Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (19 page)

For the moment the representatives were observers; they voted to approve or disapprove of Irons’ actions. He could take it from there. It wasn't how it was supposed to work, but for the moment it was the best compromise they could work out. If he didn't keep them in the political process, they would either get bored and leave or work out their own system without him.

Sixteen worlds had officially joined the reborn Federation as of that morning: Antigua of course, Pyrax, Agnosta, Seti Alpha 4, Gaston, Kathy's World, Triang, Senka, Syntia's World, New Texas, New Andres, New Haven, Nightingale, Airea 3, Hidoshi's World, and Halced 6. All of them now had an ansible station to communicate with Antigua as well as each other. The station at Nightingale had only recently come online. More ansibles had been dispatched to star systems on the fence. Since they needed everyone, well not quite, he thought sourly, looking at Briev 4, they were using the ansible links and care packages as incentives to think beyond their small worlds and rejoin the whole collective. The threat of the pirates was also a powerful motivator to join up.

Nightingale had surprised him. Apparently Commander Logan had made a very big impression on them, so much so that they'd signed up over the ansible link that had been delivered. She and her ship
Prometheus
were still stuck in the star system helping to rebuild after the recent pirate attack while also building defenses on the ET jump point. Her escorts were picketing the jump point. Once the ET situation was sorted out, he wanted them back in Pyrax, then turned around to hit the loop again as they'd promised.

He'd received word that representatives from Proxima, Requiem 11, were still en route, and he still didn't have a clear idea of which way Protodon wanted to jump though they had finally gotten around to sending “observers” back with one of the returning resupply convoys sent out to supply TF22 and the marines on the planet. Their government was still a mess.

Richalu was still on the fence. An ansible and good will package was scheduled to go to their star system. He'd had to reschedule it though due to the recent attack in Protodon. The representatives
Bounty
had picked up there had cooled off when he'd reluctantly informed them through Sprite. They should know that not every plan can go off without a problem, but telling them that was a slap in the face. He shook his head, glad he'd sicked Jeff on them to handle the situation.

And then there was Centennial and Epsilon Triangula he thought, looking at the holographic map. He rubbed his brow as he contemplated the plot. He was fairly confident of ET, but they had been ominously silent way too long for comfort. Centennial—according to a passing ship they had seen signs of life. People were on the planet, just dug in like moles and not ready to stick their heads-up to get whacked. He couldn't honestly blame them. They wouldn't come out until he could guarantee their safety and help them to rebuild. And at the moment … he couldn't do that. Not
yet
anyway, not with the reassurances they wanted.

Still, once they got Protodon, Richalu, ET, and Centennial tucked away, they'd have twenty star systems on their ledger, which would bring them up to the halfway point for the sector. Six, possibly seven more after that, and he'd have his sector number minimum needed. Baby steps he reminded himself. One
slow
, small step at a time. A single drop of water—but with each additional drop, they would eventually form a river that could wear away mountains and eventually form an ocean.

The Reborn Federation had a long way to go and a short time to get there though, but they were trucking along. An hour ago he had gotten a call from a surprised corvette in New Texas. Apparently Avalon had heard the news about the ansible from Io11 and had sent a representative team back to New Texas. They wanted to open negotiations to join the Federation as well. Considering they had a limited monarchy that had regular infighting, he wasn't keen about letting them in—not that he had a choice.

The problem was even more complex when you added in their request. No, make it a
demand
. They wanted to come to Antigua to negotiate, but they wanted to do it in a warship to ensure their safety. That he couldn't and wouldn't countersign unless he had a ship headed in the right direction, which he didn't for that area. And he wouldn't have another ship in the area for several more months.

On the face of it, he could understand their reluctance; some of the star systems, Senka for instance, that they would have to traverse could be potential war zones. They could jump past the magnetar to Antigua, but he didn't want that jump line emphasized by anyone. Besides, it was tricky to navigate, and he didn't want to spend the time to send a ship that could easily handle it.

But then there was the other, thornier political part of the problem. They were one, demanding a warship for personal transport, and two, the image that presented to them and to the other star systems wasn't ideal.
Everyone
wanted a warship picketing their star system, the bigger the better of course. And to go with that, not many wanted to pay for them or their upkeep. Typical.

He shook his head. That wasn't as intolerable a demand as Pyrax was starting to put forward. The government there was back on its feet and now lobbying to make their home star system the capital instead of Antigua. They reasoned in the media that since Pyrax had been the capital of the sector and was near the center of the sector, it would be the perfect place to have the capital. They'd even lobbied the star systems closest to them to gain support. Antigua under Governor Randall and his supporters’ directions had retaliated by doing the same with their neighbors. That squabble had to be put to bed quickly.

They were starting to dig in and draw lines in the political sands, which was annoying. He didn't have the patience for pissing contests of politics this early in the stages of development.

None of them realized the expense in shifting the capital across the sector. They didn't care; it was all numbers on a spreadsheet. Someone else's bill … right up until they were presented with their fair share. Nor did they care about what sort of shift it would do to their C&C as well as their industrial and war making ability. All they cared about was power and prestige. Well, Pyrax had robbed itself of that; he had no intention of just giving them a free pass no matter who was now in charge. They'd had their shot.

Yes, they had a long way to go down the path to reforming the republic. But they were on it. And they had an even longer way to get to that quorum needed to make sure the republic was reconstituted properly. Destria was a big question mark, as were the other star systems on their side of the sector. New Dublin was a definite no as was Briev 4. Not without a bottom-up regime change and some major changes to their social structure. Both of those took willpower and time. Hopefully, when they realized the rest of the sector and eventually the rest of the galaxy was passing them by, someone somewhere might make it happen—maybe. They could of course be quite content with their own little world.

Another political problem was cropping up with him, the governors.

The governors didn't like the news that they had to go to
him
to get their full implants. He had no intention of leaving Antigua, period. Every moment he was away meant lost time with the yard; time they might desperately need down the road.

They had to be elected too. That was an interesting issue. He wasn't insisting on a federal certification of the election at this point. He knew he couldn't push it that far just yet, but he did insist the elections be fair and the decision be made by a majority of the entire sapient population. The elected government would rule the entire star system. He hadn't put in any contingencies about length of time in office, that was up to the locals to sort out.

Up until he'd turned up, many of the star systems hadn't had any sort of centralized government. Now they were all scrambling to get it sorted out. Some had dug up their old constitutions; others like Avalon were trying to graft something onto their current system of government, in their case a limited constitutional monarchy. Whatever, if the king or queen had the authority, they'd definitely have it when they got the keys. So whatever they did, even if it was only a token effort, they'd get the power in the end. Whether they could hold onto it and for how long was a different series of questions he didn't want to answer. Whatever. He shook his head. They could sort it out later, he thought. But it still meant the governor and lieutenant governor had to see him. Which meant they had to leave the seat of their power right as they were settling in, not really something many wished to do.

He had a temporary fix. They could get some keys from a fast government courier and an AI and person who would act as a carrier, as long as the star system had a functioning ansible as well. Between them the courier person could give the initial identification shots to grow the basic package, then upload the initial keysets. Irons could then upload additional authorization keys to initialize programs to unpack and upload from the courier ship and AI into the governor once they passed the basic exams. There was no way he was going to short circuit the process any further than that.

They were, however, short on people he trusted to act as the organic side of the courier team. Normally that was a flag officer who had been specially screened for the process. It was a tough process—even Phil hadn't wanted the job. He'd done it though, which was why Jersey, Horatio, and others had updated keys. It was also why Phil had reluctantly given Mister Saladin, the new governor of Pyrax, his set of keys. Parvati Das, the governor of Seti Alpha 4, and Wynona Lane, governor of Gaston, were supposed to be en route to Pyrax to get their own updates as well. They had both rescheduled the trip though twice so no one was holding their breath. Governor Jed Clampett of Agnosta already had the keys and was using them.

The best way to get around the whole problem was for the governor to hop the transport to Antigua. He'd already done that with Sedrick Collins the Neochimp governor of Triang. Farvalis Weng the governor of Senka was
supposed
to come around by the end of the month. If Major White Wolf was reelected as navy intelligence estimated she would be, he'd have to put her on reserve status and give her keys when she stopped by as well. He was pretty sure Jersey would regret losing her full-time services, but she was needed elsewhere. Besides, she was old, and fighting a war was a younger person's game. Not that he dared tell her that, he thought with a wry twist of his lips. She'd probably, ever so respectfully, take a bite out of his hide.

He snorted at himself for a moment then dived back into his woolgathering.

If the people of Protodon got their collective finger out of their
ass
anytime soon, he could do the same for their world's governor.
IF
, big if, they elected one. He shook his head. It was apparently not going to happen anytime soon from Major Pendeckle's latest report.

It was all a mixed blessing in his eyes. On the one hand, the more people who had keys, the less likely things would go south if something bad happened to him. But it meant he had to trust people with the safety of the Federation, people he didn't know. It was something that kept him up at night from time to time.

Then there was the question of his cabinet. He'd thought handing the jobs out to people he trusted would make it easy—apparently not. When he'd dropped a broad hint about putting Doctor Thornby in the medicine slot a lot of people had protested. She'd refused the slot, though she had stepped up to fill the job duties until he could find someone else.

The same had happened to Matilda. The fuss and their departure had stalled her and Nara's promotion to Captain JG by at least a quarter. It was becoming evident that rebuilding the Federation government was going to be one great big headache. A Quixote crusade in some eyes. But it had, no it would be done. He'd get it done, dragging them kicking and screaming if he had to.

He was tempted more and more every day to build a couple scout cruisers and dispatch them to Pi, Tau, and Sigma sectors as he'd originally planned. But after the attack on Protodon, he needed all the cruisers scouting and picketing the approaches to the Federation territory, especially B101a1, B100 omega, and B-95a3. Not to mention sending
Tummuloch
to Epsilon Triangula to find out what was going on there and back
Firefly
up if needed.

The attack on Protodon had set his plans back months, possibly years. According to Horatio's last report, they had another six months of stockpiled hulls and equipment to work through in Pyrax before they were depleted.

If ET turned out to be a false alarm, he intended to order the ship to resupply, then head down to Airea 3 and into the Tau sector to start scouting there. Hopefully by that time
Belfast
and
Puglia
will have finished construction and their initial working-up exercises to the point where he could use them to back
Tummuloch
up.

He was still on the fence about sending Shelby and
Prometheus
in after them. According to her latest report they had set up shop in the Nightingale system and built an impressive array of defenses around the ET jump point. All because of the raiders that had popped in and torn up
Prometheus's
escorts. That effort, their need for experienced captains, and her time in rank was why he'd rammed through her promotion to Captain JG. It wouldn't take effect for another month or so, but that was fine.