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CHAPTER 9
ON THE MOVE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2122
<Heinlein, Officers’ Dining Room>
0630
The morning alarms seemed to come awfully early. Friday had been a long, busy day. The Heinlein chiefs and assistant chiefs had worked hard, but they also found a way to play hard at the end of the day.
Kyle felt that the naked evening seemed to bond everyone a bit closer. Danny agreed with him. At breakfast, he talked to Devin, Brad, and Steve individually to see what they thought. They were the three senior officers he felt closest to. All three agreed with Kyle’s analysis. Devin and Brad added that they felt it also raised the level of trust they had in Kyle as well as in each other.
After breakfast, the moment came that the officers had been looking forward to the most since boarding the Heinlein: their first shakedown trip. Each senior officer and his assistant chief left the dining room for their office or station. There they would meet the Space Fleet officers assigned to help them with using their equipment and finding their way around their assigned area. Each pair would be working with two or three Space Fleet officers.
Steve Boyer, the Operations chief, would be working with Ensign Carl Peterson, an operations engineer, who had ridden the first regularly scheduled Capricorn shuttle trip of the day which had left Earth at 0530. Steve had picked Lucias Hayes to be his assistant chief, but Lucias was coming to Earth on the Endurance and wouldn’t be boarding the Heinlein until Monday the 19th.
Steve had wanted his uber talented son, Shasho, to assist him, but Kyle had nixed it. “We both know how good Shasho is,” Kyle had told him. “He’s become kind of like an executive assistant for you on top of being a top-notch son. You two fit together hand in glove. I think Shasho will learn what he needs to learn about how things on this ship work on the upcoming workday. I think it would be better for your operations department if you gave Carl the experience of working with you and learning about the Heinlein.” Carl’s previous assignment had been as an operations engineer on the Constellation.
Steve gave some thought to what Kyle had just told him and then said, “I agree with you. I know you would never steer me wrong. As much as I’d like working with Shasho, Carl and I would both benefit tremendously by working together on the shakedown.”
“Thanks for your understanding.”
“Hey, what are friends for?” Steve grinned.
“There’s a reason why you’re the best Chief of Operations in the Explorer Program and one of my best friends in the galaxy,”
“And that reason is?”
“That reason is that you’re a very special person.”
Ensign Edward “Eddie” McGill had arrived on the early morning Capricorn with Carl Peterson. He had been a member of the engineering staff on the Carl Sagan before being transferred to the Heinlein. Since Assistant Chief Engineer Kai Daniels was on the Sooloo and wouldn’t be arriving until the 19th, Eddie would be the second for Ronnie in engineering for the brief shakedown.
Riku Tatsu, the Chief Medical Officer, would be arriving on the 19th as well after being transferred from the Galileo to the Pegasus. Assistant Chief Benjamin Okoye had taken Dr. Tatu’s place on an interim basis the day before. He had Nurse Rory Jones acting as his assistant.
Kyle was sitting at his desk in the captain’s ready room reading over one of the seemingly endless reports in his inbox when Devin entered. “We are fully staffed for the shakedown and ready to go,” Devin reported.
Kyle looked at the crew roster for the shakedown. The officers on the roster were listed in pairs. He and Devin were on the first line followed by Mituti Tudupe and Manuel Perez (Navigation); Ronald Robinson and Eddie McGill (Engineering); Steve Boyer and Carl Peterson (Operations); Brad Kanye and Nelson Mirah (Information Services); Logan Wilson and Tommy Harper (Science); Dr. Okoye and Nurse Jones (Medical); and Kage Enzan and Jarrod Carpenter (Tactical).
Mituti, Brad, Logan, and Kage were the only chief officers who would be working with their regular assistants on this run. And Kage would only be working with his chief tactical assistant since he had yet to appoint a chief security assistant. Even though working with a junior officer instead of a chief assistant sounded like it was a negative, Kyle saw it as a positive. The experience the younger officers received would help them learn their positions sooner. On top of that the chiefs would be learning about the Heinlein while breaking in their newbies.
By 0745 everyone was at his assigned station. The Chiefs went to work reviewing the goals for the first half of the shakedown. They also went over the differences between the instruments and machinery of the Earhart class ships like the Heinlein and the explorer class ships the officers had all served on.
Kyle was on the bridge with Mituti and Manuel. Captain Ellis, the Space Fleet ship commander, turned over the command to Kyle and took a seat to observe the Heinlein officers at work and step in if a problem cropped up. He found no need to do anything but observe—the boys knew what they were doing.
Mituti and Manuel had experience manning the helm at the navigation table, but only Mituti had steered a ship out of orbit and into open space. He had done that under the tutelage of John Luke after Kyle had left the Sooloo. John Luke had replaced Kyle as the Sooloo’s chief navigator.
Kyle and Mituti decided that Mituti would take the helm for the departure and arrival from and to Earth. He and Kyle would point out the protocols for steering the ship as well as the radio contract with Space Fleet orbit traffic control and space traffic control. They would be under orbit traffic control until they passed the arc of the moon’s orbit when they would be switched to space traffic control. After flying one million kilometers from Earth, they flew without the guidance of traffic control unless something out of the ordinary occurred. Manuel would have the helm the next time the Heinlein left Earth orbit, which would be on the 16th.
Kyle and Manuel observed Mituti’s work; Kyle as his supervisor checking on the caliber of his work, and Manuel as his student observing how Mituti handled the ship. Kyle was completely satisfied with Mituti's work at the helm. ‘John Luke did good work training him,’ Kyle thought, forgetting that he himself had given Mituti his initial training on the helm.
Manuel took over the helm after they left the authority of space traffic control and had the helm until the Heinlein was brought to a stop so everyone could enjoy lunch together. On a normal flight there would be a regular watch schedule, but this was a shakedown and training flight which meant different protocols were in effect.
“Your boys did a great job,” Ellis told Kyle. “As did you, Captain Robinson. I was impressed.”
“Thank you, Captain Ellis.” Kyle gave Mituti and Manuel permission to leave the bridge and then spent about five minutes discussing the flight with Ellis.”
“And now you get the conn for the flight back to Earth,” Ellis told Kyle. “And as of now we can drop the formalities and get some lunch. You understand that the bridge isn’t always this formal, right?”
“Totally. I understand the protocols we’ll have to follow during the shakedown flights. Enjoy your time in command, Michael, because in a few days, this ship will be mine---ALL MINE!” Kyle chortled.
Michael Ellis laughed and accompanied Kyle off the bridge and to the chief officer’s dining room.
During lunch, Kyle had quick visits with his senior officers discussing what they felt they had accomplished. He also put a bug in their ears regarding an idea he had about the names of the two dining rooms. “Feel free to discuss it with your assistant. I have already discussed my idea with Devin who said he liked it,” he told each chief. On the flight back he would be going from station to station observing his chiefs and their assistants—after he’d had a chance to wolf down some lunch.
1230
The crew members who weren’t out in space on the Heinlein had been ordered to report to Space Fleet Headquarters for a meeting in the D Wing conference room at 0800. They had been listening to lessons on topics ranging from their rights and responsibilities, as well as those of the captain and senior officers, to what to do in the event of an onboard power failure on the ship, to seminars on the function of each department.
“Some of what we’ve discussed this morning will become more real when you experience the various departmental meetings on board the Heinlein as well as the various emergency drills commencing Monday,” Commodore Hanson, the head teacher at the Space Academy, told the crew. All the crew members had attended the Space Academy and knew who Commodore Hanson was.
“From what I’ve observed, the Heinlein has the makings of a real fine crew. And yes, I’m talking about you.” He swept his right arm back and forth across the room three times, his index finger pointing at every crew member on at least one of the sweeps. “You all have the afternoon and all day tomorrow off to contemplate what was discussed here and to read the handouts you were given. You have your schedules for Monday, your shuttles to the space port, and then your space shuttles to the Heinlein. You do NOT want to miss either one. Enjoy your time off.”
Hal then took over the meeting, reminding the crew they had each received a voucher good for lunch at any cafeteria or café in the headquarters building except the Galaxy Bistro, which served only officers with the rank of captain or higher.
“Since reservations are needed for the Skyward Café, I made ten reservations which will be raffled off. Those of you wishing to eat there meet with Commander Pickens who will hand you a pair of numbered tickets.” Commander Robert Pickens was Hal’s chief aide. “Tear off the stub and drop in the bowl. Once everybody who wants to enter the raffle has dropped his ticket in the bowl, we’ll draw ten numbers out of the bowl.”
Four crew members who did not want to be in the lottery were Lieutenant Don Nixon, Ensign Everett Belmont, Lieutenant JG Mark Winters, and Ensign Wade Green. Don had informed them that they would have a paid lunch waiting for them at Starr Central Restaurant and Casino downtown and that a ride would be provided for them.
“There will a blue and white van waiting for us behind the Amazon Store on Preston Avenue. We’ll all get to the van on our own,” he had told them. The four officers left HQ pretending they didn’t know each other and walked on their own to the Amazon Store where they loaded into a blue and white van.
The driver was a man with black hair sprinkled with flecks of white. Don sat in the front passenger seat and said, “Hey Zeke, how’s it going?”
“Better now that you and your buddies are safely loaded. Your dad would string me up if anything happened to any of you.” He turned around and looked over at the three boys seated in the middle seats. “My name is Zeke. I’m a friend of Donald’s dad. You boys want to introduce yourselves since Donald seems bit short on the etiquette front this afternoon?” Zeke asked.
He was met by silence from the trio. They were intimidated by the man who, despite being dressed in civilian clothes, had a definite military bearing about him and gave the boys the impression that he was beyond ancient. “The whole bunch of you seems a bit short on etiquette today.”
Don turned around to say something, but Everett cut him off. “My name is Everett Belmont and I’m an ensign who has been assigned to Science, like Don is.”
“Nice. A very complete introduction,” Zeke commented.
Mark took the hint and said, “My name is Lieutenant Junior Grade Mark Winters and I’m assigned to Tactical.”
Wade finished it up. “And I’m Ensign Wade Greene in Engineering.”
“Well, the etiquette bug bit all three of you. Well done, something any officer should be proud of,” Zeke said. He started up the van and pulled out of the parking lot. “I have been told to drive you to the Starr Central Restaurant. It is a very classy place and it’s good you showed me how an officer and a gentleman should act, or I might have gone against my friend’s wishes and dropped you off at Headquarters.” He glanced over at Don. “Any comments from you, my young friend?”
“Yes, thank you for taking the time to drive us to the restaurant in a way that will keep all of us from being seen leaving together.”
“Oh, that plan was all your dad’s idea. I am just supplying the wheels and the etiquette lesson. Your dad provided the brains to this little venture.”
Nobody talked again until Zeke pulled up in front of the restaurant. The trio in back thanked Zeke for driving them safely and then clambered out of the sliding door onto the sidewalk and Don left out of the passenger door. He thanked his friend and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Call me twenty minutes before you need to be picked up,” Zeke told Don before pulling away from the curb and out into traffic.
The boys entered the restaurant and were greeted by Reggie Warden, the maître di. Even though they were in their duty uniforms and not their dress regalia, the young adolescents looked very proper in the freshly washed and pressed liveries.
The maître di introduced himself and escorted the boys to a private dining room, where he introduced them to their waiter, who seated the boys. Once they were seated, the boys turned their attention to Reggie.
“Which one of you is Donald Nixon?” he asked. Don dutifully raised his hand.
“Your dad is an excellent customer and a very good friend of mine. He asked that you boys eat in a civilized manner and to not clean out our pantry,” Reggie grinned.
After Reggie left, Carter, the waiter, set a glass of water at each setting and handed each boy a menu. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your order,” Carter said. He walked out of the dining room and closed the door behind him.
“Okay, guys, food first and then we’ll talk about our mission,” Don said.
“And just what is our mission?” Mark asked.
“Be patient. Like I said, we’ll talk about it after getting our food.”
The boys perused the menu and decided what they wanted. They all eschewed the fancy stuff and went for hamburgers, fries, and soft drinks, certain that the burgers would be the “best ever”. Fries were fries as far as they were concerned.
When the lunch arrived, they charged right into their burgers. They not only were not disappointed in their burgers, but they decided the fries were the “best ever” as well.
Don started the meeting as they chomped away on their burgers. “The mission of our group is to create problems on the Heinlein after we get into deep space. What we want to do is stuff that won’t put anybody in danger but will make Captain Kyle the Loser look bad. We want to make him look so bad that Devin, our good first officer will have to invoke the rulebook and relieve the Loser of duty, which he can do if we can do things right.”
“But don’t we want to take over?” Wade asked.
“Yes, we do, and we can take over the ship if Devin doesn’t do his duty and relieve the Loser. My dad says the rules say that means the first officer is as big an idiot as the captain. And he says the second officer probably won’t want to get involved in removing the captain, so we’ll take over ahead of him too. Or, we could get him to maybe even join us.”
“But how do we do that?” Mark asked.
“My dad gave me and Everett a ton of ideas when we met with him. But the big one will involve this little device right here.” Don held up a six by two-inch metal piece. We plant this on the tube carrying the wiring connecting the engine room to the bridge. This thing is gonna keep knocking the ship off course. The only way the navigation and engineering staff can stop that is to disconnect it. But first, they have to find it. And in order to find it, they have to know what they’re looking for. My dad has tested this and trust me, it works. After we soften the Loser up and make him wonder what the fuck is going on we take over.”
“How do you plan to connect it?” Wade asked.
“Since you’re in engineering and will probably be busy learning all the ins and outs of the engine room and how it connects to the ship, I was thinking you’d probably have a chance to do that next Thursday when engineering has its own shakedown.”
“But how do I connect it?”
“It has an adhesive along the side that you expose and then you slap it onto the conduit. It will stay connected until somebody pulls it off. I’ll activate it when the time comes,” Don replied.
“But I might get caught. According to our engineering meetings most of us will be going into the maintenance passage during that drill day.”
“But only one of us at a time can fit in there, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Wade admitted.
“There you have it. Carry it in a pocket, check to make sure no heads are peeking in, and slap it onto the bottom of the conduit. It’s so small I doubt if anybody will ever notice it.”
“You don’t plan on becoming the captain when we have to take over, right?”
“Not unless Devin, or whoever number two will be, decides they won’t take command.”
“Then I’ll do it, but only because I want to serve on a ship with a real captain and not some kid who’s a fake captain, or like you said, a loser.”
After discussing some other plans for initiating minor disruptions, Don called Carter into the room and told him they were done. Carter nodded and went back into the main restaurant to get Reggie.
“Your dad has taken care of the bill,” Reggie told Don. “You boys were great—you acted more grown up than a lot of the full-size Space Fleet officers who eat here. May you all enjoy a safe voyage and a happy ship.”
The boys found Zeke at the minivan. He had eaten lunch in the main restaurant, which was also paid for by Don’s dad.
<Robert Heinlein>
Kyle settled into the conn and surveyed the bridge. One of the ironies he had run into was that as captain of the ship he would rarely be on the bridge serving a watch, and even when he was, he would seldom have the conn. But it was policy that he would have the conn at sometime during the senior officer shakedown cruise. He elected to sit in the chair for the ship’s departure from its lunchbreak position.
Kyle would be observing Manuel Perez, the Heinlein’s assistant chief astrogator, who would be taking the helm. Manuel had set a course back to Earth and he would be steering the ship on that course once the conn, in this case Kyle, gives the order for the helm to follow a course to Earth.
Manuel had entered a course for Earth before Kyle had arrived on the bridge. Mituti Tudupe, the chief astrogator, was in the astrogation room where he had checked and approved Manuel’s course. Kyle gave it a double check and gave Manuel the command to start the Heinlein on its course for Earth as well as the speed the ship should follow. The double checking was part of the shakedown. It allowed the officers to check whether or not they were on the same page, and it allowed a double check of the astrogation equipment.
Since the ship had parked facing away from Earth, Manuel had to turn the ship 180 degrees before accelerating to the required speed.
About an hour into the return journey, Kyle turned the conn over to first officer Devin French. He complimented Manuel on how smoothly he had gotten the ship underway and left the bridge for the astrogation room where he met with Mituti. He had told Mituti after lunch that he wanted to meet with him in the astrogation room an hour or so after the ship got underway.
“Nice job by Manuel,” Kyle said as he sat at the auxiliary astrogation table.
“Manuel is very good at his job,” Mituti pointed out. “We should expect nothing less.”
“Agreed.”
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I have an idea for something I want to try,” Kyle told him.
“I’m listening.”
Kyle told Mituti what his plan was. Mituti shook his head after Kyle finished and said, “Why would you want to be able to do that?”
“I hope I never have to do it, but with some of the strange things that have been going on, I want to have a secret weapon.”
“That would certainly be a secret weapon. How secret do you plan to make it?”
“Secret enough that just you, Devin, Brad, Steve, Danny, and Ronnie will know about it to start. But, before we can do anything with my idea, I have to know if it’s something you can program the astrogation table to do.”
“My answer has to be that I doubt I can…at least not so it would operate at top efficiency. But I have every confidence that Brad can do it. Brad can do magic with computers.”
“I agree and I thought that was what you were going to say. I told him I might call him in to the astrogation room to ask him a programming question. He said he would give Nelson a programming problem to solve and would be ready if we needed him.” Nelson Mirah was Brad’s assistant in information services.
Kyle called Brad on his communicator and told him he was ready to talk about his programming idea. Brad gave Nelson a couple of final instructions and headed for the astrogation room. After Kyle explained what he had in mind, Brad said, “I think it’s doable. I’ll put Nelson and some of my best brains on it.”
“Right now, the only brain I want you to put on it is your own,” Kyle told him.
“For real?”
“Totally for real. That is subject to change, but that’s the way it is for now.”
“Whatever you say, boss. Doing it is well within my capabilities but with just me writing the program, it could take longer.”
“Whatever. I know you’ll do your best.”
“I’ll need access to this table at times.”
“You can get it through either me, Mituti, or Devin when you need it.”
“Fair enough. But do you think you’re really going to need to be able to use that auxiliary table to do what I am going to program it to do?”
“All I can say is, I hope to God I won’t have to. But I want the ability to use the function I want you to program just in case I fucking need it.”
“Trust me, my friend, when I get done programming that thing it will do exactly what you want it to do.”
“And do you think you’ll be able to run that program if you need it?” Kyle asked Mituti.”
“Knowing Brad, using that program will be a piece of cake,” Mituti replied. “But I do have one question.”
“Fire away.”
“Did you get clearance from Space Fleet and the Explorer Program to reprogram the astrogation system?”
“Nope, and you all know why, too.”
“Yep,” Brad responded. “It’s because there’s what I think is called a mole at HQ who could sink everything we try to do here on the Heinlein if we decided to ask for permission.”
“As Hal, among others, likes to say, it is often easier and better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”
The meeting then broke up. Brad grabbed the technical manual for the auxiliary astrological table and took it with him to the room that would soon be his office. Kyle and Mituti went to the bridge.
At 1445 Mituti took over the helm from Manuel and Kyle relieved Devin at the conn. Mituti had yet to navigate the Heinlein into an orbit. As the chief astrogator he was also the chief helmsman. Mituti understood that before he could turn over the process of navigating the Heinlein into orbit to Manuel, he had to do it himself. Both he and Manuel had carried out the maneuver many times in the holodeck simulator, but as realistic as the simulator was there was nothing that matched executing the real thing.
Mituti brought the Heinlein into its assigned orbit flawlessly. Kyle congratulated him on the fine work.
Captain Ellis gave Mituti some special praise. “For your first time maneuvering this class of ship into orbit, you did a remarkable job.”
“I’ve done this before on the Sooloo Mituti told him.
“And it is that experience, along with some fine training by your commanders, that had you looking like an old pro on a class of ship you’ve never flown before.”
The Heinlein officers met with Kyle and Captain Ellis in a holodeck meeting room. Both captains pointed out what went right (which was virtually everything) and went over the few mistakes that needed rectifying. Kyle and Ellis agreed that the officers of the Heinlein had done an exceptional job.
After dinner, everyone agreed that the kitchen staff had done an exceptional job and then some. Head chef Ian McFlynn beamed with pride. “No offense to the fine staff on the Sooloo, but we’re right up there with them and then some in our culinary expertise,” Ian said. “I thank Randy Jenkins, the head chef on the Sooloo, for his great job of teaching me the fine art of cooking in a starship kitchen. And I must say this—Randy would kill to have the kitchen facility that this ship has.”
The officers then boarded the Brahms and were shuttled to the Tiberius Space Port with Danny manning the controls and Mituti as his co-pilot. After disembarking the officers went to wherever they were residing during the short time remaining before the official launch. Danny turned the Brahms over to the ground crew who would taxi it to a tarmac where it would sit for the night.
Kyle, Danny, and Ronnie rode home with their dad. They hit Admiral Greg from all sides in their excitement as they told him about their highly successful shakedown.
The next day, the Heinlein’s crew would get their second to last day off before the official launch. Every member of the crew was looking forward to it. Kyle knew that his day off would be filled with the kind of administrative bullshit that a captain had to deal with, but in a perverse sort of way he was looking forward to being kept busy.
Next: A Day Off