Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (3 page)

If the fleet found aliens they wanted be able to transmit video of three races working together in a peaceful association. Their ability to get along should suggest they would also be able to get along with other strangers too. Or that was Gordon's theory. The aliens of course might instead find such a thing an abhorrent mixing, but if that was the case then establishing good relations was probably a lost cause anyway.

The military ships were all short crewed on purpose. In case of loss to mechanical failure or hostile action they wished to be able to double up a crew and leave a vessel behind. If such a tragedy happened, they would also destroy the abandoned ship to prevent its capture and examination. The Fargoers had a very hard time being persuaded to reduce their crew to the required level. They agreed in
principle
, just not in particular. Every position seemed to find a reason to be exempt from being cut. The deep space explorers of necessity were
over
staffed from their usual level. The
High Hopes
for example, had been run before by three crew members. That wouldn't work now as an armed command vessel.

The ships being short crewed worked better on a long voyage for another reason. The volume of food and other perishables they laid to supply the crews was much larger than for a conventional voyage. The average commercial freighter might be away a month and carry supplies for a family crew from their home port where it was usually cheaper. An armed military ship might stretch that to two months with a steadily degrading menu, and perhaps a third month using emergency ration bars if it was a survival situation. They planned to carry more water too, for a safety margin, although they would have to mine and distil some eventually. To plan for two
years
for three different species with limited overlap in what they could share was difficult.

They used spaces never intended for perishables and even grappled some food storage containers externally. But there was already both combat and conventional shuttles grappled externally. New weapons systems and the added fuel mining drones cluttering the hull. They also needed extra room internally for perishable items like filters and spares for just about any machinery having moving parts. There wasn't room for a full military crew with redundancy in critical jobs and all the supplies for two years. They were even going to try some very compact accelerated hydroponics for fresh salad things, which no ship in living memory had used, but they were trying it again in both DSEs and the
Retribution
to help morale. The
Sharp Claws
had no room for gardens, even short crewed, and
Murphy's Law
was still run as a Fargone military ship. They didn't intend to experiment or change their operations more than what was absolutely necessary.

All but a half dozen of the ground attack were removed, and their slots filled with ship to ship X-head missiles. The X-heads were so expensive they took a sizeable chunk of Lee's cash to buy, even trading in the ship to ground missiles for their nuclear kernels. But the newly minted Fargone models had both better guidance packages and warheads that could be altered in the last seconds before detonation to emit their x-ray beams in a tight shotgun pattern, or set at specific angles to track up to six targets. Each now has a primary and five secondary beams. USNA warheads had a set geometry and needed to be oriented exactly to put their single very powerful beam on target. The back portion of the main beam destroyed the carrier missile even before the fireball.

Unless the USNA had made some recent advances they had carefully kept secret, these new missiles would give a slight advantage between two ships of the same size and throw weight to the Fargone equipped ship.
Any
edge could mean life or death however.

Gordon also had a secret weapon he'd ordered developed after his unpleasant fight with a USNA fleet on the edge of the Fargone system. He'd aborted his run out system knowing a fleet was waiting to ambush him and fired blind at their potential emergent point before he'd diverted his course to another system on a jump that was far too risky.

He'd had a Fargoer weapons developer, but working in New Japan, make him a jump drone carrying an X-head. The same man who designed their peashooter. Gordon could now fire blind down a jump track he was certain had an ambush waiting on the far side, or fire it after a fleeing vessel he had no chance of catching in a straight chase before it jumped out. It was an ugly weapon, with the potential risk of killing an innocent ship sight unseen if you guessed wrong. A political entity would never risk making them given the potential for error and the resulting public condemnation. But war is messy and survival sometimes costly. He only had two made and put them on the
Retribution
. He didn't publicize the drone's existence, being somewhat ambivalent about them himself.

The considerable computing power to allow the drone to act autonomously and pick a target or search and continue a pursuit after making a jump, cost much more than the nuclear explosive part of the warhead. To the point it seemed an extravagant waste to treat that much computer as a perishable asset, but unleashing a
stupid
weapon on the far side of a jump line was even less defensible morally. The hardest but most important instructions to write were those that made the expensive weapon abort a pursuit and self destruct if there was any uncertainty about its target.

With a planned absence of several years the crew could not be left to choose their own kit. Cotton underwear and socks, popular and low cost, wore out too fast. Crew were required to buy extra longer lasting hemp, bamboo or synthetics. Shoes had to be durable, and one or two back-up pairs necessary depending on the person's duty stations. The shoes a fabricator made always seemed to draw complaints about comfort, even though they fit perfectly. Personal drugs and other consumables also had to be stockpiled for the crewmen.

A generous personal mass allowance for recreational items, including video, music and even recreational intoxicants was an acknowledgement of how long they'd be gone. Fargoers all seemed to bring at least a half case of their excellent rum. The Purser assured Gordon from personal experience that the cure is worse than the disease when trying to control booze and drugs in a ship. Denied any outlet crew would raid food supplies to make alcohol, grow various weeds, mushrooms and even assemble entire synthesis labs from spare parts and shop supplies.

Some of the crew brought small trade items in their mass allowance, hoping they'd meet an alien race who would appreciate them. The expedition itself carried little, thinking it a very hard matter to predict. They could dip into stores to a certain extent if they needed trade goods.

Almost all the human supplies loaded at Fargone. Derf specific items came from Red Tree. Much of the Derf food came directly out of Red Tree clan stores, with the bonus that some was safe for Humans. The ships rotated to Derfhome to load stores and back to Fargone as their refit and weapons loads became available. There was such a shortage of Hinth related items outside their system that a fast courier had to be dispatched to acquire more food, medical supplies and personal weapons for the bird-like aliens. A different courier, because theirs was being fitted with a fuel scoop.

The usual ship's web package for entertainment and instruction was five to ten percent of the English web. The fleet needed a much larger resource if they dealt with aliens. In the end each ship loaded near half of the English web with special attention for Derf and Hinth elements. They also had obscure texts and references for language and translation, including dead languages, cuneiform, runes and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Studies on stellar formation and planetology were made up to date and added. The history of mankind was fleshed out in some detail, no matter how unpleasant the truth was.

Given the difficulty of picking and packing bulky trade goods a limited amount of coinage in standard weights was brought along in copper, silver, gold, platinum and palladium. They welded the safe for the money right into the center of the flight deck. It wasn't that much volume, but it was a significant mass item. The ship machine shops had extra cutting bits and the 3D machines extra stocks of exotics like tungsten and beryllium since they'd be far from any world offering services.

One point on which Gordon drew the line, was the inclusion of a ship's cat in addition to the regular testing animals. Gordon had personal experience that cats got into trouble on ship. Sometimes in inaccessible areas. He did allow a full cubic meter stuffed with seeds of every plant that might be an item for trade since it massed so little and packed so compactly.

Gordon went over the manifests personally. He was horrified to find there was no shared supply of brandy laid in, neither was there sufficient small arms ammunition in his estimation. There was the usual moon-hut and tent in the deep space explorers, but no common tenting or camp cots and such, if they wanted to bring the crew of the other two war ships down to a planetary surface. All that was corrected.

Thor, his second in command and weapons officer, insisted the cruisers bring a couple hard suits with support gear and parts, such as shipyard workers wore for long shifts doing exterior repair. If they had some major damage to deal with along the way soft suits were neither as safe or comfortable as hard shell suits for heavy labor in high vacuum. They had better maneuvering jets and offered better radiation protection too. In the end the master manifest was so large it seemed a miracle it could all fit inside six hulls.

Both the
Sharp Claws
and the
Retribution
were armed with the newer interceptor missiles in the ready tubes. Their older stock of missiles held for reloads. The deep space explorers were doing a minor refit so that the three short range defensive missiles they usually carried would be replaced with the full military versions. The actual tube needed to be longer so it was extended beyond the hull since lengthening it internally would have been far too complicated. Neither ship carried the sophisticated fire control software of a military ship but much of the critical controls resided in the missile itself.

Having long range weapons aboard meant neither of the DSEs would ever be allowed inside the Earth/Moon system again without unloading the weapons under supervision well away from Earth and the Moon. There was no need now for those ships to carry word of their finds to the Claims Commission.

It also meant they could fire a bigger single salvo of missiles than the destroyer
Sharp Claws
. But once they were shot the DSEs had no spares to reload the tubes, so they would be held back for defense after the warships expended theirs.

Admiral Hawking called soon after the warships were rearmed. "Gordon, do you suppose you could be a good fellow and rotate your escort ships back to Derfhome now that they are stocked and armed?"

"We could. No reason the whole expedition can't depart from there. But why? It's not like you are short of parking space."

"This is stupid and embarrassing, but I have to deal with it. There are Captains in our navy all bent that you have such a formidable force parked around Fargone. Some of the idiots are complaining we should have a defensive watch on your movements and park you much further from the planetary surface. It would just be much easier to have you rotate out, than deal with their paranoia."

"Are they aware there are only a couple crewmen on board for a security watch and the duty crews are all enjoying the last of their leave on a world?"

"Yes, I pointed that out and also the fact you'd just unloaded almost all your ground strike missiles. They countered how slickly you suckered the North Americans during the war and captured the USNA ships at dock without a shot. You seem to have gathered a bigger than life reputation as an exceedingly
sneaky
bastard. A pretty tough thing to do given your personal scale," he quipped.

"Well then, I guess the crews can finish up their last liberty as well at Derfhome as Fargone. What's one more shuffle back and forth? The local merchants aren't going to thank you I predict; they are doing a brisk business from our crews spending their signing bonuses, but I'll broadcast a recall and make ready to move both escorts," he agreed. "We shall all wait at Derfhome for the deep space explorers to join us and depart from there."

* * *

"Were there any serious objections from the crews to being shuffled off to Derfhome?" Gordon asked Thor later, after enough time had passed for the orders to propagate down through the lines of command.

"It's the oddest thing. I thought they'd resent it. But the common crewmen are taking perverse pride in the fact they are regarded as too dangerous to have around. Sneering at the Fargone crews, saying their brass are
afraid
of our little fleet. Even the Fargoers in the cruiser
Murphy's Law
seem to have picked up this superior attitude and staunchly integrated with the 'Little Fleet' as they are calling themselves. They've all taken up wearing a black brassard or neck cloth, since we don't share any uniform, even the Hinth! And strutting like they are special forces. I asked, but damned if any of them will tell me who's idea it was. At least they didn't take up something even more provocative, like the Jolly Roger."

"If you take the Fargoer's complaint literally, then it's true," Gordon pointed out. Thor just rolled his eyes. He didn't say anything when Gordon wore a black silk scarf worn as an ascot next shift. A day later Thor too had a black wrist band, rather than appear to reject his own crew's custom. The Fargone General staff couldn't have found anything more damaging to their own forces' morale.

The move back to Derfhome allowed Gordon and Lee to make one last visit to the Red Tree Keep. There wasn't time to travel by surface like their last visit. They arrived by air car and if anyone thought it too fancy they'd just have to swallow it.

Lee was shocked when they arrived to see all the trees near the Keep dead, bare limbed in mid-summer, killed during the war when the USNA landed four combat shuttles full of Space Marines in front of the empty Keep. The Great Champion of Red Tree , William had stayed to challenge them and when the Marines refused to surrender William had triggered the enhanced radiation weapon killing them all, himself included and the trees across a couple kilometer circle. Lee knew the soldiers were dead, but hadn't realized trees were that delicate.