Midshipman's Hope
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Midshipman's Hope is a 1994 science fiction novel by David Feintuch, and the first book in the Seafort Saga. It depicts the first voyage of UNNS officer Nicholas Seafort to the colony of Hope Nation, and is followed by Challenger's Hope.
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[edit] Tagline
Being the first voyage of Nicholas Seafort, U.N.N.S., in the year of our lord 2194.
[edit] Publisher's Synopsis
When a hideous accident kills the senior officers of UNS Hibernia it leaves a terrified young officer to save three hundred colonists and crew aboard a damaged ship on a seventeen-month gauntlet to reach the colony of Hope Nation. With no chance of rescue or reinforcement, Nicholas Seafort must overcome despair, exhaustion and guilt; he must conquer malfunctions, mutiny, and an alien horror beyond human understanding. And he must save lives, and take them, in the name of duty.
[edit] Plot
[edit] Start of the Voyage
Nicholas Seafort is the seventeen year old first midshipman of the UNS Hibernia, under the command of Captain Justin Haag on a three-year interstellar voyage to the colonies of Hope Nation and Detour. He quickly finds himself at odds with the ship's First Lieutenant, Lt Cousins and the second senior midshipman, Vax Holser, whom he fights (and barely defeats) to defend his position in the midshipman's wardroom. Seafort hopes to gain enough ship's time on the voyage to be able to take his lieutenant's exam when Hibernia returns to Home System, but his skill at navigating the ship is extremely lacking, and his first simulated docking exercise ends with the ship destroyed in a collision. Increasingly disillusioned with his abilities as an officer, he has more success in his personal life as he strikes up a friendship and chess rivalry with third lieutenant Harv Malstrom, and begins a relationship with one of Hibernia's passengers, Amanda Frowel.
[edit] Disaster
Whilst visiting the wreak of the UNS Celestina, a chain of events leads to Hibernia's Captain and two senior lieutenants away from the ship, attempting to help an injured passenger. As they return aboard the ship's launch it explodes, killing all aboard and elevating Malstrom to the Captaincy. Although this makes Seafort second-in-command of Hibernia his role as first midshipman does not change, although he does manage to establish a more solid control of the wardroom after Holser apologises for his earlier behaviour. He also gains some leadership experience in quelling a brawl in one of the crew berths, a brawl that leads to several courts-martial and in the sentencing of three crewmen to death. Before he can confirm or commute the sentences, as required by UNNS regulations, Malstrom falls ill with cancer contracted from the background radiation emitted from the ship's drive and dies refusing, despite Seafort's desperation, to commission the far more competent Vax Holser as a lieutenant.
[edit] Captaincy
Seafort searches the regulations, attempting to find some way to relieve himself of the burden of Captaincy, but fails. He strikes up a friendship with Chief McAndrews, Hibernia's Chief Engineer, under the pretext of 'experimenting' with a pipe and tobacco found in the Captain's safe (in fact, as Seafort guessed, the pipe and tobacco were McAndrews' and Haag, an old friend of the chief, had kept it hidden to avoid the risk of the contraband being found). In command of the ship, he runs Holser ragged to ensure that the new first midshipman does not return to his earlier bullying behaviour, ultimately testing him by ordering him to clean the ship's launch berth alone- a test Holser passes with flying colours bay setting to the task without complaint. Seafort confirms two of the death sentences imposed by Malstrom's court martial (commuting the third to several months imprisonment) and oversees their hanging in the ship's engine room, despite his actions resulting in his estrangement from Amanda, and suffering nightmares about the two men for months afterwards. He then discovers, through a combination of his own poor navigation skills and sheer stubbornness, that the programming of the ship's sentient computer, Darla, has been corrupted by incompetent naval programmers, and that 'she' was responsible for the launch explosion that killed Captain Haag. Afraid of the result should Darla become suicidal on realising her responsibility for the accident, Seafort has the puter restored from backup, saving the ship. Realising that the ship is undermanned regarding officers (only three midshipmen, when Hibernia should have three lieutenants and four midshipmen), Seafort begins a recruiting drive, inducting ship's boy Ricky Fuentes and passengers Derek Carr and later Paula Treadwell as Cadets. The latter proved to have serious consequences as Treadwell's parents promptly launched a campaign to demand her release from the navy, which ultimately led to Seafort threatening them with imprisonment if they did not desist.
[edit] Ambush
Arriving at Miningcamp, a small mining colony in an otherwise uninhabitable system, Seafort discovers that the latest ore barge and the starship Telstar have failed to arrive. The mystery is quickly replaced by danger, as mutineers from Miningcamp Station under the leadership of civilian, Kerwin Jones, board the ship by impersonating Miningcamp's commander General Kall and his staff, killing Midshipman Sandy Wilsky in the process. Seafort buys time for the crew to regroup by charging the boarders single handed, armed with a single laser pistol, and his life is only saved by the timely intervention of Vax Holser. Breaking the ship loose, the boarders are eventually subdued, but not before they threaten to decompress the ship, leading Hibernia's Pilot Haynes to plead with Seafort to negotiate, lest the ship end up like Celestina. Refusing, Seafort browbeats the borders into surrender, then relives the Pilot of his duties- Hibernia had enough oxygen stored in the hold to re-air the ship seven times over had it been decompressed. Interrogating the prisoners, Seafort learns that the real General Kall is being held captive on the station by more mutineers, and returns to deal with the situation, eventually obtaining a surrender with a promise that station mutineers would not be executed and a threat to slice the station into small pieces should a surrender not be forthcoming. Having obtained General Kall's reluctant acquiescence, Seafort aids the General in crushing the mutiny on the surface of Miningcamp, then tries and executes Jones and his boarders, most by hanging, the individual responsible for Wilsky's death by throwing him out of the airlock.
[edit] Hope Nation
Commissioning his old adversary, now friend, Vax Holser as a Lieutenant shortly before arrival, Seafort expects to be relieved of his Captaincy by the Admiral commanding Hope Nation's naval garrison, but discovers not only that the Admiral has died in a strange viral epidemic, but the Captain now in command is junior to himself, leaving Seafort in command, not only of Hibernia but of all naval forces in Hope Nation system. Resigned to remaining in command, Seafort takes his month's leave visiting the planets plantations with Derek Carr, and the Venturas mountains with Carr and Amanda, the two lovers now reconciled following Seafort's courage at Miningcamp. In the Venturas the three discover a UNNS Captain hiding there with his wife, with a strange story of meteors spraying something in the sky shortly before the epidemic broke out. Believing the man to be mad Seafort dismisses his story as fantasy. Upon returning to Centraltown, and preparing to get Hibernia underway, Seafort finds himself in yet more trouble, as the Treadwells have managed to persuade a Hope Nation judge to grant them custody of their daughter over naval authority. Incensed, Seafort smuggles the remaining midshipmen and cadets aboard the ship, then returns to Centraltown to challenge the judge in question, and after a heated confrontation manages to fudge a compromise in which Seafort publicly apologises for his comments during their confrontation, while the judge erases all details both of the confrontation and the Treadwell case. Nonetheless, the two board the ship to continue to Detour, and vow to continue their fight.
[edit] Officer problems
To support his inexperienced midshipmen and lieutenant, Seafort requests that the Hope Nation garrison supply him with replacements for those officers lost interstellar. His new first lieutenant, Lars Chantir, proves an amiable character, but the other two, Lieutenant Ardwell Crossburn and Philip Tyre are trouble. Crossburn, the nephew of Admiral Brentley, Chief of Naval Operations proves incessantly nosy, investigating all the troubles of Hibernia's voyage and affecting crew morale with his constant second-guessing of Seafort's decisions. Tyre, while polite and competent when dealing with his superiors is a tyrant in the wardroom, issuing demerits for the slightest infraction, and frequently piling them on at such a rate that the junior midshipmen are unable to work them off, and are so caned- morale in the wardroom plummets. Despite Tyre Rafe Treadwell, Paula's twin brother, requests enlistment as a Cadet, and his parent's response outweighs all their previous antics. When the ship arrives at Detour, the twins' father takes Ricky Fuentes hostage, holding a knife to the Cadet's eye and demanding the release of his children. Offering himself in the boy's place, Seafort eventually manages to talk the man into surrendering the weapon, and dispatches both the senior Treadwells to the surface before the ship leaves. Seafort's ultimate response to his two problem officers, Crossburn and Tyre, is decisive. To deal with Crossburn he pretends to fear that the explosion of Hibernia's launch was due to a bomb, and so has the lieutenant single-handedly disassemble the launch's seats to check for explosives, a task which takes most of a day- every day until the ship's return to Earth. To put a stop to Tyre's tyranny he promotes Alexi Tamarov to lieutenant and places him in charge of the midshipmen with instructions to "get things back in order". Tyre's mistreatment of his juniors soon ceases.
[edit] Contact
When Hibernia defuses for a routine navigational check, her sensors detect an unidentified object. Closing with it, the object is identified as UNS Telstar, adrift in space with massive rents in her hull. Holding faint hope that there may be survivors Seafort leaves Holser in command of his ship and leads a three-man boarding party in the Captains gig, and to his horror discovers a strange alien life form, resembling an amoeba, in the ship's corridor. Ordering the gig crew to cast off, Seafort retreats to the gap in the hull and launches in his thrustersuit, just in time to see a gigantic, goldfish-like alien appear from behind Telstar and destroy the gig with an acid tendril. Hibernia goes to battle stations, and in a short exchange drives off the alien. Afraid of its return, Seafort repeated orders Holser to abandon him and fuse to Hope Nation, but Vax refuses: "No sir, not until I have you aboard". Furious, Seafort re-boards the ship and upon regaining the bridge strips Holser of his rank and confines him to quarters for mutiny, vowing to have him hanged upon the ship's return to Earth.
[edit] Return home
After several days stalking the ship "like death warmed over" Seafort is confronted in his cabin by Chief McAndrews, who forces the Captain to admit that despite Seafort's own beliefs to the contrary he is a fine Captain, and that Holser's actions were driven by his gratitude to Seafort for preventing him from becoming another Philip Tyre. Finally realising that Hibernia's constant problems were not his doing, Seafort relents, and reinstates Holser's commission shortly before arriving in Hope Nation. After organizing the defence of the colony against any future attack (as it is now realised that the fish-like aliens were behind the epidemic), he sails to warn Earth, accompanied by Amanda who rejoins the ship for the voyage home. En-route the two marry, and Derek Carr challenges Tyre in the wardroom, as Holser had challenged Seafort before the accident at Celestina, and defeats him, taking control of the other midshipmen. Upon Hibernia's return Seafort expects to be reduce to either midshipman, or at most lieutenant but Admiral Brentley, after complaining about Seafort dumping Crossburn (whom Brentley dislikes) "in my lap again", appoints him Commander of the sloop Challenger, with orders to join the squadron returning to Hope Nation to fight the Fish.
| Preceded by —none— |
Midshipman's Hope Seafort Saga |
Succeeded by Challenger's Hope |
