Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship by Joshua Dalzelle

That stops today." The chief's eyes were slowly widening as the captain dressed him down.
    "Have you lost your mind?" he asked incredulously.
    "You're wasting time, Chief," Jackson said. "You don't have much time to get yourself cleaned up and on the command deck."
    He turned and strode away from the gaping Kazenski, his hands still clenched into fists. Ever since the lazy slug had been dumped on his ship he'd been wanting to do that, but the man's family connections made it impossible. His father, Senator Walter Kazenski, Sr., was a powerful, connected politician who could make life miserable for a lowly starship captain with a single message to CENTCOM. The younger Kazenski had been put in Black Fleet as a long-term storage solution for a son that was mostly an embarrassment to an ambitious father.
    But now Jackson had nothing to lose. As long as everything he did was in accordance to Fleet policy and procedure, the slovenly chief could lodge any complaints he wanted and it wouldn't affect his career whatsoever. As he walked along the corridor he realized Admiral Winters had given him a great gift. For at least one cruise, he could run his ship how he saw fit without fear of damaging his career by ruffling the wrong political feathers.
    ****
    "This makes even less sense than the nav radar picture did," Jackson said as he paced in front of the main display. "Xi'an had two heavy construction platforms. I'm not seeing enough debris tonnage to account for even one of them, let alone every other satellite and ship that would have been in orbit."
    "Two separate computers have compiled the data, so this is accurate," Celesta said, standing beside him. "Still no response to our hails, automated or otherwise."
    "OPS, send the debris field data to Nav," Jackson said, walking back to his seat. "Nav, plot us a safe course down the well and put us in orbit over Xi'an. We need to find out what the hell has happened here."
    "Aye, sir," the specialist at the nav station reported. "Course plotted and entered. Helm is clear to engage at will."
    "Very well," Jackson said. "Helm, ahead one-half and coordinate with OPS and Tactical to make sure the debris doesn't drift onto our course."
    "Ahead one-half, aye," the helmsman said, pushing the throttles up to fifty percent, telling the computers to engage the mains at half power. The telltale rumble and surge of inertia told Jackson they were on their way. He still held out the irrational hope that somehow this was all a series of bizarre errors within his own equipment, but he knew that was the least likely scenario.
    "We have a flight time of over thirty hours until we reach Xi'an," Jackson told Celesta. "Rotate the watches as you see fit, but I want the first watch bridge crew on duty as we make our approach to the planet. Find an actual tactical officer while you're at it. Unfortunately we only have two onboard. Also, make sure Master Chief Kazenski is presentable and on duty. If he fails to report, notify me immediately." Celesta had to look up Kazenski to even see what position he held on the ship. When she realized he'd been missing the entire time they'd been underway, her eyes widened a bit.
    "It's complicated," Jacksons said simply. "Just know that things have changed a bit since we departed Jericho Station. You have free reign to make sure everyone is doing their jobs. I'm going to take the first down time. Feel free to have Ensign Davis take the watch if you need to leave the bridge."
    "Yes, sir," she said, sliding into his seat as he moved to leave the bridge. Once he had gone, she pulled up Chief Kazenski's personnel record and began reading. After ten minutes she wondered how many more cases like him were roaming around the ship and, if so, did she really want to know?
    ****
    Jackson sat down at his desk and began pulling up any information on Xi'an the servers had that might begin to explain what had happened to make the system appear deserted. He also requested the latest com logs