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Back Ark Royal Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover Blurb
  2. Contents
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“Captain,” Midshipwoman Lopez said, over the intercom, “the latest shuttle is approaching the shuttlebay.”

Ted nodded.  Three days of struggling desperately to prepare Ark Royal for active service had reminded him, again, of just how much paperwork the first commanding officer of any starship had to actually do.  Everything had to be carefully detailed and documented, in triplicate, before the ship could leave orbit.  In Ark Royal’s case, the modifications the crew had made to keep her functional also had to be carefully noted, just to make life simpler for the bureaucrats.  But they’d probably end up with headaches if they tried to follow what his crew had done.

“Understood,” he said, dropping the terminal on his desk.  His office was large, in theory, but several more boxes of spare parts had been stored there for the last few years.  “I’m on my way.”

He looked wistfully at the cabinet containing his selection of alcohol, then angrily dismissed the thought and strode out of the cabinet.  It was tempting, so very tempting, to take a glass ... but he knew it wouldn't remain at a single glass.  He’d take another, and then another, until he was blind drunk.  And then the Admiral would relieve him of command, once he found out.

Two hundred crewmen, mainly borrowed from the Luna Shipyards, had already come aboard Ark Royal since the PM had made his announcement.  They’d done wonders for the ship, but it would still be at least two weeks before they could reasonably claim to be ready for any kind of deployment.  Ted marched down the corridor, noting where internal nodes had been carefully replaced with modern systems, then reminded himself to skim through the paperwork once the work was completed.  They had to make sure that all of the different systems could work together before they took the starship into combat.

He nodded to Commander Fitzwilliam as he entered the shuttlebay, just in time to watch as the shuttle came into land.  Fitzwilliam wasn't doing too badly, as far as Ted could tell, although he was clearly unprepared for the carrier’s idiosyncrasies.  But then, that would be true of almost everyone in the Royal Navy.  The only way to prepare for the carrier was to serve on the carrier.  Thankfully, Fitzwilliam was smart enough to listen to his subordinates, rather than lord himself over them.  He understood the limitations of his own knowledge.

“Mainly starfighter pilots,” Fitzwilliam said, as the shuttle’s hatch opened.  “They seem to think we need them more than engineers and other workers.”