Into the Battle

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Into the Battle Page 26

by Rosone, James

Hunt’s PA notified him that it was almost noon.

  Lunchtime, he thought. His wife, Lilly, had sent him a note that she’d arrived at the station. She was waiting for him in his temporary quarters on the station. If he was able to get away for a couple of hours, he could get in both a meal and a little action with his bride.

  “OK, my friend. Time for me to let you get back to work,” Hunt told Rogers. “I have an appointment I need to be heading off to.” He winked mischievously as he stood.

  “Ah, yes, of course. I thought I saw Lilly getting off the beanstalk this morning when I walked past it,” Rogers said with a chuckle. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, then.”

  *******

  Jericho Station

  Republic Naval Shipyard

  Commander Amy Dobbs liked Jericho Station very much. It had been designed to build large-scale warships from the ground up in a very streamlined fashion. It was laid out very much like a factory with multiple stages or sections for each production line.

  There was a large drydock facility followed by multiple construction bays for everything from smaller frigate class warships to the much larger battleships or even dreadnought-class ships. About thirty percent of the facility had been completed. They were still years away from having the entire shipyard fully operational.

  Blowing some air out her lips, Dobbs looked at the floating holographic representation of the ship she’d spent the last five months helping design. She wondered how it would hold up in combat. The Viper-class frigates the Navy had introduced more than a year ago were fine ships. They performed well, but they had their own set of flaws that hadn’t become evident until they’d gone into battle. Even though the Vipers weren’t designed for battle but rather for reconnaissance, the war with the Zodarks required all ships to be battle-ready.

  Following the loss of her ship, Dobbs had been reassigned to help the ship designers come up with a new class of warship that could still handle the same missions as the Viper-class frigates but also survive a bit longer in a fight with the Zodarks.

  This new warship Dobbs had helped design was a beast. They’d incorporated the latest in armor technology and added some powerful new weapons. The ship had a three-meter-thick hull that integrated the Zodarks’ modulated armor technology. These improvements should allow them to hold up much better in a shooting match during the coming battles.

  One of the ship designers for Musk Industries walked up behind her. “Have you come up with a name for this line of ships yet?” he asked.

  Dobbs blushed as she turned around. “Hi, John. I have, actually. I’m not sure if Space Command will approve it, but we’ll see.”

  “OK, the suspense is killing me, Commander. What’s it going to be?” the engineer asked with a smirk on his face.

  “If they approve it, I’d like to call them the Scorpion-class destroyers,” Dobbs announced.

  He nodded approvingly. “I like it. Catchy. Given this bad boy’s weapon loadout, I think Scorpion suits it.”

  “John, I have to brief Admiral Bailey on the status of this project tomorrow,” Dobbs said. “He’s coming up to the station to meet with Admiral Hunt now that the GW and most of his battlegroup has returned. The admiral’s going to ask me about the production timeline. How long is it going to take to build these ships?” she asked. “When will we be able to start fielding them?”

  “That is an excellent question,” John replied. “I can tell you how long it’ll take to build, but as to how soon they’ll be built and ready to deploy…that largely depends on the admiral and when he wants them.”

  Dobbs furrowed her brow. “What do you mean by that?”

  She felt she was way out of her depth when it came to shipbuilding and procurements. This was a side of being a senior officer she had no experience with. She knew, however, that if she wanted to become an admiral one day, the experience she was gaining in this position would prove to be immensely helpful.

  John walked over to the holograph image she was looking at. Using his hand to swipe away the image of the ship, he brought up the shipyards. “Commander, right now, we have four of our five Earth shipyards building warships. The Jericho Station is still only thirty percent done, so we’ve got many more years of construction before we’ll be a fully operational shipyard. The fifth shipyard I mentioned is building large civilian transport craft for the TPA—they’re still emigrating as many of their people as possible to the Centaurus system.

  “The two TPA yards are building two classes of ships: their version of a battleship which is considerably smaller than ours, and cruisers. Their cruisers are solid ships and have done exceptionally well in past battles with the Zodarks. Half of those ships they’re building are sent to guard Alpha Centauri as they build up that system’s defense.

  “Our two shipyards over Earth are building battleships and one additional dreadnought-class warship. Our yard over Mars is building orbital assault ships, and the smaller shipyard being run by the Belters is producing frigates. As you can see, we’re pretty tapped out when it comes to capacity. Admiral Bailey would need to determine which ship line he wants to pause and for how long to start running off copies of these new Scorpions.”

  We’re fighting this whole war with superglue and duct tape, Dobbs thought.

  “John, how many Vipers are we building?” she asked.

  He tapped on a folder and brought up the information. “Right now, we have twenty-two under construction. When they’re done, another twenty-two will start. It’s taking the Belters twelve weeks to build a Viper. Once it completes its time in the yard, it takes another three months for the guts of the ship and its weapon systems to be completed. Then it’s turned over to Space Command to be issued to a crew.”

  Dobbs shook her head in amazement. “What about an orbital assault ship? The ones you said are built over Mars?”

  John closed one folder and opened another. A second later, the information appeared in front of them, floating above the table. “We can build twelve orbital assault ships. They carry a battalion of RA soldiers and all their equipment for deployment. It takes our shipbuilders twelve months to build one, then another three to complete the guts and the weapon systems.”

  She squirmed in her seat, and John smiled. “Before you ask, Musk Industries is building fifteen battleships. It takes us fifteen months to complete one, then another five to finish off the guts of the ship and its weapon systems. All told, twenty months from start to finish, and that’s with twenty-six thousand human and Synth workers on a twenty-four-seven production schedule. It’s an incredible operation when you think about it.”

  Dobbs opened her mouth to speak, but John cut her off. “Oh, and before you bring up the dreadnought, that line of ships takes roughly three years to build. Another year to finish off the interior and the weapon systems. We have two of them under construction right now plus the GW essentially back in the yard for repairs. So back to your original question, Commander—how long will it take to start cranking out the Scorpions? We can probably have a ship built inside of twelve weeks, another six weeks to finish off its interior and weapon systems. But, and this is a big but, it means we have to stop producing something else—some other ship class that is desperately needed, especially after our losses from the battle at the stargate.”

  Dobbs shook her head. “Is there any way we can get the Jericho Station yard completed faster so we can pick up the slack?”

  John shook his head jovially. He seemed to be holding in a laugh.

  Dobbs gave him a dismissive look as she canted her head to the left. “Was that a stupid question I asked, John?”

  John turned serious again. “No, Commander, it’s not a stupid question, but it’s not that simple either. That station the Belters built took them nearly fifteen years to build. Our yard over Mars took us close to twenty years to build up to what it is today. Admiral Bailey commissioned the Jericho Station a little more than three years ago. As you can see, we’re still only thirty percent complete. These
are massive structures that consume enormous amounts of resources and manpower to build.

  “Every time we divert Synths or human workers to speed up a section of the Jericho yard, it means we’ve diverted those resources from the completion of a battleship, frigate, or orbital assault ship. Right now, it’s a matter of what’s more important, finishing Jericho Station, or a hundred more warships. So far, Admiral Bailey has told us it’s warships.”

  Dobbs thought about what John had said, and she didn’t like it one bit. Humanity really was in a race against time.

  John got up and walked over to his computer terminal. He typed a few things on his laptop and then pulled a small data drive from the side of the terminal. He handed it over to Dobbs. “This has all the specs and technical information on the Scorpion. If Space Command wants to proceed with building them, send me a message and a contract, and we’ll get started on them. In the meantime, Commander, if we don’t see each other again, stay safe, will you? We need more officers like you around.”

  Dobbs took the data drive and placed it in her pocket. “Thank you, John. It’s been a pleasure working with you these past few months. I’m glad we’ve been able to get this project completed, and with any luck, the brass will approve what we’ve designed, and we’ll have a new kickass ship for the fleet. I’ll let you know what the admiral says tomorrow and if we’re a go or not. Hopefully, we’ll get Scorpion in production sooner rather than later.”

  *******

  John Glenn Orbital Station

  Space Command First Fleet HQ

  Admiral Chester Bailey was in a foul mood. He’d had a particularly nasty meeting with President Luca, the TPA Chairman, and his TPA military counterpart. The TPA leadership, growing concerned with the ship losses in the Rhea system, had actually asked if it might be possible to pursue a truce with the Zodarks.

  Admiral Bailey reminded them several times that all attempts thus far to establish contact with the Zodarks had gone nowhere. The Zodarks wouldn’t even surrender a ship when it was disabled and unable to fight. It was hard enough to get any of their soldiers to surrender—they were fanatical in their zeal to fight to the death.

  Instead of supporting Admiral Halsey’s fleet with ships, the TPA restricted the majority of their new warships to Sol. Bailey knew it was only a matter of time before the Zodarks would send another fleet, a more substantial fleet, since their last two expeditions hadn’t returned. If Bailey didn’t get more ships to Admiral Halsey’s fleet, they could lose the Rhea system.

  Bailey’s PA reminded him it was almost time for the next meeting at 1300 hours. He sighed. Through sheer force of will, he pushed himself out of his chair and trudged toward the conference room down the hall. As he entered, someone shouted, “Attention on deck!”

  Bailey waved them off and told everyone to take their seats. Then he walked over to the large circular table. He found the spot reserved for him and sat down—everyone else followed suit. They looked pensive, almost anxious. Everyone knew the situation was getting desperate. Since the battle at the stargate nearly five months ago, they’d been trying to figure out what to do next.

  Surveying the room, Bailey saw Admiral Hunt, along with a couple of people from his staff with him.

  “I’d like to welcome Admiral Hunt to our meeting. It’s good to see you in person, Admiral,” Bailey announced. “But let’s get down to it. Commander Dobbs briefed me on the status of the new destroyer-class ship, the Scorpion. They look amazing—just what we need to fill out our fleet’s capabilities. The question is, what ships do we postpone building so we can run off a line of new destroyers? Suggestions?”

  Clearing his throat, Admiral Hunt was the first to speak. As the expeditionary force commander, he probably knew better than most what they could live without. “Sir, if it’s a matter of what we need most versus what we can do without, then I recommend we put the orbital assaulters on hold and focus that entire yard on producing the Scorpions.”

  “You mean finish the ships currently in production and then start the new ships?” inquired another admiral.

  Hunt shook his head. “No. I mean stop their construction and shift everything we have to crank out these new destroyers. I also recommend we double down on getting our second dreadnought and battleships done ahead of schedule.” He looked at Bailey. “If you’ll give me a second to explain, sir, before everyone adds their two cents,” Hunt requested.

  I hope Miles knows what he’s doing, Bailey thought. He had enough headaches to deal with right now without adding some angry shipyard managers to the list.

  “OK, Admiral, proceed. But understand Admiral Lewis and I are the final authority on this matter,” Bailey said as he shot Hunt a pensive look that said This had better be good.

  “Thank you, sir. We currently have eight orbital assault ships ferrying troops from Sol out to New Eden and the two moons. Right now, we don’t need more than the eight we have,” Hunt explained.

  Admiral Lewis, the man in charge of Space Command’s ship procurement program, interjected, “Admiral, what about your new campaign? If you’re going to invade Zodark-controlled space and potentially liberate the planet Sumer, how are you going to do that with just eight orbital assault ships? Won’t you need more ground forces for a campaign like that?”

  “That’s a fair question, sir,” Hunt said with a nod. “If we hadn’t sustained such great losses in our last battle, then yes, I would like to have a larger ground force come with us. However, the last fight changed the dynamics. We thought the Vipers would have solved a critical problem of the current fleet composition. Mainly, we needed a scout ship to conduct deep space reconnaissance and help screen for the fleet. While the Viper packs some awesome firepower, it’s also paper-thin when it comes to armor. We lost half our Vipers in their first engagement. We can’t keep cranking out ships that are being destroyed this easily. We need to switch over to the new destroyers, which we expect to fare much better.”

  Hunt continued, “Second, we started the last campaign with six battleships. We lost half of them, and the remaining three sustained significant damage. I would like to point out that while we did suffer serious losses in this last battle, we effectively crushed a massive Zodark fleet. They outnumbered us nearly two to one. I’m confident the next iteration of battleships will do even better. If we’re going to successfully launch an invasion of Zodark space and liberate the planet Sumer, then we’re going to need more battleships to do it.”

  Bailey saw that many of the others at the table nodding their heads. “Lastly, the George Washington made the difference between victory and defeat. Our superweapon, the plasma cannon, was a real game-changer. We blew right through the Zodark ships with it. The armor on this beast also played a big role. We were able to absorb an enormous amount of enemy fire. Our primary and secondary turrets were able to hit multiple Zodark warships at a time, giving us a lot of versatility. While the enemy largely focused their weapons on us, the rest of the fleet was able to lay into them.

  “When we complete the second dreadnought, we can create a third fleet around it. Having two battlegroups would give us an enormous amount of flexibility in our future military operations. That’s why I recommend we stop production of the Vipers in the Belt and switch that yard over to making Scorpions. We also need to halt production of the orbital assault transports to build more Scorpions. We can then double down on our efforts to finish the battleships and dreadnought currently under construction.”

  When Admiral Hunt had finished, he sat back in his chair, looking confident after arguing his point. Bailey thought it was a solid case. He certainly saw the merits in it, but what about Admiral Lewis?

  The older admiral in charge of ship procurement leaned back, appearing to consider Hunt’s proposal. The room fell silent as they waited for his response. Admiral Lewis stood as he finally spoke. “This war with the Zodarks has been costly. Admiral Hunt has laid out a very expensive plan to protect the citizens of Sol, Centauri, and Rhea, and to free our
human brethren enslaved on other worlds.”

  Bailey held his breath, waiting for what he thought would be a resolute rejection.

  “We have lost many great men and women in this battle. I do believe to do anything less would come at a far greater cost,” Lewis said to Bailey’s shock. “I approve changing the shipbuilding strategy as Hunt outlined.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  New Worlds

  Lagash Star System

  RNS Franklin

  Lieutenant Commander Joe Reynolds was always nervous when they exited a stargate. He never knew what could be waiting for him on the other end. Frankly, he was shocked the Zodarks didn’t have these gates fortified or camped out with warships. Then again, from what limited understanding he had of the stargate system, there were thousands of gates across the universe. It made sense that they couldn’t fortify them all.

  “Entering the system now,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Ethan Hunt announced. The odd-looking warp tunnel that had appeared to swirl around them as they traveled through from one stargate to the next one ended. They exited into a new and utterly unknown star system—the home system of the Sumerian people.

  Reynolds smiled when he saw the gate was clear. He turned to Ethan. “Excellent, Lieutenant. Get our engines up to full speed,” he ordered. “Let’s see if we can find an asteroid belt to hide in while we collect our data. Make sure we keep our sensors in passive mode. I want to get a lay of the system before we go active with them.”

  Reynolds and Ethan had previously served together on the Viper. When their last ship had been destroyed, it had looked like their crew was going to be reassigned to a variety of other starships. Then a new frigate had come out of the shipyard, and they’d gotten a chance to get back in the fight.

  Ethan applied more power to the thrusters, and their frigate picked up speed. The passive sensors showed five planets in the system and a massive asteroid belt that bent along the edge of the system. Looking for a cluster of large rocks to hide behind, Ethan found a section and guided the ship there.

 

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