A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2) (3 page)

Rachael looked deflated by his comments and so James held up a finger to halt her thoughts, “However, I think I can help start you in the right direction. You may not like it but it is the best I can do for you. Once we leave Earth I plan to introduce a secondary watch using the auxiliary bridge. The secondary watch will be solely for training purposes. The idea is that the Sub Lieutenants who are off duty can take it in turns manning the auxiliary bridge, as if they are running their own watch. Some can man the command consoles while one of them acts as the officer of the watch commanding the ship. I also plan to make up some training scenarios for them to go through.

“I can’t put you right in as the officer who commands the watch as almost all the Sub Lieutenants have more experience than you. However, I can put you into the rotation. You will have to take your turn manning the command consoles but you will also get to command the watch. I’m sure you’ll quickly pick up the necessary skills and in time, depending on how you do, I’ll be able to consider allowing you to take some real watches on the bridge. In the meantime you can review the tactical training cadets get at the academy and develop your skills as you man the tactical console on the mock bridge. How does that sound?”

Rachael hesitated for a second. James wasn’t surprised. Joining the Sub Lieutenants would be potentially embarrassing. She was older than them all and at least technically her rank of science officer made her more senior than them. Joining them would cause everyone on board to think less of her rank. A look of resolve settled on her face.

“I’ll do it,” she said, “Thank you for the opportunity Captain, I hope I won’t let you down.”

“I hope so too,” James replied.

As he was about to change the subject and ask Rachael about her studies an alert from his desk notified him that someone on the bridge was trying to contact him. Opening a COM channel he said, “Yes, this is the Captain?”

“Captain,” Seamus Mallory, the Second Lieutenant began, “Orders have just arrived from
Vulcan
Sir. An encrypted data file is awaiting you at your command chair.”

“Thank you Lieutenant,” James replied. “I will be up presently.”

Looking over at the Science Officer, James stood and shook her hand again. “I’m afraid we will have to continue this another time. I’m sure it will be a pleasure having you on board.”

“Thank you Sir,” she responded, “and can I say that it is exciting to be serving under you. I hope we can make a discovery as important as the Void with
Endeavour
.”

James laughed and then answered, “Me too, but you should be careful what you wish for, discovering the Void led us to a war.”

After watching her leave James took a moment to compose himself. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine. This was the first time he would be entering the bridge. After going through the protocol for taking command when he had come aboard he had come straight to his office to read up on
Endeavour
. Now he was about to enter the place that would be his home for the foreseeable future.
Endeavour
was his third command and he knew from experience that he would be spending long hours in his command chair. From there he could direct the three hundred men and women on board, as well as control all of
Endeavour’s
weapons.

A few years ago the thought of commanding another survey ship would have filled him with dread. His first command, the survey frigate HMS
Drake
, had been a punishment rather than a reward. Giving him the ship had been a ploy to keep him away from Earth and the British princess. Yet, over time he had come to love the navy and his first command. Now command was all he had left. The idea of an extended survey mission into outer space actually excited him. Or at least, it was better than the thought of staying on Earth.

Before heading to the bridge he went into his personal quarters to retrieve his captain’s jacket. His steward from
Raptor
had accompanied him to
Endeavour
and Fox already had all his things unpacked and stowed away. With a glance at one of the reflective screens in his quarters he straightened his uniform, patted down his thick blond hair and headed for the bridge.

As he entered and every eye looked at him, James suddenly felt a little self-conscious.
Endeavour’s
bridge was much bigger than
Raptor’s
and there were many more people about. Before he had a chance to take everyone in, Lieutenant Mallory stood to vacate the command chair.

“The bridge is yours Captain,” he said as he saluted.

“Thank you Lieutenant,” James said as he approached his chair. “You can continue the watch, I will be reviewing our orders.”

As Mallory walked over to sit in the Officer of the Watch’s command chair, James slowly lowered himself into his home aboard
Endeavour
. The seat was identical to the one onboard
Raptor
and he immediately felt at ease. Before opening his orders he looked around the bridge again. Everyone was still staring at him. “At ease, back to work,” he said with a wave of his hand.

When all the eyes in the room turned back to their duties James took the opportunity to assess his bridge crew. There were five Sub Lieutenants manning the ship’s command consoles, Navigation, Sensors, Tactical, Defense and Communications. To either side of him there were secondary command chairs, both of which were a new addition for James. Lieutenant Mallory sat in one while the other was vacant. To one side the Science Officer sat, looking over her shoulder James could see she was reviewing some sophisticated looking graphical image. He quickly moved on, knowing that whatever she was doing was way beyond his comprehension. As well as the usual Sub Lieutenants there were also a number of Ensigns on the bridge. Their job was to assist their seniors and take over in the event one was injured during combat. Finally there were the two marine guards standing at ease by the door to the bridge. After Major Johnston’s successful boarding of a Chinese destroyer during the Void War, the RSN had instigated some new protocols to prevent the same thing happening to a British warship. One of which meant there was a marine guard on every ship’s bridge.

Happy that everyone was working efficiently, James turned his attention to his command chair. The data chip containing his orders had already been placed in a slot on his chair and a screen was flashing, demanding his password. After he typed it in and pressed his finger to the scanner to confirm his DNA, a file appeared on the screen. His orders were simple. He was to take
Endeavour
through the shift passage to the Alpha system and then onto Chester, the furthest British colony from Earth. In times of peace
Endeavour
was designed to be a survey ship. As the first survey cruiser the British had built, she was designed for prolonged periods of space travel in unexplored space. His orders were to carry-out a survey cruise of up to nine months beyond Chester.

Having already met with his uncle, Admiral Somerville, the First Space Lord of the Admiralty, James knew his orders were only for show. Sure enough as he scanned through them he found a set of coordinates in his objectives. To anyone else who looked at the orders it would look as if someone back at the Admiralty had made a mistake for they made no sense. Yet, they were his real objective. He didn’t want to put them into a computer to project them until they left Earth, just in case someone was watching what he did. His uncle had impressed on him the importance of secrecy. Still, from the look of the coordinates it appeared
Endeavour
would be rendezvousing with a ship somewhere near the New Edinburgh system. There he would get his real orders, along with all the information the Royal Space Navy Intelligence had managed to obtain on Chang. For now, it was important that everyone, including his crew, thought
Endeavour
was about to set off on a long exploration mission, for the duration of which they would be out of contact with Earth.

Alongside his orders another file was flashing to get his attention. It was the report from the Master Engineer aboard
Vulcan
. He was responsible for overseeing every ship constructed by
Vulcan
.
Endeavour
had left space dock just over two months ago. From that time the First Lieutenant had been putting her through her space trials. Her final act had been a stealth run through the Sol system to test her capabilities. She had passed with flying colors and a week ago she had docked with
Vulcan
for the engineers to give her a once over to ensure she was still space worthy. As the first of her class, every caution was being taken to ensure she was performing as expected. James was happy to see the Master Engineer’s report cleared
Endeavour
to take up her duties among the fleet.

As he closed the report he turned to the Second Lieutenant, “How long until we finish taking on our stores and ammunition?”

Lieutenant Mallory took a moment to answer as he brought up the relevant file, “six more hours Sir. After that we will have everything we need on board to operate independently for up to a year.”

“Very good,” James said. If he had wanted to look up the file he would have done it himself. Mallory should have known how things were progressing without having to check.

Turning back to his command chair he opened a ship wide COM channel. “Attention, this is your Captain speaking. I have just received our orders. We are heading to the Chester system and from there we will begin exploring the unmapped shift passages in the area.
Endeavour
has been given a clean bill of health by the engineers from
Vulcan
and as soon as we have replenished our stores, we will be breaking orbit. I suggest any of you that want to contact loved ones and say your goodbyes do so now. That is all.”

Comfortable in his command chair, James brought up a number of files that he hadn’t had time to review yet. He was so engrossed in reading them that he lost track of time. His thoughts were broken when his First Lieutenant, Stephen Ferguson, sat down beside him in the vacant command chair and spoke, “Sir, I’m pleased to report that we have just stored the last penetrator missile.
Endeavour
is ready to leave.”

“Very good Ferguson,” James said, “you have been commanding
Endeavour
for the last two months. I think you have earned the privilege of taking her out on her maiden voyage. You have the bridge Lieutenant, set course for the Alpha system.”

As Ferguson barked orders to the rest of the bridge James watched his ship come alive. The Sub Lieutenants were all chatting frantically with one another and even the senior Lieutenants looked excited to be off on an adventure of discovery. James knew that wasn’t where they were headed. He was excited nonetheless. The Void War had cost him his future with Christine. He couldn’t get that back. But he could get some revenge on the Politburo member who had started it all.
Chang, I’m coming for you,
James thought as
Endeavour
disengaged her docking clamps and climbed out of Earth orbit.

In those days piracy was almost unheard of.

-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

11
th
February 2466 AD, New Edinburgh System

Three weeks later James was on the bridge as
Endeavour
dropped out of shift space into the New Edinburgh System. They had passed through the system on their way to Chester just over a week ago with all the ship’s equipment fully powered up, ensuring that
Endeavour
had been visible for all to see. They did the same in Chester. James had even entered the inner system and had a lengthy conversation with the system commander in order to discuss the latest survey findings from around Chester. From there James had jumped
Endeavour
out of the Chester system towards unexplored space. To anyone who was keeping tabs on his ship it would look like she had been sent out on an exploration mission.

To his crew’s bewilderment, instead of beginning to map out the dark matter, James had ordered
Endeavour
into stealth mode and jumped back to Chester. For over a week they then slowly worked their way back through British space to New Edinburgh. It was here that they were to meet their contact and get the final update on their real orders. The coordinates that James had indicated they were to head towards was that of the shift passage that linked New Edinburgh with French colonial space. Thus, James suspected they would be heading in that direction, possibly they would be going all the way to the New France system itself. James had never seen it, but he had read a lot about the system, it had been the place of the biggest space battle in human history, up until the Void War at least.

“Navigation,” James said once the holo plot had updated to show nothing unusual in the New Edinburgh system. “I have just sent some new coordinates to you, plot us a course to take us there.”

“Aye Sir,” Sub Lieutenant Jennings responded. James had been impressed with the Sub Lieutenant’s skill in their stealth runs through the British systems on their way back to New Edinburgh. A number of his Sub Lieutenants were newly promoted and were still very inexperienced. He and the First Lieutenant had been forced to keep a close eye on them. No doubt it would take a few months for them to settle into their roles. James had assigned them all extra shifts in the auxiliary bridge to hone their skills, but Jennings hadn’t been among them. She was already well on her way to earning her promotion to full lieutenant.

“Lieutenant Ferguson, can I see you in my briefing room?” James asked as he rose from his command chair and strode from the bridge. Ferguson nodded and got up to follow his captain. 

As he entered the briefing room James called out to his steward, “Arthur, can you bring us both black coffees, please.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned back to Ferguson and motioned for him to sit. As the First Lieutenant followed his direction James took a moment to study him. At six foot two inches Ferguson was impressively built, yet James had already noticed that he seemed very light on his feet. Coming from Ireland he had a strange accent and James wondered if, in stereotypical fashion, he had stowed some alcoholic beverages on board. Ferguson’s record was notable so he was happy to overlook both issues in any case. After serving on board a survey frigate he had been promoted to a Lieutenant and posted to one of the RSN’s battlecruisers. Then, just before the outbreak of war with the Chinese, he had been promoted to Second Lieutenant and transferred to a destroyer. The destroyer in question had spent the first half of the war on patrol in the Oxford system but when the Admiralty had decided to send raiders into Chinese space, his ship had been sent up the Beta shift passage to harass the Chinese. Both his Captain and the crew had performed well and Ferguson’s reward had been another promotion. James had been delighted to see another raider on board
Endeavour
. Alongside Captain Lightfoot, James had caused the Chinese a number of headaches behind their frontlines in the last war. Yet having to carrying out such missions had been unexpected and the Royal Navy was still relearning the skill of operating behind enemy lines. Whilst Endeavour was officially classed as an exploration ship she was designed to also operate behind enemy lines in times of war. In fact
Endeavour
was the first ship purpose built for just such a mission and it was good to have an officer on board who knew what he was doing. His record was certainly impressive and everything James had seen of Ferguson only served to confirm that he was a very competent officer.

“We’ll be having a briefing with all the senior command crew but I think you deserve to know what we’re about first,” James began.

“Thank you Sir,” Ferguson said. “It will be good to know what is going on. Your orders so far have been strange. I assume our mission won’t involve too much exploration in the immediate future?”

“Call me James in private please,” James said, smiling, “And you could say that. There’s a reason the Admiralty picked a Captain and First Lieutenant for
Endeavour
who were involved in the raids into Chinese space. You’ve heard of the Chinese Minister Chang of course. Well, we’re going after him. The UN wants him arrested for war crimes and our government is keen to see him punished for starting the war.”

“That sounds like a real mission,” Ferguson said with a widening grin. “Do we have any intel on his whereabouts?”

“No, but we are meeting a contact at the coordinates I gave Jennings. Whoever they are, they will be giving us the information we need. I also suspect we will be taking on board some passengers. I can’t imagine RSN Intelligence will let us go tearing after Chang without some form of assistance or oversight.”

“In that case I look forward to meeting our contact,” Ferguson replied. “I lost some good friends in the final battle with the Chinese at Wi Xiang. It would be a real pleasure to be one of the ones who brings Chang to justice.”

“Indeed,” James said, “my sentiments exactly. We’ll brief the rest of the command staff once we have met with the contact and have more information but I wanted you to know what we are about first. We’re going to be working together very closely over the next few months and there is likely to be information I can only share with you, so I wanted us to get off on the right foot.”

“I understand Sir, I mean James,” Ferguson said with a nod.

“Good, well in that case there is another issue I want to bring up.” Before progressing any further James paused and took a deep breath. He hesitated as he thought again about bringing up the next issue; it was not something he had faced before. “It’s about Second Lieutenant Mallory. I have been observing him, as I have all my Lieutenants over the last three weeks. On paper he seems like a good Lieutenant, he meets all his efficiency targets. Yet he doesn’t seem to get on well with the crew and he meets his efficiency targets too well; he never does more than he has to. Is my assessment fair or have I misjudged him?”

This time Ferguson hesitated. James understood. Ferguson had only known James for a few weeks. It was a First Lieutenant’s duty to oversee the other Lieutenants and only come to the Captain whenever something happened that demanded his attention. If he started telling on his junior lieutenants now, he could lose their respect and confidence.

Before he closed down and refused to speak, James prodded Ferguson some more. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t bring this up so soon but reading between the lines, there were some concerning comments in his personnel file. I know I shouldn’t be sharing this with you but we need to trust each other completely. Both his previous captains commented that Mallory was an efficient officer, but lacked leadership experience. I think they were trying to say something. At the start of the Void War he was a fifth lieutenant. His promotion to second came about because of deaths among those higher up, not because he was deemed worthy of promotion on merit alone. If we were just going on a routine survey mission I would let it slide and try to work on him. However, our mission to find Chang is a sensitive one – I need to know who I can trust and depend on. If my guess is right, we’ll be heading into French colonial space and who knows where from there. If Mallory is going to prove a liability, I need to know now.”

As James had been speaking Ferguson had been staring at the deck. He brought up one hand and began to rub his jaw. “Alright,” he began after another pause. “I’ll be honest, so far my assessment of him has come close to yours. In dry dock at
Vulcan
and then during our space trials he did everything that was expected of him. Yet there was something about him that didn’t sit right. I did some digging before we left Earth. I’m sure you didn’t recognize the name but his family owns a large stake in the Chester colony. As a result, they have a lot of influence over the Members of Parliament that come from Chester and have some clout in the Commons.”

James considered Ferguson’s information. Since the British expansion into space the parliamentary system had undergone an extensive revision. No one wanted to see an interstellar repeat of the American War of Independence. Therefore, every new colony was able to elect a number of Members of Parliament who would be sent to London to act as their representatives in the House of Commons. In addition, as the colony developed both the King and the sitting Prime Minister had the ability to grant noble status to individuals who had excelled in developing the colony. They could then take up a seat in the House of Lords or appoint a representative who attended in their place when they were not in the Sol system. Chester wasn’t the largest or most influential colony but its position at the edge of British space meant it was a key strategic system and got a lot of attention.

“When he first came on board,” Ferguson continued, “he was boasting about already knowing where our first mission would be to. Supposedly a lot of the tax revenue from Chester went towards the construction of
Endeavour
and her sister ships. The Chester MP’s have been pushing for the RSN to focus more of its exploration efforts in their direction. As I understand it, the pay back for the investment was a promise that
Endeavour
would be assigned to explore beyond the Chester system. I suspect Mallory’s assignment to the ship wasn’t an accident either.

“I was also able to look into some of the records from Mallory’s previous ships while we were still in Sol, records we don’t have access to here. In both his previous ships a number of crew members were brought up on disciplinary charges for gambling. There was one report that implicated Mallory, but it was quashed from higher up. Even without the sway his family holds over their MP’s his father is a rich man in his own right and has some influential contacts in the RSN, so if he was involved, it’s no surprise he walked away scot-free.

“I haven’t found any proof yet but I am suspicious he has already started to set up gambling sessions on
Endeavour
. A large percentage of the crew hail from the Chester system, so it’s likely he already had some contacts when he came on board.”

James could easily believe it. Gambling was banned on RSN ships. It always led to resentment or even fights. Men and women stuck on board the same ship for months at a time always found ways to resent each other. The RSN felt that falling out over gambling debts or accusations of cheating didn’t need to be one of them. Plus, if an officer was involved, it always got worse. The officer in question could use their position of authority to bully the others involved or threaten exposure and punishment if they didn’t get their way.

Yet for a child of a wealthy businessman or noble, gambling could be a powerful temptation. For someone who grew up having it all, what excitement was there in owning more things? But the risk of losing it all, or of taking it all from someone else, that was alluring. James knew this first hand. His elder brother was an irredeemable drunk and gambler. That was one of the reasons his father had left James the family’s Dukedom. The other, James strongly suspected, was that his father had taken a perverse pleasure in knowing that his least favorite son would inherit a Dukedom in financial meltdown and covered in public shame. If Mallory was involved in gambling, James resolved to put an end to it, even if it ended the young Lieutenant’s career. The RSN had a proud tradition to live up to. James had decided to try his best to honor those who had died forging that tradition; he would be damned if he allowed anyone else to tarnish it.

“Thank you for being so open with me,” James said in response to Ferguson’s revelations. “I want you to keep an eye open for any gambling, whether it involves Mallory or anyone else. As for the Lieutenant himself, you can leave him in my hands. If he gives me any reason to confront him, I intend to set him straight. If he doesn’t show more of a willingness to develop into a complete King’s officer, his career will end at the lofty height of Second Lieutenant.”