Gravity Distortion Field (3)
Freesia smiled warmly at Frederick, her earlier internal tirade against the personnel chief softening a little. "Did you wrap up the discussion well?"
"Thanks to you. If we'd just followed the regulations to the letter, it would've been a disaster."
Frederick, with his sixty years of experience, had proven to be the greatest help in Freesia's novice command life. This incident was no exception. After looking into cases of lost Gravity Distortion Fields, Freesia had considered two main approaches: following standard formal disciplinary procedures, or handling it unofficially while issuing an equivalent punishment.
But Frederick's opinion differed. He suggested handling it unofficially but significantly reducing the severity of the disciplinary action. His reasoning was that while they hadn't found the field initially, they had successfully recovered it, so no real catastrophe had occurred. Moreover, although regulations technically called for a heavy penalty, in cases like this it was better to issue a moderate punishment—giving the offender a chance to reflect, followed by a warning to prevent recurrence. Of course, if something similar happened again, there would be no leniency; it would be handled strictly by the book.
Since the loss had occurred without malicious intent during the process of subduing a cyborg, they applied discretionary judgment and treated it like a suspended sentence. In the end, Morgan gained an opportunity to redeem his single mistake, and Freesia avoided being seen as a rigid, by-the-book commander. It was a win-win.
"I really don't know what I would've done without you, Master Chief Petty Officer. I know so little about all this."
She wasn't just saying it. If she counted all the ways Frederick had helped her since taking command of the battalion, the list would never end. Of course, the capable officer corps—including Dmitry—had been a huge help too, but the flexible problem-solving that came from sixty years of experience was a priceless lesson no academy could teach.
"Commander. The salvage ship and escort fleet have arrived. Shall I open the comm channel?"
At the communications officer's report, Freesia nodded. Soon a young officer who looked around her age appeared on the main panel.
The fleet Major Rio brought consisted of two companies and three salvage vessels. Although most of the pirates had been subdued, five high-speed boats remained, so he had apparently organized his forces to ensure none would dare challenge them.
The process of salvaging the high-speed boats was simpler than expected. The data to hand over to the salvage fleet had already been prepared by the officer corps while Freesia was unconscious, so all that remained was connecting the boats to the salvage ships while the search battalion and two company-sized fleets stood guard. Beyond that, they simply transferred the pirate prisoners.
Of course, salvaging capital ships the size of battleships or larger would have required an incomparably more complex process, but for mere high-speed boats, this was sufficient.
"Commander. Would you like some of this?"
While watching the salvage operation and snacking, a thought suddenly occurred to Freesia. She called Daisy over again.
"Now that I think about it, how have the others been doing lately?"
"The others? Oh, you mean the rest of the orderlies?"
Freesia had been assigned six orderlies in total. Among them, Staff Sergeant Daisy was the senior, followed by one Sergeant, three Corporals, and one Private First Class. Originally, Daisy and the Sergeant-level orderly were supposed to take turns accompanying Freesia, with the lower-ranking ones assisting. But after the actual situation erupted, Daisy—the most senior—had continued to follow Freesia except in special circumstances.
Since it was a direct staff position under the battalion commander, Freesia knew she should be managing them personally. However, with the sudden workload, she had barely managed to memorize the other orderlies' names while struggling just to carry out her given duties.
She spent all day commanding the fleet from the bridge, handling paperwork, then collapsed into sleep in the captain's quarters at night. It was a hamster-wheel existence, leaving her no time for proper conversations with them.
"Nothing much is happening with them. Our position is actually one that doesn't have much to do in situations like this."
Orderlies, essentially the commander's personal secretaries, were surprisingly busy during normal times. They had to receive communications directed at the commander from all over, prioritize them, organize the commander's office, run various errands, and handle all sorts of miscellaneous tasks.
But now it was the complete opposite. Freesia was busy sitting in the command chair all day directing the fleet, and the fleet itself had been granted autonomy to move about, so no one was calling for her. Plus, the captain's quarters were used only for washing and sleeping, leaving nothing to organize. When the orderlies had gone in to clean after Freesia started her daily duties, they said the only things they did were empty a few cans from the trash and refill some empty spots in the fridge.
Normally, when they had no tasks, they would help other departments. But during the asteroid search, the other departments' main job was simply staring blankly at radar screens, so the orderlies had truly been reduced to a position with absolutely nothing to do.
As a result, except for those taking turns assisting Daisy, they had been cooped up in the orderly room, spending their time doing nothing. Realizing that her orderlies were unintentionally turning into neets, Freesia found herself at a loss for words. Come to think of it, this was something she should have been paying attention to.
From the orderlies' perspective, everyone else was frantically busy, so they would have felt awkward wandering around with nothing to do. But staying shut up in the orderly room didn't give them anything else to do either. During peacetime they could have used their personal terminals while waiting, but right now they were in the middle of an actual operation. For security reasons, all channels except military ones had been blocked. They were literally just staring into space all day long.
At least after cleaning up the pirate ships, the staff department's workload had increased, so they had gradually been assigned tasks and were now staying busy.
"Looking at it that way, you've really been through a lot."
Of course, as the senior orderly, Daisy would mainly follow Freesia even in normal times, but she wouldn't be stuck to her side every single day without weekends like this.
"What hardship is there for me? It's mostly just running small errands."
It was true. At first she had been dissatisfied with having to follow Freesia around without holidays or personal maintenance time, but seeing everyone else clearly struggling, she wasn't thoughtless enough to keep complaining. Especially after watching Freesia—who had such a strong body—collapse from exhaustion, all her grumbling had vanished.
"Commander. All connections between the salvage ships and high-speed boats have been completed."
While chatting with Daisy and the other orderlies about various things, the salvage operation had somehow been nearly finished. After receiving Major Rio's report and completing simple final procedures, the salvage ships and escort fleet departed. Freesia sank deep into her command chair.
She had suddenly been appointed battalion commander and told she was being sent to an easy post—only to arrive at a complete mess. For over a month and a half, she had pushed her mana circuits to the limit running operations, engaged in combat, collapsed, and upon waking found mountains of work waiting, not to mention her subordinate unit had lost a Gravity Distortion Field. Thinking about it like this, it really felt like every possible incident and accident had occurred.
There was still work left to do, of course.
I don't want to.
She really didn't want to. She knew that if she didn't take care of some work while she had this free time, it would be harder later—but wouldn't her future self somehow take care of it? After pondering various excuses, Freesia remained seated in the command chair until ten at night, processing various documents before she finally fell asleep.
The tumultuous day passed, and the next day arrived. With the handover of the high-speed boats and prisoners complete, they should have continued the search as before. However, the 2nd Search Battalion remained pinned in place as if nailed down. The same was true for the remaining six battalions scattered throughout the asteroid belt.
This was because they were waiting for instructions from Flotilla Commander Lavire before resuming the search.
Why doesn't he just make the Chief of Staff do it?
The other battalion commanders were probably thinking the same thing. The difference between a mere Lieutenant Colonel and a General was like heaven and earth, far more than a mere two-rank gap. Although the Chief of Staff—who was only a Colonel without a star—nagged a lot, facing him was far more comfortable.
A short while later, at the appointed time, Brigadier General Lavire appeared on the cruiser's main panel.
"Loyalty! We greet the Flotilla Commander!"
As if they had arranged it beforehand, the seven battalion commanders saluted in perfect unison.
At the words "good news," slight puzzlement and anticipation appeared on Freesia's face and those of the bridge crew.
"At 04:58 GrST 00. Five vessels were detected departing from the outer edge of the asteroid belt toward the system periphery. Detailed analysis confirmed that the five vessels were high-speed boats belonging to the pirates who had been hiding in the asteroid belt. Therefore, I hereby declare the termination of the search operation at this time."
After conveying all instructions, Brigadier General Lavire offered a gentle smile and praised the hard work of the battalions under his command.
"You've all worked hard."
As soon as the transmission ended, a momentary silence fell over the bridge, quickly followed by cheers erupting.
Finally. They could finally leave this wretched asteroid belt.
The days of being unable to call friends and feeling like even rest wasn't really rest were now over. Once the excited atmosphere had somewhat calmed, the operations officer and intelligence officer hurriedly displayed the optimized route on the main panel.
"It will take approximately four hours to reach that position. After that, we can perform a space jump directly to the military port."
The seven battalions, including the 2nd Search Battalion, each followed their respective routes out of the asteroid belt and entered the inner system. They then performed space jumps to dock at the military port.
It was a return after a full fifty-one days since entering the asteroid belt.