Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (21 page)

He hadn't advertised their first SD, but it had leaked out yesterday anyway. A small smile briefly touched his lips.
Sun Tzu
was to be a
Leviathan
class super dreadnaught when she was completed. Unlike Vestri he already had a slip for her, the one
Bismark
had been parked in for so long. It had taken a bit of time to modify her, but now those modifications were complete and the first grand block had come together. It was going to take them two long years to finish her, but when they did she'd be the new flagship of Third Fleet.

At least until he built a
Monitor
he thought with a brief smirk.

He knew the admirals weren't happy about frittering away some of their lighter strength to protect the gateways to the other sectors. They didn't have much choice, however. The deployment orders should be going out shortly he thought. Once they did people in those ships would make comments undoubtedly, even if it was just to their families to warn them they would be out of touch.

It was only a matter of time before that news hit the media. He wasn't sure how they'd take it; probably not well, he thought.

Fortunately, it was no longer his problem to handle.

“Let's see if we can step up the carriers a bit more. Hmm, I'll have to call Junior Valdez and see what he says about the fighter compliment however …,” he thought, tapping at the keyboard and then staring at the logistics pipeline diagrams that he had pulled up. “Maybe … maybe if we switch out the
Nelson
line to the
Fletcher
one, I can skim off some production while we make the swap to give the carrier a boost until the line gets back up to speed …”

---<>))))

Admiral Subert was amused by the latest report of another squadron of
Fletcher
class DDs working their way through the Antigua production lines despite the new emphasis on larger ships. His eyes roved the numbers and then cut to a report he'd just read. An intel officer … he pulled it up and then snorted. “Lieutenant Fletcher.”

“Sir?”

“We have a Lieutenant Fletcher A.I. and
Fletcher
class tin cans. The tin cans are named after the ancient wet navy design. It's an old tried and true name used many times. But it conflicts with the name of the intelligence A.I.,” the admiral explained to his yeoman as he came in with his lunch tray, exactly on schedule.

“Just like Firefly the A.I. and
Firefly
the ship I suppose, sir,” his yeoman said, laying out his lunch on his desk.

The admiral's eyes cut to his yeoman and then back to the report. Horatio was agitating to move to the
Fletcher
production as well. It was a new design, and it seemed Antigua had gotten the bugs out. He just wasn't certain it was worth disrupting their production pace with the new design now that they'd gotten their stride going. “It's nothing of the sort. Ship A.I. sometimes tend to take on the name of their ship for various reasons all on their own. This is more complicated. I think one or the other should be renamed.”

“If you say so, sir,” the yeoman said dubiously. “I understand such things can be a bit complex.”

The admiral grimaced sourly. “Yeah. The paperwork alone is horrible. I think we'll end up putting up with it. At least until the next DD design comes out and the
Fletchers
are retired I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.” The yeoman nodded, standing with his tray under one arm. “Sir, the strategic assessment is in too. I understand there is some political flack going on. I caught a whiff of it in the news room,” the young man warned.

“Oh?”

“Something about picket strength being bigger in certain star systems closer to the shipyards?” the yeoman shrugged as the admiral's brows knit.

“I'll look into it. Thank you, Cord,” he said with a hand wave. The yeoman came to attention as the admiral picked up his lunch and began to unwrap it. His eyes cut up to the young man. “Dismissed,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the yeoman said and retreated.

He frowned as he picked at his sandwich. After a moment he dusted his hands and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin and then tapped out an inquiry on his desktop. He'd much rather see it there on the screen or even on the wall screen than through his implants.

“In related news, protests are beginning to mount over the suggested deployments of additional picket forces to star systems like Syntia's World and Airea 3, both of which are not links to the pirates nor critical junction nodes,” the reporter from Knox News stated.

The admiral scowled instantly. That wasn't true. Not at all true, he thought. He was tasked with sending additional forces to secure Airea 3 while Antigua was supposed to handle Syntia's World. Both were known jumping off points to neighboring sectors. Airea 3 led to Tau, and Syntia's World led to Pi. Both had to be secured to contain any pirates out on raiding patrols out there. Not only secured but turned into a pirate-eating black hole to keep them from getting back into the sector.

“Damn it to hell,” he muttered. He tapped out a blunt note to his publicist while he listened to the report with half an ear. When the recording stopped, he looked up and shut it off.

From what he gathered, it'd been politically driven. Someone didn't like the idea of someone else getting more ships than they were destined to have. After what happened to Epsilon Triangula, just about all of the member worlds were up in arms, even Pyrax. They all wanted more ships, more defenses. The best the navy could do was reassure them for the moment. Once the sector was secure they'd have small pickets in each system with nodule forces to act as fast reaction forces … but try telling them that! He shook his head.

Should he go out and spell their intent? He didn't like it, but it wasn't like the enemy coming in from other sectors would get word—at least, not right away. Traffic to the other sectors was barely qualifying as anemic at best. He frowned. He could bump it up to John's desk but instead shook his head. John was a straight shooter; he could imagine what he'd say. He was probably releasing something or working on it now.

He frowned and wrote an amendment note to have them check and coordinate with Antigua before issuing the statement. Then he nodded, hit send, and then went back to picking at his lunch.

It just wasn't as tasty anymore though.

---<>))))

Lieutenant Commander Arnie Perth and captain of the good ship
Caroline
grinned in appreciation of his crew's efforts. Everyone had heard they were supposed to get some leave before going on a super-secret mission. He wasn't sure what got to them more, the leave or the mission.

Probably both he reflected, watching his bridge crew perform like a conductor watching a virtuoso performance of his signature piece. Very nice he thought, nodding as the XO, First Lieutenant Angie Kalua, worked with the tactical department on the critique of the latest exercises. They didn't know it, but they might not need the combat experience they were honing. Only time would tell for certain of course.

Angie was good. A bit more seasoning and he would be comfortable recommending her for her own first command. He'd miss her. She had a steady hand with the crew, but he knew the navy was growing explosively. They couldn't keep teams together like they had only a few short years ago. Six months he thought, probably until the end of their new mission and she'd be off to run a frigate, base, or tin can of her own. Breaking in her replacement would be interesting he thought. He wondered briefly who the admiralty would send. Was he going to get a reputation as a good teacher? Hopefully. And hopefully they wouldn't draw too many picket duties. He hadn't realized his ship was going to do that when he'd taken her command chair for his own.

He frowned thoughtfully then shrugged such thoughts away. They were problems of tomorrow. Today he relished the XO's critique while he planned to take over her carefully planned op force in the next simulation to give her a bit of a fun drubbing.

"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined," he murmured.

"Sir?" a Veraxin sensor tech asked, looking up from her nearby station.

He turned to her. "Never mind," he said waggling his hand in a dismissive motion as all eyes turned to him. "Never mind," he murmured again, fighting the urge to rub his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

Chapter 11

Amadeus watched with a mild sense of trepidation as
Shepard
and
Almirante Grau
made their final preparations for jump. If
Kittyhawk
hadn't had an engineering casualty trapping her in Kathy's World, he wouldn't feel so twitchy about the situation he thought.

No, he was fooling himself, he thought. Even with the escort carrier in the star system to bump his CEV count up to three, he'd still be nervous. He had every right to be. And until the repair ship he'd dispatched to Kathy's World got there to make her ills right, he would still fret. Probably continue, since he knew now what he faced.

The pair of
Derfflinger
class battle cruisers had been tracked to Nuevo Madrid. He didn't even want to think of what else was in that star system. The intelligence estimates were obviously off and out-of-date.

He'd considered keeping the LCs back until First Division arrived, but they weren't that far behind. He had been a bit amused that both LC skippers had crossed Kathy's World under stealth as a bit of a test and prank on the ships there.
Kittyhawk's
Marine recon flight had stumbled on them. Their arrival had been an unpleasant surprise for his people at first. His lips pulled to one side in a crooked grin, but once they'd set off their IFFs they'd been a welcome sight indeed.

Holding them back to do some working-up exercises would have been nice, but it would have meant moving his flag to a more powerful ship. Neither one of the light cruisers was set up as a flagship however, just the destroyer he was currently occupying,
Yris'ka'th.
But at least his
Arboth
class destroyer was now set up the way he needed it he thought, even if it was a closet. He didn't want to go through the rigmarole of getting one of the other ships set up all over again.

Besides, his First Division was about to arrive. Another two weeks actually, he reminded himself; they'd already passed through Kathy's World. He couldn't wait to get his hands on those ships. Phil wasn't going to get them back either, he thought with another twist of his long simian lips. Not unless he traded upwards for them, say a full squadron of battle cruisers? Or a division of dreadnaughts or super dreadnaughts? He snorted at the idea.

Once First Division arrived and he was settled in, he'd detach
Yris'ka'th
and
Damocles
to yard hands to finish their repairs. That would drop his two destroyer squadrons down to five ships each until the ships promised to him in the pipeline put in an appearance. Most likely their crews would be given brief leave before they were promoted and reassigned to a new ship. He wasn't sure if he'd get Harris back or not. That might be a problem.

He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

He had two escort carriers, the
Halsey
and the
Spruance
. Once Kittyhawk showed up he'd have three. The fighters and bombers had proven to be very effective against the enemy battle cruisers so he would welcome them with open arms. He might be trained as a battle line officer but he knew better than to turn away a ship.

He snorted. His current battle line were his two destroyer squadrons, twelve frigates, twenty-eight corvettes, and six gunships. Once First Division arrived, the gunships were going to be stood down. The ships were going to be mothballed in the star system while their crews took over some of the incoming
Mitchell
bombers designated for the second orbital fortress or were promoted and sent back to one of the yards to take on a new bigger ship. He knew one thing; they weren't going to rely on large quantities of small ships anymore.

They were still understrength in orbital works, but they had their first orbital fortress under construction. It was a modular design as expected. The modules and components were being shipped in piecemeal from Antigua. The work crews were on track to finish her by the end of the year.

The first fortress was a
Fire Base
class, a very basic cruiser scale design usually built into an asteroid. She had limited engines to maintain her position near the B95a3 jump point. She also had limited internal magazines and without the asteroid wrapping around her, had no armor to speak of.

He'd intended to let the crew use the debris from the various ships but the repair ships had snagged it all for their own purposes. Intelligence teams had picked through for what they'd wanted, then the engineers had had a go of it. There hadn't been much left after that; all of it had been fed into the industrial smelters.

No, a single
Fire Base
wasn't what he really wanted at the jump point; he wanted redundancy and of course capital ships to back her up. Well, at least until he'd worked them up enough and had the fleet train to follow him as he went back on the offensive that is.

But what the fortress lacked in armor she made up for with a super dreadnaught
's
fire control suite and a carrier's C cubed, that was Communications, Command, and Control setup. That allowed her to control the swarms of drones, orbital weapon platforms, and rows of mines and missiles in a ten million kilometer sphere around the jump point. It also allowed her to command the squadron of
Cutlass
fighters and
Mitchell
bombers she could launch on a moment's notice.

Anything that stuck their nose into the space had better play nice or they'd be turned into vapor he thought in approval.
If
they stuck their nose in the noose, he wasn't so sure. The enemy was getting smarter about how they fought after all.

His second division,
Justice
and
Quesor
were still being worked up. He still didn't have a candidate for third, though he was hoping John would ease up his grip on
Maine
and her division mate and send them to him. If he did he'd transfer his flag to Maine and maybe do a bit of shuffling in the senior officer posts of the ships until he had a good fit.

Then he was going to train them relentlessly until they were a flawless weapon.

Jojo came into his closet of an office and handed him a tablet.

“You know, I could read this on my HUD,” he scolded, waving the tablet.

“You tend to respond better when I physically hand you something over telling you it's there,” she retorted. He blinked then snorted. Apparently she had come to some level of comfort in his presence. Fine.

“Okay, but …”

“I know; you have a conference scheduled. I drew up the stats on the ships so you can look them over ahead of time if you wish,” she said, pointing to the tablet. “That way you'll all be on the same page.”

He nodded.

“I also loaded your usual doodle pad that you like to play with, and an updated plot of the star system.” She reached over him to tab the tablet's control. “The icon here,” she tapped on one. “Has the latest convoy and shipping schedule.”

“Okay, now you're spoiling me,” he teased.

“No, just doing what I'm supposed to be doing,” she said.

“Then why hadn't you thought of this before?” he asked, brown eyes locking with hers. She froze, then scowled.

“Typical. I get it right and the question becomes why didn't I figure it out weeks or months ago,” she growled, shaking her head. He snorted, sitting back and enjoying her performance. He knew very well she'd put the tools on the tablet long ago; he'd even used them from time to time. He just liked to yank her chain from time to time.

“Anyway,” she said, waving a hand. “Admiral Irons rescheduled your ansible conference again for tomorrow afternoon. Commander Meia wants to fly another exercise tomorrow, but I understand there is a problem with scheduling there too.”

“A lot of scheduling conflicts,” he murmured. Meia had been driving her people pretty hard. He understood her need and didn't want to discourage her initiative or drive. Her shipmates and pilots would just have to suck it up and step up more to get their performance levels up to her exacting standards.

Something told him they'd never be enough in Meia's eyes.

“More like her maintenance teams putting their foot down. Some of her fighters have racked up a lot of hours on their clocks and need official teardowns to make sure everything is ticking over as it should,” she replied. He stared at her. She shrugged. “Or so I heard.”

He slowly nodded. Scuttlebutt was normal, and she should be in a position to pick up on it and keep tabs on it for him.

“Very good. Anything else?”

“No, sir. Not that I'm aware of.”

“Then go see if you can chase up a yeoman and more staff. Access BUPERS and put the request in. Once we have First Division here, I'm going to want a bigger staff to draw on.”

“Aye aye, sir,” she said with a hint of a smile as she came to attention. He waved to her in dismissal as he studied the tablet.

---<>))))

“So, you think I'll be okay?” the young ensign asked. “I mean, I'm no Briggs …”

“Where is he anyway?” the commander demanded, eying the ensign. “No offense, but I left him in charge of Protodon.”

“He … well,” the ensign frowned. “He, um …” he looked over to Lieutenant Jason Locke.

Commander Montgomery turned his attention to the lieutenant as well. The lieutenant had his arms crossed with an air of disapproval about him. Too bad. He'd take the heat from his little side trip. He knew there would be plenty, but there was a method to his madness.

Besides, he'd wanted to see the conditions in the field. He wasn't sulking, just taking the long route. They'd either understand or fire his ass.

If they hadn't already. Since they had an ansible in Protodon there was no news of that however.

“Lieutenant?” Monty asked.

“Briggs got a bit cute by playing both sides even when he was exposed and brought out,” Locke said with a hint of dire disapproval in his voice.

“He wasn't fully brought out. Just labeled a collaborator by the other side,” the ensign said with some heat.

“Let him talk,” the commander said.

The Ensign nodded once. “Sir.”

“As I was saying,” the lieutenant said, eying the ensign. “
Mister
Briggs played fast and loose with the intel. That sort of thing is frowned on now. Very much frowned on now since it cost us in blood and missed opportunities. The powers that be want a clear picture
without
games. A clear picture is critical. There have been some major shakeups as you are aware. He's been recalled to Antigua for evaluation and reassignment.”

“Damn,” Monty sighed. He frowned, picturing the angles. There was no way he could get Archangel back into the Protodon picture. Not without doing something drastic to damage the Federation side to regain trust with the pirates and unsavory elements. They would be too suspicious, and though the risk might be worth the reward, he couldn't throw Briggs to the wolves without any sort of return. Not when he knew the odds were stacked against him now. He'd just have to deal with it.

“So, you are in charge, Lieutenant?” Monty asked. He'd asked for the person in charge of intel. No, he'd ordered it. There had been a lot of shuffling, hemming and hawing, and he'd been politely put on hold entirely too much.

He had himself to blame really, since he'd flown under the radar. Even Admiral White didn't know he was in the star system. He intended to keep things that way if he could.

“I'm not sure, sir. The chain of command is a bit … foggy,” the young man replied cautiously. “I'm tasked with the militia air unit. I know there are Marine spooks but no one mentioned any names. I've missed a lot of meetings since I spend a lot of time in the cockpit or in the field,” he frowned then shrugged. “I suppose right now you are.” Monty scowled. “Sir,” he added lamely.

“I'm visiting. I'm on the next convoy to Antigua,” Monty replied. Another thing to fix he thought. Admiral White had an intelligence officer assigned to him. At least, he hoped so. Assumptions were the mother of all frack-ups he reminded himself. He hadn't checked, and that was costing him. Damn it, he thought darkly.

“Then you'd better hurry, sir. It leaves in a couple of hours,” the lieutenant said, sounding rather snippy.

The commander eyed him. “You don't like me much do you, son?”

“I'm not sure I should answer that, sir,” the lieutenant replied stiffly as the ensign inhaled sharply. “I know a lot of people aren't happy about your … side trip. Some have talked about charges of desertion.”

“I'll face the music when I'm ready. I had my own agenda and plan, and I'm nearly finished. Don't snarl at me, or I'll have you up on charges of insubordination so fast your head will spin,” Monty replied, eying the lieutenant. “You read me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Good. Anything else?”

“We're still trying to run down the enemy forces here. We have been made aware of their own version of a fifth column if you can call it that. The pirate's version of Mister Briggs I suppose you could say. But sent in years ahead of time to stir things up, map it out, then throw all their weight into helping the invaders when they get there. I caught a reference to others on Antigua. There may be more elsewhere.”