Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (57 page)

He frowned, wondering if he should alert the picket in B-95a3 to shoot them on sight if they got past him. It was very tempting, but he wasn't sure if they'd get a shot either.

He sighed. He could send a courier with some small supplies. That might boost their morale; he kicked the idea around for a short time while he checked the status board.

---<>))))

Admiral Subert sat back with a frown of concentration. “Well, that explains it he murmured as his hatch signaled a request for admittance. He checked; it was Saul. He grunted and cleared the security lock and keyed the hatch open.

It opened, and Saul came in with a curious expression. He ignored it. “Did it go well, sir?”

“Um?”

“The conference. You went longer than expected.”

“Longer than … we were only talking a half hour,” the rear admiral said, eying his chief of staff. “You time me?”

“Your time as well every flag officer's is heavily scheduled, sir,” Saul replied with a diffident shrug.

The admiral grimaced but conceded the point. “Well, I found out something. It finally fits, why the shift to carriers and carrier tactics.”

“Sir?”

“We're stepping up the pace, a lot. We're going after the enemy in a big way, and we're pulling another Protodon by going off sooner rather than later. Possibly sooner than any of us would like. Unfortunately, if our intel is correct we have no choice.”

He frowned thoughtfully. What it meant was a series of carrier raiding forces, most likely made up of one or more CEVs with a couple of tin cans or other ships riding herd on them. They'd go in, dance, smash everything they could, then pull out. He made a note to look into nodule support fleet trains at specific points behind them to handle the logistics so they wouldn't have to return all the way back to the Federation. It was how they'd done it during the Xeno war after all.

They'd most likely go through his backyard too since B101a1 was the portal to the southeastern portion of the empire and the least defended. The CEVs would go in behind the battle cruiser division raiders he bet. Or they might even go in with them? Who was going to command them since Mayweather was out of the running? Coordinating them … he frowned thoughtfully.

When he didn't elaborate and remained quiet for an uncomfortable period, Saul squirmed a bit then cleared his throat. “Um, sir?”

“I can't give you the details,” the admiral finally replied. He questioned the intel, the person who found them, and their source. Had Montgomery saved them to save his own ass and get back in with Irons? He wasn't sure. No, if he'd saved them for a rainy day, he would have trotted them out before he'd fired him or just after. He made a mental note to look into it himself. He could make a call to Clink and the POW camp in Pyrax and find out what they had given Montgomery directly.

“Horatio's already stepped up production of the
Kittyhawks
. And
Argus
is coming along smoothly, no hitches there,” Saul said, checking his status board internally. “We haven't laid down a second CFV since we want to get the bugs out first. He's upgraded the CEVs to flight III across the board I believe. It's a good upgrade, bringing them up beyond CEVs used during the Xeno war.” He caught the admiral's nod of approval. They were going to need every advantage they could get. “Apparently Commander Wong worked out the kinks with the ship designs and applied them to the ships built in Antigua first to be certain.” The admiral grimaced at that little qualifier. “He sent Horatio a copy of the specs a few months ago. The ship architects and design teams have signed off on it on this end and they've filtered into production.”

The admiral nodded absently, but his mind was elsewhere. “Good, they'll need every edge they can get,” he said while the rest of his mind focused on the strategic picture.

He hadn't been at all impressed with the original
Kittyhawk
design. It had been little more than a fighter barge, a kludge of parts from various ship classes stuffed together and barely functional. But it had been a platform to launch fighters, and he'd admired the courage and initiative it had taken to get the thing out of dry dock let alone man the thing. It'd been a death trap, and all concerned had known it from the start. Before her refit the
Kittyhawk
had sported a measly pair of
Nelson
class engines that had given her an anemic snail pace. No shields, barely a reactor … she'd been a danger as much as to herself as to the enemy.

But now that was different. She'd been one of the first ships refitted. He'd read the reports; she'd done outstanding getting up to speed with a mixed air wing. They'd held their position in B100 omega without a need to return for refit too despite being in a kludged together ship. That said volumes about the stubborn pride of her crew.

The fight II design had been upgraded to a true escort carrier. Proper engines, shields, the works. The flight III design had taken advantage of the latest designs and minor technical advances they'd come up with in
Lemnos
. It had taken time to get the bugs and the damn Xeno sabotage out of the design, but the first ships were being laid down in Antigua. They were lagging behind. Hopefully, Horatio had a way to fix that.

He
hated
playing catch-up.

He was aware of the … competition between Sindri and Logan. It amused him. As long as they didn't let it get out of hand or go to their heads, he was tolerating it. Besides, Sindri might have the inside track with the admiral's presence there, but he had an ace in the hole in that Pyrax had all those mothballed, partially completed hulls and one other thing—Captain Logan.

But, if he was right about Bek, he wouldn't have him for long a small corner of his mind whispered.

He shook himself. That was some time in the future.
Caroline
hadn't even made it in yet, let alone made contact or gotten back out. They'd have to wait and see.

“Work with Captain Valdez. He's going to need to write up a list of names for early promotion and earmark people for various positions and keep it up-to-date. Across the board too, since I don't want any of our fortresses or other ships to be drawn down.”

Saul grimaced. “Yes, sir. There is a class of pilots about to graduate.”

“Every little bit helps. And I understand the marines have MAWTS up and running. He'll be able to tap them too.”

“If they don't all go to air ops to support their troops, sir,” the chief of staff reminded him.

“You would mention that,” Phil growled. He eyed Saul with a mock sour look. The other man just shrugged it off. “Right. Again, I suppose we'll take what we can get. We'll have some rough edges; we always do. Get with Ops and Butrain. I want sims on carrier ops using our current ships. No doubt they will be the ones to go out; the others will be too squeaky new. So they better be trained to work as a carrier raiding group.”

Saul frowned but nodded.

“While you get them on that, check in on Horatio's efforts and get back to me there. I'm going to see what I can to do move the production lines along and maybe scare up some more pilots from the civilian community.”

“Yes, sir. Don't forget your noon lunch appointment on Anvil, sir.”

The admiral grimaced then nodded. “Damn it, I did forget that.”

“It's with the lieutenant governor. She's there and well …”

The admiral sighed, running a frustrated hand through his short hair. “So, you're saying I can't reschedule without pissing her off. Fine. I'll work it out.”

“Yes, sir,” Saul said, nodding. “Just keeping you honest, sir.”

“And I appreciate it. Go get the ball rolling before I dump more on you.”

“I hope not, sir. I've already got my hands full as it is,” Saul replied.

“If you can complain, you don't have enough to do,” Phil said with a curt smile. He waved him off. “Never mind, go. Get out while the getting's good I suppose.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

---<>))))

Sprite eyed the admiral, trying to gauge his mood. Now that she didn't have instant access to his vital signs, it was a bit trickier. Even with the refined Aphrodite algorithms to judge his thermal profile, she still could only get a general estimate. And if there were mixed emotions within him, it tended to throw the thermal profile all over the place.

“You're worried?” she finally asked, hazarding a guess about his mental state.

“You aren't?” he asked, turning to look at her avatar.

“I am not sure. I think taking out the two battle cruisers in Nuevo Madrid is a good idea. Taking them out or capturing them. Leaving them alone is risky.”

“Hard and fast if necessary. We don't have the time to pussy foot around and play games. I think they've gotten wise to that trick. We can't afford to have our own ships laid up though Sprite. Though I bet we can turn them around a lot faster.”

“If you don't pull the crews for new construction,” Protector quipped.

The admiral grunted. “True,” he admitted. “But as I was saying, the enemy has learned. They know how to blunt some of our advantages including a cyber-attack,” the admiral stated flatly.

“Obviously judging from what happened in Protodon, you mean? I've read the after action report. I think the A.I. involved could have done a better job with the cyber-attack. But I concede the point,” Sprite replied with a nod.

“Taking a ship is a bit more than just a cyber-attack. Forcing the captain and crew to stand down, to see no other alternative. And to get them to where they aren't willing to blow their ship up …,” the admiral frowned thoughtfully. It was going to be a lot harder with Horathians with all the blood on their hands. Worse, they probably knew it too.

“The psychological point you mean. Finding someone who genuinely cares about their crew. And with Horathians …,” Sprite's image flickered, her form of a wince. “I see your point.”

“Right, I don't want our people to take unnecessary chances. But if they surrender, by all means. But I'm no longer counting on it.”

“But you want those ships taken out to protect Protodon? You know they can send more. ONI's current Horathian war book tells us they've got at least twenty battle cruisers in service, or had. It's down to nineteen now that we've taken
Maine
from them,” Protector reminded him.

“Nineteen that we know of. And we're not including the ships they have under construction or in the reserves. And those are just the smallest of all capital ships. We know they have bigger ships,” Irons said darkly. A flicker of light caught his eye in the wall screen. He looked over to it, noted a tug was performing a burn, and then turned away ignoring it.

“Which may or may not have functional hyperdrives and systems. With
El Dorado
, you can bet they'll make that a priority—that and getting their fleet up to snuff across the board,” Sprite said.

“Definitely,” Irons grumbled.

“So, you want to get in, punch as much as you can out while you can. With green crews,” Sprite said, fishing. She saw his expression twist and made a note that she'd calculated correctly. “Green crews with good equipment and training but in untried ships, untested command chains, untested captains. Not a good combination. We could be throwing them away. Or at least inviting painful mistakes. Is that what you are worried about?”

“Not so much, but now that you mention it …,” John sighed as he flopped down deeper into his chair. “It's a thought. I was tempted to move some of our veteran captains into them. That was my plan actually, to rotate them home, promote them to bigger ships fresh from the yard, then give them time to work them up. Now that's in the crapper, or at least partially. Trajan has Amadeus's flag ship, but with what happened to Renee, he's not going to keep it long.”

“Not quite yet, but close,” Sprite observed dryly. “You could rotate the current captains of the battle cruisers. You have already put Harris in charge of one of them …”

John shook his head. “I don't have cause to relieve the current captains. Yes, they are green, but it's not right. It reflects poorly on them, hammers morale, and it shows a lack of confidence in them and others. It also shows favoritism.”

“It's not about doing it right, nor about the traditions. It's about
getting
it right. About making sure they have the best command team available and hang their stupid pride,” Sprite said tartly. He grunted. “Seriously. If they can't hack it …. Oh, yes, the new captains would need time to integrate. The shakeup would impact morale …,” Sprite began to formulate counter arguments for him.

“Are you having issues, Commander? You are sounding more human every day,” Protector asked, eying her.

“Bite your virtual tongue. I just have a lot more room to think. More processors to consider the various angles.”

“But going on like that. Out loud …”

“Is human. Get over it, or as human as one of you gets. She might have done it as an expression and to draw me out. Move on,” John said, looking up. “You are correct about those points, which are the other reasons I'm in no hurry to relieve the current crop of commanders. Plus, every day they are where they are, they accrue experience to hold the job. Who knows, given enough time they might be able to handle it properly.”