Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (15 page)

Then there was Lieutenant JG Qr'll'ck, a female Veraxin and one of his deputies in the yard. She was a hard charger, but she ran roughshod over her people. So much so that BUPERS was getting buried in transfers from time to time. Every time he gave a few of the whiners some space and downtime, she wised up for a day or so. She'd come to realize she needed them when she didn't have them around to snarl at. But then once they were back and things went back into high gear she'd forget after a couple of days, and the process would start all over again.

Kinja, his other deputy, didn't have that problem. She was still playing catch-up, but she was a good boss. He shook his head. If he could take Kinja's attitude and transplant it into Qr'll'ck or the bug's knowledge into Kinja, or hell, both, they'd be outstanding.

They couldn't get along together though. They were like two bulls in a china shop he thought. And then there was Lieutenant, no Lieutenant Commander Wong. The newly promoted raven Chimera was pretty full of himself. He did know his shit, and since he was another friend of Irons, Sindri did his best to get along with the man—bird, man, whatever. At least he was getting some of the headaches that damned Xeno virus had done with its sabotage under control. They were still getting a handle on all the changes and problems though. And
everything
had to run through Wong, which caused a huge bottleneck.

His first foray into destroyer construction with
Yris'ka'th
had been a hit with the admirals, but he hadn't been able to follow it up with a sister ship like he had hoped he would. They'd pulled out all the stops to get just the one ship out the lock while also keeping up with their planned schedules. He could see and understand what John had been talking about with the plan. One step at a time. Baby steps.

He also knew he'd burned out a few people in the process of building the ship. True it sucked to lose the personnel once they'd been trained, but he reasoned it was better to find the weak links in the chain and replace them before they really got going. They thought that had been pressure? He snorted as he flexed his hands. They didn't know what real pressure was!

He shook his massive head. The destroyer production line was finally up and running. John had finished keying in the first production run of parts the prior shift so that meant he could leave it to Kinja to oversee the process. Oh there would be some teething issues, there always were, but he was fairly confident they'd get it done.

John wanted to set up a second parallel line for his
Shield Maiden
class fleet defense destroyers next. Sindri didn't really see the point. After all, they had the Flight VI
Nelsons
for that role, right? And it wasn't like they had a lot of fleets to defend currently! He shook his head. But what the admiral wanted he got. He'd just have to figure it out once Wong finished the last checks of the reactor design.

No, what he wanted to work on was the plan for the first super dreadnaught. They were skipping right over battleships and dreadnaughts and going for the big boys. Pyrax could build battle cruisers, he rubbed his hands together gleefully. He wanted to play with the big boy's toys.

The first was to be called
Quirinus
from the Roman god of war. But first they had to get there though, which meant not only building the infrastructure but building enough hulls to protect the star systems until they could get around to making capital ships and protecting the personnel that were needed to man them. Sindri sighed in frustration. Okay, so, Irons and the others had a point he thought with a pang. It just meant he'd have to bank his anticipation for later. That didn't mean he couldn't still dream and drool. And oh, maybe slip a few extra resources to the project from time to time. He was pretty sure Irons wouldn't mind.

Chapter 8

The next morning Admiral Subert revised the building schedule heavily. He practically ripped up the current schedule and made it a priority to step up construction of current projects near completion to clear the slips for the new priorities.

Their focus would shift to fighters, ship components, and larger ships since Admiral Irons had the smaller ship production lines running smoothly in Antigua. The largest ships they were to build were carriers and battle cruisers. The shift in the yard's priorities caused additional waves of confusion and mix-ups in communications in the management teams, which filtered down to the yard workers.

Some didn't get the memo of the changes or ignored it. Admiral Subert jumped all over the managers for not getting the word out. Since he jumped the chain of command and stepped over Horatio to micromanage the situation, many of the deputies were angry. A few kicked their heels despite the admiral's fit, doing a deliberate slow down out of spite. Horatio noted the foot dragging and did his best to quietly get his people back on track.

That evening Admiral Subert called Horatio in for a face-to-face meeting. Horatio wasn't thrilled about leaving the yard and commuting to the naval annex, but he had no choice. He did his best not to seethe during the journey; it would be picked up by his fellow passengers. Instead he calmly worked on catching up on paperwork while attempting to fix the problems people were bringing up to him through his implants.

When he got to the naval annex, the chief of staff silently let him into the office. Saul left the door open since they were still moving things into the office. He had a couple Yeoman working with him on the project.

Horatio noted the changes in the décor with polite disinterest as the admiral left him to cool his heels standing at attention. Admiral Subert directed Yeoman Burkov to find some sticky patches to hang additional photos. The Yeoman scrambled to obey.

The admiral turned and went to his desk. He picked up a tablet and read it for a while, still ignoring the captain. Horatio took the implied insult in stride.

Finally the admiral's temper boiled over. He tossed the tablet he had been reading onto the desk and read him the riot act. Horatio admitted there was a problem. “You're damn right there is a problem!” Admiral Subert snarled. “In your department. Fix it! Or you're out of here. Out of here, out of the navy!”

Since the doorway behind him had been left open, a passing yeoman Burkov overheard the scolding. It hit the navy grapevine like a bomb.

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

He took the dressing down better than expected. Many thought Horatio would resign, but he was perfectly calm about it. “We heard you had an interesting conversation,” Kalmia stated when he started his morning meeting with the yard deputies.

“You of all people should have heard since it was, is your profession,” Horatio stated.

“It's not right,” Lieutenant Ul'pip clacked.

“That's enough. It was expected,” the captain stated. “Kalmia, can you ….”

“I know when I'm not wanted,” the AI stated. She blipped out with a sniff of disdain.

He surveyed his yard deputies. Which one would end up in his shoes? Hopefully all of them someday, but he was pretty sure none of them were ready for the job. Not now. And who would want it? “I've had my share of chewing outs over the years. I know how to handle it. You need to understand, shit like this rolls downhill. Expect it. If you don't want to hear any more of it from me,
do
something about it, preferably before it becomes a problem. Remind our people the enemy is out there, and we need to work together,” he reminded them.

“Someone needs to tell
him
that.”

“As you were,” Horatio said coldly. “If you don't like how things are being run, put in for a transfer or resign. I will relieve you if you are insubordinate again.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Then let's get back to work.”

“Sir, what do we do with the ships that are less than 10 percent complete? And the slips themselves?”

“You read the memo. Any escort ship not more than 50 percent is to be towed out of the slips and stored in mothballs once more. We'll break them up on a case-by-case basis and ship them to Antigua. As far as the slips themselves …,” he shrugged, “for now they will go idle. We'll retool the orbital works in them to produce parts for the other ships. The personnel will be transferred and retrained for other duties.”

“And the
Nelsons
, sir?”

Horatio frowned. There was a full squadron of
Nelsons
in mothballs and another full squadron in various stages of production. Admiral Irons hadn't said anything about them initially, but Admiral Subert brought with him orders to cut their production in favor of
Arboth
class destroyers and escort carrier designs like
Kittyhawk
and the
Arboth
carrier variant.

“Again, anything below 50 percent we're mothballing. The others we'll tow and set aside and work on them when we have the free time.”

“And all the parts we've built for them, sir?”

“They'll either be retooled for other ships or stockpiled for the ships we currently have in use,” Horatio replied. He shrugged. “That's logistics’ problem not ours. Focus on the build schedules.”

“So, we're going to build … scout cruisers?”

“We have one battle cruiser in the pipeline. Admiral Subert wants us to have a full squadron in production by the end of the week.”

“The man doesn't ask for much, does he?” Lieutenant Ul'pip clacked sarcastically. “All the scout, medium,
and
heavy cruisers too?” He signaled second level disbelief.

“Get used to not sleeping at night.”

“Sir, back up a bit. What about the destroyer line?” Ensign Openhiem asked carefully.

“We're retooling them for
Arboth
class destroyers for the moment. When the
Shield Maiden
design is approved of, we'll probably be tasked with building them too. It's in the memo.”

“Sir, the memos are gigs long. That's a lot of information to pick through,” the ensign replied with a shake of his head.

“I know, which is why we have meetings like this. I expect you to check the bullet points here and in the memos. Don't get caught not being up-to-date on the memos; it could bite you in the ass. We're going to be making a lot of changes, so adapt. Adapt
quickly
,” he stated.

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

Since he had a free moment, Saul did his best to find candidates for the admiral's steward. But some didn't want the job after hearing about how difficult the man was, and others weren't suitable to the admiral's tastes. “It can't be that hard to find someone,” he said shaking his head. He blushed slightly when he realized he'd spoken out loud in the presence of the captain.

“Something wrong?” Horatio asked. He'd been ordered back to the office for an update on the yard, but the Admiral had left on another meeting. He was waiting patiently since Saul wasn't certain if the Admiral wanted him when he came back or not. The admiral had gone to lunch and had turned his message service to record, which meant he couldn't just ask the man. He could track him down, but the implied message in turning on his automated voice mail meant he didn't want to be disturbed.

It was annoying that the Admiral wanted face-to-face meetings. The man loved to wax poetic in long memos but he couldn't read a status update? Horatio realized he was grousing about his superior … even if it was mentally so he tried to refocus.

“I'm trying to find the admiral a steward,” Saul finally reluctantly admitted. He squirmed, expecting a snide put-down, but the captain just cocked his head.

After a moment the captain nodded wisely. “Sometimes it takes time,” Horatio told him. “I remember flag officers have a certain way of doing things. Some went through yeomen like grapeshot,” he said with a grin. “A steward's job is tough. Their principle needs to know that someone has their back. That the person can handle the stress and be flexible. But it is a dedicated selfless position; one that can consume a person.” He shook his head. “Keeping an officer on task and on schedule is tricky. And I admit, some also need a stern hand and a keeper.” he said wryly.

The chief of staff frowned but nodded.

“Keep at it. You'll find someone eventually, even if you have to steal them from someone else,” Horatio said with a simple nod as he left. That got the chief of staff wondering who the captain had as his own steward. He did a quick check but couldn't find anyone on the roster. Then again he was still having trouble with BUPERS. He didn't want to overtly ask about it and make waves, so he let the matter drop.

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

Doctor Thornby noted Lieutenant Taylor with the admiral. The admiral patted the jig on the shoulder and then went on his way.

“What was that about?” she asked, nodding her chin to the admiral. The jig turned to watch the flag officer wind his way past the nursing station and then out of the medical complex. He had a vague disinterested look on his face.