Training Daze by Mike Shepherd

Author:Mike Shepherd [Shepherd, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2010-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

A month later, Kris and Phil had two of Boynton’s brand-new fast-attack boats out and were putting them through their paces, slamming them through the most gentle of Nelly’s jinking patterns to show the skippers and crew how it was done.

Kris canceled the exercise when their third crew casualty occurred.

The skipper, a captain in his midforties, twisted his back. He’d been sitting in his own seat on the small bridge when he turned to see something, Kris wasn’t sure what, and put his back out painfully. His was the second back injury. There was also a gunner’s mate with a painfully strained shoulder.

“Thanks for calling it off,” Phil said on net. “I’ve got three crew casualties, too.”

Kris had suspected she had a problem when she took the boats out that morning, she just hadn’t known how fast and in what way the problem would manifest itself.

Boynton had maintained a small fleet of twelve light cruisers, all left over from the Iteeche War eighty-some years ago. The present administration had jumped at the idea of retiring the cruisers and replacing them with fast-attack boats. The bean counters were sure they’d save loads of money on maintenance and reduced crew costs since the small boats would be cheaper to run, require less upkeep, and need a crew of twenty-five rather than five hundred.

The Navy Personnel Division, however, had run the RIF, Reduction in Force. All twelve of the cruiser captains now commanded a boat, and the youngest crew member was a thirtysomething petty officer first class.

It was no wonder that Kris had incapacitated three of her twenty-five crew members in just ten minutes of radical maneuvering.

“Can you explain to me why you were bouncing my ship all over the place at high-gee acceleration?” the captain of the boat growled.

His ship, her boat. They were far from a meeting of the minds here.

“These fast-attack boats,” Kris repeated what she’d said at least a dozen times during briefings, “have no ice armor. They can’t afford to take any hits. Their best defense is not being there when the enemy gets a firing solution and shoots. You have to be someplace other than where they expected you to be. These boats don’t sail in a straight line for more than five seconds. Three seconds is better. That’s what the jinks pattern and the high-gee accelerations and decelerations are all about. You have to be unpredictable.”

“But these ships are all that new metal stuff. If we take a hit, we can patch it in no time.”

“Yes, sir,” Kris agreed, and had Nelly pull up a diagram of the ship on the main screen in front of them. “But look at your boat, Captain. You take a hit in the engine room, you can patch the hull, but you’re dead in space. You take a hit among the weapons, and, real quick, you’re just out for a scenic cruise. Seventy-five percent of your hull length is mission critical. Odds are, you take one hit, and you’re out of business.

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