Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (70 page)

“From the polling numbers alone, I know it's not good,” Emily said apologetically.

“Tell me something I don't know,” the admiral said sourly. “I'm as much concerned about public sentiment as you are Emily, but I'm also not happy about the loss of life on Protodon.”

“Your speech was nice but not enough, Admiral. People are now expecting results, Admiral,” Emily said with a slight but gentle rebuke in her tone.

“I know that. We're going to get them. As soon as the other BCs get to Protodon, Amadeus is going to consolidate the force as quickly as he can and then launch after them. Hopefully he can pick them off before they get too settled into Nuevo Madrid.”

“Do to them what they did to us? An eye for an eye, Admiral? The people of that planet are innocents,” Doctor Kraft warned.

“The ones being slaughtered by the genocide or the ones ducking and going along with it? Who are licking the boots of the oppressor, some even attempting to join their ranks?” Lawrence asked.

The human doctor's eyes narrowed. “Low blow.”

“It is truth,” T'rel'n said in agreement.

“It is. But we're not going to hit the planet. Not right away. As I said before, we don't have the marines to waste, so we are going to blow apart their space industry and pretty ships. If we can, we'll nail
Nevada
and
Massachusetts
. They both have a lot to answer for. But if we have to let them get away, so be it. We know where they are going, and we'll find them eventually,” the admiral growled. He clenched his upraised right hand in front of them into a fist. “Count on it.”

“Can we tell the people that?” Emily asked carefully.

“Will they be willing to listen?” Doctor Kraft asked. “Some may not be willing to wait for Admiral White to move on whatever timetable he is on. I suppose that has been set back considerably due to the mess in Protodon?”

“You make it sound like he started it!” Emily said, clearly aghast.

“No. He just failed to stop it. Should he even be in charge there?” the doctor demanded.

“No choice, he's the third most senior officer we have, and also has the most combat experience,” Captain Broken Antenna stated.

“Ahem, the military is my shop, thank you,” the admiral said fighting to sound defensive or annoyed. “Amadeus got caught up in the works. He did what he could. He did what any of us would have done. It's unfortunate that he didn't bag them, and I can't blame him or the frigate captains for not nailing every missile.” He frowned. “The good news is, he's highly motivated for payback.” He frowned then looked to the doctor. “And no, we're not moving back his timetable. As soon as the two divisions get there and as soon as he's had a minimum time to work them up, they are sailing for Nuevo Madrid.”

“Good,” Lawrence said with a supportive nod.

“Moving on,” T'rel'n stated. “I have a meeting this afternoon. I did have one other point to bring up since the others covered the basics.”

“We didn't cover them; we don't have damage control in place at all,” Emily protested.

“But we did vent as a human would say. My point is, we have expeditions under way to Tau, Pi, and Bek. Is this really the right time to be doing this?”

Admiral Irons gauged the others. Some were in support of the Veraxin's point of view. It was a little late he thought, all three expeditions were already underway.

“It is a dangerous division of manpower and desperately needed ships. Especially in light of what happened in Epsilon Triangula and the third battle of Protodon. We have no idea what we're getting into! We could be kicking over an ant hill,” Doctor Kraft said, shaking his head. He stopped himself and eyed the bugs in the room. “No offense,” he said sheepishly.

“None taken,” D'red replied signaling first level amusement.

“None here either,” Captain Broken Antenna said, waggling her antenna.

“Now that we've gotten that out of our systems,” Emily drawled. “It is a bit late to bring them up. As the admiral would say, that ship has most definitely sailed,” she said.

“Definitely,” George said dryly.

“It is necessary,” the admiral rumbled. All eyes turned to him. “We need the additional support. We need to continue to grow, to bring others to our banner just as assuredly the enemy is trying to do on their side of the sector and in Sigma. The scouts are the first step to map what remains and to put a stop to piracy in the other sectors. That will cut the enemy off.”

“Knock them down, tear apart their ships, and seize their ill-gotten gains,” Lawrence said with a nod.

“We cannot keep it for ourselves,” D'red warned.

“We can if the original owners are dead,” George said. “I think they wouldn't mind us using it against the bastards who killed them,” he said sitting back in his chair.

“Agreed,” Lawrence said with a nod.

“But is this the time for that? We'll need to send ships. Ships and people … we'll need them here supporting our economy as well as defending what we've got,” Captain Herschel stated. “Bek I can understand, though the risk is high. But the other two are entire sectors! We're in over our heads as it is; that will be like biting off more than we can chew!”

"This is precisely the time. We might be as you said, biting off more than we can chew,” the admiral said nodding to the captain. “We might be opening a door to a monster, one best left closed. But better to find out now, than to sail through life fat dumb and happy and get caught totally unaware with our pants down! Now we might have enough time to do something about it!"

There was a harsh bark of laughter. "True." Lawrence said as he shook his head. “I'm just afraid we've taken on too much with all of these expeditions. Tau, Pi, Bek, the war front …”

“And others. Yes, I know. Keeping it all straight is a pain in the ass. That's why I've got a good staff,” the admiral said, nodding once to Sprite's image. She nodded politely back. “And we're going to stumble a few times, possibly even fall a few more times along the way. But the important thing is to keep moving forward. Pick ourselves up, dust off, and keep moving.”

“Crawl before we can walk,” George said, eying the admiral. “You don't force a colt or yearling dinobird to carry a load before they have grown right,” he said.

The admiral turned to the agricultural minister. “A nice sentiment. But we can't afford to waste the time doing so as much as I'd like to. The enemy won't allow it. So, we're going to do this the hard way. It might be hard and ugly. It'll be painful. No happy childhood here I suppose. This rebirth of the Federation was done in blood. We didn't spill it, but we're going to end it. The easy way is out obviously. So, we're going to get it done.”

“I suppose so.”

“Fix that in your minds. One way or another, we're going to get the job done.”

“Or die trying,” Emily muttered.

“We pledge our lives, our credits, our future, our sacred honor for the gift of freedom,” D'red murmured.

“Let's hope it never comes to that,” George said quietly.

“It will for some. For those who have their lives on the line to protect freedom. And for those who are victims of the Horathians,” Captain Broken Antenna said. “We have our own roles to play.”

“Indeed we do. So, we can get back to those three topics later to hash out some actions for them, but let's get back to the scheduled agenda shall we? The weekly SITREP,” Mnemosyne said, speaking for the first time.

The admiral nodded as they started off. The meeting had gotten off on the wrong foot but it had moved forward. Not as well as he'd hoped, but some movement was better than none.

Sometimes one had to measure progress in nanometers instead of meters to keep their heads-up and on the horizon he thought.

---<>))))

So, out of this offensive, what is the bare minimum we need to achieve?" Commander Turner asked.

"To get in as deep as we can. That part is obvious,” Vestri replied.

"I'm talking star systems, Admiral," the OPS commander directed his question to the admiral.

The admiral frowned thoughtfully. After a moment he shrugged. "I'd think that is obvious as Vestri said. Get in as deep as we can, then make them push us back out or resupply and go in deeper until we start getting hit back. But with the enemy holding water dwellers, all bets on the usual routes are now off. They can now jump along unmapped paths and come in on any point on the compass."

Vestri and some of the other officers grimaced. "But they only have so many. We have a hard number. They left Epsilon Triangula with one hundred prisoners. Forty-one were killed with the lost or crippled ships. Three survived. That leaves fifty-six," Lieutenant Ch't'te stated.

The admiral nodded. "And with a minimum crew of three per ship, I'd say their going with four was the safer bet; that means they can man fourteen ships."

"Helming the ship in unmapped jumps is only half of the equation. They have to navigate too. That I'm not sure of. But I don't see them hitting us with fourteen ships. They wouldn't do much. More likely they will attempt to breed them or something. So, back to the minimum star systems …," Turner asked, bringing them back on point.

"Why are you asking this?" Ch't'te asked.

"It's a fallback. So we can set it up that this is the minimum planned in case things go south," Sprite said eying the human commander. Turner shrugged and waggled his hand to indicate yes but more than that.

"Ah," the admiral said. "Bare minimum?" he asked as the Ops officer pulled up the star map. Turner nodded. "Okay. I'd say the two empty systems at a bare minimum," Irons said, pointing to the two he meant. They both blinked obediently as he sent a signal to them.

"Why them only, sir?" Nara asked. "Just to get your reasoning down."

“Strategic depth versus what we can do with it,” the admiral replied. “If we get in too deep, we can't keep the star system's defenders supplied easily and are at a risk of being outflanked,” he said.

Turner winced but nodded.

"The other problem is politics. Protodon is a member world, or would be if they can ever get finished signing up. With the mess they are currently in, I wouldn't blame them for being leery about signing up with us. All they've gotten is trouble.”

“Yeah, from the enemy. Not us.”

“Some don't see it that way. Take Deputy Governor Shell in Nightingale for instance. He's still not thrilled about his government signing on with us,” Monty interjected.

“True. Also the systems around Protodon are anxious to bounce the pirates out of the area once and for all," Sprite said, bringing them back on topic.

"Which we would do once we seize B-95a3 and cut them off. By seize I mean do more than picket the star system. Unfortunately though, it means moving a lot more material in. There is no fuel, no materials there to do squat,” the admiral said.

“Which sucks. We'll have to ship it all in,” Vestri replied.

“Exactly. Now, once TF22 smashes whatever is in Nuevo Madrid orbit and moves on, we'll have less of a risk of it being in our rear—at least until the marines can get in and tidy them up permanently,” Admiral Irons said.

“Hell yeah,” Turner muttered.

From B-95a3 we can cut off any support from Horath for the forces in the northern part of the sector. Blockade the system and let the forces still in hyper or out in Tau sector wither on the vine until we've got the strength to take them out."

"Thoughts on that? Not that I'm stalling or anything," the commander said holding one hand up.

Sprite took the lead. “Typically, if the enemy ground commander won't be sensible and surrender, then we have to do a full court press. Kews for one. Once we hold the star system and the orbitals, we can put Kew launchers in orbit and rock bomb concentrations of the enemy—any enemy forces, industry, caches of weapons or equipment, strong holds, the works. We think based on established patterns that they will stick tight to the population centers and use them as hostages," she warned. “So, once we establish a beachhead, it will be fighting on the ground in urban areas … and it will be messy.”

"Which is a problem. How do we dig them out without civilian casualties?"

"A lot of minds are still working on that. Siege tactics obviously, they are considering everything from gassing populations to commando units. Right now let's focus on the space strategy since it is our jobs and let them do theirs,” Sprite said. Heads around the table nodded or signaled assent. “From what we know or have determined Horath has been shot gunning pirates for the past seven hundred years. These ships were singletons or divisions who primarily preyed on starships. Since most ships are in motion between systems, it was a hit or miss affair. They had to lay in wait near popular trade routes to be the most effective. About a ten plus years ago, they switched to a task-force oriented program. Two fleets, one of pirate warships, and another of captured freighters to sweep up their ill-gotten gains."

"The fleet that hit Pyrax," the commander replied with a nod. “I always wondered why they left it alone for so long though.”

That question made Monty frown thoughtfully and sit back. Admiral Irons caught the look and then returned to watching the room at large.

"More than that, the fleet that hit Senka, I'm still not convinced that they are one in the same. The fleets have three goals, strip an area of tech, kill any aliens or Neos they find, and capture any ships and return them to Horath."