Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (45 page)

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Sergio Valdez grinned as he practically strutted to his family's sector. They had half a sector of Anvil, way beyond anything they had had before. Over two hundred people worked for his father, something he was proud of. He grinned at his aunt and mom when they saw him.

“Junior!” Mamma said with a happy smile. He stopped and pointed to his new rank tabs. “What?” she asked, cocking her head and frowning.

“You got promoted?” his aunt demanded, voice rising in surprise.

“To commander. I think they had to. I'm the senior fighter pilot after all; it was only a matter of time. Admiral Irons sent me his approval,” he said. Both women gaped at him. He smiled. “I guess I'm moving up in the world,” he said with a shrug and wider grin as the two women engulfed him in a hug.

“Come on. You're just in time for dinner,” his mother said, looking up to him. Her left hand reached up to brush his short hair. He couldn't help but chuckle at that familiar gesture. “You need feeding up, boy; you haven't been coming around often enough,” she said. He sniffed; he could smell her enchiladas from the entrance. He tucked her under his arm as they walked inside.

Chapter 25

Amadeus felt a profound sense of relief when he got the report that
Admiral Halsey
and the
Arboth
class
Osborne
arrived leading a small convoy. The ships held some reinforcements for the marines as well as new much anticipated assault craft.

He was more interested in the warships, however. He ordered Jojo to oversee the unloading of the convoy. She grinned and took charge of that while he greeted Captain Vargess and newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Meia. The young woman had been recently promoted to lead the fighter wing as their CAG.

He couldn't help but smile as the two officers came over on a shuttle when the carrier made orbit. “Damn good to see you both,” Amadeus said, exchanging salutes and then shaking their hands.

“It's good to be back, Admiral,” Meia said softly.

“I'm glad to have you back, Commander. You've been missed.”

“Yes, sir. I've been working on a plan to shuttle the fighters that we can't hold through Halsey. But the problem is we'll run short on fuel and supplies quickly. I'm not sure what to do about it however,” she said immediately.

Amadeus blinked in surprise and then looked to Vargess. The human chuckled. “She's been on that since we left Antigua, sir.”

“Ah. Well, unfortunately I didn't come up through carrier ops so I'm not sure how to handle it,” the admiral admitted. “So we'll be breaking ground again together.”

“Aye, sir,” Meia said, clearly a little nettled.

“According to the manifests of the two colliers you escorted in, one has a half a load of munitions and parts for the fighter wings.”

“Which won't last long, sir, if we have a big furball,” Meia said. “I've got two squadrons of
Cobra
fighters, a half squadron of bombers, and a half squadron of support craft. But you've got
six
squadrons of
Cobras
here in the system.”

“I know. The good news is the Cobras won't be used as anti-shipping, at least not most of them,” the admiral replied, indicating they should follow them. “We'll leave that to the bombers and say … one squadron of fighters?”

“I'm still working that out, sir,” Meia said with a cautious nod. She'd had one squadron training on anti-shipping strikes before she'd left for Antigua. “I've seen the bombers; they are better at it. They are designed for it.”

“But the marines may need them for the ground ops too,” Captain Vargess said as they walked.

The Neochimp looked over his shoulder to the captain. He shrugged at the admiral's expression. “It's a thought. I know the major might put a call in on occasion.”

“You know Pendeckle?” the admiral asked. He liked the marine; the guy had no problem getting his hands dirty. He had a bit of an issue managing his forces though. He was light on officers he thought. At least he'd returned the marine complements to their ships he thought.

“I've known him, sir. Not well,” Vargess admitted. “The assault craft he's getting should go a long ways to help him out. But they only have a light ordinance package. I'm betting they will shoot themselves dry within a week or less,” he said.

“Which means they'll be screaming for help,” Meia said. “And want us to step in and use
our
ordinance,” she said sourly, “which we're not set up for. We're carrying for anti-shipping not ground ops.”

“I see.” The admiral rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “This is one of those problems you hate, but the answer is simple. They'll have to be careful with their ordinance. Ration it. Fortunately, General Busche has well, hit the bush.”

That was very true. The General had retreated into the hills and back country and was fighting a sniper and IED war with the marines. The marines were using aerial drones to get as much coverage as they could, but it was a lot of ground to cover.

“Are there many left?”

“Unknown. Since we aren't sure how many locals supported her …,” the admiral shrugged. “I've been reading the daily SITREP updates, but they are more of the same. The occasional skirmish, but many times no bodies or body parts.”

Meia made a disgusted face but remained silent.

“So, did you have a plan for us, sir?” the captain asked as they arrived at the Admiral's temporary flag bridge. Temporary, Amadeus thought with a mental snort. It was well past a year and still “temporary.”

“As it happens, yes. I had intended to switch my lights to Halsey, but I want to work the destroyers up first. Now that we have a full squadron, I'm going to do some switching about,” he stated, waving them inside the room.

“Yes, sir,” the captain cautiously said with a nod as he stepped within.

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Admiral White took the destroyers off the jump point and replaced them with
Halsey
.
Halsey
was ordered to do working-up exercises of her fighter wing while the destroyers did working-up exercises in the inner star system. A cap flight and AWACS was kept up at all times patrolling near the jump point.

Meia worriedly oversaw the munitions and parts unloaded through the Fleet net. She was tired; she was working twenty-hour days on the norm but elated by the progress. But she worried about the munitions, having them in the inner system denied them to her out on the jump point. She immediately petitioned the admiral to throw a couple of rocks together or a transhab warehouse station off the jump point somewhere. Somewhere close enough to allow Halsey to resupply but far enough away to not be destroyed in an initial engagement. He sent back an email saying he'd take the idea “under advisement.”

Nearly a third of Halsey's compliment were pups on their first deployment. They still had problems with even the basic things like traps, but they were getting there. She'd certainly worked them hard in VR and each time they'd been in subspace getting to Protodon.

Her veterans were another problem. Some were good, but a few were a bit too overconfident for her tastes. She hoped that overconfidence didn't ooze into and infect some of the pups. She needed everyone up and on their toes.

The admiral had wanted to cycle two of the other six squadrons through her ship. Well, Vargess's ship, she thought with a pang. But that was a problem. Three of the squadrons were in mothballs; their fighter jocks got their flight time however they could. One squadron was operating on the ground in support of the marines. The other two squadrons were scattered on the destroyers. If they picked the fighters off of them, they wouldn't have the fighter support, and the already crowded escort carrier would start bursting at the seams.

The good news was that with the AWACS and cap flights out every day, they had some breathing room on the deck, enough to move around. But if a craft went down for a significant length of time and needed a complete tear down and rebuild, it would be a problem. Throw in extra planes … she shook her head and jotted out another email outlining her reasoning against the idea. Oh, they could try it, they probably should, she reminded herself, but she didn't want it to be a final fix.

If they did hot bunk the planes and pilots, they would have to keep a squadron out on flight ops around the jump point at all times. That wasn't a bad thing in theory, but it would mean a lot of flight time, which meant a lot of clock time on the hardware, pilot fatigue, and fuel use. The first two had her nervous; she didn't want an accident. They'd had a couple of close calls and one minor accident so far. She didn't need or want a ramp strike or worse. Nor did she want a fully loaded fighter to come in and bollix up a landing and explode in the guts of the carrier either.

She shook her head. That was a problem for another time she thought as she finished the report.

“CAG, alert five has reported in. All clear.”

“Good. I'm getting rack time. Let Lolita know she's in charge.” She meant Lieutenant Lolita, the newly promoted squadron commander of Squad 2. The red haired girl was good but not great.

“Aye aye, ma'am.”

The CAG finished wrapping her report up, shut the tablet down, and then stretched. She opened up her suit, stepped out of it, and then went to the refresher. When she came out, she stretched again and then went to bed.

Lolita had matured a bit since she'd encountered her in Antigua fortress command. She could carry the wing Meia thought. At least for one night she told herself, steeling herself against another call.

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Major Pendeckle looked out over the battle torn landscape and nodded politely as Lieutenant Chaing came trotting up. The lieutenant didn't seem to mind the downpour. He shook himself out a bit, then took off his poncho and helmet. “Sir? You rang?”

“I want you to check out the hills in sector thirteen. Take a team with you. Go in heavy, but remember you might be on foot on the trails. It's woody, but there are parts that are mountain goat country. We've had some ambushes there. The natives are reporting some, up to a platoon of Horathians there.”

“And you're giving me a squad?”

“Scout, just scout. I'm giving you three squads since Recon is tied up on another assignment. Set up a fire base and then patrol. Let me know what you find.”

The lieutenant pursed his lips as he thought about the project, but there was really only one answer. “Yes sir.”

“Oh, and Lieutenant,” the Major said before the other man could finish getting his poncho back on. The lieutenant paused. “Be careful. There are some strange legends about those parts. Nasty shit. Don't step on any toes if you don't have to and watch your ass.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, sir. I'll do my best.”

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Captain Harris grinned as he checked the status board. It was evening, and they didn't have another schedule or drill to run until after 0930 the next morning. He was tired but elated. This was how the navy should be run he thought.

He wasn't comfortable with all the other high rollers being in the same squadron. But he liked that he was third in command of the forces, right behind Captain Vargess. He was fairly certain Vargess wouldn't be a captain for long, not at the speed the navy was growing. Which meant, he would be moving up a step—possibly sooner rather than later. When Admiral White started to build his second destroyer squadron as well as his first cruiser squadron, he would need reliable officers to step up as squadron commanders. He was relishing the opportunity for advancement.

One thing that did bother him, the lack of AI. Each of the tin cans and the carrier had an AI and they had primitive AI in the fighters but that was it. And all of the AI were dumb AI, some barely class 1. He wished the admiral would do something about that and soon. He'd seen what the AI could do in a fleet engagement after reviewing the records of the battle of B101a1. He knew a battle was fought on many fronts; to succeed they had to excel on as many as possible.

He also had to admit his own limits. No matter how much he had tried he couldn't get a handle on carrier and fighter ops. He was a battle line commander not a carrier guy. Perhaps the admiral's comment in the
Fleet Times
was right; if you came up from one line or the other, you grew accustomed to using those resources, those ships.

He was tempted to put in for a transfer to a carrier. But no, he wanted a battle cruiser. He nodded to himself as he shucked his shirt. Yes, a battle cruiser, maybe even
Bismark
or another capital ship before he took flag rank. He'd love to have
Freedom
or
Justice
, but they were already being worked up in Pyrax. To get there he'd have to transfer and spend months in transit twiddling his thumbs. No, he had to stay where he was.

But they'd better move soon; the BCs were starting to roll out of the production line. And here he was in Protodon! He shook his head. He must have miscalculated somewhere, his eagerness to get to the front perhaps? He set himself on the bed and took a sip of water. Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps. He'd have to sleep on it and game out the next steps of his career.