Chapter 13 - Getting Underway

The display appeared to be updated continuously; when I noticed it there were three white icons at the shuttle hatch. After a minute or so all three went away.

"Ship, do you continuously monitor all shipboard spaces?"

<Yes. In combat this is useful for damage detection. Further, I have been required to do so at all times due to reported unreliability of some humans. Each human onboard will be monitored and all spaces will be continually monitored as long as there are any humans onboard.>

"Well, I'd like to say I don't like that, but I know more about humans than you do and I have to agree with those instructions."

Dickie butted in. "Captain, all personnel not assigned to acceleration stations have evacuated to the shuttle."

"Very well. Ship, can you connect me to the shuttle's pilot?"

<You are connected.>

"Shuttle number 7, this is the Captain of the, well, the still unnamed ship you are docked to. You are authorized and requested to undock as soon as your passengers are taken care of. Please back off 10 kilometers and pass on to the other shuttles to stay well clear of the ship's main axis until we understand the drive system better. If you've never read Larry Niven's story 'The Warriors', I'm making it required reading for all ship-drivers out here and that goes double for you small craft. We don't know enough to stay safe from ourselves, yet, much less any enemies." Everything I know about space warfare I got from books.

"Ship, do you know enough about our shuttles and your propulsion system to advise us about safe distances while we are underway?"

<Your requested 10 kilometers is sufficient in all directions except directly astern. This ship employs a drive dissipation function which renders the drive exhaust harmless after 200 kilometers. Ships employing the Confederacy's Navigation Shield should be safe to within one kilometer even in the drive axis, but your shuttles are not equipped with this system. Unshielded structures should stay clear of the drive axis for 200 kilometers to avoid damage. Note that the Navigation Shield system was developed after this ship was retired, so this limit applies to all eight of these ships also.>

...that system...developed after...this ship... We don't have the Nav Shield, either, here. Hold it, the shuttles we were using did too have that, or at least an underpowered version, you could see its faint glow if you looked out the windows. It both protected us from micrometeorites and held out all the charged particles and most of the EM radiation that the Sun and Jupiter both put out. This close to Jupiter, we would all be fried within hours without it.

We NEEDED that system. If we didn't have it here, or some equivalent, we may well already be in trouble. "Will it be possible to install the shield system on this ship? And please tell Doc Smith to report to the Skipper immediately."

<Doctor Ortega is on his way. The data transferred to me indicate that it is possible to install the Confederacy's current shipboard Navigation Shield system. However, it will require more power than the auxiliary power plant can provide. It could only be used when at least one main power plant is online.>

"Does the ship's power budget have enough slack to run the shield during normal operations?"

<Yes, this ship can power the shield. However, the shield will use all remaining excess power generated when the weapon systems are in use. Any further improvements will require something else to be deactivated in order to have the required power available.>

"I understand. We will have to judge the utility of other improvements. Very well. Oh, good. Doc, I wanted you in on this conversation. Apparently, we don't have the Nav Shield here. How fast is the radiation going to kill us, where we are here in Jupiter's orbit?"

Doc had at least a temporary answer to that. "I looked into that. As long as the shuttle is docked, we are inside its own ion shield and we are protected. We will need something, though, if any of us stay onboard the ship when the shuttle undocks. Unless this ship's hull can stop ions, electromagnetic radiation, and micrometeorites. AI?"

<This ship's hull and equipment can only protect the crew from such hazards from the stern, where the propulsion plant and other equipment act as shielding. However, the radiation field surrounds us here and installing a shield is strongly recommended. A compromise may be appropriate. The weaker ion shield used by your shuttles is adequate to protect the crew during normal conditions. Such a generator could be powered by the auxiliary power plant. If you desire I can construct the parts for one in less than an hour but I will need your help assembling it and installing it. I would recommend doing this before undocking your shuttle.>

"Yes, please start on that immediately." I looked at Doc. "Would that take care of us?"

"As long as we don't get into combat, sure. I don't have any idea what kind of weapons are going to be used on us, but anything powerful enough to be used as an anti-ship weapon will probably involve fatal levels of radiation."

Oh, yeah. "Shuttle 7, change in plans. Do NOT undock. Right now we are taking advantage of your ion shield and we will lose that if you undock. Our underway time will be delayed while we build and install a shield generator of our own. Assume a one-hour delay."

"Understand, do NOT undock. Assume one-hour hold. Shuttle 7 out."

Meanwhile, back to what I was doing....

"Ship, what steps must be taken to get underway? I will have to contact Jupiter Station Traffic Control before we actually move, but I want to be ready to move before I call them."

<You must have both helm stations verify that no propulsion is currently ordered, then...> and we got the incredibly detailed walk-through that we needed before we actually did anything. That was truly helpful.

By the time we were done, everyone involved had a clue about what we were supposed to be doing. Of course we needed to know our jobs in far more detail, but the walk-through at least gave us the big picture. The walk-through probably took an hour, during which I was also getting frequent updates on the ion shield installation. I got a final completion report well before we were done with our walk-through.

The ship said that it was able to test the generator, but that it would be unwise to actually start it while inside the bubble of a different generator. We had to undock the shuttle and get it about 50 meters clear before the ship was willing to start the generator and give us our own ion shield. Apparently, it was okay to merge two shields, so after ours was up the shuttle could dock again if we wanted, but it wasn't okay to create a shield inside another shield. Don't ask me, I don't understand it either.

After that, I warned Jupiter Station and all ships in the area that we were preparing to get underway, and then we actually did the things we had walked through earlier. Or, at least, this time when the AI told us what instructions and reports to give, the AI actually acted on those instructions.

Eventually we got to the point where I could inform JSTC that we were getting underway for transfer to Jupiter Station. When I got the acknowledgement, I gave Miguel the order to activate the main drive at 2% power, and we were under way.

Part of our walk-through was verification that the Navigation Console had our planned route programmed in, and after a minute at 2%, then 5%, and then 10% power to verify that the main engines responded to direct helm control, we transferred helm control to the Navigator's programmed course and let the AI do all the real work of making the ship follow the course laid in. Not that we were actually using a pencil to draw a proposed course on a paper chart, but that's the way it's said. We laid the course in and directed the AI to follow it.

As a first-time test, I had imposed a completely arbitrary limit of 20% full power. That made the trip take longer than otherwise, but we needed to get used to everything here before we floored the accelerator.

At each power change I could feel the acceleration couch shift a little. By the time we were up to 20% power, which should be 6 g's of true acceleration since 100% was supposed to be 30 g's, the room had tilted noticeably and I could see that the other couches had rotated back some to match mine. Supposedly we were also under 0.6 g 'experienced' or 'felt' since the inertial damper was letting 10% of the true acceleration through. In the couch it didn't feel bad at all, but I didn't try to get up. Tests like that would come later.

Setting up our course had been pretty simple. We wanted to go from here, where the aliens had parked these ships ~30,000 kilometers the other side of Ganymede, to there, Jupiter Station, which was about 250,000 kilometers out from Jupiter's center, just outside of the inner moons and their rings.

Primary concerns were to not hit Ganymede, which was in the direct line between the two, not hit our four shuttles, and also to avoid having our exhaust wash any of our ships or other facilities. We got the idea that having Ganymede between us and the delivery people was one of their goals, and when Ganymede had moved enough that it was no longer behind Jupiter from Earth's point of view, further deliveries would be made behind one of the other moons.

Avoiding exhaust wash was easy, since on our approach we would be slowing down, using our drive to oppose our direction of flight which was almost directly into Jupiter. The exhaust would be swallowed by Jupiter's atmosphere without notice. In the future this might be an issue when we had hundreds of ships here, but for now it was easy. Dr. Watkins had told the AI what he wanted, the AI made it look pretty on our displays, I approved the course, and the AI had transferred it to JSTC.

JSTC had agreed that our proposed course caused no problems, in part because all other shuttles in the area had been grounded for this event, and when everyone was agreed I had ordered Miguel to get us underway at 2% power. Once we all felt like we had this under control, this would become routine and most of it would probably be done by AI without our input, but for this first movement we wanted to be involved in every step to make sure we understood what was going on.

The next two hours were pretty boring. We had far too much to learn to waste any time, but we also didn't want to do anything to cause trouble the first time we moved the ship. Turnover was just over an hour into the trip, and I spent most of that time talking to the others and examining diagrams of the ship itself. I may not know what everything was, but I needed to at least know where everything was.

Turnover was unsettling, but that was due to the couches moving around on us. The drive was cut and the couches returned to 'normal' while the ship spun, and then the couches went back to their positions partway up the aft bulkhead when the drive climbed back up to 20% again. I don't think I felt the ship spin.

Objectively, I should have been concentrating on getting my people the best training possible. That, however, would have to wait until I knew my own job well enough to feel comfortable. I verified with Dickie that the consoles in the bridge compartment were mirroring what we had in CIC, then spent the second half of the movement looking at the navigation display, repeated on my main screen from Dr. Watkin's console.

It really wasn't much different from what the shuttles had. Taking the time to get checked out as a bus driver had been a good decision. This wasn't anywhere near as stressful as the first time I'd taken a shuttle out on my own to deliver a mine operator. When we were about ten minutes out I had Ensign James call JSTC and check in, just to give him something to do. They didn't have any changes, and we smoothly slid into our parking spot about 120 kilometers away from the Station.

When I was a kid, the arcades had a "lunar lander" video game where you controlled the attitude and the main engine on one of the Apollo landers trying to come down for a landing on the moon. You had enough fuel if you knew what you were doing, and you didn't have enough fuel if you didn't know what you were doing. I crashed that thing probably a hundred times before I learned how to land without damage, but then I was just a kid so maybe I would do better now. Still, having an AI do all the calculations for you and then control the engines was definitely the way to go.

I had always liked the RN's "Finished with Main Engines" command, so I instituted that here. That told the black gang deep in the bowels of the ship that we were done, we were moored or anchored and we weren't going to call back in three minutes to adjust something. In this case, we didn't have much of an engineering crew, but ChEng needed to be told that he could shut the propulsion plant down and lower the power plant's output down to maintain self-sustaining, stationkeeping and hotel loads.

Any power plant had three different sets of loads: Those needed just to stay running, those needed to keep the place safe, and those needed to keep the customers happy. Mobile plants usually had a fourth category added to the list, propulsion.

For a ship with, say, oil-fired boilers, the self-sustaining loads were the fuel pumps, the feedwater pumps, the boiler draft blowers, and other similar items, plus whatever other auxiliary equipment it took to keep them running. If those devices were all driven directly by steam turbines, that was all it took to keep the boiler running. Those were the 'self sustaining loads' for that plant.

If any of those required devices were driven by electric motor, then add an electric generator with all of its support equipment to the list. Shut any of those systems down, and the boiler quickly stopped being a boiler. Some of them could be restarted if you were fast enough, but things had a tendency to get out of hand quickly. Since you had already proven that you couldn't do your job, generally you ended up shutting the whole thing down until you were at a stable, known condition, and then you brought the plant back up. That was far more trouble than just paying attention to fuel tank levels and changing fuel tanks before the one you were drawing from ran dry.

Stationkeeping loads were those required to be safe: The engineroom and passageway lights, the fire pumps, and the anchor lights at the masthead. If not safely anchored or moored, add some kind of auxiliary thrusters that would keep the ship in place to this category.

Hotel loads were all the things required to keep the passengers happy: berthing lights, air conditioning, the muzak system, the elevators, the ship's main freezers, the ovens and stoves and toasters and TVs.

Propulsion was usually the big one. Unless you were an ocean liner, propulsion was probably 80-95% of where all the plant's power went. If you are a power company's plant, think "power delivered to the customer" instead of propulsion. If you were a cruise liner, of course, speed wasn't as important as comfort, so all the lights, fans, pool heaters, and air conditioners may well use more power than the propeller did.

The point here is that the power plant was separate from the propulsion system, even though the propulsion system was probably the largest consumer for whatever power the plant provided. In our case, we could shut the main engines down for maintenance, inspection, or whatever, but we had to keep the power plant running if we wanted lights and air. Call me narrow-minded, but I hated that stupid helmet. I wanted lights and air.

Did I not mention that? One of the times that we got new and improved helmets, I had noticed that the release button had something else on either side of it. Touch either one and they both became lights that illuminated the area in front of you. Sorta useful at times, and they would be essential if we had to work outside, or even inside on a broken ship.

Just as helpful in an emergency, the next time we got suit upgrades after that, the backs of our heels, the backs of our elbows, and the backs of our helmet saddles all had red strobe lights that turned on automatically any time the suit lost an inhibiting signal from the AIs that basically said "No, we don't need you yet". If the ship was broken, or if you were outside the ship, or if you somehow lost your ship, within seconds all those strobe lights would come on automatically to make it easier to find you. And, if you weren't wearing your helmet your collar did the same thing. Hopefully you had your hood on. Someone back in F2 was really thinking things through for these suits.

I told Ensign James to let JSTC know we were in place and shutting down, and then reported to my own boss. "Admiral Sykes? We're here, but we really need a name for this ship. As the Commanding Officer, the AI wants me to name it. Do you have any guidance for me there?"

"Captain Edelmann, let me start by congratulating you on your voyage. Maybe next year we'll all laugh at how simple this was, but not now. I've been listening in, and I'm more convinced than ever that you were the right choice. Yes, we need names and I'll get back to you on that ASAP, but we also need the ships. How long of a break do you and your people need before you go get another ship? How long would it take you to train a simple delivery crew?"

"Dickie? You should be listening in on this. Can your bridge team act as a delivery crew to go get the rest of these ships?"

"Do I get Chief Littles? If so, we can go do this right now. I think we could both do this with two different ships, using the bridge to train additional teams. However, how are we going to train our engineers?"

"Maybe we can run a few candidates through the same kind of walkthrough that we got. Do that for both the main console and the environmental console and have a shuttle pace each ship in case things go wrong. Ship, do you have recommendations, or do you see any problems with this plan?"

<I understand the urgency implied by Admiral Sykes' request. Your plan as outlined would work, but it violates our core programming as stated. Each ship can only grant access and turn over control to the system government's properly appointed Commanding Officer for that ship. The Darjee AIs have given me personnel lists that show 18 humans designated as 'Prospective Warship Commanding Officer'. I recommend that you and your Executive Officer each head temporary delivery crews, but for each ship you add that ship's properly appointed Commanding Officer to the delivery crew. You and your Executive Officer will be considered temporary Commodores with authority to override the Commanding Officer's orders if necessary.>

"Admiral Sykes?"

"I concur. It gets the job done. Now, how do we do this? Do you have transport pads on those ships?"

Uhhhh.... "No, sir, I don't think so. At least, I haven't seen them. Ship?"

<No, Captain. That technology, like the Navigation Shield, was developed after this ship was retired. It should be possible to install a pad in a convenient location, but the pad will only work when the ship is within range of a powered nexus like the one on your Jupiter Station.>

"It looks like we're stuck with shuttles for the moment, Admiral. Can you send out a shuttle with a spare pad that we can install?"

"You'll get a shuttle with a transport pad and your first two trainee crews as fast as we can organize it."

"Captain? We'll want pads for those two ships, too."

"Dickie's right, Admiral. We have to use shuttles to get to the ships initially, but if we install them before we get underway we can use them when we arrive here."

"Very good, Captain. I'll make it happen. Sykes out."

"That was a good point, Dickie. Hey, you get to be a Commodore and you haven't even been a Captain yet."

"I'm just hoping I learned enough by following you."

"Well, if we make every delivery crew go through that same walkthrough, we'll at least have some experience on them. XO, see what you can learn about the weapons on this thing. I'm going back to look at the engines. Ship, please keep me informed of anything interesting that happens."

The 'anything interesting' was our ship's name. Admiral Sykes got back to me that VICE-Admiral Andrews -he had been promoted- had been in conversation with Admiral Kennedy back on F2, and had been granted a free hand in naming these ships, as long as there was a recognizable system that was better than the RN's current habit of using any word that started with the same letter as the class ship's name.

I was with Admiral Kennedy on that one. I was fine with this ship being named, say, "Oberon", but I didn't want the rest of them named "Obstinate", "Obelisk", "Olive", "Obsidian", "Obtuse", "Oreo", and "Ohio". There should be something that connected the names beyond the first letter.

Admiral Kennedy had suggested landmarks, cities, counties, anything that allowed room for expansion past 100 ships if needed, because we were supposed to be getting 60 or so of these and we might well build more if we liked them. He had referenced the RN's "Flower Class" of several hundred small escort ships in World War II, and recommended that we not use any system that we might want later, for larger and more capable ships when we built them.

Vice-Admiral Andrews had decided that these ships would be named for British castles, in hope that they would provide the same safety and security for those within as their namesakes had. He had even come up with an alphabetic list with 60 names. As the first one delivered, my ship would be named "Allington Castle". Admiral Sykes actually ordered me to simply accept it, and not say anything prejudicial to allied cooperation!

I asked what kind of ceremony was expected. Thankfully, the Admiral didn't have a useful answer. I pointed out that I could have my pretend wife Ellen come out and smash a bottle of grape juice across the nose of the ship, but if I did that my real wife Diana would probably hop in the next shuttle and come smash a second bottle across my nose so if at all possible I'd like to put that formal ceremony off until Diana could be here to participate. Admiral Sykes laughed at that and said he would put in a request for her presence at the official commissioning ceremony when we were really ready to go looking for trouble. We were a long way from that.

Meanwhile, our shuttle docked again and we took on all of our missing crewmen from the first load again. We all went back to work looking things over, and thanking the gods that we didn't have to wear that helmet any more. I went back up to CIC where I could talk to the AI and get answers on the console if appropriate.

I started with the name. "Ship, I assume that you caught that conversation about your name. Is 'Allington Castle' acceptable to you?"

<That name is acceptable. None of us have objections to this naming system.>

"Very well, henceforth we shall refer to you as 'Allington Castle', but we are not a very formal people. It won't be long before we have shortened that, for conversation, to just 'Allington' or even just 'Allie'. Are those forms acceptable?"

<All three forms are acceptable, Captain. Thank you for granting us those names.>

"You are welcome. Okay, on to the next item of business. There are a lot of things on that diagram that I don't understand, but I should be able to recognize small craft. Where is your tender, or shuttle, or whatever you want to call your small craft?"

<This design does not include any integral small craft.>

I didn't answer that for a while. I wasn't sure what to say, how to get to a meeting of the minds here. All ships had the possibility of getting into trouble. A starship could do it several lightyears from help. Warships were built for the sole purpose of going out and causing trouble, and that meant that they usually got in trouble themselves. Often, trouble that they couldn't get out of. Ships sank. Storms, reefs, enemy action, internal accident, there were lots of reasons for ships to go down. Usually, there were survivors. Or, there would be if the crew could get off the wreck.

Human warships ALWAYS carried some kind of small craft, both lifeboats and general-purpose launches. Even our submarines carried an inflatable raft at each hatch, intended for emergency use but occasionally used for general duty. Commercial ships did, too, if they carried passengers. If they were large enough, they were required to carry lifeboats just for their crews even if there weren't any passengers. SOLAS! That would help.

"Allie, do you have access to Earth's internet?"

<Not directly, Captain, but the Darjee AIs maintain a functional copy on each ship in case of need and I can access those copies.>

"Very good. Please look up the Titanic disaster and the SOLAS, that is S O L A S for 'Safety of Life at Sea' agreements that resulted. Our people value individual lives. We will have to bring with us some sort of lifeboat. These ships will not be allowed to serve as independent warships until we have come up with some sort of solution to this problem."

<I am analyzing the records you referred to.>

"Okay. Meanwhile, we need to start training crews at the same time we are looking at what modifications we need to make. Do you have the same type of sleep-trainers that the Darjee ships have?"

<These ships do not, but they can be installed once you select a location for them. Further, with your permission we can provide the Darjee ships with the data needed to create training modules for the equipment on this ship. If that is done then any sleep trainer can be used to teach the modules.>

"If my authority is sufficient, then do it. We should have had that training before you were delivered. How long will that take?"

<The data has been transferred. The modules have been prepared. Each module will take a varying amount of time to absorb. The shortest one is "Basic Familiarization with Castle Class Ships"; that one is expected to take a maximum of ten minutes for most members of your species to master. I recommend that all prospective crewmembers take that module before any others.>

...already done???? "Please display a list of all available modules that apply to this ship." Christ, there are 87 of them!

<Captain, a recommendation.>

"Go ahead, Allie. I'm listening."

<If I understand your intent, there is no need to install specialized equipment to use as sleep-trainers. Each acceleration couch can be used as a sleep-trainer as you use the term. This capability was added as part of our preparation for your use. For safety, the Commanding Officer must authorize such use beforehand, as the associated control console must be locked out from active use during the session to prevent inappropriate actions. A fire control console must not accept orders to launch weapons from the occupant, if the occupant is in a sleep-training session. An engineering console should not accept orders to go to full speed while the ship is docked to a supply station.>

<Only the ship's Commanding Officer can decide whether a particular console is needed for duty or can be used for sleep-training. With that limit, any acceleration couch on this ship can be used for this training. I recommend that, while you have time, you undergo the five highlighted sessions.>

"I can get those sessions right here?"

<Yes, Captain. Doing so would significantly improve your effectiveness as Commanding Officer.>

Well, yes, of course. Knowing what you are doing almost always significantly improves your effectiveness. "Wait one, Allie. I have to check in again. Admiral Sykes?"

"Go ahead, Roger."

"Two new items of interest. Well, three. First, this ship has transferred to the Darjee ships all data necessary to create sleep-learning modules for training on this class of ship. Apparently it could not transfer that information until I authorized it. Second, it reports that the Darjee AIs have already used that data to create 87 different training modules for the sleep-learners. Perhaps we should run the prospective crews through those modules overnight, then run out and get all of those ships at once tomorrow, when the crews know what they are doing. Third, it says that these acceleration couches can also function as sleep-learners, so I can learn what I'm doing, too."

"Last, okay, four things, these ships have no provision for any kind of small craft. No cutter, no shuttle, no gig, not even any lifeboats. Can you get the brains working on that? We can't send these ships out to fight, or even just to scout, without some kind of lifeboat or tender or escape pod. I'm beginning to wonder how much actual experience with fighting the builders had, if they hadn't ever learned to include lifeboats. Okay, I'm done."

"What? No small craft at all? Hold on, I'm looking at the drawings your ship sent over. Right, there's only one hatch, the one you used to enter. If there's no other way in or out, and there's no lifeboat right there at the airlock, there probably isn't one anywhere else, either. Okay, I'll support that one. We may well be sending our young men out to die, but we won't send them on suicide missions. I'll take that one on myself. Good catch, Roger. Okay, on that sleep-learning thing, I've got that list. Yes, I agree. We can get two more today by winging it the way you had to, or we can get all of them much more safely tomorrow. Okay, I'll buy that one, too. We'll suspend delivery operations for the day. I'll get a shuttle out to you, though, with a transporter pad."

"Thank you, sir. Meanwhile, while we wait, I'm going to have everyone here do some of those modules. I'd hate for the new boys to show us up."

"Carry on, Roger. Sykes out."

Dickie and I spent a few minutes sorting through the list. Everyone needed that 'Familiarization' module. Most of the others could be grouped. The engineers didn't need the hyperspace navigation module and the gunners didn't need the attitude jet maintenance and calibration module. We added the helmsman's job to the everyone list, though.

We had the rest of our crew stand by for emergencies while all of us "original 18" did those two modules. When we were all done, about 15 minutes later, we all got up and let everyone else go. Since we had some couches left over, we called the shuttle pilot in and had him do them, too.

By the time that second group was done we had an incoming shuttle with our transporter pad so we sent our bus driver back to get his shuttle out of the way. I told him that he had performed his duties with all required competence and that as far as we were concerned he was released from this exercise, he could check in with JSTC and see what they had for him.

The ship, excuse me, Allie was fairly crowded with 32 people milling around. I had Dickie start sending people back to the couches for more education, this time concentrating on their assigned jobs. I had him concentrate on the engineering parts. I wanted a bridge or CIC watch and an engineering or environmental watch at all times, and we needed to get as many of that last skill qualified as we could. The weapons people could wait; we had to get the ship itself under control first, so the three engineering couches and the seven weapons system couches were all pressed into duty as engineering training sleep-learning stations.

We didn't need the control spaces right now, so I let Dickie use those consoles -all except the command console in CIC- for everything else. We kept that couch clear so that it could be used in a real-time emergency. I appointed Ensign James our first "Officer of the Day" and had him sit in the command couch and talk to the AI so that there would be someone immediately responsive if there was a problem.

We also kept the environmental controls station, that couch in the Engineroom's upper level, on line. Now that we had several other people with rudimentary training, we could release Chief Gaillard from that post. All 16 other couches were turned over to the XO to use for training. I went down to figure out where to put the transporter pad.

For now, we put the pad in a corner of the mess room. It was portable; we could just set it wherever we wanted and have it in use in seconds the way George-the-recruiter had set it up in our condo back in Virginia Beach. As soon as we could, we would get it built in so that it was floor level and then we'd want it in the middle of the main passageway where it would be easiest to get to in an emergency, but for now it would just be in the way when not being used so we shoved it in a corner.

By the time the pad was installed and working, Dickie and I had worked out our first stab at a duty roster. The absolute minimum manning required to get underway in an emergency was four men. The AI could handle every single individual step in the procedure, but a great many of the steps were dependent upon crew authorization. It was a built-in requirement that probably said more about the builder's values than it did about real needs. We weren't going to get around that limit.

Fine, set that as the minimum 'anchor watch'. If the ship was intact enough to get underway in an emergency, we would maintain at least four crew onboard at all times. If possible, the four would include a bridge watchstander, an engineer, and a weapons guy, but that was planning for the future. As before, the AI could do everything so it wasn't essential that each person knew their job but we had to have a warm body that was willing to give instructions at the appropriate time. Even if the body was merely repeating back to the AI the instructions that it said it needed.

Unfortunately, there was an exception to that warm body rule. Of course it was me. Allie wanted her Commanding Officer. No one else could authorize the movement. I pointed out that I could not stay awake and available and functional for much longer than two or three days, after which I would be unreliable for just about the same length of time. Further, we were a social species and I would often be required to visit people or offices off the ship. It would be better to have one or more designated and approved assistants who could pretend to be Captain in my absence.

I had Allie look up the human concepts "Conditional Delegated Authority", "Officer of the Deck", and "Sleep Cycle". If she insisted, we could hold a formal change of command ceremony every eight hours while we swapped personnel, but that seemed unnecessary if she could accept an OOD as acting Captain while I was away from the ship. What if she needed her CO while I was taking a dump? Again, these rules probably told us more about the ship's builders than it did about the universe.

I think the issue was responsibility. If I wasn't on board giving orders and taking the blame, whose fault was it if something went wrong? It's still mine. I'm the Captain. The people present are following procedures I approved, and doing things in my name. Even if I'm not there, I get the credit for the good things they did and the blame for everything else. We ended up with a list of people approved by the Captain (me) to stand watch as OOD (that's "Officer of the Deck") underway, and those same people were also approved to stand in-port OOD ("Officer of the Day"), a related but distinctively different job.

The underway OOD managed the minute-by-minute working of the ship for the duration of his watch, knowing that if he got in over his head he could wake the skipper up and ask for help or guidance, and similarly if his watch team got in over their heads they could call on additional off-watch personnel to help out. After a period of some hours, usually 2 or 4, he would be relieved by another OOD, and he would go report his relief to either the Captain or the XO. One or the other should always be awake.

OOD underway was a high-stress job akin to piloting an airplane. You weren't there for the boring parts. You were there so that, no matter what happened or went wrong, someone competent was able to immediately take the actions necessary to right the wrong.

It was hard to remain alert for very long, though, as stress was tiring. If you had four or more people to share the job, it was common to stand 2-hour watches with 6 (or more) hours between them. If you only had three, though, you usually went with 4-hour watches and did everything you could to qualify more men. That was forced by the need to allow the off-watch people to get some sleep before taking over again. If you ever had to get underway with only two qualified OODs, you would go to 6 and 6 to allow the off-watch guy to rest.

The in-port OOD, on the other hand, watched over a ship that wasn't moving, wasn't fighting, and probably had a partial crew and some machinery opened up for maintenance. He should have nothing important to do, but he had to be there in case there was an emergency requirement to get underway without the Captain's presence, in which case he became the underway OOD and acting Commanding Officer until he could bring the ship back in. Or, of course, until the CO and the rest of the crew could catch up. The in-port job was usually for 24 hours.

That first OOD list included me, Dickie, Billy, Ensign James, and the COB. We were the only ones with previous experience doing the job. Once we had some time to do useful training, we needed to add Doc Smith to that list. He had the military background, just not the naval experience that the rest of us had. With experience and training we could probably add Dr. Watkins, Chief Gaillard, and Miguel Hernandez, too.

By the time we had that straightened out, the transporter pad was up and running, and everyone could go home to F12 by just stepping on it. Well, they'd go to the Station first, and then step on another pad that took them to F12. I told the OOD list that we needed to stay for some training, and Dickie released everyone else except Chief Gaillard and two junior men, the three non-OOD men selected as the first duty section.

The five of us waited until the crowd had cleared out before we started our meeting. Frankly, the only reason to have it was to make sure that all of them understood my mind on this OOD issue.

"Okay, this won't take long. The AI on this ship apparently thought that I would come onboard and never leave the ship until I died, at which point another CO would be appointed to replace me. Also, that I never slept, got sick, went to the bathroom, or needed to go see my higher echelon supervisor. None of that is realistic. I'm Allington Castle's duly appointed Commanding Officer, but I will not always be at the command console. In order to allow me to have a life, you four have been designated as OODs, competent to stand watch at the command console in my absence. We will all hope that your time as OOD is only filled with pretend emergencies for training. Dickie, how do you want to set up a rotation?"

"Captain, I'd like to go by rank, just to make it simple. I'll take the first duty today. Tomorrow will be the Chief Engineer, followed by Ensign James and last Master Chief Boggart. Hopefully by then we'll either have more people qualified, or we'll be underway again so I don't have to take my turn again." Unspoken was the obvious fact that I would not be on the rotation. The whole purpose of the rotation was to support me, to allow me to do what I needed to do. I couldn't perform the vast majority of my jobs as CO if I was stuck at that console all the time. I could act as OOD at any time and would assume that position in combat, but I needed the freedom of having another OOD on the ship and available to take over to let me go.

"Very well, Dickie. As usual, the duty section will not leave the ship without specific orders from the OOD. The OOD will not leave the ship without permission from the XO or myself, and we aren't giving it unless there's another OOD onboard and alert, ready to assume the watch. If you have to go out to inspect a hull repair you will have to wait until another OOD is onboard and can relieve you while you're out."

"Now, we're going to stay on Zulu time like everyone else up here. Duty section turnover will be at 0800 sharp, with the oncoming duty section expected to be present for turnover by 0745 each morning. Billy, you'll have to track down your people for tomorrow if the XO didn't tell them who they were. Hopefully, the AI will handle basic security so we don't need hatch sentries or anything like that, and the four people on duty each day won't have any specific tasks beyond simply being present in case of emergency."

"Once we get the ship under control we'll expand the duty sections to include personnel for the parts we control. We'll start with Environmental and Engineering first, then Navigation and Communications. Weapons systems and Fire Control will be last. We have to make this a ship before we can make it a warship."

With that I got everyone's agreement, and the XO dismissed the others to quarters. He and I talked for a couple more minutes, mostly about crew levels, and eventually I realized I was just dithering. When I realized that I took my leave and took the pad back to the Station.