by Chris Hechtl
“Exactly. But I was thinking we identify what can be the same to simplify logistics there as well. Same warhead, avionics, that sort of thing. Do we know if the ship missiles will have multistages? Or will they have a ballistic component?” Toby asked, looking up and catching the admiral looking at his design. He smiled briefly to her.
“No idea. I'll make a note to look into that,” Pavel said, making a note on his tablet.
Jan looked over to him and then nodded. “Pass on a memo that we need to keep the missiles homogeneous too to simplify logistics,” she ordered. Okay, maybe they had some good ideas she thought.
“Gotcha,” Pavel said tapping out the email.
“Toby, pull that frame up. Make the gun symmetrical, underslung,” Jan said as she rose to her feet. “You've got it as a rail gun?” she asked.
“Yes,” Toby said as he fed his project into the holographic projector. “The tug design has four engines. I don't like the arrangement though; they form a cube in the back. It makes it hard to land the craft. It takes up a lot of room too.”
“We're going to use a modified mining tender for the initial carrier design,” Jan informed them. “This …,” she nodded slowly as she examined the design. “They kept the design symmetrical on as many axes as possible,” she noted.
“Exactly,” Toby said as Pavel frowned at the design. He glanced over to a few of the others.
“We can get away with a craft that isn't too symmetrical,” Shri said slowly. “We've got fly by wire.”
“And some of the ships will have a dumb A.I. on board to manage the systems,” Jan said.
“They will?” Pavel said, sitting up straight.
“Yes.”
“Well! That simplifies things!” Toby said, making edits to the design.
“Run a comparison of this design with the fighters that were kludged together,” Jan ordered. “Rail gun though, it looks … big.”
“It's designed to fire smart rounds or missiles,” Toby said defensively.
“We don't need that. Dumb it down, Toby. A turret might work better. A fixed gun in the nose would work too.”
“If it is too small, it won't get penetration,” Toby warned.
“We still don't know what it will need to penetrate,” Shri said. “Start with this design, and we'll upgrade later.”
“I think it will work,” Toby said. “But the engine layout is bothering me.”
“Can you shift it?” Jan asked, turning to him. He blinked. “It is a cross pattern. Shift it to an X. A box.”
“But …”
“I know what she means,” Pavel said, taking the controls. He rotated the cockpit and the ship suddenly shifted forty-five degrees. He moved the landing gear and a few of the components around and suddenly the design was much more compact.
“The wings and any bits will need to fold to save space on the carrier deck,” Jan murmured, suddenly feeling like they were accomplishing something.
“Okay …”
“And the maintenance people will need to have easy access to hang ordinance as well as do routine things like add fuel or swap out some components,” Ben Tillerman suggested, suddenly getting involved in the idea.
One by one the others picked up on the excitement and began to contribute.
~~*^*~~
Ensign Marvel McCoy was living the dream finally or the nightmare. Take your pick he thought as he looked at the bastardization of a ship some idiot thought would be a good first space fighter. He shook his head.
“Not much to look at Adrienne said as she ran her hands over the craft. The welds had been ground down smooth but it still looked rough. The ship had started off as a small short-ranged tug used to move cargo or equipment around outside a station or in a yard. They'd kept the cockpit, engines, and avionics but removed the bumpers and added a weapon, an underslung rail gun.
“She's something only a mother could love or someone totally insane to fly,” Marvel replied, eyes searching the ship for flaws. The flaw list was legion, but nothing jumped out and told him he was going to die right off. Maybe it would work; maybe it wouldn't.
“Landing skids need to be replaced with wheel,” he murmured, kicking a skid.
There were two squadrons of fighters in the navy at the moment. Theirs would make the third … if they could get it up and running. A lot of the excitement to become a fighter pilot had cooled when people had gotten a good look at the fighters and what they could really do. Or, more importantly, what they couldn't do, which was a lot.
But she was a start. A test bed, Marvel thought as he climbed into the cockpit.
“This is a live-fire exercise people. Treat it that way. Look alive and stay alive,” Adrienne said in her best professional voice. “That goes double for you, Marvel,” she said.
He turned to look at her. “Yes, mom,” he drawled in just the right tone of voice to earn snickers from the other pilots and a glower from her.
He sort of resented the fact that she was the squadron commander. Sure they'd gone to school together, but they both knew who the better pilot was. Okay, she had a better record than he did, but really, did they have to hold that against him? She had to twist the knife about making comments about maturity and someone who is willing to lead not showboat when he'd first bitched about it.
Marvel and Adrienne had both volunteered for the fighter wings the moment they'd heard about the navy. They had been pleasantly surprised when they had both been accepted. Up until yesterday, they'd only had simulators to train in however. The pilots couldn't quite get over griping about the fighter design though. “Let's get it together, people,” Adrienne said as she finished buckling in. A tech checked her out, then brought the airlock door down and dogged it shut from the outside.
That was another thing; the cockpit was a ball, not a proper cockpit. It was great for forward visibility but sucked for the other views around the craft. Someone had cracked jokes about some sort of Tie something or other, a Tie-Ugly, Marvel thought. He didn't know what they were referring to, probably another game fighter he thought as he put his helmet on and checked his seals.
At least they'd ditched the gun mounted on the robotic arm he thought. It was a pity; he'd worked out some sweet moves with it. But he had to admit, the thing was glitchy as all get out. The recoil tended to mess the arm up too, and the feed chute jammed a lot. Better to have a fixed gun for the moment. Once they got their implants upgraded, he'd explore controlling a turret while flying.
“All ships secure Red One,” the boat bay chief said. “We're pumping down the atmo and clearing the deck now. We'll be shutting off the gravity and opening the doors in five minutes,” he said.
“We need to work on a better launch method. Some way to get out in a hurry in a scramble,” Red Four said.
“No way are you going to stick this thing in a launch tube. You try to sling it with an electromagnetic catapult and the close electromagnets would fry the bird's electronics. If you tried a sled, it'd rip the undercarriage apart,” Red Three replied.
“Damn it. Well, we've got to figure out something. I suggest we start training to scramble soon,” Red Four said.
“Put it in the inbox,” Adrienne replied as her ship lit up.
When the deck was clear and the air pumped out, the lighting shifted from cool blue to a reddish hue and then the airlock door opened. Always there was something left over in the room; it formed a vapor cloud that sucked itself out into the void to be dispersed as the door cycled open.
“Gotta get those doors to open faster too,” Red Four said.
Adrienne double clicked her microphone.
One by one the fighters drifted out of the bay and into the black. They each took turns puffing their RCS to make sure everything was green as they did a lazy loop around the station.
“All right, Red, flight form up on me. I'm following beacon 459. Don't lose sight of your wingman. Don't hot dog. We're going to need the fuel to get there and back, and these birds don't have the reserves
that others do.”
“There is plenty of fuel,” Marvel protested.
“Red Two, if you hot dog, you will be grounded,” Adrienne snarled. “Don't give me any shit.”
He scowled but double clicked his microphone in response, not trusting his voice to be even and his temper cool enough to reply.
“Whoever uses the least amount of fuel when we get back to the barn gets a bonus point. Now, we've got a shooting range to shoot up, people,” Adrienne ordered as she moved out. The other fighters formed up and followed her.
“Just as we rehearsed in the ready room. We're going to take each target in pairs. Lead will have the first firing pass. Wingman will keep on his wing. Once you've each had a shot, we'll swap out. Watch your instruments, people.”
“I've got red lights, I've got to go back to the barn,” Red Nine said, jiggling her fighter before turning away.
“Damn it,” Marvel cursed.
“Red Ten, you're her escort, go with,” Adrienne sighed.
“Roger that,” Red Ten replied, fighting to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“What a way to run a railroad,” Marvel grumbled over the net after the pair and broken formation and returned to base.
“Just be glad we're not going into combat,” Red Four replied. “This is a learning experience. We're all students here; don't get uppity.”
Marvel started to open his mouth for a retort, but Adrienne cleared her throat. “I've got the lead. Red Two, follow me in,” she said as the fighter picked up speed. Marvel frowned and tried to look beyond her fighter. Finally, he caught sight of the beacon. It blinked, a series of flashes on a tiny asteroid made up of trash rock no one wanted.
“Let's pound some gravel, shall we?” Adrienne said as she flicked off the safety and lined up for her first shot. The rounds tore out of her fighter, momentarily braking her as Newton's third law kicked in. The force from the rounds weren't enough to completely brake the headlong acceleration of the craft, but it was enough to make Marvel sit up and jink to keep in formation with her.
“Try to keep up Red Two,” Adrienne said with a smirk in her voice.
“Try to shoot straight Red One,” he retorted.
~~*^*~~
Admiral Lewis nodded when he read Jan's report at the end of the week. He was impressed that she'd finally gotten the fighter design team off their butts. They'd come out with an acceptable design. According to the sims Trevor had set up and the engineering A.I. had run, it would work.
More importantly Red flight was now up and running. He'd taken a chance on Ensigns Hatfield and McCoy, but they seemed to be working out okay. Hatfield was shaking down to be a good leader. McCoy seemed to be on his best behavior … for the moment.
Next week a fourth parasite squadron would be ready to go. This one was made up of bombers, though they currently didn't have any ordinance beyond dumb bombs to fire. They'd have to line them up on the ship and then let them go to drift in on their own … at least until someone got around to creating a rocket for them. Hopefully soon.
The fifth squadron would get the first revised fighter designs, the ones that Jan had put the design team on. According to her report, there were some good alterations there, most likely those would be the fighters that would make it to the carriers. That was, if they didn't come up with something even better before the first carrier launched in eight weeks he thought.
He felt a bit of relief as he turned his attention to something else, something he'd been planning for months. Something he'd both been excited about and dreaded.
Confederation day had come quickly, and the brass had demanded a showing for the taxpayer to see what the navy had accomplished. That meant the first ships they had in space had to parade before the cameras on Confederation day.
Their largest asteroid ship, the one-km-long Resolution, was having problems with acceleration he noted. Captain Renoir was probably not thrilled about being stuck in the plodding beast that the crew had nicknamed “Rocky.” She was easily outpaced by the converted civilian vessels.
He'd actually planned on that. The other twenty-five ships, fifteen privateer warships, and ten support ships formed a three-dimensional wedge formation in front of the larger ship. To the uninitiated, they seemed like a mighty task force. All he could see were the flaws involved.
There were no missiles for instance, no missile tubes either. They had a few energy weapons. The turrets were still having issues and were slow to fire. They also took at least a full second to burn through a target. That sort of amount of time was an eternity in combat when you had dozens of targets to service coming at you.
Their primary weapons were rail guns. Gauss turrets and fixed spinal weapons on the ships. Their energy shields were laughable as was their ECM and other defensive measures. They had gamed out at least a dozen critical weak spots in each class.
But, at least they knew about them he reminded himself. Given time they'd find a way to cover them better. And given enough time enough ships would come out of the yards, purpose-built warships that would replace them and relegate these ships to the reserves and as training vessels he thought.
The carrier conversion project was coming along and was actually one of the highlights. He'd seen the documentary of its conversion process on the media the night before. It had been a nice fluff piece the media needed. Showing smiling people working on it was a nice touch too.
“Look pretty for the cameras,” Jan Kepler drawled over the radio link.
“Gallant defenders of Terra, strike a pose,” Captain Varbossa of the privateer Courage quipped.
“Ah, shut up and do your job,” Captain Chen Mnard of the asteroid cruiser Justice replied.
“As you were, all of you,” Admiral Lewis said over the link, cutting off the chatter. The last thing he needed was for someone to break the encryption and feed that to the media he thought.
Now that the ships were in space and had some weapons, Walter planned to work them up in a series of exercises. The firing exercises would have to be in an isolated patch of the belt he knew, but that was fine with him. Tomorrow Jan would get them on that while he arranged the first patrols around the jump points leading into the solar system.
Chapter 21
September 23, 2235
Slipping in the polls and aware he was looking soft on defense, President Carlton attended the keel-laying ceremony of the first destroyer, the Constitution.
Lagroose Industries had managed to win the bid for the contract of the first ship. Yorrick had convinced the board to build the ship at cost and to build it at maximum speed. He'd also lined up some additional funding through volunteer work and crowd funding to match the government's cost of the ship. That had earned some startled respect from the media as well as some amusement from the government. A follow-on contract to build seven other destroyers had been approved the night before.
Radick Industries had scored the contract to build the first squadron of corvette/frigates. They promised to build the ships faster than Lagroose Industries could build Constitution. Given that the ships were sixty meters shorter and had less involved in their construction, they had the inside tract in their competition, or so some would believe.
The president grabbed the lectern with both hands as he began his impassioned speech. Admirals Lewis and Kepler were behind him on his left; the Lagroose representatives headed by Yorrick Lagroose were on his right.
“We're here on a special occasion, one I rarely ever got the chance to participate in before—a keel-laying ceremony but not just for any ship. The Constitution will be the first of her class and the first purpose-built warship designed and built to defend our civilization from the alien threat that has appeared to strike terror in the hearts and minds of one and all …”
~~*^*~~
Since the president was headlining the event, the admirals had pulled out all the stops. Jan wasn't happy about the expense of the party after the ceremony. There were security issues and all sorts of extra e
xpenses, but it had to be done to showcase the navy.
She also felt a little embarrassed that their sterling white uniforms had only their insignia and nametags but were bereft of medals. She'd tried to talk Walter into some gold trim, maybe gold braid or swords, but he'd nixed all of it.
She kept her expression schooled to impassive as President Carlton promised to be strong on the military front and double the funding within his next year in office.
“If he gets another year,” Jan said through her implants in an aside to Admiral Lewis. He snorted softly in reply.
~~*^*~~
Yorrick did his best not to squirm through the long-winded speech and the speeches that followed. Really, it wasn't that big a deal; the real deal would come when the ship passed her tests and was commissioned. But the president needed to look strong on defense and industry, so they were saddled with the ceremony. What should have taken a few minutes and then back to work was taking hours. And with everyone underfoot, the work crews couldn't hit their stride. They were going to lose a shift, possibly two due to the stupidity.
“You know, we need ships badly. Very badly. If they'd just let us do it like we did before, we could produce better equipment in half the time.”
“You are talking about with nanites. That's a no-no,” Rick said, leaning over to him.
“But it'd work. We'd be able to build twice as many ships in half the time with half the people. And they'd be great ships, better than the enemy's too!”
“You sure about that? I'm not,” Rick said dubiously.
“I am. I have faith in our people,” Yorrick said.
“Some people have to learn a new fear to get over an old one,” Rick said thoughtfully.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Yorrick demanded.
