The Service of the Sword

A SHIP NAMED FRANCIS

by John Ringo & Victor Mitchell

CHAPTER ONE

SIBERIA IS A CONCEPT

Sean Tyler tapped on the open door to the sickbay and entered at a grunt from within.

Tyler was just pushing twenty-three T-years and was on the begi

A chief warrant officer in his thirties, short and dark as most Graysons were, with a lean, gray face, was sitting at a desk staring at a pad as if the message on it might leap out of the screen and bite.

"Sick Berth Attendant Third Class Sean Tyler reporting for duty!" Sean said, snapping to attention and throwing a parade ground salute. He was mildly surprised to find the warrant still on duty; it was nearly 2400 hours, ship time.

The warrant tossed the pad on his desk and made a gesture towards his forehead that might graciously have been considered a salute and waved at a chair.

"Welcome, my friend, welcome to the Francis Mueller," the officer replied. "Grab a seat. I'll be with you in a minute."

Sean sat down and looked around at what was his new home, for however long he was going to be stuck here. His first impression was that the sickbay was small, less than a quarter of the size of the main sickbay on the Victory–class superdreadnought that had been his first assignment. It was even smaller than the three secondary sickbays scattered throughout that massive ship. On the other hand, the complement of the heavy cruiser Francis Mueller was less than a tenth the complement on the SD.

Not only was the Francis smaller than the SD, it was far older; indeed the class was among the oldest designs in the Alliance fleet. Although it was already obsolete, the ship had been sent to Grayson early in the current war against the Peeps. At the time it was one of the most powerful ships in that planet's fleet. Now, though, between the large number of converted Peep SDs, captured at First and Second Yeltsin, and the new Grayson SDs and cruisers that were starting to flow out of the yards, it was again in the position of being an outmoded and under-armed relic.

Furthermore, it looked it. No matter how many times a ship was sent into the yards for overhaul, no matter how thoroughly that overhaul was done, the ship always showed its age. It was apparent in the little patches of mold that crept out from bulkhead corners, in the worn spots on corners, even in the design of bunks, tables and other fittings, which had changed subtly over the years of war.

So there was a reason Tyler had a sour expression when the warrant finally tossed the pad on his desk.

"You don't look happy, SBA," the warrant said, pulling open a bottom drawer on his desk and extracting a half-filled, flaccid bladder of unidentified liquid. He squirted a generous measure into a mug of tea on the desk then waved it at Tyler. "Medicinal belt?"

"No, Sir, thank you, Sir," Sean replied, wondering if the clear liquid was anything other than water. Then the smell hit him.

"Chief Warrant Officer Robert Kearns," the warrant continued, putting the bladder away. "I'm the physician's assistant on this tub. You may call me Doc."

"Yes, Sir," Sean said.

"Did you get stowed away? Got a locker, bunk, all that stuff?"

"Yes, Sir. The Bosun met us and assigned us quarters."

"Good, good," the warrant replied. "Where'd they ship you in from? You're Manticoran, right?"

"Yes, Sir," Tyler said.

"Wanted to come slum with the religious nuts?"

"No, Sir," the SBA replied. "I had applied for a transfer to the Grayson service nearly a year ago. It's considered a good move promotion-wise, working with other Alliance forces."

"Uh, huh," the warrant said. "So, you're telling me you volunteered for the Francis Mueller?"

"Well, I volunteered for Grayson service and there was a priority opening on the Mueller, Sir, so here I am." He looked around, then decided to take a chance. "I made a serious mistake, didn't I?"

"Yup," the medic replied, taking a pull off of his reinforced tea. "You ever have to trank anybody on your previous ship?"

"Once," Tyler replied. "Is that . . . a particular problem?"

"We get about one trank call a week," the warrant admitted. "Sometimes more on bad weeks. What we do then is put 'em in a jacket and tie 'em to their bunk. When they come around we try to decide if it was temporary or permanent. If they talk nice, we let 'em out. If they don't, we leave them in confinement until we can get a transship to a safe ground area."

"One a week?" Sean gasped. In his six months on the Victory there had been a total of four people who had succumbed to "situational stress disorder" or "the bug" as most people called it. "And you've still got a crew at all?"

"We've got guys on this ship, I swear, are addicted to trank. Kopp, he's a missile tech, he's been tranked about six times. Cooper in Engineering, it's about once a month, like clockwork. Heck, the reason you were a priority replacement is that the other two SBAs were both medical evacs. If the timing had been different you would have met your predecessor on the way over; we transshipped him to the Victory."

"Weird," Sean said. "Any particular reason?"

"Oh," the warrant said with a slight catch in his voice, "I think you'll come to a few conclusions over time."

"Now hear this! Now hear this! Morning prayers! All hands not on watch, uncover for morning prayers!"

Sean hadn't had a chance to meet any of his fellow compartment sharers last night; they were all on second watch and had racked out by the time he entered the compartment. Now, as the lights came up and the other three stood up and clasped their hands, he wondered what to do.

Being a Manticoran, he was not a member of the Church of Humanity Unchained, so he was under no obligation to join in the morning prayers. But getting up and getting ready for the day wasn't exactly a good idea, either. So he figured he'd just bow his head and sit through it. How long could it take?

"Tester," a nasally voice said over the enunciator, "spare us this day from your Tests. 

"Please, Tester, don't let any of the airlocks blow out. Let the environmental system, old as it is, shudder though another day of labor. Please, Tester, let the water recyclers make it through a few more days, even though Engineering says they're just about shot. Tester, please see fit to keep Fusion Two from terminally overloading and blowing us all into Your arms; we love you but we want to see our families again some day.

"Please, Tester, if you could maybe see clear to keeping the compensator on-line? If we don't have the compensator, we can't make our acceleration back home, and we'll drift in space, a derelict, until the systems begin to fail and the power runs out and the air gets foul and we all start eating each other . . ." 

It continued in the same vein for a good fifteen minutes as the quavering voice slowly worked its way through every imaginable disaster scenario.

Spaceships were, inherently, disasters waiting to happen. It was one of the main reasons that "the bug" was a problem; any reasonably intelligent individual dealt with a certain amount of "apprehension," as it was politely termed, as soon as he was out of the atmosphere. Vacuum is very unforgiving stuff and even the most advanced technologies could not make space truly safe.