The Merrimack Event (Shieldclads Book 1)

by David Tatum

  Which was why the delay caused by this meeting was so frustrating. He’d scheduled things out to the minute so as to get most of his fleet ready on time – except for the light cruisers and corvettes, which might not be ready until half-way through the Wargame would – and he needed to be there to ensure that schedule was met. Besides, as hopeless as the mission was, he was looking forward to the command.

  “Commodore Green, sir?” Lieutenant Rehnquist said. “Commodore Haas will see you, now.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Green said, smiling at her as he walked out of the reception area and into the office proper.

  Commodore Bernhard Haas was waiting for him at the door. He was fairly young for his rank – younger, even, than Green was. He also knew exactly what Green was going through. He’d been through it, himself, in fact – Haas had been the Acting-Commodore during the last Wargame. He’d distinguished himself well enough to have the ‘acting’ part of that title removed the moment the Wargames ended. Unfortunately, he hadn’t held a fleet command since then. Instead, he’d been granted the position he now held... and then was promptly forgotten about. He seemed happy to be out of the spotlight, at least, but Green always felt Haas’ career should have gone better.

  “Mr. Green, welcome,” Haas said, clasping the younger man’s hand in both of his own. “I know how frustrating this likely is, so let’s get started. Please, sit down.”

  Green took his seat and looked across at Commodore Haas. This meeting couldn’t be of that great importance, considering how all of the logistical details for his fleet had already been worked out. Green, for that matter, knew of no reason he might have been summoned to this office.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, may I ask just why I’ve been called here?”

  “Just a small bureaucratic matter,” Haas explained. “It’s not something I wanted to be bothered with when I set off for my command of the Academy forces in my own Wargame. However, it’s tradition – apparently, a part of the Wargame itself is to give the Academy’s officers a taste of command’s bureaucratic nonsense. In that capacity, we need to talk about some of the details that will be going into pertinent Navy pubs. In other words, I need your help for the Navy List.”

  Green flinched. This was why his schedule was losing time in setting up his refit schedule? Really? “Excuse me, sir, but why would I have any part in setting up the Navy List?”

  Haas smiled sympathetically. “Frustrating that you’re being held here for something as minor as this, isn’t it?” He turned to the computer at his desk and sighed. “Sorry, this isn’t my fault – I’m under orders, too. I do need to know a few things, though, so this shouldn’t take us much more than ten minutes or so. Assuming you’ve done your homework, that is.”

  “Sir?” Green replied, confused.

  “I need to know three things. The first is which of your ships will you be renaming?”

  “Renaming?” Green repeated. “Why would I rename any of these ships?”

  “As you know, about a hundred years ago someone in the higher ups decided to ‘improve’ the naming standards of our fleets. What you might not be aware of, however, is that each class of warship must include one namesake at all times because of those ‘improved’ standards. Which means each time the lead ship of a class is destroyed or decommissioned, another in that class must be renamed to replace it... and several of your re-commissioned ships no longer have those namesakes. So, one Sirius class battleship, one Asagiri class heavy cruiser, and one Phoebe class corvette that I can re-commission as the Sirius, Asagiri, and Phoebe respectively.” He chuckled, checking the list. “I’d say the Chihuahua would need to be renamed, as well, but apparently that’s been so heavily modified it no longer fits into the Lightning Bug class of gunboats, so I guess I can consider it an original class.”

  This was why Green had to be delayed? To discuss what he was going to name his ships? “I suppose I’ll rename my own flagship, the Gettysburg, as the Sirius. To be honest, though, I haven’t had more than a day or two to familiarize myself with the names of the rest of the Academy’s ships. I don’t suppose you have a list of them I could look at?”

  As if anticipating this question, Haas flipped a switch, projecting the requested list on a large screen behind him. “Will that do?”

  Green scanned the list and sighed. “I wish I could have had a chance to inspect these ships before I began renaming them like this. All right, I guess the Ishikawa could be renamed Asagiri. I had a professor named Ishikawa, once, and would feel... uncomfortable... giving orders to a ship of that name. And I don’t really like the name of Ruby as a warship, so she can be renamed the Phoebe. I suppose. This is all a bloody nuisance!”

  “Tell me about it,” Haas snorted. “I nearly throttled the man who did this to me back when I commanded the Academy fleet. Okay, next order of business: I need to know who your command staff will be. In other words, who’ll be your flag officers, and which of them will be your second in command?”

  Green growled softly. “How am I supposed to make that kind of decision? I haven’t met any of my captains, yet! And none of them have any significant command experience, as far as I know, so how would I be able to make a judgment on that?” He sighed. “Just designate whoever the senior-most command-line officer in the fleet as my second in command. I shouldn’t need any more flag officers than that – if I do, it will be on an ad hoc basis. I may appoint others, later, as I get to know my fellow captains.”

  Haas nodded agreeably and typed a few keys on his computer. Then he frowned. “Wait a moment, I’m afraid the senior-most command-line officer won’t be acceptable for your second.”

  “Why not?”

  Haas shook his head. “He’s Army. Colonel Andrew Beccera, on loan from the Army to fill a Marine officer’s position. Apparently, the Marines were short an officer or two. It surprises me that we have a Colonel, especially one of his seniority, but he’s not qualified for the position of a Navy flag officer, even if he is acting as a Marine.”

  An incident in the last war the Alliance had fought left a Marine as the only surviving officer aboard a frigate, and the crew had drafted him to be their captain. Unfortunately he had no idea what he’d been doing, and the end results had been nearly disastrous. Since then, Marine officers were given supplementary courses in basic starship command as part of their training, and were now given a place in the ‘command structure’ of a starship. As command line officers, they could even be called upon to act as fleet commanders, should the need arose. An Army officer, however, would have had no such training.

  As a technicality, any Army officers would be considered Marines for the purposes of the exercise... which, in theory, gave him the right to be considered for the position of Green’s second in command. However, as an Army officer, he lacked the necessary training.

  “One of his seniority?” Green questioned. “How senior is he?”

  “Well... he’s listed as an O-6 step 6. O-6 in the Navy is the shared pay-grade designation for Captains and Commodores, which both you and I are. In the Navy, a step one is a recently promoted Captain who has less than a year’s command experience. A step two, such as yourself, is a senior Captain who is eligible for promotion to the rank of Commodore. A step 3 is a Commodore of less than one year’s experience, and a step 4 is a Commodore who has the time in grade needed to be considered for promotion.” Haas grimaced. “I’m a step 4. A step 5 is practically nonexistent in the active Navy, however. You’d have to be trapped in the position of Commodore for over twenty years to gain it, though it is sometimes given as a courtesy step in pay for retirees. No-one has ever reached step 6.”

  Green sighed impatiently. He knew all of that, of course. “So what would a step 6 be equivalent to?”

  “The Army does things a little differently. You come into the rank as a step 1, of course. Every five years in grade, your step increases. In Andrew Beccera’s case, he’s been in the position of Colonel for over thirty years. In fact, he’s due for an
other step increase within the year.”

  Green nodded slowly. “Which means?”

  Haas frowned in consideration. “Like I said, there’s no such thing as an O-6 step 6 in the Navy. He’d outrank everyone short of a Rear Admiral. He’d probably be paid more than most Rear Admirals, in fact.”

  “So, he’s actually senior to me,” Green mused.

  “Yes, but he’s not able to command Naval forces. So, let’s see if I can’t find the next senior most officer in your—”

  “Belay that,” Green said with a grin. “Hell, the Navy’s given me an impossible situation to begin with. It won’t really matter, in the long run, who I name as my second-in-command. So, why shouldn’t I just name this Army officer to the job? At the very least, his seniority should give him a shot.”

  Haas smiled back, and shrugged. It was unprecedented, and strategically he didn’t think it was a great idea, but putting an Army officer on the Navy list might just put both of them in the footnotes of history. That was as good a justification as any, he supposed. “Very well. Now, for the real reason you had to come in person instead of just sending all of this information electronically. We’ve got about a hundred forms, here, for you to fill out – one, in triplicate, for each ship in your fleet.”

  Green sat back and sighed. “Oh, joy. Well, let’s get this over with.”

  ——————————

  Cygni Confederation, 16 Cygni, Earth Alliance Embassy

  “Captain Tager is here to see you, Ambassador,” Noriko Goldsmith’s secretary announced, accompanied by a tall bearded man she had never seen before.

  The Ambassador stood up and held out her hand to the new arrival. “Nice to finally see you in person, George.”

  “And you, too, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry that repairing our FTL drive has had to take priority.”

  “How is the Athena, anyway?” Goldsmith asked pleasantly.

  “She’s not doing very well, I’m afraid,” George Tager, the captain of the aforementioned ship, sighed. “I don’t know how well versed you are on quantum wheels....”

  “I understand the rudiments of it,” Goldsmith noted. “I may not know why a quantum wheel works, for example, but I know what it does and why it is preferred over the old fusion drive.”

  “I would hardly say the quantum wheel is preferred over the old fusion drives,” George corrected. “It’s more cost-efficient, perhaps, and has a few advantages other propulsion systems don’t have, but many in the Navy dislike it.” He paused. “And it is the quantum wheel that is giving me the most problems.”

  “Oh?” Goldsmith said. “And why is that?”

  “Well... hmm. How do I explain this?” Captain Tager hesitated. “The principal advantages of a quantum wheel are supposedly twofold. Quantum wheels produce huge magnetic fields -- they can play havoc with targeting sensors. The magnetic fields produced by larger ships are so strong they can sometimes protect a ships blind spots from kinetic weapons, or even distort light.”

  “Yes, I knew that,” Goldsmith said. “Most of what I’ve heard says that this defensive ability is the primary reason the Navy has become such a proponent of quantum wheels.”

  Tager shrugged. “Perhaps. The truth is more likely that quantum wheels are more fuel efficient. A warship with a fusion drive can rarely go for more than six months without needing to resupply -- and if the engine is subjected to heavy use, it runs closer to three. The same ship with quantum wheels would last as much as a year, with care.”

  “I hadn’t realized there was that much difference,” Goldsmith mused.

  “Yes, but quantum wheels are quite problematic,” Tager said. “To start with, fusion drive ships use an electromagnetic ‘rudder,’ of sorts, to maneuver. All ship classes in the fleet are given a top speed, but the number you see only applies to the maximum speed at which a ship can effectively maneuver. The smaller a ship, the more effective these rudders are, hence the faster a ship’s top speed. At least, with fusion drive ships. The quantum wheel is completely different.”

  “In what way?” Goldsmith asked, intrigued.

  “With a fusion drive ship, you’re directing the thrust in one direction by deflecting it with a magnetic rudder. With a quantum wheel ship, however, there is nothing a magnetic rudder can deflect. Instead of using a rudder to redirect the flow of the engine, quantum wheel ships instead simply change which way they are thrusting. Doing that, however, presents something of a problem.”

  “And I take it this problem is causing the Athena difficulties,” the Ambassador prompted, recognizing the frustration in Tager’s voice.

  “You’ve hit the nail on the head, ma’am,” Tager admitted. “Athena is a good ship, but she’s also getting old. The last Valkyrie class heavy cruiser finished construction just five years ago, but they’ve been around for thirty years. Of quantum wheel warships, only the Alligator class corvettes started construction earlier among active warship classes.

  “Athena was only the second Valkyrie ever built. She was immediately sent out for long range patrols. Since she left port some thirty years ago, she has never had a chance to return home long enough to receive a refit.”

  “That sounds somewhat dangerous -- how is she maintained?” Goldsmith asked, alarmed.

  “She’s had regular visits at tenders, and she has been able to exchange crews and officers when transports come out. About twenty years ago, however, the design for quantum wheels changed to correct a problem with the steerage systems... but Athena has never had the dry-dock time to receive the upgrade.”

  “In over twenty years? But why?”

  “Part of it is the nature of Athena’s design” Tager explained. “Athena was built with a much larger fuel storage capacity than most ships of her class, and so is away from home for much longer periods than any other Valkyrie was designed to be. She was modified for a particular long-term assignment, but even after that assignment ended she was still in high demand. She is so unique that she couldn’t be spared for the extended period of time it would take to replace the old system with a new one.”

  “How difficult is the repair?” Goldsmith asked.

  “Essentially, the quantum wheel is disassembled, reassembled on a different frame, and a new set of electromagnetic plates is placed on the stern. The old plates -- or emitters, in this case -- were originally shaped as domes. The mechanisms inside rotated 360 degrees, allowing them to ‘point’ in the direction the thrust was to go. That particular design, though, had a major problem: In order for a quantum wheel to be effective, it takes thousands of semi-conductor powered magnets spinning in sequence at high speeds. In this configuration, any time the ship makes a turn those magnets are vibrated by the motion of changing thruster direction. After a while, they fall out of ‘tune,’ which is essentially what has happened with my ship -- it still works, but the maximum speed at which my ship can provide enough thrust to turn is getting lower and lower.”

  “And the new system?”

  “It’s a pyramid instead of a dome. Four separate emitter plates... to turn, one of the plates is shut off while the other three remain on full power. The ship is somewhat less maneuverable, but it causes less stress on the system, and therefore creates fewer situations where the magnets are thrown out of tune.”

  Goldsmith shook her head. “I’m afraid we’re getting a little out of my depth. Let’s put it this way. What can you do to get your ship running properly?”

  “Well, that’s what I came to see you about. I was wondering if it would be possible to request the use of one of Cygni’s dry-docks or tenders. It’s a simple procedure, recalibrating the magnets, but it requires a confined workspace. We would only need a few days, at most, and we already have the equipment we need. We just need a space to work.”

  The Ambassador hesitated. “Just how badly out of tune are your engines?”

  Tager grimaced. “Pretty bad. In tune, we can maneuver at 0.21 c. At the moment, however, we can barely reach 0.12c.”

&
nbsp; Goldsmith frowned. “I suppose we can rent a private slip from one of the locals. But it will be costly, and I’m not sure the Embassy has the funds for it.”

  “The Athena has an expense account. It should be sufficient.”

  “There is another problem,” she sighed. “Cygni is... not exactly the friendliest of nations. We needed you to present a show of strength. For you to immediately have to go into dry-dock...” Goldsmith shook her head and thought for a moment. “If you could hold out until the Wargame ends, it would be better for us all. Cygni is among the nations invited as foreign observers. and any news from its conclusion will occupy enough of their attention that your ship going to dry-dock won’t be in the news.”

  Tager frowned. “I suppose it is possible. Let’s just hope we aren’t called upon to act, because as it is we would be useless in a battle.”

  “The last time one of the Navy ships assigned to act as an Ambassador’s yacht was called into battle was several hundred years ago,” Goldsmith reminded him cheerfully.

  “I know,” Tager smiled wryly. “That’s exactly why I’m worried. We’re overdue... and when something bad is going to happen, it usually happens at the worst possible time. Could the timing possibly be worse than now?”

  CHAPTER VIII

  EAS Gnat

  Farmburg’s trio of friends had remained mostly quiet since boarding the Gnat, but their mere presence made the others uncomfortable. It became especially tense during those periods when one of the five Chihuahua cadets had to leave the room for one reason or another. When Chris had to go to a private room to comm Burkhard, he was feeling especially uneasy.