Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (42 page)

She nodded. "I know, sir." She grimaced. “That part I'm still not comfortable with,” she admitted.

"You might want to reconsider a fighter wing and opt for a recon slot. That might better suit your temperament. Most people can't handle long stretches of patrol without much action. With your gliding experience, I believe you could."

She nodded dutifully. "Yes, sir." She frowned slightly, clearly thinking the idea over.

"It's also a solo slot—well, you and an A.I."

She hesitated and then nodded briefly. "Thank you, sir. I'll consider it."

"You do that, Lieutenant. You do that."

"Thanks again, sir," her face blossomed into a smile. He chuckled and nodded as he turned and left.

"Three in one outing. You're going to start a reputation at this. People are going to lay in wait for you here," Protector said amused as he made his way to the restaurant.

"They can try, but I'm not going to be here tomorrow, remember?" He looked from Protector to Sprite's image as she linked into his implants once more.

"True. But they don't know that, sir," he answered. "I'm curious about how many people will lay in wait for you tomorrow anyway?"

He snorted. "I wish they would just go through the proper channels."

"Which is a problem. People in command get someone halfway decent, train them up to a functional level; they don't want to lose that and start over again."

"Retention." he sighed for a moment, hand on the door handle to the restaurant. "I get it. I know. I ran into it enough in my time. But if someone is more in tune with a preferred slot then they should be guided to that slot not just stuck into any available empty slot and then forgotten about."

"Point," Sprite said on his HUD as he opened the door and then stepped aside politely for the couple exiting. They nodded and smiled slightly as they passed.

"Write me a note. Get someone to look into it. I don't want this to become a problem or a lever."

"Lever?"

"Someone stuck in a dead-end job, angry about missed opportunities real or imagined, and someone using that as lever to gain influence or information."

Sprite nodded once. "Point. Another thing to point out to the intel wannabees."

“How many in your party, sir?” the maître asked politely, picking up a placard menu from the podium by the door.

"True." he nodded to the maître as he refocused on the slim man. "Party of one."

"Yes, sir, Admiral, right this way." the man waved. Irons nodded politely and followed.

---<>))))

Yuki smiled as the wind ruffled her feathers. All was well with the world. She rubbed her hands on the stained wood. The bridge was a comfort, not just because it was a high point, the highest in the park, but also because it was made with Asian influences. It was made with wood; something she missed in the metal and plastic world of a modern cockpit. It held just enough touches of home to make her feel more comfortable. It helped ease her home sickness.

This, these new turn of events were heartening. She'd felt trapped, stuck in a dead-end flight pattern, forever doomed to fly regular runs and never allowed to see more of the sky or to see more of space. Now … she took a deep breath, swelling in pride and happiness. Now things will be different. She wasn't head down in a headwind. Her luck like the winds were changing ever so slightly in her favor.

---<>))))

Irons stared out at the building yards and felt a welter of pride and amusement. Pride at all that had been accomplished in his absence. There were several yard stations now, each a part of a greater whole.

There were the corvette and frigate yard, the destroyer yard and the cruiser yard. Larger ships were built off in the yard drifting in the distance in the capital ship yard. There was a repair yard beyond that. His enhanced eyes focused on the pinpoints of light. He could just make out the shape of the yards there.

They had taken a different approach here in Antigua over what he'd started in Pyrax. Instead of a single massive station yard with one or two individual slips for each class they had entire stations for each class. They had been truss cradles, made in haste to give them a structure for work crews to use to build or repair the ships.

He returned his attention to the nearest destroyer yard. It was a classic design the navy had put into practice centuries before he was born. It was mostly made of extruded strut trusses and covered in panels and solar cells.

The center was a spindle station with the main administration and logistics. The spindle tapered down it's vertical axis to the power plants which were two hundred meters below the main station.

On top of the spindle was the central administration and coordination offices. Below that was the habitation ring for those personnel who lived and worked on the station. In the center of the spindle four giant arms stretched out.

Two of these arms perpendicular to the others were smaller than the others; they led to docking nodes and orbital warehouses. But the other two led to the yard modules.

Each module was made up of truss segments. The module had a hexagonal cross section and was about a kilometer long and a half kilometer in diameter.

Each module had subassembly modules attached to it in various positions. Each subassembly module made sections of the ship. These subassemblies were passed on to the main module and assembled into sections of the ship known as bricks. They were then transferred to the main bay where they were assembled into the growing ship like ancient Legos.

There were eight yard modules on each of the two arms. Each module had boxy submodules attached around them like coral clusters, that had their own submodules feeding into them, and so on and so on. A constant stream of traffic ran through the connecting arms, moving material to the hungry subassembly modules. He could see a freighter docking with the station. Tugs were helping it to delicately maneuver into its docking node. Puffs of vapor could be seen as they moved the giant behemoth into position to unload. She was too close to the station to use gravitics.

She was the first fully loaded freighter for that yard. Her holds would stock the warehouses for about a day. That was actually pretty typical for such a station; they only had enough room in the warehouses for a day or two of supplies. They had one heck of a turnover, keeping it all balanced and orderly without hiccups was a headache for the various middle management of the yard. He didn't envy them the task; he'd done it often enough in his own time.

Beyond, the station truss gantries held ships in their final drawing and fitting stages. There were free-floating docks as well, truss gantries drifting out there in the void with blinking lights. All separated by a couple of kilometers to keep the workforce from crowding themselves too much. There were dozens of these docks, but only a few were occupied right now. Some were doing tests; others were taking on stores. It was an orderly assembly line but it was just getting into production. Hopefully that would change soon.

They were coming along now that they had the right attitude and they had the logistics under control he mused. Well,
almost
under control, they had been forced to divert materials from the smaller yards to feed the voracious appetite of the larger yards in order to push some of the larger ships out earlier than he'd planned.

He had to admit it was his fault. He'd pushed for larger ships to get them on station faster after what happened in Protodon. They
needed
larger ships; ships that could go toe-to-toe with the cruisers and battle cruisers that the Empire had in service. But that tampering with the build schedules had an unfortunate side effect; it had slowed the smaller yards to a crawl sometimes. The repairs and occasional refit didn't help much either. At least they now had dedicated yard modules for them now he thought, glancing in the direction of the refit and repair yards in the distance. Most of the ships there were in virtual mothballs, with their crews pulled to man larger more recently built ships.

Still, all the work had allowed them to get their people up to speed and get the construction methods ironed out. He felt wry amusement at that thought, and a little trepidation at how far along they had yet to go. "Baby steps," he murmured.

"Excuse me, sir?" he turned to see a balding Asian male behind him. The man was standing at attention. He was thin, rake thin, but he had a set of jowls. Odd on his lanky frame. His craggy face had the perpetual look of scowling.

"Something I can help you with um …," Protector pinged the man's IFF and then hovered a name over his head, "Lieutenant commander Yung?"

"Yes, sir, about Lieutenant Yuki Susora, I am her commanding officer. I'm ah …"

Irons studied the man and his readouts and nodded. "A little put out about my jumping the chain of command, Commander?" he asked mildly of the solemn man.

"Um …"

Irons waited as the man gathered his thoughts. "Sir, is this how it always will be? No respect for the chain of command, poaching …"

Irons hid a smile at the indignant outrage in that. It wasn't a whine, definitely not. But it was annoyed and annoying. He'd heard it before and knew he'd hear it again. He glanced sideways and rapidly scanned Kin Yung's jacket and compared it to Yuki's.

"Tell me, why has Lieutenant Susora's requests for transfer been denied? They never seemed to have gotten past you. Eighteen months is a long time in a billet these days." Usually someone was lucky to last six months in Antigua—longer though if they were on shipboard assignment outside the solar system.

"Again, sir, with all due respect …"

His eyes turned on the lieutenant commander. He flicked a thought, and the door in the observation blister closed behind the commander. The commander turned in surprise. "There, we can talk privately now." Irons said, patience starting to wane. "I was wondering why Lieutenant Susora's been denied advancement?"

"Sir she's a great instinctive pilot and dependable as a rock but lacks …"

"Skills in docking, space adaptation, social skills, and her high-level math skills are horrible," the admiral said, reading the notes in her last evaluation. “More seasoning required.” He wondered if the commander saw the irony in jumping the command to approach him directly. Probably not, he was too indignant to care.

"Yes, sir …"

"So you're wondering why she is transferring?"

"Sir, in my experience only the best and brightest are chosen for a carrier wing. She doesn't fit the bill, sir."

"And you've had experience there, I take it?" the admiral asked with a raised eyebrow. He had thought there was some affliction there, the whole hold onto experienced personnel to avoid training a greenhorn thing but this wasn't it. Obviously something else was going on. He flicked a thought to the personnel archive and pulled up Yung's detailed jacket.

He noted the requests for transfer to a carrier billet in the commander's jacket, all denied, which was typical. There weren't that many carriers to begin with, most of the wings were still housed on stations, fortresses, and bases. That was changing though with the new thrust of the yards however. Also, it didn't help that the commander was trying for a wing commander or CAG slot. They were all taken as veteran fighter pilots moved into them. Since he lacked fighter pilot training and …

He opened the opaque part of the jacket that other officers couldn’t normally access to check the encrypted notes from the commander's own chain of command. Ah yes, a fief builder, reliable, but mediocre pilot with little training skills and a tendency to cronyism. He also tended to coast and dump shitty duties on others instead of leading by example. It wasn't a surprise he'd been passed over for years.

"You've wanted that billet for some time?" he asked as the commander fidgeted.

Finally, the young man nodded, jaw clenched, face cold. "Yes, sir."

"I see that. And I see why. It would help if you'd start at a lower position. Aim high may be a pilot's way of thinking but in your case you may need to settle for something lower and build up to where you want." The fact that the young man was a lieutenant commander meant he was a bit high in the chain of command to be a fighter pilot wasn't lost on the admiral. He knew it was going to fall onto deaf ears though from the man's set expression and slight fidgeting. From the commander's psychological profile, he didn't do well under someone else's direct command. Especially if it was an alien or human female.

He checked the unit's thumbnail brief. From the look of it, any alien who was transferred to the unit was transferred out at the earliest opportunity, usually with the commander's scathing recommendations, which made his holding onto Yuki strange.

"Sir …"

He held up a forestalling hand as he read some of the notes then grimaced, jaw tightening. "Commander, If I was in your shoes I'd consider building your skills in handling alien relations as well as exploring other command billets. Have you considered a transfer out of your usual bailiwick? I know it is outside your comfort zone but have you considered a boat bay position or a line position lately?"

The commander blinked. "Um, sir, no, sir uh …"

"I know the lack of stick time would wear on a pilot, but it is a thought to consider," Irons said, cocking his head. "As to Lieutenant Susora, she isn't going to a carrier billet."