Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (2 page)

“They're running late. Three days behind schedule.”

“That's because we had problems with the logistics on our end. And the marines needed a replacement for Sergeant Snorkle. To get crushed like that by a falling crate …. His injuries couldn't have come at a worse time.”

“I know.”

“Captain Ssri'allth can handle his ship,” Lieutenant Fletcher stated.

“I know. He's good; otherwise, he'd never have taken her on. I'm not really worried about them.”

“Then what are you worried about?” Protector asked. “I can tell from your vital signs that you are concerned about something.”

The admiral exhaled slowly. “Sindri. I'm grateful on the one hand that they pulled out all the stops to build
Yris'ka'th,
but on the other hand …,” he stopped and shrugged helplessly.

“You didn't like that they went behind your back to do it? Chancing the schedule? There was some slippage and some juggling of the convoys, but they did a damn good job. That was quite an effort,” Sprite said.

“I know. They pulled out all the stops to get that ship out of the dock. They played musical slips to get her in and out and built. I know they wanted to time her completion for when we were slated to return.” He smiled slightly.

“And damn near killed themselves in the process,” Sprite observed. “Weren't they a bit put out when we didn't return as planned?”

“The effort wasn't wasted,” Lieutenant Fletcher stated.

“No, but we had several people down for exhaustion, nine injuries (fortunately none fatal), and six cases of brownout and one burnout.
That's
what I didn't like,” the admiral said. He flicked a signal through his implants to shut the screen off as he went to his chair. “We lost some experienced people. We can't afford that. We can't kill ourselves like that and get that sort of return.”

“But it was worth it to get the ship.”

“Trading trained people for a ship? I suppose so in some cold logic. But losing them meant the schedules were juggled all to hell. It ricocheted down the pipeline. Fortunately, Kinja and Sindri got a handle on it when they did.”

“You mean Vargess did. He caught it early on.”

“Yes. He pulled their chestnuts out of the fire. But you see what I mean though?”

“I see it in theory. This is going to be a long campaign. Slow and steady like the turtle versus the rabbit's sprint and then fool around. I think we need to find a happier medium though,” Sprite said.

“Set the pace. We're going to pick up the pace; that was what I was planning. Now people are leery about it. Though they shouldn't be. They handled
Yris'ka'th
,
so they should know they can handle it. Just not at such a breakneck speed.”

“True. Which is why we have the second tin can ship built and the third nearly finished. And you have an appointment with Commander Wong and the destroyer pipeline industrial complex. Which means,” Sprite heaved her equivalent of a sigh, “I get to be unplugged, again.”

“Looks that way,” the admiral said with a shake of his head. He rubbed his jaw again and then looked at the plot. TF22 would be all right. Amadeus knew his business. He exhaled again and then stood. “Let's be about it, shall we?”

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

Thirteen point nine weeks from her departure from Antigua,
Hecate
jumped into the outer reaches of the Protodon star system well short of the B-458 jump point. Over ten million kilometers short, almost as if they'd planned it that way Captain Gruber thought with a slight trace of a smile of approval. It wasn't a perfect act of astronavigation. He'd wanted to be a bit closer in, but it would do the captain thought with a grudging nod of approval to the Neochimp navigator. They needed to conserve as much fuel as possible for the trip home he reminded himself. While they sat there, they scouted the system from afar with their eyes and ears, barely drifting in at less than one KPS.

“Good work, nav, helm. Get some rest,” the captain ordered to the helmswoman and navigator. Petty Officer Second Class Adel Shazam nodded wearily. She would most likely barely sleep the first day. That would be rough, but the stress of wondering if they had been spotted would eat at her. Not that they had to worry too much. By the time the enemy saw them and reacted, they would be on their way out. And if they did happen to come, they could always jump out long before they got within weapon's range.

“We have positive confirmation of an enemy presence, sir,” the communication's rating stated. He held a hand to his ear.

“Don't you mean negative?” the captain asked as he sipped at his coffee. He could see the plot forming up. A few ships were there, so he could see what Jimmy meant.

“Sir?”

“Never mind. What do you have for me?”

Jim frowned and then seemed to shrug the quip off. “We definitely have signs of occupation, sir. There is unrestricted chatter going between the planet and the ships in orbit. We're picking it up. Some of it is encrypted, but the majority is not.”

“Why encrypt when they have the planet? And that's just radio chatter, right? Not laser?”

“No, sir. We'd have to be closer and in line of sight of the transmissions to get a look at that, sir.”

“Go on, Jim,” the captain stated as he set his cup down in its holder on his arm rest and came over to the rating's station. He leaned over the man's shoulder.

Jim looked up to his boss and then back to his number one screen. He pointed to the ships in orbit. “Sir, at least two of these ships are transports, the small one and the medium class
Clydesdale
here,” he said, flagging the two ships. “There are two tin cans as well, possibly a third. There are some smaller ships; I haven't broken them down by class yet since I've been focused on the planet. As you can see, several freighters too. We're locking down the other ship types now.”

“Understood.”

“It seems that the transports are in a different group than these ships, sir. They are recent arrivals. Something is going on, I'm not sure what.”

“A swap meet?” Adel asked from the doorway. They turned to look at her. “You know, a spacer's swap meet. Spacers get together and trade goods and stuff. Crews swap, marriages, swap cargo and passengers, news, stuff like that.”

“Oh.”

“I don't know. I'm not sure … it doesn't feel like that, but I could be wrong,” Jim stated slowly. “The freighters seemed to be paired up with the tin cans, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, sir. I'm not sure why.”

“I think I do,” the captain said straightening. The ratings turned to look expectantly at him. “Remember that ship that got away? And its partner the
Cutlass
that
Firefly
took down?” He checked the front of his turtleneck sweater for coffee stains. He hated wearing white; it showed everything.

“You're saying these are raiding pairs, sir? Did we ever figure out what they are after?”

“Intelligence isn't saying.”

“If they even know,” Adel murmured.

“Enough. Keep listening.” He pointed to the helmswoman. “You go eat and rack out. That's an order.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the two ratings said in unison. Jim snorted. Adel left. She seemed to dodge someone and then kept going. The captain turned back to his half-filled cup and the plot.

They heard a throat clearing in the open lock. The captain turned to see his XO and chief engineer standing there. The XO indicated the chair, and then tapped the doorway meaningfully. The captain's stomach rumbled as if on cue. He couldn't help but smile slightly. “Yes, right. Dinner. I'll check in after supper then. Don't wait up on me,” he said. “You have the bridge, XO.”

“I have the bridge. Aye, sir,” the XO said as the captain left the bridge.

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

They sipped at the EM spectrum the best his little ship could, logging everything for future analysis. They didn't have the computer support to process even a tenth of the data, however. “Sir, at this rate we'll be full up in a day,” Jim said when the captain came back on shift the next morning.

They had identified eleven possible ship contacts in orbit of the planet. Seven of them were of appreciable mass, either a destroyer or freighter. The others were unknowns, they were still attempting to get positive IDs on the large ships.

“We're scheduled to be here for longer,” the new captain stated mildly. Didn't anyone plan for this? No, of course not, he thought pedantically. Send a damn frigate on a tin can's mission. “Were you on this all night?”

“Yes, sir.” The captain frowned thoughtfully. Jim looked okay, but he had circles under his eyes. The kid had the energy of youth and his implants so he could handle it, but the workload and stresses involved were taking their toll.

The captain crossed his arms and looked down his nose at the rating. “Then you've got a problem. Solve it. Compress the files.” He frowned thoughtfully, and then nodded to himself. “In fact, compress anything we don't need now as well. Restrict recreational use on the computer net and move some material to hard copy backups.” He was curious about how the rating would do on this little test. It would push him a bit and might expand his horizons. It would go a long way to see if the young man was ready for more responsibility.

Jim nodded. “Aye aye, sir. It's a drop in the bucket though, sir.”

“It's a start. Are we filtering?”

“Our ears are picking up what we can, sir. Filtering? I don't think … no, sir.” Jim shook his head.

“Do so. We don't need the spectral noise of the gas giant or local star. Strip that out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do the same for anything natural once it's been tagged and identified. Map its location and then filter it out. That should help.”

“Yes, sir, it should.”

“Once you've nailed down the artificial sources, tag them for further analysis but have someone keep an ear out for new sources as well. Just in case.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He worried over being in the system though; he didn't want to blow his very first mission. The frigate wasn't set up for stealth, however, so they had to wing it. Three days on station. Just seventy-two measly hours and then they could jump out again.

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

On the third day, they got additional confirmation of occupation of the planet. It was grim; Jim could barely listen to it. Hassan had tried, but he didn't have the stomach for it. He shook his head. He didn't envy intel's job, not in the slightest.

Come to think of it, they should have sent a spook along for the ride. Not that they had room … he frowned thoughtfully. Hopefully Admiral White would have one assigned to his staff. He shrugged such problems off his shoulders. He had other concerns—like if White was actually going to make the rendezvous. He had his doubts.

They had also gotten positive fingerprint IDs of each of the ships in the star system, EM from the ships when they were broadcasting. Any that were under power allowed the watching observer to fingerprint their drives. They gathered any other intel data they could without going active.

“Air getting a bit thick, isn't it?”

“Don't worry,” Jim said.

“Just saying.”

“We're fine. Technically we could get almost all the way back if we reduced mass. We'd be a jump short, but it could work. Could. Not that I have any intention of trying it.”

“But, sir, what if we wait too long at the rendezvous, and they are delayed or never show?”

“Then we're screwed.” That earned a wince. “We all knew the risks going into this, people. It's worth it.” He glanced at the clock. It'd damn well better be he thought.

“What's that smell?” Jim asked, sniffing the air.

“I swear you're worse than my sainted mother,” Adel growled shaking her head.

“Don't ask a lady to admit she's ripped one,” Ensign Nissan Ham, the navigator, said maliciously.

“Funny,” Adel growled. “
Very
funny,” she drawled, giving the Neochimp navigator the stink eye. The young woman giggled.

“Mind your stations, people. Work on the jump list,” the captain said mildly. When Jim sniffed the air again, the captain sighed. “I knew they should have crewed this ship with midgets.”

“Or elves, sir. Five to one of us, sir,” Jim said with a grin.

“Something like that. Are you okay with computer space?”

Jim bobbed a nod. “It turns out we had some flash memory sticks in one of the storage containers, sir. The XO found them this morning, and we've been using them,” he said, indicating a bank of jury-rigged electronic storage devices hooked up to his station. The captain leaned over slightly to get a look. They were by the man's feet, hooked up to some sort of hub to the port.

“Just don't step on them or the admiral might keel haul you,” the captain warned as he straightened. He glanced at the clock. One minute until they could leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adel also superstitiously looking. He snorted. It wasn't like they needed to look; they could put the countdown on their HUD. But that was distracting.