Ivan Kal - Olympus

Adrian got up from his bed and walked to his desk, it was close to 15:00 hours, and he wondered who it was, he had just gotten off his watch in the Command Center an hour ago. He activated the comm and was surprised to see Laura’s face. Judging by her expression he figured that this wasn’t a social call, so he snapped off a salute.

“Fleets Master.” Adrian said.

Laura returned the salute, and Adrian saw approval in her expression before it slipped behind her professional mask.

“Ship Master Farkas.” Laura said. Immediately Adrian realized that this was serious so he turned all his attention to her image.

“Approximately two hours ago, a Concordis warship was stolen by dissidents, at least that is the official version, and it has since then made its way to Cloud station, where we expect it to dock in four minutes. The truth is that there are no dissidents on board that ship, it is crewed by Concordis personnel, and we believe that this is a scheme on their part in order to acquire our technology. There are two Concordis ships on their way to the station. You mission is to disconnect from the dock as soon as possible, and set course to Cloud station at maximum speed. We are going to inform Concordis leadership to keep their two ships out of our territory, you are to position your ship between them and the “dissident ship”, board the vessel if possible, but if they refuse, you can’t under any circumstances allow that ship to go back to Concordis hands. If they don’t surrender to you, you have the authority to destroy that ship. Do you understand your orders?” She asked. Adrian’s mouth had gone dry, he looked Laura in the eyes.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. I have given you command codes equivalent of a Ship Master, and have sent a squad of army forces to the ship. You have the authorization to undock from the station.” Laura said. She looked at him for a moment more, her expression showing an emotion Adrian hadn’t seen before on her face, and then she terminated the connection.

Adrian immediately jumped from the chair and dressed, while sending the command to the computer to put the ship on blue alert, meaning that everyone was to go to their posts. They had a few drills in the last few days, so he knew that they would follow the order. Bethany was already on the bridge as it was her watch. It took him less than thirty seconds since the moment the communication from Fleets Master ended, to the moment he stepped in the Command Center. The Command Center’s walls were round, and after they reached the height of a meter and a half they started to curve towards each other, making the room resemble the inside of a dome, all of the walls were also screens, using a type of nanotechnology any part of the wall could be turned into a screen, it could also project a 360° feed from the ships outside cameras, when turned on it looked as if the Command Center was on top of the ship and had the view of everything around. It didn’t have any special tactical advantage, but he was told that it looked amazing when the ship was close to a planet, such as Mars. The stations were oriented in a half circle all facing the same direction. Those were from left to right, science, sensor, navigation and weapons station, behind them a was a holo-desk, it was installed just a few days ago, and had the ability to show a 3D representation of the ships surroundings, it was a smart software that took all the information from the ship sensors and then created a virtual representation of the space around them, scaled down of course, it also showed a lot more information, but Adrian didn’t have a lot of time to get himself familiar with it. On the left side of the holo-desk was the communication station, it was the only one that was separate from the others, and was oriented towards the “side” instead of the “front” of the ship, behind the Holo-desk and on a platform was the Ship Master’s “command chair” and besides it on a slightly lower platform, was the High Prime’s chair. Adrian made his way to the command chair currently occupied by Bethany. When she noticed him she turned to him and scowled, not bothering to get up.

“Another drill Adrian? You are taking this position too seriously, you need to relax an—”

“High Prime, I need a status report from all systems.” He interrupted her. Then he turned to the acting Communication Handler Gillian Estevez, she was one of the Academy graduates that chose to enter service at the rank of cadet. “Contact engineering, they need to prep the drives, and inform the team working on the upgrades to abort any operations they have in progress and return to the ship.” Everyone turned around and just looked at him like he was crazy. Bethany stared at him open mouthed still sitting in his chair. Adrian looked at her with a stony face.

“High Prime, the Ship Master has entered CC, why are you still sitting in my chair.” He asked calmly. Something in his voice must have clicked with her because she got out of the chair. Adrian took his position in the command chair, he looked around and noticed that everyone still just looked at him, three of the older cadets who were now at the stations for Navigation, Sensors and Weapons had amused looks and were chuckling amongst themselves. The atmosphere in Olympus was more relaxed than in Earth militaries, but there was still a clear chain of command, and their behavior was inexcusable. They didn’t know that this wasn’t a drill, and even if it was, they needed to take it seriously.

“I gave you an order. This is not a drill.” He said to the room, only Communication Handler Estevez listened to him and got on the comms with engineering, Adrian told Iris to remember and remind him about Estevez later, the rest kept looking at him, while the three older cadets resumed their amused chuckling. He knew that they disliked drills, but their behavior was unacceptable. He informed the security that their presence was required in CC via his implant, and sent them his new command codes, the ones Laura gave him. He then informed those from the second and third watch he knew would follow his orders to the CC to replace the ones he was about to kick out.

He looked at the older cadets, one of them returned to what he was doing before Adrian walked in, while others shook their heads and talked ignoring Adrian. A moment later six security officers entered the CC. Adrian pointed to the three Cadets.

“Throw those three in the brig. Keep them there until I tell you otherwise.” He told them.

“Understood, Ship Master.” Their leader said. All off them looked as young as anyone else in the CC, but Adrian knew that they were older, some even from the time before Olympus went into space. They moved professionally and subdued the struggling Cadets.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you are doing!?” One of them yelled. Adrian stood up and glared at him.

“Did you think I was joking? I told you that this wasn’t a drill! You have cost us precious time we need to accomplish our mission. You are a disgrace, you don’t deserve to be here. Even if this was a drill, your job is to FOLLOW MY ORDERS!” Adrian yelled at them. They grew silent at his outburst and the security took them out. As they were going out the three other crewmembers Adrian called to replace them entered the CC, one of them was Noah, they had heard his outburst and had a slightly frightened looks on their faces. He ordered them to their positions with Noah taking the weapons station. He looked at Bethany.

“High Prime, you have two minutes to get me reports from all systems on my display.” He told her calmly.

Bethany finally snapped out of her trance and got to work.

Comms Handler Estevez turned to Adrian.

“I have Chief Engineer Martinez for you, Ship Master.” She said.

“Put her through.”