Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (100 page)

The vice admiral turned to look at the minister and praetor then sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “New construction. He does have the keys,” Admiral Post said, looking around the room. “It's the only thing that fits.”

“Yes. Which begs the question, if they sent that much out on the offensive, what's guarding the star systems with the shipyards, their most valuable real estate?” the countess asked. She raised an eyebrow at the OPS officer. “Remember, Irons is also conservative and a defensive-minded officer.”

The praetor grunted like he'd been gut punched. All the back slapping and concern over the damage to the Retribution Fleet suddenly went out the window.

“Those are good questions. Questions your people should be looking into very carefully and quickly,” the minister rumbled.

“Oh, we are. But there is no such thing as carefully and quickly. Not in intelligence work. Quick and dirty usually means breakage and high risk. The risk can mean not getting any data at all,” she warned.

“So, what are you doing about it?” the minister asked.

She glanced at him then shrugged. “I passed orders for intelligence assets in the area to penetrate the enemy space to gather INTEL. To also pass on any knowledge they obtain. To pick up ships and personnel, news, and anything we may use to help build a better picture of what is going on over there. But, it isn't enough. And we still have the problem of getting it here,” she said, stabbing a manicured fingertip into the table top.

“Pi sector to Sigma is a long route. I'm not sure we can afford a year or more delay between information. To date the most up-to-date information we've gotten has been from the Retribution Fleet,” the countess admitted. “If Admiral De Gaulte can't get in and hold Protodon, they'll slam it shut again making it even harder to pry them out, even with a massive showing from Home Fleet.”

“And we still need to get the emperor to sign off on sending them,” the minister said.

“Yes. I'm used to working with long-range data sets that are out of date. It is a part of the trade, a price we pay I suppose you could say,” the countess stated. “But the enemy has faster ships. That means they can communicate faster than we can. They've got A.I.; we do not. We need to continue to redress our differences and make up the lost ground.”

“Suddenly it's a race?” Admiral Post asked.

She looked at him with a slightly pitying look. He blinked, face turning into a cool mask. “Of course it is. One we have to win if we wish to survive and continue expanding.”

“Right now I'm more concerned with survival,” the praetor admitted darkly.

“Right. I'll continue to explore ways to get information out. I don't know if it is worth the risk of sending a ship in direct. At this point I highly doubt it. We'd just be signing the crew's death warrants and handing their ship over to the enemy.”

“Yeah, let's try not to do that again, shall we?” the minister drawled, sitting back in his chair. “I know Malwin and I have taken enough heat from that as it is.”

“I know. The only safe way in is through Pi, but we're not even certain of that. If they have sown up the other side, it means any ship that comes into their sector would be required to heave to and be boarded for inspection.”

“And if their cover isn't good enough, they are blown.”

“Exactly,” the countess said with a grimace, “which means no spy ships, no hidden compartments, no cool tech toys. We should be able to insert operatives in as passengers on unsuspecting ships. Either as singletons, pairs, or small groups. But again, they'd be cut off with no tech and no way to get word of what they found out to us.”

“Except the long way. They'd have to what, build off the fifth column groups created on each planet? Daisy chain messages and personnel on them?”

“With the high risk of the chain being intercepted, monitored, or cut,” the countess stated, “with little or no feedback. Any feedback would risk exposure of two links in the chain,” she explained. The praetor winced.

“Do we really think it is worth the investment? That this war will drag on for decades or more?” Admiral Post asked. “You know, we could be jumping at shadows.”

“Plan for victory
and
defeat,” the praetor said after a long moment of silence. “I know we don't like it, but we need to cover every eventuality, including the latter however distasteful it is. And be ready to adapt when the time comes.”

“Something tells me that is going to be easier said than done with some of the families,” the minister growled. “Especially the one currently in charge. When … if it ever crumbles …,” he shook his head.

“We leave him holding the bag and run like hell,” the countess said, ever so softly.

The others looked at her horrified. She shrugged off such looks as she picked up her glass and took a sip.

Chapter 42

Warily the Retribution Fleet jumped into B-95a3 space once more. Admiral De Gaulte had ordered Jeremy to plot an emergence location away from any expected ambush so the fleet jumped short, low on the Z axis instead of high, and a few million kilometers off on the X axis for good measure. But no ambush presented itself. Only the crackle of distant stars and the void met them.

It took nearly a half hour for the battered ships to secure from hyperspace. The admiral had ordered them to come in with their shields and weapons fully online. The power demand had drained every ship's energy reserve, even to the point of losing their ability to warm up their sublight engines.

It had been a risky maneuver, but one that had apparently paid off. Or not, for no enemy ships presented themselves on their active sensors as they probed the depths of space around them.

Slowly CIC and the crews of the various ships lowered guard. “Keep CIC on careful watch. I want a two-hour rotation. They know the drill—scan, and don't stare at one point of space. Make certain they are running updates with the other ships to compare sensory data,” the admiral ordered.

Catherine nodded. He turned away before she could say something more. “Let the engineers lose. We've got two days; I want to be underway by the end of that. Get them cracking on every exterior repair they can. Hold the internals until we're moving,” he ordered.

“Aye aye, sir,” Catherine replied. She immediately passed the order. Within minutes, space around the ships sprouted shuttles and work parties as their mother ships dropped their shields to radiation deflection levels.

“Sir,
Star Warrior
hasn't managed to repair her starboard missile tubes. They are a complete write-off. The skipper is asking if we can take on some of the extra missiles they've got. Their flank magazines were holed as well, and Captain Baker isn't comfortable with having them there,” Myron stated. “I can't blame her; one good hit and it'll destroy the ship. She's lucky
Star Warrior
didn't blow as it is.”

The admiral frowned thoughtfully. If Fiona was actually offering them up, she was genuinely worried about her ship. He knew the woman; she wasn't that altruistic. “Are they any good?” the admiral rumbled. “The missiles I mean?”

Myron frowned thoughtfully. “I'm betting some spawling damaged a few. They haven't had time to do anything about it though.” The admiral nodded. Every hand was busy with repairs and running the ships. “Work parties will have to weed them out and then tear them apart to see what they can scavenge. Apparently they are storing missiles in the companionways and boat bays on the port side.”

“Okay, yeah, that's not good,” Sedrick said. “Even I know that,” he stated as the tactical officer looked at him.

The admiral did so as well, then turned back to Myron. “If they want to unload their excess missiles, so be it. Find out who has room in their magazines and arrange the transfer.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the tactical officer replied with a nod.

“Fuel is a problem. Several of the ships lost fuel in Protodon. They transferred the fuel to other tanks but they lost a lot,” Berney warned.

“And we don't have the tanker. Do they have enough to get to B-97A?” Catherine asked as she checked the status board. Her lips pursed thoughtfully as she noted the three ships with red fuel indicators.

“Their captains are a bit … dubious let's say,” the chief of staff stated, eying the admiral. “We may need to vampire some fuel from some of the other ships in order to get them out of this star system safely, sir.”

“Tell them to patch the holes in their tanks and get Catherine those numbers. Don't fudge them,” the admiral ordered.

The chief of staff nodded. “On it, sir.”

“Good.”

“We've got requests for parts as well, sir. Our supply ships aren't here and those you brought with us don't have enough for everyone. Priorities you set are for the capital ships first. What do we do, sir?” a rating asked.

“Set up an electronic swap meet. It's an old trick we've used before. Have whoever has excess of certain parts put them up. Manage it though,” the admiral said.

“Me, sir?” the rating squeaked.

“Yes. Get with the commander for help if you need it,” the admiral said, nodding to Berney. The rating nodded dumbly then went back to work.

Berney grimaced. The resupply effort was underway in parallel to the repair efforts. But there was only so much they had available to use. The factory ship was quickly saturated with requests and raw material from the wreckage that the work crews had cut out.

He was already aware of the low stocks. Electronics were important, but the shield nodes were critical and they didn't grow on trees. They couldn't build them either, which was a serious problem. Then there was the drive damage, the plasma conduit damage … the factory ship could only do simple repairs.

Fortunately, there might be a fix, if they could get to it in time. Their last courier had alerted them that a second convoy would be waiting for them in B-97A by the time they returned or sent a ship to order them forward. “Sir, are we going to get underway soon?” Berney asked, eying the admiral.

“I want to get what we can fixed now. I don't want to get caught with our pants around our ankle. Again,” the admiral said with a grimace.

“We can make repairs at the B-97A jump point, sir,” Berney pointed out, trying hard to force his voice into neutral not anxious tones. The admiral cocked his head then shook it once. “Sir?”

“We'll undoubtedly spend some time there but not a lot.”

“Are we going to call the supply forward? I can order a courier to move out now, sir,” he said.

None of the couriers had been targeted by the enemy's torpedo strike so they were not damaged.

The admiral shook his head. “With what they've got in Protodon I'm not confident we can hold this star system, though I'm tempted to try. The more we fight forward, the better in some ways, since we can give ground grudgingly. But our logistics tail is too long. No, we'll keep them there for now and meet them.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

While they sat there, the fleet kept their defenses up and their hyperdrives charged. The admiral even had them maneuver to come about so that they would appear as if they were planning to return to Protodon. Should the enemy put in an appearance in the star system, his initial plan was to jump into hyperspace and then wait for a week or more before returning to B-95a3 to try again to escape. It was just one of several contingency plans he and the staff had created in the transit to B-95a3.

But there was no need. No enemy fleet appeared on their screens. Once the limited resupply and repairs were complete they would move out on a prearranged course.

:::{)(}:::

Chief Riker shook his head. He had no idea what was going on, but he was antsy to get underway again. He didn't like making repairs on the exterior while the ship was moving; in fact, he like most engineers was dead set against it. But they could make additional repairs at the B-97A jump point, not just sitting there waiting for the enemy to arrive.

:::{)(}:::

Admiral De Gaulte grimaced as he read the report.
Star Mauler
was down to 82 percent efficiency. Chief Riker was working wonders, but he only had so much to use to work his miracles it seemed.

Potemkin
had managed to patch her keel strike, but she had structural damage. The engineers had reworked her shield nodes to cover the gap, but it meant her shields were at half strength. That wasn't good.

Just about every ship was damaged, even
Nimitz
. The carrier had taken a torpedo strike on her stern, which had crumpled one of her main engines and destroyed two of her secondaries. Not good.
Star Warrior
was his second-most injured capital ship. He worked on simulations with Myron while he waited for the initial repairs to be complete.
Potemkin
needed another shift to finish buttoning up her nodes; her engineer believed that he could salvage an additional node from three of the ones that had ruptured. Personally he had his doubts, and putting too much stress on already damaged and overstressed components was ripe for a cascade failure, but he had no choice except to back them and hope for the best. He shook his head. He knew everyone was nervous, but he had to get this right. There would be no second chance, so they had to get it right.