by Dietmar Wehr
Trojan smiled and shook his head in amazement. One of those ships could carry every infantryman the Army had right now, with room to spare. “One last question about transports, Captain. How long will it take to build one of these ships?”
“Oracle estimates the first one will take two years. After that, construction time should drop to about 18 months.”
“The war will be over by the time these things are built.”
Trojan didn’t see who spoke, but it didn’t matter. “No it won’t,” he said. “If Oracle thinks we’ll need them, then you can be sure the war will go on long enough to build them and to use them. Continue, Captain.”
“Yes, sir. With regards to warships, Oracle is recommending a series of ship classes, all spherical, because that maximizes internal volume. The 20 new patrol cruisers that have already been authorized can be upgraded with counter-missiles and point defense, but Oracle is not recommending building any more 300- meter cruisers. Instead, the recommendation is for a larger, 400- meter diameter ship, which is classified as a light cruiser. Oracle is predicting that the SSU will engage in commerce raiding with their captured patrol cruisers, plus new ships built to the same design. If that’s the case, then the new 400-meter light cruisers could be used to escort freighters and will be able to outfight the smaller raiders. In order to keep their acceleration high, the light cruisers won’t have neutron armor, but the next class will. A 500-meter diameter heavy cruiser will be able to support the landing of troops, as well as go toe-to-toe with anything the enemy has that’s heavier than their patrol cruisers. These are ships that we can start building right now on Earth, but development of the Franklin Tri-system infrastructure will have to be finished before it becomes practical to build any of this next class.” The holographic image of the heavy cruiser was replaced by a larger and more menacing-looking ship.
“This is Oracle’s battleship with a 700-meter diameter and relatively thick neutron armor. This ship is designed to carry a much larger anti-ship missile. The new missile is expected to have an acceleration of 610Gs and a powered range of twice that of our standard anti-ship missile. In addition, the battleship will have room for two battalions of marines and enough assault shuttles to carry them all.” It was clear from the Officer’s pause that he was finished.
“Can these new missiles be incorporated into the heavy cruiser as well, Captain?” asked Trojan.
“They take up so much room that a heavy cruiser would only be able to fire a small volley, with limited ability to reload. Going from 500 to 700 meters in diameter increases the internal volume by a factor of roughly 2.5 times. That’s what allows the battleship to be able to fire a large volley of the new missiles with plenty of reloads, sir.”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you, Captain. It looks like Oracle is going to give you Navy boys and girls some interesting toys to play with. We Army types are happy to stick with anti-grav tanks. Okay, let’s move on to the next item on the agenda.”
Chapter Eight
Day 56/2540
Captain Soroya was in his cabin and just finishing up the paperwork for their last stop when the intercom buzzed.
“Soroya here,” he said.
“Bridge here, Skipper. Sorry to bother you, but our bow radar is picking up another ship. No transponder ID, and they haven’t answered our hail so far. They’re about 55K klicks ahead of us, and we’re catching up fast.”
A chill went up Soroya’s spine. The Company had warned its ship captains to be alert for commerce raiders from the new Union. Ships didn’t turn off their transponders without a damned good reason, and right now commerce raiding was about the only reason Soroya could think of.
“Okay, forget the forward acceleration. Cut the engines, pitch us over 90 degrees, and go to full acceleration. Let’s try to keep as much distance from this ship as we can. While you’re doing that, send a message back to Alizon advising them of our situation and asking for any help they can give us. I’ll be back on the Bridge as fast as I can.” With the intercom off, he looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. I’m just a civilian freighter skipper for God’s sakes. I don’t want to get involved in this civil war. God, I hope they don’t shove us out the airlock if they take this ship!
When he re-entered the Bridge, his XO looked at him with real fear in his eyes. “They’ve transmitted a message to us. They want us to resume our previous vector, or they’ll fire on us!”
“Who ARE they?” demanded Soroya.
“Their ship’s the Valley Forge.”
“But that’s a Navy ship!” exclaimed Soroya.
“Apparently not anymore,” said the XO. He looked down at the console in front of him and activated a switch.
“—demand one last time that you return to your previous vector. You have 30 seconds. If you fail to comply, we’ll fire a missile at you. This is your last warning!”
Soroya looked around the Bridge at his people. They were all looking at him with expressions of fear. The Company representative had told all the Captains to run from SSU ships no matter what, but the asshole wearing the expensive business suit who had told them that wasn’t here. Fuck him! thought Soroya.
“Put us back on our old vector, XO, and pray that these bastards don’t mind taking prisoners.”
Seventy-seven days later, Drake stepped off MB102’s ramp and stopped to savor standing on solid ground again. The eight days on/two days off schedule was starting to wear him down. Two days on the ground after eight days cooped up in a missile boat just wasn’t enough R&R. He understood the reasons for it. The Navy was expanding so fast that experienced ship personnel were hard to come by. The training programs were going as fast as they could without compromising quality too much. In the meantime, the shipyards were delivering another missile boat every four weeks now. But instead of only deploying half or two-thirds at any one time, the Old Man ordered 80% of the missile boat force kept in orbit all the time, with fractions rounded up. To make matters worse, as the senior missile boat skipper, Drake was automatically also the leader for the whole squadron. That meant that he had to not only con his own boat but also keep a sharp eye on the others at the same time. But not for the next two days.
He looked around for the ground vehicle that was supposed to carry him and his crew back to the Operations building for debriefing. When he finally did see it, he also saw the CSO’s limo preceding it. Is the Old Man really coming out to see me? he wondered. When the limo stopped a few meters in front of him, the back door swung open, and Janicot’s Aide leaned forward.
“No debriefing this time, Commander. The Admiral wants to see you right away.”
Now what? He nodded and turned to tell his crew to go on without him. With the good-byes out of the way, he stepped into the limo and tried not to hit the Aide with any of his gear as he let himself fall into the plush seat.
“Any idea why the Old—, the Admiral wants to see me, Lieutenant?”
She smiled and said, “I have a suspicion, but I can’t and won’t tell you what it is, Commander. Sorry.”
As the limo accelerated, Drake looked out the one-way window at the two large spherical shapes in the distance. One was the Valley Forge, and the other was her first captured freighter. He saw vehicles around the base of both ships. He hoped he wasn’t going to be put in command of the freighter. Not only would that be a step backwards as far as his career was concerned but it would also be damned boring. Orbiting Sparta endlessly in a missile boat was boring too, but at least if the FEDs attacked, he’d be able to shoot back. He had no illusions about freighters being safe during this war. If the SSU could prey on Federation freighters, the FED Navy could do the same thing to SSU freighters. He was certain that it would be just a matter of time before they got around to that, and when they did, they would very likely destroy the enemy freighters outright. The plan was to use missile boats to escort freighters out beyond the hyperzone boundary when each planet could spare one or two from maintaining its own defense.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush, Commander. We both have other things to do. You have two days of R&R to start, and I have a shitload of paperwork to get through before I get to go home tonight. The Yorktown has been officially declared missing in action. That means we’re down one cruiser, and if we want to maintain our timetable for capturing freighters, we’re going to have to keep our few remaining cruisers in the field longer. As you know, Valley Forge has just arrived back. Her skipper is being reassigned to command a cruiser based at Hekla. They’re short of experienced people. The ship’s crew deserves some time off too, but I’ve got another crew for Valley Forge, and I still need another CO. You’re it, Commander. Come back day after tomorrow and take command of that cruiser. Any questions?”
“What about my missile boat squadron, sir? Who’s going to lead that?”
Janicot gave a brief laugh. “I think you mean MY missile boat squadron, don’t you, Commander?” Without waiting for Drake to answer, he continued speaking. “Davidson is the next most senior officer. He’ll take over the squadron. I know you’ve grown attached to those boats and their crews, but you knew this was going to happen sooner or later, didn’t you? We need to push people into higher positions of responsibility fast if our Navy’s going to have any chance of defending the Union. The personnel shortage is going to get even worse once our own ship construction program starts delivering ships. As bizarre as this sounds, it’s entirely possible that we’ll have ships sitting on the spaceport doing nothing because we don’t have enough crews for them.”
When Drake was sure that he wasn’t about to interrupt the Admiral, he said, “I’ve been thinking about that, sir. We have what…about 285 FED Navy and another 377 Army prisoners here?” Janicot nodded. “We know that on Earth there are probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of Federation Navy and Army personnel still wearing their uniform who are sympathetic to our cause, but they had no way of getting to us once the shipping companies pulled their freighters home. What if we sent a ship to a FED Navy base to transmit a proposal for a swap? They get our prisoners back, which is one less thing for us to worry about, and we get more experienced personnel as well.”
Janicot leaned back in his chair and said nothing for a while. “I can see some practical difficulties in pulling off that kind of operation, but there might be ways around them, and it’s worth looking at. I’ll run the idea past the Chancellor and the Cabinet. If they like it, my staff will explore ways to make it work. Any other ideas, Commander?”
“Not at the moment, sir.”
“Well if you do have some, let me know. I wish more people were thinking up new ideas. Unless you have something else to discuss, you’re dismissed, Commander.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Drake as he got up to leave.
As he left the outer office with his gear, the Aide nodded to him and said, “Enjoy your TWO days of R&R, Commander.”
Drake laughed. The Aide’s emphasis on the number of days was her way of sympathizing with him about the fact that it wasn’t two whole days off. It was the rest of today, plus all of tomorrow, and then back on duty bright and early the next day. And since today was already more than half over, what he really had to work with was about 32 hours of free time, not 48.
* * *
Day 136/2540
Trojan found Admiral Chenko in his outer office. He waited until the Admiral was finished speaking with his office staff.
“What can I do for you, General?” asked Chenko.
“I’d like to discuss the latest deployment orders with you, sir.”
“Ah. No doubt you’re not happy about them. Okay, come into my office and let’s talk about them.”
Chenko led the way and went straight for his desk chair. Trojan took note of the fact that the Navy Chief did NOT invite him to sit down. That was fine by him. He’d rather stand anyway.
“Okay, I think I know why you don’t like those deployment orders, but go ahead and tell me anyway, General.”
“Thank you, sir. Oracle has told us that we need to use our current fleet of patrol cruisers to show planets on the verge of joining the SSU that we’re keeping an eye on them. If we don’t try to slow down the growth in the SSU now, we’ll pay for that later. Holding our cruisers back in order to launch a larger attack on Sparta is not only doomed to failure but will actually speed up the growth of the SSU when planets sitting on the fence see the Federation suffer a major military defeat.”
“Aren’t you jumping the gun there, General? The only order I’ve issued to our ships is to come back to Earth for their crews to be vetted by verifier sessions. And while another much larger attack on Sparta has and is still being considered, no decision on that has been made. I will tell you, though, that the Council would love to see another strike made on Sparta. So it’s not only presumptuous of you to assume that the strike mission has been approved but it’s also presumptuous and verging on insulting for you to assume that an attack of that kind would fail. That is unless you possess naval strategy experience I’m not aware of.”
Trojan understood that he was walking on thin ice now. Pissing off the Chief of Naval Operations was not a good idea at any time.
“You’re correct, Admiral, that I don’t have any expertise when it comes to naval strategy. I was not expressing my personal opinion, but rather Oracle’s conclusions regarding the tradeoff between short-term risks and long-term gain. The Navy people on our joint Army/Navy Planning Group agree that our patrol cruisers are not designed for this kind of warfare, and future expansion of the Navy depends on having the officers and crews on those cruisers as the cadre that will train the new crews for the new ships. It’s Oracle’s conclusion that we can’t afford to lose those trained crews this early in the war, sir.”
“I see,” said Chenko, in a neutral and less annoyed voice. “It’s comforting to know that an Army General doesn’t think he knows more about naval strategy than I do. Now, as for Oracle’s assessment, I’m well aware of what our patrol cruisers were designed to do and not do, and if it’s any consolation to you, General, I did point out to some of the Council members face-to-face that using these ships for another massed strike was risky. I haven’t made up my mind yet if I’m for or against the idea. I will take your comments into consideration, but at the end of the day, it may not matter what I think if the Council decides to insist on the second strike.”
“I understand, sir. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.”
“You’re welcome, General. Are we done here?”
Trojan nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll be on my way.”
Chenko watched him leave and thought, Dammit, that blasted machine is probably right. Sending the bulk of our remaining fleet in now would be one hell of dice roll. Maybe I should argue against it.
* * *
Drake stepped into the Captain’s quarters on board the Valley Forge and looked around. He was surprised to find that it wasn’t really all that much bigger than the CO’s quarters on his missile boat. The only difference was the addition of space for a large table and chairs suitable for inviting his officers for dinner. Considering that it would be almost half a year before the ship came back to Sparta, he supposed that being able to share a meal with his officers now and then in the privacy of his quarters might not be a bad thing. He decided he might as well get settled in.
Dropping his luggage by the entrance to the bedroom, he said, “Comp, this is Commander Roland Drake. I’m formally assuming command of this ship. Do you acknowledge this change of command?”
“Voice pattern recognized. You now have command of the ship.”
“Is the XO aboard yet?” asked Drake.
“Negative.”
D
rake took a deep breath. His new XO wasn’t late yet, but reporting for duty early was a good way to impress your CO when you’ve just been promoted and assigned as Executive Officer of one of the few cruisers the SSU had right now. That’s what Drake would have done if he were in that position.
“Notify me when the XO comes aboard. Right now I want to hear my orders for this deployment.”
“Acknowledged. Logged orders as received six hours twenty-four minutes ago from the Office of Chief of Space Operations as follows. Valley Forge will proceed to the Dresden star system. Once there the ship will operate covertly without an active transponder ID in order to intercept and capture a civilian ship. Upon capturing such a vessel, both ships will return to Sparta as quickly as possible. Valley Forge is to avoid combat with armed Federation vessels. Do not attempt to capture any ship if doing so entails a significant risk of combat. Return to Sparta no later than 180 days after departure. End of orders.”
One hundred eighty days. Drake hoped that Lor got the handwritten note he had left for the guards to give to her. If the SSU went ahead with his prisoner exchange idea and the FEDs agreed, it was entirely possible that Lor would be gone by the time he got back. It was hard to figure out what they had between them with the lack of privacy plus where their loyalties lay. He didn’t know if either of them would feel the same if it was years before they met again, but he wanted her to know that he hadn’t given up on the idea of a relationship with her. Duty had gotten in the way of that before the rebellion, when they were on the same side. How much harder would the relationship be if they were fighting a war on opposite sides? Well, there’d be plenty of time on this trip for woolgathering. Getting this ship ready to depart on schedule should be uppermost on his mind now. He had never commanded a cruiser before. It was about time he started learning how.