The strategy of the young fire control officer was working; every ship at the tip of their attack exploded in great balls of fire the instant the TRay weapons engaged them. It did not slow down their pursuit. They were again upon the fleet and trying to surround them. Their sheer numbers were astonishing, fire control had no problem finding targets, and there were hundreds of thousands of ships in pursuit of them. The only good news was that only the lead ships in pursuit could get firing solutions on their targets, a decisive tactical advantage for the fleet.
“We have lost another shuttle sir, they took a direct hit and were destroyed” reported Wilson.
“Get them all back inside of our shell generators” commanded Inman.
“Aye sir” replied Wilson.
“Can you create a spread across the front line of the enemy to create a debris field the other ships have to navigate through?” queried Inman.
“Yes, I will try sir.”
“See if we can break up the lead ships into large pieces.”
Inman’s strategy worked, the ships following the lead sacrificial ships were forced to navigate past the debris to get firing solutions on the fleet, the more of them that got through, the larger the debris field.
“It won’t be long before they figure a way around this, keep it up Wilson and let’s see if we can buy Dr. Reeder the time she needs to get the warp drives back online.”
Wedding plans had flooded Evelyn Reeder’s thoughts and emotions ever since Will had asked her to marry him. It seemed such a long time ago now, but it had only been two months, and she could concentrate on almost nothing else.
“That’s it” Dr. Reeder screamed.
“All all ships still coupled to command?” asked Reeder.
“Yes mam” replied Newman.
“Manually engage the Displacement drives now” commanded Reeder.
Instantly the fleet was light years from their previous position, standing still, but out of danger.
“What happened” asked Inman.
“Warp and Displacement drives were coupled together. When the warp drives went offline, they could not come online without the displacement drive disengaging. They were not engaged, so it put systems in a vicious loop” explained Dr. Reeder.
“Well done Doctor!” Will Inman said with a large grin.
“We will have it all worked out and operational within the next hour or so.”
“Thank you, Dr. Reeder, Dr. Bennett’s crews, are already working on getting the shell generators back to full strength. You have a wedding to get ready for, and I want us at warp with displacement drive capability to take us out of this galaxy and away from the Silirc and the Indo.”
“Aye aye Commander,” Evelyn said with a smile.
Within an hour Dr. Reeder and her team fixed the bug that had cost them so much. Soon the fleet was traveling at warp and with the displacement drive firing every few seconds. Soon the beautiful disk of the Milky Way galaxy would start to take shape, and the fleet would be the first humans to see their home galaxy from above.
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. ~ Socrates
Chapter Eight – Andromeda
E arth seems like a distant memory as the years have passed. One thing that has not passed is the long-held tradition of marriage and children. The Utopian lifestyle enjoyed by everyone in the fleet has encouraged marriage and a vigorous birthrate. Things in the fleet have finally settled down, and Dr. Evelyn Reeder and Commander Will Inman are ready to tie the knot.
Their wedding, however, would be a special event, not only because of their high profile status but because of the pride both the civilian and military crews had in both of them. As a leader, Commander Will Inman enjoys fleetwide respect; he is rugged, disciplined, level-headed, fair and open minded. Dr. Evelyn Reeder was everyone’s favorite geek. She was obviously a genius, but not the unsociable type; she had a heart of gold, constantly trying to help everyone she met. Her beauty was set off by her loving personality and gracious demeanor.
Everyone on board wanted to attend the wedding, so Evelyn and Will televised the ceremony via monitors and comlink visors. The wedding took place on the Connie in the biosphere where Will Inman had first proposed an expedition consisting of part of a space station. Now, many years later and light years away, the fleet has grown to four battle-hardened ships and a rapidly expanding population.
The wedding went just as planned, except a few well-received practical jokes Inman’s mates pulled over on him at his bachelor’s party which, as intended, rolled over into the wedding.
Beautiful bride, handsome groom, a large wedding party and a beautiful ceremony entertained an entire fleet of guests. For the time being, no one paid any attention to the faint yet audible drumming sound the Displacement Drive made when it fired for the first time in two days.
Will and Evelyn took up residence in Will’s quarters on the Titan. Will was not too fond of the idea, he felt she would be safer if they lived on the Connie, but the logistics of command won over. While Will and Evelyn spent a week alone on their honeymoon in one of the recreation areas set aside on the Connie for crew R&R, work crews on the Titan expanded Will’s quarters into a space suitable for their leader and his accomplished bride.
On returning to the Titan to begin their lives together Evelyn and Will were surprised and grateful for the privacy, the additional space provided them, and Evelyn immediately began converting a commander’s workspace into a home.
Room to Grow
Commander Will Inman stepped onto the bridge of the Titan for the first time in over a week. The feeling was exhilarating as he scanned the room for the familiar faces he had grown fond of over the years. Smiles and welcomes greeted him as he took his place in the command and control center surrounded by glass panels filled with data and graphic navigation, weapons and logistics data he controlled by voice or touch.
After his initial scans of the command and control executive dashboard, Inman personally greeted everyone on the bridge with a warm smile and handshake. Inman quizzed the officers at each station as to the operation of the equipment and taking notes on how each one of them might become more effective in emergency situations and efficiencies in how they interfaced with the equipment under their control. Minutes turned into hours as each officer detailed issues and made suggestions as to how things could be improved. As is traditional on any new ship, the theory of operation and practical application of were sometimes miles apart.
Four hours had passed since Commander Inman had come onto the bridge and it was time to get some lunch and get updates from his executive team.
“Executive team, please meet me on the conference deck” Inman requested over his comlink.
The new conference room was located behind the bridge and equipped with dashboard monitors providing its inhabitants with command and control data for the Titan and high-level operational information for the rest of the fleet.
“Terry Stockman, can you please port lunch over to the conference deck on the Titan please” Inman requested.
“Sure” came the reply, “what would you like?”
“How about a tray of veggies, fruit, cheese and crackers and some assorted drinks” replied Inman?
“Will do” replied Terry.
The team caught up on small talk as they teased Will and Evelyn, Will finally brought the group to the business at hand.
“I have a few things on the agenda this afternoon I want to discuss, and I am sure you each have some things to go over. During our time off I had some time to think, Evelyn would not allow me to discuss business, so all I could do was “think” about it” Will said to laughs. “We have been traveling at warp eight and firing the hopping drive every few days.”
“Hopping” queried Bo Stockman.
“The displacement drive kind of hops, right?” he said looking at Dr. Reeder.
“Please don’t call it the Hopper Drive.”
“Hopper
Drive! Perfect name for what it does.”
“It is not hopping, it is more like jumping from one place to another while we are traveling at warp” Dr. Reeder explained.
“Exactly, jumping is hopping, so we have the Reeder Warp and the Reeder Hopper Drives, together we can call them the Reeder Drives” laughed Bo Stockman.
“Settled!” exclaimed Commander Inman as Evelyn rolled her eyes at him.
“Let’s get started, shall we. First off, I got some input on the new bridge; we have some bright people working hard to make sure everything on the Titan and around the fleet is running smoothly. But it seems not all is well with how things operate. They have a lot of suggestions on how to make things more user-friendly. For example, Lester Wilson, our fire control officer would like to be able to pre-select weapon systems into groups and have the system generate the firing solution based upon retina targeting on his visor. Things like his suggestion came from many of the officers on the bridge, and I would like us to engage in the conversations necessary to turn their ideas into requests and get them on a task list so we can prioritize them from implementation” reported Inman.
“We heard some great ideas from them as we were installing and calibrating equipment. They have had a chance to use everything in combat now so I would love to hear what they have learned. We should be the same kind of list from the other ship command centers and add them to the list” replied Bo Stockman.
“Perfect” Inman replied to everyone’s agreement.
“Next item on the agenda” announced Inman, I know we are moving very quickly, but we have been traveling for quite some time, and it does not appear we are going to be leaving the galaxy any time soon. Even at the incredible speeds that the “Reeder Drives” are propelling us; we seem to be standing still.”
“They are not Reeder drives, and it’s not propulsion, it's warping, and jumping” retorted Dr. Reeder.
“Let’s get science and engineering working on speeding up the firing of the Hopper Drive; we need to jump further and more often if we are going to be able to explore more than just the Milky Way.”
“We are dealing with the issue now” explained Reeder, “the issue is power. Even with the physics, the shell generators afford us the power requirements are immense, and we did not have the technology readily available to generate the power we need to fire it more often. It is all we could muster to get it to fire once every two days” replied Reeder.
“You said “did not have” have you overcome the power issue?” Cerro queried.
“We think we are onto something which might change the way we live” replied Bennett. “The weapons systems we recovered from the Silirc are directed-energy weapons; they are just firing energy. The power source ported over to us along with the guns themselves. We have been studying how they work. A very small self-contained power supply is all the guns used for power, and they appear to generate the massive power requirements without any external input, they are self-contained.”
“What does it mean for us?” queried Cerro.
“If we can study one of them and duplicate the technology the possibilities are endless. It would allow us to reduce the body armor packs to the size of a small coin; we could power the Hopper Drive to fire more often, and it could power our ship's systems without the needs for atomic reactors and the danger associated with one of them being damaged by enemy fire” Bennett explained.
“Do we know what makes them tick?” queried Bo.
“They are crystals encapsulated within a shell. Somehow the shell is concentrating and directing photon energy to a core of some kind, the core outputs the energy in a usable form and the energy it outputs is also controlled somehow by the core. Inputs to the core are simple optical fiber filaments similar to what we are using in the development of the sensor arrays. We do not know how or why any of it works” explained Bennett.
“You said if we could study one, why can’t you study one of them?” Inman asked.
“They are invaluable to the shuttle defense systems if we take one apart and cannot get it to work the costs to us would be immeasurable” responded Bennett, “we’ve already lost one in the destruction of the shuttle in the last battle.”
“How much faster could we travel with more power” queried Inman?
“We believe we can get the warp drives to operate smoother and at higher warp, but the real advantage comes if we can get the Hopper Drives to fire many times a second instead of once every few days” replied Reeder.
“I think it is worth the risk considering the cost of not doing it” responded Inman. “Anyone have heartburn with giving one of the units to Bennett’s team to disassemble and reverse engineer?”
The executive team cautiously agreed with the plan after a few more minutes of discussion.
“You brought up the sensor array, what is the status of the sensors, we are flying in the blind, and it would be nice to know what is both ahead of us and more importantly, who and what is at our destination. We also need to know more about other ships as they engage us, friend or foe” queried Inman.
“We are making progress, but we have to work out a few problems. We can already process the data from the fiber optic arrays very rapidly. Our problem has to do with location; we have no way of getting sensor data for objects more than a couple of hundred miles. We have been working with Bennett’s team, and we have some promising concepts, but they need some breakthroughs before it works for us. In the mean time, we have integrated what we have into the fleets systems. The new sensors can give you tactical data on anything within two hundred miles” reported Cerro.
“Ok, next item on the agenda” continued Inman, “we have calculated the housing, educational, recreational and food requirements for our existing population and we are getting tight on all fronts. It is time to start thinking about how we will support our growth and what it means tactically and logistically. The bottom line is we are a growing family, and we have to support our growth on a consistent basis, we know what our resource requirements are on an annual basis, so we need to start now if we are going to support our growth” reported Inman.
“If you have some specs on what we are going to need, I can put together the logistics required to make it happen. I think we need to start by adding some tug ships to the fleet. We also need to find asteroids with the right metal content to put in tow so we can build the tugs and the other ships we will need as time goes on” replied Bo.
“The population growth is much more rapid than it is on earth because no one is dying, at least not from natural causes. We have very large families with Great Grandparents living in the fleet now. So I think the first order of business is to come alongside the next group of asteroids we encounter, mine them and start building the six UB’s our projections say we are going to need” countered Inman.
“Six! Wow, you are expecting a population explosion” Aaron Logan exclaimed.
“They are not all required to be as large as UB because not all the ships we build have to be as large as the Titan or the Connie. We can also build ships designed to connect to one another, port to starboard, like Siamese twins” Inman explained. “Each of the UB’s will operate full time from now on; projections will show you how often you will have to add UB’s to the fleet as well as how many civilian and military ships to build per year.”
“I have an agenda item to discuss, and it is a little delicate” announced Bo Stockman. “There have been some rumors floating around of some discontent; some believe we are becoming more and more militarized. They feel directives aimed at making us more secure as a fleet are coming across as commands from an officer to his men instead of more of a democratic political system.”
“Why not put a political system in place” Aaron Logan offered. “We could pattern our system of government to be similar to what we had back home.”
“I don’t think we can have a military reporting to a civilian government; it opens up too many opportunities for playing politics with the safety of t
he fleet. I would be for a system whereby civilians run civilian operations, and military runs military operations. For issues needing resolution between the two, we can manage those types of things with a charter which sets expectations for our mission, or civil government and our military governance” replied Commander Inman.
“I like it as a starting place” responded Bo, “We should make a formal announcement as soon as we get some of the details ironed out.”
“Bo, you and I can take the lead in putting those details together for approval by this team” responded Inman.
Within six months Bo Stockman and Commander Will Inman had drawn up, and the executive team had approved a charter for the fleet. The charter called for elections of a civilian government and a vote of confidence by the civilian government for military leadership. One of the more controversial issues in the Charter was the requirement for everyone to serve in the military for at least four years. At age seventeen every student had to opt for college or the military. After college, they were required to serve six years as officers.
Within three years the new government headed by newly elected Bo Stockman was in place, and things were moving along with the expansion of the fleet, now with a complement of six more UB’s designated UB1 through UB7 with UB1 being the new designation for the UB flagship.
Each UB has a crew of both civilian and military personnel. Military personnel being responsible for oversight of military armament and security issues aboard both the UB and the ships being built by the UB fleet.
Life
Every ship in the fleet had clinics capable of handling births, and broken bones and the fleet’s newly christened hospital ship was equipped to handle major injuries and medical needs.
Mr. and Mrs. Will Inman chose the brand new hospital to deliver their second child in as many years. Their first was a little girl they named Tricia, a blue eyed, dark haired little fireball which kept Evelyn, Will and their live-in nanny running. Tricia was slight framed like her mother, and Will believed she was the smartest girl in the universe at twelve months.
Battle Group Titan: Beyond Warp ((Battle Group Titan Series Vol 1)) Page 10