The Pilots and the Frontier
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: After all this time, you know what this means, right? Rating: K Time: About three years after my story the Pilots and the Passengers.
"There it is." Lindane said. She had been acting as the navigator on the long trip.
"Thank god." Castle said. "I'm commanding the fastest ship ever and we had to go no faster than the slowest ship in the convoy. We could have been here weeks ago."
"And left Skinny far behind." Lindane replied. "He is the reason we're coming here."
"I'm just complaining. I know we have to wait for Skinny and he has to stay in the convoy. Unescorted ships have a nasty habit of disappearing when the Pannonians are around."
"Interesting planet." Simone said. She had changed her hair color to a deep black, like Jane's, and her eyes were now emerald green. "Colder and drier than Earth, or most planets humans would colonize. And it has higher gravity."
"And plenty of warships in orbit and patrolling the solar system." Kate added.
Castle brought up a holographic representation of the Kzinti solar system.
"There are both Kzin and Imperial Space Navy battleships and heavy cruisers close to Kzinti with heavy screens of light cruisers and fleet destroyers. Every other planet, moon, comet, asteroid and piece of rock seems to have a frigate, a corvette or a system defense boat keeping an eye on it."
"Captain, we've been given an orbit to assume by Kzinti local space control." Jane said from the comm console.
"Orbits or four bits, whose to know." Said the Quinncunx.
Castle sighed. Lindane had insisted on bringing her pet along.
Although the Pika-Don could land on a planet, they left the ship in orbit and took a shuttle from the Blood Rock down to the surface.
"I'm not sure how my reception is going to be." Skinny said. "Although I'm a duke on my own moon, on Kzinti, I'm a junior member of my clan. My grandfather is also a duke and the head of the clan. We'll see."
As it turned out, they had nothing to worry about. Skinny was hailed as a hero by his clan and had many members from his clan trying to get his attention to have a place on the new dukedom.
This led to Castle and his crew meeting a Kzin they'd get to know well.
The Kzin slammed to attention and saluted Skinny. He was dressed in the uniform of the Kzin Space Navy and had the insignia of an ensign.
"Duke Skinny, Ensign Spotty reporting as ordered, sir." The young fellow bellowed in Anglic.
It was easy to see how he'd gotten his nickname. While almost all Kzin had black stripes on their orange fur, the stripes around his face were just black spots.
Skinny walked around the young ensign, examining him very closely.
"Tell me, ensign, who has the most demerits ever accumulated by a cadet at the Kzin Space Navy Academy?" Skinny said very softly.
The young Kzin gulped, but quickly answered.
"I do, sir. But, in my defense…"
"You answered my question, Ensign." Skinny snapped.
"Yes, sir."
"And can you tell me, who in your entire fighter squadron received the lowest combat qualification report?"
"I did, sir."
"Do you know why?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then please tell us. All of us."
"We Kzin fought four wars against the humans and lost all of them. We lost them badly. We lost them because our only ideas of combat were what is referred to as "scream and leap". That is, just attack the enemy as soon as you see him. Don't consider tactics or strategy, and don't even think of logistics, don't gather intelligence on your enemies and don't worry about your flanks or what the enemy might do. And so, Kzin ships would run out of munitions, fuel, food and be sitting ducks. We'd be sucked into a frontal attack and find our flanks collapsing. Every time we ran into the humans, they outthought us and outfought us, until finally the surviving Kzin leaders decided we'd only survive as a race as friends and allies of the humans."
"I believe I know our recent history." Skinny said.
"Too many of our commanders revere the old ways. They just want to charge ahead, no matter the cost. I don't. I think. I plan. Our fighter squadron destroyed seven Pannonian fighters in the last incident and lost four. I destroyed four of the fighters and if my seniors had thought, we could have destroyed the enemy squadron with minimal loss to ourselves."
Skinny nodded and pointed to Rick.
"Do you see that human? He commanded the mission that found the super metals facility. He is the commander of the most advanced ship in existence. Something better than anything the old Commonwealth ever put together. For this he was knighted by a member of the Patriarch's own family and made a Commander in the Kzin Space Navy. His wife and my Vorlag friend were also knighted and commissioned in our Navy. The other ladies were also honored."
Skinny put his face right in Spotty's face.
"Do you realize just how insignificant you are compared to then, Ensign Spotty?" He roared.
"Yes, sir. I do."
Skinny turned to Rick.
"Ensign Spotty is my youngest brother. I think he just might be suitable for the post of weapons officer on the Pika-Don. What do you think?"
Rick carefully looked the young Kzin officer over.
"As a fighter pilot myself, I like other fighter pilots. And I do like fighter pilots that think. Kzins aren't the only ones who think that "Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle" is the only possible tactic. If you think he's okay, I'll take him."
The young Kzin was stunned for a moment. He had been contemplating a career carrying trash from one outpost to another on some overaged garbage barge and now he had a future ahead of him. And what a future!
"Yes, sirs. Thank you, sirs. I'll do my very best. I'll think and I'll plan as hard as I can. I'll work until…"
"That's enough." Skinny roared. "A simple yes, sir is all that's needed."
"Yes, sir." Spotty said, snapping back to attention.
"And just because you've got the job as my gunnery officer doesn't mean you'll keep it." Castle said. "I took you on Commodore Skinny's recommendation. You still have to impress me with your gunnery skills and your ability to plan and think."
"Yes, sir."
"We have a meeting of the combined Kzin and Imperial staffs to go to tomorrow which will probably last all day. The day after that, I want you to be aboard the Pika-Don at 0800 hours prepared to show me that you're good." He pulled a pad from his pocket. "I suggest you go over the info on Pika-Don in your spare time."
"Yes, sir." Spotty said, standing there looking at the pad.
"You're dismissed, Ensign Spotty." Skinny growled.
Spotty managed to salute everyone in the room at least twice before leaving.
"He's a good kid, Rick." Skinny said, smiling. "But he does need to get away from the old fudds who want to take us back to the "good old days". Every Kzin below the rank of admiral want so be on the Pika-Don, and you could probably get a few of them to take a reduction in rank to join your crew. If he doesn't screw up, he'll be in a position to be listened to."
"I'll try to make sure he doesn't screw up."
"Gunnery, funnery, get thee to a bunnery." The Quinncunx said sadly.
The staff meeting, as staff meetings are wont to do, expanded a half an hour's worth of information into an all-day affair. But, Castle was happy to find out that his job was to take his ship out and look around.
It turned out that Spotty had spent every available second studying the Pika-Don and he was already a very good gunner. However, Rick took them out to the farthest planet in the solar system, and after having warned the picket ships there of what they were doing, proceeded to make attack runs on spatial debris. Rick knew that his speed was his best option in case of trouble, but if he had to, he wanted to be able to fight.
"Okay, Spotty. You can shoot, but you still have to think before you shoot. You need to practice until what you do is second nature. We can do that with simulators while we're transiting our patrol area."
"I'll start right now, sir."
"No, you'll have dinner right now. You need to relax, eat and sleep. People, and Kzin, can screw up if they over stress themselves."
Spotty ate dinner with the crew. The Pika-Don was larger than the old Commonwealth scout had been, and, although by no means roomy, they could all eat dinner on the bridge.
Moecious studied the young Kzin.
"You know, Spotty, you don't have to sit at attention to eat. And you can talk."
"I'm sorry, sirs. But I'm not used to eating with senior officers. In my squadron, and in all Kzin squadrons, the ensigns eat by themselves. Every once in a while, the ship's captain will have a few ensigns eat with him, but we all have to be on our best behavior."
Moecious nodded his furry head.
"I should point out that Freeladies Simone, Jane, Andine and Lindane are ensigns and junior to you. I myself was a tavern owner while working for…the Empire. Although I am a Kzin naval officer now, I don't particularly feel very high and mighty. I'm really just a bartender, although that is a very prestigious job among us Vorlags."
"There's no reason you can't call me Simone." Simone said.
"Or me Jane."
"And you can call me and my daughter Andine and Lindane."
"Although I am a Lieutenant, I was born and spent most of my life of a devastated planet, fighting for my life. I feel a kinship with a fellow warrior. Unless navy brass is around, you should call me Kate."
That left it up to Rick.
"We're pretty relaxed in the Imperial Navy on very small vessels like this one, but I am still the commander of this vessel. That said, you can call me skipper or boss, or chief. Something like that. Again, unless some navy brass is around."
Spotty seemed a little overwhelmed by all this as it was very un-Kzin, but he was good at taking orders.
"Um, okay…Boss."
Everyone smiled at him.
They found that the Betelgeuse Wilderness was well named. They searched through a dozen solar systems without finding anything at all worth reporting. However, it gave them Castle a chance to train his crew. They snuck up on unoffending gas clouds and shot them up. They attacked harmless rocks and other solar debris. They weren't fair fights, but Pika-Don always won. Castle gave them countless hypothetical situations to get out of.
"Okay, those rocks at the edge of our sensor range is a convoy. We've just spotted a Pannonian heavy cruiser sneaking up on them from around that moon, the green one. However, our comms just went down. How do we warn them?"
"Why are the comms down?" Jane asked,
"The power to it was severed in a previous battle and is unrepaired."
"That'd take days to repair."
Spotty spoke. "If the convoy is over there and the cruiser is by the green moon, they'd see the cruiser before we did."
Castle nodded.
"In addition, our gunnery officer just caught fire."
"We should de-tune the engines and use Morse code by turning them on and off. Every ship in the convoy will pick it up." Moecious said.
Castle shook his head.
"We can't de-tune the engines. We're being chased by a Pannonian light cruiser and our port flux capacitor is jammed closed."
"There's only one thing we can do." Lindane said.
Castle was interested to hear what the brilliant girl had thought of.
"What?"
"Bend over and kiss our asses goodbye."
TBC