Voyagers: SS Robert Heinlein

CHAPTER 16

         

BECOMING A STARSHIP

 

By Douglas DD

Assisted by Zarek Dragon

 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2122

 

 1230

 

Greg Robinson sat at his desk checking his messages and email. He had just finished a wonderful lunch prepared for him by his amazing wife, Alicia. In just under four hours the Robert Heinlein, the Explorer Program’s newest and biggest starship, would be leaving orbit for its first overnight trip. The captain of the ship would be his son Kyle, who checked in as the youngest captain in the history of the Explorer Program. That also made him the youngest ever in Space Fleet. But true command of the ship during the shakedown would belong to Captain Ellis of Space Fleet, who would turn it over to Kyle on occasion.

 

Everyone he had talked to said that age aside, Kyle Robinson had what it took to command a starship, even a new one with a new crew that had never worked together before. Greg had decided that his position as Commander in Chief of the Explorer Program demanded that he recuse himself from the selection process. He felt he had done that successfully.

 

He had assigned Admiral Robert Crusoe, his second in command, to head the selection committee, and turned all questions and issues over to Crusoe, Commodore Hal Tietokone or, if it was a major issue, Fleet Admiral William Mirah, who was the Commander in Chief of Space Fleet. He had only needed to do that once and the issue was quickly resolved.

 

But not everyone was satisfied with the process. Someone had managed to drop a monkey wrench into the process. From the mysterious emails from THE COMMODORE, to the so-called commodore who had followed Kyle through the A Wing when he first reported for duty as Heinlein captain, to what looked like might be a budding conspiracy involving members of the crew. Greg couldn’t help but wonder if his son was up to that kind of a challenge, and if not, what would he and Mirah do about it?

 

Greg thought back to his early dealings with the Explorer program. He had been a member of the ad hoc faculty committee created to decide how to deal with a proposal presented by a group of administrators and faculty members of the Space Academy.

 

I wasn’t expecting the program to get off the ground, let alone be a success, Greg thought. Especially when a number of my suggestions were voted down—like having some adults assigned to each Explorer ship to provide what I felt would be much needed guidance.

 

He remembered he had proposed that there should be three adults serving on a ship: the captain, the chief engineer, and the ship’s doctor. The entire proposal was shot down by the committee. In hindsight he could see that for the most part, turning down his proposal was a good decision.

 

But they did agree with me that teen doctors with the needed experience and knowledge would be difficult.  I loved it when Admiral Boris Antonov came up with the idea of using the Doogie Howser medical Artificial Intelligence robot on all of the ships. The program was being used with great success on some Space Fleet ships as needed and would be a great solution to the physician problem on the Explorer ships. The Howsers have been a godsend.

 Greg had dealt with these thoughts in part because of the sudden rise of his son, but also because the admiralty had created a new ad hoc committee to come up with proposals to tackle some of the weaknesses that have shown themselves in the Explorer Program. Faults were bound to show themselves along the way and the time had come for some corrective action. As the Commander in Chief of the Explorer Program, Greg had dealt with the faults and made quick fixes.

 

But a couple of bigger issues had surfaced and the committee was created to discuss possible solutions. Greg had come up with some solutions, which he had discussed with Admiral Mirah. The Fleet Admiral decided it was time for action and, to no one’s surprise, he placed Greg in the chair position.

 

Greg didn’t want the decisions made by the committee to be the kind of top-down protocols that the admiralty was known for. Bill Mirah agreed with Greg that the Explorers should be given some input, as had been the case with the proposal that the food service staff be officers instead of civilian hires.

 

With the arrival of the Constellation the next morning there would be three Explorer ships in orbit other than the Heinlein. Greg informed the captains that he wanted to meet with them and their first officers the following morning in Conference Room 1 of the Tiberius Space Center Terminal.

 

Even though Eric Garcia had tendered his resignation as captain of the Endurance, he was still officially the captain of the ship until Friday. Besides, he was looking for the captains to provide their opinions and not to make decisions, and Eric certainly had a lot of experience in the Explorer Program to draw on. Greg informed Corbin Hoffman, who would replace Eric on Friday, that he would be expected to attend the meeting as well. Greg decided to wait to meet with Kyle and Devin until after the Heinlein returned from its final shakedown cruise on Wednesday.

 

 Ben sat next to Wade Green on the small sofa in Don and Everett’s quarters. He noted that the layout and furnishings were exactly the same as those in his quarters and that Don and Everett had added some personal touches.

 

Don sat on the cushioned chair and Everett took the desk chair. “Thanks for meeting with us Ben,” Don said.

 

“What you had to say at lunch sounded interesting, but really mysterious,” Ben said. “I’ve been on this ship less than a day, but because of things that happened on the Sooloo, and what I’ve heard from you guys, I would love to see Kyle replaced as captain. It sounds like in just a few days of knowing him you guys feel the same way.”

 

“That’s what this discussion group is about. As for the mysterious part, we don’t plan on doing anything illegal or against Space Fleet rules. But we don’t want our plan to be known. When we finish the plan, Space Fleet will have no choice but to remove Kyle as captain of the Heinlein. That source that Everett mentioned is a very important officer at Space Fleet Headquarters who knows what he’s talking about.”

 

“Good, because I don’t want to get involved in some kind of mutiny or something like that.”

 

“Neither do we,” Everett said. "But we know something’s gonna have to be done. I trust Don because he’s put a lot of work into this plan and because he’s got this important person helping us.”

 

“My friend, who I call my dad, said we all should read the Space Fleet Manual, especially the part on removing a captain,” Don said. “I’m gonna send you a copy to read that has all of the stuff that’s important to us highlighted. That stuff is really all you’ll need to read. The rest of it has nothing to do with us.”

 

Don looked at his tablet. “I see you’re entered into the ship’s roster. I’ll send this to you now. Once you’ve read it, I’m positive you’ll want to join the Cab…the Guardians. And when you join, Everett and I will swear you in, meaning you’re gonna promise to keep this all mysterious, like you called it. And then I’ll tell you the plan.”

 

After some more discussion about the faults of Kyle, Devin, Steve Boyer, and Brad the meeting broke up. Don said he would contact everyone about meeting again after the Heinlein returned to Earth orbit. “That will give you the chance to meet the rest of the Guardians.”

 

Ben left the quarters liking that he had met friends who thought the way he did. But he didn’t want to do anything illegal. He vowed to have the appropriate sections of the manual read before the next meeting of the group.

 

 And now that my meeting with my new friends is done, I get to jump into the fire and meet with Kyle to get what he says will be my temporary assignment, Ben thought.

 

<Captain’s Ready Room>

 

When Ben reached the captain’s ready room, he noted that the door was open. On the Sooloo that meant it was okay to walk into the room without knocking. Since Kyle had served on the Sooloo Ben figured Kyle had the same policy. And if he got into trouble because Kyle had accidentally left the door open, and he broke some rule by walking into the ready room without knocking that would give him one more reason to hate Kyle.

 

Despite his bravado Ben entered the room cautiously. “Hey, Ben, come in and grab a seat,” Kyle said pointing to a chair beside his desk.

 

He sounds like he’s actually happy to see me, which I know isn’t true, Ben thought.

 

Ben took the seat and Kyle asked him how he enjoyed his lunch. “It was really good,” Ben said. “It looks like there’s some good cooks on this ship. When I heard Ian was the head chef, I knew the food would kick ass.”

 

I can’t believe how upbeat he sounds. It has to be a façade,” Kyle thought. But the feeling I get from him is genuine.

“The main reason I wanted to meet with you is to give you your temporary assignment,” Kyle said.

 

“Temporary? You mean I’m going to get my transfer?”

 

“I guess that was a bad choice of words. What I meant by temporary is that it’s only for this shakedown trip. You’ll have your permanent assignment by the end of the week when we go on our first official mission.”

“Well, I guess a guy could hope. So, what’s my temporary job, doing maintenance on the bathroom cleaning bots?”

 

“It’s a step above that,” Kyle said as he worked to fight of a grin. That’s the kind of comment I would have made a couple of years ago, he thought. “You’ll be working shifts in navigation alongside Commander Tudupe, who will show you what his expectations of the navigation crew will be.”

 

Ben nodded. He knew Mituti Tudupe from the Sooloo. “Navigation? Didn’t you kick me out of navigation on the Heinlein?”

 

“How about we go into that at a different time when we have time to talk about it?”

“Whatever you say boss.” I can’t believe I’m taking orders from that wienie. “Then what happens when my ‘temporary’ assignment is finished?” Ben put ‘temporary’ in air quotes.

 

Kyle pointedly ignored the gesture. He was sure he wanted Ben off his ship as badly as Ben wanted to leave it and he wasn’t going to let his former astrogator get under his skin.

 

“If you do your job as well as we both know you can, then you’ll get a permanent assignment to Navigation. But if you decide to see if you can slide by, then you’ll go either to Operations or Information Services.” Ben started to say something, but Kyle held up his right hand which, to Kyle’s relief, stopped him. “I would strongly suggest you sit down and chat with Devin French who underwent a personal crisis of his own.” Kyle wasn’t revealing anything secret; Devin navigating his ship to the wrong destination was public knowledge. As was his recovery from that gaffe.

 

“I’ll think about it,” Ben said sulkily, sounding more like the Ben Kennedy Kyle had expected to deal with. But suddenly, Ben’s face lit up. “If I’m assigned to navigation permanently, does that mean I’ll get shuttle pilot training?”

 

“I guarantee it. You and Caden would be trained by Danny after we leave Mars on our first mission.” Caden was Ben’s roommate, who was serving his first assignment on an Explorer ship.

 

“Then I guarantee I’ll do the best job I can on the shakedown.”

 

“I love hearing that.” Kyle thought that the reward of pilot training would shift Ben’s attitude. The question, of course, was for how long? Kyle stood up, indicating that the meeting was over. Ben followed suit and the two young teens looked each other over as they both made an assessment of what had just gone down. “I’d like you to head for the Navigation office and report to Commander Tudupe.”

 

“My gear is being delivered to my quarters sometime this afternoon.”

 

“And it won’t be going anywhere after it arrives. I’m sure Caden would be happy to help you unpack. He’s a good guy.” Which was true. Kyle had been impressed by what he’d seen of the young ensign.”

 

Ben nodded and left for the Navigation office which was just a few doors away.

 

 1500

 

The officers manning the second watch were on the bridge by 1500. The on time means ten minutes early didn’t apply here to avoid congestion on or around the bridge. On time meant exactly what is said—On Time.

 

Kyle was there with them. Normally the captain did not stand a watch, but there were instances in which he was required to have the conn. Leaving or entering orbit was one of them. Kage Enzan, the Security/Tactical chief was assigned to have the conn when the third watch stood watch, but because of regulations he would observe Kyle commanding the Heinlein as it left orbit instead of being active.

 

Kage was sitting in a jump seat he’d pulled down from the bulkhead on the aft end of the bridge. Mituti Tudupe, the Chief Navigator, was the helmsman. The second watch was the only watch that didn’t have the first, second, or third officer assigned to it, so had two chiefs of department to lend more experience to the watch. Mituti was an experienced helmsman when it came to departing orbits, having done so a number of times on the Sooloo.

Another jump seat was occupied by Captain Michael Ellis, the Space Fleet officer who was in command of the Heinlein during its space trials. However, he made a slight change for the final trials. While still officially in command of the ship, he would be putting Kyle in charge of ship operations. By regulation, this change would have to be done publicly.

 

“Captain Robinson, I am pleased to inform you that I am placing you in charge of the Heinlein,” Captain Ellis said. “In essence you have command of the ship during the shakedown, however I can take over without notice should I deem it necessary.” Having uttered the necessary lingo, he said, “May you have a safe passage.”

 

“Thank you, Captain Ellis. I will be doing my best to make that happen.”

 

Ben Kennedy would take the second seat at the astrogation table. There were two seats there since during watches that required navigation or astrogation calculations to be made, two officers from Navigation were often assigned to that watch.

 

The watch was manned by Tony Broxton at the engineering console, Ramon Hernandez at tactical, Cody Vanover. Information Services, and Doug Devlin at the communications desk. An officer from Information Services usually manned communications, but on some watches an operations officer took communications since operations had a larger complement than IS. This was one of those cases.

 

Shasho Boyer had the operations console. This was his first time standing a watch, other than as an observer on the Sooloo, and he felt well-prepared for his role. Mituti told Steve Boyer, the Operations Chief and Shasho’s father, that he would keep an extra close eye on him. Because of his role as the captain’s yeoman, Shasho would not regularly stand a watch. He was assigned this one in order for him to be part of the process of leaving orbit as well as to handle any quick tasks Kyle might assign him.

 

Should that happen Doug would take over Ops and Cody would handle communications. All of the officers of the second watch had worked with Steve on coordinating the in-flight changes that would need to be dealt with. It was all part of operating a starship in deep space.

 

Kyle went over the process with the watch crew one more time to make sure they were all on the same page. At 1410 Kyle instructed Mituti to contact Orbit Traffic Control and confirm the Heinlein’s 1440 time slot as was required by regulations. Mituti did so and orbit control confirmed the Heinlein’s departure time.

 

At 1430 the communications desk started a minute-by-minute countdown over the ship’s PA system. At 1439 Orbit Traffic Control contacted the Heinlein. “Earth Orbit Control to EHC 1932.”

 

“EHC 1932 here,” Mituti replied. Communications between traffic control and spaceships went directly to the helmsman and captain, eliminating the communications middleman and streamlining the operation.

 

“You are cleared to depart Earth orbit and follow Terra Route 6 until you clear Orbit Control.”

 

“Roger that. Take Terra Route 6 until we clear Earth Orbit Control.”

 

Engineering, give us one quarter standard speed,” Kyle ordered. “Helm, take us to Terra Route 6.”

 

Terra Route 6 would take the Heinlein away from Earth in an imaginary line that started northwest of Hudson Bay and was 65 degrees north of the Plane of the Elliptic. This would take it well away from the busy route that connected Earth with Mars and the gas giants. After twenty minutes, Earth Orbit Control turned the Heinlein over to Deep Space Control, who turned navigation over to the starship and cleared it for faster than light speed.  

 

Captain Ellis sidled over to the conn and congratulated Kyle on the smooth launch. On the ship’s first trial the Space Fleet crew had done the work, showing the Explorer crew how the ship responded. On the shakedown, Kyle was in command and no one from Space Fleet was surprised when the launch proceeded smoothly.

 

The crew had been informed that the current watches would likely be changed. One of the main goals of the shakedown was to get crew used following regular schedules and standing regular watches.

 

At 1800 the third watch was in position to relieve the second watch. The changeover went quickly and efficiently. One negative aspect for the second watch was its poor connection to dinner. The crewmen on this watch, the second trick, would be heading straight to the dining room for dinner. The main dining room stayed open until 1830. The third watch had the same problem since their first trick was 0600-0900, but the main dining room stayed open until 0930.

 

Since the three-hour shifts were new, there would be a lot of learning to be done with mistakes being made. Because this was a Beta test, Kyle would have to turn in reports about what went wrong and what went right. He knew one report on what went right would be on the decision to have donuts and pastries brought to the bridge by food services to tide the watch over to 0900 when the hungry adolescents could zip to breakfast.

 

Devin relieved Kyle at the conn. “What time will the cookies come?” Devin grinned.

 

“I told Ian that sometime between 1900 and 1930 sounded good,” Kyle answered.

 

Kyle had proposed at a senior officers meeting that since snacks were available during the evening, they should be available to the second trick of the third watch as well. Nobody argued. Somebody on the culinary staff would bring freshly baked cookies for the watch every evening.

 

The itinerary for the night had the Heinlein moving away from Earth and the plane of the elliptic in warp speed until 0100 when it would turn around and head in the direction of Saturn and Space Station Helios 6 where it was scheduled to arrive at 1210.

 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2022

 

 Arrangements had been made by Hal with Commodore Chan Ho Kim, the commander-in-chief of the solar system space stations, for the Heinlein to make five separate approaches to Helios 6. The first would be made with Kyle at the conn and the first watch manning the bridge. The ship would be given an assigned orbit of the station and would then establish the orbit. The process was trickier than assuming an Earth orbit since they had to deal with Saturn’s gravitational forces as well as the movements of the space station. Everyone had practiced the procedure on a flight simulator, but as with any process, live action had its differences from the simulated action, which was why all of the watches would get a feel of the procedure.

 

Commander Phil Beckham was the commander of Helios 6. He sat in the station’s control room and watched as Lieutenant Oliver Krauss, his information services chief, guided the Heinlein into a standard orbit around the station. The tricky part of a ship establishing orbit around an object, in this case Helios 6, was that at the same time that object was maintaining orbit around a planet. It required the ship’s thrusters to be active for navigation to send engineering commands to make needed adjustments.

 

Two things paid off for the Heinlein crew on this attempt. Kyle had performed the maneuver a couple of times when he had the conn on the Sooloo and Ronald had made the engineering adjustments while serving as chief engineer of the Victorious. Kyle felt that having himself, Ronnie, and Operations Chief Steve Boyer on the bridge if they ever needed to do a tricky maneuver was paramount. That said, Kyle had learned from his leadership class at the Academy and his experience on the Sooloo how easily the best of plans could go awry and that contingency plans were a necessity. That meant that every watch, not just the first watch, had to bring the Heinlein into orbit around Helios 6.

 

As a result, Devin French, Steve Boyer, Brad Kanye, and Kage Enzan each had the conn and established orbit around the station. The crew on the station worked patiently with the Heinlein and were impressed by how well prepared the kids on the ship were. They were worried during one of the maneuvers an emergency would spring up, but all five of them ended up being routine as the ship performed flawlessly.

 

After the trial runs, Kyle, Devin, Steve, and chief science officer Logan Wilson, were picked up by the Europa, the space station’s shuttle, and ferried to Helios 6. They were given a tour of the space station during which Kyle invited Commander Beckham, along with one of his senior officers, to dinner on the Heinlein.

 

Beckham picked Krauss, the information services chief, and then asked Kyle if Lieutenant Commander Terry Dean, the chief of the science team, could join them as well. “Terry has been admiring your ship from the moment he saw it. I think he would love to see your science setup,” Beckham said. Kyle knew that Dean was the only officer on the science team; his charges were all civilians.

 

“That should be no problem,” Kyle said. “I’ll tell our chief chef to expect one more.” Terry grinned when he heard Kyle’s reply.

 

“Aren’t we eating standard fare? That’s usually the case when we are invited to eat on a visiting starship.”

 

“Ian, our chef, likes to put on a show for visitors.”

 

“That suits us just fine, right gentlemen?” Beckham asked his officers. They all nodded in agreement.

 

“Thanks for showing me your science layout and the studies you’re doing, Terry. You have a lot of interesting things going on,” Logan said.

 

“A lot of people think of the Helios stations as nothing more than way stations for training and for tour ships to stop at to let passengers admire the planet they’re orbiting around, and for freighters to stop to make adjustments.” 

 

“I’m glad you’re coming to the Heinlein; I think we have some cool things to show you.”

 

“I’m looking forward to it,” Terry said. “Your ship is supposed to be state of the art.” Which makes me wonder why they assigned the ship to the kiddy corps.

“I’ll have a shuttle come over at 1730 if that works for you,” Kyle said.

 

“Unless someone objects, I’m good with it,” Commander Beckham said. Krauss and Dean mumbled and nodded their assent. “All, right then, we’ll be waiting at the airlock at 1730 hours.”

 

The Heinlein contingent then flew back to the starship in the Europa, the station’s shuttle.

 

<Heinlein Classroom>

 

1430

 

“Koji, what are you doing?” Ali Bakabazi asked ten minutes into class. While Ali had met with individual students and groups of students, this was the first official session of the Heinlein’s school. While the format of the school would essentially be independent study classes, as the chief instructor of the ship’s school Ali still had to give structure to the procedure and at times teach lessons to the full class. The purpose of the day’s session was to teach the students the format along with the all-important rules and regulations of the class.

 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Koji responded.

 

“It looks like you’re taking off your shirt.”

 

“Exactly. And so you don’t have to ask me why I’m taking off my shirt it’s because you’ve got the classroom too warm and I need to be cool to concentrate my best.” Koji was now shirtless, and his school uniform shirt was rolled up on his desk. The school’s students wore Space Academy uniforms to class unless they were commissioned officers like Bobby and Caleb Brown.

 

Bobby was a cadet and assigned to Science. His brother, Caleb, was an ensign and was also assigned to Science. Both still had to satisfy the math and English requirements and would be coming to the classroom two to three days a week. Both of them wore standard Space Fleet uniforms.

 

“How about if after class we go to the replicator and replicate a little fan you can hold in front of you to cool yourself?”

 

“That wouldn’t be as much fun,” Koji stated matter-of-factly.

 

“Class, what did I say about fun this morning?”

 

“That it’s a dirty three-letter word,” the students shot back.

 

“Very good. So, how about you putting your shirt back on and deciding to save the fun for later.”

“But, Ali, there’s no rule against being shirtless in class.” As much as Ali loved his students, and he loved Koji as much as anybody, the young boy had a way of getting under his skin in a hurry and testing his patience to the nth degree.

 

Ali gave Koji the sternest look he could muster. “There are two rules, Koji. One is the requirement that you wear an Academy shirt or a uniform shirt to class, depending on your status. Which means you would be violating that rule if you went shirtless. Sometimes a rule is understood even if it isn’t actually written down. It’s a matter of syntax.”

 

“You mean it’s sinful to have your shirt off and you get taxed for it?”

 

Ali sighed and wrote s-y-n-t-a-x on his projector which showed it on the white wall behind him. “All of you will look this word up as soon as I give you the second rule, and this might be the most important one.”

 

“Way to go, Koji, you gave us extra work to do,” Caleb Brown said. Because he was an ensign and would only be in the class a couple of days a week, he felt his position as commissioned officer gave him special status.

 

“But it’s fun work,” Matthew Wilson said. He and his twin brother Mark had been having fun following the byplay between Koji and Ali to the point where the two nine-year-olds had started lifting their shirts so they could be shirtless too until Ali started his lecture on rules.

 

“Koji made it fun for us to get to learn a new word…” Mark said.

 

“…by looking it up ourselves.” It wasn’t unusual for the twins to finish each other’s sentences. The twins had gotten to know Koji well when they visited the Robinson house and they thought he was royally cool.

 

“What is the second rule?” Tei Daniels asked.

 

“I’m willing to bet that Koji knows the answer to that,” Ali replied.

 

“Ali is the teacher and that makes him like the captain in the classroom and what he says is a rule is a rule and so here’s what I’m going to do.” Koji quickly unrolled his Academy uniform shirt and pulled it over his head. He then gave Ali his winningest smile.

 

“Good job, Koji. Now, let’s get ourselves back on the topic.” It was a mark of the respect that Ali commanded as well as the intelligence and overall good deportment of the class that Ali immediately gained the complete attention of the class.

 

Koji felt he had a good argument, but as his opsolas pounded into him, on a starship the officer in charge is to be obeyed without question. But, a private discussion on an issue can always be had at a later time with that officer or his commander if there is a problem with the order he was given. Koji planned to do that, and to find out why his brother Duskin didn’t take his shirt off in support of him.

 

<Heinlein, 1730>

 

A little over an hour after Kyle and his contingent returned to the Heinlein from Helios 6, Danny berthed the Mozart at the space station’s auxiliary airlock. Commander Beckham, Lieutenant Krauss and Lieutenant Commander Dean were waiting. As soon as the connection between the shuttle and the station was made airtight, the three officers went through the airlock and boarded the Mozart.

 

“This is a good-sized shuttle,” Beckham noted. “How many does it hold?”

 

“It has seating for 20, including the pilot and copilot,” Danny answered.

 

“That sounds like what the big boys have.” Beckham was referring to the ships of Space Fleet with their adult crews. “But they have two bigger classes of shuttle as well.”

 

“So do we, plus the Heinlein is bigger than any Space Fleet starship.”

 

“Yeah, I’d forgotten that little fact; or should I refer to it as a big fact?”

 

In a little less than ten minutes Danny was calling the Heinlein. Doug Devlin responded to the communication and turned the Mozart over to Heinlein shuttle control. Danny wasn’t alone in thinking that it would be much more efficient if approaching Heinlein shuttles could contact shuttle control directly. He could see the need for shuttles from other sources to contact ship’s communication, but there was no need for the home shuttle to do so. But it was Explorer Program policy, not Heinlein policy, and it would take some time to get the protocol changed.

 

Jesse was manning shuttle control and he and Danny worked efficiently to bring the Mozart into the shuttle bay and to its berth. “Well done, Commander Robinson,” Commander Beckham told Danny as he and the other two Helios 6 officers disembarked the shuttle and boarded the Heinlein.

 

Kyle and Devin were waiting in the shuttle bay foyer for the space station officers. They greeted their visitors warmly and escorted them to the Executive dining room where they would be served by the Heinlein’s food staff. It was agreed that the visitors’ tour of the ship would take place after the visitors enjoyed their specially prepared dinner.

 

Ian had ascertained earlier in the day that their visitors enjoyed seafood and the result was an appetizer of salmon steaks, shrimp salad, and an entrée of halibut steaks with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. Dessert was deep-dish apple-pie a la mode.

 

“That was one damned fine meal,” Beckham said. “Please bring out your chef.”

 

“We second that,” Oliver Karus and Terry Dean said.

 

Ian came out from the galley and accepted the accolades of the three officers. He knew that the quality of the food wasn’t a strong point of the space stations. It was good, but nothing to salivate over. “I have a great crew in the galley,” Ian said. “To a man, well, to a boy, they are the best in the Explorer program. I’ll put them up against anybody in the Explorer fleet or in Space fleet.”

 

The three officers were impressed by the tour of the ship as well. Terry Dean almost salivated as much over the equipment in the ship’s science department as he did over the meal he had just finished.

 

“I’d give my left nut to bring that equipment back to the station with me.”

 

“You could give both of your balls up and not miss them,” Oliver said, bringing chuckles from Beckham, Devin, and assistant chief Tommy Harper, who chuckled mostly from embarrassment. At age ten, he was the youngest officer on the Heinlein.

“I had my doubts about young guys like you operating a sophisticated machine like the Heinlein,” Terry said. "But I’ve been watching you at work, and I have to take back most of those doubts. For a crew that has just come together over the last couple of weeks, you guys are doing an amazing job. I can sense it just watching you guys at work.”

 

Terry looked at Kyle, who looked younger than his thirteen years. “I don’t know how you did it, but you seem to have a good crew working here.”

 

“They’re the ones who did it,” Kyle said. “We’ve made a goal of getting into the top five rankings after we’ve had our first inspection. That goal is helping to bring us together as a crew.”

 

“Best of luck to you,” Beckham said. “Kyle, I know you want to leave orbit and get your shakedown trip going again, so I’d like to ask for a ride back to good old number six.”

 

“I think we can accommodate that,” Kyle said. “And I know a shakedown cruise works better if it’s actually shaking something down. Having a skeleton crew holding the watch on the bridge was a nice little break, but it’s time to spend the night working full watches.”

 

Kyle walked the guests to the shuttle bay, where Danny was waiting for them. The Mozart was soon ferrying the three Six officers to their space station and not long after that the Mozart was berthed in the shuttle bay. The Heinlein was ready to go back to full operation again. 

 

1900

 

The third watch was on duty with Kyle manning the conn as the Heinlein prepared to leave orbit. Devin French, who would normally have had the conn during third watch, sat at the astrogation table and took the helm from McCoy Howard.

 

Devin had been chief astrogator on the Endurance before accepting the first officer position on the Heinlein. Kyle felt it was important for Devin to take the helm on occasion to maintain his feel for steering a ship. At 1922 the starship was cleared to leave its orbit around Helios 6 and then its Saturn orbit by Oliver Kraus. As soon as they left the authority of Helios control, Kyle turned the conn over to Devin, who turned the helm over to McCoy.

 

The third watch was now manned by what was its regular crew at least for now. The watch assignments were still a work in progress.  Devin had the conn, McCoy was at the astrogation table, Ronnie Robinson at the engineering station, Chet Duncan at the operations station, Clarence Leingang at tactical, Lincoln Landis at the information system computer, and Nelson Mirrah at communications. Clark Carter, the science department’s planetologist was at the science desk to use its powerful optics to enhance his study of Saturn. The science department was not required to man every watch, but often had an officer at the science desk to either use the advanced optics or to provide assistance when the ship was on an exploratory mission. While the science department had access to the optics, the big screen in the bridge could give some instant feedback that wasn’t always available at the department desks.

 

With the third watch comfortably in place, Kyle was no longer needed on the bridge and he left for his ready room where he would meet with Captain Ellis to get his evaluation of the work done by the Heinlein crew during its operations around Helios 6.

 

Overall, the evaluation was very positive. Ellis pointed out a few areas where improvement might be needed, which Kyle expected since the crew was performing many tasks for the first time.

 

“You might want to keep a close eye on one of your officers in science. He appears to have other things on his mind other than concentrating on the task at hand. And appears to have quite a little following for whatever reason.”

 

“That would be Lieutenant Nixon, right?”

 

“I figured you would be right on top of it,” Ellis grinned. He had purposefully not mentioned the name to see what Kyle was aware of. The more he worked with Kyle the more impressed he had become of the young captain. He felt that when he turned over command in a couple of days, he would be leaving the Heinlein in good hands.

 

The Heinlein would be spending the night and most of the next day practicing standard maneuvers at faster than light speed. They wouldn’t be dropping out of warp until just before entering the purview of Earth traffic control.

 

The ship would be orbiting Earth for the next three days with the formal launch party where Ellis would turn command of the ship over to Kyle and the official launch on Sunday would be the highlight of the layover. Kyle could hardly wait for the official launch and to leave Earth on the Heinlein’s first mission.

 

He headed for his quarters and was soon in bed cuddling Danny. He loved how he could feel the strength emanating from the boy he loved with all his heart. They ended up making sweet love as they moved through space at faster than light speed.

 

Next: Taking Command.