AL:ICE-9 (16 page)

Behind the commander’s chair was the flat of the semicircle, with the ladder to the main deck below at its center. Following the ladder down, into the main passage, was access to the aft engineering stations. Access to other areas of the ship came via a passage forward down the middle of the ship. To Jake it was almost like being in a submarine as the long narrow hull allowed only the most spartan of accommodations.

Below the main deck, running two-thirds the length of the hull was a small cargo bay. Jake figured he could get two fighters, nose to tail, in the space but not a lot more. Still two fighters had already proven their value in the last engagement.

He continued to review various other designs, most not intended for military use. He would flip through the inventory and then activate the holograph for the ones that piqued his curiosity. Once he had completed the initial review, his inner engineer kicked in and he started playing with ideas. Frequently he had to pull in additional references, or ask ALICE to run down some information on one thing or another.

The most interesting piece he ran across were the original battleship designs the Wawobash had presented to the NeHaw. Apparently, the current ship has its basis in an archaic NeHaw design, one the Wawobash had assessed for limitations and vulnerabilities. Their recommendations were enhancements to the core superstructure with significant improvements to the entire ship.

Finally, Jake had run across a ship in the Wawobash design catalog, one that the notes indicated had never been built before. This was due to both the cost and the fact that the NeHaw couldn’t find a use for its unusual configuration. The more Jake reviewed the design, the more excited he became. He knew exactly what to do with this ship.

Chapter 16

Jake was not the only one going over the Wawobash inventory. Patti had been reviewing the information with her team as well. In her case though, she wasn’t interested in redesigning anything. Her task was evaluating what, of the available inventory in space dock, they could purchase immediately.

For her, what to buy was not the issue, as apparently the funds were now of no concern, according to Jake’s last message from Texas. It is the crews to operate the vessels, which are in short supply. For near earth defense, the ALICEs could remotely manage the ships in orbit, as well as any additional rail gun platforms they should choose to deploy.

However, that was of no use should they go on the offensive. Earth needed a trained space fleet, with crews capable of independent action. They were looking at an initial order of five cruisers and ten destroyers, each in need of a crew. They had only one crew, and its assignment was to
Revenge
.

Then there was the battleship. In earth’s history, the battleship was, at one time, the centerpiece of all great navies. It was the epitome of projected power, although she knew well the true relevance of ships of this nature.

It was a rare occurrence indeed for these ships to slug it out head to head. They mostly acted as intimidators. This was not likely to be the case here. The NeHaw had two of these to their one and they had trained crews. Patti didn’t see earth fielding a crew for theirs in the near future. As it was, the Wawobash would have it for most likely a year during the refit.

There was one thought that plagued her. In earth’s history, the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the power of the seas. The closest anyone had to one of those was
Revenge
.

----*----

Jake had called a morning meeting of the teams assigned to the ship order project. He grabbed the conference room off the control room, like the one in Nevada. Sara, Robert, and Bonnie attended locally as did several other analysts that Jake had never met. With the remote locations tied in by holograph, each team had a specific focus and all were ready to report their findings.

“Ok gang, what have we got?” Jake opened.

Patti started, “We have pulled in the existing inventory, categorized them for combat and non-combat roles, and come up with the following. We recommend five additional cruisers, giving us a total of eight, ten destroyers and four of the heavy commercial transport.”

“Why the transports?” Sara asked.

“Jake has mentioned on more than one occasion, about purchasing automated heavy equipment. We inquired about mining systems and the preferred models will not fit in the hold of a cruiser,” Patti replied.

“Wow, that big huh?” Jake commented.

“Yes, they are impressive,” commented one of Patti’s team.

“OK so pricing?” Jake asked.

Patti continued, “Cruisers are coming in at the promised 200 pounds per ship after refit, destroyers are 170 and the transports are 125. They are large but simple to build. Their primary cost is the larger drive units and heavy inertial dampeners.”

Jake did the math in his head and said, “So that’s 3,200 pounds of gold plus the battleship refit. I got the estimate there at 500 pounds for everything I wanted done.”

Jake could see the looks of confusion and concern, as most expected simple repairs, and that was probably what it cost to build in the first place.

“I have asked the Wawobash to refit the ship to their original specifications, with some extras of my own design.”

“Is that wise Jake,” Patti asked, “We may need the firepower on station sooner than we think.”

Jake laughed and replied, “No worries there, when I explained the incentive clause in the repair order, they assured me it would add no delays. They get a 50% bonus for early delivery. By the way, that incentive applies to every order we place with them. They were very pleased with the terms. We offered half down and the balance on delivery, again a new concept for them.”

“Don’t forget, each and every one of those ships needs to come here for final build-out, ALICE needs to install the stasis equipment,” Patti reminded him.

Bonnie then added, “We have verified the payment requirement for weight and purity. They found the samples we provided from the New York inventory quite satisfactory.”

Jake paused and then mentioned, “There is one more order I placed, but it’s not part of any existing need. It will run about 1,000 pounds initially, and they estimate a little over a year to build.”

“Jake, is this another one of your surprises?” Sara asked with her suspicion evident in her tone.

Jake smiled and said, “Let’s just say as a student of history, I let no lesson go ignored.”

----*----

Sara sat in the command center of the Texas ALICE facility, run by her sister. No sooner did the meeting regarding the Wawobash end, then Jake received word Jessie was going into labor. After a quick kiss, she watched him jet out of the room, commandeer one of the unassigned fighters in the hangar, and head north. She admired his commitment to attend every one of his children’s birth. She was just frustrated she wasn’t one of the mothers.

ALICE had supposedly dropped her medications, provided to prevent pregnancy early in the arrangement, as she was considered too important in her role supporting Jake. However, after the second battle, and her near death experience, that decision was overturned. She was starting to question whether ALICE had in fact stopped the practice of medicating her.

The ALICEs had a tendency of manipulating circumstances to meet their long-term goals. Although to date, no manipulation had ever resulted in a negative impact to either party, like Jake’s children, the need for a passive acceptance of the situation was not unusual.

She turned to her current challenge, resigned to the fact that there was nothing she could do about her circumstances at the moment. Jake had asked her to investigate new ways to recruit for spaceship crews. With each cruiser now requiring a 30-person crew and the destroyers, 20, they needed 440 new crewmembers, minus the 28 in
Revenge
currently. Those numbers included the fighter pilots assigned to each ship. None of this accounted for the battleship.

Since the current staff of all six occupied locations only numbered just over 3000, they clearly needed more recruits from the outside. She was working with ALICE trying to identify new communities to work with, areas with small groups that might be absorbed completely like Jake had in Alaska.

Normally, all recruiting efforts passed to the regions facilities commander. Each location was responsible for researching and categorizing their local communities for threat, adoption, or recruitment. As such, Sara didn’t feel the need to redo others work. She simply reviewed the existing reports on the six active facilities, and then moved to the two unoccupied ALICE locations.

ALICE-5, in Maine, listed as a medical research primary. Each location had a primary focus beyond the general capabilities and that function suggested what additional infrastructure existed there. ALICE-2, otherwise known as Dallas, was a land vehicle design and test location while ALICE-7, or just Seven, was air and spacecraft. Both were able to construct prototypes and small production runs of any designs. As a medical primary, ALICE-5 could manufacture medical support equipment as well as pharmaceuticals.

ALICE-5 was absolutely in the middle of nowhere, the closest US town listed as Ashland, more than 20 miles to the east. Even before the fall, this place was isolated. The interesting part to Sara was its proximity to the Canadian border, and the cities of Quebec City, Montreal, and Ottawa.

All these cities were once large population centers and even though they were not part of the United States, she wasn’t sure that mattered in the least. They had been treating the US-Mexico border as non-existent here in Texas. Her only real concern was the language listed for the population was French.

As with the Spanish speakers here, initial contact wasn’t an issue, the translators in the combat suits would handle that. It was integrating them into the population that might prove interesting. Here most all the locals were bi-lingual, so they blended in easily. She had no idea if that proved true up north.

ALICE-3 on the other hand was in Georgia, and was the last of the eight ALICE facilities. It was south of what was once Waycross in what the map listed as a national wildlife preserve, just north of the Florida border.

The interesting thing about ALICE-3 was, there wasn’t a primary listed for her.

“ALICE, why isn’t ALICE-3’s primary function listed?” Sara asked while paging through the information on her display.

“That information is restricted,” ALICE replied, “Only Jake is permitted to request that information.”

“You’re kidding right?” Sara said, “ALICE, I’m second in command.”

“Only as far as staff management, with regards to facility command, only Jake and his offspring maintain the appropriate legacy association.”

Sara wasn’t sure why, but ALICEs statement really pissed her off. After everything they had been through, she was still considered second string by the ALICEs.

“Well, I suppose I can just go there then and see for myself,” Sara stated.

“I am sorry Sara, but you will not be granted access. ALICE-3 will require Jake’s physical presence to gain initial access. Due to the nature of the work there, ALICE-3 has escalated security protocols. He and only he may gain entrance, after which he can establish delegates for continued occupation.”

Sara’s curiosity was running wild at this point. What they hell were they doing in George that was more secret than aliens and spaceships? She knew she could just call Jake and the two of them could run down together. However, she was also getting just a little bit tired of having to call on Jake to fix her problems as well.

Maybe it was the beating she had endured in LA, or maybe it was the outing of Bonnie and Robert, but Sara was finding herself less patient with the sharing “arrangement” than before. At first, she had attributed it to wanting to be a mom, like Bonnie and the others. Now she was not so sure.

She found she resented the fact that Jake hadn’t been there for her right after LA, as he had the first few times she had almost died. Granted she was in medical, but he could have stayed there. She remembered the experience boarding the first alien cruiser, when she almost took a blaster to the faceplate, and then later when her fighter had been cut in half and she was cast adrift. He had always been there right after comforting her.

With Linda, Kathy, and Sandy, he had barely enough time to eat with her, much less do anything more intimate. Thankfully with her leave status, she had been free to follow along during the day to spend what time she could with him.

Now he had run off to Alaska to attend the birth of his child from a late recruit. Someone she felt had muscled her way into Jake’s bed, so to speak. Yes, at first, she had thought it was cute, the way he struggled with his guilt over Jessie, but now she wasn’t so amused.

Shaking it all off, she went back to focusing on the task at hand, and decided a trip to Maine might not be so bad. Besides, she had heard it was quite beautiful in the springtime there.

----*----

Jake had made the run to Alaska in plenty of time to see his son born. Being an old pro at this point, he catered to Jessie’s every need in the delivery room. He provided what comforts he could, both before and after the birth. He also spent the first night with Jessie, caring for his son while she slept. As with every new mom, she woke with every fuss, but soon returned to sleep with assurances from Jake that all was well.

The next day they discussed names, deciding on Ryan, after Jessie’s dad, a proud Irishman.

Once Jake was sure both mother and child were comfortable, he took the opportunity to tour the fighter build and storage areas. With the newly tested nested ship design a success, they needed fighters for every capital ship on order. They had cleared out several of the hangars Jake had seen in his first visits, most containing various government research projects that would never be of use now or at least not any time soon.

Thanks to Robert’s constant supply of materials, Seven had completed Jake’s initial order of fighters and was into round two of shipbuilding. Jake stuck his head into one open hangar to see several rows of completed fighters, all waiting on final assignments. Between the ships on order from the Wawobash and the last two ALICE facilities, all of these plus more were spoken for. They needed to get building.

On that note, Jake had another decision to make. Was he going to continue the practice of creating squadrons and then assigning them to ships on some form of rotation? Alternatively, should fighters with assignment to the capitol ships be Ships Company on permanent duty?

While he was considering his options, he wandered down to the next hangar only to confront the giant nose of
Defiance
. Since the battleship had been sent to the Wawobash shipyards for refit and repairs,
Defiance
and
Independence
had been freed up to complete their own upgrades. The ship’s cargo bay door was down, creating a ramp, and there was an army of bots coming and going.