by Chris Hechtl
The first medical relief convoy was a snap kick, just two hospital ships, Good Hope and Florence Nightingale under Captain Twitch's command. There were some support ships with them too though. They would hopefully finish killing the plagues along the jump lines between Tau-1252 and the Trajin Cluster while they came to the capital. Her people had already treated a lot of it, and she'd sent Dasher out with news of the cures to the plagues to the other systems. The follow-up convoy that had been promised should hopefully help them get a handle on other star systems in neighboring areas.
There was no telling how far the plagues had spread though. The hospital ships were going to be all over the sector putting out fires for some time to come. They'd have to leap frog each other and keep in contact.
Once they were made safe for the medics to go to she reminded herself.
Having the hospital ships from Rho was an intense relief for her and her people. Even if they weren't there yet. They would take some of the intense pressure off of her to find a way to get the cures out there. It would allow her to focus on finding a way to stopping the pirates from spreading the damn plague.
Hopefully, Admiral Ishmael would see the light and stop it on his own. But, she couldn't trust him to do it; she had to plan on his actively continuing to spread the plagues until she found out otherwise.
She had to privately admit that she did have some mixed feelings and reservations over Helen Richards. Shelby had been promoted before Helen, but the other woman had not been frocked to her rank like she had. Helen had been fully promoted and approved by the acting Senate. She had no idea if the Senate had approved her promotion yet or not. There hadn't been anything in the dispatches she'd seen.
Commodore Richards would also have different priorities than Shelby herself had. The medical doctor would have her hands full dealing with the medical crisis of course. It also felt good to have someone looking over her shoulder … but she knew her priorities might differ with the doctor's. She wanted to divide her resources to fill all of her objectives including running Admiral Ishmael and his ilk to ground. But the doctor might want to focus exclusively on the plagues and humanitarian crisis.
That meant if she couldn't get in to Tortuga soon, the cat would have more time to build up his forces or pull out more gear. And it would mean the cat would have more time to get further away once he did start running. And, quite possibly spread the plagues to unsuspecting worlds.
Commodore Richards' courier had come with notice of her impending arrival, but another had come in with an update. It seemed the commodore had determined it was a good idea to scout along her line of march and treat outbreaks of the plagues as she came. That would delay her for several more months.
But, at least they were keeping in regular contact by courier.
She had taken the time to look the commodore's record up. They'd spoken a few times when she had visited Epsilon Triangula but that had been formal. She hadn't gotten a handle on the woman's career. Apparently the doctor had divided her time between her two hats, being the senior doctor on ET and being the senior officer in the star system. From all the records she'd seen, the woman had done a good job in both.
But that didn't tell her anything about the woman's tactical or strategic sense. Did she have any? What about infrastructure? Did she have a … no; she almost had to have a logistics insight with her hand in medical administration, right? She frowned thoughtfully.
Again, having someone on hand looking over her shoulder, ultimately judging her was a mixed blessing. But the commodore wasn't there at the base as of yet. And from the tone of her recordings, Shelby had deduced that the commodore was going to be more focused on the plagues than on the day-to-day operations of the navy in the quadrant. Not that she wouldn't bear ultimate responsibility for their mission.
Which meant it would be a good idea to make some progress on those fronts. The more the better.
“Thinking deep thoughts, ma'am?” a familiar voice asked in her ear.
She smiled. “Just the usual Boni. Nap over?” she asked as her personal A.I. appeared on her HUD in a blink.
“I wasn't napping actually; I was working on the decryption project.”
She'd learned to not get too defensive with the commodore. Reading the human female's moods had become almost second nature to the integrated A.I.
Besides, she was young and she was quite proud of helping out.
“Ah, putting in your two cents. Good,” Shelby replied with a nod of approval. She sensed that Boni wanted the approval. That was fine; the A.I. was still something of a teen in some ways.
Ensign Bonbibi aka Boni was her watchdog and chief of staff. The A.I. had been grown in her implants when she'd been frocked to flag rank. Her name meant Hindu spirit of protection of the forest. Odd for someone protecting and interacting with an engineering flag officer but to each their own.
Boni had taken on a human female avatar. She'd blended some Hindu features with some unearthly ones. She'd toned down the earthy elements and favored a standard naval officer's uniform while on duty.
“I think we'll have a breakthrough by tomorrow sometime.”
“Oh?” Shelby cocked her head at the offhand progress report.
“No promises but I think the sample size was adequate for the decrypt. Technically Demon Chaser could have done it if they'd spent a bit more time cracking and less time listening.” She left unsaid that they'd had codes from their observations of Tortuga. But the codes hadn't worked, most likely due to a recent code shift. That had been noted during a lull during the recent battle of Tau-1252 so no doubt the enemy was aware that they were vulnerable to cyber intrusion.
Which just made the importance of cracking the codes higher. And it upped the challenge for people like her.
“But then they wouldn't have been doing their job. Once we have a working key, we can go back over the recordings and sort through them. And we can pass the key on to the next ship that goes to do a running translation.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Glad you agree,” Shelby said as she stretched her legs. “Anything earth-shattering going on?”
“No. It looks like all of the fires are suitably banked or contained for the moment. Mister Muggs wishes to speak to you at his earliest opportunity.”
“You mean my earliest opportunity?” Shelby asked in amusement.
“Yes, ma'am. Whenever you are ready.”
“Where is he?”
“He's en route back to the base. He should be back by the weekend.”
“Ah. Check my schedule. If what he has to say isn't earth-shattering enough to send in a comm message, he can sit on it until we have time for a face-to-face.”
“Aye aye, ma'am. I'll let him know. No doubt he'd like some time with his family.”
“You mean his wife,” Shelby replied with a grimace. Phoebe Muggs wasn't at the top of people she wanted to interact with list. Not even close. The Neochimp was a pain in the ass. More so every day she was “trapped” in the “hellhole” of a star system.
Apparently, the Muggs were having marital issues. She hated that she was getting drawn into it. According to scuttlebutt it wasn't limited to their quarters either. Mrs. Muggs had taken to haranguing her husband in public. Several people had reported she'd been drunk too.
She felt for the Neochimp in some ways, being trapped, but the woman should have known better. She'd certainly had her eyes open when they'd launched the mission! Mrs. Muggs should have realized what she was getting into when they'd undertaken the mission. She shook her head.
“I'm going to check some videos out and then crash if I'm not needed for anything.”
“Understood, ma'am. Funny cat videos coming up.”
Shelby snorted. “No, I'll think of something less offending to Zeb and others.”
Boni chuckled in her ear as her avatar faded out until her eyes were left. “You say that now, but I know you a bit better than that, ma'am. Whoever set up that prank to spook him was a genius.�
�
Shelby chuckled. “Okay, maybe one more time,” she said, pulling the video up from her favorite's list.
Chapter 8
Commander Cynthia Troll, “Trollope” to her friends, played with one of her blond Shirley Temple curls as she scanned the vid screens. Each screen around her was divided into a quartet of video camera points of view showing the various buzz of activities around her ship.
And, it was her ship now. Shelby had officially relinquished command of Prometheus to her. She was now a ship's captain, with all the trials and tribulations that went with it. Lucky her she thought in amusement.
She was glad the tender turned factory ship had been released from emergency ship repairs and the yard expansion to work on the defenses. That was progressing nicely. Shuttles occasionally came in from the inner star system with parts from the growing industrial plants there or with material they were lacking from the asteroids her tugs were bringing in.
The fuel farm was taking shape nicely. She judged that by the end of the week they'd have it finished and could start on the next phase while automated tugs from the gas giant platforms began to build up a stockpile of fuel and liquid gases for her ship, the forts, and other ships in the area.
Not soon enough for her, but she'd take that over waiting another month.
<()>^<()>
Shelby glanced at Prometheus's latest report but only did a light skim. She'd come to learn that Boni would flag anything she needed to know. She still did the skim. She wasn't about to give it a free pass, but when nothing jumped out at her too, she signed off on it and then moved on to the report on the yard progress.
They had a long ways to go with the orbital defenses, but they were getting there. The majority of the defenses were centered around the Tortuga jump point for the time being. That was a given. They were still working on thickening defenses at each of the other jump points as well as inner layer defenses, but the main priority was the primary expected thrust of an attack.
The attack and the navy's ability to repulse it had gotten the natives to sign up in droves. Unfortunately, droves for them was limited to just under a thousand souls, about one or two percent of their entire population. They were going to pick up more people soon but not soon enough in her eyes.
And they'd all be untrained too she thought in annoyance. They needed to work on education she reminded herself. They needed to improve the enlisted training center. PT was a common complaint from the DIs.
She knew native recruitment was tapering off but outside recruitment was slowly picking up. Word was spreading with news of the plagues and who was behind it and that the Federation was back. She wasn't sure which was a more powerful motivating factor to sign up. She would take either one but wished the plagues weren't a factor at all. Hell, she hoped whoever came up with the idea slow roasted in hell for ages. A quick clean death was too good for them.
The Conestoga was making regular runs to Lebynthos and back. Eventually other ships would take on runs in the other directions … once she found a way to scout them and make them safe.
When was a big question. Though they did occasionally have a welcome unexpected visitor from time to time.
The latest arrival of “enthusiastic recruits” had tried her patience. An elderly but apparently still game Clydesdale had arrived last week overloaded with 463 recruits. Some had been worse for the wear; the ship hadn't been outfitted for that many people. They'd run low on food near the last week of the journey.
Some of their visitors were still recovering. She wondered if a couple were luxuriating in the medic's care, malingering to squeeze as much as they could out of such ministrations. She wouldn't put it past them. She was also heartily sick of having to stroke egos and repeatedly explain that they were not there to be a handout. Some of her people were starting to think of them as tourists or mooches, which wasn't a good attitude to have, though she could and did understand it privately. She even agreed to some degree. People actually had to still, you know, work. And they needed people to help not just act as cheerleaders on the sidelines.
People looking for a free ride need not apply she thought with a disgusted snort.
It should be ships too, though she knew the importance of getting into that ship and at least making her safe. Or safer she thought, looking out the window. The ship's captain was certainly taking advantage of the navy's offer of a free checkup. And she'd thrown in a partial restoration for his carrying the passengers, even though he charged most of them in advance.
It was all about spreading the word that they were in the system and things were changing for the better she reminded herself firmly as she turned away from the window and back to her desk and her workload. Abdul had promised the last malingering patient would be kicked out of his clutches that morning. He'd apparently confirmed that and was itching to get on to the next phase.
Well, she'd let him start building but he'd have to temper that. She had another project that was important to get started.
<()>^<()>
Lieutenant Commander Abdul Sulistyo cracked his simian knuckles and then flexed his fingers before he presented them over the keyboard like a maestro about to perform a concerto.
He checked his orientation and then the Neoorangutan hit a series of keys, the last with a flourish.
He then turned to the main screen in his office with a grin.
It wasn't quite a goofy grin but it felt close to it. He couldn't help it. He was the yard manager, and he'd been aching to build something. They'd finally cleared the slips of all repairs so they could get back to the ships they'd laid down. Even the Clydesdale was out of his fur.
The delay had been good in a way as had the battle; they now knew what they were up against. They had abandoned producing more frigates after the battle. Once sublight frigate six had been completed, the commodore had ordered him to skip direct to tin cans and the bigger warships. He appreciated that. He appreciated it a lot, but it had come with a lot of headaches as they'd had to rebuild the yard while trying to also build the ships and deal with repairs.
Cruisers were preferred, heavy cruisers if possible. Ships capable of handling the pirates and even taking the fight to the enemy while also doing long-range patrols. Manning them was going to be someone else's problem though.
So were the hyperdrives, nodes, and power plants he thought in annoyance. He was fairly sure the commodore was planning to replace each of her starships with sublight ships for local defense. That would allow her to concentrate them to take Tortuga and then run down any pirates that happened to get away.
At least, that was his theory at any rate.
It had been a hectic two weeks. They had opened the cruiser assembly line without much flourish and then retooled the frigate line to produce tin cans. Production was still tight, logistic supplies were barely ahead of demand, but they were now building them. Three each had been laid down, one every other day last week. Given all the hiccups and issues with the tight supplies, not to mention training and the expansion program, it would be a few months before the yard dogs hit their stride.
In a way the issues with logistics was okay. The workforce building the ships was still getting into the hang of it. He'd had a few mistakes to date and even two accidents. And they were still working on quality control from their civilian part suppliers. But, they were getting there.
It was nice though that he'd managed to skim off some of the people that had been on the tug, weapon platforms, missiles, pods, and small craft line to man the larger production lines. The small craft production line was just barely keeping ahead of demand. It would be a while before the natives got their wish to purchase a few for their own.
Only one cruiser was in the slip at the moment. Well, twelve blocks of the first grand block of one cruiser. That ship line was going to take a while to hit its stride.
He sometimes wished they had time to savor each keel laying, but then again he was glad that they didn't have to go through all the prep work for a cere
mony. Nor the dress up and hoopla and delays it all entailed. That would come later when they had time to appreciate and savor their efforts.
He had to admit he was a little annoyed that the brass wanted to divert ten percent of their total industry to start the Dyson Sphere project. It wasn't like the star was going anywhere. Nor was it critical to have the solar farm up and running, they had plenty of power to meet their needs for the moment. Though he knew having a power surplus would be a good thing, and having it come from the sun, a completely renewable resource over their reactors, would also be a plus. Any yes, planning for the future, he got that. But did everything have to happen now? At once? He shook his head. The beam receivers alone were going to be a hassle … and the buoys to keep people from moving through the beams … and the tugs to go out and service all that equipment …
He pursed his lips in annoyance. But there was no give in the schedule.
Apparently someone knew something he didn't, he thought. And, he was the luckless soul designated with finding a way to make it all work. Sleep was about to become as fleeting as peace and quiet. Aggravation was about to become the norm.
He couldn't help but glower at the phone symbol in his implants as it went off. “And so it begins,” he sighed.
Chapter 9
Fred Muggs tugged on one ear and fought the urge to sigh as he waited on Governor Adrienne once more. It wasn't so much as a political dominance game to put him in his place; at least, he didn't think so. He couldn't be too sure though. If it was he'd have a little chat with her about the pecking order, respectfully of course.
The State Department representative had been forced into a lot of meetings with the local leadership. The star system was well on its way to become a full member of the Federation but they had issues. He'd had to repeatedly promise that the commodore wasn't going anywhere and wouldn't go on the offense until she was ready. It had taken a lot of stroking, and he felt like the governor wanted the assurances written in blood.