Admiral's Challenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 8)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Look at it from an engineering standpoint,” Spalding started sounding professional, and far too full of himself, “the Rage started out with most of her internal systems down or missing with her outer armor compromised after the Fleet captured her at Omicron Station. The Armor Prince was in a bad way after Second Tracto.”

  “It’s been two years since the Omicron, and more than a year since…Second Tracto,” I said not liking the taste of the second Battle for control of Tracto the planet, and Tracto the Star System. The name brought up too many bad memories.

  “Exactly!” Spalding said, as if I’d just made his point for him. “With us not havin’ the crew to man more battleships, and nothing but time on their hands, I figured while the Fleet was away from Gambit those were the times to fix those ships up right!”

  I rubbed my suddenly aching temples. It was sounding more and more like I could have had an additional battleship much sooner than even last month if our resources had been more appropriately managed.

  “And I was right!” he continued. “Despite the best recruiting efforts of yourself and the Warrant Officer—now Lieutenant—Steiner, we only just have enough crew to man our battleships now. And that’s only with skeleton crews on the lot,” he stopped and gave me a look filled with the certainty of his ‘right’ decisions.

  “Go on,” I said, thinking mercenarily that if I’d had the ship repaired and sitting around without the people to run her, I would have found a way to crew it.

  Although, as I pondered on it, I started to wonder just when I would have had the time or ability to get those men and women. I suppose I could have always made the Border Alliance a higher priority and received those thousands of green recruits earlier. But, in fairness, I would have been missing the recently liberated cadre of former Droid prisoners from the Confederation days and a few of the more border-wise SDFs in 24, thanks to the Sentient Assembly ‘prisoner exchange.’

  “Regardless of the particulars of it,” Spalding said, waving his hands as if to shoo away such merely practical considerations as having functioning warships as quickly as possible. “Thanks to the prolonged time in shipyard, and the slowly growing work force we’ve built up here—”

  I looked at him with disbelief as he rambled on; as far as I was concerned, we’d been growing by leaps and bounds ever since coming back from the Droid Conflict War in our neighboring Sectors!

  “Using the growing factory complex and the hulk of the Queen Anabella, aka Vineyard,” he continued, his voice turning dark at the reminder of Jean Luc’s—his old Captain—flagship during his long-lived Pirate days pillaging at the behest of Capria’s own Parliament, “as a pair of training platforms for the new Fleet Engineers, we’ve been able to help train them in both battleship repair and warship construction techniques!”

  “By ‘construction techniques,’ I assume you mean that ever-growing monstrosity next to the bone yard—one that I still, to this day, don’t recall authorizing,” I cut in. “And I say ‘bone yard’ instead of ‘ship’s graveyard where you’ve parked the Lucky Clover, the Queen and those few hulks we brought back from Elysium,’ out of respect.”

  “Graveyard, bone yard,” Spalding shrugged the terminology away, deliberately ignoring the dig at his unauthorized ‘Super Battleship’ project. I supposed I’d tacitly, and ever-so-retroactively, approved it after we came back from Elysium—not that I was going to point that out while I had a good head of steam.

  “The bottleneck has, of course, been Duralloy II production,” Spalding pontificated, and I shook my head. There he went again with his ‘of courses’ again. I knew Duralloy II was harder to produce and there had been a few problems here and there, but as of last I heard the hull metal fabrication plant had been up and running full-bore for the better part of six months now.

  “The figures I’ve seen indicate we’re running at full production,” I pointed out.

  “Fortunately, the lack of Duralloy II didn’t slow down the stripping of internal systems from the Vineyard and bringing them over to the Rage,” Spalding continued eagerly, “and with production finally hitting its stride, we’ve not only sheathed the entire hull in the new metal but a majority of the internal supports as well.”

  I knew about the new hull metal, which was in part why I wanted the Royal Rage for my new flagship, if and until the 1800 meter monstrosity growing in my shipyard was someday completed, so I nodded. “The structural supports as well, you say?” I pressed.

  “Well, all the secondary supports and a few of the ribs at least,” Spalding allowed. “So as soon as they finish up with installing and troubleshooting of the secondary systems, we should have your new—temporary—flagship up, running, and ready for space trials by the end of the month,” he said with a look of glee crossing his face as he rubbed his hands together. “I guarantee you, Sir, that she’ll be twice the lady she used to be. I dare say that with this new armor—and a few of the other modifications we’ve put in her—there won’t be another battleship in the entire Spine that can hold a candle to her.”

  “Even the Clover before she was damaged, of course?” I couldn’t help needle him a bit.

  “The Clover’s bein’ upgraded to an entirely new classification,” Spalding snapped, his eyes flashing, “it would be like comparing a grape with a plum. No, Admiral, I’ll bet my chin whiskers the Royal Rage can take any ship in the Spine as soon as she’s done with her builder’s trial. But the Clover…2.0,” the flashes of emotion in his eyes when he’d spoken of fruit comparisons turned into limpid pools of raging insanity. Like a fanatic at a church revival meeting, or a drug addict getting a fix, his level-headed sanity had clearly left the building, “When I’m done with her, she’ll eat battleships for breakfast—including the Rage and her new armor—and I’d put her up against anything the Empire’s ever built now or in the future! ‘Old, outdated tech’ they called it! I call it the innovative applications of sound engineering principles, the likes of which this galaxy has never seen! Anti-matter generators; a hyper-plasma rail gun that could cut through a small moon if given enough time; a weight of metal that—” by now his voice had risen to a shout, and spit was literally flying out of his mouth as he waxed poetic and overly loud on the subject nearest and dearest to his heart.

  “Ahem,” I cleared my throat as loudly as I could manage, cutting him off mid-rant, “I’m sure it will be a fine ship—”

  “Only the finest ship humanity has ever seen!” Spalding cut in passionately.

  “Right,” I raised a hand. “But she’s still a few years down the road,” I said deciding it was the better part of valor to avoid pointing out that with antimatter onboard she might as easily just blow up the first time the Super Battleship came out of space dock as saying that would probably incite another tirade, “Let’s keep our focus where it always should have been, on those ships that can be kicked out of the space yard as quickly as possible. We can worry about maintenance and upgrades later. I need ships now.” “’A couple of years,’ he says,” Spalding glared thunderously, “quick ships—ha! You get back out what you put into it in the first place, young Admiral,” he said, wagging a finger at me, “you just let old Spalding worry about how they’re repaired and everything will work out just fine.”

  I slapped my hand down on the table angrily and gave him a stern look.

  “Have I ever let you down yet?” the old engineer stared back unrepentantly. “The answer to that is ‘no!’ You have more ships because of old Spalding than you would have otherwise, and I’m not just talking about the ones I helped disable!”

  I wanted to reach over the desk and throttle the man, but instead I clenched my hands so hard my fingers hurt. I couldn’t understand why I was so irritated. Yes, Spalding should have consulted me and told me the plan outright. But in fairness, he’d saved this fleet more times than I could easily count. And he was right: he’d never steered me wrong yet, at least when it came to warships and their hardware. I could only chalk it up to an uneasiness brou
ght on by the sudden dearth of enemies and outside resistance. Something about it just felt wrong, in some indescribable way.

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help looking this gift horse—otherwise known as ‘9 months without an external threat’—in the mouth and commenting on the color of said horse’s teeth. And, what’s more, I was starting to take it out on those around me. Not that the old engineer hadn’t been up to enough shenanigans in his non-engineering activities to warrant a sharp word or three, I finally decided, lowering my brow.

  He gave me one last challenging look before continuing with the fleet update. “As for the rest of the ships, the Armor Prince, like the Rage but to a lesser extent, has been repaired and upgraded. Glenda only managed to replace those parts of the internal hull and structural supports that were damaged in Second Tracto while we were gone, but over 40% of her hull is now Duralloy II. If I had the time, I would have replaced it all,” he gave me a sharp look, “but realizing the need for combat power soonest it was possible, I ordered the yard to limit it to mainly replacements of already damaged sections and those areas over critical systems—like the ship’s engines and such.”

  “That’s good,” I muttered, not adverse to covering critical systems with a superior armor upgrade.

  “The Power, of course, was a quick turnaround job so we just used whatever was on hand, whether it was old duralloy or the new substance. Thankfully, D-II welds to D-I as easily as the original metal, just so long as you follow proper procedure and use the laser edges on both of them for a perfect fit,” Spalding continued.

  “And my new ships?” I asked, particularly interested in the ships we’d brought back from Elysium.

  Spalding nodded. “The Stix Class: shield-heavy, armor-thin, battleship which we’ve renamed Metal Titan in honor of who turned her over to us, was in pretty good condition, excepting life support, by the time those Assembly Droids turned her over to us. So it’s been mostly a case of major exterior work they couldn’t get to while in transit and, like I said, the life support systems for the internals, we also tore out the entire computer system and reinstalled everything onto purpose built hardware. No way we could take the risk they’d put a monkey armed with Murphy’s Wrench in the ship’s DI,” he said, shaking his head.

  “And you say she’ll be out this month?” I pressed just for the sake of clarity. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the ship’s new name, but so long as she was out this month I wasn’t going to complain too loudly, “I notice she’s not in one of our two fixed repair slips right now.”

  “No need; at most a week or two and she’ll be good,” Spalding assured me, “the Pastor Class that you renamed Messene’s Shield was a bigger job, so Glenda and I decided to put the Shield in dock first. We’ll just run Metal Titan in and work on anything we can’t do outside a slip as soon as the Stix Class is done. The Shield needed a lot more internal work than the Titan; those Lancers tore her up on the inside real good and the rest of the fleet wasn’t very kind to the exterior port armor either. It’s a lot more convenient with that kind of damage to have everything right near where you can get to it right away.”

  I took note of the dig on the ship’s new name but, other than that, I had no complaints here. As far as the work-pace, I noted that as soon as the Power had moved out of her slip the rechristened Shield had moved in. As a nod to Tracto-an pride, having a battleship of that name taking top priority had been a good move politically, on several different levels.

  “We were more concerned with surviving the battle than leaving nice and pretty battleships in our wake,” I said dryly.

  “As it should be,” Spalding agreed then switched to a new series of pop ups on the screen. “That’s mostly it for the battleships. Armor Prince is out and done with her builders trials. The Rage should be out this week. The Shield will probably take until the end of the month, what with all the systems that need to be tested now that they’re overhauled. And as soon as the Rage slides out, we’ll push the Metal Titan in and get her fixed up right. Barring catastrophe—and allowing a little leeway—we should have all five of your battleships out and working up by the end of the month, Admiral.”

  “Sounds good,” I said finally, “even almost too good to be true. Are you sure you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?” I demanded.

  Spalding looked wounded. “When have I ever tried to blow sunshine up your…ear?” he protested, catching himself at the end of his indignant protest.

  I gave him a withering look.

  Spalding flushed angrily, “It’s the straight download and nothing but, or so help me you can bust me back down to deck sweeper. There might be something comes up, these things always do, but I tell it like it is—Murphy help me if I lie,” he said resolutely.

  “Well…all right then,” I said, feeling awkward in the face of his impassioned defense. Still, this was the man notorious for his communication ‘difficulties,’ and the keeping of secrets until I or whoever else it was ‘needed to know’—at least in Spalding’s opinion. So I didn’t feel too bad about raking him over the coals a bit. “So what do we have next, Cruisers?” I asked deciding to hurry the conversation along.

  “Boat-Carriers,” he corrected me, shaking his head as if I should have known this.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, “you mean those two battleships you down-checked as non-repairable?” I gave him the eye.

  “Right! The two Rugged Raptor class battleships out of Harcourt which I’ve renamed Jumble class,” Spalding said, waving his arms at the images of the two former battleships that appeared on the screen and then brought up the before and after schematics. “They lacked the hull integrity to continue on as battleships without a rebuild so expensive we might as well have built new ones. If we’d just tried to patch them up, they’d have been little better than floating deathtraps for their crews.”

  I stared intently at the internal schematics. A lot—and I mean a great deal—seemed to be removed from the after portion of the before and after pictures.

  “Which begs the question: if they’re so deadly, why are we using them?” I couldn’t help but point out.

  “That’s the beauty of it: we’ll only need a fraction of the crew! And they can stay in the safer sections; we’ll just use the rest of it for storage or leave it open to cold space,” Spalding started to get excited as internal diagrams exploded on the screen to reveal in-depth details of the overhaul. “We tore the guts out of them and stripped off the armor over the areas with compromised hull integrity to lighten the load. After the new hyper drive systems are tested, I’m confident they’ll survive jumps there was no way they could have safely completed before we stripped them down. The first one we started working on can take as many as 200 gunboats in the massive bays we cleared out. The second will maybe cap out around 150, we’ll have to see—they’re still a work in progress. They can fly and maneuver around in the yard if we need them to, but I’ve got a lot more work lined up for them after the battleships are out.”

  “I notice that’s close to the number of gunboats we took back with us from Elysium,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” Spalding smiled cutely. Although, on a metal, borged-out face, it probably wasn’t as cute as the older man assumed

  Then I did a double check as the tentative new names of the two ships flashed across the screen and disappeared.

  “What in the world,” I said with surprise, “back it up.”

  “Admiral?” Spalding looked at me in surprise and then backed up the frames too fast so that the names once again flashed across the screen. But this time I was sure of what I’d seen and I snorted loudly.

  “The Heavy Duty and Glenda’s Disbelief are what you’re calling them now?” I couldn’t help laughing in disbelief.

  “The Duty and Disbelief will be fine additions to the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet once they’re done,” Spalding tried to say with dignity, but his grave-sounding words were ruined by the redness covering his face and
neck.

  “Go on then,” I said, waving my hand and laughing. There was a story in there somewhere, I just knew it, but now was not the time. I’d speak to my spies and find out exactly what had caused a name like Glenda’s Disbelief to be put up there by the old engineer. And, barring some kind of real reason not to, I would probably allow the names to stick. If the Commander really had rescued a pair of ships destined for the bone yard by stripping them and turning them into gunboat carriers, he’d earned naming privileges.

  “Right, well, anyway we’re still working on beefing up the gunboats to something more along the lines of the performance we’ve been seeing out of the boats of those uplifts. But with all the projects we have, it’s a low priority project at the moment. Can’t devote the time and resources it deserves. Some of the engineers have been taking it up as something of a hobby project, I hear. I don’t really understand it myself, but you know engineers,” he rolled his eyes, “they come up with some of the darnedest hobby horses. But for the younger ones, I can’t see the harm; gives them some practical experience, ramrodding a project with limited manpower on a shoestring budget. Begging the Admiral’s indulgence but I think it’s good for morale,” he said formally.

  I nodded. The Admiral understood a lot more about engineers, their pet peeves, and the lengths they’d go for their personal hobby horses than a certain old engineer might understand, I thought. Still, it was no worse than all the would-be mechanics back home who bought a fixer upper hover-car and tried to trick her out into the next air-space racer. It wasn’t my scene, but I could understand the allure and I certainly wasn’t going to tell a bunch of motivated techs to stop putting in all those free work hours while they worked to make a small part of my potential future fleet more effective than it might otherwise be.

  “Approved,” I said simply. They now had my official approval to work on those boats—I just hoped no one killed themselves working on untested Droid equipment. “Just make sure they observe proper safety protocols; who knows what those droids left in there?”