Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (36 page)

“Take your time. You've got until dinner for this; anything else after that can wait. The memorials are scheduled for tomorrow,” the admiral rumbled.

Garfield looked up, ears flat. He nodded once, sober.

“Sir, if they follow …,” Jojo asked.

“Which they will,” Alec grumbled.

“Based on what we know of our damage, we'll have to concede the jump point the moment they arrive,” the admiral stated. That seemed to make the group stiffen. He wasn't certain if it was in indignation or not.

“Losing the jump point will make us lose a prime place for an ambush, yes, I know. But we can't sustain a conflict at this time. Not with any chance of success. Get that through your heads now people,” he said, surveying the group. “We'll hold the position there for as long as we can and make what repairs we can. Any ships too damaged, we'll triage and send them back to allow the factory ship to focus on those it can get back up running. I intend to pull the ordinance and extra crew from the ships we send off and pack them with the wounded of course,” he said, making a nod to Kyle.

The human was busy, head down making notes. After a moment he looked up again.

“We've gotten our asses chewed, but we're not done—far from it. If we have to, we'll fall back once we've made certain none of our ships will blunder into that juggernaut.”

Jojo made a small sound. He glanced at her, but she looked away.

“Now, if you are ready, Garfield,” the admiral said pointedly, glancing at the tactical officer. “We can get this started.”

“Aye, sir,” the cat said, taking the stage as he pulled up a plot of B-97A. After a moment it rose up and a dot formed. It seemed to show them a zoom in under the star system plot of the enemy fleet. “Here is what we know about the enemy based on everything we picked up from the past several days and what we had in our files. Obviously we're still integrating the reports we downloaded from the ships in our fleet. It will take time for my department to sort it all out and collate it all. But …”

Chapter 15

The moment the enemy fleet jumped, the Retribution Fleet began to lick its wounds as they slowed down to the center of space in the jump-point region.

Commander Floyd Riker was glad of the respite. He knew
Star Mauler
, like the other ships, had been pushed hard for the past several days. They hadn't reached any breaking points, and he hadn't had to deal with battle damage fortunately, but what he found was bad enough.

Bad enough that he had to call the skipper and XO in before either man could get some much needed downtime. He needed to get his warning in early before someone did something stupid.

“What am I looking at, Chief?” Captain Sampson Knoll demanded wearily. If the chief called him down, he knew it wasn't good. When his XO, Commander Chad Ramses, had agreed it couldn't wait, he knew it was quickly sliding from bad to worse.

Hopefully, the men were overreacting. He knew engineers tended to do that, and they tended to build in a hefty safety margin in all things, just so they could push things and look like miracle workers when nothing broke.

He frowned as the chief pointed up over his head. He looked up. “Damn it, Chief, I'm too damn tired to play games,” he snarled. He stopped when a female engineering rating on the nearby ladder tapped a structural member, and then drew her delicate finger along a line. “No,” the captain snarled.

“I'm afraid so, Skipper. My people have found four so far. This one,” he pointed to where the crack went through a bulkhead. “Goes on and on. We can grind the crack, bevel it, then try a weld and patch, but I don't know if it will hold.”

“Damn it …” the XO muttered. He turned and looked away, toeing a box of tools in his frustration.

“We're low on some of the supplies needed to fix this. I'll need to get them from the fleet train. Hopefully, they aren't tapped out,” the chief replied as the woman began to scrape the paint away.

“Didn't you scan this earlier, Chief?” the XO demanded.

Chief Riker sighed. “That we did. This is fresh,” he said, indicating the crack. “Something is flexing in the frame and opening new cracks. I need to model it. Unfortunately, the software I have isn't up to the task. There are too many variables and too many of them are unknown.”

“Frack,” the XO muttered over and over. He turned to the captain.

“I thought you said it was fixed!” the captain snarled, fists clenched.

“I said it was a
temporary
fix, Skipper!” the chief implored, fighting the growing fear as his captain turned an alarming shade of red right to the tip of his ears.

“Son of a bitch!” the captain stormed. He raged while the chief nervously looked on. When he wound down from his rant, the captain shook his head. “The admiral isn't going to like this. You've got at best a day.
Find
the damn problems and
fix
them,” he snarled, poking the chief engineer in the chest. “And do it right the first time or I'll find another damn chief!”

“Aye aye, sir,” Chief Riker replied as he stood at attention. He saw the dark look from his skipper one last time before the man stalked out of the compartment. After a moment the XO followed in his wake.

“Well, boys and girls,” he said as he exhaled. “You heard the man. It looks like we've got our work cut out for us, doesn't it?” he asked with a whimsical smile. “Engineers aren't known for miracle workers for nothing. Let's get these fractures under control. Bob, check each and every damn crack we know about. Check the welds to make sure they aren't cracked. Do that personally,” he ordered, eying the other man. His assistant nodded.

He turned to his other assistant. “Majory, that leaves you to mind the store here while I take work parties to check everywhere else,” The woman grimaced but then nodded. “You know shit rolls downhill, and it's going to get muddy and up to our necks at the bottom so let's get this done,” he said. The other engineers nodded and swung into action.

:::{)(}:::

In order for the Retribution Fleet to stay within the jump zone, they had to perform their own flip and hard braking maneuver, which further stressed the damaged ships, not to mention the nerves of the engineers charged with handling them. Admiral De Gaulte was not happy about how some ships were slow on the helm; it didn't bode well for the immediate future. The reports of additional structural damage due to the speed and maneuvers during their run as well as damage put a crimp in his plan for an immediate jump to follow the enemy. Not that he'd wanted to do so, at least not without resupplying, but it definitely put a crimp in that plan and extended the timeline to a big question mark.

Which didn't sit well with some of the officers under his command. Hell, with him either.

“Sir, the DCC reports are in. The crews are doing what they can with the damage now. We've reduced speed to safe parameters and are ready to reorient,” Lieutenant Herod stated.

“Then do so. How is the resupply mission going?” he asked, looking over to Catherine.

“As well as to be expected, sir. Some of the ships have boat bay damage, but the crews are routing the loads around them,” the princess reported. “Do you intend to jump as soon as we're ready, sir?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod.

He, like just about every Horathian in the fleet, was not happy about getting so tantalizingly close to enemy range only to have the opportunity snatched out of his fingers when the enemy jumped. He knew it wouldn't play well with the court in the empire, nor the public.

And it didn't play with him well either. He felt the intense frustration and did his best to dampen it down. He didn't need the reminder that now he had to chase the enemy down … a wounded enemy who would be doing a much better job than he was at repairing and resupplying itself. Their next encounter could go very differently.

Damage assessments from the fleet flowed through the datanet. It was grim reading for the admiral. Every warship except
Nimitz
had taken some degree of damage. He grimaced as he read the reports. The rotating doctrine had helped spread the damage and prevent him from losing any of his capital ships but that didn't help now. Perhaps it was just as well his people had more time to get a handle on their damage control.

He had passed orders right off to get things in motion. But if some of the damage reports were to be believed, they'd still need more time. He exhaled noisily at the thought, letting his frustration ebb. So be it he thought. He might as well make the best of a bad situation and prepare for the next engagement the best he could while he was at it.

“I want a rough estimate when every ship will be up to a minimum of 70 percent. Have you hit the resupply of fighters and bombers?” he asked.

Catherine nodded. “
Nimitz
now has them, sir; they were offloaded an hour ago. Commander Zakhan has scrounged the necessary crews to man them. His deck crews are still going over his other birds. From what I understand of the plan he forwarded me, he's planning to strip some of the most damaged birds in order to get the least damaged flyable again.”

The admiral nodded. “Keep me posted,” he ordered. She returned the nod as she turned away.

:::{)(}:::

Princess Catherine Ramichov rubbed the small of her back as she came onto the bridge. She'd finally gotten five precious hours of sleep. She had started to regret her chosen role as a staff officer and definitely that of carrying the OPS department in the past four days. But, she was quite proud of herself for handling it.

She just wished she could keep a step ahead of the admiral's thought process. He'd started to become opaque, harder to read, and reluctant about sharing his thoughts with the staff. She was concerned. It hampered their ability to function, but she understood it. She knew that he knew that the conversations and orders he had would be recorded. Any correspondence was; a few slips from Sedrick a year ago had proven that to them all! She shook her head.

“Something?” Berney asked. He yawned. “Sorry.”

“No, just wool gathering. Not enough sleep and I'm actually scared of caffeine,” she said with a grimace.

“Too much of a good thing I know,” the chief of staff said as he poured himself a cup. “Think we'll jump soon?”

“I don't know, and that's also bothering me,” she admitted. He looked up to her. She shrugged. “Sorry, it is how it is I suppose. I know the loading is going well.”

“Good,” the commander replied with a nod as he stirred artificial cream and sweetener into his cup. “Good.” he said again as he poured a second cup. She frowned but then when she heard a familiar rumble in the wardroom she nodded in understanding. “Right on time,” Berney said as he took both cups and led her out to the waiting admiral.

:::{)(}:::

Prince Adam Ramichov shook his head and then rolled his shoulders. Unlike the skipper he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, something that endeared himself with the crew. It wasn't just to help out though; he had other reasons.

One was, yes, there was a lot of work. And yeah, it looked good to the peons to see the boss and prince lower himself to their level once in a while. A bonding which would serve him well when he eventually rose to the throne as the man “of the people.” He smirked slightly and then let the expression fade.

There were two other reasons he knew. One was that he had no intention of letting his ship be sent back home. So, every hand counted. The second was a bit more … complex to explain, but simple enough.

He liked to do things with his hands, especially when he was frustrated or annoyed. Just simple things, things to get himself out of his head and broken record, things to refocus and orient him and lower his blood pressure. But things that were productive.

He wasn't a sadistic deviant who took it out on some poor sap's hide. It was tempting sometimes, but he was proud of his iron control of his sexual urges and only gave them leave to vent when he was with his wife or under her supervision.

He shivered ever so slightly. Marina had spelled out the consequences in exquisite and
painful
detail if he didn't keep his dick in his pants when she wasn't in the room. He could still feel the phantom grip of her long but surprising strong fingers and sharp black nails on his … he shook his head like a horse trying to shake a fly but then shivered again.

And after that … educational experience he'd made certain to toe the line. He needed her. She was a Stuart, and he needed her family's powerful support. And more importantly, he actually did desire and love her. She was the sadist of their partnership, and he knew it and had accepted it. He smiled ever so slightly. A wicked queen indeed he thought.

They made a good team. Most people underestimated her; they thought the surface innocence, sympathetic air, wicked teasing eyes, and sweet red-lipped smile were all there were to the woman. They should know better, especially some of the players in the high political circles, but they fell for her innocence each time. That allowed the two of them to tag team opponents. She was also ambitious but patient. He knew that from years of being married to her, and he treasured it. He shook his head and then ducked his head as he smiled again.