Dead Reckoning (Book One) - Chapter Five

Brighton
28 June, 2787

Something didn't feel right, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I had been lost in thought and something had jerked me back to the present. It was more of an impression than knowledge at that point, but I had learned to trust those feelings when they came. I ran the conversations back in my head.

Yes, that was it.

Loud voices continued to call out data on all sides as I re-ran the suspect calculations through my head. The information was flowing around the bridge in a seemingly random confusion. This was not the case. Each voice had its place. Raw data flowed to officers and technicians. Refined calculations flowing back to those who needed them. The bridge of an exploration ship has been described as orderly and frenetic at the same time. This is an apt description. Gravity readings, position reports, the locations of all the surrounding bodies and ships, all of this information needed to get quickly to those who required it. You soon learned to hear the things for which you were responsible and ignore the rest. I, however, as captain, needed to hear it all and file it away for future use or need. This was a talent that some were never able to master and they became buried in the inundation of data, or else relied on their officers to be correct every time.

This blind trust was not in my nature.

"Position report, Ms. Johnson," I said sharply, to cut through the general volume.

Fyonna Johnson snapped her head back to her console and away from the calculations that she had been running on a side panel. Her long black hair swung as her head spun. Johnson had been with me briefly on CFS Redoubt prior to my assignment to Pathfinder and I had been pleased to see her as my helm officer on Pathfinder when I arrived. She showed promise, and a posting to Pathfinder would look good when she next faced a promotion review board. She was calm and steady, qualities which were always essential on shakedown cruises.

"106.31, 88.067, 214.71, sir. Twenty minutes to jump point," she replied quickly and returned her attention to the helm controls.
"Astrogation, we received a course update from Fleet, did we not? What should our present position be?"

Lt. Neil Lamont jumped as if shocked, then whipped his head in my direction and rapidly began inputting the data into the console to recheck the calculations that he had just sent to helm control. He was the direct opposite of Lt. Johnson in most respects. Where she was calm and steady, he was mercurial and hot-tempered. His short, blond hair was as bristly as his personality. After a few moments, his head came up and he turned to report. "Our present position should be 106.31, 88.067, 214.746 relative to Betre, sir. We are coming in too shallow for our JP. New course coming to helm now, sir."

"Bring her back up, Ms. Johnson."

"Aye-aye, sir."

After she finished inputting the course change that Lt. Lamont had forwarded to her I said, "Please step over here with me, Mr. Lamont. You have the conn, Mr. Teach," I said to my first officer.

"Aye-aye, sir. I have the conn."

I wanted Lt. Lamont to come out into the corridor with me because, while everyone would know he was being reprimanded, it shouldn't take place for all to hear. Under normal circumstances, I would try to have this conversation in my office during non-watch hours but we would not be leaving the bridge for several hours and I did not want to leave this hanging for that long.

Tension crackled around the bridge. Watchfulness was evident on every face. Amid the bustle and hurry of the crew as they went about their various duties, there was an underlying current of unease. Of the twelve people stationed on the bridge during these special operations, all were intently studying their consoles or moving quickly about their duties. They were studiously avoiding eye contact with the astrogation officer as he moved out the bridge door with me.

"Explain yourself," I said quietly. I have found that officers tend to be much harder on themselves than I have ever had the heart to be. Short, terse commands often bring out self recriminations more quickly than reprimands. Chastisement tends to bring out defensiveness instead.

While that was true, the scolding could not be omitted. I still had a duty to the ship and to the crew to ensure that they were protected from harm.

"I am sorry, sir. The data in the astrogation computer was never updated with the recent download information. It could be a computer error, or the astrogation tech might have mis-keyed the data. I should have double checked everyone's data but I took for granted that they knew their job," he responded. He stood precisely stiff and formal with just a hint of defiance in his face and tone. His hands were clenched and there was anger evident on his face. Clearly, he was defensive about any possible blemish on his professional standing. I stood looking at him for several moments, trying to decide how much further to push this issue. As Captain, I could not allow his insolence towards me and still maintain the respect of the remainder of the crew. However, at some point, the correction would no longer have a positive effect. I finally concluded that he was too near a breaking point and would not tolerate much more. Further correction would bring out comments that his career would not survive. As captain, it was equally my obligation to protect him from himself, and not put him in a position where those comments were likely to come out of his mouth.

My largest dilemma was that I also had a responsibility to the ship and to the crew to ensure that they were protected from harm. My accountability to the ship as a whole outweighed my responsibility to any one individual.

"That is not acceptable. I know that you are capable of much better. This course update was your responsibility, no one else's. You spend too much time finding blame in others and not nearly enough time ensuring that your own work is up to standards," I said sharply. "You will review all course corrections and changes planned for the next six weeks of this test to ensure that the information has been updated correctly. And you will report your findings back to me by the end of your watch."

"Aye-aye, sir," he replied stiffly.

"Dismissed."

Reprimands are sometimes necessary. I know that intellectually, and it has been proven to me many times by my experiences. Exactness and precision are required in ship movements, and in crew interactions. Everyone must know their job and their role in the crew. These were the thoughts that were going through my mind as I watched Neil Lamont, move quickly back to his station. His anger and embarrassment were evident in the tension and rigidity of his back. The rest of the bridge crew maintained their watchfulness, and pointedly did not look at him. They were embarrassed because of the lecture that they knew he had just received. I felt sorry for him, but I also knew that he would not allow Pathfinder to drift off course again. Corrections must be delivered with sharpness and sternness to impress on the receiver's mind the need for exactness.

Nothing else would let a ship like Pathfinder return home safely. Every crew member must know their job perfectly, and perform that job flawlessly.

There was no room for error.

It was the principle duty of all WSN captains to ensure that none of their crew would die from preventable errors. There was enough risk involved on this particular trip without introducing carelessness into the mix. Mr. Lamont would make sure that Pathfinder was where it was supposed to be from now on. Hopefully, this event would focus his energies on honing his skills in astrogation, so there would be no need to repeat it. Astrogation required effort and concentration.

My marks in astrogation at the Academy and a strong recommendation from my instructor had gotten me aboard Courser as then-Captain Cosina's astrogation officer. That single assignment really was the one that changed my career and put me on the track for my own command. That same experience working with the admiral also led to my command of Pathfinder. Admiral Cosina, himself, had pulled me from my command of a heavy cruiser in the Combined Fleet and assigned this ship to me following the death of her captain. He was very firm in the assertion that Pathfinder would need a skilled astrogator in command of her. I was pleased that he trusted my skills enough to select me. I was especially pleased once I became familiar with the nature of my new command.

Revolutionary steps forward in shipbuilding are not seen in every generation. The prototype that became Pathfinder was a true design revolution in many ways. Warner Gateways Inc. had made its early fortunes from proving and developing the previously theoretical links between star systems. These linked "jump points" had made colonization and exploitation of the stars possible and very profitable. These jump points were foci of gravitational anomalies, at which gates could be created.

Gates can be opened by powerful energy field generators located at the jump points. These jump gate generators, when linked with other gates in the network, allowed ships to move instantaneously from any one jump point to another which shared a gate-link, though not all jump points are linked to every other.

Pathfinder was the next logical step in the progression from static to dynamic access to those jump points. It would tap into the jump gate system without needing to be physically present at one of the jump points. It could create its own link from wherever it happened to be. Or, at least, that was the theory. The ship would use its own hull to create a powerful bubble of energy and thus become a jump point in its own right, as well as serving as the gate generator.

That step, however, was for the future. For today, our mission was to create a jump gate from the known coordinates of the Betre JP and jump to the Antoc JP. From there, we would perform additional surveying of the Antoc system and then jump back to Betre from the same JP. The other JP in the system did not have a link to Betre. While the Betre system jump points were long established and much used, the Antoc system had no jump gate generators installed.

Although a ship could enter a system that did not contain the massive generators to power the jump, they could not jump back out without constructing such a gate generator. These structures focus the energy to create the 'bubble' needed to twist space and propel the ship on to its destination. Each JP was physically linked to only a few exit JP's. The frequency of the 'bubble' was adjusted to match your desired exit point. If anything went wrong with our tests, we would be forced to either re-energize and activate the old single use gate that Courser had used to exit the system sixteen years ago, or else create a new gate generator from the prefabricated units in our storage hold.

This voyage would prove that a full-sized survey ship could routinely create a jump gate by using the new technology. Earlier testing had successfully proven the technology on smaller manned and unmanned ships, but Pathfinder was the culmination of the nine-year project.

The secondary objective of our mission would be to survey the Antoc system. Pathfinder was designed from the core out as a survey and exploration vessel. The Antoc system had been discovered and partially explored by then-Captain Cosina's expedition sixteen years previous, but had never had a follow-on expedition to do a more thorough exploration.

What no one else knew was that I had received orders for a tertiary mission. I was to investigate a terraforming crew working in the Antoc system that had been out of contact for the last year.

Having been a part of Admiral Cosina's earlier exploration, I knew many things about this area of space. This was probably an additional reason for selecting this particular system out of the many available choices. However, its selection also limited our options in many ways. Antoc JP1, which we would use to enter the system, only had three possible destinations. It linked to the Betre system, which was our starting point for this test, it linked to the Reston System, which was equally unexplored, and it linked to the Antoc JP2 at the far side of the system. While it was common for jump points within a system to be linked, it was not always the case.

JP1 did not have a full gate generator, but did have a small communications gate generator which would create a gate just large enough to send communications pods through. This gate had been added by the terraforming crew when they had arrived in Antoc space to begin their work.

I had been a junior officer with Captain Cosina aboard Courser during his now famous exploration cruise. I had learned more about astrogation and command in those two years than in my whole four years at the Academy. We had discovered nine new systems, documented eighteen jump points, and found sixteen planets and moons suitable for human life with very slight terraforming. Now, I would be given the opportunity to revisit at least one of those systems and complete the survey that we had started.

"Steady on course 39.699 by 57.469, sir. Speed 81.87 km/s. Two minutes to JP," Lt. Johnson said in crisp tones that hid her excitement.

"Power the jump cells, Ms. Leung."

"Aye-aye, sir," she replied, already busy sending the commands that would build a charge in the capacitors sufficient to power the jump engine.

The normal noise levels felt subdued as crew and officers alike seemed to hold their collective breath. This was not a controlled simulation under strict engineering oversight. This was a real-life test under very real conditions. The only other ship to attempt this self-powered jump had been Pathfinder's own launch, Vanguard, sixteen months ago. While that had worked out successfully, Pathfinder was a much larger and much more complicated ship. There were so many more things that could go wrong. Plus, the energy required expanded geometrically with the size of the ship.

"Charge nominal in the capacitors, sir."

"JP in 30 seconds," intoned Helm, "20 seconds… 10 seconds…"

"Verify jump by computer control, Ms. Leung," I ordered.

"Confirmed. Jump tied to automatic clock." Lt. Johnson continued, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Jump point, sir."

The flash of light that was the normal accompaniment to any jump was the same for this self-powered transition, but nothing else was quite the same. There was nothing that I could point to and say, "That wasn't right," but there was a subtly different "feel" to the process.

"Astrogation, position report," I snapped. I sat waiting tensely with all of the rest of the officers and crew. If we were on target this should just be a matter of checking reference stars to verify position. If we were not on target, the process could take much, much longer.

"Antoc system, 815.5, 7514, on the plane, sir. Right on the numbers."

xxxxx

"First watch to stations. All others stand relieved," I said several hours later. "Set up a normal watch routine, Mr. Teach."

"Aye-aye, Captain."

"You have the watch," I said, officially turning over control of the ship to him. He acknowledged receipt.

The routine survey of the outer system near the jump point was really only beginning. We had days of tedious readings to keep us busy and everyone would need to keep their attention focused on the tasks that they were given. That was why we were divided into four watch sections for survey operations and each section stood a six hour watch. During maneuvering and other "action stations" we could expect all officers and crew to be at their stations, but those times were not the norm on a survey vessel. I had placed Lt. Lamont in first watch under Commander Teach to allow Eddie a better opportunity to keep an eye on him. The young officer had potential, but I was uneasy about his emotional make up. Eddie seemed to have a much better rapport with the astrogator, so I had assigned him to oversee his training and development. I had far too little patience to deal with him most of the time. I had assigned Tim O'Neill, the burley systems tech, to handle all astrogation duties that were necessary during my own third watch, to allow Lamont to be reassigned. I could trust Teach to handle any training issues that might arise, and to loyally represent me to his watch.

Loyalty is not something that comes along every day. That is what makes it so special. When it is accompanied by friendship that is developed over years of association, then it is doubly precious. Commander Edward Teach had been with me in different capacities for almost eighteen years. We started out as ensigns together on the Hermes in the Sol system, right after graduation from the WSN Academy. The Hermes was a rusting hulk of a system picket that rarely moved outside of Jupiter's orbit, but to us she had been a magnificent warship. Though we hadn't hit it off initially, we soon became fast friends. Captain Mallory had called us "Coal and Flame", like the characters on the holoprogram, because we were always together. I was tall with fiery red hair and Eddie was shorter with striking black hair, black eyes and was just starting his trademark bushy black beard. In the holodrama, Flame was the star and drove the duo in their adventures, but in our friendship, Eddie was always the adventurous one. I was always more intense, more driven. That time of my life was the stuff of dreams. I was finally out in space. I was an officer in the WSN. These had always been my aspirations, the focus of my life. These were the adventures that we had both awaited all of our lives.

Years later, after several separate postings, we were reunited in the Combined Fleet ship Resolute, which truly was the magnificent warship that we had believed Hermes to have been. Our friendship and camaraderie grew and developed, and Edward Teach became my best friend inside or out of the service. I was saddened two years later, when he was posted to Invincible, and we were separated again.

When I was directed to leave Combined Fleet and take this command, it was an added bonus to find that he was here already as Executive Officer.

As I looked at him sitting hunched over his console where he was backing up the young astrogation officer, I was pulled out of my reverie and back to the important events in the here and now. I was struck again by the feeling that there was something not quite right with our new AO. His academy transcript showed great potential, but also several incidents where he had let his temper get away from him. This was a character flaw that I happened to share with the lieutenant. So far, everything had checked out, but something was off with him. I had alerted Major Chowdhury, our security officer, to my suspicions. I was sure that if there was anything solid to these misgivings, either Eddie or Sheli could be trusted to bring it to my attention.

Apart from Lamont, busy with his penance, excitement was evident everywhere on the bridge. Officers who had been relieved of duty were remaining at their stations. They all seemed to want to share this moment and were not anxious to let it end. I started to make a comment to bring the people into line and push the stragglers out of the bridge area but I stopped myself. I had turned the watch over to Teach. He had control of the bridge. I would not usurp his authority.

It had been much the same when we had entered this system with Captain Cosina for the first time. We had all wanted to share the experience by being together as much as possible. We didn't want to miss out on any single event. He had roared and chased us off of the bridge, but had never made a further issue of the fact that most had returned on one errand or another and simply stayed in the background.

I would leave it up to Edward. If he could stand to have them looking over his shoulder, I would not make an issue of it.

Teach watched me out of the corner of his eye, as I had not moved to leave with the other members of the bridge crew who were not part of first watch. I started to let him know that I would just be a few minutes longer, but I stopped myself. Captains should not get in the habit of explaining themselves to their officers or crew, or the crew began to believe that they had the right to receive that explanation, even when there was not time to give it.

The truth was, I wasn't sure that I knew what explanation I could give. I was more uneasy than I had ever been while in command of any vessel. Just as with the erroneous astrogation data earlier, I felt that something was wrong. In this instance, I could not review the data flow and isolate the problem. Yet it was still my duty to understand the nature of the quandary and find a solution.

Duty weighs heavily on the captain of any ship that is operating on its own, away from easy contact with higher authority. I had always dreamed of my own command, but I remember clearly that terrifying moment when I had realized that I was responsible for everything. Not only for everything that I did, but everything that anyone else did on my ship. It was now my duty to protect my crew from external threats and also to protect them from themselves. It could become a crushing weight if you didn't learn how to cope with it.

Each captain had to develop their own method of dealing with these stresses. This was my method. I stayed on the bridge when not on watch, and reviewed data. Whether that was done by mentally reviewing the events of the day or physically going through records didn't matter. Either method allowed me to relax and let my subconscious bring out the things that were bothering me. On this particular occasion, I decided that I needed to physically go through some records. I didn't know it at the time, but this was one of the most fateful decisions of my entire life.

I turned my attention to the astrogation logs that I had selected to review. They showed the astrogation data for the last ninety-six hours, since we had cruised out of Hugo station in the Betre system for this final phase of testing. They also contained the planned courses and adjustments for the next six weeks of our scheduled deployment. These were the same logs, in fact, that I had assigned Lt. Lamont to review and apprise me of his calculations. I could see him sitting at the AO console dutifully rerunning all of the assigned calculations. With a sigh, I began my own calculations to verify his work. As was my custom, when I was trying to take my mind off of other things, I did the calculations in my head.

Math always cleared my mind. There is a calming beauty to having only one correct answer instead of the myriad permutations available to any command decision.

Discrepancies were, of course, impossible in any course projection. The planned route was set up to enable us to use our available time optimally. The program had been reviewed and adjusted constantly up until our departure from Hugo, the final update was received only a few hours before our jump. I had reviewed that course in minute detail so often that I knew the numbers by heart. The program in front of me in the logs, however, was no longer the same. It did not include the information from the last three updates. It was a glaring omission. The route would appear the same to a cursory viewing, unless you knew those updates were supposed to be there.

I began to run back the entry codes. According to the codes, there had been no changes in the logs. I had personally reviewed these numbers as we moved away from our construction base twenty-three days ago, and I had monitored every update. Yet they were different now. They showed no evidence of having received those three previous downloads.

The communications logs showed the same gap, covering the same period of time. The very fact that two separate logs had missing data, indicated that the omission was intentional. Someone had tampered with our logs in the last fifteen hours and had managed to erase or bypass the code tags that would have shown that changes had been made. Our leak apparently had not been plugged after all.

There were only six people on the ship who had the knowledge and expertise to accomplish this. The first two were myself and Commander Teach. I knew that I had not done it and I trusted Eddie with my life. We had been together too long for him to be capable of such treachery. That left Commander Leung, Lts. Lamont and Johnson, and Major Chowdhury, the security officer. I had to trust Chowdhury. She was brought in after the fact in order to catch the informant. Lt. Johnson had helm and astrogation duties on her fourth watch, and while she was quite capable of the astrogation, I wasn't sure she had the requisite computer skills. It was best to include her until I could prove otherwise. Tim O'Neill held the astrogation duties on my third watch but while he was an expert with computer systems I did not think he had the mathematical expertise to make the adjustments.

As I contemplated these facts, I noticed that I had been so absorbed in the computations that I had missed the watch change. Eddie was gone from the bridge as well as his watch standers. In fact, it was now my own third watch. I had completely missed two watch changes. I was more engrossed in solving this mystery than I had realized.

Despite my lingering doubts about Lamont, there was no one in that group that I had found to be unreliable. Regardless of who the culprit turned out to be, it appeared to me that someone I trusted was not worthy of that trust. I could not account for the current state of the logs, and I again had that realization that, ultimately, I was responsible.