Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2)

by Dietmar Wehr

  Romanov reminded himself to stay calm. He and Trojan had discussed how to respond to this kind of reaction. “May I point out, Admiral and General, that the seven ships I’ve brought back with me can be made combat-worthy relatively quickly compared with building new ships from scratch. Those repaired ships can be tasked with defending Earth—“

  “NO!” said Masterson in a loud voice. “I’m not taking the risk of leaving my troops vulnerable for months until those ships are repaired. This isn’t a Goddamned negotiation for Christsake! Trojan may have three stars on his shoulders, but I still have four, and he’s not getting that task force! He’ll just have to take the risk that Makassar will get hit again until we send some of those repaired ships back to him.”

  Romanov shifted his gaze from Masterson to Chenko. “Well, the disposition of those repaired ships will be determined by me, but with regards to Stevens’ Task Force, I’m in complete agreement with General Masterson. Those ships stay here. Are we clear on that Commodore?”

  “Crystal clear, Admiral.” Romanov’s heart was racing, but he concentrated on keeping his expression from giving away his inner turmoil. There was far too much at stake to let these two men jeopardize the whole Plan. Trojan’s orders were quite clear. Those four ships were to come back to the Franklin system no matter what. Unfortunately, the Old Man’s pigheadedness meant that Romanov wouldn’t be able to enjoy very much R&R.

  Seven days later, a surprised Lieutenant scrabbled to greet Romanov as he stepped off the shuttle in the hangar bay of the task force’s flagship.

  “We weren’t told you were coming, Sir.”

  Romanov smiled and waved the excuse away. “A surprise inspection, Lieutenant. Where is Commodore Stevens?”

  “I believe Commodore Stevens is in his cabin, Sir. I’ll call him for you.”

  “No, I do not want him to know that I’m here just yet, but you can call the CO and tell him that I’d like to meet with him on the Bridge,” said Romanov in a calm, friendly voice.

  “Yessir. If you wait one minute while I call the CO, I can escort you to the Bridge, Sir.”

  Romanov shook his head. “No need. I know the way. After you notify the CO, I want you to go to the Commodore’s quarters and stand outside his entrance. Do not let anyone enter his quarters until you hear from me, understood?”

  “Understood, Sir.”

  Romanov nodded his approval and walked quickly to the exit that led to the Bridge. As it happened, both he and the ship’s CO arrived at the Bridge at about the same time. Romanov quickly informed the CO what he wanted done. Seconds later, he was in direct visual contact with the Commanding Officers of the other three ships in the Task Force. He was in luck. None of the four ships had more than one or two crewmen on the ground, and none of those handled critical duties. With Headquarters now in the middle of the night on the planet, it was the perfect time to put his plan into effect. All four ship COs had already been briefed on Trojan’s ultimate plans and were willing to help achieve those plans. Romanov gave the signal, and the Task Force began to accelerate at maximum for the hyper-zone boundary.

  It was two hours later when Chenko woke to the sound of an incoming call. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was clearly still dark outside, and that meant this was not a routine call. Something was happening.

  “Chenko here. What’s the emergency?” The voice on the other end sounded nervous.

  “Sorry to wake you, Admiral. I’m the Duty Officer at Aerospace Traffic Control. Something peculiar is going on. Task Force Stevens is accelerating at high speed for what appears to be a least time trajectory for the zone boundary. No departure plan was filed with us. Responses to our attempts at contact have been limited to text messages only, ostensibly from Commodore Stevens. He claims that he’s acting under your orders, but he refuses to confirm that with audio or visual communications.”

  Chenko was now wide awake. “I did not give Commodore Stevens or anyone else orders or permission to leave orbit. You signal those ships to return to low orbit immediately. I’ll stay on the line while you do that, and I want to know what their response is, got that?”

  “Got that, Sir. Stand by.”

  Chenko could tell that the line was still open because he could hear faint voices in the background. After what seemed like a long time, the Duty Officer came back on the line. “Those ships are not responding to our signals, Admiral. We’ve tried everything: microwave, lasercom, voice and text messages. They’re ignoring all of them and continuing to accelerate on an outbound trajectory.”

  “DAMMIT!” Chenko paused to get his temper under control. No sense yelling at the Duty Officer. This wasn’t his fault. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Keep sending those recall messages until those ships jump away. If they start obeying the recall order, then you let me know. I’m going to head for HQ myself in a few minutes. Chenko out.” After getting up and arranging for his limo to pick him up in 10 minutes, Chenko stepped into a hot shower and evaluated the situation. Romanov wouldn’t have done this on his own initiative. Chenko was certain of that. Trojan had to be behind this maneuver. Clearly, putting an Army General in charge as the overall CINC1FAF was a mistake. Even Masterson had to see that now. The problem was that Chenko didn’t have a suitable Navy Flag Officer here on Earth to put forward as a replacement. Stevens might have been up to the job, but he was on his way to Hadley, although Chenko had a strong suspicion that Trojan would send him right back here as soon as he arrived. He made up his mind to try to convince Masterson to agree to send a courier to Hadley relieving Trojan of his command as CINC1FAF, with instructions for Stevens to take over if he was still there by the time the courier got there. Trojan had to be reined in. With his mind made up, Chenko felt better as he finished getting dressed.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Day 079/2547

  Senior Lieutenant Angelina Carter woke to the sound of the alert buzzer. Without bothering to put on any clothes, she quickly got up and walked over to the Pilot’s Station. She was the only person on this courier, so sleeping and moving around naked wasn’t a problem. A quick scan of the status board showed that the courier was picking up faint traces of microwave communications transmissions coming from a moon orbiting one of the system’s gas giants. Carter checked her astrogational database. This system was supposed to be completely uninhabited. Whatever was going on down there on that moon had been started after the war began. That moon was a prime candidate for the SSU’s new dedicated shipbuilding complex.

  “Bingo,” said Carter with satisfaction. She sat down in the Pilot’s chair and manipulated the controls. With the transmissions recorded, it was time to head back to Hadley. Carter was anxious to get this mission finished. She was overdue for some down time, and there was a sexy civilian consultant waiting for her.

  Day 099/2547

  Major Foster entered the conference room and saw that both the Secretary for Defense and Admiral Janicot were already there waiting for her. She felt herself blushing as she thought of the reason why she was late. Her husband’s ship had landed two hours ago, and they had made up for lost time after being separated for over a year. She hoped she wasn’t giving off a glow. That would be a dead giveaway. Janicot being a man might not notice, but Mandy Sorenson might. She chided herself for letting her husband talk her into that last session of lovemaking, but DAMN he looked good without any clothes on!

  As she moved around to the opposite side of the oval table, she saw that Janicot had a slight scowl on his face. Sorenson was smiling at her though, and it was the kind of smile that said ‘I know what you’ve been doing.’

  “My apologies for being late. I know it’s no excuse, but I didn’t get much sleep last night,” said Foster in her best mea culpa voice. Janicot’s reply was pre-empted by the tiny giggle that Sorenson let slip. His scowl turned to puzzlement as he turned to look at Sorenson, who was herself now blushing.

  Turning back to Foster, he said, “Try not to make a habit of it, Major.”

>   “Yessir,” said Foster meekly.

  Satisfied that he had properly chastised her, Janicot continued. “I understand that some information about Site X and the shipbuilding project has come in?”

  “That’s correct, Admiral. Site X is ready for the skeleton crew to move in and get it set up for potential operations. There’s a ship leaving in 72 hours that will take them there. The shipbuilding complex, which has its own codename now…Durendal…has received the robotic equipment necessary to begin producing usable, refined metal in small quantities. That output will be used to expand capacity.”

  Janicot’s scowl vanished and was replaced with a smile. “Very good, Major. I’m looking forward to reading your full report. Now, before we switch the subject to a discussion of our next move, I’d like you to remind Secretary Sorenson and myself of the status of our mobile forces.”

  “Certainly, Admiral. In terms of captured ships, nine of the ten ships that were left behind have been recovered, and six of those are in temporary parking orbits around Sparta. The other three are on the ground being repaired. One of those three is almost finished. The tenth ship was several astronomical units away by the time we were able to jury-rig a temporary repair to one engine cluster so that it could be brought back. That recovery is still ongoing. It won’t be back in orbit for another five and a half weeks. We now have 61 missile boats, and we’re expecting one of the new heavy cruisers built on Hekla to arrive here any day now. The tech boys have told me that they’ve gotten everything possible from the captured anti-missile laser batteries they’ve examined, and we’re in the process of assembling our own prototype. We also have some prototype versions of electronic counter measures equipment that the R&D people on Zanzibar have come up with. Their latest report also says that the 3rd Generation AMM is just about ready to test too, although some of my staff think AMMs will be obsolete if we get the laser defense working. The other R&D projects haven’t made any breakthroughs yet.”

  “Okay, Major, you can now brief us on the planning group’s recommendations for future strategic initiatives,” said Janicot.

  “Yessir. Even though our Queen’s Gambit operation wasn’t entirely successful, it still appears that the level of forces in the short term will be sufficiently balanced that our shipbuilding programs have a decent chance of keeping up with the Federation’s. P2 is projecting the following buildup for both sides.” A 3-D holographic display appeared in front of Janicot and Sorenson. “As you can see, the red line representing FED warship tonnage starts out below ours, and when their Makassar site switches over from capacity expansion to shipbuilding, they’ll overtake us. But when our Durendal site kicks in approximately 3-6 months later, we’ll be able to keep their tonnage advantage from exceeding 1.3 to 1. That marginal level of quantitative superiority is not considered insurmountable by P2. And, in fact, when we factor in qualitative improvements that are within sight, P2 comes to the conclusion that, in the long run, both sides will be more or less evenly matched in terms of overall military capability.

  “This assumes that the rebuilding of Makassar is allowed to go ahead unimpeded. Because the FEDs held back four ships from their attack on Sparta, they have a strategic reserve that they can use to protect Makassar in the short run if they wish to. P2 calculates that the destruction of our fleet will reduce the probability that the FEDs will keep their strategic reserve in Earth orbit. There’s now an even chance that those four ships will be moved to Makassar. When P2 factors their fusion-powered, x-ray laser satellite capability into the equation, the chances of us being able to inflict damage on their industrial buildup in the short run is low. As you know, Admiral, Secretary Sorenson, we stopped building ships with neutron armor when the FEDs made the move to fission warheads on the theory that with our anti-missile defenses, neutron armor was redundant, and giving it up would allow for higher accelerations. However, with the introduction of their x-ray laser technology, neutron armor once again would confer a distinct advantage in terms of attacking Makassar. The ships that we have under construction now can’t have neutron armor added, because they weren’t designed to accommodate that extra weight. We’d have to start building armored ships from scratch, and that would take time. I should also point out here that the projected buildup in tonnage includes metal that can be used either for armor or for building the rest of the ship. Adding armor to ships uses up shipbuilding capacity without adding to offensive strength. If we build too many armored ships, then, all other things being equal, the balance of military strength will eventually tip in the FED’s favor unless they devote a comparable percentage of their tonnage to ship armor as well. Whether they will or not is something that their Majestic will undoubtedly determine and which therefore we may not be able to predict.

  “The problem with building armored ships specifically to attack Makassar is that we can’t build them fast enough to get the probability of a successful attack over 50% if the FEDs decide to allocate their fleet to defend Makassar instead of Earth. However, there is another option. Once again it’s an idea that P2 wasn’t able to come up with by itself. One of my staff had an ‘aha’ moment. I can best convey this idea visually.”

  The tonnage buildup graph dissolved and was replaced with a schematic of a spherical ship, as seen from the top, that had bulges around the edges.

  “Our missile boats are 70 meters in diameter. If we modify a 300-meter diameter freighter so that there’s room for missile boats to fit halfway inside, then this freighter can carry 12 boats. The idea is that the freighter would carry the boats to the general vicinity of Makassar. Upon release, the boats would then accelerate towards the planet. After their attack run, they would rendezvous with the freighter, dock with her, and she could then carry them back here. Modification of an existing freighter is estimated to take three to four months. If we stop construction of missile boats and devote all of our shipbuilding resources to freighter modification, we could get two freighters modified at the same time.”

  Before Foster could continue, Sorenson interrupted. “Wait a minute. I don’t understand something. We had a freighter carry missile boats during the FED attack without this kind of modification. Why can’t we just use the same method for this operation?”

  Foster smiled. She had correctly anticipated exactly this question. “The five freighters used to carry missile boats during the ambush had external grapples that grabbed onto the boats. That connection was the barest minimum that would allow the freighter to accelerate and pull its missile boats along with it. The jump was a micro-jump that was for all intents and purposes instantaneous, and therefore the grapple was subjected to jump stresses for a fraction of a second. P2’s analysis shows quite clearly that those grapples would fail during the 39 days it would take to jump from Sparta to the Franklin Tri-system. The boats would then drift away from the freighter while still in hyper-space, and no one knows for certain what would happen to them after that. They might emerge from hyper-space somewhere in the Franklin Tri-system, or they might not, but that’s not the only problem. Getting the boats attached to the freighters with that grapple system was time consuming and required tugs to maneuver the boats up to the exact position so that they could be grappled. That system would be too slow and cumbersome to use to recover the boats in a hostile star system where the freighters might come under attack while they’re trying to recover the boats.” She pointed to the hologram. “By scooping out a section of the hull so that half of the missile boat is tucked inside the freighter, the boat will be securely held in place even during long jumps, and the boat can re-dock with the freighter quickly and by itself without any external assistance.”

  Sorenson looked impressed. “And would there really be enough room around the circumference of a 300-meter sphere for 12 70-meter missile boats?” she asked.

  Foster nodded. “Yes, Madame Secretary, there would be. A ship that big has a circumference of almost 1,000 meters. Twelve missile boats would need a minimum of 840 meters. I would also like to point o
ut that during the 78 days it would take the freighters to travel to the Franklin Tri-system and back, we might be able to modify another two freighters so that a follow-up attack on Makassar could be made with 48 missile boats compared to 24 for the 1st attack.”

  Sorenson’s expression began to have a feral quality about it. She clearly liked that point. Looking at Janicot, she said, “Well, if we can do that, then do we really need to build large, armored ships at all? Why not just build more modified freighters and more missile boats?”

  Janicot looked thoughtful. He was asking himself the same question. He turned to Foster. “Well, Major?”

  “The missile boat carrier concept, as we’re now calling it, definitely has a lot to recommend it. However, using unarmored freighters has the following disadvantages. First, if they’re carrying missile boats into combat, they aren’t available for carrying other cargo, and if we modify too many existing freighters instead of building new ones, our internal trade and logistical support will suffer. Another disadvantage is that freighters weren’t designed to resist damage if hit by lasers or missiles. Hits that would only inflict minor damage on a warship, even an unarmored one, could cripple a freighter, and that would potentially strand the missile boats she was carrying in enemy star systems and unable to jump away. There’s one more disadvantage. Twelve missiles boats constitute a lot of mass that will degrade a freighter’s acceleration, which starts out being about two-thirds of a warship’s acceleration. When you add the 12 missile boats, that acceleration will drop to about one-third. The only reason we’re suggesting using modified freighters for attacks on Makassar is that they can be ready quickly. The planning staff are not recommending using modified freighters as boat carriers for fleet vs fleet operations down the road.