Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  Two of the star systems were space-only colonies. But his money was on the three star systems that had both, a space and ground component. Tau-51WH9, Tau-FRX76, and Tau-O79XP were therefore the best candidates. They were also the most likely star systems to have weathered the plague that Seydlitz inflicted on them.

  He decided he'd have to take the loop, head up to Tau-1252 and then head west if they hadn't dropped anchor there, following any potential ion spoor along the way until he ran them down.

  One way or another, he'd find them. Of that he was certain, he thought as he picked his canines with a plastic sword toothpick.

  Another two weeks and they'd be ready to move out again his quartermasters promised. He stretched, which woke his pride. The females looked at him sleepily. “Come along ladies, let's go back down and do some hunting while we can,” he said.

  The females chuffed and then moved out. One flicked her tail under his nose friskily, making him chuff in amusement as they made their way to the boat bay.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  The Federation courier ship Dasher jumped into the Tau-1183 star system without initial incident. Captain Isabella Zu was grateful for her little ship. To be a ship's captain when she had just made first lieutenant was quite a feather in her cap and a nice mark in her future career.

  Bigger and hopefully better things awaited her … not that she was ready to give up Dasher anytime soon. The fleet footed ship might be small but she was blistering fast, both in hyperspace and in sublight. She loved her graceful curves and antimatter reactor.

  “Dasher, let Lebynthos know we're here but we're not coming by for a visit,” Captain Zu stated.

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” the ship's A.I. replied.

  A few minutes later the A.I. blinked, attracting the young woman's attention. Captain Zu looked up and then over to the ship's avatar. “Captain … we're not alone. We've got an unknown ship here,” Dasher's dumb A.I. reported. The A.I. showed the plot with an energy flare near the planet. “I'm pretty sure it's not one of ours.”

  Captain Zu grimaced and turned to PO Si. “Si, we need the best avoidance course you can get. And we need it fast,” the captain stated flatly.

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” the PO said, bending over his station to get to work.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  The Charger class destroyer Stingy Jack capped her return from the star system Kingdom Come by returning to Lebynthos orbit. The Horathian destroyer held an ancient Celtic name for jack-o-lantern.

  Captain Big Boots Bill hadn't been happy with his mission to the cul-de-sac star system, but he'd done his duty and made the plague drop. He was careful to check Lebynthos' radio traffic before he allowed his ship to set course for the planet.

  He'd hoped to catch a ship; such things were more important than raiding the lubbers. You only got raw or semi-processed material out of the lubbers, most of it a ship used up in its journey anyway. The real prize was catching a ship … but there were fewer and fewer ships around these days, the Neojaguar thought pensively as he stared at the plot.

  That had changed though when they'd noted a ship had jumped into the star system. But she didn't look at all interested in heading to the planet. He'd had his ship move out to a higher orbit in order to hide and ordered his shuttle up. Unfortunately, his people were still being rounded up from the planet.

  “She be small cap'n, sir,” a Neochimp rating said, pointing to the mass readings. “And she be movin' fast for the Tau-23IX22 jump point.”

  The captain growled softly, deep in his throat as he studied the readings. He reached up and tugged on his lucky earrings in his right ear. Finally, he shook his head and looked up. He'd burn a lot of fuel to catch the ship with a small chance of catching her if she maneuvered right.

  “Let them go,” the captain finally growled. “It be nice to chase down a rabbit from time to time, but what purpose does it serve? They aren't filling,” he said, rubbing his belly to a chorus of guttural laughter. “We be after bigger game,” Captain Big Boots Bill finally said. “We be followin' them to Tau-23IX22 next anyway. Me thinks they be stoppin' there for fuel.”

  There was a muted and slightly ragged chorus of “Ar's,” that answered him.

  Still, he wondered who the hell that was and how they'd gotten their hands on such a fast ship. And just where she thought she was going in such a tearing hurry.

  Another question came to him a while later. The question of why.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Dasher's crew lacked a neutrino detector. The ship was far too small to house one, but they would have had to have been totally blind not to have seen the pirate's energy burn as the ship tried to maneuver to intercept them. Finally, it seemed to give up the idea. “Bastards seem to be everywhere,” Captain Zu muttered.

  The captain was torn on what to do; they needed to complete their mission. But she also wished she could go back to warn Commodore Shelby about the ship. By the time they came back that way, they might run into it again … hopefully without the ship catching them. Captain Zu sighed. “We can't turn around without getting caught,” she murmured as her helmsman turned to look at her. She nodded her head. “Stay the course, we stay on mission.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am. It'd be nice if we can slip past them and alert a warship to hunt them down though,” PO Si replied.

  “Yeah,” tell me about it,” the captain muttered.

  Chapter 37

  Phase 1 of the commodore's building plan wound down with the completion of the core of the government space station. The station had a box-like top structure with rounded corners. It could be expanded upward. Around the equator it had a docking ring like the naval base. Below that were balls of fuel and the fusion reactor, as well as radiators and solar panels to keep it all running.

  Once the work crews had pumped in air and tested it, Fred took Phoebe and Ayumu on a tour of the interior. “It's still a work in progress,” he said as she looked around the deck. Lighting wasn't set up in some areas, nor force emitters. Interior bulkheads were in short supply. “It is going to take a year or more to fit out, and I bet they'll be still at it for years to come,” he said as he led his family through the station.

  “Near the center of the station, a couple decks up is the command center. Offices are in rings around it and above and below,” he said, “plus the usual conference rooms, supply rooms, that sort of thing.” he waved a hand as a tech looked up to them. “Sorry,” he said, stepping around her. She watched them go, shook her head, and then went back to work installing the duct fan she'd been working on.

  “All that is planned actually, as you can see the interior isn't finished. That's Phase 2. But there is one small part that has just been finished,” he said with a brief smile to his wife. He could tell his wife was not at all happy that the station was not polished or anywhere near finished. “It's a start. For the moment, it is home.”

  “It is … industrial,” she said, wrinkling her nose to the smells and sights.

  “That's because you haven't seen our new quarters,” he teased. He guided them through the corridors until they got to a corner section that was more refined.

  When he got to a door, he tapped on it, then turned and picked Phoebe up, swinging her off her feet.

  “You twerp,” she said as her arms instinctively locked around his neck. She smiled at him though as he swung her through the open door to carry over the threshold.

  “Okay, this I can live with. Still small, but better than that transport,” Phoebe said as he showed her around the massive yet empty living room space. There was a slight echo from her voice, most likely due to the high ceilings.

  “It needs a woman's touch,” Fred said as he set her down, already mentally cringing at her ideas of decorating and the expenses involved.

  “We need to knock that wall out; we'll need to expand the room that way …”

  “Ah, that's someone else's quarters actually,” Fred said.

  She turned a look on him. “They
…”

  He shrugged. “It's tight space now. We either take this or leave it and wait. Do you want to wait another two months?” he asked. She shook her head vehemently no. “Then this is it.”

  “Home sweet home,” she muttered, looking around her again.

  “It's still better than the transport,” he said.

  “Okay, I admit that,” she murmured, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Now you can arrange to get our stuff moved over. I'm going to see what I want where.”

  Fred heaved a sigh. “Yes dear,” he said with a shake of his head. He looked over to Ayumu. “Come on son, we've got work to do,” he said fatalistically.

  “Can I check my room out first?” the teen demanded.

  “Later. Get to work with your father,” his mother scolded, shooing them off as she turned and placed her hands on her hips to inspect the new domicile. “Now, what am I going to do with you? Fresh paint, maybe …”

  Fred urgently pushed his son out before his wife thought of more work for them to do.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Now that the conversion of the two Liberty ships were nearly complete and they were ready for fitting out, Phase 2 had gotten underway smoothly enough, Shelby mussed about her next priority. Her attention focused on the yard. Her eyes were attracted to the tugs and ships there, but then got caught by motion. Her eyes narrowed in speculation of the passing small ship, and Boni helpfully identified it as a gunboat out on patrol.

  She hated the gunboats. They served a purpose, but they used the almost the same amount of crew as a corvette or frigate for a quarter of the firepower.

  She had a plan worked out on the trip. She played with her lower lip as she considered it. She'd had plenty of time to dream, scheme, and refine the idea. Her plan was to build sublight frigates initially. Skip the corvettes, go straight to frigates. Build them so they could plug in missing components like hyperdrives later if they became available. She could theoretically build a dozen hyper ones if she used all the parts she had in storage … but then she wouldn't have any parts for repairs.

  Her plan was built off of her keys. She had the keys to build a lot, far more than her father had been able to do when he'd been a commander left in charge of Pyrax. She could build virtually any ship hull that they wanted, but she couldn't build hyperdrives, larger power plants than ones needed in a destroyer, nor energy weapons for anything larger than a destroyer. Her missile production was also limited to cruiser or smaller missiles, no capital missiles and of course no torpedoes.

  If they built the sublight frigates as well as orbital fortresses and drones, she'd be able to open up her hyper-capable units to patrol and picket the neighboring star systems as planned, pushing her defensive envelope outward.

  Each gunship crew could easily man a frigate or provide the core crew for a sublight destroyer in the future. Possibly even an orbital fortress, though that was pushing things a bit. There was only so far her finite manpower could stretch without something breaking she reminded herself.

  There really was no point trying to build a lot of hulls like her father had done, she didn't have the manpower or components. Even if Admiral Irons was willing to ship in components, he'd be better off using the resources on the front there in Rho she thought. Which was what he'd essentially told her in the mission brief before the mission had started.

  Her plan called for an equal number of frigates to her gunships; she could then retire the gunships and keep them for training, a reserve, or even sell them off to neighboring star systems for their militias.

  She had to free up her starships soon she knew. The longer she waited the further the plague would spread. She sat back and stared at the numbers. Either way she looked at it, the window between when the first sublight ships were complete and when she could release the starships was longer than she'd like to see. And that didn't cover any potential hiccups in the construction along the way. There always were teething problems in such things, she knew that from experience.

  “Ma'am, Commander Coglin is on the line,” Boni said quietly, breaking into the commodore's dithering.

  “Commander Coglin?” Shelby asked. Commander Steve Coglin was a Neocheetah. She'd been surprised that a Neocat had risen through the ranks to become a pilot let along a wing commander. But after a bit of thought it made a certain sort of sense. His cat-like reflexes and love of speed certainly played some role. She did wonder what he tried to do when in free fall; did he try to land on his feet as nature intended when there was no up or down?

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Put him through,” Shelby said, sitting up straight. A bust of a Neocheetah appeared on her desk. “Commander,” she said with a polite nod.

  “Ma'am.”

  “What's up, Commander?” she asked.

  “I'm sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but I was working with my people on what to do to free up some room on Admiral Sprague,” the cheetah said. Shelby nodded. The CEV's regular patrols now that they were anchored had freed up some space and allowed the wing commander to blow some of the rust off his pilots and crew. “I had a thought when I was going over the bombers,” he said.

  “Ominous,” Shelby said. “If you are putting a bid in for another CEV, I'm afraid we've got a ways to go before we get there,” she said with a shake of her head. She'd already planned Phase 4 to begin building a few Kittyhawk class sublight carriers or orbital fighter fortresses.

  “No, ma’am, though that would be nice,” the Neocheetah said with a flick of his black and white ears. “One of my bomber pilots pointed out something of interest to me. She's something of a history buff, and well, she mentioned torpedo boats,” he said.

  “Torpedo boats?” the commodore asked, blinking in confusion. “I'm not following.”

  “Well, she said one of her ancestors was in the American Coast Guard before spaceflight during World War II. Apparently, they had outfitted some ships with torpedoes. They carried a pair on their dorsal deck or underslung like pontoons on either side of the craft; she was a bit hazy on the details. What got me thinking was, if we fit a couple to each gunboat …”

  Shelby nodded instantly as she noted the devil in the Cheetah's glittering green eyes. “I see your point. Someone like a pirate ship would expect them to run a light firing pass and get more than they bargained for. It wouldn't work unless they were in numbers though, and the enemy ship could swat them in droves,” she warned.

  “True, but they've got better shields and drives than our bombers. We can use both, even feint with one to send the enemy into the arms of the other. I'd like your permission to run some sims.”

  Shelby nodded slowly. “You've got it. I want to see proposals though.” she grimaced slightly. “I do admit you just shot my next plan full of holes though,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “Phase 3 calls for the yard to begin production with sublight frigates. I was planning on pulling each gunship crew as we build them.”

  “Ah,” the Neocheetah said thoughtfully. “Well, we've got a lot of personnel who haven't advanced since we left Rho, ma'am. I think we can promote people to fill some of the gunships and open slots elsewhere. Some of the junior officers could use a fresh perspective,” he said helpfully.

  Shelby nodded. “Point, good point. Okay, Boni will make a note of that. I'm not sure about the manning issues; we'll have to see there.”

  “Do you plan to build a training facility here, ma'am?” the Cheetah asked.

  “I wasn't planning it until Phase 4 to be honest. Now I've got to rethink that. We might have to lay the foundation now I suppose,” Shelby mused. “Okay, well, you've given me a lot to think about. Anything else to derail me?”

  The Neocheetah smiled and twitched his whiskers. “Not off the top of my head, but I can think of something if pressed, ma'am.”

  “And I can find things for people to do if they are so bored they are finding work for me to do,” Shelby retorted. The Cheetah snorted. “Okay, good job. Thank you, Commander,”
she said with a nod as she closed the circuit.

  She sat back and stared at the ceiling. “Phew! Sometimes I think some of my people can do my job better than I can,” she said.

  “Idle hands and all that, ma'am. Not that they've been idle long, Commander Coglin keeps his people busy cracking the whip. I'm surprised there haven't been any accidents. Some minor incidents but he's landed on the maintenance side of things, not just for his fighter wing but also on all small craft in the system.”

  Shelby nodded. “Make a note of that. Remind me to do something nice for his promotion board later,” she said.

  “Aye aye, ma’am. Speaking of which, the commander was correct, several officers and ratings are long overdue for a promotion,” the A.I. said respectfully.

  Shelby groaned. “Don't remind me,” she said, rubbing her temple.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  “So, how is married life treating you, ma'am?” Portia asked as the XO came into the wardroom. Cynthia slowed her stride, then snorted at the panda. “Something I said, ma'am?”

  “It's just about the same, except for the occasional ribbing,” Shelby said as she went over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup of coffee. “To be honest we've both been too busy, and it doesn't help that we're on different ships,” she admitted.

  “But you like being off market?” the panda asked as she made a crunching noise. Cynthia looked over her shoulder to see the panda was eating a piece of bamboo.

  “Of course. We talked a bit about an open marriage, I used to have a guy or gal in every port,” the XO said as she took a seat. “That was in my wild carefree days. I'm a grown-up woman now, time to settle down,” she said as she pulled out a chair and took a seat. She took a sip of her coffee as she watched the panda masticating the bamboo into wet soggy strips by chewing it with the size of her muzzle. “Doesn't that stuff get stuck in your teeth?”