Jethro: First to Fight (16 page)

For the first time Damocles also
participated in a training exercise. The Arboth class destroyer had been
brutally chewed up by Firefly during the pirate action and her wounds had taken
time to repair. The various projects in the yard had delayed her repairs until
the admiral's untimely departure, which had thrown the schedule into the
crapper.

With the materials from Destiny they had
managed to get her major systems online. With Veber, Fuentes, and Firefly,
they'd completed her core AI. It was a crude dumb AI, not as good as Fuentes or
Firefly, but adequate for the job for now. The only major system the ship
lacked was a functional hyperdrive. The admiral hadn't sent enough parts to
finish rebuilding that.

Still, even lacking a drive she was the
third most powerful ship in the fleet... at least until the Tauren battleship
they had rechristened the Bismark completed her rebuild and got underway.

It would be a long time before Bismark
ever got underway though, if at all. She was mothballed until they could do
something about her. Right now she was all frame and subsystems. She had a hull
in some places, but only ten percent of her power rooms functioned. None of her
energy weapons had been installed, and only one sublight drive out of six. Half
her plasma conduits had been installed before the admiral had left. She even
had an antimatter drive, but no fuel.

She had no shield nodes, no gravitic
sensors, no neutrino detectors, no tachyon link. She had her short range laser
and microwave communications, but not her all important encryption package to
use them. She lacked her RCS, her wedge, and her point defense was nonexistent.
She had empty magazines, but no missile tubes, just empty gaping holes in her
flanks where the launchers were intended to be installed. She did have her
lidar, her visual systems, most of her secondary sensors, life support minus
her inertial dampeners, and had all her computer systems though she lacked an
AI.

Of course she didn't have a hyperdrive
or hyper collector. She was about ten percent completed and would probably
remain that way indefinitely until they could figure something out.

It was frustrating, a full capital ship,
the most powerful in the sector despite her age, and she was laying there
useless. They'd taken her as far as they could after the admiral left, but with
him gone, they couldn't finish her. About all she was good for was scrap at
this stage. Scrap or a training platform. Her crew quarters were finished. He'd
been tempted to use her as a training facility, but...

She was a shell of a ship, an old dog
with no teeth. All bark, no bite. He couldn't take the chance of anyone knowing
about that though, if word got out of the system, it might cause problems if
the Horathian's came calling.

When Destiny had returned with her
payload of goods from the admiral, they'd been ecstatic. Then some had
questioned the admiral's priorities. The admiral had sent back components to
get the unfinished small ships into space, either fully functional or as
sublight craft. He'd sent enough to get Fuentes and some of Damocles issues
sorted out, but nothing for Bismark. Horatio frowned. He'd had to explain, with
the scale of the behemoth the admiral had focused on what good he could do
versus the drop in the bucket a single load of parts would have meant to
Bismark. The entire Destiny bonanza would have added up to one power room for
the battleship after all.

He could understand their confusion and
resentment when it came to the admiral and his actions. John... he sighed
softly to himself. He could have handled that better. The entire navy was
smarting from his departure. Horatio was barely holding the fragile thing
together. This exercise was a godsend in a way, John saw it as good training,
Horatio had other motives. It was a way to keep his people busy, keep them
focused, and to remind them that John was still out there, passing on the
orders, even if it was from a distance.

It was also a good way to expose the
weaknesses they'd ignored for too long, and find ways to fix them. He
remembered that from his time before the Xeno war. He'd hated how ruthless the
training could get, how cut throat. With only so many positions available in
peacetime you had to be on the top of your game at all times or you were
beached. They were running into the same problem here. He couldn't afford dead
weight, however nice a person was. If they couldn't cut the mustard, now was the
time to find out before the Horathian's returned.

He was sure they would return, after
all, they had a functional shipyard here. That alone was a prize beyond belief
to the Horathians. Defending it would be tricky. These exercises were a
calculated gamble. They exposed his units to the media, letting outsiders see
what he had. But the Horathians could pick up some of the details from ships
they caught that had passed through the system as well. Or they could put their
own intelligence agents in the system... if they hadn't already. Another
troubling thought.

Horatio projected his chain of command
chart on his HUD. He stared at the hole in his chain of command. He still
didn't have a G-2 Intelligence officer. The few intel officers in the intel
shop were still learning their jobs. He didn't want to have someone green
there, right now first Lieutenant John Montgomery was acting as head of intel
rather reluctantly.

It was admirable to find someone who
didn't want the slot. Montgomery was an odd fish, he was a self professed field
man who had an extensive background in police and private investigation
services. He was good with his people, a bit crusty, and not at all fond of
paperwork, but he had an eye for interrogations, able to read information from
the best liars out there.

Which was why Horatio didn't force the
guy into the G-2 mold. They needed someone from the intel shop with
administrative skills. Someone who didn't mind sitting in on endless meetings
and could pass on intel when needed. Definitely not a yes man, he didn't want
to encourage cronyism. Someone with balls to go with the brains, a schemer who
knew his place.

He frowned for a long moment, rubbing
his jaw before he gave up on the list. He'd have to talk to the staff, find
someone with some experience to wear two hats until they brought someone up
through the ranks. If necessary Montgomery would just have to bite the bullet
and do the job formally, like it or not.

 ...*...*...*...*...

Commander Horatio Logan took personal
command of Damocles, much to the amusement and not quite envy of some of the
junior officers. Damocles didn't handle well however, the exercise was also her
builder's trial so the inevitable series of teething issues with her hardware
eventually forced her to retire to her slip. Not without some relief for
Commander Logan. He had never had command of a ship before and didn't want to
admit the responsibilities were daunting.

The media had a field day with the
exercises, putting various shots up in the evening media feed every night. It
was a great way to drum up viewership, the various media outlets vied to get
the best shots, and were quite bitter when one or another was one upped. The
heroic mock landings of the Marines during beachhead exercises were shown
several times. Viewership picked up when they had new footage.

Navy and Marine recruiting reported a
two hundred percent uptick in local recruiting. The talking heads spoke about
the exercises, some commenting about the navy's chest beating to show off,
either to justify their existence or to drum up more recruits. Some speculated
it was a way to show Governor Walker who really controlled the guns and the
star system. Some of the conservatives accused the Commander of holding a gun
to the governor's head.

The accusations helped to deepen the
rift between the navy and the governor, or so some said. In reality, Commander
Logan and most of the staff were too busy managing the exercises and watching
their results to pay close attention to every news feed or talking head.

...*...*...*...*...

First Lieutenant Valdez's fighter
squadrons were a big hit with the public. Seeing the fighters on the flight
deck, trapping and taking off seemed to inspire a lot of complimentary comments
in the public discussion forums. The young men and women were quite the
inspiration, Young Junior Valdez was a little amused and flattered that he had
his own fan base and groupies. When his mother got word he wasn't so happy, she
started interviewing candidates for a future daughter-in-law. He made himself
scarce as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately only Firefly had a large
enough flight deck to field a full squadron of fighters. A full squadron of
eight cobra fighters and four general purpose vehicles. They were a tight fit
in Firefly's boat bay. In fact, the only way to fit them all was to have one or
more fighters out on picket or other duty while the deck apes played musical
parking spaces with the remaining planes. Shuttling them around and even
hanging them from the ceiling seemed like the only way to keep all the ships.

Many of the deck apes complained about
the Marine birds. They were rarely used, only in Marine drops or boarding
actions. Still, the powers that be insisted they keep them on board in case of
emergency. Junior was forced to do his magnum ops, an all hands launch of every
fighter and craft in their inventory, from the decks of the stations until a
larger vessel was launched.

The orbital fortresses on the drawing
board might make that training worth it in the end. Lieutenant Valdez had
already been approached about fighter squadrons in the fortresses. He had tried
to explain to the Commander that his people were spread thin as it was.

There were ten manned squadrons in all,
four general purpose fighter squadrons, one interceptor squadron, one bomber
squadron, two odd ball squadrons of mixed fighters, and two multi-role
squadrons. The multi-role squadrons filled a number of mission slots, from in
flight rearming and refueling to CAP flights to SAR. Over a hundred pilots were
on the various waiting lists.

Most of the squadrons were based in the
annex and yard since only Firefly had boat bays large enough to field a
squadron of fighters. The smaller ships like Fuentes and Damocles could barely
fit four of the small utility fighters in their bays.

The fighter wing also had four squadrons
of drone fighters. Regular pilots looked on their robotic brethren in disdain,
they didn't like taking a pilot out of the loop. Still, the drones performed
well in the mock furballs that were set up.

The final fighter exercise concluded
with an anti-shipping strike. Interceptors pulled off the drones acting as the
defending wing. When they were sufficiently entangled and out of range the
bombers slipped in through the hole and gleefully launched their loads.

They were hammered however, surprised by
the point defense drones and point defense systems on the ships they were
targeting. They were forced to stay on the beam until their torpedos achieved
lock and could be released. There was a brief moment of confusion when the
squadron leader and XO planes were taken out early, but Ensign N'rik got the
job done, taking command and ordering the launch by the book.

The mock torpedoes made their runs,
targeting drones in reality. The desperate point defense crews achieved a good
hit spread, but shifting from targeting the incoming bombers to the torpedoes
had given them a short window to accelerate to attack speed. The smart drones
had ruthlessly taken advantage of that, and their programming made them bob and
weave, dropping decoys while running their own ECM and passive tricks to get in
to their targets.

Two of the squadron survived the mock
strike. They did the job, taking out Firefly, Maya, and two of the frigates.
However the losses were a sobering dose of reality to the gung ho pilots. It
was also a sobering slap in the face to the line officers who had looked on the
pilots as kids playing with toy planes.

Junior Valdez had paled when he'd seen
the strike and it's casualty list. It wasn't real, he kept telling himself
that, but it was a bit scary. Sims just didn't cut it. He frowned, already
working on a way to supplement the bombers with some help, perhaps drones in a
wild weasel role, or a few dedicated bombers...

...*...*...*...*...

Some of the ship crews complained that
the exercises weren't realistic, after all, the pirates didn't have implant or
ship tech at their level of quality, nor training. However Commander Logan, the
AI, and the ship captains grimly made it clear, they would rather train hard
against what they hoped they would never face, rather than get caught with
their shorts around their ankles. That statement didn't quell the grumbling but
it did kick it down a few notches.

Jethro and his squad were forced to
scramble. They were rusty in their duties, having not been updated on damage
control and energy mount routines and procedures since their return from
Agnosta. Fortunately after the third exercise they picked things up and their
performances improved.

“It's like riding a bicycle,” Valenko
said as he watched his crew perform. Hurranna was the best at getting into
tight places of course. Valenko and Sergei focused on moving debris or shifting
it to one side so the lynx could get through to the mock wounded.

Jethro's sniper training paid dividends
when it came to manning the energy mount, but surprisingly Sergei was nearly as
good a shot. Apparently playing a mortar maggot paid off with his aim
improvement.

“What's a bicycle?” Jethro asked, wrinkling
his nose and flicking his ears forward in curiosity.

“Cute,” the bear said, shaking his head
as he stalked off.

“What? Seriously?” Jethro called.
“What's a bicycle?” he demanded, spreading his hands.

“Oh look it up,” the bear called back
from around the corner. The ship shimmied and the lights flickered and then
dimmed.

“Right, as if I have time,” Jethro said.

“You ever think they make these a little
too realistic? The bear asked, looking up. He fought to stay on his feet as the
gravity flickered. Jethro fell into a crouch, grabbing a hatch before he
grabbed his boss. He straddled the knee knocker and pulled his boss back down.
Just as he neared the floor the gravity cut back in and the bear belly flopped
with an oof.

“Suit's good,” Jethro said, checking the
bear's tell tails. They didn't need a suit breach drill now.

“My tongue isn't, I bit it,” Valenko
replied in a weird voice. He worked his jaw. Jethro snorted as he gave his boss
a hand up.

“It's just Commander Firefly having
fun,” Jethro replied as his implants chimed. He looked at his HUD and swore. A
map appeared, but he didn't need it. There was simulated casualties on deck two
to deal with. “Gotta go boss,” he said. Valenko waved him off. “On my way,” he
responded and dropped into a trot.

 ...*...*...*...*...

With careful timing and a bit of inside
help, the squatter shuttle quietly made its way through the periphery of 
the exercise fields and to the station. The shuttle was ancient, burnished
metal with faded blue markings. She was an Aurelie, an intervention class
assault boat. She was an oval saucer shape on top, with the tips at the bow and
stern. From bow to stern she was one hundred meters long. Outboard on each
flank she had two circular swiveling thrusters that acted as her primary engines.
They were canted inward at a forty degree angle sloping down and out. The
engines swiveled in an inset ring, allowing them to swivel in a three hundred
sixty degree arch. Embedded in the rings were force emitters that gave her a
wedge as well as a shield. The best thing about the Aurelie according to her
pilots was her shields, she had been the first small craft to have them over a
thousand years ago.

She had also been designed to be hardy,
she could, as the saying goes, take a licking and keep on ticking. Her
underside keel dropped down to five meters from her saucer and stretched from
her pharaoh beard bow to her pointed helicopter tail like stern. Four thrusters
were embedded in the keel, two facing forty five degrees forward, the stern
pair forty five degrees to the stern. These allowed for extra braking during
hot landings. Additional thrusters and force emitters were embedded in a ring
in her tail rotor assembly.

Embedded in the wing root on the nose
were the cockpit windows. Inset above and behind them on either side of the
spine were the bow force emitters, and air intakes were built in above and
below the fattened wing root where the two engines attached to the body. She
looked ungainly at first glance, but  her center of gravity was perfectly
balanced between her two engines.

One of her main flaws were her landing
legs. There were four, one under each main engine, port and starboard with
massive feet, and two smaller ones, one under the nose, another under the
helicopter style tail. Unfortunately with landing legs instead of wheels the
vehicle didn't lend itself easily to taxing on the ground. That made her very
unpopular with naval forces since they normally had to move craft around in
boat bays and on decks.

Interestingly though the designers had
given the craft's landing legs the ability to articulate and 'walk' when
needed. It was a fascinating thing to see the giant craft duck waddle along on
the ground on just her two side legs. After the wear and tear on her hydraulics
had been reported, pilots preferred to pop her up into a hover on her wedge and
move her that way.

She was a hardy craft, larger than later
craft and able to take in four full squads of outfitted Marines with supply.
She'd been designed to fly like a helicopter with her tail, engines, and wedge,
allowing her impressive maneuverability in flight.

Big Red had heard about these things but
all he cared about was getting the craft to the station in one piece.

Governor Walker had the shuttle's IFF
overlooked by watch standers who owed his people favors. The watch overrode the
computer warning. They did however make a record of themselves doing so.

Using the chaos of the war games, the
squatters used the shuttle to get into a depot station with inside help. The Governor
watched their progress and was amused and happy over it.

Shortly before the fighter exercise
terminated, the shuttle arrived safely at its destination. Cheers rang through
the shuttle's cargo bay as they docked. Big Red shushed them, and then sent a
team in suits to enter the station carefully. The very first thing they did was
disable the computer and communications so no alarms would go out. Then they
started studying the layout of their new home.

...*...*...*...*...

“Well, this brings back memories,”
Hurranna rumbled, watching the exercises unfold on the locker room wall screen
as the squad cleaned their gear. They had been doing a lot of that lately
because of the various inspections, even going so far as to clean their lockers
out with toothbrushes. She particularly liked to watch the live fire exercises,
that had been cool to see. It had been fun to man a weapons mount and shoot
things too. Seeing a target disintegrate had been awesome.

“Some of them not so pleasant,” Sergei
grumbled. He hated the spit and polish crap. “Hey, they get anywhere with that
fort thing you mentioned?”

“You of all people heard about that?”
Hurranna asked in surprise.

“Who hadn't,” Jethro teased. “My
question isn't the making of the thing, it's the opposite.”

“Blowing it up?”

“No,” the panther shook his head.
“Remember hell week? The crucible? Boarding a ship? Will that work on an
orbital fort?”

“How could I forget,” Sergei replied. “I
still haven't forgiven you or Teddy Ruxbin for making us go through it.” During
their final boot camp exam F platoon, made up of Neo's, aliens, and
heavyworlder humans had been run through the ringer despite running into
trouble on a previous exercise. They'd come through it at the top of their
class, but they'd had to work at it like never before. Their platoon had set
the standard that so far no other boot platoon had managed to meet, let alone
surpass, despite all their effort in trying to do so.