I laughed to myself. Bob had done a wonderful job of interpreting my instructions, but I'd never considered what the ship would need in terms of this many troops.
George would captain the ship, and command the Dropship pilots. Each team would be led by a Major, each company by a Lieutenant Colonel, and the whole battalion by a full bird Colonel. The Bridge layout made sense now, as each company commander had a seat on the Bridge, the third console was for the Battalion Colonel, and the fourth for a commanding General. At the moment I only had five teams. But the basic structure was there.
George kept pulling up sections of the specs. The ship carried multiple sets of training ranges. It also carried its own fabricators for the repair of the ship, its Dropships, and combat suits, as well as missile fabrication to replace both Mosquitos and capital ship missiles.
I was about to give George his orders, when ten more ships launched from the shipyard. The HUD alerted us immediately to them heading for us.
"Are those Pythons?" asked George.
"Nope," I said. I pointed to the twenty smaller ships now pouring out behind them. "Those are Pythons."
His jaw dropped open, and stayed there.
Jane stopped the first ship in front of us, and proceeded to dance it around so we could see it from every angle. It looked exactly like a Python, only it was Corvette sized, and appropriately armed. The others proceed to dock in both hanger decks. The Pythons behind them did as well, now looking decidedly small.
"Hello Baby," said George when he regained control of his jaw. "What are you?"
"Cobra class Dropship," said Jane. "Essentially a Python up-scaled to handle a full company of troops, equipped with giant suits. Sort of like converting Gunbus into a Dropship. No accommodation at all, just pure ground attack with the defenses and armament of a Corvette."
"Come to Papa," said George.
The last Cobra reoriented itself, and docked. George took another look at the hanger design. He pointed to several unused docks.
"Yes," I said. "You get room to dock Gorilla as well. Possibly several other fighters if needed, and at least one Gig for the battalion Colonel or even a General. But that isn’t all. Look at the overall hull design."
It took him about five minutes to see it. His eyes opened wide once again.
"It looks like I can dock at least four Frigates, or up to eight Corvettes."
I nodded to him, and he wolf whistled.
"Most likely two Frigates and four Corvettes. Frigates is the one design we didn’t capture much of. There will be two worth converting like Custer was, so you'll most likely be assigned them as well. Not sure where the Corvettes will come from. There's plans for some Super-Corvettes, but I'm not sure they'll be able to dock with this ship. We'll try when the first one comes out."
Greer's squadron came to mind. As an escort force, half could be docked while the other half flew CAP. I moved to stand in front of him.
"Commander." He jumped up and braced to attention. "I assign you to command the Hunter Security Marine Cruiser Fearless."
"Thank you sir," he responded, followed by a salute.
He ruined it by grinning at the same time. I returned his salute solemnly.
"At ease Captain."
He sank back into his chair, and I took the Helm position in front of him, and swiveled around to face him.
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it," I started.
"Are you kidding? Of course I accept it. Be serious Jon. Ah, sir."
We both laughed. We knew each other too well.
"George, you captain this ship, and command the Dropship pilots. But you will be outranked by the Colonel commanding the troops, and any General commanding the mission itself. They can give you orders regarding the mission, but you have ultimate responsibility for the safety and operation of the ship, and its Dropships. Captains or pilots of any ship from Destroyer size down assigned to your mission, will report to you. You report to either a Fleet Captain, if another Cruiser is with you, or an Admiral if a larger ship is with you. Down the track, you might find yourself reporting to either or both, but in the short term, I have a shortage of both, so if Commanders are the only senior rank on the mission, whoever has the seniority will command the mission. If that’s you and Annette, you have the seniority since you were promoted first, but she has the superior fighting ship. If she's supporting you, you command. If she's protecting you when you're not on a mission, you should defer to her. Don’t let it be a problem I have to solve."
He nodded emphatically.
"This ship isn’t designed for slug matches. It's essentially a huge Dropship. So you'll usually be escorted by something with a lot more firepower, possibly even a fleet. You may or may not be assigned command over lesser ships in the fleet. You don’t have the rank or experience for it at the moment, so you need some training on big ship handling, and command."
"Very true," he admitted.
"So, your first task is to trial the ship. Once you are completely satisfied everything works as it should in space, test everything including the landing systems, drop capability, and dirt storming. You will land this ship on Outback, deploy the combat droids Gunbus brought down all the ramps on the lower deck at once, leave them there, return the ship to orbit, and pick them up again in a Cobra. You are then to drop in each Cobra and Python, deploying combat droids onto the dirt, recover them, re-dock, and in the process fully configure and test each ship."
He began to look a little sandbagged.
"It should take you about two to three days. From here, go straight to Midnight. Admiral O'Neil will be expecting you, and he'll put you through a very rushed big ship captain course. I expect you back at Hunter's Haven for final fit-out and supply in about a week. By the time you're back, BA should be ready to use you for training purposes. I'm thinking of giving you 266 for a while, to simulate working with small capital ships. It won't hurt them to work for a Cruiser driver for a while, and they can practice ground support roles while the troops are out. Any questions?"
"Avatar?"
"There's a security droid with the combat droids. Make your own. At the moment, the ship is being run by Jane, but if you want your own clone, by all means have Jane do it, and set your avatar up as you want."
He grinned suddenly.
"No, you can't use a gorilla. Best choose a person shape which no higher rank is ever going to object to."
"That takes all the fun out of it."
Forty Five
Barely five minutes after leaving Fearless, "Yee-Hah!" came through the coms. The HUD showed a Cruiser flying like a drunk had control. I chuckled to myself. I'd done the same with every one of my ships. I didn’t begrudge George enjoying putting Fearless through its considerable paces.
On the way back to Hunter's Haven, I sent a message off to Susan Bentley. As the most experienced Capital ship driver I knew, I asked her if she had simulator material she could send to both Annette and George, which they could use to train themselves in handling their ships, commanding small fleets, and being part of a larger fleet. The package which came back from her took all of an hour to download, and was copied to both of my new Cruiser drivers. I had Jane store it for later use in a proper training environment. I could see more use for this sort of training down the track. Lacey would one day get a Carrier, regardless of if he liked it or not, and he'd be needing this training as well.
I'd have to suggest my Dad took a look at it too. Galactica might well end up being a fleet flagship. Given that very real possibility, I still needed to consider what rank to offer him. Technically, he should be a Fleet Captain, and carry the full bird on his shoulders like Slice now did. But his ship was one of the three biggest I had.
It's not easy weighing up your own father. I still didn’t know exactly what he thought of me outranking him, even though he seemed accepting of it now. But son surpassing father always seems to be drama creating in novels and hollo's. I honestly didn’t know how he would take being given actual
orders by me. It might be better to keep him in a ship handler rank, and put an Admiral over him, so I gave orders to the Admiral, and the Admiral gave him orders instead of me. But I only had one Admiral, and they hadn't met yet. Although O'Neal was older than my Dad, so it might work out. The nagging issue though, was my Dad had been independent for his entire time as Captain. I wasn’t even sure he could handle not being the one in charge. I guess I needed to talk to him about this, find out what he thought of things, now he'd had a chance to see the real galaxy for the first time, and those who were career military in it.
I spent the time pondering what I had, and how to get the most out of it all. I didn’t like the idea, but I came to the conclusion almost immediately that Hunter's Redoubt would have to go to war again. We were going to need a station for supplies and repairs, and it would have to be fully mobile and properly shielded. Redoubt was almost mobile enough, and effectively added a Battleship to the fleet. I sent Bob a request to consider how to structurally reinforce the join between the two originally separate stations. That was the easy bit. I also requested he replace the tugs which allowed it to move, with proper engines. If this meant bolting the arse end of otherwise wrecked ships onto the newer end of the station where all the shielding was, and outfitting these as engines for the station, giving it the same speed as my other Capital ships had, then he was to figure out how to do it.
If he needed the station moved to the shipyard, then so be it. Cobol Orbital was back in service now, and so a station in Midnight was no longer so necessary. Cobol was taking up the slack again. I’d have to move the last of the families and businesses still on Redoubt to Haven, but at some point it was inevitable anyway. The war would come to Midnight eventually, and civilians had to be well gone by then. It made more sense to use the station to support the fleet on the front line.
Bob sent me back some ideas before I made it back to Haven, and they looked good. I asked him when he'd want the station, and he thought it would take a month or so to get engine modules ready.
After I docked, I went straight to David's office, and dumped the civilian end of the station upgrade onto him. He thanked me profusely of course. In my dreams. It was not as if he didn’t already have enough to do. But he did at least acknowledge relocating civilians off the station did fall into his purview. And he did have the staff already there to organize it.
He took his revenge by dumping some decisions back on me, and it took me half an hour to escape to my own office.
I asked Jane what David's finances were like. One thing we'd never done was talk about payment for his services. He'd always offered himself freely, and had simply taken on everything I dumped on him without any noticeable reaction. Of course, this was what you expected of a spiritually ascended person. No matter what happened, they only projected serenity. I wasn’t there yet myself. But David was a lot closer. I'd never seen him lose his temper, or even display any sort of anger. Ascension wasn’t enough. You had to walk the talk long enough it became the only way to live.
"David is quite happy with your arrangements Jon."
"My arrangements?"
"Yes. He's listed as crew for all four stations, so is getting crew shares the same as your team are. He's used his share of the income from the sale of apartments on Haven to buy his own ships, and is getting owner's shares from them as well. He also bought accommodation here, and is getting rental income. As an Earl, he's getting an income the equivalent of having been granted estates with the Earldom."
"You're doing?"
"Me, Janice, and Janet. We were missing at the time, and something needed to be done given he was running everything."
"Quite right. Nice job, all of you."
There was a chorus of thankyous.
I pinged father to join me for dinner in my suite, and rather than make it just us, I invited mother, Walter and Annabelle as well. Strictly speaking, mother was the odd one out, but I couldn’t really exclude her. And you never know, she might actually be interested in the conversation. Next I asked Janine to inform Jeeves to cater.
I worked solidly for an hour and a half, and then took myself off to see what boot camp was all about. Jane intercepted me with a trolley, and took me on a tour of the newly completed facilities, doing it in a way where we didn’t actually come into contact with any recruits. The closest we came was an observation window, where we looked out into a room full of sweaty people doing pushups.
I was surprised to see Aline doing most of the bellowing. I hadn't actually known she had a bellow. It was a bit scary. She was usually quiet and retiring, except when in her combat suit, where she was quiet and forceful. I made a mental note to never get her angry at me. And then I wondered how come I'd avoided it so far.
Being out and about, Jane took me on a proper tour of the station, showing me areas now completed and thriving. We ended up on a park bench, overlooking the main lake. There was a lot of activity out on the water, and the boat franchises seemed to be doing well. So was the ice cream man. Jeeves brought me over a giant cone with half chocolate, and half strawberry. It never ceased to amaze me how Jeeves always turned up when I needed something. Or quite often when he thought I needed something, and it hadn't occurred to me yet.
"Don’t let George overdo it," I said to Jane.
We both chuckled, knowing how much fun he was having at the moment. She assured me she wouldn't let him, but I wasn’t convinced.
Ice cream finished, Jane took me back to my suite. As soon as I stepped in the door, I turned and glared at her.
Forty Six
The nice cozy little gathering I'd planned, had grown.
Aline pulled me over to the lounge chair I usually used, pushed me down, and sat on my lap. While welcome in some ways, it was a bad start to a dinner I'd planned to use to talk shop at. Soon I had a beer in hand, and she and the twins were telling me all about how boot camp was going. I refrained from saying I’d dropped by. Aline had successfully kept her bully sergeant side from me, so I wasn’t going to burst her illusion I didn’t know she had one.
Lacey was talking to Walter and Annabelle, while on the other side of the room, Jack and Sam were talking to my parents. Angel and Max were playing with Thirteen. Or should I say, Angel and Max were playing Thirteen. He had all the illusion of being in charge of the game, but from where I was sitting, Angel was really in charge. It was actually quite funny.
Shortly after, Jeeves had us sitting at the dining room table. Food orders were given, and I was surprised to see Thirteen ordering food the same as we were. He grinned at me. Of course he knew what I’d just thought.
"What have you done to George?" asked Annabelle, with laughter dancing in her eyes. "He was completely incomprehensible this afternoon."
"He took delivery of Fearless this morning."
"Fearless?" asked Jack.
"The new Super-Marine-Cruiser. George will be her captain. He's doing the pre-acceptance trials at the moment, and will be for the next few days."
"Days?" asked Walter. "It doesn’t take days to trial a ship."
"This one will. It's not only the Cruiser, it's all the Dropships aboard as well."
I told them what George would be doing for the next few days.
"When do we get aboard?" asked Jack.
"About a week. He needs some hand holding by Admiral O'Neil before we start using the ship for operations and training."
"Will it take all the trainees?" asked Aline.
"Um, I'm not sure you understand the scale. Fearless will carry a battalion."
"How big a battalion?" asked Annabelle.
"One thousand marines, with all their equipment, including a fifty percent mix of giant combat suits."
The room went quiet. Annabelle and Jack made serious eye contact.
"I taught him all he knows," said Amanda, and everyone laughed.
She meant me and how to design a marine ship, not George and how to captain it. Mind you, I don’t doubt the twins had taught him a lot without hi
m knowing it.
"It was the logical next step up from Custer."
"Assault Frigate," said Annabelle to my father. "Jon designed it during the Midgard War. Avon shipyard built it, and it's done us very well as an assault vessel, both for ground actions and space boarding actions."
"We outgrew it," added Aleesha.
"Where do we get a battalion of troops from?" asked Sam.
Walter coughed. All eyes shifted to him.
"I can have both marine and infantry troops here next week, and between us, we could fill the ship. The question is, do we want to?"
"Definitely want," said Annabelle.
Her eyes shifted to me.
"I see a need for several different troop roles, and we should be training for them."
"What do you have in mind son?" asked my Dad.
"I've seen our giant suits on the ground, firing into blackness. So we need both offensive and defensive ground training. We need to fight anything which lands on a planet, and we need to rearguard the evacuation of civilians. Fearless can land and offload troops directly. She also has Dropships for both Company and team strength missions. We need to train for every possible use of her resources."
"And?" he asked.
"We'll most likely need to respond to distressed ships and stations. Such things as emergency repairs, moving wounded to medical facilities, dealing with food and supplies hijackings, and putting down mutinies or outright revolts on both ships and stations. Once people start to flee in huge numbers, we'll see the absolute worst of human nature. We’ll need to be able to respond to multiple threats at the same time."
"How does one ship do all that?" asked Jack.
"Like Custer docks to BigMother now, there will be at least two more Assault Frigates out of the shipyard soon, both of which can dock to Fearless. She will also be able to dock Corvettes. Between these ships and her Dropships, she can respond in a lot of different ways all at the same time. Which reminds me."
Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is Page 18