Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  “I think I'm glad I'm here and don't have to negotiate for raw materials. Yet,” the Veraxin stated. “Once this Eden project gets its feet under it, we're going to have a lot of competition.”

  “Definitely,” Shelby replied.

  “We are going to have to work out trading methods. A base form,” Cynthia mused. “Then what, tailor it to each situation since not all are the same?” she asked, eying her skipper. Shelby nodded. “I see. I heard we're getting people in from State, though I suppose that is up in the air still. I guess they'll want input on the process of course,” the XO said sourly. “It could tie the entire process up into knots and make something so simple take months,” she said sourly.

  “But they might find leverage for you to use in the negotiating process or take on the process itself and settle the details, which will allow you to focus on the parts you want to handle,” Captain I'rll said.

  “True,” Shelby said. “As long as they don't sell us short or drag the entire process out too long,” she said.

  “Don't accept anything more than 20 percent payout to the natives for the mining rights, Captain,” I'rll cautioned. “Fifteen percent is the going rate in the market here for high quality raw material, and it is steep. I don't know how the tax situation is going to be handled or diplomacy.” The Veraxin paused expectantly.

  “I think we'll be making it up as we go from time to time. These people aren't in contact with us. Some may not want to rejoin the Federation,” Shelby said thoughtfully.

  “I know. That's the State's headache to handle. But don't make their job any harder than it already is,” I'rll warned. “Letting them handle the negotiations will also show the other side their talents and that we're ready to listen to them. As long as they don't get careless and dictate non-negotiable terms that is,” the Veraxin stated.

  “I'll do my best not to allow that. But some things are just that. Like the Bill of Rights,” Shelby said with a nod.

  “Agreed. We don't need pissing matches between you and State. Trust me, they can get ugly in a hurry,” the Veraxin stated. “I've heard a few things from the historians now that State is becoming a thing again. Diplomats are known to talk you to death. They say if you are talking you aren't shooting, but half the time by the time they're done, you want to shoot them, even if they are on your side,” she said.

  Shelby snorted. “Yes, I've heard that one myself. I'll try to be on my best behavior as long as they are,” she said.

  Captain I'rll eyed her with all four eyestalks and then nodded slowly. “See that you do. I know the old saying about don't start any fights but finish them. Try not to start a long-term fight by finishing a minor one in your favor. No pissing contests.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Shelby murmured.

  “Good,” the Veraxin said, then settled herself. “Now as to negotiations closer to home, I heard that with the war front changing, larger ships are going to be held here. Which means you are going to be getting smaller ships. I know you put in for three escort carriers. I very much doubt you'll get them, Captain.”

  “Damn,” Cynthia murmured.

  “But don't give up on them right off!” the Veraxin cautioned. “I say hold out on them even though most likely they'll go to Second or Third Fleet. Make them negotiate down. You might end up with one or none but some other ships as replacements,” she said.

  “It's a pity we can't take you along. You are good ma'am,” Cynthia said.

  “Suck up,” the Veraxin said, indicating first-level teasing amusement. “I'll stick to where I'm at, thank you. I love building ships.”

  “Ah,” Shelby said with a nod. “Think they'll stick you in a flag slot sometime?”

  “I don't know. I got my captain's rank when your dad left so I know it won't be anytime soon. Now, we’re only building one or two classes of each ship. I know you don't want the other classes to simplify your logistics, but if you have to, I'd consider a bait and switch or accept the ship and move on if it is a cruiser.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Shelby said, leaning forward to tap the holo projector on. A couple finger taps and she finished uploading their current ship list. “Now, we know these ships are definite. Do you know of any problems with the class that we need to be aware of? Specific wear issues or maintenance issues we need to keep an eye on?”

  “Well …”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Since Lieutenant Barry in Logistics was having trouble coughing up some of the supplies and Prometheus' replicators were sitting idle begging to be used, Shelby took a page from her past mission prep to use the factory ship and the two Doras to build parts and cargo for the other ships to make up for slippage in the timetable.

  Her good intentions kicked off a series of problems when the brass found out. Some came from the IG office since the parts had been allocated to her but not in that manner. Plus, the wear time on her equipment and shifting budget around to handle the transport of the raw material, finished products, wear on transport equipment, paying personnel … Then there were the issues with the civilian industrial concerns who had been contracted to do the work in the first place.

  She recognized some of the problems the morning after she'd started her people on the project when some of her allocated resources were shifted to the Eastern Front prep as well as other projects. That forced her to put a call in to Barry.

  “It wasn't me, Captain; that came from Ops.”

  “Don't take this the wrong way, but isn't Logistics your domain?”

  “Yes, yes, it is. The commander did it when I was in my sleep cycle. I am in a quandary, I can't rescind the orders since although it is my department, she is a commander and thus outranks me.”

  “Okay, so, I need to go up the food chain,” Shelby stated.

  “It looks that way. Connecting you with Admiral Subert now,” the A.I. stated.

  Shelby opened her mouth to protest but then closed it.

  “Yes, Lieutenant? Oh, Captain?” the admiral stated. “What?” he asked bluntly.

  “Sir, we have a situation,” Shelby said. She and the A.I. took turns outlining the problem. The Admiral's holographic image scowled. She saw him drum his fingers on the arm of his chair.

  “We still need the raw material to complete the build,” Shelby said.

  “I'm already getting protests from the businesses that you canceled the orders with,” the admiral said. “I was going to call you on it.”

  “They've been dragging their feet. They want twice the agreed-upon price to get the job done on the deadline,” Shelby stated.

  “True, sir. They are near saturation capacity as it is. I've scanned their open files. Two of the companies have considered adding an additional shift to meet the deadline but that would force them to hire on more personnel, train them, and pay more for overtime and put more time on their equipment.”

  “If they are saturated, why did they accept it?”

  “They aren't quite yet, Admiral, but they are close. I believe they were gaming the system a bit too, hoping the schedule would slip more and that we might cough up more money. I don't know if they underbid the contract or not. It is possible.”

  “Knowing civilians, anything is possible,” the Admiral growled. “And holding out on us for more money is another trick I'm very much well aware of, thank you. So, your fix is approved.”

  “That's not the only problem though, sir. Some of the resources have been shifted to other missions. I still need those supplies, sir.”

  “I see.”

  “The use of the factory ships to fill in the gap is a stopgap measure, sir. We are putting time on the equipment's clocks. Time that we'll burn through and then need downtime to rebuild.”

  “Which you can do on the way to Tau,” Admiral Subert pointed out.

  Shelby shook her head. “And how can we do that, sir? You can't do some of these teardowns in hyper you know. And while the ship is also stuffed to the gills with parts and supplies? It isn't going to happen. We're
picking up your slack. Don't dump it all on us, sir. Besides, some of the things, like replicators, I can't replace.”

  The admiral grunted. “I'll look into it.”

  “There is also the small matter of Commander Ch'n'x jumping into my department and issuing orders while I was off duty, sir,” Barry stated.

  The admiral scowled. “I promise you I'll look into that too, Lieutenant,” he said as he closed the channel.

  “Sure you will,” Shelby drawled softly once the A.I. also disconnected the circuit.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “Commander, I know what your game is, and I'm telling you now, knock it off,” Admiral Subert growled, eying the Veraxin.

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me. You are playing favorites with the two missions. You also jumped Lieutenant Barry's authority. He hasn't filed a formal complaint yet. Don't make him do that.”

  “Sir … the war front … it should be the priority, sir.”

  “It is. For the moment, the priority is the Northern Front with Second Fleet,” the admiral said brutally. “Your friend will have to wait her turn.”

  “Sir …”

  “I said she'll have to wait. One thing at a time. As I understand it, she wants better factory ships for her fleet train. Admiral Irons has agreed as have I so her departure date has been pushed back to reflect the wait time until the current crop of ships are completed and have gone through the usual trials. That means the Tau mission is now prioritized above the Eastern Front mission. We can build the equipment and ships that Commodore X'll'rr will need and will be able to continuously send her support as her mission progresses. The same cannot be said about Prometheus.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know you think you were doing the right thing, Commander, and loyalty to a friend is commendable. But stop playing favorites or at least tone it down.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Veraxin stated, signaling first-degree contrition and chastisement.

  “Good. Dismissed then.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Veraxin said as she scuttled about and then departed.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  The chimera quartermaster Lieutenant JG Carl Talon reported on board in the evening shift. He managed to get settled in before he reported to Captain Logan and the XO the following morning.

  Shelby was initially put out over the mangled protocol but knew he had made the right call. She also knew that he'd dived into his job right after he'd unpacked and had gotten a handle on the situation. That was something of a relief to her and Troll since it meant someone else was overseeing some of the task force's and the ship's logistical needs.

  Cynthia was a bit put out over Carl diving in initially but appreciated his go-getter attitude. He had played Alexander to cut through several Gordian knots she and the skipper had been leaving alone. His answers might be simple and in some cases brutal, but he got the job done.

  For Carl's part, he felt more at home on the ship than he had in logistics in the yard. In the yard, he'd been stuck behind a desk shuffling paperwork. He'd grown up on a ship. His mother had been the ship's purser, and she'd taught him all sorts of tricks about negotiating. He was looking forward to doing that once more. It was something he'd sorely missed, as he had the travel and meeting new faces and seeing new worlds.

  He'd capped the factory ship's work and managed to cut through some of the games someone in logistics was playing. He still hadn't traced who, but his involvement and investigation had apparently been noticed and the person or persons had stopped their shenanigans. That was fine with him.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “Lieutenant Taylor?” Carl said as he noted the doctor walking down the companionway in his direction. “Doc, what are you doing here?” he asked, clearly confused by the human medic and the bags the medic was carrying. He looked like he was here to stay obviously, Carl thought, but that didn't make any sense.

  “I'm reporting aboard,” the doctor said as he set his duffle down. He flexed his arm as he laid his garment bag on top. Something told him he wouldn't really need the pressed formal uniforms nearly as much while on board. That was fine with him. He'd had enough of it while being at the Admiral's beck and call. After getting burned by Admirals Subert and Zekowitz and passed over for promotion because of it, all he wanted to do was put some space between him and the flag officer and get a fresh start.

  One couldn't go much further than an entire sector away to get that space he knew. He didn't know what to make of his transfer; Commander Garretaj and Admiral Subert hadn't said anything at all to him. “I already signed on with the ship's company. I was up for a transfer and chose this over a tour on Good Hope,” he said with a nod as he looked around.

  The quartermaster nodded slowly. He knew the doc; he'd thought he was one of the people joined at the hip to Admiral Subert. The doc was a fellow sleeper and had been the admiral's fair-haired boy as far as everything medical. He'd even tried to force the doc onto the medical establishment … only to find the doctor was too junior to other officers. That had forced Taylor to back off and then act as the Admiral's personal physician while he rose through the ranks.

  Come to think of it, there had been a recent round of promotions … his eyes narrowed. The doc hadn't pointed out a new rank so he had been passed over. Apparently, they'd had a falling-out he thought. He'd heard a bit of scuttlebutt about trouble, something about a falling-out over one or more of the visiting Bekians. It had been kept hush-hush but …

  “I'm new, but I'm willing to work. This should be a nice change. Give me a chance to get back into hands-on and trauma medicine,” the doctor said as the duo shook hands.

  “You could say that,” Carl said with a nod. “You'll be a bit more than a ship's medic. I don't know how the chain of command is sorting out but don't be too surprised if you are senior medic. Not just on board but also on the hospital ships, if we even get one. Right now, that's up in the air,” he said with a grimace.

  “I heard Good Hope had been reassigned to the outbreak on Syntia's world,” Doctor Taylor replied with a grim nod.

  “Is that why you didn't go?” Carl asked curiously as he took one of the doctor's bags. He hefted it. “You said you are hands-on with trauma …”

  “I can handle just about every branch of medicine if I put my mind and implants to it,” the doctor said with a polite smile as he picked his duffle back up and slung it over his shoulder. “I'm not comfortable with a plague though.”

  “Better get over that, Doc. You are going to be more than a country doc when you go where we're going. Where no one has gone before … in a while at least,” Carl quipped.

  “Cute,” the medic snorted.

  “We don't have the foggiest what we'll be getting into. You could be seeing outbreaks, counseling people … Remember, many of these worlds will probably be agro worlds with really hard-up country medicine,” the quartermaster warned as they made their way through the ship. Enlisted personnel made a hole as they passed each of them.

  “Prometheus needs a lot of work?” Doctor Taylor asked as he noted some of the panels open and some work being done.

  “She's overdue for a few maintenance tasks. Plus, she never was fully up to speed before she was commissioned. They are plugging in the missing equipment and getting it all fine-tuned. That's always fun,” Carl said as a kid ahead of them banged his knuckles and then cursed, dropping his wrench to clutch at his bleeding hand with his free hand.

  The doctor saw the blood and grimaced. “I guess we better toss my gear in my quarters and then show me where the infirmary is,” he said.

  Carl noted the kid with the bloody hand and then nodded. “Yeah. I guess so,” he said slowly.

  Chapter 9

  “Okay, Blake has scheduled two whole hours for this meeting. No offense but I don't want to turn this into another working lunch if we can help it though,” Secretary Sema said, shaking her head as she took her seat at the head of the conference table. She smiled to Nadine on her right.
“So, without further ado, let's get this party started,” she quipped.

  Nadine smiled slightly and then nodded to Petina. The press coordinator nodded back.

  “Well, the good news is, the news from the war front has spread through the ansible network like wildfire and morale has picked up significantly again. And we're making some headway again building bridges,” Petina Grant stated with a grin. “The polls are up all over the place,” she said.

  They had limited news from Pi and Tau sector. Most of it was old; some of it came from ONI. They were using it as a framework to build off of however. Along the process they were identifying people so they could build a map of contacts in the area. Interest in joining the Federation had picked up as news of the Federation and the recent battle began to spread. It had cooled somewhat when the threat of the Horathian fleet had hit the grapevine though. It would take months for the most recent battle news to get further out, but those nearest in the outer edges of Pi and Tau sector would learn of it first.

  During the night, a civilian ship, the Cog, had arrived at Airea 3 orbit from Tau. She carried with her formal requests for the Federation to send diplomats and care packages. Those requests had been forwarded to the secretary's office. Nadine had made certain they'd all seen them in their morning brief.

  Geoffrey Mahoney sniffed in disdain at that news. “Of course they want the care package. Free stuff!” the speechwriter said with a shake of his head.

  “After centuries of being in the dark, you can't blame them …,” Petina rounded on him.

  “That's not my point. My point is they want it free. They didn't offer to pay for it, did they?” Geoffrey pointed out nastily.

  “No. No, they didn't,” Nadine admitted.

  “See? They've got their hand out,” Geoffrey said, sticking his hand out.