War Fleet: Resistance

that would have been injected into her to make the warp dash survivable, even if had just been a short jump from a nearby station. Olsen found himself impressed with her sharp expression. He couldn’t tell from where he stood what rank the stars and stripes on her shoulders denoted, but he could see that she wore the navy blue of an officer of the fleet. She had a straight nose and an unblemished face, framed by brown hair cut in a bob. She turned to Olsen and then walked down the ramp with steady, calculated steps.
She saluted sharply. “Commander Sasha Novak reporting for duty, sir.”
“And what duty is that, Commander?” Olsen asked.
Novak glanced at Rob. The cyborg had stepped toward her — stopping right next to her, in fact, as if he’d been invited to do so. Olsen was about to call him back when Novak reached into her inner pocket and produced a dongle. Before anyone could react, she moved with purpose, plugging the dongle into the port on the back of the cyborg’s neck. The device beeped a few times, then displayed four blue lights.
“Kota,” Olsen said. “Weapon ready.”
Sergeant Kota nodded and pointed her rifle at Commander Novak.
But Novak looked at the Marine and simply shook her head, not even seeming to register any kind of fear that Kota had an XM-461 rifle with laser-sight pointed right at her. “I apologize for my abruptness, Captain, but the Admiralty AI told me they had problems sending updates through.” She produced a tablet. “Here are the orders from Brownstone herself. I am to replace the cyborg and assume position as XO on the Tapper, effective immediately.”
Olsen stared at Novak, bemused. He took the tablet from her and scanned the text. There it was, at the bottom: Brownstone’s signature, accompanied by her bioprint. “I thought only machines could be commanding officers.”
“The Admiralty has changed their mind, sir. Now, officers who have been through rigorous training are more suitable for command.”
Well, this was something Olsen hadn’t expected. After the Grashorn incident, the senators had said they needed a flawless intelligent level of command between the captains and the fleet admiral. They had deemed that technology would provide the solution, with algorithms that could think much faster than any human could. “Tell me, Novak. Where did you train?”
“On the Wilson, sir.”
That gave Olsen pause. “I thought the Wilson was top-secret.”
“Not anymore. In the next week, every naval captain will have an executive officer assigned from the station.”
“I see. So. Tell me about your background.”
“My background is not important, sir.”
“It is if I say it is. I like to know a little about the crew who serve on my ship.”
“Very well. I know nothing of my parents. I was adopted at a very young age, and I don’t remember anything about my past before that. I’ve served aboard the Wilson since. Everything else is highly confidential, according to protocol AR-ST-5541.”
“Marvelous,” Olsen said, and he tugged on his collar. He had a feeling that Novak would be worse than having a cyborg as his XO. Much, much worse. “Commander, accompany me to the vid-con room,” he said. “Rob, you too. It’s time the three of us got acquainted.”

15
As he walked through the corridors, his mag-boots feeling heavy on his feet, Olsen couldn’t help but wonder why Novak was here. She was probably a snitch, sent by Admiralty to keep him in check and report on his every move. Maybe they suspected he’d been finding ways to hide crucial information from Admiralty AI, which wouldn’t have been far from the truth.
He entered the conference room, happy to have gravity again and to be able to turn off his mag-boots. Rob sat and stared vacantly at the wall, as usual. Novak pulled out a tablet as she sat.
Olsen sat down and put on his best cold look as he tried to stare Novak down — a game higher ranks would often play on him when he was a commander, which they later told him was to test his mettle. But Novak didn’t seem fazed by it.
“First things first. Novak, I want to understand what you’re doing here. Why did the Admiralty send you?”
“I know nothing of their intentions, sir. I just know that I’m required to serve on this ship and assist in your mission of obtaining the spatial detonator.”
“So, you’ve been briefed on the alien weapon?”
“I have, sir. And on the Arstan engagement and subsequent loss of the weapon.”
“What about the extra data you were meant to have onboard?”
“That was in the dongle I plugged into Rob. He was in dire need of an upgrade.”
Olsen nodded. “And that’s it? No orders to also keep an eye on me? To write up a report about me every day, anything like that?”
“Sir, any conversations between myself and the Admiralty are strictly confidential.”
“Of course they are,” Olsen said. “I guess we’d better get down to business, then. Rob told me that you had valuable information about how we can get back the spatial detonator. Is that correct?”
“I only know what you know, I believe. Captain Kraic took the weapon to an unknown destination.”
“That’s it? I thought Brownstone was going to send some help.”
“Sir,” Rob said. “Admiralty AI have suggested that the best course of action is to take an Arstan official hostage and try to obtain information out of them.”
It was the first bit of new strategy he’d heard, and it seemed so out of left field that he was caught off guard.
“And how, exactly, do they propose a small mining ship is going to do that?”
“That’s what I’ve just been looking at, actually,” Novak said. “If I may, I have a suggestion.”
“Go on.”
“On the Wilson, we performed an intense study on all the current officials in both the Foorint and Arstan militaries. It turns out that the former Arstan fleet admiral has recently retired. And if my intel is correct, he’s currently enjoying life on the planet of Kandora.”
“Fleet Admiral Frega? Well. I never would have