Shiver Me Timbers

by Chris Hechtl

  She made a soft puttering sound and then checked the yard report. As usual, no sudden leaps in progress. No backslides or accidents either, so, steady as she goes. She shouldn't and wouldn't complain, even if she wished things could hurry up and get done a tiny bit faster.

  <()>^<()>

  Commander Steve Coglin heard the announcement over the PA that the new arrival was a friendly. He shrugged the news off and went back to work.

  He'd managed to make up his losses after the battle but only barely. He had only a couple reserve pilots left. Also, only a couple of reserve birds stored in the main bases. Commodore Logan had promised him they were going to start up the fighter and bomber production line soon but only the one line. They'd have to share and do runs.

  Which told him that she wasn't prioritizing carriers for a while. That was a pity, they could do a lot. He knew his people could do better if they had the right support.

  The Neocheetah sniffed in disdain. He'd hoped that the commodore would have split the difference on battle fleet and carriers. Apparently he'd been wrong. Just remembering the force mix of the convoy should have told him that. Just one carrier, plus the fighters assigned to the other ships? He flicked his ears.

  The commodore was right in some respects though. They didn't have a pilot training facility nor did they have sufficient pilots to draw from the civilians. Those that were applying were being pushed into the shuttle and tug departments, despite stated desires to be fighter jocks.

  And then there was the lack of carriers. Sure they had a couple of carrier forts but the wings were light to say the least. His reserve pilots were there with some veterans he'd drawn from the other ships’ companies. It would be years at this rate before they were fully stocked.

  Which made her point about not bothering to make carriers at the moment, damn it.

  It still wasn't right, but what could he do? Not a whole hell of a lot at the moment. Just grin and bear it.

  <()>^<()>

  Ayuma Muggs looked over to the slightly harassed human PO training the class. He'd made PO 3 in, well, not quite record time but record for some. But he'd stuck to his plan and kept training even though he hadn't managed to get into an OCS course as of yet. He was knocking out credits in his off time. That should hopefully shorten his time in OCS once he did get there.

  He hadn't anticipated the training in boot. The DIs hadn't pulled any punches for him despite his time in the convoy and background. He'd come to appreciate it, though initially he'd been surprised and hurt by it.

  “More? Bloody hell,” the PO muttered as he read an email. “I suppose I can handle a half dozen. This class is running smoothly. But do I have to fit them in now and disrupt the class?” He shook his head angrily.

  Apparently, it wasn't his email. Apparently, the PO was talking to someone through his implants. The Neochimp saw the PO's eyes cut around him and instantly dropped his eyes to his tablet to hide his snooping. It wasn't like it was any of his business anyway.

  Besides, the engineering calculus program was at the edge of his math skills. He needed to focus.

  <()>^<()>

  Governor Adrienne noted the news report of the ship arrival with half a cocked ear. She returned her attention to the plastic flower on her desk blotter. For the most part, she was amused by the various offers to marry into a herd. She'd found various reasons to gently refuse. Her favorite was a denial because they were in a colony too far away from the established capital. Twice she'd caught a herd who had been more interested in getting her in order to get her to move the capital than in any actual interest in herself.

  She shook her head. This latest suitor had some balls; she had to give him some credit. He'd paid one of the janitors to let him into her offices to drop the flower off. Of course the janitor was history; one didn't play games with security. Pity about that but she should have known better and not had her head filled with romantic blather.

  Things were ticking away nicely. She knew a few people wanted more, but some like her were awed by the progress they'd already made. Their population was beginning to climb; some of the faster breeding species were about to have children—cubs, pups, whatever. And they actually had the life support to handle as many as they wanted! It was a novel concept, to not have to control the product of one's womb so carefully. Perhaps she should consider one of those proposals or draw up one of her own! She grinned ever so briefly. Wouldn't that set some tongues wagging and put a few bulls on their ears and hocks if she got proactive and aggressive? Should she begin interviewing candidates? She sat back and had a brief chuckle over some of the expressions of people she knew that came up in her mind.

  Yes indeed, things were certainly looking up. Give them another generation and the star system was well on its way to becoming what it once was before the fall of the old Federation. And they had the New Federation and more importantly the navy to thank for that.

  Which was one reason she had quietly counseled her people tone down their requests on the navy. After that battle everyone saw it in their best interests for the navy to grow as quickly and as powerfully as possible so as to not be witness to a repeat performance. They shouldn't be out with a handout demanding more than what the navy had agreed to.

  A lot of people looked to the navy and those who wore the uniform in awe and reverence. Some of the cynics might mutter that they'd brought nothing but trouble to them, but she knew better. And those same cynics might bitterly point to the systems the navy wasn't protecting, but she knew they were just making asses of themselves.

  And yes, they might point out that Commodore Logan hadn't fulfilled her promise to take the fight to the pirates, but she knew there was one thing they were missing. Time.

  She hadn't done it … yet.

  <()>^<()>

  Phoebe Muggs fumed over the obstructions in her life. Nothing was going as she'd imagined, which made her want to give up and return to Rho. Fred might say she'd become dead set on that and he was right. A big reason was because she was so angry with her husband and son. Only the desire not to endure another lengthy trip on a ship kept her from doing so.

  Well, that and currently no ships were returning to Rho she thought, digging her toe into the carpet angrily. It was standard but died in the tan she'd desired. But it wasn't deep piled as she'd wanted. That was another thing. The quarters … the walls seemed to close in on her. She'd thought they'd be on a planet not a damn station!

  She shook her head in aggravation. Oh, how she lamented her decision to follow with her husband! As important as perceptions were to keep their family unit together, and to support her husband, she should have stayed in the capital. And Ayuma's abandoning her in her hour of need! Her fingers dug into the edge of the bed until her knuckles whitened. Wretched child! Wretched and ungrateful! She should have left him in a boarding school instead of allowing him to come. No, she was right the first time; she shouldn't have come at all!

  She fumed as she got up and went to the wet bar and poured herself another glass of rotgut. That was another thing; the only wine in the star system was either replicated or imported. She'd gone through her supply rather quickly. The navy had regulations about how much weight she could have … she grimaced, swinging the glass.

  Fred had talked to her the other evening about her drinking. Was it last night or the night before? She examined the glass and then shrugged. She didn't care. She needed the buzz to get over the crushing disappointment of following him. Had they stayed in Rho she could have been at parties, hobnobbing and building his career. Here there was nothing. No parties and if she wanted to visit the colonies, she had to hop an engineering shuttle or one of the ferries. There was no way she was going to burn half her day or more sitting in a bucket seat waiting to get from point A to point B.

  Why couldn't the navy give them preference! Another vexing thing, her husband relied on civilian transport in the system! Sometimes he was gone for days at a time! She was starting to think he was doing it on purpose to get away
from her. She had thought he'd muttered something about shrew under his breath. She grimaced.

  Had they remained in Rho, why, she could have influenced Ayuma, gently pushing him into the sort of career she'd had in mind for him all along. A career in government service, quite possibly politics. But his prolonged exposure to the navy had the opposite effect.

  Impetuous child! And just like a male to run off to combat! Didn't he realize he could very well get himself killed! All that work in his upbringing, all the time invested …

  And here, in the squalid filth of the sector! Really, she hadn't known it would be so long. Oh, she'd been told, but who really thought of that sort of time? She shook her head and then turned to see an image of Ayuma Fred had insisted on printing out. She paused to study it for a long moment. She did have to admit her son did look good in uniform.

  But, his being in uniform and in danger wasn't worth the anxiety it was causing her. Not that he seemed to care she thought with an angry sniff as she poured herself another drink.

  <()>^<()>

  Fred felt a sense of relief when he finally got the chance to do a face-to-face briefing with the commodore. He hated the delay. She'd had other meetings, but it had taken nearly two weeks to get onto her schedule to brief her about his meeting. He'd sent her the email report, but she might not have read it or may have just skimmed it. Her A.I., Boni, had just given him a stock response when he'd asked for a follow-up.

  He heartily hoped that Commodore Richards would show up soon. He'd heard the woman had a lot more experience with dealing with a large command and politics. Commodore Logan was deft in some ways, but she also tended to coast when it came to politics, favoring engineering over everything else.

  Not everything could be fixed with a spanner he thought with a shake of his head. Was that how it was like with Admiral Irons? He wanted to speculate but the yeoman showed him into the commodore's office.

  The commodore listened to his report and then frowned thoughtfully as she rose and got herself a cup of coffee. She offered the carafe to him, but he shook his head.

  He was attuned to her body language enough to see she wasn't happy as she stirred the cup and then put the spoon down on a napkin and resumed her seat.

  “I'm glad you didn't commit to anything. But I don't even like talking about it. It's way too soon for crap like that. Talk about dividing the spoils of victory before the battle has even been waged!”

  Fred nodded. “I know, ma'am, but I was in the room.”

  “Then you should have tabled it. By letting them open the negotiations, they have a foot in the door, or they think they do. It also puts us on the hook for something. If the pirates burn everything down as they leave, then what?”

  Fred winced. He hadn't considered that. “Yes, ma'am.”

  “I don't like the idea of them trying to get their hooks into what we get from Tortuga. For heaven's sake we haven't even taken the place yet!” She shook her head in aggravation. “And the very idea! We may pay in blood for …,” she sputtered to a halt and then inhaled a cleansing breath. “For the moment, it doesn't matter. But we need to head that sort of shit off in the future. The governor is right; the priority is taking the pirates out. That sort of greed I don't need.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” the Neochimp nodded. “Are you open to that? I mean, letting them get material returned to them?”

  Shelby puttered for a moment playing with her cup. “The problem is how much is left and what we might need. Proof too, we'd need some sort of proof. Would you want to give them something if we could use it to run the pirates down or help save millions on a world the pirates infested?”

  Fred winced. Her eyes bored into his for a long uncomfortable moment. “Well, when you put it that way …,” he squirmed.

  “Yeah, that's what I thought,” she said dryly.

  <()>^<()>

  Lieutenant Fixer's antennas bobbed like a mad drummer on a wild riff as she tried to multitask. She had a lot of projects under her faceted eyes at the moment. The commodore had prioritized them all at or near the highest priorities. Only when she'd demanded clarification and a list of the order did she finally get some of her own priorities straight.

  The yard expansion for instance was in good hands at the moment. They weren't attempting to grow the yard to produce anything larger than a heavy cruiser. The engineers and planners involved now knew how to handle the expansion, and she only needed to oversee them in a minimum capacity.

  The fortresses were a little different. There were constant problems with the forts, most of it stemming from logistics. A lot of that was not in her mandibles.

  They had finally finished the Spacebee's involvement with the civilians. That was something of a relief. But, if she'd thought she'd take a vacation, she was wrong. The commodore had immediately dumped three projects on her plate to replace the one finished project, and she wanted them all finished ASAP.

  Well, that wasn't going to happen with any of the three. Commodore Logan was correct in that the Dyson sphere project and the inflatable asteroid project had long lead times. And the Dyson sphere project would eventually be self-sustaining. It was also relatively simple to get going; they just had to get some reserve manufacturing capacity in order to build the infrastructure to build the satellites and platforms on the innermost planet. That had taken a factory ship the better part of a week to complete. Oversight was minimal too.

  But the inflatable asteroid was a major headache. She had yet to find out what had gone wrong in the previous three failed attempts. In order to move forward they needed to know what had gone wrong on each in order to avoid a repeat. In other words, they needed to learn from their mistakes.

  And that was just the first part. While the asteroid was spinning up, they had to have infrastructure started to begin the herculean task of outfitting the thing! Just cutting the door was going to be fun. Moving it wasn't something she wanted to even think about at the moment.

  Tugs. They needed big ass tugs. What was it someone, some Terran had said? For want of a nail a horse was lost. For want of a horse … and so on and something about a battle and a kingdom lost?

  Logistics in other words. Logistics, which was turning into the bane of her existence.

  The last priority project had something to do with a hospital expansion project. She'd skimmed it. But since it was at the bottom of the commodore's wish list, she decided to ignore it for the moment and focus on the primary objectives.

  Chapter 12

  Tau-X3301

  Captain S'th was not happy with the state of affairs on her beloved Belfast. Her tongue twitched in an out. She wanted to hiss but kept herself from doing so. Her crew didn't like it, usually spooking when she did.

  Her light cruiser had limped along to their current stop. She had thought her engineers had gotten a handle on the damage and had even made some headway in correcting it, but she'd been wrong. Some of the damage to her ship from the brief battle with Black Corsage had been cumulative.

  And her engineers had insisted that running with one broken leg for so long wasn't helping the situation either. That was most likely true though she felt they had been making excuses at the time.

  The cruiser had limped to the star system. The good news was they were on a cleared path and had messenger buoys to keep them abreast of things going on. Also, the star system was a space system with plenty of things to trade with. That was helping immensely. The bad news was the news of the plagues. The captain didn't want to risk contaminating the ship and crew with a landing on a planet.

  Which meant they had to pick up what supplies they could from space colonies. Fortunately, the Fed forces that had passed ahead of them had given enough for her to get some good will towards her ship.

  <()>^<()>

  Commander Alayan Mochadeyn, captain of the Dora class transport Cai Lun, was heartily sick of his job. Not that he was going to let anyone outside the Beta convoy know that. And he did like being a convoy commander; it looked good on his
resume.

  But slow and steady was getting old. Heartily old, especially when they were turned away from every stop. It was like a reverse pariah situation. Honestly, what did these people have against the Federation anyway? His people came and cured the damn plague that the damn pirates spread, but did they get a thanks? Hell no!

  A beer would be nice. And some time in a ski lodge with some nice company.

  He snorted at himself as he looked at the star system. Well, Alayan, that's not going to happen here! Not unless you go ski on a comet or moon! He shook his head.

  “Sir, we've got something … it looks like a gravitational source under movement. But it's gone now,” his sensor rating reported, sounding confused.

  The captain sat up in alarm. “If it was moving, it was most likely a ship. But you said it stopped?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then they know we're here. Order all ships to halt and keep their eyes peeled.”

  “Sir?”

  “Sensors at full. We don't know what or who we're dealing with,” the captain growled. “It could be the enemy.”

  “Great. I mean aye aye, sir.”

  The captain cut the connection and then considered what to do. “Now what the hell do we do?”

  <()>^<()>

  Captain S'th saw the unexpected arrival at the distant jump point and nodded her massive head as her ship instantly dropped her speed and went ballistic. Her TAO was on the bridge; the standing policy was to run silent when a fresh contact was detected. No doubt the passives were working their hardest to get the details she craved.

  “Anything?” she asked as she slithered onto the bridge.

  “Computers are still working on it. It was a multiple ship arrival. We've confirmed that much,” the ship's A.I. reported.

  “Good to know. That is most likely one of ours or an enemy ship with a prize or friend.”