Emirate Space Navy: First Meeting

Emirate Space Navy: First Meeting

Command Team of ESS Broadsword

First Lieutenant Amy Martinson - Captain

Guardian Chaya Al-Hadin - Emirate Liaison Officer

Naval Chief Petty Officer Samir Kaiser - Senior NCO

Lieutenant Pashar Isa - Junior Officer

No amount of looking at the words on her screen would make this meeting any easier. Nor would allowing her team to interact with each other without her present set any good precedent.

She touched the intercom. God - actually Allah - help them all, it was an actual mechanical push button to an actual _wired_ circuit.

"Pass the word for Al-Hadin, Chief Kaiser and Lieutenant Pashar."

The reply was crisp and immediate.

"Captain, we are paging Guardian Al-Hadin, CPO Kaiser and Lieutenant Isa."

Awkward. She had called the young lordling by his _first name_ the entire first meeting in the hangar bay.

More awkward. Guardian was a title of rank, not a job description. Or was it both?

Most awkward - she didn't know what she didn't know.

The place to start was from the beginning, which was now.

The meeting area of her small but plush captain's quarters was as large as her entire living space had been on Ayer's Rock.

Ayer's Rock was no more.

The Emirate was next.

Thus the utter desperation of appointing a foreign alien to a warship command.

She realized that she did not have, and really should have, both a captain's steward and a yeoman - the former to serve drinks and snacks and arrange her meals and uniforms, and the latter to handle the electronic minutae which by ancient tradition was still called 'paperwork.'

So she herself with her own hands poured tea and set out tumblers of water, but before their arrival.

CPO Kaiser - Samir - was first. He waited until she motioned him to a seat, then took the seat nearest the door. He felt himself junior in this assemblage. She would have to correct that.

Lieutenant Isa came in next, striding confidently. He helped himself to the head of the table.

Amy watched with interest.

CPO Kaiser turned his head, much like the sponson turret of an intercept railgun, and raised a finger.

"Lieutenant, I do believe you would be more comfortable here next to me."

The words were mild but the tone was as icy cold as Between.

Shocked as if someone had yanked his underwear up to his neck, Isa stumbled to his feet and fell into the designated seat.

Then the Guardian came in.

She had met so few women in the Emirate's service. A few Red Crescent nurses and administrators. A brief greeting with of all people, a veiled and modestly dressed member of the Emir's Hareem. Everyone else in authority, and certainly everyone in naval or military uniform, had been male.

Guardian Chaya Al-Hadin had the most alert eyes she had yet seen on any member of the Emirate, without exception. They flickered to Samir, to Palmer, to her. Appraising at a glance her quarters, her lack of servants, the positions of the tea and the water tumblers ... and the interplay between the lordling and the NCO, in which the former had been corrected by the latter.

She then took a seat on the opposite side of the table, leaving the head of the table free for Amy. But her eyes watched and watched and watched.

Amy took that seat.

"We have much to do and not much time. I am informed by Admiral Saiid that we will leave orbit in less than three days."

Samir became even more wooden than before. Orders were orders but his expression shouted that this was unwise.

Lieutenant Palmer Isa had no idea how to control his face or his feelings. He was already overwhelmed; the idea of leaving in mere hours was absurd.

Al-Hadin was neither surprised nor concerned. She noted however the Emirate naval officer and non-commissioned officer.

"It is not a choice of any of us. It is that which must be done. Combat rules apply. I have the word of the Illustrious Emir Himself, Upon Whom The Sun Shines."

Awkward. Her ears, but only her ears, detected the very slight emphasis on the first of the Emir's many titles. Another mistake she had made, butchering her sovereign's title in front of the entire crew.

There was no going back. There was only forward.

Samir took heart from the Guardian's words.

Lieutenant Isa did not. He had been raised to walk easily and without care among the rich and powerful, and a year of the Naval Academy had not cured him of his forwardness.

"How is this possible?!" he exploded. "That is not even enough time to get my luggage, let alone permission to bring any of my girls aboard!"

Samir chose to test the Guardian, by saying nothing.

"Lieutenant, in public I will treat you with the respect due your rank. In meetings such as this, I shall spank you like a small child if you so disrespect the Emirate Space Navy or the commanding officer of this warship. Do you understand, Lieutenant Isa? Or shall I call your mother?"

His mouth opened in utter shock. Then he somehow closed it. Frozen afterward.

"Lieutenant, I asked you a question. Do you understand?"

He blinked and chose prudence over valor.

"Yes, Guardian, I understand."

She made a wordless slight gesture, yielding the floor to their Captain.

"Lieutenant Isa, I apologize for using your first name with the crew. I am unaccustomed to many Emirate customs and traditions. I expect that the three of you will help me with this, discreetly in public, frankly in private.

"As for dunnage, the standard weight limit for officers is 400 kilograms. If you can have it delivered before tomorrow at second watch, you may have it. Otherwise, you will abandon it as we must abandon this world. And you will likely never see it - or your friends or family - ever again."

There were several issues here, Amy knew. She had thought that only one of them knew - herself. Clearly the Guardian also knew. Much to her surprise, the Emirate sailor knew as well.

So only the lordling was shocked and dismayed.

"Captain, I will do my duty, but how can this be? We are one of the Emirate's most powerful ships, sent out by the Emir Himself. Where are we to go and what are we to do?"

It was to his great credit that he spoke first of mission rather than of family, or even his body servants. Amy did not know or care if they were whores, wives or concubines.

"We are on mission to save the Emirate from deadly threat. It is likely that we will fail, and die. But if we do, the Emirate likely dies with us."

She turned to the smart wall and spoke to it instead.

"Strategic display."

She had spent weeks pulling it together. Admiral Saiid had contributed much. So had the survivor from New Brunswick. The ARC data archive he had been given was so extensive and complex that she had trouble going through it. But she had found locations for ARC fleets and Republic Space Control Bases. It had even had an entry on this very ship, she now commanded. Her own files, a backup of the Ayer's Rock database, had contributed here and there. Emirate astrographers had at her request verified some of the stellar data. Guardians had even interjected pieces here and there.

A large, threatening swath of blue took up most of the screen towards the Galactic Core. This was Republic territory. Hundreds of planets, thousands of ships.

A patchwork of pink - ARC controlled space - and red - ARC dominated space - occupied most of the space away from the core. Planets were not where the ARC lived and thrived.

The Emirate star system was a single green dot.

The system of New Brunswick was a green outline of a Christian cross within an extended arm of blue. Conquered.

"This is our situation. Notice that the neutrals and non aligned powers are outnumbered and severely outgunned by the two major powers. We are among the weakest of those powers. This ship, which Lieutenant Isa boasted correctly is one of the most powerful ships in the Emirate ... is a fucking light freighter!"

The profanity, she watched closely for reaction to.

The Guardian did not, at all.

Samir reacted only a tiny amount. He was already most of the way to seeing her only as a naval officer, disregarding her gender and his eyes.

The lordling also did not. At least to the profanity. His eyes flared.

Then he read and appreciated the summaries of Republic and ARC warships and naval fighting power. And they could see his arrogant young heart skip a beat, and start to sink.

"If there were no hope, none of us would be here. I would be commanding a much smaller fighting crew, to spend our lives. Samir would be training sailors on the station, to fill crew slots and later body bags. The Guardian would be preparing evacuations. And you, young Lieutenant, would have a ship of your own as soon as we could finish building one, so you could get yourself and your crew killed with honor."

He blinked again. A ship of his own?

"But as there is hope, we are all here to do very different things. We must learn our foes, scout and reconnoiter, skulk and hide. Can we get these empires to fight each other? Carve out a separate piece? Evacuate? Recolonize elsewhere? Or some option we have yet to consider?"

The Guardian raised a finger.

"May I, Captain?"

She nodded.

"I have the order of the Emir in his own Voice and Words. The mission of our fleet is as our Captain has outlined. The mission of this ship - and this is not to leave this room or these ears! - is to safeguard the life of the Prince and the continuation of the Emirate's legacy.

"I am authorized to inform you all that a genetics and generative health archive and database will be installed aboard this ship tomorrow. It will contain the existing genetic diversity of the Emirate and a basic colonization package."

The ability to give mothers children other than from fathers. The ability to seed a world's existing ecology with that which humans would need to survive there.

"This is the fastest - by acceleration curves - warship in Emirate service. I must ask, Captain. Can we be made to go faster?"

Amy thought of deception, but decided instead to reply as openly and honestly as she hoped her command team would be with her.

"The actual limitation is how many gravities of acceleration the crew can take and still function, and the extra equipment - such as your genetic archive - can take without damage. At the moment this is just over two Terran gravities. There are ways. Crew tanks that absorb G forces. Possibly acceleration suits such as those worn by Republic parasite fighter pilots. The most careful packing of that archive. But we only have six such tanks, all in the medical bay, and we have no fighter pilot suits. I will need the technical specifications of the archive."

The Guardian got out her handheld and made a few swift motions. File transferred.

"The other question, Captain, is range. Not just how fast can we run, but how far?"

"This ship has power for the rest of our natural lives. With care and excellent maintenance, this can be extended into the lives of our children. With great luck and great care, perhaps their children - our grandchildren. If it is that we should live so long.

"The first concern is to complete our departure crew. The naval term in the Ayer's Rock Naval Militia is 'accompanied assignment.' Each of you is authorized a single family member as companion. This person must make their way to the station at once and board tomorrow, whoever it may be.

"I have no surviving family and have no selection to make."

It was little they knew about her, and vice versa. But that they needed to know, that with the destruction of Ayer's Rock she was an orphan.

Samir spoke swiftly.

"My wife. We have two children."

"Ages?"

"Seven and ten."

"Take them aboard, all three, as soon as this meeting ends."

It was good that they heard her first command decision in such a way.

His face was naked with relief.

The Guardian was steadfast but stricken.

"My own mother has never left the planet, and never would. I have no other family."

Lieutenant Isa was as stricken, but young and thought quickly. He had not been selected for such a role by accident or mishap.

"My family would not leave. They are committed to their duties and to our home. I have no engagement and no would-be wife. But I have a body-servant whom I could tell the family is my travel companion. The others ... I fear we are saving what we can."

"Brave lad," Captain Martinson acknowledged. "Keep the secrets of your duties from your families, but know and act as is right. Now to review the capabilities of this ship."

She laid it out before them. A limited vessel, artifically crippled with the Republic sensor package. That the Emirate had been cheated, and how badly.

"Captain, do not turn off the Republic monitor. Wait our moment," the Guardian counseled urgently. Samir nodded.

"Can we mount these advanced weapons, that the ARC entry speaks of? How can we get them? And ... it is not quite true that the Emirate cannot handle antimatter," the Guardian pointed out discreetly.

The conversation turned from strategic to tactical. But there was one more logistics and strategy point that had to be made.

"We have life support for three hundred souls. We require a crew of one hundred and fifty. Not all crew will have family. We will have some specialists with us - farmers, mechanics, medics, diplomats, analysts. But we have been enjoined to bring as many female as male. Given that our sailors are male - at least at first - this means that many of our specialists will be female.

"This is awkward but essential. No female will be admitted to this crew unless she is capable of reproduction. As we may have to restart the Emirate as a surviving remnant, and a 300 person gene pool is quite small even with a genetic archive."

A ... pregnant ... pause.

"I therefore as Captain have had my birth control reversed, much as I did not plan to have a child of my body. Your dependents and your staff will also need to undergo this strategic medical necessity."

Samir nodded. "We had only planned the two, but needs must."

The Guardian looked ... horrified. As if facing a fate worse than death. But bravely nodded in her turn. "I will do so," she said.

Palmer was thoughtful. "I am certain my servant will agree to this. But I still must ask and receive an answer."

"Let us take an hour to arrange our personal affairs ... and then reconvene. There will be so much to do so quickly. CPO Kaiser, assign me a temporary captain's servant and a yeoman at once, if you please. Guardian, also send me the contact information for the archive support team, I will have many questions. Lieutenant Isa - this is all secret from the Emirate and especially from the planet and your noble family. Tell a tissue of lies if you must, but get your partner's consent to fertility and get her up here. Go."

They split to their duties.

Captain Martinson took a moment to drink her cup of tea in the suddenly empty room.

She would need all her strength in the months and years ahead. And tea was a staple to enjoy before they ran out.