Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (37 page)

The EC
John Paul Jones
was working through her exercises. Commander Valdez had been on target with the EC's fighter compliment, though they still had a lot of teething issues. He'd poached some of the fortress and
Kitty Hawk's
squadrons for the fighter squadron's leadership. He snorted at the nasty note one lieutenant forwarded to him. That was tough. The young man had made the right call. The others might have to break in a greenhorn, but the experienced personnel were overdue for reassignment. Promoting them and giving them squadron and the CAG assignment was a good call.

There was a bit of a nasty tiff brewing with the support and maintenance teams though. He knew just how to head it off, however. He tapped out an order to send the ship to Epsilon Triangula behind the scouting light cruiser. He frowned, tapping his chin and then pulled up the stats. He had
Intensity
assigned to the ship as an escort but was at a loss for a support ship. He was fresh out he noted. “Damn,” he muttered.

He tapped out a rough plan for the ships to scout the system but not to engage unless
Firefly
was there and needed support. Instead they were to report back. He looked in his inventory and then clenched his fist. “Damn again,” he muttered, noting a lack of courier vessels. He forwarded his plan to Admiral Irons with a note that they needed more colliers and couriers.

Yesterday Horatio had convinced him to reactivate and finish the
Nelson
destroyers that had been partially finished.
Akizuki
,
John Hancock
,
Myron
, and
Griffin
would go a long way to fleshing out the convoy escorts going to Kathy's World, Briev, and elsewhere. And the last three ships had been basic frames so they could modify them to the new Flight VI standards. He was curious about how that would work out. The best part was they were going to use the idle frigate production line to finish the small ships. They already had most of the parts too, so the frigate's construction centers could still continue to work on churning out minor parts for the cruisers and carriers.

He was still sitting on the captain's other brainstorm, to create small repair and freighter ships using the corvette and frigate production line.
Liberty
ships he called them, which was cute; it harkened back to the times like during World War II when the allies needed mass produced shipping.

They were small. The freighter version could only carry a thousand tons of freight, but the captain almost had him sold on the modular design. He'd certainly done his homework by showing how the basic frame could be adapted to a dozen or so different ship types. They'd be small, but they could churn out a lot of them.

The recent battle in B-452C had pointed out the lack of a mobile repair ability in the fleet, which was what he was focusing on—one beyond the small replicators some ships had. Having a repair ship or ships plural available and positioned in strategic locations would be handy he thought. And when they weren't doing repairs, they would work on infrastructure projects he thought. He snorted. Another thing Horatio had pointed out. He wondered where the man had gotten the idea. Oh yeah, his daughter's ship. He shook his head and set the idea aside for the moment.

Once they had the yard and production sorted out, John was supposed to start shipping him components to finish the antimatter production facilities in the star system. Captain Logan had directed his people to build the facilities as well as the empty core of other facilities, but they hadn't been able to fill them with the necessary equipment to do the job.

It was too bad since they had that lovely plasma tap just sitting there churning out power without much use for it now that they were adding fusion reactors to all the stations and facilities. Antimatter would go a long way to evening the playing field in the long term … once they got the pieces to the puzzle in place.

Shipping the parts from Antigua was easier than building another tap there. And it would be quicker. He would have to make a note to remind John of that later in case he waffled on it.

The two ansibles had finally departed for Seti Alpha 4. Now he regretted their departure. A little too late he thought. One of the corvettes was destined to remain in Seti Alpha 4 as a picket force in that system as agreed to in Antigua. He hated that. He hated the idea of politicians telling him what to do with his forces.

If they didn't have the ansible set up in the star system, it would make sense. But with it he had some forewarning of an attack from that direction. Of course, the planet wouldn't have much of a warning without the satellites
Prometheus
had left behind … or that picket ship. He sighed and let the matter go.

His last courier had been sent to find
Prometheus
and warn her something was going on in Epsilon Triangula. Again he made a note to build more of the damned things. They had the corvette lines sitting idle … he frowned thoughtfully and then added an amendment to his note. He spent a few minutes jotting out the idea. He then cut and pasted it to Saul to clean up and run by Horatio. A courier needed a good hyperdrive, but she didn't need weapons or a lot of other warship hardware.

“Sir, we're getting word at the Agnosta jump point. The regular run has come in. She's carrying navy recruits,” Saul reported over the intercom.

“Good,” the admiral replied. “Are they resupplying the picket in B-452C?” he demanded.

“Let me check … yes, sir. The convoy departed Agnosta on schedule for Briev fifteen days ago. They are scheduled to drop off a resupply package to the picket
Providence
and then continue on their way.”

“Good.”

“Sir, the convoy is at half strength?” Saul asked, sounding confused.

“That's because half of the transports were backstopped so we can ship jarheads and supplies to Kathy's World and Protodon.”

“Ah. That explains why
Bounty
has remained in that star system, sir.”

“Yes. She's an
Arboth
; we need her on the front not nursemaiding the sheep,” the admiral replied. He could see the reasoning in keeping
Bounty
back to escort the transports in. They didn't want to lose a shipment of jarheads and equipment to the pirates, which only emphasized his point about seizing B-452C and keeping it.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that it, Saul?”

“Um, don't forget your 1100 meeting with the staff, sir. And you have a call with the lieutenant governor after lunch. And …”

“Stop,” the admiral said. “Okay, I get it. The usual busy day. No photo ops this time, right?” he asked, voice dropping into a dark hint of warning.

“No, sir. I've told public affairs not to do that again. And I'm checking on that just in case.”

“Good. I don't mind doing my part, but I don't like being ambushed by the media.”

“I don't blame you, sir. You've got … twenty until you need to move to the conference room, sir. Unless you want to do a virtual meeting?” he asked hopefully. Some of the staff were already en route to the annex.

“No, no, we'll do it the old fashioned way.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Have personnel go over the crew compliments of the ships that are going to launch in the next two weeks. I don't want any more clashes like what went on in
Kittyhawk
and in the
John Paul Jones
.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Saul said, making a note.

---<>---<>---

Saul sighed as he noted the bear's presence. Captain Valenko always seemed to put the admiral in a good mood. Could it be a natural inclination to be nice to the grizzly? Out of fear or a memory of fuzzy teddy bears? He snorted. The bear could hardly be described as a teddy bear!

“Everything all right, Saul?” Valenko rumbled.

“Yes, just fine.”

“Good. I've got the fortress compliments worked out. Colonel Forth has sent me the latest file on transfers though. I need to go over it before I talk with the boss. Any idea why he wanted to chat?”

“No, not a clue,” Saul said, shaking his head. He frowned. He hated that. He hated being out of the loop.

“Okay,” the bear drawled.

“I was reading up on your history. F platoon? Is it really as big a legend as they say?”

The bear crossed his arms and then shrugged. “Some make it out to be more than it was. It was a ball buster. It's now the standard on Agnosta however.”

“Ah,” the commander nodded.

“Some of the other DIs were softballing training. Taking it light, putting more emphasis on looking pretty, and marching in neat tidy lines than in breaking things and killing people,” the bear said with a slight grin and ear flick. “Which is why whenever they went into simulated combat with us, they got their asses thoroughly kicked.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Yeah. How goes the hunt for the staff?”

“I think I'm cursed. I found a flag lieutenant, but she's not working out. The admiral's already told me to be on the lookout for a replacement,” Saul admitted with a sigh of resignation. “I've got him a steward though,” he said happily.

“Good.”

“Yeah. She's not happy …,” he cut himself off before he mentioned the admiral's growing gambling addiction.

“I bet. Taking care of someone is a full time job. Managing their schedule, all that. But you already know that of course,” the bear said, waving a hand.

“Yeah,” Saul replied, bobbing a nod. They both felt a ping on their implants at the same time. “He'll see you now, Captain.”

“I see that. Good luck with the recruiting,” the bear said, entering the office warily.

---<>---<>---

Horatio was proud of his achievements. He had finally convinced Admiral Subert to retool and reactivate the gunship and corvette production lines to build couriers as well as small transports and other support ships. The small transports wouldn't carry much, but they would help out with the shipping situation. Many of their parts could be used on larger hulls as well.

He had sold the admiral the idea on the assurance that they would be great training grounds for the other production lines and that they would be secondary in priority. If the other lines had an issue, they would poach from the transport/courier line to make it up or shut it down until the problems were rectified. The first courier had been rammed through the production line in record time and was already out with
Damocles
. A second and third courier had been dispatched to other star systems.

Horatio smiled as he looked out the window of his shuttle to the yard. They were finally hitting their stride. The cruiser production line was up and running smoothly. They had just kicked
Tumuloch
out to the fitting slip so she could start her trials.
Voyager
wouldn't be far behind.

The carrier production was going well and so were the transports and couriers. He'd even managed to squeeze a courier out, and she'd passed her tests with flying colors so well she'd shipped out with
Bounty
. He hoped every ship did that well.

His eyes lit on the battle cruiser line. The first Flight II
Newmann
class ship, the
Lady Liberty
was going to be launched soon. In a week he thought. Her sister ships
Freedom
and
Justice
were coming along nicely, though the sheer scale of their production had been daunting. There had been a lot of teething issues to get a handle on, but now the construction line was in full swing. Fortunately, by laying so many hulls in advance they were getting a leg up on production, shaving time from each ship.

His eyes turned to
Bismark's
slip as they passed it on their way to the annex. He wished they could do more than that he thought, watching tugs shifting the hyperdrive components out of the collier that had carried them and then into the gaping holes in the
Tauren
battleship's flank. Spotlights were all around lighting the work area up. He watched until they were past, craning his neck and moving to keep an eye on things until they were out of sight. Then he sat back. Once
Bismark
passed her hyperdrive tests, she was going to ship out for Antigua to finish her rebuild. Hopefully they'd get her back soon.

He knew it bothered Admiral Subert as well as Admiral White that they were going to have to split the cruisers and battle cruisers down the middle. Antigua was going to do the same thing, though he was confident John would set some ships aside for his reserve. But Subert wanted the ratio between him and White to be two to one while White wanted the reverse. He snorted. He didn't envy John having to play King Solomon. At least he was keeping it even, and they had timed it so
Bismark
wouldn't depart until
Lady Liberty
was finished and commissioned.