Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (13 page)

“We'll need a follow-up with more detail, sir,” Protector stated.

“Later. Just the basics,” the admiral said.

The wreckage of the two warships had been checked by the SAR crew once the six survivors had been taken off the second
Nelson
. Some of the hull and components with names placarded on them had identified the
Nelson
as one of the ships that had tangled with the convoy in the Kathy's World star system.

Of course none of the surviving crew were talking. Most of the six survivors were critically injured. Not many were judged to survive despite the medics on the fortress's best efforts.

None of the crew of the
Antares
class ship
Chico
were talking either. The captain and XO had both committed suicide after they had unsuccessfully attempted to destroy the ship and boarders. Apparently the engineering crew hadn't wanted to die in glory for their emperor and had balked at blowing the ship.

He rapidly typed out a congratulation to the fortress's crew for their quick work, then followed that with orders for the survivors, wreckage, POWs and ship to be transported to Antigua for further processing.

The POWs and survivors were due for a long wait in the camps, enduring a lot of questioning and internment at the POW island. A follow-up report popped up as he typed. He paused to scan its terse words. Apparently it stated bluntly that two of the officers from the freighter had attempted to put themselves off as prisoners, but the computer files didn't support their statements.

He paused and scratched his jaw as he considered the situation from the enemy's point of view. “Was that a desperate attempt to fly under the radar?” he finally asked. “Like making it look like they were chasing the freighter during the initial confusion of jumping in?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Possibly, sir. It does muddy the waters a bit, sir,” Commander Sprite, his A.I. chief of staff, replied from his desk holo emitter. “And it makes what they give us for intel suspect. Highly suspect.”

He nodded once. “Agreed.”

“Now, we've eliminated the two
Nelsons
and gotten the
Antares
, where is the
Caravan
?” Lieutenant Protector asked.

Protector was a new addition to his staff. He was a replacement for Lieutenant Defender as well as Commander Sprite. Defender had sacrificed himself after being fatally damaged in a confrontation with a Xeno A.I. virus. Sprite had decided that she needed to move out of the admiral's implants. He was still wrestling with the whole situation. At least he hadn't lost Sprite's services totally. She was still his chief of staff; she'd just moved out of his body.

“You think it is skulking around somewhere else, sir? That they split up?” Sprite asked, ignorant of his divergent train of thought.

“I don't know. It could be something as simple as the ship running out of fuel. Have intel find out.”

“Yes, sir.”

He was glad those two, no, make it three including the freighter he reminded himself, three loose ends had tidied themselves up for him. Wasn't it nice when the enemy was stupid enough to march right into the noose? He shook his head. Not that he wanted to count on someone else's stupidity now or ever.

“You are right, sir; this should put a lot of people on notice. I'm already fielding inquiries from delegates. And of course we're now getting requests for their own orbital forts …,” Protector stated. The admiral groaned.

“Oh look! Toni Chambers is asking how much munitions were spent and how much they cost. Interesting …,” Sprite said maliciously, opening a window to see the live broadcast.

“It was what, about a day's production? A couple terawatts of energy?” The admiral shrugged. “A drop in the bucket. I'd rather lose the munition than people. Are they up for a resupply?”

“Like gold dust, Admiral,” Sprite said soothingly. “Lieutenant Commander Fuentes is already on it,” she stated. He nodded. Fuentes was the ship A.I. of the
Nelson
class destroyer
Fuentes
. He had recently undergone a promotion and upgrade and was currently acting as the G-8 logistics on the admiral's staff, though that was coming to an end soon since his ship was going to be deployed once more. The ship couldn't be completely upgraded to Flight IV status. She was just too old, but they had done a lot to bring her up to speed with the new construction. Who exactly was going to fill the A.I.'s virtual shoes was in some doubt at the moment since G-5 personnel was rather mixed up.

“It has definitely gotten everyone's attention. I'm fending off inquiries from Governor Randall's staff as well as the staffers from the representatives. I think we're going to need to make more of a statement shortly,” the commander stated.

“Joy.”

“It definitely has everyone's attention. Just what we wanted and well, needed. The occasional pointed reminder that the galaxy and sector aren't a safe place … that we have real enemies is a good thing on the face of it,” she stated.

“Yeah, and the representatives for just about every star system that doesn't have a picket now will demand one—a picket and a fortress network,” Admiral Irons observed sourly.

“And explaining to them why that's not possible will be impossible. They won't want to listen,” Sprite replied.

“Exactly,” the admiral stated, staring off bleakly out the window. “Which is going to give us headaches. I'm glad we put this little group to rest though. They won't be floating around menacing anyone else. Now we need to get the doors nailed shut properly so no more of their friends leak through.”

“True. It isn't going to satisfy the representatives or their planetary governments, however.”

“I know, I know,” the admiral said, shaking his head. “Everyone wants an ansible, medical care, education, and such. No one wants to
pay
for it though,” he growled.

Taxes were sore subject with some, including the admiral. Everyone wanted the best for themselves and their children—just as long as someone else paid for it. He had news for them; it had to be paid for somehow. The teachers for instance had to be paid, the hardware they could get cheap from space industry, software wasn't a problem, but that still left paying the people to do the work or teach others how to do it. And even though the equipment was cheap, it still added up.

“Send a good job to Fortress 4. But along with the attaboy, remind them missiles don't grow on trees. A more … balanced approach for the threat might be in order.”

“Bean counting? You, Admiral?” Protector asked, surprised.

“I'm not that bad. And I believe in using material when needed. But that was a bit of overkill—like swatting flies with a sledgehammer.”

“Something along those lines. I'll just give the requisition forms to the commander and tactical officer. In triplicate. Maybe even sick General Accounting on them to make them think twice,” Sprite said.

“No, no, I'd rather they did it than have a loose enemy missile spread running around the star system. Okay, so now it's my turn to overreact a bit. But they need to … tone it down.”

“Understood. I'll do my best to explain that to them diplomatically since it will get around to the other commands as well.”

“Great,” the admiral said in an exasperated tone of voice. He frowned as a thought struck him. “What about the picket ship we sent to New Andres? And the convoys to that star system and further south?” He was starting to regret pulling
Firefly
off of that route to investigate what had happened in Epsilon Triangula. He made a note to check up on that in a day or so.

“I'm not certain, sir. We haven't had a status update on them. Hopefully it is a case of ships passing in hyperspace without noticing each other,” Protector stated.

“Find out,” the admiral ordered.

“We will, sir. One thought—if they had encountered the ships, there would have been no need for them to come here and try to bluff their way across the star system. They could have vampired the convoy or used them as a shield,” Sprite stated.

The admiral grunted. She had a point. Still, the lack of news on the picket bothered him. He wouldn't be comfortable until they got an update. Fortunately, New Andres had an ansible.

“Make a note of when she's supposed to report in. If we don't hear from her within seventy-two hours of that time, I want to find out why.”

“Send a follow-up ship, sir?”

“Yes, if necessary. Find out from the prisoners if they encountered her or the convoy as well,” the admiral ordered.

“I've tagged that for the interrogator’s notice, sir,” Protector stated. “You are running late for your next appointment, sir,” he warned.

“Damn it,” the admiral muttered, getting up. “What is it this time?”

“Components for shield emitters, sir,” Protector stated. “You need to reset the keys on the production and initialize the run with Commander Sprite,” the A.I. reported.

“Of course I do.
We
do,” the admiral sighed. Coordinating with Sprite was a bit of a hassle; she had her own duties even though she was still his chief of staff. To offset some of the problem, she had given some of her key sets to Protector and Proteus. Protector had also inherited the keysets from Defender. Proteus also had some of his own engineering keys. But none of the A.I. had the full set. It was all a complicated piece of paranoia to keep the master keys in check.

He shook his head. Sometimes he wondered why he wanted the job.

Governor Randall had finally convinced him to allow the planet's PDCs to be rebuilt. They were in the process of doing that while juggling tons of other commitments, both civil infrastructure projects and military ones. And since the governor's publicist had dumped it into the media, now all of the representatives wanted their own PDCs too. They didn't understand what was entailed. They were like a 2-year-old child seeing a cookie jar; they just wanted it. Wanted it
NOW
.

They whined like a 2-year-old when you tried to explain why they couldn't, and reasoning with them …, he felt like throwing his hands up in the air but stopped himself. At least they'd given up on the planetary shield demand for the moment!

The larger the surface area of a shield the exponentially more power it needed to remain up, and the exponentially more power it needed when it was under any sort of load. The optimum design was to have a small tight hull with an incredible power supply as well as grav emitters that could shed heat and the load while under battery.

But designing a ship came with a lot of compromises of course. A planet was a different story. It was also a major headache since you had to not only engineer massive shield emitters, but the power supplies to go with them. And you needed redundant systems in case one fell.

PDCs like the ones Antigua had were a bit different. They didn't have shields. They were massive gun emplacements designed to shoot anything that came near the planet's orbit and threatened it. They did have shields to protect themselves however. That went with the armor of rock and metal that they were under in some cases.

He'd initially passed on the idea of rebuilding them, but Antigua was the capital of the reborn Federation. Jeff had eloquently argued that she therefore needed and deserved the best protection. He'd also found the credits to subsidize the initial endeavor. The power systems would of course be used by the civilians when not needed for defense, but the admiral wasn't going to quibble about that little detail. Sorting out the parts situation down the road however …

Jeff had the keys to do it all himself. He just hadn't known
how
to do it. So doing a little horse trading with the man had helped Irons and his efforts to rebuild the navy and Federation while helping the planet help itself. Jeff had taken all of that with good natured amusement when he'd finally caught on that he'd had the answers to his problem all along if he'd only looked. It had been an educational experience.

“These are for capital ships, sir.
Bismark's
shields have been finished in the last run, and you got a third of
Quirinus's
done as you know, sir
.
But Commander Fuentes wants a cushion as well as parts for the next series of capital ships if we can arrange it.”

“Understood,” the admiral replied with a curt nod as he headed to the door. Vestri had roped him into his DN project, and was trying to rope him into starting the full capital ship production line. The good news was
Bismark
needed a division mate and many of the parts could be used by other capital ship classes since they were sticking to a modular approach. The bad news was it tied up a class 4 industrial replicator for each time they did a production run. He had changed tactics from doing one off replacement parts to full part runs. He'd been a bit amused that Vestri had maneuvered him into that point of view in the first place so he could expand the capital ship line like he had. They still weren't ready, but Vestri was making a liar out of that doubt.

Vestri was also a bit anxious to get the work crew and factory ship back from Protodon. He'd dispatched them to make field repairs to Amadeus’s damaged ships until he had enough replacements there to warrant pulling them back for a proper repair and refit. For the time being, their ship companies would have to put up with doing most of the repairs themselves. They should be used to it, he thought.