Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (40 page)

But that meant the ships that were sent would have to have shuttles. Their cargo would have to be transshipped down from the ship piece by piece. What a chore! A time consuming chore … he sighed. And there was no way to get around it either. The ships were going to be stuck in orbit unloading until they were finished. Then they'd have to take on anyone or anything set to go to Gaston or back to Pyrax before they could set sail on their return journey.

At least without having to haul as much mass, they would save a bit of fuel and energy, enough to maybe go up an octave, possibly two he thought.

Once they had the relief mission to ET started, he had the expeditionary forces to Tau and Pi to plan. More follow-ups than anything else since the shipping was supposed to come from Antigua. Then of course there were the resupply and replacement pickets in Antigua, Airea 3, and other star systems to consider. Rotation of course, but the ships would need to come back to Pyrax to be refitted or stood down and their compliments slotted into larger ships he thought. They would definitely go through the promotion cycle he reminded himself.

He grimaced. Looting the older ships of experienced personnel was a two-edged sword. And according to BUPERS they'd had a slight down tick in recruiting since ET had been announced. He'd thought people would have flocked to the recruiting centers, but apparently that wasn't the case. They saw the navy as impotent at best, incompetent at worse.

He didn't know how to fix that. It was a perception problem obviously. Decisive action would help. Winning an offensive would definitely help. So would catching the bastards responsible for ET. But there was something to be said about the old metaphor about locking a barn door after the horses have escaped he thought.

---<>))))

Captain JG Junior Valdez grinned as he thought about the nice shiny ships. They were like toys compared to the battle cruiser and capital ships. Kid in a candy store came to mind.

He was aware that some officers were dubious about the shift in priorities. He wasn't. He knew his boys and girls could handle the job with more finesse than the battle line ever could.

He was also aware Horatio wasn't happy about scaling up so quickly. Well, he wasn't sure about the crew side, but the wings were more than ready. His people had plenty of practice on the
Fortress
carriers in Pyrax and in Antigua.

Seeing pilots were glory hogs was going to do wonders for the navy's image. Wait and see he thought. They'd be like rock stars, he thought with a grin.

His smile slowly drifted and then his face took on an expressionless mask. He knew his people could handle the wing. But he had a kernel of doubt about their proposed make up. It also bothered him that the first fleet carrier to launch was in Antigua, not here where he could keep an eye on her.

Interceptors, general purpose fighters, wild weasels, bombers, and support craft he got. They were stock for any good wing. No, what bothered him was the inclusion of the drones. An entire squadron of drones in each wing. There was something wrong with the concept but he couldn't put a finger on it.

It might be because of his time browsing the historical databases Matilda and her ilk had compiled over the past ten years. He'd been trolling for information to help him set up the wings, tactics, strategy, as well as stories of glory to learn and inspire from. But his mind kept nagging him about having a squadron of unmanned craft on the ship. There was something … off about that.

He knew pilots for millennia had hated the idea of losing control in the cockpit. What was the purpose of a joystick if you couldn't
use
it? Flying by the seat of one's pants was tradition! Barn stormers had been doing it since the first planes had been launched after all. He'd done it with his family's tug until he'd broken it one too many times.

A trace of a fond smile played on his lips once more as he remembered those wild times. He rather enjoyed his current life but oh how he wished he could go back and tell his younger self to be patient! He shook his head. He wouldn't have believed himself anyway.

The idea of … having a drone wingman bugged him on a primal level. It went back to the First A.I. War he knew, but he'd found roots of distrust going back even further than that. One had trouble putting trust in a machine that didn't care if it lived or died. Technically it couldn't do either, since it wasn't sapient, he reminded himself.

The drones though … he had to grudgingly admit they were … interesting. They could be remote piloted or fly fully autonomous. They were modular, so they could take on virtually any mission in the wing. They saved on energy and mass without having a pilot with the attending life support to handle. They were fast, since they didn't have the same inertial problems a piloted craft had to deal with.

But there was that nagging worry, the one that just wouldn't go away. He shook his head. Well, if it wouldn't go away, he'd just have to make sure everyone knew where and how the kill switch worked he thought.

---<>))))

Lieutenant Commander Irene Teague looked over to Special Agent Sekim then back to the group they were observing.

“So, another hit on this
El Dorado
?” she demanded.

“Yes. It's all third or fourth hand though,” Mike replied with a grimace. “A friend of a friend there, a guy who knows a guy, or a relative who is in the ‘
El Dorado
fleet.’”

“I don't like the sound of that,” Irene mused.

“Heh, me neither. But we've got enough from independent sources to flag it as a large threat, ma’am,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

“The admirals will want more.”

“We can't really give them more when we don't have it. And sweating them hard is out. We can try of course, but they can start manufacturing material if they know we're interested.”

“And we can't let on that we're keenly interested,” Irene said.

“Exactly,” Mike replied tiredly.

She eyed him then snorted. “Go home, Mike, get some sleep.”

“I'll sleep when I'm dead,” Mike growled back. “In the meantime, if you're done with the foreplay, we've got a big mystery on our hands, and we've got people that are going to be breathing down our necks for more information quickly.”

“I know,” Irene replied with a grimace. “Sometimes I hate this job. I always wondered why Monty had held out on taking it officially. Now I know.”

“I don't envy you in the slightest,” Mike said in his gravel voice.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You're welcome. Dealing with that pissant in the main office …,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Power down, Mike. Let's keep from straying into insubordination if you don't mind.”

“Just speaking my mind to let off some steam. You know that,” he growled back. “But if it's a problem, I can take it elsewhere,” he offered.

“Sure, just don't go too public or you're in for a world of hurt,” Irene warned, eying him severely. “Back to this thing. What else do we have?”

“Every damn time someone talks about it in general population they end up beaten or dead before we can get our hands on them. A few died in the restricted population too despite all of our measures to protect them. The bastards get someone in there who talks small shit, then does the deed.”

“Or they are sitting there watching the others to make sure they don't give the whole show away. I don't like the sound of that,” she mused.

Mike thought about that and then grunted. “I don't either I suppose,” he growled, draining his cup. “I'll be seeing you when I see you,” he said.

“Same time, same channel Mike. Check in with me when you get more on this day or night.”

Mike nodded. “That goes without saying, Commander.”

She winced slightly. She knew the slight rebuke in using her rank instead of her name meant he wasn't quite as forgiving over her check on his pissant comment as he should be. He tended to hold a grudge too she thought in mild disgust. But he'd still do the job she thought to herself.

“I've written my notes up,” Mike said. “So you can send it out in the next dispatch to high command or whatever they are calling themselves this week,” he said.

“Mike,” she sighed. “It'll go to Monty. He's been promoted too.”

“Bout damn time,” Mike growled caustically.

“He had it coming before but being canned by the new administration here put a crimp in that. And he didn't cover himself in glory by taking the long route to Antigua either.”

“True,” Mike said, shaking his head.

“Monty's got a small team of analysts there now. He's after me to send him our best and brightest. Investigators too,” she said, eying him.

“Pass. I'm eying a chica who owns a bar on Vesta,” Mike retorted with a slight grin on his craggy face. “I'm flattered though.”

“I'm sure you are,” she replied with a sniff of disdain. “Glad you've got some sort of love life,” she said.

“And you're still stuck without one. Married to duty,” he said eying her.

“Story of my life,” she said shaking her head. She picked up her coffee cup and took a sip.

“Well, maybe you can get a leg over on Junior sometime,” Mike teased. She sputtered into her coffee, making him chuckle. 'Oh ho! I got a bit close to home there I see. Some intelligence officer you are to give away that so easily!” he teased.

She eyed him severely, mopping up the mess with a linen napkin. “Mike, if I …”

“Peace,” he said, holding up a hand. “The fact that you can find spare time is shocking all in itself. Shocking and gratifying,” he said.

She heard the words but the tone hit her more than they did. He had a sort of … fatherly approach to her. She nodded dumbly, getting her thoughts in order. Mike was old, and he'd made no bones about letting everyone know that once he found a suitable protégée and trained them to his exacting standard, he was planning to retire and go fishing somewhere on Agnosta.

“Mike,” she sighed in exasperation. “You're impossible you know that?”

“I do. I've been told that many, many times. Usually when I'm in the sack though,” he said grinning as he headed for the door. He chuckled again as the balled-up linen napkin sailed his way.

Chapter
24

"Admiral, there is something I've been wondering about. Something that's been on my mind since I was a kid."

"Oh?" Irons asked amused but with a note of distraction in his voice. It was typical for him to be mobbed by midshipman or wannabes or someone who wanted a “chat with the president” while he was on campus at the Antigua Prime college. That was why he kept his appearances virtual or random. He needed to get off campus before the media was alerted and came on scene as well as any idiot with a beef with him. He wasn't worried about his own safety but any innocent bystanders were a very different story.

He had yet to go to the academy on the planet beyond the initial dedication ceremony. He just couldn't find the time to burn while in transit each way. Perhaps if he combined it with other trips groundside, he might be able to swing it. But since it was a light minute away, he didn't do virtual lectures there at all. He was aware that the faculty were making good use of his canned lectures however.

He glanced at his security detail. They weren't thrilled about the delay; he could tell that from the sergeant's non-expression expression. But he had a moment and maybe it would be an interesting conversation.

"Yes, sir, the well, the Xeno nav data,” the midshipman said in a rush as the admiral stopped, throwing his courage into asking such an exalted rank. Irons was a little amused. Most midshipman weren't eager to bother an admiral with petty questions for fear of risking their wrath or the wrath of their own superiors. “Sir, how did we get it? I mean the Federation. Um …"

Admiral Irons cocked his head in surprise and amusement. "I take it that was never released?"

"No, sir. I'm well, curious," the young man said as he shrugged helplessly. "It doesn't make sense we knew next to nothing about them; all our intelligence was inferred …"

"Exactly. And whenever we captured one of them …"

The middy nodded. "They committed suicide. Or so I heard, sir."

The admiral grimaced. Suicide was putting it mildly. Many had turned their nanites on themselves and their captors. Catching a Xeno had been like playing with rather nasty fire. "Well, there were two or three methods to extract information," Irons mussed, sitting back and studying the young man. "We can track a ship in hyper by watching it when it enters or exits and deducing a general course from that, or …"

"Or seeing it in hyper?" the kid interrupted. He nodded. "But, I mean we could only get a general bearing, and that would be nebulous. If they were smart they'd change course …"

"To throw us off." Irons said with a nod. The young man was smart. He'd obviously given this a little thought. "Which leads to methods two and three, intelligence gathering from either observed or captured material."

"But … um, the suicide thing …"

"Didn't always work," Irons smiled patiently. "For a ship, if it's navigational database or even if a backup is cut off from the ship's net and then isolated, we can then clone it and take its copies apart atom by atom to get the information we want. That was how we found some of their staging grounds here in our galaxy." He didn't add how the Xenos had used that bait as a trap the third time.

"And how do you get them isolated? Seems like a one in a million shot, sir."

"True," Irons replied nodding. "It happens in battle sometimes. A ship is cut up and can't self-destruct. Your best chances are during an ambush. Hit them hard before they know you are there and can react."

"Oh."

“A good ship captain is a hunter, an assassin. Someone who strikes from ambush, a predator who takes down the prey in one hit if possible to minimize the threat to himself, his ship, mission, crew, and to prevent the enemy from knowing. The best death is when it is unknown to even the prey.”

The middy blinked. “Oh.”

John knew the young man was wrestling with the concepts of honor and trying manfully to put them aside. Hopefully he could figure it out.

"Back to your intel question, once and a while we got lucky. We'd track a signal direction, or as I said, a captured database. ONI would carefully cocoon the source, clone it as many times as needed, and then take it apart. Even virtual models tended to self-destruct so they had their work cut out for themselves for the first month or two. They are some of the real heroes of the war; without their hard work, we would’ve totally lost without a chance to hit back," he mused darkly.

"Yeah," the kid said softly.

"It was a bitch, I never envied them their job, but they got it done. But the data was never complete, so we needed more copies for comparison."

"Seems a hard way to get some, sir, luck …"

"Or really good targeting. Which is hard to do until we got data on the enemy ships. But there is another way. We send boarders: marines, special ops, and robots sent in to snatch the material and get out."

"Ah," the kid said eyes lighting. "That'd be wild. I never saw that in the holos though!"

John snorted mentally. Trust the young and foolish to want to jump in for glory without thought. "Probably because they didn't want it brooded about much," the admiral mussed, kicking himself a little for telling the kid. "It was a volunteer mission. If a crew knew what the boarders were after, they would suicide. Either individually, setting their nanites off to devour the ship and boarding team …,” he saw the young man gulp. “Or more likely, blow the scuttling charges destroying the ship. We lost a lot …," he looked away for a moment. "A lot of teams. Friends," he said, voice roughening with emotion.

"I'm sorry, sir," the young man said, suddenly contrite, head down.

"Don't be. It's dead and long gone now," Irons sighed, getting control of his emotions. Displays like that one were rare, but it emphasized to those who were watching that he was human. He could see a few middies and students listening. Two were pointing camera phones in their direction. He snorted and turned so they couldn't get more than his backside.

"Okay, but you said there were three? Sir?" the young man asked, trying to get things moving again before they got maudlin.

"Actually there is a subset of the second thing. Identify an enemy spy and watch his movements, or if necessary, take it a step further. Capture of an operative and interrogation under sedation," Irons said gently. The kid's eyes widened comically. He sighed noting it. "Son, we were at war. Worse, we were on the
losing
side of that war. We needed intel and fast. No matter the cost."

"I know, sir it's just …"

"It's just dirty. I know. Believe me I
know
. But it had to be done." He shook his head, looking away. There was a moment of silence. He cleared his throat and then rubbed his chin. "The third method was infiltration. Sending something or someone in and then back tracing their path. Usually they would leave a trail for us to follow."

"Ah … That'd be scary …"

"In a word, yes. Usually we used nanite robots or …"

"Or AI," Sprite interrupted quietly. "My brethren would infiltrate a system, hide out, and then gather as much data as possible by a set time period and then broadcast it."

"Which meant they got caught in the end," Irons said softly.

"Yes," Sprite said. Protector nodded on the admiral's HUD.

"I'm sorry to hear that, ma’am," The young man said, suddenly even more sober. "I … I wish we organics could …"

"Oh, your people did. Many tried, but you can't get into a ship or piece of tech like we can. There were other methods, but I think the admiral covered the basics." she shot the admiral a warning glance. He grunted.

"So, did they, um, use the same methods on us?" the kid asked, looking from the holo of the AI to the admiral helplessly.

Irons shook his head, rubbing his forehead. Sprite snickered, hand over her mouth.

"Goddess of space if we'd made it …," Irons sighed and held up a forestalling hand at the affronted look on the boy's face. "No, sorry, son, but we were an open book. Literally. The Encyclopedia Galactica actually."

Sprite nodded. She knew that it wasn't completely true; the enemy had used changelings and A.I. to get what wasn't written down. That, however, didn't need to be said at the moment. The young man however looked curious and then when he saw her project a sample page his eyes widened as he caught on. "Oh my …"

"Yes, I see you are catching on. The publication from legendary New Alexandria, one-time home of the Federation's greatest minds. Complete listing of every planet, details, everything down to their import export and seasons. Hell, they could’ve picked up a couple travel brochures and got the same detail as well," the admiral said with a grimace.

"But … oh …crap," the young man sat back suddenly pale.

"Right. The coordinates to each and every star system in the Federation and to every known habitable planet in the galaxy. Well most of them anyway."

"Most of them?" the kid asked. Irons grimaced, kicking himself mentally.

"He means those we hadn't explored or gotten data on from exploration and colony ships were of course left out," Sprite filled in, covering for the admiral. Irons nodded. The young man didn't need to know that the navy had deliberately edited some of the listings to hide entire star systems for their own purposes.

"Or military installations like Pax Romeo," the young man said smiling slyly.

"How …," Irons sighed, knowing the kid had seen through the gambit. "I take it that it was in the holos?"

"Yes, sir. I caught a news cast in the archives. I gather that some places weren't mapped?"

"Which is why …"

"Why they still used infiltration to gather intel. Got it," the kid said with a nod. “And why we have to be on the lookout in case the Empire does the same thing. Yes, sir.” He nodded eagerly.

Irons nodded. Perhaps it had been a productive conversation after all. He turned slightly to see a small audience of gathered middies and onlookers.

The middy frowned. Protector tracked a text message from one of the middies to the speaker. Apparently he'd been put up to ask the questions. Irons snorted mentally at such antics. "Sir, I …," he blinked then got a wary look. "I was just thinking, sir. Dead space would make a great hiding spot. Between two jumps …"

"Don't go there," Protector growled from a speaker. Irons nodded as the young man sobered.

"I don't know if we got all of the Xenos. We can't be sure. We might’ve gotten them all."

The young man looked scared. "But, um, sir, I mean the fleet …"

"It is a big galaxy, son. Here and their own. Remember that,” the admiral replied. The young man nodded. He could hear a few of the students murmur. He wasn't sure if they'd take it as a sign of paranoia or something else. Hopefully caution, though he doubted it. “One of the best ways to hide something is to
not
have it in a database that could fall into enemy hands. If your own people don't know about it …"

"Then they can't give it away," Sprite said nodding and then glancing at the young man. He blinked and then nodded slowly.

"So that's why you're …"

"No, I've got many other reasons," the admiral replied with a tight smile.

"And seven centuries without any activity at all …," Sprite said.

"Doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. They could be licking their wounds just like us. We don't
know
, and we won't know until we can send someone to look. Hard."

"Aye aye, sir." He heard similar murmurs from the other middies and students. Hasty hands dropped to hide cell phones or other electronic devices. The middies were standing at attention as he surveyed them, thumbs aligned with their hem line … well, for those species who wore pants at any rate, he thought, eying the Veraxin and Gashg.

"Carry on," Irons said, dismissing them.

“Thank you, sir, for your time,” the middy said as the crowd rapidly dispersed and the admiral moved out. His protection detail moved out quickly around him in a diamond formation.

When he got back to his borrowed office in the faculty administration center's academy wing he took his jacket off and tossed it onto the guest chair, then took a seat. The former occupant of the room was shorter than he was, the chair took a moment and then adjusted to his larger frame.

"Why did you tell him so much, sir?" Protector asked, clearly curious. He turned to look at the holo on his desk. He sat back and rocked side to side.

"We're trying to train these people. They need to learn. We can't assume they know it if we don't tell them or at least teach them the fundamentals."

"Ah." Sprite nodded. She looked at the other A.I. "Not everything comes in a database. Organics learn mostly from experience. By doing is the expression."

"True." Irons smiled slightly. "It's one thing to learn something on paper or virtually. But organics have learned that experience is the best teacher. Hands-on is the best. It puts everything into perspective."

"Understood," the centurion said and his holo winked out.

"He's checking the database for everyone who listened in. And blocking some of the recordings. Paranoid," Sprite commented.

"Even paranoid people have real enemies Sprite. Paranoia is a survival trait. He is just doing his job, Commander, which reminds me we need to do ours. We need to expand the role of intel gathering."