Captain Ubikwe seems to me to be described well enough to be easy to imagine and feels like a real human being. And I can't help but like him, when all his abrasiveness is founded on concern for his fatigued crew, rather than resentment at being outranked on his own ship. The following quote occurs after Min explains the bare basics of the mission she has in mind for his ship and crew.But then the captain, Dolph Ubikwe, broke the pause by swinging his g-seat toward Min. In a granite rumble, he said, stolidly, "Director Donner. Welcome aboard."
At once the bridge crew rose to salute. The techs moved out of Min's way as if they believed--or wanted to believe--that they were beneath her notice.
There was no welcome in Captain Ubikwe's voice, however. It seemed to pulse from his chest like the cut of a subsonic drill. Even if Min had been deaf, she might have been able to hear him through the bones of her skull. Ensigns under his command often said that his voice could strip paint at twenty paces.
He was a large man--almost too large to pass the UMCP physicals--with a heavy mass of muscle hidden under his fat. Too much strain and too few showers caused his black skin to gleam in the featureless light. Red rimmed his bloodshot eyes' they appeared to bulge in their sockets. Fists as heavy as cudgels rested on the arms of his seat.
"Thank you, Captain." Min didn't expect welcome. "At ease," she told the bridge crew without shifting her gaze from Dolph Ubikwe. As they resumed their g-seats, she asked him, "How soon can you go into tach?"
His fists tightened slightly. "Depends on whether that's a request or an order. You order it and we're gone. All we need to know is where. But if it's a request"--he lifted his heavy shoulders--"we can probably be ready in three or four months."
In another place, at another time, Min might have smiled. She knew this man well. He had first come to her attention in the Academy ten years ago, when his air of insubordination and his poor grades had threatened to deny him a commission. She had overruled the Academy commander in person to make Dolph Ubikwe an ensign. Despite his resistance to discipline, which had showed in his sloppy classroom work as well as his excess weight, she had sensed a fettered emotional power in him, a charisma similar to Warden's. It might make him an effective leader--if he ever learned how and when to unleash it. Since then, he had vindicated her judgment by rising swiftly to the command of his own vessel. Under other circumstance, she would have had no qualms about using him to carry out Warden Dios' orders.
"If it were a request," she replied to his tight stare, "I wouldn't be here."
His mouth twisted. "Then perhaps the Enforcement Division director would condescend to tell us where we're going. It does make a difference, you know--heading, velocity, all those troublesome little gap details."
Now she did smile--a smile as humorless and bleak as an arctic wind. Instead of reacting to his sarcasm, she said simply, "The Com-Mine belt. Close to forbidden space."
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A muscle at the corner of Captain Ubikwe's mouth twitched like a flinch. "Now why in hell," he asked Min, "would we want to do a thing like that?"
She didn't snap at him. She also didn't drop his gaze. She could have made Punisher obey her blind--she could require unquestioning compliance from any ship in the fleet--but she had no intention of doing so. For one thing, she owed this ship an explanation. And for another, she knew that Dolph Ubikwe would serve her better if she let him be himself.
Facing an Amnion warship charged with retributive vengeance for the destruction of Thanatos Minor sounds intimidating enough, but Dolph's summations his ship's technical problems tightens up the tension even further. Though I've just met him, I'm already in full sympathy with him. What a great SRD character!For a moment Dolph lowered his eyes. When he raised them again, they seemed oddly naked, as if he had set aside some of his defenses. "Permission to speak frankly."
Just for an instant Min wondered whether she should refuse. Then she decided against it. By some standards, disagreements--not to mention hostility--between commanders was bad for discipline. One the other hand, Punisher was his ship: the tone which either inspired or dismayed his people was his to set, no matter what she did. She was willing to trust his instincts.
She nodded once. "Please."
He shifted his posture as if to launch his voice at her from a more stable platform. "Then let me just ask you, Director Donner," he said in a tone of raw outrage, "if you are out of your incorrigible mind. Don't you read reports anymore? Haven't you got a clue what we've just been through? Or maybe you think dodging matter cannon fire and asteroids alone for six months is some kind of holiday. You sent us out to Valdor to do a job which would have been too much for five cruisers. We're lucky to get home limping instead of just plain dead.
"We're shorthanded here. That was in the reports, too. Some of my people are drifting around Massif-5 in caskets. We've got holes and hydraulic leaks and a scan bank with no wiring. But never mind that. After what we've been through, we can stand a few minor inconveniences. We've got worse problems."
His voice was harsh enough to hurt Min's ears, but she knew from experience that he still had plenty of volume in reserve. For the sake of her personal comfort, she hoped that he didn't use it.
"Have you listened to this ship yet, Director Donner? Or have you forgotten what that kind of displacement can do to a warship? In case you've been spending too much time behind your desk and not enough on the firing line, let me remind you. If the bearings go and internal spin freezes before we can shut it down, centrifugal inertia is transferred to the whole ship. The whole ship starts to spin--which is a nightmare for scan and helm, never mind targ. Punisher isn't make for that kind of maneuver. And if we start to spin like that in the belt--or in combat--then you can kiss your hard ass good-bye along with all the rest of us.
"This is all crazy, Director Donner. How many warships have we got now? Fifty? Fifty cruisers, destroyers, gunboats, and full battlewagons? Do you expect me to believe they're all unavailable for this job? That not one of them is in reach?
"If that's true, let Com-Mine Station do it, whatever it turns out to be. Hell on ice, Director, they've got enough in-system firepower to slag three ships like this. Let them police their own goddamn belt for a few more hours.
"We are in no shape for this."
I'm interested in hearing what other Gap fans have to say about him!