0625 hours CST, June 18th, 2673; Hanger 6 of the TRS John Charlie

The six crew members of the Skate were back in the hanger thirty-five minutes before the launch of the torpedo boats. They had barely gotten on board when the John Charlie detached from the station and started to thrust away. The six received a few strange looks as they got on board, the gel suits making them all self-conscious. The four women took the looks with more grace than the men did.

“You know the worst thing about this suit? Besides the feeling of them, it’s that we’re stuck with them while we’re on patrol. We won’t be able to take them off till we’re back on the tender.”

“Better wearing these than the vac suits,” Hillary replied, and she looked at the Skate closely. “Is it just me, or does she look…more menacing, or violent, I suppose.”

“Nah, that’s just an illusion,” one of the male crew members answered, almost technically. “She has a bunker full of fuel, and her internal bays are filled. Mark Fifteens are huge and heavy. That’s forcing her down a bit more on her shocks and springs.”

Hillary thought about that for the moment. “You’re full of it, Henry. Acceleration is coming from the rear of the ship, not the bottom, and she’s only using manoeuvring thrusters. It’s almost as good as being weightless. Come on, we’ve got just enough time to get jumpsuits and gloves before launch time, if we can find them,” she said. Despite the low acceleration, she still used the runs that were built into the floor of the hanger and moved toward the torpedo boat’s hatch.

She was on the bridge by 0650 hours, ten minutes before the scheduled launch. Murphy was also there, but he did not seem to be paying much attention to her. He was busy monitoring his own console. He still did not look happy, but he looked more energized. Lead Hart did her best to go about her duties; with ten minutes to launch, she still had some time to run through the proper checklists.

Lead Hart wanted to make sure her suit worked with the emergency systems onboard the boat and built into her chair before she started her official checklist. They were supposed to be compatible, but on a boat like the Skate, that did not mean they worked. The first thing she had to do was to flip the main padding on the upper portion of the chair back to expose the emergency pack’s connections to the pack strapped to her body. A quick visual inspection made sure nothing was damaged, and Hillary pulled herself into the chair.

With her hands on the console at the front of her station, she pushed back and down to lock the suit’s backpack in place. A light on the helm went from red to amber, and the words Oxygen Pass, Thermal Pass, Sensors Fail, and Helmet Fail were displayed.

“Well, better than expected,” she muttered to herself.

“What was that, Leading Spaceman?” she heard from behind her.

“Nothing, sir. I was just making sure the new suit hooked in. I have heat and air, but no sensors.”

“Good, but how is the feel of it?” Murphy asked. “Will you be able to do your job?”

“It will take a bit to get used to. Beth Hastings says hi, by the way. She said the suits would last while we were out, but I should get some lightweight gloves.”

“Ask engineering for lightweight cut-resistant gloves. They should have something made of the same material that marine flak jackets are made of. Four days to the sun should give you enough time to get used to them.”

“Aye sir, I’ll do that.” She grabbed her helmet, which she had set next to the chair, and set it into the rack above her head, ready to pull down in an emergency. The indicator on the console switched to “Helmet OK.” She still did not have sensors, but that did not bother her. Lead Hart belted herself in. Even though she was held securely by the suit’s pack, she wanted the extra security of the seat’s straps.

She switched views on her console and pulled up the prelaunch checklist—not that she needed it, since she knew it by heart. She started to prepare her station for launching. While she waited for the computer to do its preflight diagnostics, she opened up a channel to engineering.

“Engineering, PO Butler here.”

“PO, this is Lead Hart from the bridge.”

“I he’r you, lassie.” His accent suddenly came in thicker than when he answered.

“Launch is in five minutes.”

“Aye, me bairns will be ready.”

“Um, make sure the curve drive is ready too,” she said in a whisper, hoping that Lieutenant Murphy did not hear.

“It’s ready.”

“Also, I have a new type of skin suit for the mission. I’ll need some help with it.”

“What with, lass?”

“I need some light work gloves to cover the suit to help keep it from getting damaged.”

“Can do, I’ll have one of the mechanics bring some up after launch.”

“Thanks, Petty. The sensors on the suit aren’t working with the boat’s systems.”

“Yer wearing it now? I did no’ hear the combat warning alert,” he said quickly, his words cascading with one another. “That alarm had better not be out again.” His voice sounded less direct, as if he were yelling at one of the others in the compartment.

“No, the alarm didn’t go off,” she said. “I’ll try to explain later.” Her voice sounded uncomfortable. “I need to finish getting her ready for launch.”

“Roger, lass, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bridge out.”

Lead Hart did her best to relax and get on with her tasks. The computer checked out, fuel station read 100 percent, which both did and did not surprise her. She could not recall the last time the fuel gauge read 100 percent, not even when the Skate had independent patrols. She put the console into a test mode, something that was not part of the checklist. She ran the controls through their full motion, making sure the suit did not hinder her, before she reset the controls back to standard.

“Sir, engines report ready for launch. Helm is ready as well.”

“Very well.”

She heard Murphy start to call out to the rest of the stations. Everything was routine except for the OWO’s callout. Routine was a report that the computers were ready and in simulation mode. This time Lieutenant Ridgard reported the status of two torpedoes and two sensor pods. This broke the rhythm that Lead Hart was used to.

The station check continued smoothly as Hart did her best to relax into her chair. The new skin suit would take a while for her to get used to. She was ready as ever, but she still checked all the instrumentation on her panel. She had been on other missions with a potential for combat, but this time there was some sort of anticipation in the air. Never before had an exercise been terminated and a launch scheduled for a mission in less than a day, and never before had they come so close to winning a fox exercise.

“All hands,” Lieutenant Murphy said from his station at the back of the bridge. “A little less than ten hours ago, the cargo hauler SS Uncle Bob came into the Clearwater system trailing debris. She had been attacked in Stellar Alpha Four. We are sure that the pirates are not in that system and have moved on to another in the area.

“Stellar Alpha Four is one interstellar trip from here, so the pirates are close. We are going to survey and patrol one of the other seven nearby stars to determine if they are hiding there waiting for more civilians to attack. Six other boats from our squadron are also going to explore the other nearby stars and will be launching with us. The admiral of the fleet has put the highest priority on this mission, so we and the rest of the boats are launching as soon as the Charlie clears the station. We are all going to be doing catapult launches.

“We are sixth in line for launch. This means we’ll be accelerating at five G for the first five minutes to clear out of the path of the seventh boat. So, make sure you’re ready and all loose gear is stowed. We are five minutes from launch. That is all.”

Lead Hart, like the rest of the crew, was surprised. Before this new commanding officer had shown up, she had done one catapult launch every six months, and that was just to keep the boat and crew certified. Now she was doing her second catapult launch in less than two days, and this time it was a multiple boat launch, something she had never participated in before. Seven boats launched from the six tubes on the tender, every six seconds. Despite the discomfort of the suit and the anxiety that hung in the air, she was getting excited. Her hands clenched on the controls in anticipation.

She checked with engineering one more time to make sure they were ready to answer the call from the bridge. She did not have much authority, but she did have the right to call for status to do her job properly. She was pleased with herself that she kept her voice calm and level, but there was no hiding the sparkle and excitement in her eyes. It was a good thing she was at the front of the bridge and looking out the window, so no one could see her broad smile.

Hillary had been searching her soul lately. She had been with the navy for just under ten years. She enlisted just at the end of the war with New Terra Firma was winding down. Like many of the lower classes from Olivier, she was very patriotic and felt she could best serve her nation by joining the military. With the truce in doubt, the navy was still on a war footing, and it was not hard for the enlisting officer to be convinced to allow her to join.

Finding the enlistment officer was harder than convincing him. At least it was in the Olivier system. With most of the arable land being locked up by the first colonial leaders, the less fortunate lived in large cities along the coast of the equatorial desert. Olivier had a strong magnetic field, giving it an enlarged Van Allen radiation belt, providing for a strong and vast orbital manufacturing and research industry.

The enlistment officers were not in the major cities. It was not an official policy, but planetary taxes, supplies, and other concerns kept them out of the major population centres. The entire system only had one enlistment office, and that was on one of the manufacturing stations that orbited the planet.

The office was not in a restricted portion of the station; a person needed a reason to visit the orbital facility in the first place. The only people who could get there were pilots and factory workers. So, the enlistment office was small and was not visited that often.

Hillary had found her way to the enlistment office and was accepted, but the navy did not turn out to be what she had expected. She had hoped for a real chance to make her mark in the galaxy. Instead the truce held, and Hillary found herself among many others at loose ends, trying to find her way through the rising bureaucracy. After her first five years, she had lost contact with most of the people she had enlisted with. Still, she decided to re-enlist at the recommendations of both her section chief and commanding officer.

Hillary re-enlisted only because she showed some aptitude in piloting the small shuttles from the boat bay. It took her four and a half years to prove her competence with them, and after reenlisting she was sent to piloting school and specialized in the small boats: shuttles, bombers, and fighters. Her best skills lay with the larger variety of those boats, getting them to move more like the smaller fighters, but with the heavier mass behind them.

Olivier was a heavier gravity world, like Terrace. This made Hillary shorter and more heavily boned. The shortness gave her a natural edge in withstanding the G forces of both acceleration and turning that occurred in space combat. Her heart was stronger than average and did not have to pump the blood as far to keep her from blacking or greying out.

When she graduated piloting school, she was promoted to Lead Spaceman, but like many others, she had to find a berth in the rapidly downsizing navy. She had no combat experience, so she could not get in with one of the few bomber or fighter squadrons. Hauling cargo around did not seem to be a proper use of her talents. When a posting in a torpedo boat squadron came up, she jumped for it. No one else had volunteered, which gave her a chance to get in.

She did not know at the time that the torpedo boats were the place the admiralty put the veteran junior officers who did not have the political connections to be promoted above their current level. They were the last posting for many officers before they were discharged for being too long in rank.

The boats were not considered to be ships, so Hillary was able to become a helmsman for one of them, even though technically she was not qualified. Bombers, fighters, and shuttles do not have interstellar curve drives, and she had to learn how to pilot an interstellar vessel without formal training.

Hillary neared the middle of her second enlistment when her brother, back on Olivier, got a job as a cargo shuttle pilot for a small company that handled express interstellar cargo. The cargo ships were small and fast and were always running at high G to deliver their cargo quickly. This gave people from high-G worlds an advantage in the company. Hillary now had ample experience with a curve drive, even if she had not taken the written the tests yet. She had the navy correspondence course, but had not had a posting near a testing centre. Her brother’s firm had offered to pay for her certification when she left the navy if she had not written the test by then. Now that she was six months away from her tenth year, she was seriously debating whether or not to stay in the navy.

She was not happy with the navy and was getting disinterested with the whole thing, but this mission looked like it could be fun. She could tell that Murphy was from a high-G world, though she could not tell which yet, and he had no hesitation with ordering high-G manoeuvres. She would have to work with the astrogator to see if they could plot an interesting course for the curve jump.

During this launch the Skate was not sitting off to the side. It was waiting in the middle of the hanger, right in front of the door. When Murphy called out, Lead Hart had already checked to make sure everything was clear.

“We are clear to move, sir!”

“Move us forward.”

She selected the manoeuvring jets, made sure the main throttle was inactive, and nudged the controls forward. The Skate started to roll toward the rails and the elevator that would take it up to the launch tube. Hillary reduced the forward thrust on the manoeuvring jets, overcoming the rolling force of friction in the wheels and keeping the boat moving at a constant speed. A moving boat required less energy to keep it moving than a stationary boat needed to start it moving forward.

Hillary waited for the first impact of the nose wheel with the centre rail, increasing thrust slightly to keep the boat moving forward into the bay of the elevator. She waited as the boat moved forward, and as soon as she felt the impact of the rear wheels with the rails, she pulled back on the throttle and brought the boat to a halt.

“All three rails show connection, sir!”

“Keep pushing us forward. We’re a tad behind.”

Maybe she did take it too slow getting the boat into the elevator. She would have to work on that. Even that little bit of chastisement did not dampen her excitement. Instead, it just seemed to energize her some more. She advanced the throttle more than before, assisting the rails as they powered the boat into the elevator. She brought the boat to a stop almost exactly in the centre of the elevator pad, though the stop was rough and sudden.

“Signals, tell—” Murphy began, but he stopped when the elevator lifted the Skate up toward the launch tube. “Never mind.” The elevator depressurized as it was lifted up to the egress.

Lead Hart was watching her console; she watched the countdown start to tick down as the Skate lined up with the launch tube. She looked up and watched the glowing exhaust from the other boats as they left the tender at maximum thrust; the glowing exhausts were not quite hidden by the glare of the sun. The system’s sun was right in the middle of the main window, as the tender had moved to point the launching tubes in the right direction.

Lead Hart switched the main engine throttle out of inactive and moved it to launch mode. She pushed forward on it and set it to the maximum. Five seconds before launch, she felt the launch of the fifth boat go through the John Charlie and to the Skate. She could even hear it slightly as the vibrations were transferred through the hull and the rails.

Launch happened when the countdown reached zero. For the second time in less than two days, the Skate built up acceleration to five G for launch from the John Charlie. With the throttles set to maximum, there was only a slight dip in acceleration as the engines came up to full power after the boat left the rails of the tender.

The bow of the tender was hardened like all ships to deal with the radiation of an interstellar trip. It was further hardened to take the abuse of the engines of multiple torpedo boats launches.

“Engines are answering…five Gs, sir.”

“Very well…maintain course and…acceleration. And Leading Spaceman Hart?”

“Yes sir?”

“There was no need…to roll the ship…two and a half times…slowly after launch like that.”

She could not keep the grin from her face, despite the high acceleration. “No sir. It just felt like…the Skate needed to get…used to the weight of the torps.”