Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines

The Federation Reborn 1

Copyright © 2015 by Chris Hechtl

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictional. Some may be parodies. Some characters are with permission. Any resemblance of some characters and places to others are strictly in the mind of the reader. :)

Cover art by Chris Hechtl 2015. All rights reserved. The models are owned by their respective creators and used under the usage license. Some models were made by Chris Hechtl; others were purchased on Daz3d.com or Renderosity.com.

Proofread and copy edited by: Poon Yee, Jory Gray, Mike Kotcher, Gord Archer, Joshua Lyon, & Tim Brown

Professionally copy edited by Rea Myers

Formatted by Goodlifeguide.com

Special thanks to Poon, Joshua, Jory, and the other guys who have been helping out behind the scenes.

ACT I

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12

ACT II

Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22

ACT III

Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28

Epilogue

Author's Afterword

Cast

Sneak Preview

Lieutenant Commander Ssri'allth, Naga captain of the
Arboth
Yris'ka'th,
looked around the bridge of his shiny new command with an air of approval. They still had some rough edges, but they were getting there. He wasn't at all sure about the status of the hyperdrive. They had yet to do a full jump, but he was confident his new crew could handle whatever problems were thrown their way.

Not bad for a former midshipman with time lost. He'd been sleeping the sleep of ages on the derelict liner
White Star
before
Firefly
had rescued him and the others. He'd taken a few positions, winding his way up the chain of command to be the XO of
Wendigo
before taking on his beloved
Hecate
as skipper.

Now his most recent transfer was again onward and upward. He had been transferred to a newly built
Arboth
class destroyer, the first named after a Naga hero. Commander Yris'ka'th had distinguished himself during the Xeno war. He'd fought to defend the Malta system, one of the navy's bases that had been handling the refugee crisis. He'd taken on a Xeno capital ship squadron with only a jury-rigged squadron of small ships to back his
Arboth
class destroyer up. They'd performed valiantly, hitting and running before they had been pinned down and destroyed, but they'd destroyed five times their weight in hardware in return and bought the navy precious time to evacuate the base and get additional forces into the area to cover the refugee convoys.

It seemed appropriate then that he was her skipper. The
Yris'ka'th
was Rear Admiral Amadeus White's flagship for the time being, most likely not for more than a year. They'd passed all of their trials and were busy with working up exercises while also planning their first offensive expedition.

Hecate's
top slot had been taken over by former XO Lieutenant Gruber who had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in order to take over the captain's position on the frigate. The
Manta
class escort frigate had been outfitted, painted black, refueled, and then sent on a perilous journey to scout the jump chain to Protodon.

She had been replaced by a pair of newly constructed
Horseshoe Crab
class frigates on their first shakedown cruise. They had green crews and untried ships.
Hecate
had an experienced crew, which was why they had been selected for the mission. Even her new XO, Lieutenant Riot, was an old hand with the small ship's class.

The frigate had orders to leave a chain of recon satellites in her wake. They weren't carrying enough for each jump point, just one per star system. There orders were to scout Protodon from outside the B-458 jump zone and then jump back and meet Admiral White's force in B-458.

The Naga captain worried about his old ship and crew's mission as he stood beside the Admiral. He coiled his tail and then rose on it up off the deck with his legs to stand near the admiral's height. It was difficult but worth the effort he thought. Such considerations quickly left his mind as he focused on the frigate and her upcoming scouting mission.

Along with a better sensor package, the small frigate had taken on extra food, fuel, and atmo for the trip, stuffing every cubicle of the ship and even storing containers on the hull. They still wouldn't have enough fuel to make it back to Antigua though; it was a one-way trip.

And to take on that amount of extra mass, something had to go. Some of that mass would be dumped allowing them to pick up speed but not enough. She had sacrificed her external and internal ordinance. If she got in a fight, she would get chewed up or destroyed pretty quickly. Not a pleasant thought.

Admiral White seemed worried about sending in an untested crew with a new captain. Captain Gruber had a lot to prove and that worried him as much as his inexperience in the captain's chair did. Sometimes that eagerness to prove oneself could be someone's undoing.

“Hassan can handle the job, Admiral. I know it,” said the Naga captain. “I've trained him."

The admiral turned to look at the Naga and then grunted. He didn't say anything, just turned back to the view screen.

They watched the ship spool up her hyperdrive and then jump silently. The brief flash of light as the ship departed made the Neochimp grimace. His fists tightened behind his back, but he gave no other outward sign of discomfort. That flash was a problem for the ship but hopefully not a big one.

“Well, that's that. They are on their way, sir.”

The chimp nodded as he turned back to work. “Then we'd better be soon. No more last minute delays. If we can't bring it with us now, we'll leave it behind, and it'll have to be shipped to us later. What are we missing? Other than a lot more metal to back us up.”

“It's in the pipeline, sir. For now we'll do our best with what we've got,” the Naga replied.

The Neochimp eyed his new flag captain and then nodded slowly. “That we will. So, let's be about it then,” he drawled. “We have a rendezvous to keep and some pirates to kill.”

“Aye aye, sir. Logistics is still in flux. But Commander Sprite has set up another simulation with Lieutenant Fletcher, sir. The intel is old, but it is all we have to go on until we get
Hecate's
data dump.”

“Understood. Let's see what he's come up with.”

“Aye, sir. Any word on any more ships?”

“No,” the neochimp heaved a sigh. “Your ship is the last we're going to be assigned from Antigua before we move out.”

“I was hoping Admiral Irons would see fit to swap out a couple of the pickets since they are making more steadily now.” That was true; the yard was now churning out a gunship every week on two production lines, a corvette every two weeks, and a frigate every three and a half. They were up to their first destroyer line with an eye to cruisers and beyond within a year.

“I was as well. But many of the ships still need a shakedown to get the bugs out. I'm also not thrilled about throwing green crews into combat. No offense,” Amadeus stated looking at the Naga.

“None taken. I've earned my spurs though in Destros and Mandolin, sir.”

The admiral nodded. Ssri'allth had been a young militia recruit barely out of the larval stage of his initial life cycle when the gunship he had been serving on had fought off pirates who had come into Destros to prey on the swarms of refugees there. He'd served his ship and captain well according to the records. They had went on to fight a scrap in Mandolin with a Xeno scout six months later. His ship had been battered, but he'd survived and had been drafted by the navy through then Lieutenant Trojan Vargess.

“I know. That's why I requested you as my flag captain.” He didn't add that he'd wanted Captain JG Vargess, but Admiral Irons had been too stingy to lose the other man's services. He had to admit the captain was busy dividing his time between his ship and overseeing operations in the star system. Running ops was tricky; he had to coordinate with all the other departments to make certain everything ran smoothly. There were already a lot of hiccups with the issues in the yard.

“To think one damned virus could do this much damage,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yes, sir. It's thrown our timetables into the sand storm,” the Naga stated. “But one cannot plan too far ahead without running into the god Murphy's meddling anyway,” he stated.

“True. Too true. Okay, let's go see what Fletcher has set up for us. I'm betting he cranked in the intel
Firefly
sent along about that
Cutlass
so we'd better take the simulation seriously if we want to get through it with our head and asses intact.” He understood the need to train hard, to simulate worse case. But he didn't want to scare his people too badly either. He was also concerned that if they had too many bad dress rehearsals, Irons would call the whole thing off until they could get more ships. That was the main reason he'd pushed to get
Hecate
out into space right away. Now they were committed. “We'll do a hot wash after dinner.”

“Aye aye, Admiral.”

---<>---<>---

They'll be fine,” Commander Sprite said from the holotable behind him. Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons turned to his avatar and then back to the screen he had been watching. TF22 had just departed in a flash of light.