The Gathering Storm

by Chris Hechtl

  He did have to admire her chutzpa though. Not only had she gotten the emergency funding bill out of committee in near record time, but it was scheduled to hit the floor by the end of the week. The whip said there were enough votes to pass so there was no point in delaying it. He was going to sign it too he thought in grudging admiration, though he wasn't happy about her streamlining some of the ship production. He'd used the split between families and their desire for one ship over another, for instance the Wongs preferred carriers while the Rico family preferred fast raiders like Antelope class destroyers, to play them against one another. He had used the trick for decades, and she had taken it out of his hands in a couple of months.

  What got to him were the names she'd managed to insert for new construction. Names honoring her late brother Adam as well as many of the flag officers and captains from the ruling families. That little tidbit had sealed the deal; the whip had already informed him she had a near unanimous vote. No one dared move against her with the warfront as it was.

  And there was the true rub, he thought. She was doing that, earning points with the Lords and ruling families, impressing them and making him look bad. Instead of deferring to his judgment and asking for direction, she was moving on her own.

  That galled him. It also did something far worse though; it set her up as a threat to him—to him and to Irazabeth. He knew he didn't have to lift a finger though; his loving wife as well as his mother would handle it in their own way if Catherine continued on the course she had set. He could safely wash his hands of the situation and be virtuous in his innocence no matter what occurred.

  His lips curved ever so briefly in an ugly smile. He always did like a good cat fight.

  :::{)(}:::

  “You need to stop where you are, young lady. You are playing in a playbox well above your station,” a familiar female voice said. “Though, I have to admit, you've done a better job than some I won't mention,” her grandmother said.

  “I know, Gram,” Catherine said as she came over and gave her grandmother a kiss on the cheek.

  “Your father is rather pissed at you getting your hands dirty and showing him up.”

  “I didn't know I was. I am doing what I can for the empire,” Catherine replied instantly.

  Her grandmother studied her and then shrugged. “I can almost believe that,” she murmured. “Nice delivery.”

  “It is the truth. They are coming closer. We need to pull together to stop them,” Catherine insisted.

  “They being the Federation,” the old woman replied, nodding sagely as she played with the pen knife in her hands. It was jeweled with gold and silver wound around the handle. It was an ancient heirloom of her family.

  Getting the blood out of the thing had been troubling until someone had figured out how to use ultrasonic cleaning methods again she thought idly.

  “He's publicly for what I'm doing but won't get behind it and push. I can't get an interview with him either,” Catherine said with a shake of her head. “He's busy; I get that.”

  “And you are his daughter. You'd think if he could make time to go to one of these galas he likes to attend he could spend fifteen minutes in your presence?” Jezebel asked mildly.

  “I'd like to know his mind. You said he is mad at me. I'd like to know what for and try to adjust my plans to suit his needs,” she said.

  “The problem is your father is rather paranoid, increasingly so I'm afraid. Power does that. It corrupts in many ways. And our form of politics is played for keeps I'm afraid,” the dowager empress murmured.

  Catherine bit her lip as she looked away. After a moment, she nodded in acknowledgment of that point. But she turned back to her grandmother to stare at her. “And that just proves my point. We would do better working together,” she insisted.

  “Did it ever occur to you that he is working with you but in his own way?” Jezebel asked mildly.

  “Oh?”

  “You are his new heir. People think there is an opportunity to drive a wedge between you two and make alliances with you. So, he lets you play that and you either sink or swim while getting some work done.”

  Catherine nodded slowly. She didn't believe it for a second. She knew her father. He might be publicly for the fleet reinforcements but he was vehemently against it in private.

  “Of course, if you are sending those forces to your lover to use against the crown …”

  “I'm not!” Catherine said with some heat, eyes burning in anger.

  “Peace. I'm just repeating what’s making its way around the court, my dear,” Jezebel said soothingly.

  Catherine scowled. After a moment, she shook herself and rose from her seat. “Grandmother. I have seen the enemy. I know what we are up against, and it terrifies me. I am trying to fight to save what we have and the grand plan. I'm going to keep doing that whether he likes it or not,” she said firmly. “If he has a problem he can tell me himself. If he does however, I'll leave. The empire will be all but lost if we do not act.”

  “Perhaps. And, perhaps not. Do not think the future is set in stone.”

  “No. But if one doesn't act when they see the opportunity, then they will regret it later. You taught me that, Gram,” Catherine said as a parting shot as she walked out.

  “Silly naïve, child,” the dowager empress murmured with a shake of her head. “Tut tut.” She turned to look over to the screen nearby as it lit up. She smiled without mirth as Irazebeth's image appeared. “You heard?”

  “How could I not?”

  “I'm convinced she is doing this for the empire, not as a coup attempt,” the old woman said, pulling a tablet up out of the folds of cloth in her lap. “I was monitoring her vital signs from the sensors in the chair and the room. She was telling the truth.”

  “She also knows you tend to wire things to make sure,” Irazabeth stated, eyes dropping to the sight of the tablet.

  “Perhaps. But I think in this case she is telling the truth. How is Pyotr doing?”

  “He's still paranoid,” Irazabeth stated.

  “And you had nothing to do with that?”

  The empress's eyes flashed ever so briefly. “I admit, it would be a useful ploy in some ways, make him trust me and none others. But ultimately such a strategy could backfire.”

  “Point.”

  “I'm doing my best to calm him, but it isn't easy.”

  “Keep trying my dear. I'll do what I can as well,” the older woman said as she cut the channel. She waited a beat and then checked the stats of her recent conversation on her tablet. She was amused to see the other woman hadn't been lying either. Interesting.

  :::{)(}:::

  Dead Drop

  Admiral De Gaulte scowled when he got the report from the picket force that the unknown ships had been identified as Commodore Rabideau's. Worse yet, there were only three of them, two cruisers and a destroyer.

  “What happened?” he demanded. He had already read the report from the collier Functionally Illiterate as well as the tanker and collier assigned to the commodore's force. The freighter had arrived a week prior and had given him a report up until her escape. He knew that the commodore had been headed into a head-on clash.

  “I'll transmit my report in a moment, sir,” the commodore replied a minute later. The admiral grunted in irritation at the time delay. “We got our asses handed to us,” he said with a shake of his head.

  Admiral De Gaulte drummed his fingers as he waited. When he got that, his scowl darkened. “I warned you not to engage the enemy warships, Commodore. Now, not only have you lost a large force and thousands of our sailors, but you've let the enemy know we're on the offense.”

  His head turned as Berney snapped his fingers. The chief of staff held up a tablet with a simple phrase, downloading log now. He nodded once.

  “With respect, sir, we were on a head-to-head engagement just as we jumped into the system. I thought they'd break off. Instead they came right at us even though we outnumbered them almost three to one,” the co
mmodore stated stiffly.

  “See? You just reinforced my order to not engage.”

  “And they used fighters with torpedoes, sir,” the commodore said. “We had none of our own to defend ourselves with.”

  “Ah. I see.” Admiral De Gaulte replied as Berney slid a tablet into his hands with the log keyed up. He scanned it as he waited for a reply. There was a little bit of covering ass in it, plus some attachments from the discussions between the other officers urging them into combat. But ultimately, the decision was in the commodore's hands. He'd fracked up.

  “I'm not making excuses for myself, Admiral. I'll take my lumps just as the sailors under me did. The mission was blown the moment we entered the star system. We had to scuttle Creeping Death and Kang before we left. I didn't have a choice. The frame damage was too extensive on Creeping Death, and Kang not only had structural damage but she had lost her hyperdrive. The engineers were going to try to scab Creeping Death's hyperdrive into Kang but they were not compatible.”

  The admiral pursed his lips. He could easily imagine what the commodore was referring to. Trying to fit a cruiser's hyperdrive, a thing most likely already patched together into a destroyer's small frame, and adapt it would have been an almost impossible task in the field. “I see. I'm going over the report you've sent. We've already seen the report from the support ships. She got back in one piece by the way.” The admiral frowned and then looked up. “Just three ships though? And you didn't kill a single one of them?”

  “Yes, sir. The fighters and coordination are the major points. We outweighed them, had more firepower and more ships. But they still tore us a new one.”

  “I see,” the admiral murmured. I'll have my staff go over this. Head to the yard for repairs.”

  “Yes, sir. We have a lot of personnel we pulled off of the other ships. They could use some care.”

  “Understood. I'll alert Captain Abernly to have his medics ready. Command One out.”

  Admiral De Gaulte sat back as he pushed the tablet away. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “I know, sir. This is going to hit morale like a bomb,” Berney said with a shake of his head. “Three ships, two of them light cruisers against his force, and they got creamed.”

  “I know. It's unbelievable,” the admiral growled, rubbing his brow tiredly as he closed his eyes. “Have Sedrick go over the data, see what we can find. Make sure our cyberists check their computers for any unwanted surprises.”

  “Yes, sir,” Berney replied. “The crew from the other ships, sir? What do you want done with them?”

  “The critical injured can go to the planet or be shipped back to Garth and home. No, don't even bother sending them to Dead Drop; put them on the next freighter for home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don't know about the rest. Obviously, we can use them, but their morale just took a crapper. Worse, they'll be telling everyone what just happened to them.”

  “But we could use them. The platforms are stretched thin on personnel.”

  “Experienced personnel. I agree. Okay, have our BUPERS people sort through them. Anyone too shook up send them back to Garth or to the planet. Maybe they'll do some good there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make a note to counsel anyone about loose talk. We need to focus.”

  “Yes, sir. People talk though, and we do need to learn from this,” Berney warned.

  “That we do, but we need to learn the right lessons,” the admiral stated. “And we need to learn them in the right way, not be driven by panic and fear. That won't win us the next battle.”

  “Or the war, sir?”

  “Right now, I'm focused on the next battle.”

  :::{)(}:::

  Berney grimaced at the shipments of material going out to the jump point. They were gathering up slag, useless material like silicon sand, gravel, and other material and shipping it out on some of the freighters. The admiral had ordered the material to be dispersed around the jump point but not too thickly so the local gravity of the material wouldn't bring it to clump together. He wanted a light cloud, something to make it interesting for anyone who tried to jump in.

  His chief of staff wasn't at all certain it would work. After all, space was vast, and the enemy could come in anywhere in that volume of space. But, an order was an order.

  The admiral did have a point though, most of the material was not ferrous, so it wouldn't show up well on radar. The refractive nature of the glass would make lidar hits a mixed blessing.

  He shook his head. Trying to game out how effective it would all be was useless. Instead, he focused on the other positives.

  They'd managed to throw together eight fighter carrier platforms near the DD01ns jump point so far. They'd also put some sublight engines together to make two more of them mobile. They were fighter barges but at least they were something.

  None of that would have been possible without the draft of personnel from the planet as well as volunteers that had come in on Friar Tuck. They were still chronically short on personnel, but at least they had a minimum crew on every platform and had made up for combat losses on all of the surviving warships.

  There were two other fighter carrier platforms in the star system, with more on the way. These were placed in strategic places in the star system where the fighters could pause to refuel and rearm. After a couple of refueling accidents, they'd determined that landing and refueling the fighters instead of trying to do it in flight would be a better option.

  They had three carriers and were finally fully stocked in all three as well as half of the carrier platforms. They had mostly fighters, but for the moment that was fine. More importantly, Captain Abernly had dredged up an emergency fighter kit design and had a production line churning them out. The admiral had cut the thing to the bone; the pilots wore a space suit and was more or less exposed to vacuum. It wasn't very survivable but it was a fighter.

  They had tried and discarded turning the things into drones. It was far too easy for the enemy to jam or even hack the control signals they'd found when they'd gamed it out in the simulators. Sedrick had been right there, he was forced to admit.

  Getting Hunter, Assassin's Creed, and Raging Demon back were a mixed blessing. All three ships were damaged, which monopolized the yard once more. That meant the yard couldn't work on other projects. By all rights, Raging Demon should be sent back to Garth or to the empire yards for proper repairs. He was on the fence about recommending that option.

  The survivors pulled off the other ships had been shaken up but had settled down on their return journey. A few were in depression according to the medics, but they'd figure it out. The worst of the cripples had been sent home. He had just finished plugging the majority of the survivors into the improvised forts. That had helped a lot, especially in the newest fort that had a lot of green personnel on board.

  It still wasn't enough, not with what they knew was coming at them.

  “Come on, Catherine, get someone to pay attention and send something to save our asses,” he murmured before he plunged into the next stack of paperwork that needed attending to.

  :::{)(}:::

  Sigma

  Captain Izzy Rico scowled as he read the report from home. It had taken months to get it to them, but where others had initially admired the speed of the courier, he'd grown concerned over the contents. He frowned as he looked out over Smiladon's bridge.

  He was used to receiving conflicting orders over the years. He'd put up with it. Now he didn't know what to think, or more importantly, which way to jump. He didn't like that. Not at all.

  His first set of orders were to head in to the homeworld to undergo refit and to formally join Battle Fleet. The second set had countermanded them and were orders for his ship and others to go to a staging ground in Sigma and from there to a hidden shipyard to eventually get refitted. That was news to him; he hadn't known one existed!

  These latest orders made no sense. They talked of a Federation and one in Rho righ
t under Horath's nose!

  There was a warning of possible enemy raiders going after him and his people. They were not to engage such warships since the enemy had fully-operational and fully-stocked ships. He had been shocked by that missive. Shocked and instantly in full rejection of the very idea. As if anyone would turn the tables!

  He frowned. But it was there, in black and white, and also in video if he wanted to watch the brief. He wasn't so inclined at the moment.

  The warning did make a little sense though, he was forced to admit. There were rumors he'd picked up from prey of something going on in Rho. And his CIC had picked up the faint tell tales of passing ships, recent ion trails where there shouldn't be any. He frowned. Maybe it would be a good idea to be careful. He had no intention of listening to the crap about working with a partner. Smiladon worked alone. She did better hunting that way.

  He frowned as a new thought struck him. A few of the other ships had gone missing as of late. There had been talk in the bar at Tortuga of a couple ships gone missing. He hadn't thought of it as important at the time, but now he wondered.

  He frowned at the recent trail they were following. It was of a pair of ships coming from Rho. The last stop had told them that one of the ships was a rare treat, a factory ship. Now he wondered though. His orders were to travel in pairs, but what about the enemy. Could it be that the enemy factory ship was a ruse? After all, the dirt grubbers hadn't really seen her or her partner with their own eyes.

  He frowned and then another thought came hard on the heels of the first. Could the report of this ship, the Io 1 or something or other, be a ruse? A ship flying a false flag? He did it often enough; it made sense in a way that the Feds would. Come in, play nice, get the lay of the land, and pretend to be something fat and helpless. Let a pirate ship come in after them, then tear them to ribbons.