RELIEF AND REPLACEMENT

Tender consideration for worthless and incompetent officers is but another name for cruelty towards brave men who fall as sacrifices to these defects of their leaders.

-Jefferson Davis-

21 JANUARY 2213

BRIDGE, CSS ZENSEN NEAR THE ASTEROID BELT

INTERNATIONAL SPACE

For a very tense couple of minutes after the vehicle bay explosion, the bridge had been shrouded in complete darkness. The lighted displays had either shorted out or blown out completely and even the red battle lamps, designed to keep on working under combat conditions had failed.

Men and women on the bridge had begun shouting and screaming all at once, some calling out that they were wounded while others tried to raise other parts of the ship on their headsets for status reports

When the dim, red battle lamps finally came on again, it was clear that the Zensen's bridge had almost been cut off from the rest of the ship. Most of the displays were beginning to come back on one by one, but getting them to show anything more than gibberish was proving to be quite a challenge.

The cacophony of voices made it impossible to figure out what was going on. Captain Enfield was screaming incoherently about something. Kallie ignored him. The Computer Officer was slumped sideways in his seat and the Navigator was trying to free him from his seat restraints

Young Ensign Ivan Chuikov was speaking into his headset in hushed and urgent tones, but apparently without much success. There was a trickle of blood coming from a gash on his forehead. How he picked up that wound would have to be figured out later, provided there was a later for all of them to worry about. The Sensor Operator was trying desperately to get his console to work, but with several of his monitors shattered, it was unlikely he would have any success.

Seeing that there wasn't anything left to do except to help restore some order to the bridge, Kallie decided to start with the Captain. Rotating her seat to face the Captain, she was dismayed by what she saw.

Captain Roger Enfield was still babbling incomprehensibly. Straining hard to hear him, she realized that he was alternating between calling for an all-out strike against the Jovians and crying out that he had been wounded.

Eyeing him critically, Kallie felt her anger rise. He didn't seem to be wounded in any way, but he certainly had been thrown around a little in his seat and his arm looked somewhat tangled by the seat restraints. Listening a moment longer, she realized that Enfield was indeed crying out about his pinned arm.

Something within her snapped. Here she was, aboard a ship that was likely to be dying and her Captain with an arm tangled in by a seat restraint was screaming like a pig about to be stuffed.

Unable to restrain herself any longer, she unfastened her seat harness violently, pulling her pistol out of its holster as she did so. In the mayhem that was permeating the bridge no one seemed to notice that she was approaching the Captain with a drawn weapon. It was either that, or no one seemed to care even if they had noticed. They had other things to worry about apart from their presently useless commanding officer.

"Captain!" Kallie called out, standing in front of him to gain his undivided attention. "Captain, calm down! The crew needs orders, sir!"

Captain Enfield looked up at her but if Kallie was expecting him to look relieved at the fact that someone was finally paying attention to his cries for help, she was to be proven wrong. Enfield fixed her with a wild-eyed look, as if she had just asked him the stupidest question in the universe, and then screamed. "I'm wounded, damn it! I need medical attention now!"

"Sir! What are your orders?" Kallie pressed, ignoring her commander's tirade. "What do you want us to do?"

"Get me a medic, Chang!" Enfield went on screaming. "Oh God, my arm hurts!"

Kallie shook her head in exasperation. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Sir, are you turning command over to me in this case?"

"That's just what you'd want, isn't it, Chang?" Enfield sneered, appearing lucid for a moment. "Now you get me a medic and I'll be just fine!"

"But what about the crew? What about the ship?" Kallie could feel a wave of heat rising within her as her grip on the pistol tightened.

"Damn it, Chang, I said . . ." Enfield paused in mid-sentence when he found himself staring into the business end of a heavy, semi-automatic pistol. His mind might have been imagining and exaggerating the pain in his arm, but he was under no illusions as to what a single round from that weapon could do at point blank range. "No!"

Chang flicked the pistol to the left just as she squeezed the trigger, sending a heavy slug thudding into the cushioned headrest just inches away from Enfield's head. If no one had paid any attention to the Zensen's First Officer before, they were all most certainly doing so now. A hush descended upon the chamber even as echoes of the single shot continued to ring in everyone's ears.

"Now listen very carefully, Captain Enfield." Chang said menacingly, the gun was leveled at the whimpering man's head once more. "I'm only going to say this once. Understood?"

Enfield nodded dumbly. If it weren't for the fact that he was wearing a spacesuit like everyone else, Kallie was sure she would have spotted a dark stain below his waist. "By the power of Fleet Regulation Twenty-one, I am hereby assuming command of the CSS Zensen and all persons aboard her as the senior officer aboard in a time of crisis."

"You can't do that!" Enfield protested, temporarily forgetting about the pistol aimed at his head. "I am the senior officer present!"

"Present but incapacitated." Kallie told him coldly. "Nevertheless, by the power of Fleet Regulation Nineteen, I, Lieutenant Commander Kallie Chang, hereby relieve you, Captain Roger Enfield, of command on the grounds that you are no longer fit to command this vessel. You are to be confined to quarters until further notice."

"Damn you, Chang! I'm not relinquishing command to you!"

"I'm not asking you to, Enfield," she told him coldly, her pistol never wavering. "I am relieving you. Your consent is not necessary. Ensign Chuikov?"

"Ma'am?"

"Note the time in the log." Kallie told him. "As of now, I am assuming command of the Zensen."

"Aye aye, ma'am!" Chuikov said enthusiastically.

"This . . . this is mutiny!" Enfield sputtered.

"No. It is necessity. Now shut up, please." Kallie used her more penetrating glare to back up the pistol in her hands. "Or I may just shoot you yet."

The Captain's face went even whiter as he nodded woodenly.

"Do we still have internal communications?" Chang asked, returning her attention to Chuikov.

"Intermittent, but it's still there." The Communications Operator said, seemingly pleased that someone who knew what she was doing was finally taking charge. "External comms are still out."

"We won't need those for the moment." Kallie said, meeting Enfield's gaze coolly, daring him to do something stupid so she would have an excuse to shoot him. "Contact Lieutenant Hammond. Tell him I need a security detail to escort Captain Enfield to his quarters and ensure he stays there."

"Aye, Skipper." The communications officer grinned for a moment. "It might be difficult, considering his Marines are probably helping out with damage control."

"Tell him to spare whoever he can whenever he can." Kallie said before looking to the rest of the crew. "Ok, people. Let's get this ship turned around! We're getting out of here while we still can! Damage reports as soon as you can, please! And someone unseal those doors! If we can't rely on internal communications then we'll just have to use runners!"

"Skipper, we're getting preliminary reports from the port vehicle bay!" Chuikov called out from his station.

"Patch me through!" Kallie demanded. "The rest of you, check your departments and do whatever you can!" She spared a glance at Enfield who was sitting mutely in his chair, looking like a shadow of his former self, which was not much to begin with. Deciding he was not a threat, she returned to her seat, just in time to hear the deck commander's voice in her ear.

"Damage report?"

"Port vehicle bay is totally out of action. The bay doors have been ruptured and the bay has been completely depressurized though we have several fires burning out of control because of exploding munitions and oxygen tanks." The deck commander sounded tired. "We're having a hard time getting to those fires because most of the bay crews were taken out in the blast and I'm having trouble shifting people over from starboard. It's not going to happen soon if we want to go ahead with the launch."

"Belay that launch." Kallie told him, realizing that he had no way of finding out beforehand that she had assumed command of the Zensen. "We're disengaging now. Priority now goes to saving the ship. Use whoever you need to in order to get those fires under control."

Kallie could sense the deck commander's hesitation over the intercom. "Ma'am, you're sure the Captain will be ok with this?"

"The Captain's been relieved. I'm in command now." Chang told him simply.

"I see. In that case, I'll get my people working on those fires right away."

"Good, let me know if things start to get out of hand. Chang out." She turned her attention back to her bridge crew. "Helm! Are we ready to come about?"

"Affirmative, Skipper. The drive fins have taken some damage but we'll be able to handle it."

"Good. Stand by." Kallie nodded firmly. "Weapons!"

"Yes, Skipper?"

"Do we have a missile lock on that Jovian carrier?"

The Weapons Officer bit her lip and shrugged. "I don't know. We were still tracking her when Sensors went out though the range is somewhat iffy. I still have a pretty good idea where she is though. We could launch a salvo into the general area and hope the internal seekers can acquire her . . ."

"Good enough. Fire everything you've got!" Kallie instructed as she returned her attention to the Helmsman. "Helm, prepare to bring us about as soon as we've launched."

"Ma'am, you want to launch everything?" The Weapons Officer sounded incredulous. "I mean, there's no guarantee that we'll even hit anything . . ."

"That's not important right now." Kallie snapped, her patience ebbing. "We're practically blind, our comms are intermittent and we're on fire. All we need to do is distract the Jovians long enough for us to make good our escape. How long before you can get your birds out there?"

"The tubes were undamaged by that lightning strike. I can program a possible intercept point based on the Forge's last known location. That will take less than ten seconds."

"Get going." The acting CO of the Zensen nodded. "Engineering, how are our drives holding out?"

"Considering that they've already survived the shit hurled at it so far, I'd say they'll hold together." The Chief Engineer reported. "We'll be able to supply full power as soon as we come about."

"Very well. Weapons . . ."

"Missile bay doors open!" One of the revived displays showed that the doors covering the Zensen's twin, concealed missiles bays were now fully opened. "Missiles away!"

A series of vibrations ran through the ship's battered hull as thirty missiles streaked out of each bay, combining into a single massive salvo. Kallie Chang allowed herself a tiny smile. That would be enough to make any warship captain nervous. Now it was time to run while they still could.

"Helm, bring us about now! Engineering, stand by to go to maximum acceleration as soon as we've come about!" Kallie gripped her armrests as she felt the tension mount. If either the maneuvering verniers of the main drives failed, they would be sitting ducks. Or worse, they wouldn't be around to worry about it. "Comms, recall our exos if you can!"

There was a chorus of answers in the affirmative as the Zensen lurched, its ancient hulll groaning in protest at the forces exerted by its maneuvering verniers. There was a grinding shriek emanating from the port side and she found herself praying that the ship would hold together in spite of the horrific wounds rent in her side. She wasn't the only one praying. Even Enfield's lips were moving silently, his features pallid.

"Missiles are still running straight and true. Twenty seconds to internal seeker acquisition phase."

Kallie wasn't paying attention to that right now. All she cared about was getting the ship to face its stern towards the Forge so that she could fire up the main drives to maximum burn and get clear while they still could. She absently wondered if the Forge was trying to evade the missile barrage, but without working sensors, that was one luxury she would have to do without.

"Maneuver completed!" The Helmsman announced exultantly.

"Engineering! All ahead full!" Chang cried out. "Let's get out of here!"