Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (7 page)

Unfazed or unaware of the staff officer’s anger with him, J’Kol pondered for a moment and stated, “Shadow Leader, we learn from our mistakes. You say we will have the proper missiles tomorrow. I have a message here that says we will have thirty-six more T’Pok tomorrow. Let us see if we can discourage future attacks against our pickets.”

* * * * *

Kelly accompanied Admiral Craddock to the yards on Leonov, to visit his new ship and accept it into the Fleet for Scout Force. Kelly would be bringing it to Antares Base in a week. First, he and Admiral Hasselrode would put the ship through its space trials and formal Fleet acceptance. A yard crew and some of the 1st Scout Division officers and enlisted would take her through her paces. The former 1st Scout Division officers and enlisted would then crew her for the passage to Antares Base.

Kelly sat back in the executive transport and tried not to notice Admiral Hasselrode glaring at him. Admiral Minacci had said before take off that Kelly could cherry pick 1st Scout Division officers and enlisted for his crew and Admiral Hasselrode was not pleased. It was not Kelly’s idea.

Kelly read through data sheet after data sheet on the hour-long flight, trying to get a handle on the main technology of the Orion. He tried to focus on the technology that was new to him, but even that was daunting. In exasperation, he brought up the crew manifest. He would have ten officers, including himself: an XO, an engineering officer, a junior engineering officer, a weapons officer, a junior weapons officer, an operations officer, a junior operations officer, a supply officer, and a junior supply officer. That meant one commander (him), five lieutenant commanders, and four lieutenants to run the Orion. He would have one Master Chief Petty Officer, nine chiefs of various ratings and 130 enlisted. That was three times larger than the manning of the Vigilant, his old ship.

Armament was three fast tracking medium turrets outfitted with the new disruptor cannons and three medium disruptor nose cannons. He had seen these demonstrated at Shepard. They were quite deadly. On narrow beam, they bored holes through plate armor. At wide beam they disintegrated entire fighter-sized ships or similar sized chunks of larger ships. It had weapons pods for 50 offensive missiles and 100 defensive missiles. He thought 50 offensive missiles might be too many. They might convince a captain that he was badder than he really was. Of course, he was the captain, so he might be able to keep that under control. The 100 defensive missiles might not be enough, even though they were the new SM120s that networked with other missiles in a salvo, assigned individual targets, and were more effective at taking out massed multiple missile salvoes.

The Orion’s top speed was listed at FTL power 7. That was fast. The K’Rang Empire was estimated to be over 1,000 light years in depth. This ship could make that journey in a couple of weeks – engineers theorized it could go faster. It had four new engines, similar to the diomede engines on the Vigilant, but scaled up. They employed the same propulsion methods, but with something extra that gave it the increased speed. He’d have to get an engineer to explain it to him.

It had a mini-ring for resupply. What a decisive advantage – ships could stay on station indefinitely. Crew could be replaced. Wounded crew could be wheeled from the ship to a hospital in home space within minutes of injury. Weapons could be resupplied during a battle. The possibilities were endless.

Kelly looked out a port to see them entering the atmosphere. He would soon be meeting his new ship.

* * * * *

Tammy suited up for her upcoming mission. They would have the F-53's again today, but Tammy’s ships would be loaded differently from past missions. Their winglet weapon mounts would be loaded. The first two squadrons would go in with missiles programed for individual ships, launch then peel away. Tammy’s squadron would come in high and launch their internal missiles. The F-53's would support the other two squadrons. The 112th would be unescorted getting back to the ring. It could make for an interesting day.

While George Duke taxied the ship in line with the other ships waiting to reach the take off position, she pondered the delineation between Fighter Force and Fleet Aviation. Years back, when the Earth Government was formed before the great migration, there were numerous national air forces, naval aviation forces, army aviation and paramilitary aviation forces that had to be melded into common units. The United States of America was the last remaining superpower, albeit much reduced from its heyday, and its military was chosen as the model for the Earth Armed Forces. The Fighter Force, modeled on the US Air Force and Naval Air Forces, was given authority over all single and dual seat fighters, attack craft and support craft, whether planet-based or carrier-based. The US Air Force rank and unit structure was followed. As humans expanded to other planets, planetary air and air defense forces were set up independent of Fighter Force, but all Galactic Republic carrier-capable, single and dual seat fighters, attack craft, and special mission ships belonged exclusively to Fighter Force.

A separate organization, originally called Fleet Support Aviation, was allocated all medium and heavy transport and support ships not capable of landing on carriers. US Naval rank and unit structure was followed. Its designation as Fleet Aviation came in the Defense Reorganization Act of 2250. There were no heavy or medium attack ships at the time and as these were a recent Fleet idea, Fleet Aviation claimed them because they couldn’t land on carriers. Fighter Force deemed them unworthy and did not object.

Tammy’s ship finally lined up for take off and was given permission by the tower. She took over from her co-pilot, applied power, and her ship smoothly lifted into the air, despite its heavy load. She formed up her section and lined up behind Commander Tanaka and his section. When the F-53's joined up, they moved through the ring together.

They exited the ring and powered off to do battle. The ring ship folded the ring and moved off to the recovery point. Tammy kept her section below and behind her CO’s lead section. Angie’s squadron trailed behind.

The K’Rang fighters had yet to make an appearance, but they knew it was only a matter of time. The lead squadron was almost to their weapons release point when 36 T’Pok fighters sprang up from behind the picket line ships. Angie’s squadron accelerated from behind her to engage the fighters. This time the K’Rang had missiles. She saw the indicators for missiles firing on her situational display. Both lead squadrons flew on.

Tammy saw countermeasure indicators on her display as the lead squadrons deployed jammers, chaff, and heat decoys. The squadrons fired their missiles and turned back toward their rendezvous point. The few K’Rang missiles that survived the countermeasures never caught up with the retreating squadrons.

Angie’s nimble fighters did great damage to the slower, less agile T’Pok fighters. Her missiles took out three and her guns took out two. One T’Pok squadron hung back from battle. Tammy thought they must have been saving themselves for her squadron.

Commander Tanaka announced launch point and all ships launched. The unengaged T’Pok fighter squadron came after them. Tammy dropped her rear section a little lower behind the lead section.

Commander Tanaka was on the net. “Everyone ready, wait for it, just a little closer, okay, execute!”

At his command, all eighteen A-100's hit their lower forward attitude jets and flipped, facing back at the advancing T’Pok. They mass-fired the missiles mounted under their winglets and fired their attitude jets again. When they faced forward again they accelerated to max speed and left the K’Rang behind to tangle with 216 medium anti-fighter missiles. Missiles were cheap, crews and ships were expensive, as Tammy’s transition training officer had told her.

The K’Rang lost all interest in Tammy’s squadron while they attempted to evade the swarm of missiles headed right at them. They weren’t quick enough or nimble enough to evade that many missiles. All twelve T’Poks dissolved in bright orange explosions.

The remaining missiles switched to active scanning, locked on the nearest picket ships or T’Poks, and added to the K’Rang confusion and devastation. Angie’s fighters used this opportunity to disengage and return to the ring ship. The Humans had a good day – no losses and seventeen T’Poks and a destroyer that would never bother the GR again.

* * * * *

Admiral Chang sat through an hour of briefings on his request for a plan for the invasion of K’Rang space. After throwing the dismayed briefers out of his office, he called in his Ops chief, plans officer, and a handful of others. They sat around a holographic projector for the rest of the day and into the night, with four yeomen taking notes in relay. After seven hours, they had the skeleton of a plan:

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres
. (Gaul is all divided into three parts) a quote from Julius Caesar will be our guiding philosophy.

Admiral Haddock-Halloway will lead the 1st Combined Fleet in an attack from the Pisces sector into K’Rang space, aiming at G‘Durin.

Admiral Levi will lead the 2nd Combined Fleet in an attack from the Orion sector, also aiming at G’Durin.

The strategic objective is to divide the K’Rang Empire into three parts.

K’Rang planets will be bypassed. The combined fleets will destroy any FTL ships, remaining planetary defensive ships, and shipyards. Fleet ring ships will be used for long-range heavy attack ships to control and protect the lines of communication.

Independent scout ships, not assigned to the two fleets, will patrol ahead of the fleets and do as much damage to K’Rang shipping as possible. They will take out every K’Rang communications relay and navigational beacon they can. They will also find and report on K’Rang shipyards.

At some point, the K’Rang will abandon the Eridanus sector and pull their battle fleet back to defend the Empire. We need a force to hurry them along, but not so much that they turn and fight. I want to be able to turn both fleets and meet this force head on, so timing is critical. If we do this right, we can defeat them in detail.

 Admiral Chang booted them all out of his office and said, “Now, turn that into a plan and get it back to me in draft day after tomorrow.”

 
Chapter Four
 

 It was a day with a clear sky and a warming sun when Kelly assumed command of the Orion for acceptance trials. Admiral Craddock officially signed for the ship for the Galactic Republic in a short ceremony in the project manager’s office. Kelly’s official assumption of command would happen at a later time.

Kelly sat down with the yard’s general manager and went over the all-encompassing acceptance trial requirements one by one. They jointly manned the new ship from their resources of engineers and Scout Force crewmen. Kelly had Admiral Hasselrode’s authority to use however many of his personnel as were needed. The number of personnel in the 1st Scout Division had nearly doubled since the briefing in Admiral Minacci’s office, and he had almost 500 to choose from. Kelly knew Admiral Minacci was flogging the personnel system for fillers for all the positions Kelly couldn’t steal from the 1st Division. Kelly tried to hit Admiral Hasselrode only for what he needed to get the ship back to Antares Base safely, since Hasselrode had his mission, too.

Kelly worked in a contractor-provided simulator to understand ship protocols. He brought in his helmsmen and navigators to familiarize them with the controls. He had his engineering officer and staff train on the engine simulator. The junior weapons officer had already found the weapons simulator and was running his personnel through their paces. The junior operations officer was running drills for his team in the CIC trainer. The supply officer was learning how to work the mini-ring. Everything was falling into place.

Just after dawn on the day of the test, Kelly did an exterior walk around what would be his new ship. She was 200m long, 45m wide and 45m tall and unlike the Vigilant, more tubular than triangular. She sat on huge landing pads compared to wheeled landing gear on his last ship. It faintly resembled a larger version of the Vigilant, but he noted the glass view ports of the Vigilant were gone from this ship. The three twin-gun turrets sat amidships, arrayed around the hull approximately 120 degrees apart. The three nose guns protruded menacingly from the bow. He walked around to the stern and looked at the four engine exhaust cones that would propel the ship at below light speed. He surveyed the airlock and ramp that lowered between the bottom two cones to provide a quarterdeck, gangplank, and loading ramp for larger items. Any one of the exhaust cones would hold all three of the Vigilant’s exhaust cones. The hull’s surface was sprinkled with radomes, and assorted protrusions and bumps from the various sensor and countermeasures systems. Satisfied that the yard had done its job on the exterior, he went aboard to start preparations for the test.

Kelly mustered the crew, then went to greet and escort Admiral Hasselrode on board, while his acting Master Chief Petty Officer scared up a bosun’s pipe and side boys for the Admiral’s arrival. Kelly met the Admiral at the bottom of the gangplank.

The Admiral took him aside momentarily and said, “Kelly, what you will be doing is important. I noticed you were charitable by not taking all my best people, but you get what you need. I’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, sir, but I put the word out that I needed a crew. Many officers, ratings, and some recent retirees I’ve known over the years are requesting to be assigned to Scout Force to join the Orion’s crew. I’ll have a full crew. I may send some of these back, depending on who shows up. I’m also sure that many of mine will want to ship out on a scout if they can’t go with me. I’m taking care of you, sir.”

“Thank you for that, Kelly. Now, let’s go see what this ship of yours can do.”

Kelly took the captain’s seat in the CIC. Admiral Hasselrode sat next to him in an adjacent seat. He had his pocket terminal with the acceptance check sheet ready for annotation. The contractor’s senior engineer sat next over.