Adapt and Overcome (The Maxwell Saga) (27 page)

“That way we’d approach to within half a million kilometers of
Gertruida Maria
at this interception point, five hours before she enters orbit. Our stealth features should prevent a standard merchant ship’s radar from detecting us until we got within a few thousand kilometers, so she’d have no idea we were there. She might suspect what we were up to when our icon disappeared from her Plot display, but she couldn’t know for sure.”

Steve nodded. “Very well thought out, Lieutenant. What if her suspicions lead her to change course, to prevent us from making an interception?”

Dippenaar grinned. “Then we’d know she was up to no good, wouldn’t we, Sir? She’d have no reason to change course if she was what she said she was. If she does something not consistent with a farm ship on orbital approach, we’d have grounds to be suspicious. We could take more direct measures to prevent her approaching the planet until we’d checked her out more thoroughly.”

“Right again. I’m glad to see you’re getting the idea.” Steve looked around the OpCen with open approval. “We’ll continue to use routine contacts like this as training opportunities. If you all work this well together and rise to the occasion when required, we’ll have this ship operational in no time.”

A rumble of satisfaction ran around those present as he rose from his command chair. “Lieutenant Dippenaar, you’re Watch Officer at present, correct?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You can take over, then.” Steve gave him a concise summary of the ship’s course, speed and other essential information.

“Understood.
I relieve you, Sir.” He saluted smartly.

Steve returned his salute. “I stand relieved, Sir. Put her on course for Rolla. Let’s go home.”

~ ~ ~

No sooner had
Nightingale
returned from her shakedown cruise than Steve was summoned to an urgent meeting in the System Control Center aboard the Elevator Terminal. There he found Colonel Houmayoun and Commodore O’Fallon, plus another officer he didn’t know.

“This is Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux,” O’Fallon introduced him.
“He’s been designated as the Commanding Officer of our first division of patrol craft.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sir.”
Steve shook Le Roux’s hand. “I presume you’ll be coming out with us on some of our training missions?”

“Yes – most of them, in fact.
There have been some unexpected developments.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, but before he could ask questions, Colonel
Houmayoun stepped in. “Constandt de Bouff’s been traced to a backwater planet called Finarga on the far side of the settled galaxy. His father lived there, and set up a local space freight line through which he funneled the profits of his piracy to launder them. Constandt returned there after his father was killed. He shut down the freight line and liquidated the family assets. Two months ago he loaded the proceeds and all his extended family members aboard his ship, took with him two of his father’s freighters that were at Finarga, and vanished. He must have sent new rendezvous instructions to his father’s other ships – they haven’t been back to Finarga, at any rate.

The Colonel frowned as he began to pace back and forth.
“Before he left, he was heard to swear on more than one occasion that he was going to ‘make Rolla bleed’ for what it had done to his father. He also threatened revenge on everyone involved in the attack on
Blanco
. BuIntel were inclined to treat that as grandstanding, until they learned he’d fired everyone aboard his father’s freighters. He seems to have thought their regular merchant spacer crews weren’t ruthless enough for whatever he has in mind. To partly replace them, he hired the most scummy, violent criminals he could find on Finarga, even if they weren’t qualified spacers. The authorities were apparently delighted to see the back of every one of them.

“He carried out some engineering and structural work on one of his father’s freighters before they left. His people did it themselves, and made sure no-one had a chance to inspect anything. However, some of his people were overheard talking about it
in a bar at the Planetary Elevator orbital terminal. They claimed he was installing missile tubes and laser cannon in her. It seems Constandt rendezvoused with his father’s depot ship after the attack here.”

Steve nodded. “I
remember that pirate prisoner, Gazzarda, telling us about her, but I heard the Fleet destroyers sent to look for her couldn’t find her, Sir.”

“That’s right. According to what his spacers said
at that bar, she was very old and in poor condition. He must have decided she wouldn’t be able to evade searchers. He stripped her of all her supplies and everything of value, including all the weapons stored in her holds. He added her crew to his own, then dropped her hulk into the star of the deserted system where she’d been based. At Finarga he installed the weapons in one of his father’s freighters, and divided his own and the depot ship’s crews between all three ships. He spread his new recruits among the ships, presumably to train them as spacers, then headed out, destination unknown.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose. “He didn’t file a
navigation plan with System Control, Sir?”

“
Finarga says not, although like you I find that hard to believe. They contacted the Commonwealth to tell us about him, probably because they were afraid of our reaction when we learned the de Bouffs had hidden themselves there. They claim that because they’d used a different family name, and hadn’t committed any crimes there that would have caused them to investigate them, they had no idea who they really were. Even so, they waited until Constandt left before approaching us. That speaks volumes, if you ask me.”

Steve snorted.
“Uh-huh. I wonder how much it cost de Bouff over the years to buy their silence, Sir?”

“Quite a bit, I should think.
I daresay some of their politicians and officials made a good living out of him. Be that as it may, BuIntel assesses Constandt’s threats as credible, given his track record. They warn that he may be planning some sort of operation against Rolla in the short to medium term, but they’ve no idea what it might be.”

“I’d say that’s likely, Sir,” Steve agreed. “De Bouff senior had ten missile tubes and four laser cannon on
Blanco
. We can assume Constandt’s ship has comparable weapons, plus a similar number from their depot ship that are now on one of his father’s freighters. If some of his missiles have nuclear warheads, as some of his father’s did, he can take out most of Rolla’s orbital installations plus any parked ships of the System Patrol Service. Worse, if his two armed ships look like ordinary freighters, they might get within range before we suspect them. The only identification we have is Finarga’s description of his father’s two ships. Did Finarga supply their gravitic drive signatures, and perhaps Constandt’s ship’s signature as well, and maybe their design schematics?”

Commodore O’Fallon interjected, “The message said
Finarga sent all the information they had, but we haven’t received it yet – and whether or not it’s accurate is anyone’s guess. SysCon recorded the drive signature of Constandt’s ship when he mounted that decoy mission here for his father, but we don’t have distant surveillance nodes and he came in on the far side of the system, so it’s not very clear.

“In any event, we have to take immediate steps to further improve our security.
The Fleet is going to lend us an older system surveillance satellite constellation until we can afford to buy our own. We’ll deploy it as soon as possible. We’re also going to institute a convoy system for arriving ships. They’ll be required to assemble at a designated point on the system boundary, where they’ll be inspected by one of our warships, then escorted to planetary orbit. Unfortunately we can’t implement that immediately. We have to give at least a hundred and eighty days’ notice of any change in our navigational requirements, and publicize it via the United Planets. We’ll also have to deploy warning satellites around the system boundary for at least a year after it takes effect, to broadcast the new measures to arriving ships who may not have heard of them.”

“What about more warships, Sir?” Steve asked.

“We’ll try to get three more patrol craft here within the next three months, even if that means delaying the others a little longer. That’ll give us a division of four of them. Our first two corvettes get back from their refurbishment next month, at which time we’ll send the other two to undergo the same process. By May we should have two destroyers, two corvettes and four patrol craft in service. We’ll hire a couple of small private security craft to cover the asteroid mining project until we have enough ships to do the job ourselves. The destroyers will return to the Fleet by the end of the year, but we’ll have taken delivery of the rest of our patrol craft by then.”

O’Fallon
ran his fingers through his hair, frowning in frustration. “Our biggest headache is going to be finding trained crews for all our ships,” he admitted. “While the corvettes were being refurbished their crews were reassigned to the destroyers, and some have now been transferred to your ship. We’re training a large number of entry-level Spacers, but we don’t have enough experienced Spacers and NCO’s. In all, we need to get about three hundred personnel up to speed as fast as possible for the corvettes and the first few patrol craft. I think we’re going to have to double up on
Nightingale’
s crew, hot-bunking everyone and stuffing every nook and cranny with extra ration packs, and try to train twice as many people twice as fast. Do you think that’s possible?”

“I do, Sir,” Steve said firmly, trying to ignore the sudden hollow feeling in his stomach. “It’ll be
tricky to find enough qualified supervisors for all the trainees, but if we can borrow a few more NCO’s from the Fleet destroyers and your corvettes, I think we can cope.”

“Good man!” The relief in O’Fallon’s voice was obvious. “I was afraid you were going to tell me it couldn’t be done.”

“It’s like the old proverb says, Sir: ‘Needs must when the Devil drives’ – or, in this case, when Constandt de Bouff does. We’ll do what we have to do to be ready when the next three patrol craft arrive. As for training your officers, Sir, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions.”

“Go ahead.”

“With those currently on the Crusher, plus Lieutenant Grunion and Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux, you should have enough Commanding Officers for your first squadron by the time the other ships arrive. Executive Officers will be more difficult to find. I understand you planned to initially use the Senior Lieutenants who’ll attend the Crusher later this year, like my present XO, but they won’t be in the job for very long before they leave for Lancaster. Under the circumstances, Sir, I respectfully submit you might do better to appoint XO’s who’ll stay in the job longer and therefore will have more time to learn it well – not to mention train their crews and their successors.”

O’Fallon frowned.
“I take your point, but we don’t have that many Senior Lieutenants to spare.”

“Why not use some Warrant Officers, Sir, and some of your more promising Junior Lieutenants?
When I did my tour of duty aboard
Grasswren
at Radetski, our Exec was a reservist Warrant Officer from Vesta. He was very good.”

“We don’t have many spare Warrant Officers either.
Don’t forget, we’re a small service, and until recently we’d been deliberately under-funded for years, so our personnel strength suffered along with everything else.”

“You might consider offering six-month or one-year assignments to officers and senior NCO’s from the System Patrol Services of other Commonwealth planets
, Sir,” Colonel Houmayoun interjected. “The Fleet’s already doing that aboard the two destroyers in this system, and we do it all the time on peacekeeping missions, as Lieutenant Maxwell pointed out. Many planetary forces jump at the chance to offer their people a chance to gain experience in a new environment.”

“Very well, Colonel, I’ll discuss that with the Minister.
Please continue, Lieutenant.”

“Aye
aye, Sir. With a Senior Lieutenant as skipper, a Junior Lieutenant or Warrant Officer as XO, and a Junior Lieutenant or Ensign as third officer, plus a good Chief of the Ship to hold the enlisted crew together, your leadership cadre aboard each patrol craft will be adequate.”

He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to suggest the next logical step, because
Nightingale
was still like a new toy in his hands, and he was thoroughly enjoying his first command… but he knew it was necessary. “I propose that Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux and Senior Lieutenant Grunion share command of
Nightingale
with me, Sir. We could each take command for one patrol in three, which would give them early command experience. I can accompany each of them on their first patrol, to help them learn the ins and outs of a
Songbird
class ship. By the time the next three ships arrive, Lieutenant Grunion might even be ready to handle two of them as a flotilla under Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux’s overall command. If she’s already worked closely with him, he’ll know her well enough to make the best possible use of her talents.”

O’Fallon looked at him quizzically. “You’re being very generous with your new ship, Lieutenant. She’s your first command, and you’ve only just taken over, yet you’re proposing to share your authority with other officers.”