Read Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship for Free Online

appreciative sniff before locking the lid down. Though it might seem counterintuitive given the lack of many common comforts aboard the ship, CENTCOM made sure that the coffee, and most other rations, that made it onto Fleet ships was as good as anything you’d find planetside.
    “Captain on the bridge!” the sentry announced loudly. Since they were now underway nobody leapt out of their seats to snap to attention. It was standing policy on his ship that once out of orbit or out of dock nobody on the command deck would render courtesies at the expense of taking their attention away from their station. In fact, the Marine shouldn't have even announced it.
    “Report, Ensign Davis,” he said, sitting back in his chair and slipping the mug into the holder, feeling the magnet grab it with a click.
    “Magnetic containment is stable and the plasma chambers are fully charged on the mains,” the operations officer said. “Engineering reports we have full thrust available.”
    “Let’s take it easy until we’ve had a bit more shakedown time,” Jackson said with a smile. “Set course for the Tau Ceti jump point, ahead one quarter.”
    “Ahead one quarter, aye,” the helmsman said, grabbing the throttles on his left. Immediately there was a deep rumble as the main engines throttled up and the Blue Jacket surged ahead under her own power. There was a gentle tug of inertia before it was nulled out by the gravimetric generators.
    The main engines were basically enormous, electric rocket motors. Inert argon gas, the propellant, was ionized and then converted into superheated plasma through radio frequency excitation. The plasma was magnetically confined and directed out the nozzle to produce thrust. The advantage of a magneto-plasma engine is that the propellant is nonvolatile and it is capable of impressive amounts of thrust. The downside is that it takes a prodigious amount of electrical power to operate, but electrical power was something the Blue Jacket had plenty of. Four deuterium fusion reactors sat in a row in the belly of the destroyer, capable of running the engines and weapons simultaneously and able to provide enough power to the warp drive to achieve long-duration, sustained faster-than-light travel.
    “At current acceleration, how long until we reach our jump point?” Jackson asked.
    “Fifty-nine hours, sir,” Ensign Davis answered.
    “Go to standard watch schedule,” Jackson ordered. “I want all department heads in the conference room in forty-eight hours. That gives them two days to make a complete inspection of their areas and personnel before we even attempt to power up the warp drive.”
    “Standard watch, aye,” the communications officer said, sending the appropriate orders through the com system.
    “XO, you have the ship. I’ll have my comlink if you need me,” Jackson said, grabbing his half-full coffee mug and walking off the bridge.
     

 
    Chapter 3
     
    The next two days were a blur of inspections, problems found, and emergency repairs made while the ship steamed out of the system. Jackson secretly liked the pace, enjoying the frantic activity around him even while his crew grumbled and complained about the “idiots at Jericho fucking up their ship.” He also took the opportunity to really lean on Commander Wright and see if he could detect any cracks in her polished surface. She looked exhausted and harried by the end of the second day, as she was the main point of contact to coordinate work between departments. She was the one who had to tell certain groups to stop, start, or listen to them complain bitterly about other people being in their way.
    She handled it all with a forced professionalism and didn’t let the department heads bully her into getting their way. Jackson was impressed considering that she’d only been on the ship for a few days and had never served in the capacity of Executive Officer, but outwardly he made sure she knew that there was plenty of room for