Chapter 3: Donovan Strauss 2

"Donovan Strauss, DS, reporting for duty ma'am!" Don took up a picture perfect salute in front of the admiral's desk. Everything from the angle of his elbow to the tone of his voice was textbook. Years of military academy had a tendency to do that to a man, though in his case it would be better to say boy.

"At ease officer. Admiral Adirondack, pleasure to meet you." For being in such a high ranking position, she was surprisingly lax on the formalities. "I'm not the biggest fan of all that standing at attention bullshit if you haven't noticed. I run a warship, not a parade. Feel free to call me Addy. Most of the men already do. I take it Don is fine as well?"

"I see no issue with it Admiral Addy."

"Drop the Admiral, Don. God I hate you stiff newbie types." She scoffed at his etiquette, closing her eyes and sighing. "You'll grow out of it I'm sure. They always do."

As Don stood in an awkward state of semi-attention, Addy started to rifle through one of the drawers in her desk. Various obscenities could be heard as she struggled with her terrible organization system. After what felt to be a few minutes of this almost painful display, Addy finally popped her head back out from behind the desk with a thick manila folder in her hands.

"Son of a bitch. It's 2934, you would think that I wouldn't need to be using something as antiquated as paper to receive and convey orders, yet here we are." She handed it to him with a scowl on her face and frustration in her voice. "Mission orders for this tour. You, my friend, have a long ass itinerary of shit to do. I don't know exactly what it is that your fancy schmancy training qualified you for, but I sure as shit hope it prepared you for whatever the fuck it is you are going to be doing." She was laying it on heavy with the profanity. Was this normal for her?

"Five years basic piloting academy and another five for advanced training." Don flipped through some of what he had to do, noticing an uncomfortable amount of black bars. "Think it'll be enough?"

"Not a clue. I was reading through your mission overviews and they were using terms I'm not familiar with. Keep in mind I have fifteen years of experience in running this ship in particular and ten more from my tours as an officer. For now though, I need you to head over to the bow hangar. You have a present and a certain someone waiting for you there. Dismissed."

-----

Don clutched his folder tightly as he made his way back up the ship, starting to feel a little fatigued from the stress of his day. From what action he was seeing on board, he had a feeling that the Calibration was about to undock. Undocking had to be done very carefully with a ship of this magnitude. She was more massive than the dock itself, so any turning while connected was to be avoided, lest the dock be torn from the rest of the port structure.

In the midst of the gentle rumbling which suggested a successful and uneventful undocking procedure had occurred, Don finally arrived at his destination.

Awaiting him at the door was a man he was intimately familiar with. His mentor, friend, and jailor, Doctor Helmsguard. Ten or so years of study and training under his watchful gaze made him into the man he is today.

An amazing scientist, Doctor Helmsguard was responsible for everything about Don's life during his time under the doctor's watch. His training regimen, his education programs, how much time he had to shower, even his food was prepared by him.

Don had zero complaints in the food department. He was convinced that the Doctor was actually a master of the culinary arts as opposed to the leading researcher in both field dynamics and particle physics.

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"Donovan." He nodded his head in greeting. "You are a bit late, but it isn't exactly like we can do anything in regards to testing until we are clear of the Civilian Vehicle Range. What I can do is introduce you to your new best friend. Follow me."

The old man stood himself upright from his leaning position against one of the open airlock doors and brought him into a hallway connected to the Bow Hangar. Always wanting to know more about his situation, something of a habit he picked up in the confusion of training, he probed for info from his chaperone.

"So what's this 'Bow Hangar' thing anyway? I can't remember it being mentioned in any of my ship design classes." This was actually something that had been bugging him on his way here. As far as he knew, all hangars and their openings were placed ventrally on ships in order to protect them during combat. Leaving them on only the top and bottom made it easier to protect them from fire by virtue of rotating the ship to present any other armored face to the threat. An opening on the bow would make the ship vulnerable from more angles.

The Doctor didn't mind his question as this was not something he had been taught.

"It's a relic of an older age of combat. Strike craft used to be mag-launched from the bow in order to give them a higher initial speed. However, as I'm sure you are aware, hangar openings are massive weaknesses on ships as they often lead directly to the vulnerable and explody bits. When this was combined with the sheer length of time it takes to both launch craft and turn a ship of this size along it's long axis, it was found to be an extremely uncomfortable weakness."

"Of course there are other factors that play into why this design choice was discontinued, namely the natural sparsity of Point defense on the bow thanks to limited surface area. This ship is the last full sized carrier that retains the bow hangar in the fleet, but nothing important has been placed in it for quite some time now. Usually a pair of light repair ships is kept in case of emergencies, but high command decided that this hangar was perfect for our little starship."

The Doctor rapped his fist on the wall as he walked.

"You don't have to worry about the bow being a weak point now though. Nothing too explosive is stored there any longer and the hangar space in between her and the main has been filled with concrete and ceramic layers. Armoring is about 30 meters thick, more than capable of stopping capital class kinetic and guided munitions. Assuming they aren't coming in at too flat of an angle at least."

"What about the rest of the hangar?"

"Oh that still has paper-thin armor, but the plan with this ship is to never have it in hangar during combat. You might not have a place to land for a few hours, but you'll be fine. I can guarantee you that."

He stopped his explanation as they reach yet another closed door.

"That's enough of that. It's time for you to meet your new best friend."

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