by Chris Hechtl
Her people were still expanding and upgrading the industry, but they had begun to build up a surplus. They produced plenty of equipment, farm equipment, industrial equipment, even coffee makers to export to not only the empire but the other conquered worlds. Since they were so close to home, they got the first fruits of labor. They had also carefully constructed their export economy after analyzing the deficiencies in the supply and demand market.
Now though, her civilian industries were being refitted to produce parts for ships and ship building. She shook her head. She had enough loads for six freighters, everything from LEDs to coffee grinders, industrial ball valves, factory robot parts, and injection molding machinery. All of that had been intended to trade for more goods from the Gather Fleet market while investing in the stock market. Now everything was changing and their three-decade-long plan was teetering on the verge of collapse.
It was a bit of an irony to see so much of the material that had been gathered by the Gather Fleet being shipped back out to the conquered worlds. The newly-appointed lords had been eager to purchase the material to rebuild their fiefs. She wondered how the market was doing, were they still at it? Was it going up or had it tanked?
Certainly, things had changed with the quality of material from home, she reminded herself. She did appreciate what she was getting without cost to her.
In practice though, a lot of the cargo Agnes has reported was marginally usable as is. They were doing their best with the military grade hardware first though. That would be installed in the ships that came in for refit.
That had been something of a stroke of genius on someone's part. It gave her three squadrons of destroyers, two squadrons of various cruisers, a couple escort carriers, some privateers, and a gaggle of small warships to play with on top of the single mixed-cruiser squadron, single mixed-destroyer squadron, and other ships she'd had to start with. All of them were from the Gather Fleet however. Many hadn't seen usage in years. None had worked in anything above division strength. Training the crews was a serious problem however. Agnes wasn't up to the challenge unfortunately.
Most of the ships were waiting for refit. Agnes had tried to get the crews to do some of their own easy swap outs, but many had balked or run into so many problems that the idea had been scrapped. Some of the crews were clueless or had been playing with her out of laziness.
A few of her Battle Fleet transplants had agitated to start a training center. She was all for it, but they wanted such a facility to be in space where they could get to their ships in a hurry. Understandable, but it meant trying to build a space habitat for them or preempting an existing one. That wasn't going to happen; all of her stations were in use.
The other option was to add modules to an existing platform. The problem there was that those modules didn't exist. She would need to manufacture them while also keeping up with the other priorities going on in the star system. Unfortunately, her industrial base was near saturation. She had thrice dipped into her reserves to cover momentary lapses in timing due to problems. She shook her head. No, they'd have to settle for a building on the ground. It would suck if the enemy appeared and they were caught on the ground, but for the time being she had no choice.
Finding the servers and necessary electronic hardware to go with the facilities was another headache. Plus, the means to power it all. She groaned when she started to list everything she needed.
She felt frazzled, tired, yet she should feel elated at having so much firepower on hand. She wasn't. All she could think of was that those ships were targets for the enemy.
Hopefully, something more would come through from the Empire soon to help return the proper balance to things.
:::{)(}:::
Garth
Captain Ozman couldn't quite feel relief at the sight of new ships streaming in from the jump point leading back to the home star system. There were three destroyer squadrons there as well as two cruiser squadrons, two CEVs, and four smaller ship squadrons. They were a hodgepodge of ship classes though, and most were coming in at their best speed without any sort of an attempt at maintaining a formation. They had even left the few freighters that had come in with them in their wake.
The calls had started the moment they had come into the star system. That was when she'd found out that the gaggle of ships was all from the Gather Fleet. Every one of them had yet to be refitted too and each wanted priority.
Apparently, some were going over her head to the duchess. Twice she'd received conflicting orders on the yard priority. The latest one rescinded the previous orders and replaced them with a different queue. She would prefer going through the ships and hitting the easiest first, but apparently the duchess had other ideas and wasn't afraid to throw her ample weight around for her “friends.”
That well and truly sucked, Agnes thought.
What was worse was that many of the ships would tie a slip up for months. Her yard dogs were still getting up to speed as it was. Trying to swap between different classes of ships … why did they do that? Why couldn't they send them all one class of ship? She grumbled mentally and then gave up the distraction as unproductive. The best she could do was to have her people work on one class of ship, then switch to the next and burn a couple days trying to learn the ship's needs all over again.
The bad news kept getting worse. She was supposed to send prepared ships on to Dead Drop while also setting up a training facility for the ship crews that had just arrived. Some of them had trained while waiting for their ships to be rebuilt, but it had been on the level of games none had taken seriously. The duchess had chimed in with a proposal to have the facility on the ground since all of the space facilities were taken. She knew her staff was already fielding snits from the various officers involved.
With the Federation bearing down on them, everyone was taking such simulations far more seriously, she thought in grim approval.
Since the duchess was busy making preparations to board some of the more prominent captains and wine and dine them, she went through and picked four destroyers and four cruisers to send on to Dead Drop. She cut the orders and then sent them to the captains. She hated it but had no choice; the orders had come from the Admiralty. Once that was done, she had her staff pick through the incoming ships to find ships that could replace the ships she had just dispatched.
Ships were coming in on a regular basis lately, both from Dead Drop and from the empire homeworld. It was good to see both. Dead Drop's ships confirmed they still controlled the star system and that the enemy hadn't appeared yet.
Unfortunately, they were drawing down the stockpiles again. Stopping the small freighters and having them turn around in Garth burned up time and resources. It didn't let her build as much of a stockpile as she knew the duchess had thought they could. No matter.
As she worked through the orders from home, she found a set of movement orders near the end of the list. Her eyebrows raised in surprise. The orders confirmed the movement of a squadron of battle cruisers plus escorts. She would be gratified to see them when they showed up. They would be the first coherent Battle Fleet force she had seen in some time.
She checked the calendar and then nodded. They would be in Garth in six days baring any problems. Good to know. She copied the file and sent it to the duchess. If the duchess thought wining and dining the Gather Fleet captains was important, she might like to save some of her best bubbly for the next reinforcements to come in. After all, battle cruiser captains were a cut above the ruffians that had just straggled in.
:::{)(}:::
Glennis was busy picking over her steward's menu plans when she got the email from Agnes. She frowned and then as the steward turned to check the inventory of her ski chalet she turned and pulled the email up.
She frowned as she wondered about what Agnes was getting to with copying movement notice orders to her until she checked the ships twice. The second time it dawned on her—battle cruisers. Ah. That meant Battle Fleet. She nodded slowly. Yes, indeed, it would
be wise to roll out the welcome carpet for them as well.
:::{)(}:::
Dead Drop
“Hyperdrive secured, Captain,” Midshipman A.I. Gaspy reported, a beat ahead of the engineering tech. The A.I. was chipper, glad to be in his element. He was a friendly ghost in the machine, the first lieutenant thought as she checked the ship's status board anyway.
“Good considering we're far enough out. Engage the cloak and silent running. Nav, plot us a course,” Captain Danica Fen ordered as she studied the long-range plot of the inner star system. She was grateful to not see any enemy ships around to endanger her ship.
As she watched, their passive long-range sensors kept filling in the blanks. They had already known where the large planetary bodies were. It was the little things that concerned her, like the ships in the system. She gave a mirthless thin smile as she noted the icons of ships near the B-97c jump point. They were the closest to her, but they were an AU out.
“Course plotted,” the navigator stated.
She looked up and then to the navigator. He nodded once. She turned her head down and touched an icon and pulled up his course. It looked good. He was sailing well over the plane of the ecliptic and therefore away from the ships there. There were a couple good hiding spots along their course, and he'd plotted two secondary courses in case things got dicey with an enemy intercept.
Not that she expected one. Not with the stealth engaged. “Good work. Get us moving then.”
“Aye aye, ma'am,” the navigator replied with a dutiful nod as he engaged the helm.
“We're picking up some radio chatter. A lot of it is broad band,” Gaspy announced with a sniff of disdain.
“Record it. Record everything.”
“Roger that, ma'am.”
“Good,” the captain said as she settled into her chair. “Good.”
“Time to piss some pirates off and give them the willies,” Gaspy said. She snorted as she looked over to his white sheet avatar and then to the plot.
“Pissed? That'll come later when we leave. And they'll be even more pissed when we come back and do it again,” Danica said with a grin.
:::{)(}:::
The insistent beeping woke Cyrano from his slumber. He grunted as the haze Morpheus had taken his sweet time weaving over him lifted. “Damn,” he muttered as he opened his gummy eyes and noted the time on the clock. He grunted as he turned his head to see the red blinking light. He grunted again as he slapped at the receive button. “What?” he croaked. He reached for and fumbled the glass his steward had left for him on his nightstand and managed to get a sip down. He grimaced at the warm taste. The water on the ship sucked lately; only cold water hid the taste.
“Sir, sorry to wake you. We've got a development. A ship just jumped in from B-97c,” Berney warned.
“Frack,” the admiral said as he sat up and rubbed his brow. The last vestiges of sleep were abandoned. That sucked, it had taken him a while to finally get to sleep. “What's the location, and what do we have in the area? What size is it? Did you send the warning out yet?”
“It's a single point source, sir, one ship or a pair of ships pretty close together. We're getting mixed readings on that. It jumped in one AU above the plane of the ecliptic.”
“It's a scout if it's a single ship,” the admiral growled. He cursed himself for not having recon drones covering the area. He should have gone with Myron's proposal and not waited on the surveillance satellites Captain Abernly was building for him.
“Could it be one of our ships, sir?”
“I doubt it.”
“Yes, sir. Orders?”
“Order an alert. Just the perimeter force and any ships that have a hope of engaging that ship.”
“Yes, sir. Orders to engage?”
“Yes. I doubt they'll be able to do so,” the admiral said sourly. “Try to narrow down the location. Order a kinetic strike along the vector the ship takes. Maybe we'll get lucky.” His tone said he doubted that however.
“Yes, sir.”
“The exercise will be good for our people. But keep the majority of the fleet on lock down. In fact, go to EMCOM now. I want you to dust off smoke and mirrors and let it rip.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. Is there a problem with executing it?”
“No, sir. I don't know if it will work if they've got Federation sensors though.”
“We don't know unless we try. Try anyway.”
“Yes, sir. Will we be seeing you on the flag bridge?”
“Hell, no. You can handle that. Let me know if any more ships show up. I'm going back to bed,” he grumbled as he cut the circuit. He saw the green light and hit another button. “Going back to bed now, Wilfred,” he said.
“Very well, sir. Do you need anything?”
“Can you scare up a glass of warm milk by any chance?”
“I can try. The water isn't going over well I take it, sir?”
“No. Find someone to change the filters or something,” the admiral grumbled.
“I'll get you the milk in a moment, sir.”
“Good.” His finger lifted off the button, and he sat back in bed. “Good,” he murmured, wondering if he would be able to get back to sleep knowing their time was running out.
:::{)(}:::
Captain Fen tried not to smirk as Prowler UFN-003P went wide on a ballistic ride across the star system.
She avoided the plane of the ecliptic totally since that was the most populated area. The computers took in all of the sensor information as they sailed. The captain considered her options carefully over the coming weeks. She wanted to go back with what she'd seen so far, but their orders were to get to Garth, get what they could there, and then turn back. They might not get another chance to get that deep anytime soon, so she'd better make the most of it.
When she saw the ships racing to get ahead of her to the jump point to Garth, she snorted. She had the helm team adjust their course with a gentle puff of OMS vapor. In time that small vector change would put them over an AU out from the seekers trying desperately to hunt her down.
Getting back would be much the same process. She now knew better than to take her chances and trust too much in her cloak and stealth. No, that was arrogance, and UFN-001P's crew had paid for it with their lives. Well, technically, they'd died being run down but amounted to the same thing. A spook was supposed to get in and out as cleanly as possible, and she intended to do that.
It was the best way to piss the enemy thoroughly off she thought with a feral grin.
:::{)(}:::
“We can't find them, sir. They are damn good. We got a basic vector; it looks like they were headed to the Garth jump point but then nothing. We've saturated the course with sensors and drawn a blank,” Myron reported, clearly frustrated by the damn Federation ghost ship. He knew very well what it was doing. It was drinking in everything it heard and saw. No doubt it would turn around and head back to B-97c when it was done. In fact, he'd anticipated that and had set up a series of traps to try to force the enemy to come out into the open to maneuver around them.
And he'd only wasted fuel and time in the process, he thought moodily.
“Status on Smoke and Mirrors?” Admiral De Gaulte asked, turning to Berney.
“Still in operation. We've had a couple hiccups; the decoys were never intended for this long of a use,” the commander replied with a shake of his head. “The good news is they are out quite far so they can't get good range to see through the decoys.”
“Gravitational sensors are a different story. I don't know what that ship has on board,” Sedrick grumbled. They had gotten a single blurred image of the ship, enough to rule out a destroyer or cruiser. Based on the size of the black ship, they'd deduced it was a prowler like the one they had destroyed in the neighboring star system some time ago.
“Sir! CIC is reporting a ship has arrived at the B-97c jump point!”
“Another one? Is it the enemy fleet?” Myron asked as the staff rose to th
eir feet in alarm.
“No, sir. Single ship.”
“The courier. No doubt she was run off by whatever came behind that prowler. We should see the destroyer sometime soon then,” Admiral De Gaulte grumbled. “Order her to download her log to the flagship as soon as possible,” he growled.
“Aye aye, sir.”
:::{)(}:::
Danica grinned as her ship made its final preparations to jump. It had taken time to cross the solar system, but they'd had plenty of time. Their sensors had put that time to good use, ferreting out everything her passive sensors could see. Her computers had run a rough cut of what the sensors had found. No doubt her people and Gaspy would try to refine that as they sailed on to their next destination, but it would be up to Second Fleet's computers to do the real final cut and refinement of the raw data.
“I'm curious to see what they've got stacking up in Garth,” she murmured.
“I don't know, ma'am. We still can't confirm that squadron of dreadnoughts in orbit of the planet,” Gaspy said doubtfully.
“Log it. See what we can see on the return trip,” she said with a nod. The ships had no doubt gone to emissions control, but enough had leaked through to give her sensors a peak. Having so many capital ships in the system might stop Second Fleet cold she thought.
But, fortunately that wasn't her decision to make. “Dropping stealth on your command, ma'am.”
“Begin powering up the hyper capacitors. Nav, you've got a course plotted?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Good man. Let's give them a nice juicy raspberry as we leave.”
“Yes, ma'am,” the navigator replied with a grin as the cloak and stealth was dropped so power could be diverted to the hyper capacitors.
:::{)(}:::
“Sir, a ship is charging her hyperdrive near the Garth jump point.”
“How near is near?” Berney asked. The tech silently put the plot up and highlighted an icon. She rotated the screen display and then drew a line to the nearest ship.