Kris Longknife's Assassin Page 7

  The others seemed willing to take her as she came, glad to have another hand to share the extra assignments with. “You will be helping out with the “George” work, won’t you?”

  “George?” Vicky echoed.

  “Yeah, ‘let George do it’, and in the Navy, every ensign is named George, no matter what our plumbing arrangement.”

  “I think Captain Krätz intends to see that I get the full Navy treatment,” Vicky said.

  “You’ve met the skipper?” one J.G. asked.

  “He pulled me out of Processing and Training to make sure I made ship movement,” Vicky said.

  The J.G. shook her head. “Peterwalds use captains for runners. Oh my.”

  “I don’t think it was quite like that,” Vicky said. “I think he didn’t wanted to miss planting his boot up my butt and wanted to get an early start.”

  “Uh oh,” Zenzi said. “Suddenly, I really don’t want to be you.”

  There was a knock at the hatch to junior ladies’ country as Vicky had learned to call it. Everyone looked at Vicky.

  “George, you gonna answer that?” Ruhl said through a grin.

  Vicky went to the hatch and cracked it an inch. “Yes.”

  “Begging the ensign’s pardon, but Captain Krätz sends his complements and requests the presences of Ensign Peterwald in his in-port cabin.”

  “I am Ensign Peterwald. Can you show me the way?”

  “He told me I should.”

  “Damn,” Vicky heard as she stepped over the high combing, “the old man is sending a runner for Peterwald.”

  “Well, would you want the 1MC bawling for Ensign Peterwald the way it was always bawling for Ensign Ungar?”

  Vicky closed the door, no hatch, on a laugh.

  Thank heavens Captain Krätz had sent her a runner. All her study of the ship diagram would not have helped her in the slightest. For one, she had no idea the address of the captain’s in-port cabin. She asked her computer, but it advised her that she was above Greenfeld’s GPS system and it had no frame of reference.

  So much for a high priced computer when she really needed it.

  The runner finally came to halt beside a door, not a hatch, this one was not air tight, and knocked.

  “Enter” came from within.

  The Sailor waved Vicky in and stepped back, maybe with a bit of satisfaction that it wasn’t him going in.

  Vicky entered, closed the door behind her, and turned to see Captain Krätz sitting at a gray metal desk. A lieutenant commander sat in a grey metal chair at the side of his desk. Vicky took a breath and reported, all the while taking in the room.

  It was tiny. Maybe the size of her bathroom at the palace. It had a desk that was up against the wall, with two chairs, all occupied. The gray steel bulkhead, floor and overhead were the same as the dorm right down to the colored metal pipes running through the overhead.

  Apparently, captains didn’t rate all that much more than junior officers. Except he had what might be a sleeping alcove off to one side and wouldn’t have to worry about snoring or roommates talking in the middle of his night.

  “Ensign Peterwald, I would like to personally introduce you to your division officer and give you the full benefit of the briefing I am giving him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vicky said, standing at attention as best she knew how, which wasn’t very well if the chief was to be believed.

  “Your division head is Commander Glunz, the Surprise’s Communication Officer. Based on your lack of training, we agree that standing a communication watch is probably the best way to get you into harness. He needs a junior officer on the midnight watch and since you were kind enough to drop into our lap, you are it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Vicky repeated.

  “I have told Glunz that you are Hank Peterwald’s little sister and that we are to bring you along quickly as a good, competent officer. I have also told him that this is likely your first experience with authority and that you may have problems adjusting to a subordinate role. Will you?”

  “I will do my best not to, sir,” Vicky shot back.

  “I would have expected a ‘yes, sir’ or a ‘no, sir’ answer to that ensign,” Captain Krätz said, storm clouds forming above his brow.

  “Yes, sir,” Vicky said, “but as you just pointed out, I have no experience at being in a subordinate position. How can I say that I will when I don’t know how?”

  The two officers eyed each other, then Captain Krätz fixed her with a gimlet eye. “I will assume that was a smart answer, not a smart aleck answer.”

  “It was intended as such,” Vicky put in.

  “As which such,” the skipper shot back.

  Vicky found herself going over the conversation and not remembering which deserved a positive or negative response. Maybe I wasn’t so smart.

  “Whichever answer you preferred, sir.”

  “That’s better. Commander Glunz, she gets one bite out of any apple. One mistake. You will not tolerate a second mistake. Understood?”

  “Yes, captain,” the commander said.

  Captain Krätz eyed Vicky. “Understood.”

  “Yes, sir,” she shot back.

  “Very good. Commander, she is yours. Treat her as you would your daughter.”

  “I don’t have a daughter.”

  “But I do.”

  “Yes, sir. Ensign, you’re with me.”

  Chapter 19

  At 0800 the next morning . . . yes, the Navy had its own way of telling time . . . Vicky presented herself at the comm shack, as she’d already learned to call it. She had eaten an early breakfast and started hunting for the communication center immediately afterwards.

  It had taken her an entire hour to find the place.

  Several Sailors had helped her. One chief had finally taken mercy on her and assigned a Sailor to take here there.

  As it turned out, Vicky was late.

  “You are supposed to relieve the watch fifteen minutes early,” Commander Glunz pointed out firmly.

  “Yes, sir,” Vicky answered. Zenzi had pointed out to Vicky over ice cream the afternoon before that Navy officers wanted three answers. “Yes, sir.” “No, sir,” and “No excuse, sir.”

  “Occasionally you can get away with an “I don’t understand, sir,” Nadya had added, “but don’t make it a habit.

  To be on good ground, Vicky added, “No excuse sir. It won’t happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t, Ensign,” the commander said and assigned a chief to begin Vicky’s education. Vicky would come to learn that a chief was the best person to go to for help when she needed it, whether she knew it or not. More often than not, Vicky had no idea she needed the help.

  The chief took Vicky from station to station, showing her the machines that received the communication signals, be they radio, network or land line. Every message, be it formal, or just a telephone call, was logged and recorded.

  “Don’t call your boyfriend from a government phone,” the chief added in a low whisper. “We’ll have the recording right here, in case anyone needs to know what you said.”

  “Oh, and if I send it on net from my computer?” Vicky asked.

  “Personal computers have to be registered with the State Security Officer. We can’t have anyone sending clandestine signals from the Surprise, now can we?”

  Vicky nodded agreement and made a note to herself to figure out whether she wanted some State Security goon messing with her assistant. For now, she’d make sure she didn’t ask her computer anything that required it to access the net.

  She spent most of the day going from station to station, following a signal from its arrival to its decoding and then dispatch either by ship’s internal net or by an actual runner if the message traffic was important enough to require initialing.

  “Can’t we just record the time the message was opened by the recipient?” Vicky asked.

  “Ensign, runners have been taking messages to commanding officers since before we went into space. It’s a
good system. It’s worked fine since before I joined the Navy, so you see that you don’t break it, you hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Vicky shot back. What had Zenzi said? “There’s a right way, a wrong way and the Navy Way.” Everyone had shared a laugh then. Now, Vicky mulled it over.

  Part of her wanted to say this was stupid. Another part of her was remembering those Marines, bloodied and looking like they’d been through hell, but strutting off the battlefield singing their own song.

  Was it stupid stuff like messages being run up to the captain that made it possible for those Marines to go through hell and swagger their way back?

  “And this machine is yours, Ensign,” the chief said, ending Vicky’s reflection.

  “Mine?”

  “Yep, this little puppy, a SSQ-2323 Mark VI, mod 4 high grade cryptography reader and writer is yours to command. Any message that comes aboard with a security classification of G or higher goes straight to you. You decrypt it yourself. You do not read it. If it’s got a H classification you will draw a sidearm from the locker over there on the wall and will personally run that message up to the bridge where the conn will either read it, or wake the captain. Do I need to repeat myself, Ensign Peterwald?”

  The chief had been calling her ensign, or ma’am. The sudden use of Ensign Peterwald got Vicky’s attention up close and personal.

  “Ah, Chief, how do I operate this machine?”

  The chief actually cracked a smile. “I’m so glad you asked, Ensign,” and proceeded to help Vicky run a test message through the contraption. It didn’t look all that different from the coding machines she’d seen first class petty officers using. This one, however, required her to put all five fingers of her right hand on a plate while staring into a retina scanner with her left eye. Only then did the machine accept her message, process it, and print it out. The completed package plopped into the out bin with a blank sheet of paper on top.

  Well, almost blank sheet. In big, bold red letters in the middle of the page announced Class J message traffic.

  “Well, ensign, it appears that you drew a dinner winner. What do you do now?”

  “This is just a training exercise. That’s not a real message.”

  “This is a training exercise, and you’re wasting time.”

  Vicky took one more second to realize that in this chief’s Navy, a training exercise wasn’t finished until it was finished.

  Vicky scooped up the message, slipped it into a clipboard that was hanging there, no doubt just for this purpose. She raced for the gun locker where she again used her hand print. One bin clicked open allowing Vicky access to a belt, complete with a holstered automatic. Vicky managed to get it on without putting down the message, and got another tight smile from the chief.

  “Coming through,” Vicky shouted, and one of the petty officers opened the door for her and the chief. “Coming through,” Vicky shouted as she ran down the passage way.

  “Make a hole,” the chief got in the next time Vicky needed to get past four people, including an officer, talking in the passageway. Even the lieutenant got his back to the wall when Vicky waved her clipboard with the red bold writing.

  She arrived at the bridge grateful for the running at OTS, and wishing she’d done more of it, to find herself confronted by several officers.

  “Who has the conn?” she demanded.

  “I have the conn,” a commander said, turning to face her.

  Vicky ran the last few steps to present the clipboard to him.

  “J traffic. That will be for the captain, Ensign. He’s in his in-port cabin.”

  Vicky remembered passing the bridge on her way to and from the captain’s cabin. She spun on her heels and raced by the chief who had known to get out of her way, and headed for the captain’s private quarters.

  “What do I say when I get there?” Vicky asked over her shoulder as she ran down the corridor.

  “Knock and announce ‘Message traffic for the captain’,” came back at her.

  Again she found herself in front of a door. She rapped on it and announced, “Message traffic for the captain.”

  “Enter,” came before she finished.

  Vicky opened the door, spotted where the captain sat at his desk, talking to a lieutenant commander, and covered the remaining distance in three quick steps.

  “Message for the captain,” she said as she handed across the clipboard.

  Captain Krätz lifted the cover sheet and glanced at the message. “It seems we’re to have goulash again for supper. Thank you, Ensign,” he said, and tossed the clipboard aside.

  Vicky stood there at attention, struggling to catch her breath without looking like she was. It finally dawned on her that the officer talking to the skipper was Lieutenant Commander Glunz.

  Quickly, Vicky ran down what the chief had told her.

  “Captain, I require initial receipt of a Class J message, sir.”

  Captain Krätz picked up the discarded clipboard. Quickly he initialed the message about dinner tonight and handed it back to Vicky.

  “Ensign, when you start a remark with captain, or any other officer’s rank, you don’t need to finish it with a sir or ma’am. Unless you’re being sarcastic, right chief.”

  “Just trying to add emphasis most times, sir.” the chief answered.

  Gods bantering with gods.

  “Dismissed, Ensign. Be sure to log this exercise.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vicky said. She managed a half decent about face and made her way to the door. The chief got there ahead of her to open it. And give her a wink.

  I’m an officer. She’s enlisted. She knows a hell of a lot more than I do, but she’s opening the door for me.

  Vicky tried to match this Navy world with the world she’d grown up in at the palace. They didn’t fit. She felt like Alice in the storybook who went down a rabbit hole.

  Only I went up a space elevator.

  “Well done, Ensign,” the chief said, and together they walked back to the comm shack. Vicky returned her weapon to the locker, and, with the help of the chief figured out how to archive the message in a safe that again demanded her palm print and retina scan. Vicky also annotated the log for an exercise run.

  At 1545 Vicky stood by as the next watch relieved her watch. There was no one to formally relieve her, since she was a watchstander-in-training, but she watched as both the officers and enlisted were relieved by the afternoon watch.

  The lieutenant who had commanded the day watch invited Vicky to join the rest of the officers for supper in the wardroom. Vicky watched and listened as they debriefed their day and their plans for the evening.

  “You, Ensign,” the lieutenant said, “had best spend it reading up on comm equipment and the watchstanders guide.”

  Vicky raised a quizzical eyebrow, but kept her silence.

  “You’re the officer of the watch come midnight tomorrow.”

  “Or is it day after tomorrow?” a J. G. said. “I always get confused.”

  “She can sleep through midnight tonight,” the lieutenant said, “but she better be wide eyed and bushy-tailed next midnight.”

  Vicky thanked them for their advice . . . and headed for her readers.

  Chapter 20

  Vicky joined Nadya at the study table, going from one reader to the next. She needed to know how to stand a watch, but she also needed to know the communications business from one end to the other. So, to start with, she skimmed.

  She had no need just now to know how to stand a watch at the quarterdeck or on the bridge. She also skipped the sections on a watch underway. She found what she needed in the back of the watchstander’s guide: maintain the necessary activities of the ship and support the training of the crew for promotion as time allows.

  Vicky rephrased that. She would keep the message traffic flowing, and when that didn’t fill up the watch, train her subordinates and herself. A quick check of the ship’s library showed that each petty officer rate had a whole book of things they needed
to know for promotion to the next rate. It was similar, though shorter and different from, the long list of things she had to do to qualify for her promotion to J.G.

  Vicky had to learn how to tear down her own Mark VI, mod 4. The men seated at each of the other crypto machines had to be able to do the same for their box. By the next day, Vicky was pretty sure that she could take apart and put back together her box. She was pretty sure she knew how to stand her watch.

  She was not prepared at all for what she faced.

  Chapter 21

  Vicky relieved the head of the afternoon watch fifteen minutes early. He left immediately. So did several other petty officers as well as the chief of the watch.

  Vicky found herself in charge of four men who were actively grumbling about who would relieve them.

  At midnight on the dot four young women came through the hatch. They relieved the four men after a few mumbled words and settled down at their machines.

  One of them turned on a monitor and adjusted it to bring in a hockey game. The four communication petty officers proceeded to cheer on an all-girls team as they got clobbered by a professional team of men.

  This wasn’t the way Vicky had intended to spend her watch.

  “Do we have any message traffic?” Vicky asked.

  “No radio traffic addressed to the Surprise,” one reported, taking her eyes from the game long enough to check her machine.

  “No net traffic addressed to the Surprise,” a second said.

  “Only the usual land line traffic. Nobody’s called a sex hot line yet,” said the third, who had head phones on, but only on one ear.

  “Ma’am,” said the first class petty officer who seemed to be the senior one present, “the Surprise is in port. A midnight watch is pretty dull, at least we have the game, huh?”

  Faced with a solid front, Vicky fell back to her own cryptography device. She had no traffic either. The game went on, the girls cheered this or that hit, and groaned as the men scored and the women didn’t. Vicky had never watched hockey, had no idea how it was played and thought it strange that a gals team was playing guys.