"Sorry it took so long to get you out of there," she said. "We had to keep up appearances until we knew what was happening in Azgard. Now we know. Now we can start the real planning." I nodded.
"They'll be here before we're ready, won't they?" said Alsop.
"Very likely," I said. "The absolute minimum is about twenty four hours from now." Alsop looked horrified. "But I seriously doubt they can move that fast. The Talon pilots will need to rest. I'd say at least six to eight hours after each battle. That will add another twenty four odd hours."
"Do we know how long the ship refits will take?" asked the General.
Alsop went blank for a minute, and we waited for him.
"McLauchlan says four days, give or take a few hours. He can have the Talons done in two."
"So we need to plan on halting their fleet with what we have. Ideas?" she asked me.
"What do we have to work with? Gunbus, Excalibur, my station. What else?" I looked at Jane. "Jane, find out where McLauchlan wants the Talons, and send them there. Also send the Mustangs, Sabres, and Epees for repair, and whatever upgrading they can do, along the lines of what was done for the Centurions. Send the broken hulls of the other Mustangs as well, see if they're repairable. Send Eric's Explorer as well."
"Confirmed."
I looked to Alsop.
"Can you get McLauchlan on a direct line to this office?" He nodded, and went blank again. To the General, I said, "The more we can get repaired the better, but what else do we have?"
"Avon has three squadrons of Shades, a heavy fighter along the same lines as the Sabre. And we have Warspite." She sighed. "I just wish she had someone better in charge."
"It might work to our advantage anyway."
"How so?"
A screen lit up showing McLauchlan, presumably in his own office.
"Chief," I said. "I'm sending you every fighter I have. The Talons you know what to do with, but can you handle some genuine repairs and upgrades as well?"
"We might. What are you sending?" I told him. "I think we can handle them. What's the time scale?"
"Two days," I responded. He looked shocked. "That’s our best estimate of the earliest the enemy can get here to Avon. With luck it will be longer, but we need something to meet them with if they do get here that soon. Hence me sending you everything that flies." I pulsed him the upgraded Centurion specs. "If you can get the Heavy Privateers upgraded to a similar specification as the Centurions I did a few weeks ago, it will give us more to fight with."
"I'll see what I can do, but you're reaching the limits of what even this shipyard can do."
"I appreciate that, but I have another suggestion."
"Yes," he said tentatively.
"Any spare battleship turrets beyond what we might use for the Cruisers?"
"What if there are?"
"Well, you see," I said smiling, "I have this station…" I left it there and gave him the Maniac grin.
Everyone was looking at me as if I was crazy. Maybe I was.
"You want to mount Battleship guns on a station?" His voice sounded incredulous.
"Actually, I'd like you to mount every single spare gun you have on the station. I was thinking the top level is mainly wasted space at the moment. It could be sealed, have the extra power generators installed there, and the turrets mounted on top. If we could put six Battleship turrets on, (or more), with Cruiser turrets between them, with Point Defense in every nook and cranny left over, we aim the top of the station at the jump point, and we have an additional Battleship's firepower. Add some extra shield generators as well. It would be better than a Battleship in fact, because it will be able to handle barrages aimed at it."
"They told me you came up with harebrained ideas, but this takes the cake." He paused. "I love it!" His grin matched mine. "I'll get back to you. I need to get some staff doing new specs."
His image vanished.
Wellington was looking at me with a very peculiar expression on her face. I grinned back at her.
"They told me you were brilliantly unorthodox, but frankly, I didn’t believe it."
She shook her head. And held out her hand.
"Jon, call me Vonda."
We shook hands.
Alsop interrupted with the news that my station and Cruisers had arrived. He threw vid to the hollo screen and we watched as the Cruisers and Frigate were slid into enclosed repair bays.
"Why is Admiral Dingle an advantage?" Vonda went on.
"I hate to say it, but there's a very good chance Warspite won't survive." She nodded. "We want someone we can motivate into great deeds of heroism, without realizing he is actually being made the sacrifice."
"That’s a bit harsh I hope."
"I hope that too, but put it this way. Six Missile Cruisers are going to jump in here. That’s twelve hundred missiles launched within minutes. They need to be given a specific target they must take out before they can move from the jump point. And they must be given a station to want to take, that isn’t either of the stations here, or the shipyard. So Warspite by necessity has to be the first threat they face. And my station, has to be the bait to keep them away from here as long as possible. The one advantage we do have is the Cruisers have to turn broadside on to fire, and that gives us a short window to hit them."
"How do we beat twelve hundred missiles? We don’t want to lose either Warspite or your station."
"No, and I have ideas about that."
"Tell me."
I did.
She leaned back in her chair and thought for a while. I let her do so. I pinged O'Neil to shift himself to the station and await orders. I pinged the Colonel to clear everything out of the top level of the station that could be moved, and to prepare to be inundated with shipyard personnel and droids.
Vonda started giving orders to Alsop. She wanted a line of coms satellites laid between here and the Atlantis jump point, to give us real time communications. A scout ship was to be sent into Atlantis to give us warning of any fleet approaching. Every available Marine in the system was to be mobilized and sent to my station as soon as possible. I pinged the Colonel to prepare billet space for an unknown number of Marines.
She finished with Alsop and turned to me.
"Admiral, let me be quite blunt about something." I raised an eyebrow at the formality, since we'd just been on first name terms. "I was sent here to babysit you." I winced. "Command know your reputation, but no-one expected it to be justified. We needed to give you the rank we have, but they wanted someone more senior to be seen running things." I nodded. "Stuff that! You've already demonstrated you have a far better grasp of what needs doing than I thought I did. For everyone outside this room, I run this show. But inside this room, you keep on bringing out the ideas and we'll make them work. You get the job done, I'll grease the wheels. If we all survive this, I'll make damn sure that sector understands who saved their bacon."
She held out her hand again, and we shook again.
She opened a vid.
"Admiral Dingle. You are to ready Warspite for war. We expect the enemy to jump in at your location at any time from thirty six to forty eight hours from now. You can expect six Missile Cruisers, capable of firing two hundred missiles each in a barrage, with fifteen squadrons of Talon medium fighters. The earliest we expect the new Cruisers to be ready is four days. When the enemy arrives, you will be the first line of defense. We expect to be sending you reinforcements as they become available. You will drill your crew until they can fire a full broadside at the enemy Cruisers within two seconds of the first one jumping in. Your survival will depend on how fast you can open each ship to space. You will receive more specific orders in twenty four hours. Wellington out."
She nodded to Alsop, and he made up an email and sent it off.
"Marines?" I asked her.
"We have to assume that if the Cruisers cannot dock with the station, they'll attempt to take it with shuttles. Since that opens a lot of vectors for entry, we need as many troops on the
station as possible."
"Who will command them?"
"Normally a Marine Brigadier General would have command," said Alsop. "But we don’t have one."
"Who do we have?" asked Vonda.
"Three Colonels."
"Who has the most experience between them and Colonel Smith?" I asked.
Alsop went blank as he accessed records.
"Your Colonel Smith is the most experienced," he responded. "But she doesn’t have as long in rank as one of the others."
"Does that bother you at all General?" I asked.
She went blank herself as she accessed Colonel Smith's record.
"No, give her the command." I nodded.
"Where do you want to establish your command base?" I asked her.
"You have a suggestion?"
"You could use Gunbus, or my station. I have accommodation for you and the Commander, including offices you can use, on either. If we shift Gunbus over to my station, we'll be at the heart of the action, but further from the shipyard."
"But," she said, "in the first instance, the shipyard will be behind the rear area, and we need to run this battle from the front lines. That’s your station, or Gunbus. Let's move there now."
Alsop looked surprised for a moment, and then resigned. He started giving orders for the movement of gear.
We headed back to the conference.
It looked as if no-one had noticed we were gone.
While the arguments raged around me, I pinged McLauchlan with the anti-missile idea I'd sent Bob weeks ago, but had never had a response to. He responded that it was technically feasible. He, Bob and several other shipyard chiefs had bounced the idea around. They all agreed the system could be built, but programming the missiles was impossible. They also agreed that nothing smaller than a Cruiser could carry it. I told him the programming wasn’t an issue, and why. It might not be feasible for Gunbus, but the station and my Cruisers were another matter. I was happy to sacrifice missile turrets for a missile Point Defense system. He sent his people back to the ship specifications again.
The conference raged on.
Twenty Seven
Gunbus docked with Hunter's Redoubt three hours later. It had taken that long to wind up the conference.
Vonda took over my XO's office, with Alsop using the spare one. They also decided to use the spare staterooms, rather than move onto the station itself. I had Jeeves pull another butler droid out of storage for Deck Two. I searched memory for more butler names, and came up with Jenkins.
Vonda had met Angel on the Bridge, and the two of them hit it off immediately. Alsop on the other hand had kept his distance.
After docking and giving Angel a good pat, I went into my office to catch up on emails.
There were a series of priority emails, the first of which was from Admiral Jedburgh. It was about eight hours old. I threw it to the wall screen. It had barely begun when I stopped it, and pinged Vonda to join me. She came in a minute later. I waved her to a seat, and restarted the vid.
Jedburgh looked stressed, but calm.
"Admiral Hunter. Midgard came through the Miami jump point at seven thirty this morning. While not caught completely on the hop, the fleet's response time was not what I'd hoped it would be. They hit us with six Missile Cruisers and fifteen squadrons of Talons. In addition to the forces you saw, we had one Gunbus and six Excalibur's." They were obviously producing them faster than predicted. "They saved us from much more serious losses. As it was though, we lost four Cruisers, and the equivalent of two squadrons of fighters, with another two squadrons damaged. Three of the Excalibur's were lost, as the pilots tried too hard to take out the missile barrages before they could hit our ships."
I felt a thump where my heart was and the blood left my face in a hurry.
"Commander Greer, in the Gunbus, personally took out four of the Cruisers. The remaining Excalibur's took the other two. They all suffered some damage, but should be repairable on our Carriers."
"I've already paid you for three more Excalibur's. They proved their worth today, not only in dealing with the missile barrage but protecting our fighters against massed Talon missiles. Our shipyard is producing them as fast as possible and hopefully we'll have more onsite before they hit us again."
"By the way, congratulations on your promotion to Rear Admiral with SFSF. We have promoted you also, to the same rank. I look forward to hearing some good news from Avon. Jedburgh out."
"What's a Gunbus and Excalibur, and why is the General paying you for more?" asked Vonda.
I quickly explained to her what the ships were, and the arrangement I had with the American sector for them building the ships I had jointly designed. She saw the wisdom in what the Americans were doing. What we were doing was going to take longer, and was a better solution to the problem, but it left us weaker in the short term. We both knew we were gambling on Midgard not pressing forward as fast as they could.
"Why are you so pale looking?"
"I'm quite close with the Excalibur squadron leader."
"Oh."
The next email of note was from General Harriman.
"Commander. Look what happens when you behave like an Admiral. Someone makes you one. Congratulations. It does however, put me in a bit of a spot. I have no problem promoting you to Rear Admiral, but the Australian Militia has no billet for one. We simply don’t have any naval ships to justify an Admiral of any level. As such, Admiral, you are now on the inactive list, pending the need for an officer of that rank. When you return, we'll discuss how we can contract Hunter Security to provide us with naval forces."
"The fleet at the Midnight Cobol jump point is in place now. We are reinforcing it as we can. The Talons and Gladiators you sent us have passed through Midnight. I've arranged payment, as Bob Derr recommended. I trust you will be happy with the amount. Good luck at Avon. Harriman out."
"Payments?" asked Vonda.
"I sold some of the Talons I salvaged to the Australian Militia to replace their losses from pirate attacks. They received the ones that were intact, or quickly repairable. They mainly need only a computer replacement before they can fight. The Gladiators were ex-merc ships one of my people took out and salvaged in Pompeii. Which reminds me, excuse me a moment, something I should do before I forget." She nodded.
I checked on the payments. They were about what I expected. The payment for the Talons came in at six hundred million, so I deposited three million into each of my crew's accounts. Five million for a Talon was cheap, but who was I to argue when they hadn't cost me anything but ordinance expended staying alive. The Gladiators had netted the company three hundred and sixty million, and I dropped eighteen million, being five percent, into Annette's account. It should be enough for her to do the upgrades Nightshade needed.
"What were you doing?" she asked me.
"Payments to my crew. When I sell anything the ship salvages, they collectively get five percent of the sale price. I use the same incentive for those with ships, to get them to salvage what they kill. The pilot who killed the Gladiators has collected herself eighteen million."
She whistled.
The next email was from Miriam and it was time stamped after General Jedburgh's. It was text only and simply said she was fine, they had fought a major battle that morning and she was pissed she lost three pilots from her new squadron, who hadn't listened to her properly.
Vonda saw the relief on my face, and some colour return. She smiled and patted me on the arm.
Admiral Chandra had sent the next email. I threw it to the wall.
"Admiral, congratulations on your promotion. We're about as prepared here as we're going to be. We have every soldier in the system on the station now. We're dug in and ready to repel the enemy. All is quiet though from the jump point. Too quiet. Makes me wonder what they're up to. I'll try to keep you updated, but it depends how long it takes to destroy the comsats. I assume you are now at Avon and working on the defenses there. Rest assured, we'll slow them down as much as
we can to give you more time to mount a response. Good luck to us all. Chandra out."
"What was that about?" asked Vonda.
"I convinced the General that making a stand on the station, which Midgard need to take before they can move on, might buy us more time to get my fleet refitted. He was reluctant at first, but saw the wisdom of it. I'm not at all sure it was a wise thing to do. It may simply cost more lives and gain us nothing."
"Still, I'd have not made it a suggestion, but an order. It has to be done, whatever the result. Chandra knows that. Are you going to respond to the emails?"
"Yes, but I'll do a single response to all of them."
"You want me to leave?"
"No. In fact, you can sit in on the vid. Do they know you at all?"
"Name only I think. I don’t recall ever meeting any of them. And we have never had the need to communicate before."
I arranged the vid so it would take in both of us, and set it going.
"Admiral and Generals. Forgive the time taken to get back to you. This is General Wellington and we have only just completed a system conference on the situation here."
"Admiral, thank you for the news from Miami. It's good to know they can be stopped. If you've not already done so, you might consider getting your people to move the debris field right up close to the jump point, especially the hulks of the Cruisers, yours and theirs. Unless you plan to salvage them for repair, they would make a good minefield for the next Midgard fleet jumping in to blunder into."
Vonda gave me a sharp look, which of course told the Admiral and Generals we hadn't discussed this tactic.
"We would appreciate being sent all possible information from both fronts. What they do and when they do it could enable us to work out a strategy that involves far less loss of life here. At the moment we're working on the basis that we have less than two days before they arrive here. We'll have a response in place, but none of my fleet will be part of it, as they require four days to complete. Every hour they're delayed getting here, is a bonus for us and we appreciate your efforts in tying up enemy forces."
Send in the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 3) Page 18
