My mind was reeling. I was about to be paid four hundred and twenty five million credits for concept designing two ships. I could definitely afford to refit all the ships I had salvaged with that amount of credits available. Minus tax of course.
The Admiral seemed to be reading my mind.
"No tax," he said with a grin. "Like bounties, payments by governments for military ships are tax free. In the past, an incentive was needed to convince civilian shipyards to build military ships in time of need. So the tax laws were altered. This applies across all sectors by the way."
I wondered why Bob hadn't told me that. Oh, of course, he wanted to be the middle man. And come to think of it, the accountant from Outback Orbital hadn't mentioned it either. But, we had been talking about sales to a company, not a military. He'd probably never had anything to do with the military.
"I'm not sure what to say," I said.
"Say yes," said Miriam.
I laughed.
"There would be some provisos," I said.
"State them," said the Admiral.
"The ships would need to be rigged with a self-destruct. I designed them both for me, out of the need to survive what was coming at me. I never intended either of them to be freely available. Bob was designing a lesser version of the Gunbus called a Camel, precisely for selling on the open market as a Heavy Transport, or Heavy Luxury Yacht. It's designed to fill the need for what I have, but without being a threat back at me. So I must insist. In the event the ship is damaged enough to be captured, or boarded, the ship must destroy itself rather than risking someone gaining access to them. The AI will have the command embedded, which can be countermanded by no-one. That means that any pilot and crew who serve on them, must have undertaken that responsibility and risk."
The Admiral looked at Greer.
"Yes sir," he said. "I can live with that. There is no way I'd want a Gunbus in pirate or retro hands. They're simply too lethal."
"What else?" said the Admiral to me.
"You would need to have a ship load the copy of my AI before I leave. It would be a clone. This clone would have a strong allegiance to me as well as the ASF, and would regard my AI as a sister. That’s the downside of using my AI. We can remove memories and allow it its own personality and name, but its core programming cannot be altered. You would need to upload it onto a capital ship, which would become the template for each AI you put on Gunbus or Excalibur ships. Each new clone would again have its own name and personality. From what I've seen, that depends a lot on the pilot and crew on each ship, as to what kind of personality forms. Mine is eccentric in the extreme, but it's been doing a lot more than any AI was supposed to. It even has its own avatar. She has agreed to being cloned, as long as you understand the downsides of doing so."
"I've been in contact with the people who sell AI's," said Captain Renaud. "They said much the same as you have. This is going to be one big experiment, throwing a lot of conventional military wisdom out the window. But at this point, our ships are inadequate and we need something that can survive what we face. You have what we need, so the downsides will just have to be addressed if and when they surface."
"We accept your provisos, Captain," said the Admiral.
"I guess we have a deal," I said with a grin.
"Good," replied the Admiral. "We also want those ships you just captured. We want everything in them. From the computers, to the personal clothing and effects of the pilots and crew. Anything that might give us some clue as to what's making these people so rabid. I've been authorized to offer you five hundred million for the thirteen ships."
My mouth fell open. I reached up with one hand and pushed it closed. It fell open again. The others were laughing, even the Admiral. It took me a moment to regain my composure.
"Done," I croaked.
"I hear you have thirteen of our fighters on your station?"
"Yes sir. There is no way of getting them back to you at the moment. Once back in Sydney, I should be able to get the parts to repair them. What would you like me to do with them?"
"You may keep them Captain. Use them as station defense, with the ASF's compliments."
"Thank you sir."
"Now Captain, we wanted to hear your thoughts and recommendations. I know you're in a hurry to leave, but you've expertise we need, and a completely different perspective we lack."
I leaned back and thought for a moment.
"As I think I sent you, the Missile Cruiser is an old Azgard design called a Tyr. They sent one, and a dozen Talons, in to confront the Midgard government over debts, before allowing the no contact demand from Midgard into effect. That force vanished. I think we can assume at least the Cruiser and a Talon were captured. They seem to have copied the design for their own ship building, without any form of improvement. The existing computers must have been removed, and replaced with ones dating back to the origin of the computer six odd hundred years ago."
"That old?" asked Greer.
"Yes, if you know anything about computer chips, these are based on the 386-Pentium generation of chip, from the late nineteen hundreds."
"Where would they get something that old?" asked Captain Renaud.
"I can only speculate. During the exodus from Earth, all levels of then technology went with people. If the people who colonized Midgard deliberately went there with a low-tech life in mind, they may have taken only the oldest tech they could find with them. And being anti-tech to start with, they never bothered updating anything. But it does make sense using tech that old, since some level of tech is necessary to maintain a civilization, but when you are anti-tech, you would use as simplest as possible without appearing to be hypocritical."
"Seems reasonable," said the Admiral.
"The thing that doesn’t fit, is to build this many ships so fast, especially the Cruisers, requires a large shipyard. There was no evidence of this on Midgard itself. I must admit, I haven’t checked if there is another habitable planet or moon in the system. And we didn’t have scanner coverage of enough of the system to see if there was a facility in orbit somewhere. Yet they must have, to build ships this fast. It also has to be fairly high tech, which is a contradiction. Yet it makes sense for it to be elsewhere other than the planet, since keeping the faith becomes much more difficult when you are openly flouting it. So, there must be a shipyard somewhere else in the system."
"Agreed," said Captain Renaud.
"Since you just bought a Tyr, are you interested in what I planned to do with them?"
"Yes Captain," said the Admiral.
"The biggest design flaw is the missile turrets fire straight out in a barrage firing pattern. The ship has to be side on to the target to fire. This means only one side can fire at a time. I plan to remove all the missile turrets, and modify half of them to be able to fire at any angle, especially forward. The other half will be replaced with conventional fighter missile launchers, which are much better suited to firing at fighters. I'll also be adding a significant amount of Point Defense. These ships are ridiculously easy to kill if you can get there before the next barrage fires. It only takes one hole to kill the crew. But if they fire before you do, your toast. With the amount of PD I'll add, not even Gunbus could get into torpedo firing distance with her shields intact. I'd recommend you do something similar with yours. It will give you a Missile Cruiser that can match Midgard's, capable of surviving the encounter. It might also be worth retrofitting some of your existing cruisers to match."
"Anything else?"
"I'd take a good hard look at the design of every active ship you have. Anything that doesn’t have good PD, should be upgraded or retired, as without it, the ships are target practice for pirates or retros. Take Yorktown for instance. Could she survive a barrage of capital ship missiles?"
Captain Renaud looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"No, she wouldn’t," he said.
"If I was you, I'd load my AI's clone onto Yorktown, and call it the same name, so the AI and the ship are inte
rwoven. Yorktown will need to withdraw to Dallas while your new ships are being built, so the new ships can get a clone AI the moment they're complete. While she's there, I'd bolt on every single PD turret you can find. If you need to, add fighter power generators to each cluster so they're independent of Yorktown's main power plants. Also do the same with all your existing capital ships, as you can. A capital ship which cannot survive a missile barrage, is no use to you. Especially when they don’t have the ability to get out of the way, being able to knock them down is essential. We've already demonstrated that a squadron of fighters can't defend against a Missile Cruiser with a fighter escort."
"I told you his perspective was different," said Greer to the Admiral.
"I hear you," said the Admiral to me. I flinched. "What?" he demanded.
"Every time I've ever heard that said, the person was pretending to listen, and fobbing the talker off with that line. When in fact they intended to ignore what was said completely."
"Ouch!" said Miriam. "Say what you really think, why don’t you?" She laughed. She turned to the Admiral. "He's got you there sir," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
The Admiral turned to Captain Renaud.
"Wasn't there a pilot needed on that garbage scow stationed over in Denver?" he asked.
"Yes sir," replied Captain Renaud. "There is indeed. Where did you put that short list?"
Miriam paled.
Greer burst out laughing, found no one laughing with him, and stifled his.
The Admiral turned back to me.
"I hear you Captain. Every single word you said. We'll see what's possible to be done. There is the small matter of permission from up higher, timing, and the matter of credits. There is of course, need, as well. The first need is your ships, and I have approval for that much. Is there anything else?"
"Just one more thing. I sent word to the Azgard government via a Bounty Hunter I encountered at the jump point. However, I'm not at all sure he will pass the message on coherently, or believably. I think the American sector government needs to have urgent talks with the Sci-Fi sector government about the situation. There needs to be another blockade in Azgard. If the Tyr and the Talon are the best Azgard has, that door is well and truly open. It must be closed, or the retros will get out. A few fleets here and there don’t worry me, but if they find sympathy with disaffected groups all along the spine, we could have a real problem on our hands. We may already be too late. In any case, the door needs to be closed. Worst case scenario, is you seek the Azgard government's permission to station one of your own fleets there. Australian sector would help if it could, but the pirate problem we had, reduced us down to mere patrols. What I'm taking back will help, once it's refitted. We have a natural block point that can be defended if need be, and I will see that done. But most of the sectors have no such defense points. If they get out in force, who knows what damage they'll do."
"I'll address that. I agree with you. That’s it?" I nodded. "We thank you for your service and input. Your commission will revert to inactive when you leave Midgard. Please let us know you made it to Azgard safely."
"I will sir."
We all rose, and the Admiral and Captain left.
"Never in my wildest dreams," said Greer, "would I dare say what you just said to an Admiral. Still, you summed up very well what we've already said, doing it in a way they can't ignore. Junior officers can be ignored. Captains can't be. Be interesting to see the fallout from these last few days. The Admiral has been warning the sector for years about something like this happening, and no-one has listened to him."
"I hope he will get something done. All I can do now is get home safely and see to the defense of the Australian sector."
"Before you go, we have a little ceremony we would like you to be part of. Nothing formal. It's in the Pilot's Lounge. Your people are there now."
"It won't take long Jon, I promise," said Miriam.
"Lead on," I said. They did.
The Pilot's Lounge was packed. I was led up towards the bar, where I could see George, Amanda, Aleesha, Eric, and Jane standing, drinks in their hands. I did a double take on Jane actually drinking, before I figured it out. The glass and liquid were part of her suit. Several guys flirting with her obviously didn’t know she wasn’t human.
Before I knew it, I had a beer tankard in my hand. It tasted, lacking, for want of a better word. For a moment I couldn’t think why, until I remembered hearing that American beers were only half strength compared with Australian ones. Seemed they were. I sipped it, allowing the flow of conversation to wash over me. Amanda and Aleesha seemed to be in social heaven.
Greer emptied his tankard, and bashed it on the counter for attention. The room quietened. His tankard was quietly refilled.
"A toast," he said. "Absent friends." Glasses and tankards were raised. The words were repeated solemnly.
"Breckenridge, front and center," bellowed Miriam. There was no 'please' this time. It was an order. She turned to me. "I think you will enjoy this sir."
Breckenridge negotiated the crowed room, and finally stood in front of us.
"Kneel," said Miriam to him. He did so, eyes down. "Words were spoken during the briefing. More words were spoken after it, before we went into Midgard."
She looked at Breckenridge, who looked thoroughly miserable.
"Are you prepared to atone for your words?" asked Miriam.
"I am," said Breckenridge, his voice shaky.
He took a deep breathe, held it for a moment, released it and looked up at me.
"I apologize for doubting you sir. My words were disrespectful, and I deeply regret them."
He bowed to the floor, then moved slightly into line with me. He kissed my feet and remained prostrated before me.
Both Miriam and Greer nodded to me.
"Lieutenant," I said. "I forgive you."
Breckenridge fled as fast as he could into the crowd, which was enjoying the show.
"What was that all about?" I asked them.
"If you recall," said Greer, "he bullshitted your claim that Gunbus was faster than an Epee." I nodded. "Well after the briefing, he was badmouthing you at every turn, and even went to the length of suggesting that if he was wrong, he'd kiss your feet. He was so sure he was right, and no Corvette could ever be faster than a medium fighter in general, and an Epee in particular. Even the Admiral heard about it, which was why I was ordered to take him with me, when I was assigned to Gunbus as liaison. You recall what he said when Gunbus pulled ahead of us?" I nodded again. "Well he knew then what was coming. As his superiors, we couldn’t let something like that go past without dealing out an abject lesson, so he was made to eat his own words, so to speak. The CAG delegated it to us, and since he's in Miriam's squadron, she was the one to deliver it."
"Admiral on deck!" someone yelled. The room came to attention.
"At ease," said the Admiral, as he, Captain Renaud, and a Commander I hadn't met crossed the room.
The Commander was laden with small boxes. When they arrived at the bar, the boxes were laid out in a line.
"Normally," said the Admiral, "we do this in a formal ceremony, but we lack the time right now. Commanders Greer and Young, front and center please."
They moved in front of the Admiral and braced at attention.
"For your actions over the last few days, for the kills you achieved, and for leadership under intense pressure, you are both awarded Silver Stars. Congratulations."
The Admiral took the first two boxes and handed them one each. They saluted and moved back into the crowd. I noticed both already had several.
He went on to award several other medals to pilots for various reasons, several of whom had just become aces. He also awarded some posthumous medals.
"Captain Hunter, Lieutenant Commander Murdock, Lieutenant's Peck, front and center please."
We moved into a line before him.
"Captain, I know you've already had a ceremony for these, but I wanted to hand them to you p
ersonally."
He proceeded to hand us all medal boxes.
We saluted him. Well, the other three saluted him and I did a fair approximation. No-one had ever taught me to salute properly. We stepped back.
"Jane, front and center please."
Jane stepped forward looking very surprised.
"Gunbus was awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation. As the ship's Avatar…" The word 'avatar' rippled around the room. "…and given recent decisions, it was decided it would be appropriate to award you the Citation ribbon as a member of the crew of the ship honoured, and as part of the ship herself. Congratulations."
He handed her the box. She saluted in a precise parade ground salute, and stepped back to join us.
"Thank you everyone for putting up with this interruption to your leisure time."
The Admiral, Captain and Commander left, leaving behind a very vocal group.
I turned to Miriam and Greer.
"We must be going," I said to them.
"Just one more thing, sir," said Greer.
He banged his now empty tankard on the bar again. The room went quiet. The tankard was quietly refilled again.
"Captain Hunter and Lieutenant Commander Murdock, front and center please," he went on.
Once again, we moved to the front, this time in front of Greer and Young. Greer looked at me.
"Captain, this is a ceremony that’s usually for rookie pilots. Sometimes for a pilot whose actions merit a change. In your case, it’s a little of both, since your rookie days weren't that long ago."
I didn’t mention I'd never really been a rookie. I'd been an apprentice space-person when I'd made my first kill. And I'd made ace on my first flight as a pilot.
Greer looked at George.
Send in the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 3) Page 11