USS Jefferson by Mark Wayne McGinnis

Author:Mark Wayne McGinnis [McGinnis, Mark Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sort3
Publisher: Avenstar Productions
Published: 2021-06-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

As the meeting started to break up, Captain Pristy stood and placed a hand on my forearm. “Captain, can I steal a moment of your time?”

“Of course. But first, I’d like to say, again, I’m sorry. Yanking you and your crew off of your ship like that was, frankly, brutish and bullying. Seeing it destroyed must have been a hard pill to swallow.”

“You’re right; it was. And it made me look bad in front of my crew.”

I nodded; she was right.

Hardy had stayed behind with his back against a bulkhead—observing, listening. He nodded, his face display making his swirling flushing toilet animation with accompanying gurgling noises. I ignored him.

“With that said, I’m glad you did it.” She eyed Stanly Handly, who was also hanging back while others filed out, waiting to talk to me.

“I have no right to ask this of you, and I’m sure you’ll say no…but I want my old job back. I want to be your XO again. I wasn’t ready…I wasn’t ready to command a warship.”

“Bullshit. Gail, you were ready months ago. But you were handed an obsolete frigate that should have been mothballed years ago and a crew that, well…needed discipline. You want your job back; you’ve got it. I’d be honored to have you as my second again…but only until your next command becomes available.”

She looked unsure about that but smiled. “Thank you.” Her eyes went to Stanly Handly. “Um, what about him? Isn’t he your acting XO?”

“Yeah, well, life’s not a bed of roses; best he finds that out now. I’ll talk to him. He’s competent. Perhaps he can work the tactical board with you? I’d like you to take a more active role with the battle plans we’re implementing.”

“Of course.”

“Stay here,” I said and waved Handly over.

“Sir?”

“Captain Pristy will be resuming her position as my XO. I don’t want any hard feelings, and I don’t want any drama. You’ll be working alongside each other at Tactical.”

The man swiped at his thinning hair, not doing a very good job at hiding his indignation. “Fine, sir. Welcome, Cap—I mean, XO Pristy.”

Gail said, “There’s still the issue of Admiral Billings…Fleet Commander Admiral Billings. You have the RCHD here on board. There’s no justifiable reason for not contacting him, is there?”

There wasn’t. And this wouldn’t be the first time I’d breached military conventions. Bypassed proper lines of command hierarchy. Do the right thing and get my superior officer involved, or do the thing that would most likely work to get us all out of this mess? But I had to ask myself, would Billings be willing to do what had to be done? Would he be willing to send fucking dragons onto an enemy ship to lure away scores of Varapin warriors? I didn’t see it. I knew it wasn’t my job to second-guess my superior officer—that wasn’t how the military worked. And I knew all this. But knowing what I was supposed to do wasn’t enough to convince me to toe the US Space-Navy line.

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