.

A station the size of Clearwater Prime was like any large city on an inhabited planet. The shuttle docks were always active. Phillip had to use a communications terminal outside the station’s customs and immigration office to report his status and to pair his personal communicator and electronics with the station’s computers.

“I always hate this part of the trip,” he said to himself as he studied the map on his tablet. “Almost a hundred kilometres.” The station was huge, and the trip was going to take several hours, switching trams at least twice.

Stations like Clearwater Prime had one constant, and that was construction and renovations. Large commercial stations were never just built, commissioned, and then used for one purpose. They were constantly redesigned and changed as the situation demanded. The addition of artificial gravity had changed the station dramatically. The rotation wheels that provided simulated gravity were no longer needed for that purpose. The wheels had been locked, and additional support was added to keep them from collapsing as they were converted into disks.

The ongoing construction forced Phillip to change trams multiple times on his trip through the disk. Every day on the station saw different routes created and destroyed. Through luck and mostly sardonic perseverance, he was able to get to the spine and then up the lift to the ring that the John Charlie was docked to. The final tram ride took him the last twenty kilometers to the outer ring.

The two marines standing outside the air lock, and the lit sign above the door, confirmed that Phillip was in the right place. Phillip could not tell from any physical clues if he had been noticed, but fifteen years of experience in the navy told him that the marines had spotted him as soon as he rounded the bend in the corridor. The long trip had given him a chance to change out of his civilian clothes and into his more formal uniform.

As Phillip walked he made sure that the bag he carried over his shoulder didn’t affect his stride, posture, or balance as he worked on presenting the impression of a confident officer.

Maybe this won’t be so bad. Those marines don’t look sloppy. They actually look sharp, Phillip thought. The auxiliary ships always had a less formal reputation than the line ships he was used to.

He placed the bag on the deck beside him as he came closer to the two marines. Being the senior ranking officer in the area, he waited for the senior marine, a corporal, to salute with his rifle before he brought his hand to his temple to return the salute. He did notice with his peripheral vision that the other marine’s posture did not change, his hand steady on the grip of his rifle.

“Lieutenant Phillip Murphy reporting for duty on the Terrace Republic Ship John Charlie,” Phillip said after he returned his hand to his side. His voice was steady and pitched as he had been taught in the Academy.

“Orders, sir?” the corporal asked and held out his left hand for the tablet that Phillip had in his hand. After verifying the contents with his local reader, then the station’s logs and finally the ship’s computer, the marine triggered the air-lock door to allow Phillip to move through.

“Good day, sir,” he said and handed the tablet back to Phillip. The officer slipped the seventeen-centimetre device back into his pocket and stepped forward through the hatch.

Clearwater Prime’s artificial gravity meant Phillip did not have to worry about making a fool of himself by floating down the docking tube to the ship. At the end of the tube, he did have to spend a moment to make sure he had his footing set right before he stepped through the hatch into the John Charlie. The tender’s own antigravity plates were running to keep it in position alongside the station without being drawn toward the station’s gravity generators. Phillip transitioned from the slightly less-than-standard gravity into weightlessness. The transition was sudden and always disorienting.

He grabbed the handle on the right side of the hatch to orient himself to the ship. He looked quickly to the right and left to find the ship’s ensign. He landed on the deck of the “floor” by activating the electromagnets built into the soles of his shoes. He came to attention for the required salute and then turned toward the officer of the deck to complete the age-old ship-boarding tradition.

“Permission to come aboard, ma’am,” Phillip said. He made his voice crisp for the senior lieutenant.

“Permission granted,” she said. Her voice did not have the cadence that Phillip expected. When Phillip stepped forward, she took the tablet from him.

“Lieutenant Murphy reporting, ma’am.”

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” she said as she consulted her own tablet. “Your berth is on F deck, section twenty-three-A-dash-twelve. Junior Commander Robertson is holding a briefing in forty-five minutes. You should report to him at briefing room F before then.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Phillip said and then saluted, but the officer had already turned away. He grabbed his bag and moved toward the inner hatch of the ship. Most Terrace Navy ships had the same lines in their construction, and Phillip was able to head in the right general direction to get out of sight of the arriving bay, and out of sight of the officer of the deck, before he needed to consult a map.