SoV Ch. 16 wrote:
No matter how corrupt the Sollies are—and trust me, I’m not about to underestimate that—” Terekhov’s lips quirked, “any effort to organize some sort of repeat performance will have to burn a lot of time just sending conspirators back and forth. That should give us a window to build strength in the Quadrant before the puppetmasters’ next move.” He shrugged. “I’m sure we won’t like whatever they have in mind, but, then again, New Tuscany may not like what we have in mind when it finally hits the fan.”
“And Admiral Gold Peak’s just the person to show them that,” Kaplan agreed. “I pulled my snotty cruise aboard Resolution when she was in command.” She snorted softly. “I understand she hasn’t exactly mellowed a lot with time, either!”
“I imagine that’s one way to put it,” Terekhov agreed. “And from everything I’ve ever heard about her, she’s still a cruiser captain at heart. Like someone else I know.” He smiled as Kaplan and Tallman chuckled, choosing not to mention any reservations about how desirable that might be in a fleet commander. “I’m sure she’ll have quite a bit to say about New Tuscany when she gets back from Montana next month.”
I love all manner of praise for Admiral Gold peak. I just eat it up y'all.
****** *
SoV Ch. 38 wrote:“Stand easy,” she said, and crossed to the command chair which was about to become hers. She stopped beside it, touched a key on the chair arm, and listened to the musical tone sounding throughout the ship. She waited a moment, knowing that everywhere throughout the mammoth hull men and women were stopping, turning to face bulkhead displays in response to the all-hands signal. Then she reached into her tunic, and the archaic paper crackled as she broke the seals, unfolded her orders, and looked into the command chair’s com pickup.
“From Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, Fifth Space Lord, Royal Manticoran Navy,” she read, as five T-centuries of commanding officers had read before her, “to Captain (Junior Grade) Ginger Lewis, Royal Manticoran Navy, Fifth Day, Tenth Month, Year Two Hundred and Ninety-Four After Landing. Madame: You are hereby directed and required to proceed aboard Her Majesty’s Starship, Charles Ward, FSV-Three-Niner, there to take upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer in the service of the Crown. Fail not in this charge at your peril. By order of Admiral Hamish Alexander-Harrington, Earl White Haven and First Lord of Admiralty, Royal Manticoran Navy, for Her Majesty the Empress.”
She fell silent and refolded her orders, then turned to Nakhimov.
“Mister Nakhimov,” she said formally, “I assume command.”
“Captain,” he replied, equally formally, and there was more than a hint of relief in his eyes, “you have command.”
“Thank you.” She looked up. It took her a moment to find the duty quartermaster, and she made a mental note to familiarize herself—thoroughly—with the bridge layout at the earliest possible moment. Then she located him.
“Make a note in the log, please, Chief Houseman,” she said, reading his nameplate.
“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” the chief replied, and a shiver went through Ginger’s nerves as, in that moment, she truly became HMS Charles Ward’s mistress after God. She inhaled deeply and turned back to the command chair’s pickup and all the waiting men and women who had just become her crew.
“I know none of you expected to see me in this chair,” she said quietly, resting one hand on the chair back. “I didn’t expect to be here, either. But the Service is bigger than you and bigger than me. When someone falls, someone else steps into her place and finishes the job. That’s the way it’s always been; that’s the way it is today, when a lot of people are stepping into other people’s places.
“What happened here in Manticore, in our own home star system, represents the worst defeat in the Royal Manticoran Navy’s entire history. Proportionately, we lost fewer ships in the Yawata Strike than we did in Axelrod’s attack four hundred years ago, but our personnel losses were enormous, our industrial capacity’s been savaged, and the loss of civilian life—the lives we’re supposed to protect, people—was intolerable. Here, in this ship, you’ve experienced your own part of that catastrophe. You’ve lost officers, shipmates, friends, and at this moment, you have to be still reeling from that. Believe me, I know. I was at Monica. I served with Duchess Harrington aboard Wayfarer on my very first deployment. I know what it is to turn around and see the holes where men and women you knew, worked with, respected, even loved are just…gone, and it may be even worse when the ship’s undamaged. When everything seems just like it was yesterday…except that so many people are dead, blotted away when we weren’t even looking. There’s no easy way to deal with that, and the people we’ve lost in the Yawata Strike will be with us all for a long, long time.
“But so is our duty. There’s an ancient ballad—one that goes far back beyond the first day a human being ever left the Sol System. Despite that antiquity, though, I think three lines of it are relevant to us, here, today, twenty-five hundred T-years later.
“I am hurt, but I am not slain;
I'll lay me down and bleed a while,
And then I'll rise and fight again.”
She looked directly into the pickup.
“We’re hurt, people. We’re bleeding. But whoever did this to us made a bad mistake, because we aren’t slain. And as God is our witness, we will rise and fight again.”
She stood there, looking out of the displays all over the ship—all over her ship—for another ten seconds. Then she squared her shoulders.
“Carry on,” she said quietly, and cut the connection.
Captain Lewis has a very nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Do we all know how fortunate we are to get this one itch of ours scratched of wanting Ginger in command
and her virgin speech? Well, I know.
BTW. Ginger's command is a repair/ammo ship. Probably over a year ago, I expressed how ironic it would be to be a repair ship Captain who was attacked and couldn't fight back, yet was carrying a shitload, oops shipload, of munitions! That thought of mine wasn't received too well IIRC. BUT! Methinks RFC might have kicked the "solution looking for a problem" upstairs to the Admiralty. Albeit, I haven't found out what they are armed
with, yet.
And get this. The
Charles Ward is part of the Taylor-class of FSV's. And my last name is Taylor. It could simply be a coincidence. But a nice one.
Think about it. Like I said before, phucking with a repair ship or missile collier ought to be the last thing one would want to do…
“Listen, you idiot. I am stocked to the gills with missiles. And I can fire them and roll pods all day long until I get tired. You got it?”
Of course, the Taylors are only 20 % larger than a BC.
I simply