Chain of Command Read online

  Table of Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SCHEMATIC OF THE PUEBLA

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  USS Puebla Described

  Chain of Command

  Frank Chadwick

  Lieutenant Sam Bitka, U.S. Naval Reserve, is getting used to civilian life when he is called back to active duty. Tensions between Earth and the alien Varoki are on the rise, and Sam is assiged as tactical officer aboard the deep space destroyer USS Puebla. Dispatched to the distant world of K'tok to protect human colonists, he wants nothing more than to serve out his active duty time and get back to his civilian life.

  But when the Varoki launch a crippling surprise attack against the Earth coalition fleet, Sam finds himself suddenly in command of the USS Puebla, a job he is far from certain he can discharge successfully. What’s more, mounting evidence points to a much larger and more sinister alien plan.

  Now, Sam must deal with faltering leadership in the human task force and an alien enemy who always seems one step ahead of them. Time for Sam to step up and rise to the challenge of command.

  Baen Books by Frank Chadwick

  How Dark the World Becomes

  Come the Revolution

  The Forever Engine

  Chain of Command

  CHAIN OF COMMAND

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Frank Chadwick

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8297-4

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-613-4

  Cover art by Kurt Miller

  First Baen printing, October 2017

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Chadwick, Frank, author.

  Title: Chain of command / Frank Chadwick.

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017037362 | ISBN 9781481482974 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Imaginary wars and battles--Fiction. | Human-alien

  encounters--Fiction. | Space ships--Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science

  Fiction / Military. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure. | FICTION /

  Science Fiction / General. | GSAFD: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3553.H2184 C48 2017 | DDC 813/.54--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017037362

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  For Beth

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks first of all to my many friends and colleagues who read the work and offered both insightful criticism and generous support, especially Nancy Blake, Rich Bliss, Linda Coleman, Craig Cutbirth, Tom Harris, Bev Herzog, Glenn Kidd, Jim Nevling, Bart Palamaro, and of course Jake and Beth Strangeway. I remain enormously indebted to my three writing/critique groups. How essential they are to my creative process was particularly brought home by this project. The book which emerged from rewriting after their critiques and always thoughtful suggestions is immeasurably superior to the earlier version. I know, a lot of folks say that, but it’s really true here. Without meaning to slight anyone else, I want to single out Elaine Palencia and John Palen who consistently see what I miss and seem to know where I want to (or ought to) take a character before I do.

  Above all, I am most indebted to Tony Daniels and Toni Weisskopf at Baen Books who put their collective editorial finger on exactly what was wrong with the original manuscript of this book. That insight not only produced a superior book, it made me rethink how I was writing.

  A word about science: aside from the interstellar jump drive itself, most of the differences between our universe and the fictional one of Stars and Hard Vacuum stem from engineering advances, not breakthroughs in theoretical physics. That notwithstanding, this novel at its heart is more space opera than hard science fiction, but I’ve never felt that authors of space opera needed to check their brains—or their hearts—at the door. Nor should their readers be expected to. In keeping the physics within what I consider the bounds of willing suspension of disbelief, I am indebted to Rich Bliss, Jim Lenz, and Jim Nevling as well as several enormously useful books by Ken Burnside of Ad Astra Games. That said, none of this should be considered an endorsement of the physics of the book by any of them.

  But war’s a game which, were their subjects wise,

  kings would not play at. Nations would do well

  T’extort their truncheons from the puny hands

  Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds

  Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil,

  Because men suffer it, their toy the world.

  —William Cowper, The Task, 1785

  CHAPTER ONE

  15 November 2133

  (thirty-six days from K’tok orbit)

  Seventeen days before the course of sentient history changed irrevocably, Lieutenant Sam Bitka stood at attention in the office of Lieutenant Commander Delmar Huhn, executive officer and second-in-command of the destroyer USS Puebla.

  “Why are you being so stupid?” Huhn demanded.

  Sam thought about that. It wasn’t a bad question; it just didn’t go far enough.

  Tension had been growing between Human and Varoki colonists on the planet K’tok, so the US Navy’s Second Destroyer Squadron—including Sam and his shipmates—had been sent “as a precaution.” When they emerged from jump space earlier that day, the Varoki heavy cruisers in the K’tok system had immediately gone into low-emission mode. Now everyone found themselves trembling on the brink of what might turn into the first all-out interstellar war in the history of all six known sentient species.

  And the only thing Lieutenant Commander Huhn had on his mind was a sexual encounter between two petty officers in Sam’s tactical department. Why was everyone being so stupid? But Sam didn’t say that.

  “Um, stupid, sir?
”

  “You call this disciplining these two? Why, it’s not even a slap on the wrist.”

  “I informed petty officers Menzies and Delacroix that their fraternization constituted an infraction of Navy regulations concerning conduct injurious to order. Any repetition would result in more serious disciplinary action which would show in their permanent records. As per your orders, I altered their watch and duty assignments so they would neither work together nor have significant overlapping off-duty time.”

  “And what’d they say to that?”

  “That they intend to marry upon completion of the deployment, sir.”

  Huhn’s mouth twisted at that and he looked as if he wanted to spit. “Marry! Navy won’t let a married couple ship out together. They’ll get different assignments and replace all this enforced intimacy with enforced separation. That’s why these shipboard romances never last, that’s for damn sure. Did you tell them that?”

  “As part of my counseling I acquainted them with the relevant statistics, sir.”

  “And what’d they tell you?”

  “That they were not statistics.”

  Huhn looked at Sam and softly tapped the Annapolis class ring on his left hand against the surface of his desk, the ring that was a constant reminder of the gulf which separated the academy professionals—like Huhn—from Naval ROTC amateurs—like Sam.

  Lieutenant Commander Delmar Huhn was slightly older than Sam, in his mid-thirties, but he looked younger when he smiled and older when he scowled—which was more often the case. Between his height of five-six, spindly arms, and the start of a middle-age paunch, the executive officer was not physically impressive, but he somehow managed an intimidating presence despite that. He shaved his head and, because his sparse eyebrows were a light blond nearly matching his skin tone, he had a pale, hairless look which Sam found vaguely unsettling.

  “I can see this doesn’t sit well with you, Lieutenant Bitka. Your heart’s not in it. What’s the problem?”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Sure there is. I can see plain as the nose on your face.”

  He leaned back in his desk chair and switched to simply fingering his ring, moving it back and forth with the tip of this thumb. “I know the way we do things in the Navy takes some getting used to, especially for you reservists. They pull you out of nice civilian jobs back home in the United States of North America and stick you out here with a bunch of hard-charging warriors. Let me know what you’re thinking. You have permission to speak freely. In fact, that’s an order.”

  As if to emphasize this new familiarity, he smiled—a broad smile as full of small off-white teeth as it was of professed warmth.

  In his seven years in the civilian corporate sector Sam had several times been told by superiors to speak freely, but they had never meant it, any more than Lieutenant Commander Huhn meant it now. But this was different. This was the Navy, and an order from a superior officer here carried the weight of law, or at least so Sam told himself.

  “Come on, Bitka, spit it out.”

  Sam’s heart beat faster and he took a breath.

  “Well, sir . . . I think this is exactly the sort of chicken shit that makes people hate the Navy.”

  For a moment Huhn froze. Sam expected his superior’s face to redden, but instead it lost color—a bad sign. Huhn slowly leaned forward and placed his hands on his desk, palms down and fingers spread.

  “Chicken shit? You think maintaining proper order on deployment is chicken shit?”

  “No, sir. But there are two sexual liaisons going on among commissioned officers of Puebla’s wardroom, including your protégé Lieutenant Goldjune, and every man and woman on this boat below the rank of ensign knows it.”

  “How do they know it?” Huhn demanded.

  “A destroyer’s a small boat, sir. Hard for anything to go on and nobody notice. You want to make a point? Come down hard on the officers. The enlisted personnel will get the message loud and clear.”

  Huhn slowly stood and leaned forward, the knuckles of his tightly balled fists resting on the desk top.

  “Larry Goldjune is one of the most promising young officers I’ve ever served with. You wouldn’t understand this, Mister Bitka, but the Navy’s in his blood. His father Jake is a rear admiral in BuShips and his uncle Cedrick is in line to be the next chief of naval operations. If you think I’m going to blemish Larry’s career with a reprimand for something like this, you don’t know the United States Navy.”

  Sam was pretty sure he did know the United States Navy, but he did not say that, either.

  “Have it your way, sir. But if you make me come down on my enlisted personnel for doing what you’re winking at among officers, they will despise us, and they will be absolutely right.”

  “I-I’m the goddamned executive officer of this boat! You can’t talk to me like that!”

  “Am I to assume then, sir, that your direct order to speak freely has been rescinded?”

  Huhn glared at him for several long seconds before shaking his head in disgust.

  “Get out of my sight!”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Out in the corridor Sam paused and with trembling hands checked his biomonitor, to see if he was in danger of a stroke, or perhaps a heart attack. To his surprise they registered almost normal. Well, he had only been following orders.

  The broad and warmly lit corridor rose up and away from him to either side, and even though he was used to the optical illusion created by the rotating habitat wheel of the carrier USS Hornet, today it took on an unpleasant significance. No matter which way he turned, sooner or later he would end up back here. For a moment he felt dizzy, but he knew that was simply the coriolis effect of the habitat wheel’s rotation. Its hundred-meter radius was not enough to keep his inner ear from noticing his feet moving slightly faster than his head.

  He took the four steps over to the opposite wall and stood at the broad “window.” It wasn’t a window, of course. It was simply a smart wall keyed to show the view aft.

  The carrier USS Hornet stretched over half a kilometer astern from the habitat wheels, terminating in the intricate lattice-like crossings and re-crossings of the interstellar jump drive generator, softly glowing and sparkling against the pitch black of deep space. Between the habitat wheels and the engineering spaces aft, a dozen black vessels clung to the carrier’s gray hull in three rows, like sticks of dynamite around the torso of a suicide bomber. One of those was his destroyer, USS Puebla. He waited until the rotation of the wheel brought it into view. Apart from the blocky low-contrast gray hull number, DDR-11, it was indistinguishable from the others.

  Each one a hundred-forty-meter-long dart, the DDRs were austere, angular, and slab-sided to reduce radar reflection, built for battle and little else. The lack of an interstellar jump drive in the destroyers, and the subsequent need for a large ship to carry them from star to star, officially reduced them to the status of “boats,” as opposed to starships, but they were dangerous boats.

  They weren’t large enough to have their own habitat wheels, so in transit the crews lived in Hornet. Even with exercise, crews in prolonged zero gee began suffering from bone density loss and muscle atrophy within six months, but more serious were the effects of intracranial hypertension which began showing up in half that time, sometimes less. One thing a century and a half of space travel had made clear: gravity wasn’t a luxury.

  The sight aft was spectacular and chilling at the same time. Sam found it hard to accept this massive ship and its deadly cargo—so cold and inhuman in appearance—as a work of man. He had stood here and looked often, and had gotten used to this strange mix of emotions, in part because he knew he did not have to make a lasting peace with it. He was a reservist, activated for a three-year hitch due to the current emergency. In a little less than two years all this would just be a strange memory, raw material for stories told at cocktail parties, and even now, looking out at the disturbingly beautiful jump drive and the deadly destro
yer riders, he knew he would be unable to recapture this strange unsettled feeling later. He would remember that he had felt such a thing, he would remember the words he had used to describe it to himself, but the actual feeling would elude him.

  Sam stood closer to the smart wall to let a squad of twelve Marines in PT gear jog past in formation. Trust the jarheads to be getting ready for a possible fight when everyone else had other things on their minds. As he stood there watching them move away and up the outside of the wheel’s curve, the smart posters on the wall chatted quietly to him about post-enlistment education and employment, and about destination resorts for his next liberty which were guaranteed to be romantic, exciting, picturesque, and restful—all somehow at the same time.

  “I sure hope you guys are right,” he said to the posters,

  Several hundred thousand kilometers from where USS Hornet and its twelve destroyer riders continued their long approach toward K’tok, the uBakai heavy cruiser KBk Five One Seven coasted behind the cover of its thermal shroud on a converging course. Unlike Humans, no Varoki navy gave its warships names—a practice widely disdained as foolish and sentimental. Ships were simply inanimate pieces of machinery, and to think otherwise was evidence of clouded judgment.

  In the cruiser’s fleet tactical center—low-ceilinged, crowded, and dimly lit except for the glow of the tactical displays—the access hatch hissed open and Vice-Captain Takaar Nuvaash, Speaker For the Enemy, what the Humans called a military intelligence officer, entered his admiral’s comparatively spacious office. The admiral continued working, absorbed by the smart display on his desktop. Nuvaash examined him again, searching for some additional clue to the man who carried all their fates in his pocket.