Star Man 2: Star Rise

by I. G. Roberts

  Sonya realized Colin had a lot of useful insights into the strategic side as well as the tactical. He understood the problems she was facing, and while he didn’t have the answers yet, he was groping towards a solution and helping her look at things from a different angle. It was evident, they needed more ships than they had. Preliminary work was already underway to procure parts for the ships the Lahoshans ordered, and she had the last four Taipans and two Cobras for Cambridge under construction now, but they wouldn’t be completed for months yet. Sonya needed to find a faster way to increase her available firepower.

  Colin broke into her thinking when he asked, “How hard would it be to upgrade your three Cruisers?”

  She didn’t fully understand his question at first, so she asked, “Upgrade the Cruisers, what do you mean?”

  He replied, “Well the Cobras and Taipans are almost Pocket Cruisers regarding firepower, and they actually have stronger Shields and armour. Can we upgrade the Cruisers, at least with more robust Shields, though perhaps we could find space to add a few more Point-Defense turrets as well? Maybe put bigger Rail-Guns and primary Lasers on there too.”

  Sonya thought about his suggestion for a few minutes then told him she didn’t know. They would need to talk to the Naval Engineering team about it. They discussed the issues for a while longer then Colin asked if he would be permitted to see Dave because he wanted to talk to the prisoner about the Spy Ship they destroyed. Sonya nodded, made the necessary arrangements for him, then asked him to meet with the engineering team afterward. Colin nodded then left. After Colin had walked out of Sonya’s office, he wondered if Julia had been able to see Dave recently. Colin realized he quite liked them both so decided to call past the house and see if Julia wanted to see Dave. When Colin arrived there, she was doing a little cleaning mostly just to give herself something to do. Julia became very excited when Colin asked her to go with him to see Dave. Colin explained to Julia that he needed to see Dave in private first, but then she could talk to him for a while without anybody looking on, or listening in. Of course, Colin knew DNI would be doing both those things, but Julia didn’t need to know that. They arrived at the DNI facility and were signed in. Colin made sure Julia was comfortable before being shown into the interview room where Dave was waiting. There was nothing to gain by hiding the truth about the Spy Ship, so he related how they found it, not the detail about enhanced Sensors, just the fact they noticed an anomaly and went to investigate. He told Dave they destroyed the other ship and saw him go pale. Then Colin showed him the images Theseus recorded of the ship before its destruction. He looked at the picture for a few seconds, smiled briefly, then frowned.

  He looked towards Colin and said, “You destroyed this ship, but not mine, why was that?”

  “He fired on us, you didn’t. Could you tell me what his capabilities were? We were running silent at the time then suddenly he began unloading everything he could at us. He didn’t give us much choice.”

  “His sensor suite was nowhere near as good as mine. He probably saw you on optical, maybe if you moved against a background, the optical scanning processor might have triggered an alarm. That ship belongs, … belonged to Kunon Tamashon. He was not my best friend. In fact, he wanted me dead because he wanted to take Julia from me. Two of his people tried to steal her just before we left for Lahoshar. I killed them, and he sought to claim my ship as compensation. The Boss needed me in Lahoshar immediately, so he told Tamashon to take a hike. You need to be careful, if he was involved, then the Sulimin Clan is around, probably trying to gather as much data as they can about the System’s defenses. If they’ve lost their surveillance capability, they’ll probably try a few one and two ship raids in and around Cambridge System to see how you respond and try to gain a better picture of your capabilities. Once they think they know your capabilities, the clan will assemble a large fleet. It will be a fleet they consider big enough to squash you then they’ll take whatever they want from the planet, at least that will be the plan.”

  “Okay,” Colin replied, “Thank you for the information. If you think of anything more, let the DNI guys here know and ask them to pass the information on to me or Commodore Nicholson. Now, I’ve finished the business I came here for, and I have something for you, just wait.”

  Colin brought Julia into the room and watched briefly as they hugged in happiness. There were tears in both their eyes as he quietly backed out of the chamber and closed the door to give them the small amount of privacy he could. While they were allowing Dave and Julia to have a little private time alone together, Colin asked the DNI agent what he thought about Dave’s claims.

  The agent replied, “It has a ring of truth about it Commander. You probably should know, every piece of information he’s told us that we could verify by some other means has proven to be entirely accurate. Even the information he’s given us that we couldn’t confirm tastes right, and he is consistent. If he’s lying to us, he believes his own lies, or he is the master infiltrator, someone better than we’ve ever come across in the history of the Federation. Bringing the girl today was a stroke of genius, he told you something you needed to know, and you rewarded him. What’s even better, you didn’t tell him he needed to give you the information you wanted before he could see her. Dave didn’t even know she was here. To Dave, it would seem he has found a friend. He gives up information then you pull her out of the hat like a magician. You know, the man worries about her incessantly. Of course, we reassure him and promise him she is safe, but seeing her looking healthy and happy, and dressed nicely will be reassuring to him. How is she behaving?”

  “She’s a lovely young lady. We must keep working on the line that she is not our slave or even our servant. If she is too tired to do something, we do it and let her sleep, reassure her that she’s not in trouble, etc. We’re trying to teach her what it means to be free. Dave started the process, we’re only continuing what he started. I really don’t think he ever saw her as a slave, except perhaps for a very short time when he first bought her”, Colin replied.

  The two of them chatted for a while longer till Dave and Julia had nearly three-quarters of an hour together then Colin knocked on the door and entered the room. Dave was sitting on the chair he’d been in when he spoke to Colin earlier, but now the girl was sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck. He was gently stroking her hair as she turned towards Colin.

  She said, “Thank you for bringing me today Sir. I know you’re very busy and it is hard for me to come here on my own.”

  Dave echoed her and thanked both Colin and the Fraser family for taking care of Julia while he was in prison. Then Dave told Colin he would do anything possible to help. Colin or any of the people looking after Julia only needed to ask, and he would help. Colin beckoned for Julia to follow him and walked out the door. Julia hugged Dave tightly, then kissed him and followed Colin. When they left, Dave sat there looking wistfully after her till someone came to take him to his cell.

  As Julia followed Colin out the front door, she thought about how much her life changed after Dave and she were captured by this man. He was always kind to her, never asked for anything, never tried to touch her, except to help her if she stumbled. She always felt safe with him, and with the family who gave her somewhere to stay. She knew how lucky she was, the man who owned her before Dave treated her badly, sometimes beating her, or giving her to his friends for entertainment but then he sold her to Dave. Even when he first took her to his ship, Dave was kind. She had her duties cooking for him, and warming his bed, but even there, Dave was gentle and didn’t force Julia to do anything. Dave taught her she could say no if she wanted. He even started teaching Julia how to read and write and was teaching her about his ship when they were captured by the Federation Navy. Somewhere along the line, Julia didn’t know exactly when, or where, they fell in love. Now Commander Gordon seemed to be trying to help Dave as well as her, she appreciated the help. Sometimes, when she was feeling in a particularly positive mood, Julia would
find herself dreaming about settling here on Cambridge with Dave and having these people as friends. In the meantime, all Julia could do was make herself useful so they wouldn’t decide to send her away. Julia worried a lot about being sent away, even though they’d all consistently told her it wouldn’t be happening. They told her repeatedly she was no longer a slave but a free woman. Julia barely had any kind of understanding of what it meant when they said those things. Till Dave bought her at the slave markets, her entire world was to serve her master, now Julia was being told the only master she had was herself. They explained to her, this didn’t mean she couldn’t or shouldn’t do things for other people, it just meant if she chose not to, Julia wouldn’t be in trouble for it, not the way she would have been if she disobeyed her master in the Alliance territories.

  As soon as he dropped the girl back at the house, Colin went to talk to the Engineering team. He knew if they got into a fight, the Commodore would be commanding from one of the Cruisers. Colin felt it necessary for Sonya to be on the most powerful ship they could manage. He hoped it would be possible to make the Cruisers a little more powerful or at least improve their self-protection. When Colin arrived, he was shown into a meeting room where he was introduced to the Chief Engineer for the Navy in Cambridge System, Commander Douglas Corbett.

  Douglas said, “So Commander, the Commodore tells me you’re talking about doing something with our Cruisers. What do you have in mind?”

  Colin replied, “Please, we’re both the same rank, and you’ve held the Rank longer than me, call me Col or Colin. May I call you Douglas?”

  “Just call me Doug, now what do you have in mind Col.”

  “Well Doug, I’m not sure what’s possible. I don’t know how flexible the Cruiser design is or for that matter how much spare power is available. Can we put more powerful Reactors in them? Can we increase the number of Shield-Nodes? Can we upgrade the guns? Can we improve the fire control? I have to tell you, the AI we have in Theseus is something special, she has just the right amount of initiative.”

  Doug’s eyebrows rose as he asked, “Initiative? From an AI?”

  Colin laughed and said, “Yes initiative. When her new Sensors came online, she took it upon herself to scan the system and found an enemy ship. Theseus sent a report to the Commodore under her own name detailing the probability I’d want to act and requested clearance to undock before me requesting her to do so. In Lahoshar, she danced the ship around like a ballerina, significantly reducing the number of hits our Shields had to absorb. Thor’s AI has been performing the same. From what I’ve been told, the AI’s in all the new ships are showing these characteristics. I think as a minimum we should look to see if we could give the Cruisers this type of capability. Do you have any ideas what’s possible?”

  “We’ve actually been working on some of these things. We’re somewhat limited in what’s possible without upgrading the Reactors, so we began looking at fitting the new Reactors to these ships because they’re more reliable and take up a smaller footprint. We haven’t had the approval to do the work yet, but we have built Reactors for one ship. The job will take about two months, and while the Reactors are going in, we could upgrade the Shields and probably fit more powerful Lasers. The Rail-Guns would take a lot longer, though. The AI is relatively simple, that’s mostly just a case of a new more powerful computer core.”

  “Okay then,” Colin replied, “let me talk to Commodore Nicholson. See if I can convince her to give the necessary approvals. Thank you for your time.”

  “Are you looking for a billet in command of a Cruiser?”

  “No, those jobs are all taken. Commodore Nicholson will be on one of those Cruisers. She needs to be on the most powerful and best-protected ship we can manage.”

  Doug nodded as he led Colin out of the room.

  Colin went directly to Sonya’s office to ask about scheduling the Cruisers for the upgrades. Sonya was in a meeting but her aide, Sarah made some inquiries and told Colin some penny-pinching bureaucrat was busy trying to put roadblocks in the way. Colin knew exactly how to deal with this, he took the man’s name and put in a formal request for him to be transferred to one of the Warships, but it had to be one where he was outranked by the ship’s Captain and preferably one of the Cruisers. When Sonya saw the request, she called Colin in to find out why he put it into the system, especially worded the way it was.

  Colin asked, “Did you know we can make your three Cruisers much more powerful and do it quite quickly?”

  She frowned, then said, “No, I didn’t. How long will it take and what upgrades can they do?”

  Colin detailed the updates that were possible and the reasons for the hold-up. As he related what he’d discovered, Colin saw her face go red as the anger took hold, then with an evil glint in her eye, she made a few minor changes and approved the request. The bureaucrat was going to be responsible for inventory control on FNS Ninja, and he had to report for duty in only six hours. She knew the Captain of that ship would make the man's life hell, they’d had disagreements in the past, mostly when his ship needed repairs approved. Sonya needed to intervene on more than one occasion. She called Commander Dimitri Molchaoff to give him the good news.

  She said to Colin, “I’ll let Dimitri the mad Russian deal with him. Dimitri is a damn fine Captain, and his crew is fiercely loyal to him because they know he always looks out for their safety and welfare. He’ll enjoy breaking this weasel.”

  Just then, there was a commotion in the outer office, and Sonya’s intercom sounded but before she could answer it the door burst open, and the ‘weasel’ came charging in shouting. When the door burst open, Colin reacted, moving to intercept, and before the man knew what happened, he was lying face down on the floor with both his arms twisted behind his back. Seconds later, two Troopers ran in. They immediately arrested him for assaulting Sonya’s aide, Lieutenant Sarah Robinson, a young woman, who now had a blood nose and marched him off to the brig. Sonya and Colin took the time to look after Sarah while they waited for someone from medical to come and check her injuries. Colin could see she had blood all over her uniform and he thought she was going to have a black eye. If he’d known about this before, the Troopers wouldn’t have been frog marching the man out, they would’ve been dragging a beaten and bloody inert body from the room. Colin told Sonya this, and she replied to him that she would have been helping him administer the beating if she’d known. Shortly after, a nurse and doctor arrived from medical to help Sarah. The doctor took one look at her and decided to take her off to medical for treatment, rest, and observation.

  Sonya watched them go, turned to Colin and said with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “Now look what you’ve done Colin, I’ve lost my aide. You’re an evil man, you lead me astray and make me take rash actions.”

  Realizing she was mostly joking, he replied, “Well, you’re rid of one problem. I am truly sorry about Lieutenant Robinson though, she didn’t deserve that. What charges will you bring?”

  “Assault on a junior Officer, attempting to attack a senior Officer during time of war. I think I’ll get someone independent looking at the accounts as well. His reaction was far too quick and violent to be the result of just losing a cushy job. As soon as I find the requests, I’ll approve those upgrades as well. Now, you can go and knock on Dimitri’s hatch and tell him why he doesn’t have an accountant to torture anymore. He’ll be very disappointed.”

  Colin left and boarded his Shuttle for the return to FNS Theseus. While she didn’t phrase it as an order, Colin could tell Sonya wanted him to go meet Captain Molchaoff. After the Shuttle had docked with Theseus, Colin called Sam and Anne into his office to tell them about his adventures on the planet. Both their eyes grew wide when he told them about the assault on Sarah.

  Anne asked, “Is she alright? She’s one of my closest friends.”

  Colin told her about the blood nose and probably a black eye and that the doctor took her to medical. He asked Sam if he could hold down the fort on These
us for a few hours so Anne could have a few days leave, then they could swap, and Sam could have time off himself. Sam agreed this would be fine so Anne went to pack while Colin left to visit FNS Ninja and her Captain.

  When he arrived at her dock, he was greeted by the two Troopers guarding the lock. They saluted him as he approached, so he returned the salute, told them who he was, requested a meeting with Captain Molchaoff and then waited. One of the Troopers called the Captain and soon a Lieutenant Commander, the ships XO arrived to welcome Colin and escort him to the Captain's office. When they arrived, Dimitri stood and greeted Colin effusively, offering him a rather strong liquor and asking him why he decided to visit right then.

  They settled into the comfortable chairs, sipping their drinks, or in Dimitri’s case skoling his and Colin related the events of the day to him. When he finished his story, Dimitri was laughing so hard about the reversal of the accountant's fortunes, he was bent over in his chair with mirth. Finally, he regained control of himself and asked his XO, who was also laughing hard, to arrange a big bunch of flowers for Lieutenant Robinson along with a suitable get well soon message. The XO nodded and took himself off to do as his Captain asked. It appeared nearly all the Officers in Cambridge knew and liked Lieutenant Robinson. The Lieutenant was always so calm and helpful when they saw her.

  When his XO left Dimitri turned to Colin and said, “So, you have convinced the Commodore to upgrade the Cruisers, this is good. You know this class of ship I think. FNS Destiny is based on this same hull. You know our limitations. What sort of upgrades can we expect? When can we expect them?”

  “If Commodore Nicholson knew these upgrades were possible, your ship either would’ve been upgraded already, or you would be about to have them. As for the scope, well, let’s see, stronger Shields, more powerful Reactors, heavier Lasers, some additional Point-Defense, and a new, more powerful computer core with a Sixth-Generation AI.”