Trust

A Hades 9 Story

By: Neal MacLean

Klondike Jammed the call button repeatedly annoyance flooding her every thought and action. This was the fifth time in the last 30 minutes she had signaled the commander to the bridge, and still she got no response. The ship was sitting in the middle of hostile territory at least two jumps from the rendezvous and full of cargo.  To say this was unwise would be the understatement of a lifetime and Lieutenant Klondike was going to ensure it was not her lifetime.  She jammed the call one more time for good measure and the automated response for all senior personnel to report to the command deck sounded throughout the Hercules.  After a moment the internal communications officer leaned over just as he had the other four times and said “same response sir.”  Klondike didn’t need to read it, unless they were under attack Commander Bolan always sent the same reply to any bridge summons.  “Aware of the situation, I will be there when I am good and ready.” 

Klondike was military had been her whole career she knew discipline and order saved lives, Bolan believed different.  Bolan was a pirate and a famous one, before the universe went to shit, he was a “Private Contractor” with a crew of over 40.  After Klondike arrived at Hades 9 she discovered that Bolan was in-fact just as infamously independent, among the survivors on the station.  He was one of the most successful raiders in the sector.  Then one day he turned himself in.  After two days of sitting before the council he was given a full pardon, and a commission on the Admirals flagship.  A position Klondike had been striving for her whole life.  Now he had been given a command and Klondike had to follow the orders of this self-centered, lazy ass-hole. Chopplin, one of the defense officers leaned over and echoed her thoughts exactly “What a lazy ass, huh lieutenant?” “Show some respect for your commander.”   Klondike barked back, taking out her frustration on the officer.  She turned to him and mouthed “Sorry”.  Chopplin waved it off, she liked him a heck of a lot more than Bolan.

A spike of sharp pain hit Klondike in the forehead and radiated across her scalp.  Another damn stress headache.  She stood up and started passing the command center, closing her eyes and trying to calm her mind.  She had more and more of these headaches since Bolan came aboard.  She asked the deck officer for a situation report and continued to pace as she read it over.  The ship was currently parked in the Bolas sector, a region covered by a complex system of nebulas that made navigation and communication nearly impossible, it also happened to fall right on one of Hade’s Station’s major jump routes.  No one stayed in the Bolas longer then they had to.  It was two easy for raiders to move in and out of the nebulas and pick-off weaker ships.  They had already lost 40 ships in the last 6 months. As for the Hercules, the engines were still damaged, and repairs were only half complete.  In truth engineering couldn’t figure out why they could only achieve half of max speed.  Not to mention the power fluctuations were messing with weapons and shields.  Ammo

reserves were down to 3 shots.  The final sentence ‘shields now inoperable’ was the only new information for Klondike, and her headache got more intense. 

Almost yelling she turned to the deck officer and said, “Refocus efforts on the shields and if we are not ready to move out in the next 6 minutes, heads are going to roll.” Cutting off the deck officers protests that it could take longer she continued “I don’t care if we have to limp home at a quarter fucking speed we are rejoining the fleet.”  The deck officer closed his mouth and turned to leave bumping into commander Bolas.  “Belay that order officer, tell repair teams to keep at what their doing.”  “I comman … sir” the office stumbled over his words, then remembering his place and announcing, “Commander on deck”.  Bolas scoffed and meandered over to his command chair sitting sideways his legs hanging over the arms of his chair.  Bolas hated formality, felt it just slowed things down.  In many ways he was completely opposite to Klondike.  He grabbed the report from her as he walked by.  Giving it a quick glance, he tossed the report aside and turned his attention to the Gravdar and Near-space sensors.  Klondike’s annoyance grew as she stared at

her commander intently.  Not for the first time today she considered declaring him incompetent and taking over the ship.  Mutiny however was not part of who she was.

Bolan hadn’t been in command long and inspired little loyalty in the crew.  In the last couple months, he had come in thrown almost all protocol out the window and refused to explain any of his often-strange command choices.  This was another prime example of his idiocy, he chose to start repairs on the engines right before entering a sector full of dangerous criminals.  The Hercules had never been the luckiest ship, often breaking down.  It had been attacked twice as much as any ship in the fleet, but they always made it through.  The crew was hard working and the officers trusted their people to do what was needed, working twice as hard themselves, but not the commander.  He practically ignored the crew and seemed to

barely do any work.  In fact, Klondike had not seen him on the command deck in 2 days.  All his orders coming from the comms officer. 

“DO YOU NEED SOMETHING?!” the commander was speaking loud and very slowly.  Klondike realized she had been standing scowling at the man for at least a minute not saying anything. “No. Sorry sir, just lost in thought, sir.”  Klondike said saluting, mostly out of awkwardness.  “Well then, get found. You’ve got work to do, and I’ve told you to quit with the formality it’s not how I run my ship.” Bolan said as he turned his back to her, looking again at the Near-space sensors, which Klondike could see only showing about half the info

they should be.  Damn interference. She quickly turned on her heels and walked back to her station near the front of the command deck.  As she walked by communications the Lieutenant noticed that the external coms officer was monitoring incoming transmissions and only on non-transmit wavelengths. Essentially, she was listening to the Universe’s white noise. “Officer Econ what are you doing?” Klondike asked, curious more than

anything. “Special orders” Econ said handing over a scrap of paper marked top secret in red ink.  The note was definitely written in the commanders handwriting, Klondike opened it to find two clear concise lines of writing, the first was “cut off all fleet communications” the second was “monitor only the following wave lengths.”  All of which were out side the usable norm for ship to ship communications. 

Klondike dumbfounded took the note back to her desk with her.  Writing was rare in this era and paper rarer, why would the commander give such useless orders and on paper no less.  Could he be betraying them working for his old pirate friends.  The thought seemed very logical knowing Bolan’s history, but his quick promotion to commander and full pardon from the council would suggest they trust him, and that is not something command does easily.  Klondike’s continued thoughts of betrayal were cut short by Econ’s high-pitched voice.  “I got something, mechanical clicks in a rhythm, 2-6-4-8-10-14 just as you described commander.”  “Thank you, officer,” Bolan responded, and his entire demeanor changed in an instant.  He was sitting upright facing Klondike and giving orders. “Lieutenant tell maintenance to check the air vents on C deck specifically 42 through 60.  They should find a dark matter compressor, when they do get it to engineering and fix our engines. Deck Officer would please get all weapons primed and ready to fire at

these coordinates.”  He handed the officer another piece of paper.  Klondike spoke up “Sir our ammo is dangerou …” “I know” he said cutting her off. “Weapons fire when ready.”  Klondike watched in a panic as the last of their missiles careened through space towards nothing.

 All the sudden the Near-space lit up with over twenty contacts as the three missiles collided with and destroyed three previously unseen ships.  They were doomed.  While it was amazing that the commander was able to find the ships in the nebula they were now completely out numbered.  The commander didn’t react.  “Navigation adjust to Bor 128 vec 038, reroute all non-essentials including life support to shields and raise to full power, Lieutenant how are my engines doing?”  Klondike looked at her terminal a report came

in saying the part had been found and engineering was fixing the engine

now.  She conveyed the info to the commander.  “Good, prep jump to the edge of the nebula and engage on my command. Comms broadcast on all frequencies ‘Execute is go’.”  Klondike quickly did the necessary calculations for the jump, it didn’t take long they were only traveling a few thousand miles not far enough to escape the remaining raiders who were now bearing down on them.  “60 seconds to missile impact” tactical shouted just as the engines rumbled back to life and the Hercules started accelerating to jump velocity.  “Calculations ready sir” Klondike announced “Good hold 30 seconds and initiate jump” the commander responded.  Always one to follow orders Klondike waited until she could practically read the serial numbers on the incoming missiles before initiating the jump.

 The timing was perfect the missiles collided with each other the massive explosion scrambling sensors for 10 seconds at the same time the entire fleet jumped in to the sector.  As the Hercules exited the jump they found themselves as part of a circle surrounding the raiders.  The flag popped in over the comms loud and clear “All fire repeat, weapons free!”  Klondike looked back at the commander who wore a sly smile and mouthed to himself “got ya.”  After a private moment of celebration Bolan turned to Klondike “Situation report Lieutenant.”  Klondike quickly looked at her screens and reported “The raider fleet is being destroyed sir, we are showing massive damage to the outer hall it appears the shields never initialized during jump

…” “A little odd isn’t that Lieutenant?” Bolan asked cutting her off.  Klondike agreed the shields were tied into the main power grid they should have reinitialized automatically when the engines were fixed.  Actually, fail-safes should have stopped the jump altogether. They were lucky they only jumped a short distance, or the damage would have been much worse. 

“Klondike who was in-charge of harmonics today” The commander asked in a casual tone leaning back in his chair.  Klondike turned towards Officer Chopplin saying his name, only to see him pull a gun on her.  There was a loud pop and Chopplin fell to the ground.  Klondike slowly looked at the commander who was already holstering his own sidearm.  “Well that takes care of the raiders and the traitor. That was a good day.”  Bolan got up from his command chair and started towards the door. “Lieutenant, please arrange to rejoin the fleet formation and set our course for home, then join me in my quarters please.”  Still stunned

Klondike watched the commander swagger out much the same way he had entered the command deck not 10 minutes earlier.  She couldn’t help it, she was impressed.

Once they were back on course Klondike made her way to Commander Bolan’s office which was in his quarters, another violation of military protocol.  “Come on in Lieutenant.  I need a favor from you.” He waited patiently for her to sit and respond. “Yes sir, what is it you need from me.”  “I am aware that the crew does not like or trust me.  I can live with one but not the other.  You have their trust and I need your help to get that.” Klondike was stunned. “I needed to create this façade to expose Chopplin and convince the raiders I was incompetent enough to be an easy target.  While effective it did almost destroy crew morale.”  Klondike took a moment to compose herself and see her commander in this new light.  He was good at his job.  “I am with you sir.  The Hercules has a good crew that will support you as well sir.” “Good.”  Bolan was wearing that same sly smile. At least that was real.  “I do have one question sir. I understand Chopplin kept the shields down to force a surrender from you but why would he disable the jump fail-safes, it would have served him no purpose?” “That’s an easy one Lieutenant. He didn’t disable them, I did.” “but we could have died without

shields” “yes we could have but like you said the Hercules has a good crew.” “But sir” “Oh and I trusted you even if you didn’t trust me.”  Bolan laughed and left the room leaving Klondike in stunned silence for the third time that day.

The End