A giant of a man stepped through the automatic double-hatch into the Deck Four officer’s mess. He found a slender young signals officer hunched over a mess of folios, electronic readers and at least one scientific calculator. Her pink hair gave her away instantly.
“I remember when you said all you wanted to be was a lieutenant!”
Zony Tixia looked up from her rat’s nest of paperwork with a surprised expression. Her face brightened. “COB! When did you get back!?”
Duncan Buckmaster made his way across the officer’s mess with a lumberjack’s grin to go with his full beard. He was still wearing his blue camouflage class ‘B’ uniform, but he had ditched the utility belt and sidearm the first chance he got. Master Chief Buckmaster’s golden Skywatch Fleet emblems reflected the bright lights in the main dining area. He strode across the room and held his arms out. Zony bounded around her table and practically leaped into his embrace. She hugged him tightly.
“Oh I missed you,” Zony said cheerfully. “Everyone on the ship missed you!”
“Well, after all the hubbub, I got tapped to make the rounds at Skywatch Command,” Buckmaster sighed. “Shake hands here, pose for a picture there, meet this captain and then that admiral. It was exhausting. I made sure to talk up the fleet’s newest battleship every chance I got, but now the skipper owes me a favor.”
“Another one?” Zony said with a grin. “Well sit down and tell me what’s going on with all this hush-hush! I finally managed to kidnap Harcourt’s coffee expert, so now we have the best coffee in the fleet instead of Ajax.” Zony motioned to the steward for a refill and a second cup for Duncan.
As the ranking non-commissioned member of Argent’s crew, one of the master chief’s official titles was “Chief of the Battleship” or COB for short. Aboard ships of the line, the ranking non-com was counted with the captain and executive officer as one of the “big three.” Some wondered on occasion why a crew member with a relatively low rank compared to a captain and a full commander would be so vital to the vessel’s leadership structure. The reason was rather simple. Non-officers often outnumbered officers aboard a ship like Argent by as many as four to one, and the master chief was, for almost all intents and purposes, the top of their chain of command. One of Colonel Moody’s sergeants put it best when training new minesweeper crews:
“My name is Gunnery Sergeant Alan Hall. I am the ranking non-commissioned explosives specialist aboard this vessel. This is Fleet Command Master Chief Petty Officer Duncan Buckmaster. He is Chief of the Battleship. I answer to him. He answers to God. Do all of you understand that?”
After it was explained that way, it was tough for Argent’s crew members to miss the point.
“Looks like being a commander has it’s share of responsibilities,” COB chuckled as Zony pushed her papers out of the way.
“You and Sabrina are responsible for all this! No making fun of me now that I have to turn in all the work too! Word has it you got kicked upstairs again!”
Buckmaster turned to show off his new chevron. Instead of the golden star indicating command of a unit, the space beneath the gold-on-white rockers and above the similarly-colored chevrons was now occupied by a stylized multi-colored solar system emblem indicating a fleet command billet. It only made his six service stripes look even more formidable. The master chief had served Skywatch Fleet longer than Zony had been alive.
“Now it’s official. They’re trying to get rid of me. I never got a chance to congratulate you after Powers made your promotion permanent. I hear you snagged another combat action cluster to go with those gold oak leaves. And a Subspace Warfare Badge too!”
Zony rolled her eyes. “That was Jason’s idea after Rhode Island was transferred. I tried to keep that on the down low, but I guess it didn’t work now, did it?”
COB smiled. “All these big ships making the crew nervous?” One steward set a steaming cup of premium coffee on the table while the other filled Zony’s cup. Buckmaster stirred some vanilla into his.
“They’re making me nervous! I’d rather go back to the days of the strike fleet. After Powers reassigned us to Montgomery Station, I can’t keep track of all the new captains or their ship names! Have you seen our new escorts?” Zony indicated the nearest observation bay.
Not far from Argent’s port leading edge the starship Black Prince floated menacingly. She was an Inferno-class command cruiser with armaments and defenses nearly the equal of her flagship. COB knew the battlecruiser Montpelier was in formation along the flagship’s starboard side.
“Beautiful,” COB replied. “The captain always said he would prefer to punch in a higher weight class. Now that we’ve been selected for the Kraken sector mission, Skywatch seems to think we could do with some more tonnage.”
“Did you get a chance to meet Doctor Stan?” Zony asked as she stirred her own coffee.
“The science ship?”
“I thought we could do amazing things with electronic warfare. Those guys are certifiable! They’ve got a whole ship dedicated to it! Princesa de la Hoja. One of the fastest ships in the fleet and a whole crew of electronics and science specialists aboard. They’ve been bugging me to take a tour.”
“Princess of the Blade.” COB grinned. “Appropriate. You don’t see the knife, but you sure will feel it!”
“I wish they were coming with us, but Hearts managed to get our new sickbay and labs outfitted with all the latest gadgets instead. They refitted Saratoga and Jayce gave us Constellation if we need her, so we could have long-range missile capacity. I sure wish I knew what we were gearing up for. Jason’s been pacing around here like an expectant father. I couldn’t even get Sabrina to tell me what was going on before she was transferred. Oh, and then just for fun, they threw in the Excalibur, so now we have a marine special forces company to go with our own mechanized infantry if we want.”
“I hear the skipper outright stole Sixth Armor.”
Zony swallowed a sip and made a “mmm!” sound. Then she slapped both hands on COB’s wrist. “Oh, I just have to tell you about Captain Tarcus and his after-dinner stories!” Zony chirped. “He is nothing but a big ol’ marine corps papa bear. I love him to pieces already.”
“Let’s just hope whatever we’re casting off after doesn’t get out of hand,” COB said, absently staring out the bay at the Black Prince. “Having all this firepower in one place makes me nervous. I expect it isn’t doing much to calm our adversaries either. Admirals like Ben Powers don’t assemble task forces like this unless they mean business.”
“Have you heard from Jayce?”
“I know she went back to Core space for Captain Enright’s service. She took liberty to visit him in the hospital four times. I was sure he was going to pull through after all those months.”
“I felt so bad for Delilah. Yili and I sent communiques.”
“Yeah, it’s tough. He trained almost all of her captains. Pretty hard on her.”
“I hope she’s okay. I’m going to write about a ten-page letter if she doesn’t get her wings soon,” Zony took another sip of her coffee. “They need to stop the foot-dragging and let her put her task force back together! I know it was dangerous, but it’s what she was born to do.”
“Well, it’s safer for her than whatever she runs into. That’s for certain,” COB replied.