The Noble Officer Part 1

 The Noble Officer: Part 1

William’s was his name, R.T Williams, a human from the colony world of Gertuti VI, he was top of his class at the United Systems Naval Academy and has worked his way up from Junior Lieutenant of the U.S.F(United Systems Fleet) Smithson’s engineering department to Senior Lieutenant o f Engineering operations after serving for only four years after graduating the academy. Every morning he’d awake groom himself and then make sure his blue Engineering uniform was neatly preserved before putting it on and striding into the engineering deck to check on the night crews progress, before starting his rounds of the key systems to ensure his department was in top shape. Williams was only 26 and a half years old but had more experience in being an officer than some officers had by his age due to his ships Captain’s routine habit of finding trouble for the ship and her crew to deal with. Unlike many officers Captain, Armag Grick, was a Socurian, a species of warriors that values strength and find diagnosis and strategy to be boring subjects. Captain Grick was over fifty years old and had lost several limbs that had been replaced with cybernetics had he not saved countless diplomats and been responsible for countless United Systems Victories against both Pirates and the Empire, he would've been court martialed and reprimanded and possibly even discharged rather than being promoted. Williams likes to believe that he was only put onto Captain Grick’s ship because he was such a marvelous and intelligent engineer capable of sustaining the ship despite the Smiths countless firefights that he could maintain the ship, meaning that the U.S.F was aware of Grick’s shoot first ask questions later approach and possibly the reason he made Senior Lieutenant aboard the Smithson so fast, but regardless of this he genuinely loved his job and loved the ship he worked on and its crew.

William’s second in command was Lieutenant Gum, an ironic name to Williams since Gum was a Colag, a species of jellatinus stick goo creatures and he happened to be pink as he slowly oozed around the engineering bay. Williams and Gum’s friendship was one of sustenance and pride aboard the ship, they had done over 100 missions together in their four years and have worked their way to becoming the heads of the Engineering department aboard the ship. Gum was a great mechanic able to fix anything especially in tight or hard to reach places, and Williams was outstanding at monitoring the status and maintaining the ship. 

This morning Williams was making is morning rounds, running diagnostics on the ships hyperdrive, when he found something rather odd, a strange metal box was attached inside of it, a box that appeared to be attaching the fuel drive to the hyperdrive with  a negative charge running though it. He immediately scanned the device to discover its origins and then summoned security to the engineering deck. The ships chief security officer, Senior Lieutenant Gamba was a female Yurian,Yurians were toadlike reptillian beings with infrared vision as she arrived in her blue and dark gray armored security uniform and entered the engineering deck she quickly aided Williams in removing the metal box and then dismantled it to discover what it was. Upon scanning it she discovered the box had two tubes of a rare explosive gel known as Rendalin, its origin only found on the Imperial world of Beghetti far beyond the reaches of United Systems. This led the security head to go into investigation mode, there was an imperial saboteur or a traitor aboard their ship.

 A meeting was called for the department heads with the captain and his bridge crew in the meeting hall. The Pilot,Kary Caru was a cyborg human male who’s enhanced eyes allowed him to better detect and navigate the ship throughout the galaxy, the First officer, Maurice Thangar, was a female Gridlan, her people were nearly all resistant to lava and fire coming from a magma world and her warrior heritage was somewhat of a compliment to the Captains similar Socurian heritage, The chief Scientific and medical officer Doctor Benkio Skoth was a Pilip, a species with several brains, four hearts and three stomachs, they were similar to humans in appearance despite their massive oversized craniums that seemed to throb when they thought, there was also the ships Diplomatic Officer, Genivieve Haan who was a hybrid human and Liog, a species of mammal that had adopted by canine and feline traits. The ships lead officers sat in the meeting room as the Captain,Grick finally arrived.

“What is the situation, Lieutenant Gamba?” asks Grick. “It appears we have a sabateur onboard, an imperial by the looks of the bomb, that was riddled with three pipes of Rendalin” states Gamba,  this shocks the crew as it was near impossible that any of their crewmen were traitors. “How was this bomb discovered?” asks the Captain. “ I found it this morning on my rounds, i was running a scan on the hyperdrive, when i discovered it, someone had managed to rewire the cooling tanks and the main drive together, and by my own calculations it would’ve launched us at lightspeed before filling the cooling tanks with rendlin causing a massive chain reaction that could’ve severely damaged the fleet” explains Williams. “Then we best be thankful to you Lieutenant Williams, if you weren’t as thorough at your job, inspecting the engineering deck everyday, we may have put the entire fleet in danger”states Grick. “The fleet Captain?” asks Thangar. “Indeed, we were just summoned to rendezvous with Admiral Cross and U.S.F Halen, along with his entire fleet along the border of the neutral zone, at an undisclosed coordinate” states Grick. “The Halen is a Omega Class Elite Super Destroyer, its destruction would’ve incited an imperial attack” however now that we know about the bomb, we may have just saved the Alliance” states Haan, in approval of Williams actions. “What do we do, how do we find the traitor?” asks Kary, looking to the captain and Gamba. “ first i am requesting a full diagnostic and weapons scan of the ship, lead by Lieutenant Gamba and Williams, and a crew wide organic scan run by Doctor Skoth” commands Grick. “I shall begin immediately, Captain, if i am to survey the entire crew before our rendezvous with the fleet, may i request two security officers be dispatched to aid in my search” states Skoth exiting the room. “They will be dispatched at once” states Gamba. “Good, begin our search, i also want a security officer stationed in all escape pod bays, and the ship to be placed on high alert until the saboteur is found. Dismissed” orders Grick. The officers fan out of the room, Williams is stopped by the captain. “Williams, you deserve a commendation for finding that bomb, i will be certain to report your efforts to the Fleet administrators, you deserve a promotion for this” states Grick. “Thank you,sir, now let's find this saboteur before he tears up our ship or worse”states Williams. 

Williams returned to the Engineering deck where Gum and his crew were awaiting him. As he entered his engineers saluted him as Gum shouted “Senior officer on Deck!” “at ease” responds Williams quickly as he enters saluting his engineers. “ i want every single inch of the engineering bay scanned, and non-essential engineering personnel assisting the security team in scanning the remainder of the ship. “Sir?” asks Gum. “the rumors are true, this morning upon my routine scanning and examinations of our engineering bay, i discovered a bomb,  a traitor is amongst us, if they are found they are to be reported, hence why all engineers will be assigned a military escort and second engineer to assist in their tasks today, Lieutenant Gum your with me the rest of you pair off and head to your designated areas to begin running diagnostics and scanning for U.O’s”orders Williams. Gum slides over to him “You don’t actually believe it was one of our guys do you?” asks Gum. “it was in the bay this morning inside the Hyperdrive controller, keep an eye out gum for any of them acting suspicious today” orders Williams. “Yes sir!” replies Gum. 

The day went on business as usual as no further scans for foreign projectiles appeared during the security and diagnostic scans of the ship, however the security troopers aboard found and excess of Rendalin, in a crate in the cargo bay. The crate was unmarked by who it belonged to and all they knew was that it was positioned in a place where it would have furthered the damage if the ship had exploded.  Gamba watched the security cameras for the bay in which the Rendalin container was located in to try and find the person who had placed this strange Unidentified container of explosives, but it was to no use, whomever had placed the bomb and placed this Rendalin container was smart enough to jam the sensors or deactivate them when they entered and loaded the container to this location. The only positive side of this the sabateur hadn’t counted on was that now the United Systems had a container of Rendalin in their inventory, that was under 24 hour security watch.

Doctor Skoth’s tests on the crew also came up fruitless as none of the crew had any sign of a signature that would’ve been produced by the explosive fuel, unless they had been directly exposed to it such as the officers Gamba and Williams and the security crew whom had to guard the excess rendalin on shifts. Even the engineering night crew had no signature from the material, nor did any crew member have any sign of being a saboteur according to the medical staff. This lead the crew to decipher only one possibility, somehow a stowaway had managed to get aboard. The Security Troopers were on high alert as they prepped the ship for lightspeed to rendezvous with the fleet, wherever this saboteur was they would most likely attempt to make their move upon their arrival with the fleet and Captain Grick wanted to be ready for it. Just before launching to lightspeed, a scan was done of the ship to detect any more bombs or Rendalin and aside from the rendalin in the cargo bay no other Rendalin existed aboard, a biosign scan was also made but without knowing what type of lifeform the sabateur was it was unlikely that they would find them.

The Smithson jumped to lightspeed to rendezvous with with the Halen’s fleet and as they did, a shoot out erupted in one of the escape pod bays, apparently the sabateur hadn’t realized their bomb was defused and managed to hop in an escape pod shortly before the ships launch to lightspeed, taking out two troopers assigned to that deck before they escaped. The security officers' body cams were investigated, but the saboteur was smart, they employed some form of stealth field tech to eliminate their targets before escaping creating an invisibility cloak around themselves, and jammed the sensors in the bay. Grick had thought this saboteur foolish as they had no idea that they had already disarmed the bomb before it escaped, thinking that this sabateur had to have been the worst sabateur ever hired.

As they rendezvoused with the Halen’s Fleet they were immediately scanned by two smaller corvette class craft that identified the ship was on high alert, its shields raised and the residue from the Rendalin in their cargo bay, the Smithson was hailed at once and Grick had to explain the situation. In less than an hour the Corvettes docked with the Smithson and removed the Rendalin from the cargo bay as well as investigated the Smaller Destroyers ship with U.S Marines whom were able to confirm the story before leaving the fleet behind and returning the Rendalin to a nearby Alliance refinery and factory world where the Rendalin would be cloned and experimented on by the U.S.F scientists, to find new ways of facing the empire. In a number of moments after the Rendalin left the system a large imperial fleet came out of lightspeed, most likely expecting the Rendalin scan in the systems disappearance was a sign the bomb went off and they had destroyed the fleet, but this had worked to the Alliance’s advantage. The alliance had been able to swiftly defeat this imperial fleet and force their ships into a retreat.

Shortly after the attack, a meeting was held in the officers meeting room, this one consisting of holograms exchanging informations from between the captains. Williams was summoned by Captain Grick to this meeting by request of Admiral Cross. As Williams entered the captains holograms dissipated leaving only the Admiral and Captain within the chamber. Admiral Cross, was a Human an older human male possibly in his late fifties or sixties, his head bald and his eyebrows well groomed through the hologram, his uniform white with blue stripes over his shoulders. “So this is the Lieutenant that is to be rewarded for our victory” states Cross as he enters. “Lieutenant Williams this is Admiral Wayne Cross, of the Halen” introduces Grick. Williams salutes Cross immediately. “At ease Soldier” states Cross calmly saluting him back. “ i understand that you were able to disarm a bomb planted by a sabateur aboard the Smithson, and you have quite an astonishing record” states Cross. “Yes, Sir” states the modest Williams. “ i am in need of a man of your caliber and by your captains own recommendation i am alerting you to my own request of having you receive a accommodation and promotion from Senior Lieutenant of Engineering to Captain aboard a new U.S.F Cruiser that is being built as we speak out of ship yards on Falcriif” states The Admiral. “Thank you sir” states William saluting him. “ You deserve it, Captain Williams, you are to report to Falcriif Shipyards the moment your replacement for the Smithson arrives” states Cross saluting him as he disappears. “Congratulations,Captain” states Grick extending his hand to shake Williams own. Williams shakes Gricks hand for the first time as equals no longer as captain and senior lieutenant. 

In a number of hours the shuttle holding Williams replacement arrived. He said his goodbyes to the crew of the Smithson and with what few personal items he had aboard with him packed in a case boarded the transport as it refueled and quickly left the ships hanger to the edge of the system and finally jumped to lightspeed to Falcriff.