Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (12 page)

He approved and congratulated them on their implementing plans. Then he gave them the bad news of the need to spread out the incoming Fleet personnel. The meeting got quite heated and went on late into the night. They were finally released once Admiral Hasselrode determined they were all equally unhappy with him.

 
Chapter Six
 

 Kelly was doing a walk-thru inspection. He had a full crew now, veterans mixed in with first timers, and he wanted to start putting faces to names. He started in Engineering with Lieutenant Commander Brown, Lieutenant Jenkins, and Chief Miller. Chief Miller broke out into a big smile when he saw Kelly.

“How are you, Chief? Where have you been the last three years?”

“I’m doing great sir. I was at Bureau of Ships. I was part of Lieutenant Commander Brown’s design team.”

“It’s great to have you aboard, Chief. Lieutenant Jenkins, where do you come in from?”

“I’m coming in from Fleet, sir. My last assignment was engineering on the Juarez.”

“Glad to have you aboard, Mr. Jenkins.”

Kelly moved next to weapons, where he met Lieutenant Commander Susan Shaw, Lieutenant Chip Stewart, and an old friend, Chief Pennypacker.

“How are you, Chief? You did say you would ship out with me again some day.”

“I’m just finer than frog hair, sir. I heard you were getting another ship and just had to try and join up.”

“Lieutenant Commander Shaw and Mr. Stewart, where were you before here?”

Lieutenant Commander Shaw answered, “I was a gunnery instructor at the Academy, sir.”

Lieutenant Stewart said, “I was a gunnery officer on the Plymouth, sir.”

“I’m glad to have you both aboard. I want to thank you both for volunteering to usher at my wedding. Especially when you would have received an invite anyway.”

They all started laughing at that and Kelly moved on to sickbay.

“Rajna, it’s so good to see you again. Having you onboard as a PA will be great for the crew’s health and well-being. How does your mom feel about you being a PA?”

“She would much rather that I be a doctor, sir. I just told her that I’m sneaking up on it. She was not amused.”

Kelly laughed, shook Rajna’s hand, and moved into operations, where he met Lieutenant Commander Eric Baume, Lieutenant Handel, and Chief Rodriguez.

“Lieutenant Commander Baume, welcome aboard. Where are you from? What was your last assignment?”

“I was junior Ops officer on the Defiant, sir.”

“Oh, the new battle cruiser. How do we compare?”

“No comparison, sir. You are about one-fifth her size and have one-sixth her armament, but it’s a pleasure to be here, sir. I wanted my own Ops shop.”

“I’m glad you’re here. You’ll teach me the right way to fight my ship, won’t you?”

“I’ll give you my best effort, sir. I believe you have already met Lieutenant Jan Handel and this is Chief Yuri Doborov.”

“Indeed I have. Lieutenant Handel was my OOD on the trip here from Leonov. I see you are both Space Warfare Officers. I will propose that you two and the Exec establish a training program to qualify as many of the officers as possible as SWOs. This ship is too big to run like a normal scout ship. I’ll include myself in your SWO class.”

“Certainly, sir, the Academy has a syllabus and a course plan. I’ll get it and coordinate with the Exec.”

Kelly turned to Chief Doborov, “Good to meet you, Chief. What was your last assignment?”

Chief Doborov answered, “I was an instructor at the Academy, sir. I ran the Ops simulator.”

Kelly said, “Welcome aboard,” and moved on to supply.

Lieutenant Commander Juan Obregon, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Sarah Tsao, and Chief Larry Houston stood by in supply.

“Lieutenant Commander Obregon, how goes supply?”

Lieutenant Commander Obregon answered, “Sir, the mini ring revolutionizes supply. I just wish I had this on my last ship, the Gorbachev. I’d like to kiss whoever invented it.”

Kelly laughed and said, “I’ll let my folks know you appreciate it. I suggest you kiss my mom. I don’t know how Dad would take it.”

Lieutenant Commander Obregon blanched and said, “Oh, you’re one of those Blakes!”

Kelly laughed even harder, then asked Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Tsao, “Where did you come in from?”

“Sir, I came out of the base supply directorate. I was bored processing supply requests, heard you were looking for volunteers, and here I am.”

“Glad you’re here. I’ll try and keep you from being bored.”

“Chief, where was your last assignment?”

“Sir, my last assignment was with the battle cruiser Waterloo. I was held back because of a blown knee. I was going through surgery when the Waterloo was ambushed and killed. I volunteered for the Orion because I want to get back in the fight.”

Kelly gripped Chief Houston by the shoulder and said, “I can’t promise you a fight, but know that your service here will be meaningful and it will make a big difference in how the campaign comes out.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Kelly climbed up a ladder to the CIC and found Connie Cortez.

“Connie, I want you, Lieutenant Commander Baume, and Lieutenant Handel to set up a SWO qualification course for all the officers, even Rajna, even me. I want as many qualified SWOs as we can achieve. I want officers that can run this ship and fight her if you and I get knocked out. Find out what we need to train the enlisted space warfare curriculum, too.”

Connie answered, “Will do, sir.”

Kelly pulled Connie into his office and closed the door behind. He told her to sit.

“Connie, I just found out yesterday that we will have an ambassador and his staff embarked when we leave. I’m afraid I’ll need to bump you from your private cabin for this mission. As long as I’m discommoding people, I will need you to inform all the officers to double up. We will have other guests on board this trip, so no private staterooms.”

“Damn, sir, and I just unloaded all my frilly pillows and stuffed animals. No problem, sir, I’ll give them all the bad news. Who else do we have coming aboard?”

“The ambassador will have two assistants and two translators. We’ll also have a Fleet Reporting Officer riding with us.”

Connie’s eyes went wide. “Anyone we know, sir?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. The operations plan just said reporting officer, not a name. You two did part on good terms, I hope?”

“Oh yes, sir, Alistair and I parted as friends when I went to Fleet. There was no way to maintain the relationship. I get a message from him occasionally.”

Kelly sat down and the two of them worked out the details on their upcoming training cruise.

* * * * *

Admiral Sue Thomas sat through her morning staff briefing, marking ships off as they briefed their readiness status. Ship after ship reported green in all status categories: personnel, armaments, engineering, supply, and training.

She turned to her operations officer and told him to prepare a fleet on fleet exercise for late next week. She wanted to pit the Bolivar against the deGaulle and Wellington. Normally it was the other way around. Two blue defenders against one red attacker, but Admiral Thomas wanted to be different.

She knew that if the K’Rang attacked her, she would be outnumbered. She wanted to get her staff used to fighting outnumbered and winning. She was still missing two crucial components of her battle fleet – her scout ship and ring ship. Admiral Minacci promised her that the scout ship would join her before she deployed. The ring ship was less certain. She couldn’t get a guarantee from the shipyard that hers would be completed in time.

She couldn’t let that happen. She may have to pitch a bitch at the Bureau of Ships or Fleet Operations. She had to have that ring ship to bring in reinforcements. If the K’Rang decided to not follow the plan and attacked into GR space, hers would be the only force in place to stop them. The Fleet reserve couldn’t even get to her in time.

She requested a videoconference with the Fleet chief of operations for first thing Geneva time. She had to make a strong case for a ring ship.

* * * * *

Tammy flew her attack ship through the local ring and out the Antares ring. She was testing her pathfinder idea against the 15th Battle Fleet. Admiral Thomas asked for Tammy’s wing to attack the opposing force consisting of the Wellington and deGaulle carrier task forces. It was Tammy’s job to find them, determine a plan of attack, and call that plan back to her wing.

Tammy piloted her ship to the last reported red force location. Her sensors picked them out and she saw two carrier task forces in a long line formation, one behind the other. She forwarded the sensor track to her wing and proposed a sweeping run around them and an attack from the rear. She pulled back out of sensor range and waited.

Fifteen minutes later, her wing cleared the Antares ring and was heading in her direction. She fell into her place in the formation and prepared for her attack run, her weapons simulator linking into the Fleet sim link. Her simulated missiles would show up on the red fleet screens as they came in range.

The commander broke the wing into two attack groups as he saw the red fleet come up on his sensors. He sent the 112th to attack the rear of the formation first, to draw off the fighters. Then he would send the remaining two squadrons against the lead carrier group, focusing on the carrier.

When all squadrons were in position, he ordered the 112th to attack. They came in at max speed, just under FTL, and launched a simulated full strike, 24 missiles from each of 18 attack ships. 432 missiles showed up on Tammy’s screen. She watched them as her squadron turned away and moved out of range. The fleet reacted, as the fighter cap turned from its all around patrols and sped to intercept the missiles. Defensive missiles launched from the rear carrier task force. Additional ready fighters were launched from both carriers. Soon almost all fighters from both carriers were heading rearward.

Tammy watched her screen as the fighters and defensive missiles slashed their way through the incoming missiles. Now that they were fully engaged, the other two squadrons made their attack runs at the fleet. Two more simulated full strikes were launched at the combined fleets. Over 800 new missiles bore in on the two carrier task forces.

The fleet fired its simulated defensive missiles and launched what few aircraft it had left. The damage sim started showing the results of the rear strike. The deGaulle took a missile hit on the bow. Two frigates took two missiles each and were marked destroyed. A resupply ship took a missile and was marked destroyed.

Tammy was ordered to stay and record the damage while the rest of the wing exited the area before the fighters reorganized and came after them. She watched as the two task forces expended almost their entire load of defensive missiles against the attack. Missiles still got through. The Wellington took three hits and was marked as a mobility kill, stopping dead in space. Two cruisers from the Wellington task force were marked destroyed. Another frigate was damaged. In all, the attack destroyed six ships and damaged three others. Tammy headed for the Antares ring with a smile on her face.

* * * * *

Admiral Thomas walked around the conference table filled with her senior commanders, as the damage simulator replayed the heavy attack ship action.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we would have lost a significant chunk of our offensive capability to this attack. I know that there were no heavy attack ships briefed as being in the enemy order of battle for this exercise, but you have to learn to react to the unexpected. If the K’Rang do not play according to our rules and instead attack into GR space, we will be the only major defensive force in their way.”

“We will have to fight smart. We have to be innovative. This particular attack profile has been used most effectively against the K’Rang picket line numerous times. If they can use this against us, I’m sure they will. Now, how will we defend against this in the future?”

The next three hours were spent devising strategies against this attack profile and other, more effective attack profiles the heavy attack ships hadn’t considered. Admiral Thomas forwarded these to the wing commander for his consideration.

* * * * *

Candy’s wedding day was fast approaching. Everything was falling into place. The guest list was filling out. The President’s office had still not replied, but his social secretary said it was a matter of scheduling, not whether he’d come or not. Gifts were coming in by the hundreds. The wedding planner hired an assistant to help keep track of all the presents. Candy’s music room was given over as a storage space for the bounteous harvest.

Candy read through the list and didn’t recognize many of the names. She supposed they were her or Kelly’s parents’ friends. A Presidential Security Service office was set up on Antares Base to review the guest list and service staff for the wedding. Candy never imagined it would get this complicated.

She wondered where they were going to put some of this stuff. A lot were household goods, linens, dishes, and appliances, but some were exotic – animal skin rugs, weapons, fertility symbols, jewels, and even a ground car. Obviously, out in the worlds, there was a wide range of what made an acceptable wedding gift. A number of them violated ethics rules and would either have to be sent back or turned over to a museum or other type of charitable organization.

Carol, her wedding planner, practically lived with her now, showing up just after dawn and leaving just before dusk. She and her assistant spent their mornings cataloguing new gifts and the afternoons working on other wedding details. She was a godsend, and Candy would have to do something special for Moira to thank her for this.

Her mother’s worries about paparazzi and the media hounding her turned out to be a bust. Her house was under the Antares Base training safety zone and off limits to unauthorized civilian air traffic. Candy had special authorization to fly to her property, but was limited to a narrow flight corridor and to altitudes below 1000 meters. There were no civilian imagery satellites over the northern hemisphere. The news media was interested in her wedding, but not as much as in the latest Tri-Vid star scandal or their latest week-long marriages. Her house’s location on a mountain ledge in the wilderness also discouraged news crews and freelancers.