Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (78 page)

Inquiries for more information, and even some early bids came in from all over the Federation. Media outlets, local governments, corporations, merchant houses, and others all slavered at the idea of getting their hands on new ships, even though they were relatively small.

Bidding for each of the ships became fierce right off. Two were purchased by start-up merchant houses in Pyrax, a third was purchased by the local government of Halced 6 and 1 was purchased through the ansible network by a buyer in New Texas with the intent of turning it into a yacht. “I've got just the right set of long horns to hang up in her too! Yee haw!” the buyer said over the ansible. That last bit was too good not to release to the public.

A day after the purchases the ships were picked up by their respective buyers once confirmation of their payment was made. The rancher hired a team to fly his ship to Antigua to have it refitted to his own tastes.

Chapter
43

Sprite would have been annoyed if she'd been human. Instead she was resigned as she tried to deal with Galactic Space Trucker's Union once more. The union was new and therefore flexing muscles as it tested its limits. The leadership definitely wanted to push the navy and the rules and guidelines for contracts the navy had laid down.

A human would have considered it amusing for the group to name themselves Galactic when they were still limited to Antigua. Monty's intel had picked up minor chatter between the group and people in other space heavy industrial star systems like Senka and Pyrax, but apparently no one there had yet taken up their clarion call to organize under their banner.

A union throwing their weight around was nothing new; they were supposed to do it with cargo though,
not
politics. She knew some of the truckers preferred the long haul over playing catch with barges. That was a part of the current problem she had to deal with. She realized why she was representing the navy when she read the GSTU's bylaws and chief demands. They wanted an organic in the cockpit at all times. One of their people and regulated hours, which made sense since organics needed rest. And since they had some long hauls, they would need a minimum crew of three … or crew transfers in flight. That would add more mass and complications to each shipment and throttle the economy.

She pointed out in a text missive that not every shipment needed a pilot, and even ships that were piloted relied on the autopilot for much of the mission. She was aware of the usual verbal fencing going on; when she thought they were about done, she pointed out their bylaws violated the A.I. Compact. “You can't bar an A.I. from any profession an organic can hold,” she told them, which sent their delegation into a tailspin of damage control.

She felt her emotional module signal elation but set the emotional response aside. She had certainly unbalanced them and flustered the opposition. “If you'd like a recess to talk to your people about rewording your client's bigotry into something less offensive before I forward this conversation to the attorney general …,” she asked sweetly.

The human and Veraxin attorneys immediately agreed.

When they closed the channel, she did allow her emotional modulator loose to induce a chuckle. She was amused by their conceit and putting them in their place seemed appropriately delicious … for the moment.

She flicked a request out to check on the progress in the shipyards and orbital works. Then she checked on the civilian side of the broiling orbital industry. Antigua Prime was swarming with ships; the massive factory city station was nearly back to what it had been in its heyday prior to the Xeno war.

Yard Dog Inc., however, was still struggling with handling growth. They had multiple slips and a small but growing central station, but it could have been better she thought. They were constricted on four fronts. One, they refused to allow outside investment. That was a major hamper to their business. Two, they were reliant on their in-house people or barter to supply the raw material they needed. Three, the young lady Mariah Jersey in charge of the asteroid tugs was overworked. She was trying to be both a pilot and a manager, when clearly her roll called for an administrator at this point, Sprite mused. But the young lady didn't want to leave the cockpit. She was a natural pilot, so her psychological profile indicated she would resent further upward promotion that dragged her from the profession she loved.

She was also aware through talk with some of the Yard Dogs that the GSTU had been after Jersey and others to join their ranks, even attempting to strong arm them into joining. Apparently the young lady had taken umbrage at that and was now dead set against them. Good for her, the A.I. thought.

A part of the first two problems was an issue with control she thought, returning to their strategic problem. The founders didn't want to relinquish their control. In a way she couldn't blame them, they didn't want to be squeezed out of the business they had built from the ground up. They weren't trained for handling business though. They were hands-on people, and some of their management was haphazard. They needed to either be trained to handle it or gracefully hand over the day-to-day operations to a trained professional while they stepped back or focused on their preferred fields.

But that wasn't happening. A part of it was the navy's fault. They were enabling the problem, allowing it to fester instead of letting nature take its course.

Admiral Irons was supplementing their processed material supply or part supply when he bartered for goods or work. But that was a two-edged sword, they needed credits to pay their people too. But the fourth problem was an expansion versus production question. One they were obviously struggling with, though they had made some small amounts of progress on expansion. But they needed to dedicate one group to expanding and upgrading their base of operations while the rest worked on the various projects that came in.

Technically, there was a fifth problem, their customer base. They took in everyone, military and civilian. They took on repair jobs on rush order right along with their bread and butter steady contracts. They also took on building civilian ships. Sometimes the rush repair jobs upset their schedules to the detriment of their contracts. Several civilian firms had started to work in penalties for missed deadlines; she didn't envy Yard Dog's accountants. She decided to have another chat with some of the board.

That, she realized immediately, was a sixth problem. Many of the board had side jobs that in some cases were their primary work. Take for instance Hishina Fu; she was one of the leaders of the Antigua Prime ruling council. Talk about a conflict of interest! The same could be said of the Warners; they too were on the Antigua Prime council. Then there was Clio and some of the other A.I. On Prime, they were not only investors but also did side work for the dogs whenever they had free time.

She didn't envy them. She checked the board and then had to adjust her emotional feed from the modulator again. Apparently Admiral Irons was considered an investor and had enough of an interest to take a seat on the board should he wish. Was that why they deferred to him? Or just because he was so famous? No, the start-up had to be the big contributing factor, not just his fame or his friendship with many on the board.

She made a note to discuss the issue with him sometime in the future. Not that she calculated it would do much good.

---<>))))

Over the past year, the production of corvettes had been curtailed and eventually ended. The small warship line had been retooled over a month to produce
Sojourner
class dispatch boats, small support craft like the
Dora
, and
Prowler
scout vessels. They had found that corvettes were good for pickets but they were not enough of a deterrent after the second battle of Protodon. They also lacked the abilities of much larger ships, and sucked up a great deal of manpower.

The problem with the Prowlers were that they were so small they lacked the range needed to get into Sigma sector, and that wasn't going to change much even with the shipment of antimatter that was anticipated to come in from Pyrax. They also had little defense and no offensive capabilities. Stealth was their only survival tool. But they had produced four in the allotted time anyway, two were finishing working up, the first had already been dispatched to Protodon, and the final ship was laid up with teething issues.

Vestri's current plan was to make another two runs of
Sojourners
and then one of support vessels and then another of
Prowlers
, then back to dispatch boats before retooling the line for corvettes or fast personnel transports. Each production run of dispatch boats were of an eight-ship group of vessels.

Some in the military community wanted to build large drop shuttles with the production line. It was a consideration, but the design they were championing wasn't a favorite of Admiral Irons or many pilots. It had the classic
Osprey
style design, with massive engines in nacelles on the tip of the wings. But it also had two small feet on those nacelles as well. The craft had ports called drop gates along the flanks to eject the armored marines and a loading ramp in the rear. It also had two drones that could be deployed for offensive or defensive work.

But it was those feet that Irons and others kept pointing out. They made for only two points of contact with the ground. Champions contended that it was an issue, but anti-gravity would more than make up for it. Irons and the marines acidly pointed out that you don't use anti-gravity in a combat environment, it was like waving a huge “here I am” sign. And with the dropship so massive and lacking a rudder or conventional aircraft control surfaces, it wallowed in turns and was difficult to accelerate. Not something you wanted to be in during a hostile landing.

The admiral had run a simple test to show the champions one of the problems with the design. He'd set up a simulation and had them load the craft. As marines moved on board, the craft's center of gravity shifted. The bird-like legs couldn't compensate for the shift and the craft toppled over. Of course he hadn't mentioned that on-board computers could help to compensate for that.

A remedy was to unlock the wing pivot to allow the craft to swing free of the nacelles and therefore tip with the load as needed. That would mean it would be vulnerable to the wind, and the teeter totter arrangement would make loading and unloading tricky. But that was only one of the problems Irons had decided to illustrate. The other was taking off and landing.

With the feet as part of the thrusters on the nacelles, it meant the engine exhaust was within a meter of the ground. That meant it kicked up a lot of dust, hot wash, and debris … potentially hazardous to the craft and personnel. White out wasn't an issue; the craft's sensors could allow the crew to fly it blind, but it was still something to consider. The dust, debris, and hot wash would add wear and tear on the craft as well.

The feet were just that, feet. Which meant the craft didn't have wheels to be towed around a flight deck or on the ground. That meant on the ground it had to use anti-gravity, and in space the ship had to shut off its gravity to move the craft. Since the inertial dampeners were generally tied to the anti-gravity, it meant the ship couldn't be under acceleration while moving the craft.

Then there was the sheer size of a boat bay needed to support the craft. You couldn't have just one, so it had to be enormous, which meant a large supporting crew as well. Maintenance on the craft would also be troublesome since the parts were super-sized compared to a squad sized shuttle. Replicating and transporting the parts would be a logistics nightmare.

The champions had pointed out it would help solve the Marine aircraft issue, which was only partially true. The marines definitely needed their own air wing with dedicated ground support. The events in Protodon had shown that clear enough. But the medium class
Passion Republic
design was only one possible solution among many. He'd politely but firmly handed them their heads, a copy of the simulation for them to play with, then sent them back to the database to find alternatives that might be more viable.

Most likely they'd make a run of
Belugas
again, Vestri mused, shrugging the thoughts aside.

---<>))))

Sharky had toured the base several times since he'd been given permission to do so. It wasn't like he had anywhere to go; if he hit the streets or other public places, he'd be scooped up since he was a marked man. He'd seen the coverage of his face among the other prisoners released to the media.

But the base was depressing: cement, concrete blocks, rusted iron and mold. Trash of every kind was everywhere. Water puddles and mud were in the low spots. With few windows to the surface, it was dark, dank, and smelled horrible. He tried to stay out of the lower dungeons as much as possible. That meant touring the warehouses along the wharf upstairs though. He had to keep out of sight as much as possible, so he'd shaved and wore a hoody.

Skeletor's group ran many illicit businesses to help fund their activities. Loan sharking was a minimum gig; protection rackets had its perks but also its dangers. Work for hire was a minimum gig as well. Illegal gambling was a big one, and the fights were pretty lucrative for the house. But he was not happy with the idea of the pit fights held in the warehouses. It was unwanted exposure since it was an open secret. The local cops had been paid off or threatened to keep them looking the other way, but it was still a risk.

The fights were tiered. On the lowest levels it was animals or robots. As you moved up there were humans, which was where the real action was. The fights on the lowest human levels lasted until someone was knocked out. The upper level was to the death. Those fights were hard to get into unless you had deep pockets and tight lips.

It was also the one that the big boss tended to come out of his hiding hole to attend on a semiregular basis. Skeletor watched it as some sort of entertainment, sitting on a throne made up of rebar and some sort of snake-like sculpture in his purple cloak and hoody. His private booth allowed him easy access in and out. Lackeys like Trapjaw attended as his bouncers to keep interested parties at bay.

Sharky made his way to his nominal boss. He nodded in passing to the cyborg. Trapjaw didn't nod back, but he did get slightly out of the way to allow him to pass. Sharky looked over to his shoulder where a kid was getting his ass kicked by a red-skinned bastard twice his size and shook his head. He'd had his fill when he'd seen it on Horath. “This is a waste,” he said, crossing his arms as he came up next to the boss.