Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  She had no intention of sending the ships back with a destroyer escort, though she might have had to have gone that route since only a tin can had the legs to escort the distance to the Trajin cluster on its own. But she had planned to send only the one escort. She'd also planned on stuffing the ships with recruits and civilian delegates.

  The plague had forced her to rethink the situation she thought as she called her staff to order. She stood at the end of the table and leaned forward, supporting her weight by her fists on the table top. “I'll make this simple; I've decided to exercise my command authority to keep the tenders and transports. I am going to have the tenders stripped out; that will be the very first project of the shipyard,” she explained.

  The Dora and Liberty class ships were modular designs they all knew. “Ma'am?” Chief Sulistyo asked. “Are you sure about this?” She'd left him in charge of the growing shipyard.

  “Yes. I'll take the heat. Pull out the empty baffles and interior bulkheads in the holds and reconfigure the ships as hospital ships.” That earned a sudden respectful nod from the group.

  “I've already written a program to have the ships refitted as hospital ships. Most likely it will be to the bare minimum standards though,” she said, turning to Doctor Taylor.

  “I have some keys, ma'am. I know you can produce some basic medical furniture and equipment as well.” Shelby nodded. “The blueprints, you've got them as well?” Shelby nodded. He rubbed his jaw. “So we can plug things in …”

  “We'll have to manufacture the interior modules and get them inside. I suppose we'll have to open the hulls up if they won't fit through the hold hatches,” Chief Sulistyo said. “You do realize all that manufacturing is going to throw off the schedule, ma'am?”

  “It is flexible. This is important,” Shelby replied. “Doc, you can make some of the gear with the medical replicators on board?” she asked, turning to the doctor. He nodded. “And the other ships can also make some basic supplies to help out?” she amplified.

  “If they have the raw materials, yes, ma'am,” the Doctor stated.

  “Good. I know that I and Chief Sulistyo here can make some of the basic medical gear, most of it open source things like unpowered furniture, simple hand tools, that sort of thing. You medics have the keys to unlock more. I don't think we'll get as lucky as being able to fully outfit each ship to 100 percent, but a basic hospital ship with minimal facilities is better than just one.”

  “It will take time, ma'am,” Chief Sulistyo warned.

  “I know. Which leaves the problem of manning them,” Shelby said with a grimace. “The crews will remain on board of course. I'm referring to the medical staff.”

  “We have ten spare SBAs and nurses in the transports. They were intended for the base actually. Bases plural actually,” Doctor Taylor said. “We're short on qualified medical doctors however.”

  “We might get away with poaching a few of the SBAs and nurses from the various ships but not many doctors as you pointed out …,” Shelby grimaced. “The good news is; we've got some time to figure that part of the equation out.”

  “Civilians …,” Doctor Taylor mused. “I have no idea what their standard of training is,” he said.

  “What about reporting this change to the Admiralty, ma'am?” Lieutenant Black asked.

  Shelby turned to her JAG officer. She smiled thinly. “I already have. I sent the proposal in Dasher as well as Vixen and Cupid. They won't be headed to Rho, but they can dump the information into the messenger buoy network. When we do have a ship make a turnaround, like say the Beta convoy eventually, they can carry it with them.”

  “Ah. I see,” the black lab murmured.

  “The fun thing about being commander on the spot is having to make decisions like this one,” Shelby said. She left unsaid living with them and others her mind thought as she briefly glanced at the jump point to Tau-1929.

  “Now, Chief, get with the chief engineers on the tenders. They can help with this project, not just sit around scratching their asses,” Shelby said.

  “Just the tenders, ma'am? Not the transports?” the Neochimp asked.

  “For the moment, yes. We're holding the transports here too. I want them to pick up personnel who wish to join and move them here,” she said. “Besides,” she said with another brief smile. “They are currently in use until the habitat modules in the stations are completed anyway.”

  “Don't I know it, ma'am. Even though some of the ships have lost passengers, I'm still getting calls on that on a daily basis,” the Neochimp engineer said with a shake of his furry head.

  “If they get too pushy, get a name and number and you have my permission to draft them to help,” Shelby said. “That includes civilians,” she said.

  “I'll definitely keep that in mind, ma'am,” the Neochimp said with a tired grin.

  “Good. Moving on …”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  The original mission plan called for them to build a basic repair base. Given what she'd seen and what she'd heard about the pirates Shelby had decided to go whole hog in a series of phases she and the senior staff had worked out on the trip through Tau. The ships were quickly unloaded once the crews had the first logistics station set up. Clearing the pods off of the starships had been tedious but welcome to the ships. The pods and other cargo containers had been lashed to or stored in nets attached to the truss segments that made up the frame of the logistics station. Many of the pods were emptied out as the various projects started to come together. The pods themselves were recycled or stored for future use.

  Automated tugs had been dispatched to get the raw materials to feed the three factory ships voracious appetites. Thomas Savery worked on the logistics side while Gustav Eiffel worked its way around the solar system addressing the colonies’ needs. Most of the requests were for parts for reactors, power supplies, electronics, and life support; though once the natives knew they had a factory ship on hand, they'd gotten a bit more interested in padding the lists of repair work that needed to be done.

  While that was underway, Shelby dispatched the heavy cruiser Haguro and two of the tin cans to locate and inflate an asteroid. Captain Runyon reported problems with the project from the get-go. Shelby remembered the project well from her time on Firefly; it hadn't been easy then for her ship either. It didn't help that Captain Runyon wasn't engineering oriented and seemed to dislike the project. He also resented not being tapped to go on a hunting expedition of his own, or piracy patrol. That would have to wait until Shelby was certain the capital was safe and secure.

  Whatever his feelings, that was too bad for him. He was an officer; he knew his duty was to serve and follow her orders. The project was a part of her Phase 1 plan, and she intended to have him see it through. When she'd made that clear, he'd stopped his mild bitching about it.

  The asteroid fortress would take years to get set up right and cool once inflated so it would be an ongoing project. Outfitting it wouldn't begin to happen until Phase 3, but that was fine with her.

  The gunship crews exercised regularly to blow the rust off. She had been forced to write two up for violating traffic lanes around the base construction sites. Apparently, their cocky exuberance was getting the better of them. Hopefully, she'd landed on them hard enough to keep them in check. She seriously didn't want or need a crash investigation, let alone a funeral.

  She had taken the advice of her staff and had split up the defenses. She wasn't strong everywhere, but each of the five suspected jump points had at least something to back up the ships there. It would be months before she could thicken those defenses with mines, platforms, and missile pods, and years before she could add orbital fortresses and larger ships to them.

  It bothered her that she had no reserve of missile pods or platforms left. She'd planned on having them around the bases to protect them as an inner layer of defense as well as a ready reserve. She had shifted priorities to get more into production, but she couldn't push the pace any faster than it was
currently at. Cynthia and the others were working like troopers, but she recognized the strain they were starting to labor under.

  “Commodore, we are receiving a tachyon pulse from the Tau-35NFXL picket,” Boni said interrupting her woolgathering. “A ship has just jumped into the star system. It is a freighter,” the A.I. stated.

  “Be sure of that ID. Welcome them to the star system if they are civilians, and offer our services for refit per our orders,” Shelby stated.

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Shelby was on hand when the Tauren medium-sized tramp freighter arrived at the growing sector capital from the Tau-35NFXL jump line four days later. Fred Muggs had been in a series of conversations with the ship's communications rating and captain; he'd confirmed that the ship traveled in a loop around the center of the galaxy.

  The picket had informed Fallow Fields that the ship could receive a free inspection and minor refit at the shipyard. Chief Sulistyo had reportedly cursed for hours when he'd heard the news and had repeatedly protested that the yard wasn't ready.

  Shelby didn't care. The ship was their first customer, and they were damn well going to do their best by them to get the word out. The ship was just small enough to fit into the slip. Tugs assisted to get her into the slip. Once the ship was moored, the ship's Veraxin purser went to work burning up the communications channels with the natives to arrange various trades, but she also arranged some trades with Lieutenant Talon.

  Meanwhile, work crews of personnel and robots went over the exterior and interior of the ship. The crew had been fascinated by the work on the yard and stations but kept a wary eye on the interlopers going through their systems. The electronics techs managed to clone the ship's databases right under the crew's nose while also cleaning a host of viruses and malware out. They found a series of Xeno virus fragments and files as well.

  Minor refit meant just that, a tune-up. Once they had a list of what needed to be done, the ship's engineers went over that list with their senior staff and captain. Lieutenant Talon worked with Ensign Slatterly to trade some minor parts they could easily replace for the ship's navigational database and the captain's notes on each stop. They already had the navigational information but getting it officially kept things aboveboard with the crew.

  By accident, Ensign Slatterly found out about a Tauren repair yard on the other end of the sector. It seemed fabled, but ONI had got enough confirmation of a growing Tauren Confederation from Cog for her to take it seriously. In asking the crew about the Confederacy, she got further confirmation. As she talked with the crew, the Tauren captain came wandering over. His snort startled the crew, and the ensign to turn to him guiltily.

  “Them, they got tired of the pirates. So, a couple of planets banded together see? They went and built a navy somehow, some said from salvaged ships. They've been expanding to their neighbors ever since. They've got twenty or so star systems now,” he said thoughtfully. “I tried to get in, but they wouldn't allow outsiders,” he said in an aggrieved tone of voice. The human nodded slowly. “I dunno if the pirates go in there if they even can,” Captain Broken Horn said. “I think they'd go where the pickin' is good, but they are …”

  “Cowards. They don't like it when you shoot back,” Ensign Slatterly drawled.

  “Aye, but I won't be sayin' that to their face now if I was you,” the captain warned, scratching under one eyelid, and then drawing one meaty finger along the eye to show a faint scar there.

  “Don't worry. If I see a Horathian, it's in one of our interrogation rooms,” the ensign replied dryly, “or in the morgue.”

  “Oh?” the captain asked, leaning back and crossing his arms.

  “Yes. I'm with the Office of Naval Intelligence. It's my job to find them so the rest of the navy can go out, hunt them down, and eliminate or capture them.”

  “I prefer eliminate myself,” the captain drawled. “You were saying?” he asked politely.

  “I was looking for information about them as well as this Confederation. We don't want to step on any toes and accidentally get into a shooting incident with someone who might turn out to be an ally,” the ensign stated.

  The Tauren captain nodded slowly.

  “I can tell you that the star systems that connect to the rest of us are heavily protected by local militia ships and minefields. There are a lot of long jumps and hard jumps to get to the star system though, which is why I've only been there once. I was told that the Confederation only trades with a very select group.”

  “We can't get there in other words. And they don't like any outsiders. Nice catch-22 there,” the ensign marveled.

  “Exactly, Ensign,” the captain rumbled. “My advice is to focus on the pirates. They are the immediate threat. Do you have more ships coming? I'm sorry, but I see some impressive ships, even warships, but they aren't enough.”

  “We're a foothold first,” the ensign said with a shrug. “Most of our resources are going to fight the Horathian pirates at their homeworld for the moment. But there are more coming. Eventually,” the ensign said noncommittally.

  The Tauren captain merely nodded slowly. When he didn't seem to move, she came to parade rest. “Thank you for your time, sir. Folks,” she said with a slight head bow as she retreated.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “They were a bit prickly but thawed out when we gave their ship a good once over,” the chief said tiredly. “That was an interesting change of pace. It threw off the build schedule by at least ten days though,” he warned.

  “Not a problem,” Shelby said as she watched the ship lumber towards the Tau-1929 jump point. “They picked up some efficiency?”

  “I'll say. We got a few things, some rare metals we've been lacking, plus some scrap we can rebuild or use for scrap. They got four octaves of speed and a lot of minor repairs, plus a list of what needs fixing still. It should be interesting to see what they tell other people on their next stop.”

  “Which would be Delos and Samos,” Shelby said with a shrug. “They already know about us; they just don't know we stopped here. I'm actually a bit nervous that the enemy will find out sooner rather than later by catching and interrogating them,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “Captain Broken Horn is wily, ma'am. He's a survivor,” Ensign Slatterly replied. That made the commodore turn to her. “You got the maps?”

  “Aye, ma'am. I also got confirmation of another shipyard, a Tauren repair yard across the sector,” She said. That made the commodore's eyes brighten and the Neochimp chief suck in a protesting breath. “I don't know more than that about it so don't bother asking. I can also tell you about what they call the Tauren Confederation. They confirmed it.” She laid out what she had found out.

  When she finished, Shelby nodded slowly. “We'll expand in that direction eventually.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It'd be nice to have them in our corner though.”

  “Yes, yes it would,” the commodore murmured thoughtfully.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Ariadne, now governor-elect shook her massive head as she walked through the naval base. She'd hitched a ride over to get a closer look at things and to discuss some of the contract details with the commodore's JAG lieutenant, Lieutenant Wigeon Black. The explosion of construction was mind blowing to her and to her people. She slowed her stride as she saw a familiar human figure standing in front of a 2-meter-tall and 6-meter-long viewport. Just seeing that clear crystal was also impressive to her. “You people are amazing,” she said as she came alongside the human woman.

  Shelby turned to her with a slight smile. “We're just getting started. In a few years, this will look like baby steps,” Shelby said, nodding her chin to the view outside.

  “I can believe it now that I've seen this. There doesn't seem to be much you can't do,” the Tauren said.

  “We've got limits. We just haven't hit them yet,” Shelby admitted.

  “You know, a few people put forward the idea of getting wha
t they wanted from you and then kicking you out,” Ariadne admitted. Shelby turned on her. The Tauren held up a restraining hand. “I don't think it was a serious proposal; when they saw your warships, they realized they are better off with them here. I also set them straight. I like you, Commodore; your people are working miracles,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Shelby replied with a nod as she turned back to the viewport. “We're trying.”

  “You are rushing around like you have an air leak. Are you going to slow down anytime soon? There is concern about you taking over the star system in time too. I admit I am one of the people concerned about that,” the Tauren said.

  Shelby snorted. “Don't worry; we keep a division between the civilian and military. I do admit we cross lines in making the repairs we have, plus emergency services. And then there are trades and other contracts,” she explained.

  “I remember reading about the emergency services clauses in the contract,” the Tauren admitted. “Run the trades and contracts past me again?” she asked, cocking her massive head.

  “Well, I know your economy is still limping along despite what we've done to help you with your life support and power systems,” Shelby replied. “I also know you trade among yourselves for materials and provisions.”

  “Basic economics. We trade with the ships that pass through the star system as well. There is less demand for materials to keep our systems running now, thanks to you. That means we've got some breathing room. We're living less close to the razor edge in our life support and the surplus is a nice thing to stockpile. I think we'll be trading some of it to ships who come by.”

  “True. And you can trade it to us. For instance, for parts to rebuild your shuttles, tugs, and other craft,” Shelby offered. The Tauren inhaled sharply and then turned to her. Shelby's face cracked a brief wry smile. “Exactly. Plus, we can open up manufacturing contracts. Civilian industrial contractors can make all sorts of parts for ships. I bet somewhere you've got someone who has access to copper or other materials and makes some basic parts. Now imagine them making switches, wire, stuff of that nature,” she said.