by Chris Hechtl
Out of all of the derelict ships, only 153 people had survived in the air bleeding darkened wrecks long enough to be rescued. The media had been filled with reports of heart-tearing messages from sailors to their loved ones as their air ran out. Some had even sacrificed themselves in order to allow others to live.
Forty-one thousand dead didn't compare to the millions that had died in some of the stations, habitats, and on Mars and Earth. Just one of the strikes had caused a tsunami that had wiped out a good thousand-kilometer stretch of coastline on Earth. Millions were dead or homeless.
He scanned the bridge with an edge of satisfaction in his gaze. There were still a lot of rough edges, but they were getting there. He had a good solid team. The ship had a few teething issues, but the bugs were known. They were knocking the bugs down or minimizing them as time went by.
It was a headache for some of the engineers since they were literally writing the book on the ship and its maintenance. He knew that Commander Tisdale was up to the task. The chief engineer loved to get his hands dirty. He winced internally at the thought of the guy's keyboard though.
His eyes briefly lingered on the holo console where Republic's A.I. stood at parade rest. Ensign Sam, known as Uncle Sam to some of the crew, was one of the first A.I. to join the fleet and was still a question mark to some of the crew. After Ensign Nelson and Central's defense of Mars and Earth went public, the public's perception of A.I. had shifted once more. Like it or not, A.I. were there to stay, virtual citizens of their civilization.
And like many citizens, some had stepped up to offer their services to the growing Confederation Navy. A few on the crew still harbored reservations about the patriotism, but no one was going to question it out loud at the moment. They needed every hand, even the virtual ones. The Ensign's contribution and occupation of the ship's electronic network allowed them to shave ten percent of the crew and run down a lot of the bugs, many of them in the software. That had endeared him to the engineers. His taking on a lot of the paperwork had lifted a lot of the headache off the ship's yeoman and officers, which had gone a long way to make them happy as well.
But the crew was still feeling out his role and how to treat him. Sam seemed easy going with everyone, something Saul appreciated. But he had passed an order to treat the A.I. as an officer.
The A.I. and cyberists were still taking apart the captured alien databases, but one thing had come out right off. The aliens had terrible computer security. There was also tantalizing clues that they lacked A.I. at all. That news had been one of the reasons the starships in the pipeline had been refitted to give them an A.I. computer core. Captain Bao was still getting used to the concept that the ship was Sam's body. He wasn't certain if the entire experiment was going to work out long term or not.
(@)()(@)
Ensign Sam made his virtual rounds like clockwork. He first checked the ship's internal network for any problems. There weren't any reported; all of the readings were normal. That took 1.3 seconds to complete. He then switched to check the task force network and status, then updated the log. Once that was accomplished, he checked the crew's health.
Once he had finished the rounds, he had 4.5 seconds to think, a long time for an A.I. without priority processing going on. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to the crew. It looked like he and the crew were settling in. There were still some rough edges. He'd noted a few sour talks about him among a few of the crew, but they were coming along. He had come to realize within his first full cycle of being online that organics took time to process interpersonal relationships.
And to be fair, so did he. He was still learning about his crew and how to deal with the interactions. His databases seemed chaotic on a moment-to-moment basis, something he also needed to learn to deal with.
He checked the camera feed in the bridge and then switched to the feed from the officer's wardroom. He had found that the formal dinners had some rich interactions to study. He made certain the recordings were running so he could scan them at speed and process them with any processors that were currently idle and then went back to making his virtual rounds once more.
(@)()(@)
Captain Bao looked on at his table and table companions with an air of satisfaction. He sat at the head of the table with a half-empty cup of coffee and the wreckage of his desert on the black table before him. The pie had been good, handmade by his steward, something he appreciated. Most likely Lloyd had gotten the recipe from his wife. He wouldn't put it past the two to collaborate to keep him fed and fat, he mused happily as he pushed the plate away with his index finger to indicate he was done.
The steward instantly appeared to police the dishes and then withdrew without a peep.
“So, we're here. Now we wait?” Lieutenant Commander Vladimir Zilmar, the ship's XO, asked, dabbing at his mouth with a linen napkin.
“Pretty much. We wait, watch, and drill,” the captain replied. “Picket duty is a lonely but necessary duty.”
“And wait for something to inevitably break,” Lieutenant Commander Fred Tisdale, the ship's chief engineer said sourly.
“That too,” Captain Bao said, shooting a look to the engineer. “Let's not curse ourselves too early chief,” he scolded gently.
“I'll try not to, sir,” Fred replied with a shrug.
“Unloading is going well,” Vladamir said, looking up to the ceiling. “The first freighter is deploying the recon satellites now. By morning they should be done,” he reported.
“Get a refresh?” Fred asked.
“Re … no, I just accessed the log,” Vladimir replied.
“That's pretty much what he meant, Vlad,” the captain replied. Vlad was a bit stiff with the crew and almost completely ignored Ensign Sam.
Saul sat back as he thought about the larger problem at hand. Contrary to some armchair people, the space they had to picket was a vacuum, all vacuum, with no resources around to draw from. That meant it was impossible to fortify it easily; they'd have to ship in everything including the kitchen sink.
It was also virtually impossible to mine. It was a large space, several million kilometers in diameter. The enemy could drop out right on top of the space or on the outer edge or completely outside it. Mines would have to be thickly laid in order to make any sort of a difference against the enemy warships too.
No, mobile forces were their best bet to secure the space.
That wasn't going to deter them from trying to fortify the area anyway he knew. His force had a small fleet train with it that would act as dispatch ships and had a small amount of cargo to be used to resupply his task force. Once they had deployed the recon satellites, the ship crews would turn their attention to assembling a transhab station that would act as a cache of material that would be shipped in. Every ship that returned to Sol would clean themselves out in the cache beforehand. He intended for the ships to draw down everything, including their own spare parts and food. He'd need it all.
He had his three warships, one tanker, one munitions collier, two small freighters, one medium-sized parts collier, and surprisingly, a freighter turned factory ship to act as a mobile repair ship.
“I'll feel a bit safer once we've got more ships with us,” Fred said with a shake of his head.
“Me too. For the moment, we're it. At least we're on the scene and can give Sol some warning if trouble comes,” the captain replied.
“True. Are they really considering setting up more defenses, sir?” the chief engineer asked.
“Some. I think the brass are against it, but they don't have a choice. It's the politicians pushing that.” He grimaced. “Besides, all the ships they use to picket here means they don't have them in Sol or for the offense.”
“Yeah, it'd suck if we were sitting here and the enemy jumped out and then got to Sol behind us,” Fred agreed.
The captain opened his mouth to remind the chief not to curse them again but then realized the futility of that so closed his mouth again.
“Can we go to Altair for
resources?” Vlad asked.
“That's … possible I suppose,” the captain mused. “I don't have anything in our orders about that. It might make sense to send one or more of our fleet train there to resupply.”
“I think I can ask nav to look into it—sort of an exercise,” Vlad offered. “Have them pull the survey records to see if it is worth looking into further, sir,” he offered.
Saul nodded. “Good thinking,” he rumbled. “The cache will be set up on the outer edge of the jump zone. I was rethinking it,” he said. He looked around and then sighed and accessed his implants. He was still getting used to them, but he managed to find the node to access the projector in the room. The lights dimmed and an image of the space around the ship appeared.
“The brass wanted us to put the cache on a least-time course to Sol. I'm thinking that is where the enemy would most likely see it. I'd rather have it tucked out of the way. That way we can draw on it if necessary,” the skipper said, pointing to the blinking site and then away to another spot on the periphery. “Your thoughts?”
“Well …,” Vlad frowned. “I see their point about making it easier to get to, but I also see yours too. It is too inviting a target. I'd actually rather disperse the architecture instead of having it in one platform. It's too easy to lose all our eggs …,” he frowned, puzzled.
“All our eggs in one basket,” Fred offered helpfully.
“Right,” the XO replied with a grudging nod to the chief engineer. “Too much can go wrong.”
“He's got that right, Skipper. One bad wire, a meteor in the wrong place and poof!” Fred threw his hands up in the air.”
“To be fair we don't see that a lot in Sol you know,” the captain replied dryly.
“Just considering worst case, sir,” Fred replied.
“Gotcha,” the captain replied as he picked up his cup and took a sip. He caught the motion of someone behind him and turned to see Lloyd offering his carafe. He shook his head and set the cup down.
The steward nodded, topped off the XO's and then went back to his pantry.
“Well, now that I'm going to be up burning the midnight oil,” the XO drawled, picking up his cup. “Do you have a specific location in mind, sir? One I can pass on to the fleet train before they go ahead and break the station out too soon?”
“Yeah, that'd be a pain in the ass. Having to put it together, then take it apart to move it,” Fred muttered.
“As it happens, I've got a general idea. Still on the same heading as the brass want, but not a direct one. Call it throwing in a bit of misdirection. After all, if the enemy thinks as they do, they might rethink going to Sol in favor of wherever the cache is in front of, right?”
“Double and triple thinking makes my head hurt,” Fred said with a shake of his head. “It should cover any howls from the brass though,” he said dubiously.
“Maybe. My main point is they are there and we're here,” the captain said, pointing to the table top. “I'm senior officer on station; I'll make it work.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Okay now …”
(@)()(@)
Republic's TO, Lieutenant Conrad Luchian, started his shift off smartly with a gunnery exercise. He couldn't deploy a decoy for a live fire one since they only had so many available and needed to conserve ammunition, so the exercise had to be virtual. That was fine; he picked out a series of bright and dim stars to target and had Ensign Sam randomize them and their timing. He had a running bet with the crew on who would score the most points.
It didn't take long though before things went south. “Sir, failure of the starboard weapon's mount. The weapon locked up when they tried to track multiple high-speed targets. The software balked, sir,” Tracy, one of his weapon techs, reported.
“Well, shit. Discontinue evolution for the moment. They know we can't hit the pause button in a real combat situation, right?” the tactical officer demanded.
“Yes, sir. They've tried a reboot; it's not cooperating,” Tracy replied.
Frustrated, the lieutenant passed the problem on to engineering. The chief engineer dived into the problem when he finished his abbreviated meal.
Once the TO was certain they were working diligently on the problem, he called up the other weapon mounts to continue the drill. It still vexed him that the problem had come up again however.
(@)()(@)
“The colliers have finished setting up the cache structure, sir. They will transfer half of their cargo to the cache as planned over the next several days. There is some concern about the fuel; a leak or meteor would be a bad thing.” Captain Bao nodded sagely as he came onto the bridge for the morning check in. Ordinarily he didn't like being ambushed, but in this case, he had more or less expected it. “And the recon satellites are under way to their final positions,” the TO reported.
“Good,” the skipper replied with a nod as he scanned the compartment. The lights had shifted from red to normal daylight conditions a few moments ago. Everything seemed to be in order on first glance.
“We've cleared Rubber Ducky 1. She can move out when we've uploaded the log to her, sir,” the TO reported as he held up a tablet with his duty log.
The captain nodded in reply but didn't say anything out loud since he was sipping his morning coffee. He took the tablet with the log from the TO and scanned it as he took the hot seat. He'd already read it on his computer terminal in his room, but it never hurt to give some things a second look, just in case you missed something the first go around due to a lack of a certain caffeinated substance.
“The chief is running down that problem with the starboard weapons mount,” the TO reported.
“I bet he regrets cursing himself,” Captain Bao murmured.
“It is a firmware issue. The working-up exercise found it; the manufacturer thought they'd ironed it out. Obviously, not well enough,” Ensign Sam chimed in.
The captain looked up. He saw the TO's face pucker briefly. He turned to the A.I. “The commander is on it? Are you helping?”
“Yes, sir. I ran a code comparison. I found some errors. There is also a conflict between the sensor firmware and the mount's firmware; a handshake protocol isn't being handled properly. The chief wants to run it by eye too before he makes any changes,” the A.I. reported.
“Okay, keep me posted,” the captain replied.
“Sir, about the Ducks, they are rather anxious to get going,” Lieutenant Luchian said.
“I can imagine,” the captain replied dryly as he sipped at his coffee. He seemed unmoved by their urgency the TO noted.
Two of the freighters were Spaceducks. The tiny freighters had a detachable hyper sled that allowed the shuttle to act as a short-ranged starship; something no small craft should be able to do. He couldn't blame the crew for wanting to get unloaded and turned around as quickly as possible. He certainly wouldn't want to be crammed into the small shuttle for an unknown length of time. There was no elbow room and only so much to do onboard.
“The sooner they are off, the sooner they will return,” the TO reminded him.
“I wouldn't mind fresh bagels,” the captain quipped. “And undoubtedly more coffee will be required,” he said, saluting the TO with his cup.
“The way some people suck it down you'd think the navy runs on it not deuterium and tritium,” the TO said with an infectious grin.
“You mean it doesn't already?” the captain replied, having a bit of fun with the byplay. “Okay, make sure they empty out their goods. Shake them down until their teeth rattle and then send them on their way.”
“I'll be certain to check their pockets thoroughly, sir,” the TO replied with a nod.
“Right. Sam?” he turned to the holo pedestal.
“Yes, sir?” the A.I. asked as his image appeared.
“Make sure our log goes to Ducky 1 and that each of the other ships transmits their own logs as well before she departs.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Good,” the captain said as he settled
back in his chair. “I imagine you are dreaming up all sorts of scary scenarios to torment the crew. Don't forget to bring Tau Chan and Dragonheart crews into it. We can't hold any actual movement exercises, not with the fuel we've got, but we can hold as many virtual ones as you can handle … or at least until they begin to howl that they are sick of them,” the captain said.
“I admit I've got a few in mind,” the TO replied with a nod.
“Oh goody,” the captain said. “Ones that will make them cringe?”
“A few,” the TO said in mock serious tones.
“Excellent. I'll be looking forward to them then,” the captain replied.
“We've already logged one request from Ducky 2 to dock with one of the ships. They want to get some space,” the TO reported.
“Denied. They stay put in their sled in case the shit hits the fan and we need them to bug out in a hurry,” the captain replied.
“Decision logged,” Sam stated, transmitting it to the small freighter. Almost immediately, he got a second request. “And they are requesting you reconsider.”
“I'm getting a terrible whine all of a sudden,” the TO muttered, sticking his pinky finger in his ear and wringing it out with a shaking motion.
The captain snorted. “They can stay on station for another week. At the end of the week, I'll reconsider,” he stated. He'd already planned to let the fleet train dock on weekends to let their ship companies comingle and blow off steam. The crews of the warships would be allowed to shuttle over as well eventually to also get some down time before cabin fever erupted.
He checked the plot and snorted. Ducky 1 was already en route to the cache site. Within an hour or so he knew they would clear out their gear and then jump to Sol with the news of the battle, such as it was. It would be a nice brief bit of good news for the population he knew.
Eventually the ship or another like it would return with fresh orders, mail, news, and what little supplies the tiny ships could carry. The plan was to have regular runs of ships to and from the jump point to keep up on news and supplies. Reinforcements would eventually trickle in when they were ready. For the moment, the three warships were the only starships the navy had available, though there were several more destroyers being worked up.