Trampship Wars 2

by L. D. Roberts

  Jack remembering the Admiral flicking the switch when he climbed into the Jeep but had not given it a thought, and could only shake his head. What was with the damn English insisting that he fly everything he crawled into without the damn auto assist pilots?

  Walking into the front of the warehouse , Mark was expecting a small dingy show room with shelves of everything a soldier or sailor could ever wear or use for living and housekeeping aboard ship and in the field. With the rest of the warehouse devoted to Billions of copies of the same shit. What most Army surplus stores contained. Anything but weapons and the neat equipment.

  But to his surprise , the first thing he saw as he walked up to the balcony rail running across the front end overlooking the miles long cavern before him was a l ot ine s of different combat grav- vehicles lined up in rows from the right side wall of the warehouse floor out to the center isle a good 4 stories below him. Turning to his left were lines of copies of big ass ship weapons turrets in rows from the outer wall again running out to the main center aisle. The long center aisle stretching out before him contained displays running down each side with copies of each weapon system or vehicle running back behind the display first to the outer wall. Racks of personal weapons filling up the end of the building from wall to wall just below him. Farther back along the center isle of the building he could see combat armor and space suits hanging in displays in front of the rows of containers lined up from the both sides of the building to the wide center display isle. The center isle looked like it ran the full length of the building with the end a couple a good mile s away according to the readout on his glasses.

  Then looking back toward the center of the warehouse even farther back yet were tents and other structures with the hundreds of racks and shelves of clothing he had expected to be filling the entire warehouse lined up in front of more rows of stacked shipping containers.

  What Surprised Jack the most was in the distance over a mile in a half away only Mickey’s sensors could see beyond the stacks of containers . Older F f ighters and bombers were parked across the floor in rows and then shuttles and even several small ships he took for granted were mockups as he zoomed in with Mickey's help to see that they were actually real ships sitting on their belly landing gear with engines at the sterns. The one on the left side looked like a Destroyer Escort. It’s narrow 2 30 5 foot square and 300 foot long fuselage facing down the warehouse looking like a 4 by 4 pole sitting on landing gear with bi- fin wings in the back looking like deployed X-wing fighter wings. The 3 inch guns at the end of short tower e s on each side just ahead of the engine cooling fins s was no surprise. While the torpedo racks ahead of the guns and missile racks ahead of them along the hull complete with blue dummy missiles and torpedoes made the little short ranged ship look deadly. The pair of 3 inch turrets just ahead of the missiles had a good field of fire with several point defense turrets s cattered along the little Destroyer Escort’s hull. Some kind of long long barreled 3inch rail gun protruded from the chin of the bow making Mark wonder why it was there as it was so old school . The large square tube of coils with the small hole in the end looked damn pitiful though he knew that it was a good point defense gun that he suddenly wished they had on the Star Queen but knew supplying it with ammunition was impossible where they were going not to mention expensive. Something the Queen’s laser guns did not have to worry about even if they were not quite as effective at longer ranges .

  A corvette next to the destroyer escort was somewhat longer with a fuselage that was over 60 feet wide tapering toward the outside streamlined knife edges but still only 25 only 3 0 feet tall or thick hull tall . The bigger fuselage containing weapons bays was for longer ranged operations, with the missile racks buried inside the hull and with the 5in ch guns instead of 3 inch guns hanging forward on the hull shoulders of the tapered nose. Though that range took the place of speed.

  On the right side of the back warehouse was some kind of 3 50 0 0 ft long 80ft wide and 50ft high shallow quarter moon, round corners on the top hulled cargo vessel laid on its flat belly, its tail loading hatch wide open towered them with a pair of stabilizing (operations in an atmosphere) cooling fins sticking out of each side, top and bottom from small drive engines on each side of the rear hull loading hatch. The hold inside looked like it stretched the full length of the ship or boat as fare as he could see. He could not be sure if it was a boat but he could not believe the small engines were powerful enough for warp speed, but why who would the navy need such a large boat fore just system transports. Most militaries that he knew about let civilian boats take care of transporting supplies intra- system .

  Shaking his head half in shock. Mark forgot all about grabbing a set of coveralls for Tom and getting the hell out of there.

  The Admiral handed Mark a tablet and waved his hand out across the warehouse. “Take a walk. The tablet will tell you about whatever you point it at and if you want something just tap in the number you want to add to the list of what you think you can use in the Outback and we will see what we can do when you finish.”

  Mark starred at the tablet for a second then turning to gaze out across the warehouse again with his eyes still wide open, kept trying to look at everything in the warehouse at once as he asked the Admiral a question. “I hear that a lot of the transport infrastructure across the Outback planets have broken down. How likely are we to get shot at as we make deliveries and pickups away from the ship on these planets in the Outback?” The resent event at the car dealership fresh in his mind.

  “What? Oh, yes. I noticed the fresh holes and scorch marks on what is left of the truck. We are listing your accident as a shoot down and tracing your rout back to see were the shots came from. We found resent bullet and laser holes in the hull and fragments from the blades of the first fan that disintegrated and started it all. Which would not have been that bad except that all the shield shrouds on the fans had been taken off to save weight evidentially. That allowed the disintegrating fans to take out the fans next to them in a cascade failure. Only on a Tramp ship would you get away with that. But yes, as much as you have been shot at on this supposedly civilized planet, I can guaranty that you will definitely get shot at out there in the outback once you leave English State space. Dying, starving lawless planets can get pretty desperate. That is why the cargo pays so well.”

  “That is what I thought. I want a dozen of those grave coil APCC’s. The big long ones with gun turrets.” Mark pointed at the APCC’s off to the side a thousand feet down the wa rehouse as he And handed back the tablet with one hand as he pointed with the other. “Oh they do have Fusion cores instead of plasma bottles for power like the medical ones at the ship last night don’t they? ” Mark had been shocked the night before while loo king for traces of bodies in the hold, Mickey’s sensors showed Mark the pair of little single core fusion generators powering the big APCC;s. He had never seen such small cores before. “ But you will have to make my Captain give up the fan trucks we have now to make room for them and just in case you don’t have a clue how. I will even give you a dozen guesses and the first eleven don’t count. The missing fan shrouds is a good hint.”

  “That didn’t take long. I will see what I can do but go ahead and take a walk anyway . J j ust to see what else you come up with." And handed the tablet back to Mark. “We have decided to let you keep your new bomber squadron but they are very limited in what they can protect you from on a planet’s surf ace and can leave your ship unprotected in space if they are away on patrol or chasing another ship off . Also And if they get damaged or shoot there wad, the survivors will really be pissed. Don’t count too heavily on them being there for the long term. You are only going to have the torpedoes you can safely store in your ship. More Besides, m ore than one carrier has been lost when its wings have simply been away on missions, ran out of the right ordinance or even been destroyed leaving the carrier o n its own .”

  Mark looked at the Admiral with a frown as he swallowed before opening his mouth to speak.
“You still have not told me how much the bounty is Admiral. How many of the APCC’s will it buy?” Thinking for a second he smiled. "Or counting my truck as a shoot down you will replace it for free and maybe expand that into a section and then a squadron of 12 like the fighter?"

  The Admiral frowned then smiled as he shook his head. “You do know how to push things don't you. Don’t worry son, you saved this planet bullions and we have a hell of a lot of war surplus that was going to be sold as scrap since we can’t export it to the Empire Core worlds , so don’t worry about the costs too much for now.”

  The part about not being able to export to the Empire Core worlds made no sense to mark so he concentrated on what did. “Ok… War surpluses haaammm. Good then I will take that Assault transport I saw being decommissioned in orbit when we orbited in. Then we can split the ship and not have to worry about going into the outback in the first place.” Handing the tablet back to the Admiral.

  The Admiral froze for a good minute as they stood there in silence . The Admiral staring a t Mark as Mark continued to look around the warehouse and all the toys. Finally t each other and then the the Admiral looked away from Mark and leaned down on the rail overlooking the warehouse. “I should have seen that one coming a mile away.” Pinching the bridge of his nose for several seconds the Admiral turned to Mark. “I don’t know how to explain this to you Mark without giving you a lot of state secrets you should not have but the reason we are so interested in helping you is because you are going into the outback. If you don’t go, then we have no reason to help you any more than any other tramp ship. ”

  Glancing at Mark and seeing the disbelief he expected but was hoping not, the Admiral sighed before continuing . “ You see Mark; England’s State or now we are a small E e mpire State with the addition of the Russion Russian State, is dying as thousands of planetary States across the outback have died over the last few hundred years , maybe long er. before across the outback . The Outback is slowly growing as the old Imperial ships are pulled back toward the core worlds as they grow fewer and weaker with age as the pirate activity increases. Fact is the pirates have been strangling the civilized planets for hundreds of years and England is next A hundred years ago the outback was a thousand light years away and just a story on the evening news and maybe a documentary once in a while . We were trading with planets half way toward the outback with thousands of ships going through the void and the 5 crossings e very week . Now we get a couple hundred . W ith the French crossing arm and us the only ones left. That is until last week when Pirates decided to attack and rape the French capital system destroying the French fleet once and for all , opening the entire state and the crossing arm to them. Something we are trying to stop now . ” Handing the tablet back to Mark. “We need your ship’s help to stem the tide. And to do that you have to go out into the Outback like you have already planned.”

  “The fact that I have already helped you a lot and saved you billions, quoting you, does not count? “ Mark said disgustedly. “It is what you think I can do for you in the outback in the future is the only reason I am standing here now? Why we got the fighter and missiles in orbit and then the torpedo bombers fighters and all the medical equipment to save Dian’s life?”

  “Yes and no Mark. You getting the replacement fighter at the station when your first fighter was taken from you as a piece of junk and then replace d by a full military fighter complete with weapons was a mistake but everything since including the hospital to save your copilots life is. Sounds cold but it is the facts of reality. Not that we would not have helped Dian but it would have been at one of our hospitals and the bounty would have been a check given to you in front of the Capital building for the media that just may have covered your landing fees.” Handing the tablet back to Mark.

  Mark just stood there for a good couple of minutes staring down the length of the warehouse before turning back to the Admiral. “Ok the Empire is dying. What the hell am I, a little piss-ant Lt. Commander that my Captain is trying to drum back to being an ensign, supposed to do to save your planet? No! Your little Empire.” Mark said sarcastically. "Kill all the pirates in the outback?" Handing the tablet back. "I don't think so."

  “Yes. Exactly Mark.” The look of incredulity from Mark made the Admiral smile as he tried to hide his surprise at Mark ’ s quick understanding of the situation. “Since we found out the Galactic Empire’s Battle Cruiser was going to leave the sector 20 years ago, we have been sending ships into the outback in an effort to stave off the decline that has cost most of the thousands of planets now in the outer Empire and the majority of their populations to fall to pirates shortly after the Emperieal Imperial Battlships Battleships leave their States, reducing them to isolated backwater holes now in the Outback. Tens of billions of dead on each industrialized planet. First to famine as the supply ships stop coming and then to global planetary war across each system as they fight for the resources that are left.”

  The Admiral took a deep breath and sighed as he looked down shaking his head sadly. “This war we fought was the mi staken result of the effort to secure our own supply lines before the Imperial ship left. The industrial Star State only 30 light years away in the outer section of the arm, did not like us carving out protected trade routes to the systems we depend on for food, raw materials and even customers for our goods in the Outback side beyond the crossing beyond them as ships started being lost even before the Imperial Battleship left the sector. The Russians called it unfair trade and where afraid we would stop them from trading on those planets. Which is pretty much what they were already trying to do to us using privateers and warrants of seizer we thought. Though now that we have defeated the Russians, it turns out now that most of our transport ships were taken by pirates and not the Russians. The Russians having the same problem and blaming us. ” The Admiral chuckled sickly. “ Captain Summers thinks the pirates deliberately started the war between the Ru ssians and us. To wear us down before taking us on directly. ”

  Shaking his head as he looked down at the floor below the rail he was leaning on. “ The war pretty much bankrupted both States which probably was the pirate’s intentions. T and t he probability of more wars if we try to use only our military to protect the trade we depend on for survival even if it worked , is to grate a risk and too expensive for one Stat e using the technology we now have that is still thousand s of years behind the Imperial Battleship that was recalled to the Empire ’ s core worlds.” .

  Looking over at Mark. “The Captain you met last night says that every System State that tried using vast military fleets to guard their trade routes failed. No matter how many ships you have, how big your fleets, you can’t be everywhere all the time. If you have enough small ships to be in the right place at the right time even a good part of the time, you do not have big enough ships to defend themselves and the transports they are escorting most of the time. The Pirates simply start ganging up to overwhelm any escorts in random attacks until the escorts to protect all the trade rout e s are practically battleships cost ing more than the trade is worth and then the State goes bankrupt.”

  Taking a deep breath he turned his vacant gaze down the warehouse to Mark. “We have tried sending s hips quadrons in to negotiate treaties with the States but they refuse to cooperate unless we turn over total control of our ships and crews to them. We have tried that rout with the French turning over our ships to them only for them to lose most if not all of them over the last few munths.” Shaking his head in disgust. “ Then after the St ates have already broken down after they have lost planet after planet and the remaining planets go their own way leaving a State that has gone bankrupt . We have sent ships in to talk with the new governments on the decimated planets before they were decimated and again after they lost half their populations and which have all failed to secure any kind o f payments to support the fleet or get help from them other than a few poorly run and we e kly armed ships . Then we s . S ent transports in convoys only to have the ships fall pre
y to corrupt petty governments that have survived on the planets or pirates that hunt the trade lines once the transports y split off to go to their individual planets. There are simply too many Even then we could planets to never convoy all the transports going to all the systems planets that need escorts without a fleet larger than what we used to defeat the Russians . Escorting just a few at a time which is all we could afford turned out to be just a big waste of time as all the pirates do is take out the many unescorted transports ignoring the escorted transports . ”

  The Admiral shook his head as he gazed into the distance. “ Worse yet are the Pirates is that we have recently found out that the Pirates are better organized than most States planets and managed to mass enough ships to ambush whole squadron escorted convoys going to single planets in the deep Outback . A convoy with with so many rich transports that make convoys worth escorting , also mak e ing the cost to the pirates worth the losses. Losses by the way we could never sustain so I don’t know how the damn pirates manage to keep coming . ” Which point s to the pirates being something more than just pirates which was why the Supreme Admiral was suddenly interested in sending a ship a thousand light years deep in to the Outback. But the Admiral was not about to tell Mark that.

  Taking a breath the Admiral continued. “ The small crewed Company ships that have been armed and trained have done well only going to planets that still have defense forces that keep most pirates away but eventually even they succumb to the growing Outback as planets become more desperate or they run into several pirates at once as the system’s defense for ces are lured away by one of their small fast scout or currier ships . Then as the planet continues to deteriorate. One small crewed cargo ship, even though well-armed can do little against a petty-ante dictator or mobs of desperate people on the ground or stand a chance against several pirate ships that eventually group together to take successful ships. Enough successful ships are eventually taken to sky rocket insurance rates and then the cost of shipping becomes prohibitive to th at system . Cargo and more importantly food, stops being delivered and the planets start dying. It has already happened to ou r r most long ranged trading planets in the outback only a hundred light years away. Planets your ship will readily volunteer be expected to go to , simply because the cargo rates are so high.”