Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (42 page)

The
Clydesdale
Molly
helped run goods and personnel into the star system from Triang. When Lieutenant Commander V'rn'th, the Veraxin Spacebee charged with the ansible station construction, finished with her ansible project she was allowed access to the freighter and corvettes. Suspicious crewmen watched as she did her initial survey, passed on her recommendations, and downloaded each ship's database into a spare computer core for fleet intelligence to use.

She led the install of the hyperdrive and reactor into the freighter, the last two pieces of the puzzle of putting the ship back together. The
Io 11
captain was so pleased with her services that she worked with the bug to build a better gas refinery, two automated tugs to keep it serviced, and equipment before her ship departed the star system with her new consort.

“Nice doing business with you, Admiral, and thanks for the credit,” the captain cackled in a message to him through the ansible before she left. “We've got places to go, people to see, credits to make,” the captain said. “More credit.”

“We can't stay here forever,” Vanessa the purser added with a nod. “If Commander V'rn'th ever wants a job, let me know. We could use a bug like her,” she stated. The captain grunted in agreement.

Molly
would continue to run supplies between Senka and Triang until there weren't enough loads or people to justify the run anymore. Then they would follow behind
Io 11
.

There was one spot of mixed news on that front; the picket force fingerprinted an intruder in the star system. Unfortunately, the militia ship was given word of it, and instead of allowing the
Mirilax
class freighter
Prinz Zir
to get in close for boarding and inspection, they challenged the ship right off. The small freighter managed to escape back the way she had come to B-455.

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

“Well! That was fun. Now what?” Alice demanded, shaking her head. She was sweaty and pissed. The entire crew knew they were fracked. They hadn't expected to be caught out like that right after jumping into the star system and flashing their beacon. “I'm starting to regret not taking that transfer to the Ravens,” she said.

“Huggin
and
Muninn?”
Serius asked, clearly interested. “Which one?”

“Not the spy ships, the
Raven
class frigates that the yard was working on. They were delayed again, however. One thing after another with the design,” she grimaced. The
Raven
class was the first from the keel up designed and built empire warship—or would be when it ever got off the drawing board. According to the scuttlebutt, she'd heard about the
Leonardo
incident and the
El Dorado
find had frozen the time table on construction. The brass might have even scrapped the project.

She didn't understand why they called it the
Raven
class since the ships were to be named after weapons and animals in mythology. Sure they started with Norse mythology but …
Gungnir
named after Odin's spear,
Raven
, and then there was
Geri
and
Freki
named after Odin's wolves. She had been initially assigned to
Gungnir
as chief engineer before the last freeze and her reassignment to
Prinz Zir
.

“Yeah, I can bet you'd want to be anywhere but here right now. I can't blame you,” Serius said, shaking his head. “Me too.” He exhaled. “I think the bosun should break the still out, everyone get drunk then blow the ship.”

“We're on fumes. We barely made that jump back here. So our only hope is for what, the enemy to come and pick us up?” Raff asked, coming in to engineering country.

“Pretty much. The XO has everyone doing inventory, but we all know it's make work. He's going to want to kick some stuff loose to save mass. But everything we shed means we've got less to use to survive later.”

“True.”

“If we do a burp, I mean a soft one we could get across this star system in about six months. I don't know if we'd have enough fuel to jump on the other end,” Alice mused. “I'm an engineer not a damn navigator. I don't know how much fuel we'd need.”

“And it wouldn't do any good. We'd be in another useless dead star system.”

“So …”

“So let's get drunk. Fuck ourselves silly then ….”

“Ah, shut up,” Alice sighed, shaking her head as the men eyed her. “The first guy who tries anything with me gets castrated—the hard way,” she growled, eying them. The normally pale Serius gulped. Raff just grinned at her.

“Can we scavenge?” Serius asked.

Alice slowly took her eyes off Raff to the other man. She frowned thoughtfully and then shrugged. “It's possible. We've rationed to get this far; we can't squeeze anymore out. Not unless we start shedding people.”

“That would ease up on life support.”

“You're not serious,” Serius said, startled. He stared at Raff. Raff shrugged, but his eyes were still on Alice. She forced herself not to hunch her shoulders. Instead she allowed her long fingers to find the wrench on the counter beside her. Her fingers curled around it.

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

When Admiral White read the latest ansible news report, he was not amused by the division of resources but hardly surprised. “He's right. We need to secure Senka to nail that side of the sector shut,” he said in a conversation to Jojo. She nodded in reply.

That didn't stop Amadeus from asking for more mines, platforms, and other supporting infrastructure as well as additional ships and personnel to secure the system during his next scheduled online conference with Admiral Irons. He had received two additional supply convoys other than the
Damocles
one, but they had only added to the station and picket forces while cycling some of his personnel. Sure they'd had essential parts that had kept his ships on station, he wasn't knocking that, but it bothered him that his support had tapered off recently. He hadn't gotten a new destroyer from either convoy. Getting the new people broken in and up to speed on all his various plans and procedures had been annoying but a necessary chore.

“We are the front lines, like Senka, sir; I get that. But we are the
tip
of the spear. We need to be sharp; we need to be ready. We need to throw them back to make them think twice about coming again.”

The arrival of marine forces with
Bounty
and
Damocles
had been an incredible boon. Commander Harris and Lieutenant Commander McGuyver had rubbed him the wrong way initially, but he could respect the pair of fire-eaters for what they were. It was unfortunate perhaps that Commander Harris wouldn't be with him long; the man was slated for a battle cruiser command within six months. At least, he might get the man and his ship back.
Might
, he thought darkly.

He wasn't at all keen about the
Fletcher XXI
class destroyer First Lieutenant Jory Gray had pitched. Apparently he had pitched it to Commander Wong who had been busy and wrapped up with the Xeno Wraith mess. Wong had idly mentioned the design to Lieutenant Fletcher who had been amused but had taken a look at the design. Apparently the AI had seen enough potential in the design to forward it to Admiral Irons and Commander Sindri. Both officers had taken a keen interest in it.

The
Fletcher XXI
was to be the twenty-first in a long line of
Fletcher
class destroyers … if it got off the drawing board. Lieutenant Gray had taken the basics of a tin can, added modern hardware, then stripped her down to the bare bones necessary to have a fighting ship. She was a no frills design without a marine compliment and with little crew comfort. She was designed to be operated with a small crew however, so that was something.

If he had his numbers right, they could churn out a
Fletcher
at about half the rate they could an
Arboth
. If they saved the fitting out for the crew to do on station or in transit, they could shave weeks off that time. They wouldn't be as heavily armed as an
Arboth
, but they would have numbers on their side. It was a tempting thought. He shook his head and set the thought aside for another time. He turned his eyes to the blue green orb.

The marines had immediately gone to work on the planet, pacifying any remaining Horathians. Resistance had been stiff but then dropped off magically as the marines poured in.

There had been some odd reports, however, like the one about “El Diablo.” Things were finally shaping up on the planet though, so much so that he was allowing a few volunteers a chance of a liberty. Major Pendeckle's battalion had finished what Major White Wolf's forces had … no, that wasn't right.
Captain Gustav
had started the drop but had been killed before he'd hit dirt. Lieutenant Ebensher had been the one to hang onto the space around the spaceport. White Wolf had been the one to make that toehold into a proper landing, her and Gunny McClintock. According to the scuttlebutt, the gunny had earned two warring nicknames among the enemy: the Black Devil and the Black Ghost. He could understand that.

The major and gunny had returned with her surviving forces to Kathy's World to bury their dead. From what he had heard, they had orders to report to Agnosta for reassignment. According to the ansible report, he'd read the major was taking the time to assemble additional recruits for the marines and army from the planet's population. Major White Wolf would remain with the transports until a suitable escort could be arranged to get them through B-452C space to Agnosta, though he was fairly confident the picket in that empty star system would suffice to warn them if any pirates came calling.

He wasn't thrilled about the hiccup in the fighter production run in Antigua, but he grudgingly understood the need. The marines had desperately needed assault shuttles and attack craft to support the landings and hadn't had it. Now it was in the pipeline. A little late, they wouldn't bring back the dead, but there was something to be said about the burnt hand ….

“Look, Amadeus, I know you want more. Trust me; we're working on it. But I have a lot of irons in the fire.”

“I need enough mines for both jump points, plus additional forces in Kathy's World. And I want to start seeding mines in B-95a3 to slow the pirates down there,” Amadeus stated.

It was annoying to see his words turned into text in front of his eyes and then sent out through the narrow bandwidth of the ansible. They needed to work on that, one of a million things to do. He'd heard that Phil and John had some sort of avatar system they were testing. He hoped they'd send him a copy some time. Apparently his link didn't have enough bandwidth to transmit voice. That sucked.

“If we mine the Nuevo Madrid and the B-97a jump points in B-95a3, we can hit any incoming shipping. They wouldn't know what was happening until they were dust,” Amadeus stated.

“I'm not happy about hitting civilian shipping in the area,” Admiral Irons replied back. “If there are ships in the area, they will be destroyed.”

“With all due respect, sir, you are dreaming if you think that anything passing through the system isn't controlled by the enemy,” Amadeus replied, fighting to keep from rolling his eyes. Economic blockades were a part of war. John should know that. And sometimes you had to break a few eggs to get the job done.

“I don't know. You
don't
know. The ships are running slow, the lowest octaves of alpha in some cases. Ships could be in transit between systems for
years
and not know what was going on. One can hope they were overlooked. Recon the system if you think you can spare a ship. It is up to you, Amadeus.”

“Yes, sir. I already have.
Hecate
is there now.”

“I know. I thought she would have returned by now though.” John said and then let that rebuke go. “I'll send you more mines instead of weapon platforms then,” he said. Amadeus opened his mouth to protest but John wasn't finished. “But remember, I can't send you a lot of mines. Use them wisely. Throwing them at two jump points there as well as in the jump point in Protodon would thin them out.”

Amadeus gave an unseen nod as he considered that. What John was sending him would barely give him coverage for one additional shoal of mines on the jump point in Protodon. Sending a couple dozen to the neighboring system would be wasteful. They'd also have to leave a ship behind to keep watch over them, one at each jump point. That would mean having ships coming and going all the time which would eat into his fuel and his ships and crews. He rubbed his brow in frustration.