by Chris Hechtl
He cleared his throat and glanced at the sentry. The sentry at the door heard the sound and looked over his shoulder. The meaningful look made the sentry stand up straight and check his uniform subtly. The warning wasn't lost on the others in the compartment. Everyone started to look more alive and animated as they dived into their work.
“The admiral is going to want us to do something with the new ships,” Berney said as he went over to Myron's station. Myron looked up and over his shoulder at him. “The small fry is useless in fleet battle, so I think we should leave them in the inner star system to defend it against another raid. We can slot the other ships into the holes in the other cruiser squadrons.”
“I think that works, sir,” Myron replied with a nod. “I've got a tactical SIM going on with Executioner's tactical department and CIC. We've got a match scheduled with Belenus this afternoon. I was going to go over the records of the ships that just came in again during lunch before we had a briefing.”
Berney nodded as he noted the sentry stiffen and a familiar shape fill the hatch.
“Admiral on deck,” the sentry intoned. Cyrano waved a hand as heads turned his way. “As you were. Did I catch that last part right, Berney?” he asked as he came over to them. Sedrick and Jeremy followed.
“I did a quick scan of the new arrivals, sir. Gather Fleet ships,” Berney said. Myron grimaced. “We can't help that. They've had some of the rust blown off in Garth, but I don't know how well they are going to perform until we start running them through our own exercise regime and get them dialed in.”
What he carefully left unsaid was that they couldn't trust any of the exercise reports that came with the history of the ships and officers. Too many could be cooked in one way or another. They had learned the hard way that they needed honest assessments of the skills of the crews and the abilities of the ships.
“Good,” the admiral rumbled. “And the small fry?”
“I was thinking we release them to Captain Abernly to defend the inner star system. They don't have the legs to go to Dd01ns and scout or raid. And they aren't of much use in a fleet defense role.”
“Except as targets and missile magnets,” Myron muttered.
All eyes turned to him. He shrugged their eyes off irritably. “I've never been a fan of the small ships, sir. You know that.”
“Agreed. I think you are right,” the admiral said, turning with a nod to his chief of staff. “Release them to Captain Abernly. That will make him happy, and it will give us an inner line of defense. As far as the new cruisers, I think we should keep them together since they are familiar with each other. But we need to fill in the voids in our other cruiser squadrons.”
“Yes, sir. There is going to be some friction from the captains—rank and time in grade,” Berney warned. “I've gotten several emails from Captain Ozman in Garth. She's warned me that these officers are prickly about such things.”
“Ah, well, we'll set them straight,” the admiral growled.
~~~^~~~
Cyrano nodded once he left the flag bridge. As expected Berney and the staff were on top of the situation. He was a little disappointed that Sedrick didn't contribute anything in their discussion about the new ships or their crews. As the staff spook, he should be on top of such things. Apparently, the other man hadn't finished reading and wasn't ready to commit to anything or he didn't want to get himself into trouble. Either way he'd have to form his own opinions.
He knew Myron was on edge. The last battle had been almost a disaster if not for the timely arrival of Scott and Wong. He shook his head. He couldn't count on too many last-minute saves; the galaxy was perverse and didn't quite work that way.
He was tempted to send another cruiser squadron into Dd01ns to back up the first and push things a bit more. But, he held off. One, he didn't know what was going on there yet, and two, he didn't want to send the ships off to be torn apart by the enemy in penny packets. He needed to keep his fire power consolidated for the moment.
The odds of getting more forces from Horath felt remote. Just seeing Scott's force there was a surprise. He knew that Malwin and Theo had pulled a fast one on the emperor and others to get them to him. He was bleakly aware that the shit would hit the fan once word of what had happened to the reinforcements got home. He couldn't help that however; it was out of his control.
He knew he was living on borrowed time. The emperor, hell, his own family might want him eliminated. But, as tempting as it was to chase after Second Fleet for the win he craved and desperately needed to stay alive, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't risk what they were holding to save his own neck.
No, he had to trust in Malwin, Theo, and even Catherine to watch his back in the court while he tried to beat the Federation back and keep them at bay.
It was only when he thought that did he realize he no longer considered the Empire in a winning situation. That made him pause for a moment and reach out to steady himself against a bulkhead. A concerned sailor came over to him, but he shook his head and then just breathed as the troubled young woman walked off.
Damn. And his feelings and loss of control would impact morale he thought angrily. Get it together, Cyrano; for their sakes at least he thought as he dropped his hand and clenched his fists for a moment. Finally, he returned to making his rounds.
~~~^~~~
Captain Abernly felt something akin to relief when he got the email from the admiral's staff informing him that the two Apollo class corvettes and the single Manta class frigate were being assigned to his command. Given that they were small ships, he could easily read between the lines. The admiral didn't think they were worthy of being in the fleet and could therefore remain behind to protect the inner star system.
Well, he wasn't going to complain. They could protect what was left of his yard and industrial centers just fine. He'd take them and any more that the admiral deigned to send his way in the future. The more the merrier. He was aware that all three ship's companies would be vulnerable to poaching, but that was fine too. He'd find a way to refill their ranks.
~~~^~~~
Commander Conrad Giacometti was a bit disappointed at the new arrivals. Sure, they had cruisers with them, but they were from the Gather Fleet. He did a quick look at their onboard craft and then brushed them off as unworthy.
He was constantly working on restructuring the wing and training them up to his exacting standards. It wasn't easy he knew, but it had to be done. He'd reworked the wing to fall back on a traditional design with fighters, support craft, and a small bomber wing. Their focus was on interception, that came straight from the admirals.
Skull Squadron had always been light on support craft, having only four squadrons of eight craft instead of the usual eight in a standard fleet carrier. The other slots had been used for more Eliminator fighters.
He understood it, but it didn't mean he had to like it. For the time being though, their mission was to blunt the attack of the enemy's fighters and bombers. They could worry about long-range strikes later. The carriers’ job was to hold the enemy back, absorb their attacking fighters and bombers, tear them apart, and let the battle line do the offensive work. Once they had torn the enemy fighters up, they would be free to reorganize and go on the offense.
That was the plan at any rate. He wasn't certain anymore if it was possible.
That thought bothered him but not as badly as some thought. They had enough ordinance for one, maybe two good bomber strikes, not enough to do much of a job. He also knew that they'd lose a lot in the process.
No, it sucked but he'd have to focus on getting his revenge on the enemy fighters. Tear them apart, show them who is the better unit, redeem Skull Squadrons honors and then go from there.
To date he was fighting with Nimitz to get the best ships and pilots. But recently, Admiral Wong and Admiral De Gaulte had weighed in. They wanted the wings to be as homogeneous as possible to simplify logistics, and he could understand and even sympathize with that sentiment. It was on
e of the reasons Skull Squadron had been made up of only three of the classes of E fighters.
Well, now he had Stellar Space Eagles, Raptors, and even some Piranha in the wing. The Raptors and Piranha were little better than targets in his eyes. They were the majority of his fighter wing unfortunately. He had eight squadrons of them. They would serve as interceptors, recon, and patrol craft for the time being.
He had two scratch-built squadrons of Stellar Space Eagles, another venerable fighter design. He'd picked up two of the fighters and their pilots from a trade with Nimitz. They were serving as his squadron commanders, though he was well aware that they weren't suited for the role. He would gladly trade the home-built Raptors for another squadron, but that wasn't going to happen.
Much to his chagrin he had been forced to put the surviving forty-seven Emperor and Executor class fighters into the four bomber squadrons. That left the 139 Eliminators to fill twelve squadrons as his heavy fighters.
It was an impressive number on paper. He only saw the cracks and fissures in the unit. They were even more apparent in the wings in the other carriers.
Nimitz had lost over 90 percent of her craft, having only held onto the majority of her support craft. Her fighter squadrons were made up of Stellar Eagles, Raptors, Piranha and a few odds and ends craft. Up until a week ago, they'd even had emergency fighters still onboard. At least they'd finally swapped them out for Raptors that had been built on Dead Drop and Garth. The emergency fighters had gone to the escort carriers or to the cruisers that didn't have any fighters onboard.
Thank the spirits of space for small favors he thought tiredly as he rubbed his brow. He winced when he felt the knot on the side of his head. He'd hit his helmet on the cockpit support so hard it had cracked the helmet, given him a concussion and whiplash. That and he had some burns from the fire he'd had to put out. He flat-out refused another dunk in the regen tank and was keeping mum about the headaches and blurry vision.
If the Empire could come up with fresh fighters, proper fighters, they could put every emergency fighter pilot in them. He hadn't been impressed initially with them. Many were barnstorming kids from Dead Drop with zip for indoctrination or military discipline, but they'd survived this far. That said something about them. They'd also seen their fellows die in droves during the last battle, yet they still put the fighter on when they went out. And he did mean put the fighter on; even the best of them was little more than a minimum truss frame, RCS, engine, avionics, canned life support, and such. A few of the pilots had tried to add panels to flesh out their fighters but at the cost of what speed the craft had available.
He was grateful that Garth and Dead Drop were finally up to speed with producing Raptors. Now, if they could produce Stellar Eagles or better craft he'd feel better off. He snorted at his train of thought. Better to ask for another carrier and an infinite supply of fighters and ordinance, Conrad, he thought as he tried to refocus on the paperwork in front of him.
~~~^~~~
Myron was settled in, watching the latest tactical exercise play out as he stood the evening watch on the flag bridge when a perimeter alert came through. He frowned and glanced at it. It didn't sit in right off though, not until a staff member started to inquire with CIC about further information.
Only then did he do a double take, shaking his mind out of the exercise to realize it wasn't at the Garth jump point but somewhere else. He frowned as CIC painted the icon on the plot. Their projection was tentative given the extreme range from the DD01ns jump point.
He scowled. “Damn it,” he muttered. He was well aware that the admiral had taken a bit of downtime to unwind. It was also past midnight he noted, glancing at the chrono.
“Always fracking things up,” he muttered as he put a call in.
“Admiral De Gaulte's quarters, Pennington speaking,” a voice answered almost instantly.
“Pennington, this is Myron. We've got ourselves something of a situation.”
“I hope it is important, sir; the admiral went down two hours ago. He was pretty shagged.”
“What did you do to him, turn him into a pretzel?”
“Something like that, sir,” the steward replied. He was an expert masseuse among other things.
“Well, you better wake him. This is important.”
“Yes, sir,” the steward sighed.
Myron waited as the steward put him on hold. He knew all stewards guarded their charge's private time jealously and ferociously. Technically, he didn't need to wake the admiral yet, but he'd regret it if he didn't follow protocol. As he waited he tapped out a text to Berney and the rest of the flag staff alerting them.
Also, while he waited he kept an eye on the CIC plot repeater. As information began to pour in from the picket, they narrowed down what they were seeing. Or, he should say not seeing since the ship had not given off an IFF and had gone into stealth. That meant it wasn't one of theirs. Based on the size of the energy pulse from its entry, it was small. He could easily guess what it was.
It was something of a relief to know that it was not the entire enemy fleet. But he knew that relief would be short lived. Eventually, the enemy would come.
“Yes, Myron?” a familiar voice growled. He turned in time to see the admiral's wallpaper disappear and the admiral's image replace it. The admiral was in a shaggy robe but looked sleepy. “What is going on?”
“Sorry to wake you, Admiral. We have an intruder; it looks like a prowler at the DD01ns jump point. She's gone into stealth. Last known heading puts her on the external of the star system headed in the general direction of the Garth jump point.”
“You already put the word out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Go to shell game. Put everything we've got into stealth. Is there a ship headed to Garth?”
“No, sir.”
“Damn. Well, the next ship headed there will need a dump of our logs plus a warning of the intruder.”
“You think they'll scout Garth as well, sir?”
“I don't know yet. I think they want to keep us guessing so we have to allow for that contingency.”
“Any concerns of Second Fleet coming back, sir? Could they pop out and bring their fleet in on a different course?”
“It's possible though I doubt it. You don't fight when your forces are evenly matched. Not if you can help it.”
“Understood sir.”
“So, I'll be …,” the admiral stopped at the sound of a throat clearing and then tapping. Myron frowned until he realized the tapping was from someone tapping a foot or hand on something. Neat trick given the admiral's quarters had carpet.
The admiral stared at something or someone off camera for a long moment and then shrugged before returning his attention to Myron. “As I was saying, given that there is no urgency, I'll be headed back to bed, and I'll be there at my usual time. If that's okay with you?” he asked, turning to the steward.
“Perfectly, sir,” the steward said smoothly.
Myron smiled at the byplay. “I think we can hold the fort for the moment, sir. Good night.”
“Good night,” the admiral drawled as he cut the channel.
~~~^~~~
Cyrano did indeed go back to bed, but he tossed and turned, unable to get the report out of his mind. The prowler said bad things about the situation. From inference he could deduce that Second Fleet hadn't gone far, only to DD01ns or one of the subsystems in the B-97 cluster. Most likely Dd01ns given his luck.
It also meant that White wasn't feeling defensive minded. Was the prowler a check on him to see if he was defensive as well? Or was it a bluff to make him think that Second Fleet could come over the hyperwall at any moment?
It didn't bode well for the cruiser squadron's chances either. Most likely they'd come back with their tails between their legs or be lost totally.
Either way he was certain it wasn't going to be easy to get back to sleep. Which was a pity, he'd finally felt relaxed for the first time in months.
Chapt
er 17
Garth:
Duchess Tuckett was more than a little put out that there had yet to be any sign of relief from Dead Drop or Garth. Surely someone had taken notice, right? She frowned, brow knitting in concern.
Agnes had assured her that the help would arrive. But it was a matter of timing; she had no idea when. That bothered her. Minutes mattered. Just look what had almost happened in Dead Drop! Surely Cyrano understood the urgency! If he didn't, he was a damn fool! If Garth fell, his rear would be cut off, and he'd be torn to shreds!
All the threats in the universe couldn't move the man though it seemed. She wanted to scream, rip her hair apart, tear someone limb from limb, but she couldn't. She had to keep up appearances.
She had firmly stopped all ships going to Dead Drop. Her needs took primacy now. That meant the recently-arrived Rear Admiral Einezberg was her new star system commander.
She frowned and then pulled up what little she had on the woman in her files.
~~~^~~~
Captain Ozman grinned tiredly as she read the copies of message traffic from the carriers to the carrier fortresses. The two carrier fortress wings wanted to exercise against fresh meat, but apparently, Admiral Einezberg wasn't interested in it. Pity.
The best part about Rear Admiral Einezberg's arrival in the CV Admiral Hanna was it settled the chain of command. The flag officer had assumed command of the ships in the star system under the Duchess's direction. She felt relief that she didn't have to try to herd the clusterfuck and could focus on other things. Specifically, the yard and various construction projects ongoing across the star system.
They'll just have to wait until the CEVs her people were buttoning back up launched in a week, she thought, mind returning to the fighter request. The CEV wings would need practice as they broke in their ship and fighters anyway, the captain reflected.