Commander

by Richard F. Weyand

  “You heard me. Now what do we do?”

  Sobol stirred in his chair.

  “Ilia? Do you have input on this?”

  “Yes. Let the whole thing out to a contract management firm, and have them parse out the construction to multiple manufacturing firms for fulfillment. These firms do just this sort of thing all the time. Bob and I can recommend some firms to look at. So get bids from them, turn it all over to them, and get out from under it. Don’t waste all this talent trying to learn contract management when you can hire it out. Instead, begin work on your next projects.”

  “What are our next projects?” Denny asked.

  “One, obviously, is to look into new capabilities and new applications for the HARPER system.”

  “OK, that makes sense.”

  “And I have a suggestion for a new project, as well,” Stewart said.

  “What would that be, Bob?” Denny asked.

  “Consider the case where a bunch of missiles are closing on an enemy ship formation. The enemy ships are looking for those missiles with sensor arrays and targeting them with laser point-defense guns. You with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What could we come up with to blind those sensors for the last critical few seconds? A brilliant flash? A bunch of radio jamming? A nuclear EMP device? How can we disrupt the defense? If we can take them off-line for just a second or two, the missile attack will be much more effective.”

  “We’d also have to make sure whatever we do doesn’t blind our own missiles,” Denny said.

  “Of course. And you have to assume whatever we do will be copied, so we need a defense against it, as well.”

  “I can’t believe something like this hasn’t been tried already,” Narang said.

  “Oh, it has, it has,” Stewart said. “But not successfully. Various countermeasures were adopted to make it harder, but I wonder if there isn’t some stone unturned we can find. There should be a lot of different ways to break the defensive system. We just need one good one.”

  “OK,” Denny said. “First things first. Jane, how about you and I get together with Ilia to work on the contract management issue? Vipin, you and Bertie and your teams should probably work on the counter-defense problem with Bob.”

  “Works for me,” Narang said.

  There were nods all around.

  “All right. Jane, Ilia, let’s switch to VR channel 15.”

  Denny, Liu, and Sobol disappeared from the conference room on VR channel 14, in which Vipin Narang, Bertha Townsend, and their teams started brainstorming with Bob Stewart on counter-defense.

  The manufacturing capacity of the Sintaran Empire was immense beyond imagining. Even the Imperial Navy’s huge demands could scarcely put a dent in the capabilities of one hundred and fifty thousand planets. Automated manufacturing, robotic assembly lines, computer-controlled machining, three-D printing, computerized forging – all the dark-factory tools of the modern industrial economy were available across the Empire.

  The problem was further simplified by the designs largely using existing components. The impellers, engines, sensor arrays, and electronics of the new ships were drawn directly from the older designs.

  Within days of those cost-plus contracts and detail designs hitting the streets, the industrial might of the Empire starting churning out parts, assembling them into subassemblies, and building the subassemblies up into the major components of the new warships.

  Unlike previous warships, those major components were all assembled in automated factories on the ground. The heavy-lift shuttles now in use allowed the big units to be lifted direct to spacedock intact, without the need to hand-assemble them in space. Even the electronics bays, the spares bays, and the HARPER bot containers were built and stocked on the ground and lifted directly to spacedock.

  The heavy-lift shuttle maneuvered very slowly, moving just a few feet at a time, until it was within reach of the giant robotic arms of the spacedock. Slung below the huge shuttle itself was the massive structure of the engine assembly of a new battleship. The engine assembly managed to make the shuttle look small despite its size.

  The robotic arms grabbed the engine assembly at its hard points, and the shuttle released its grip. Four massive engines made up the engine assembly, already connected to each other in the relative positions they would have in the assembled warship. The shuttle drifted slowly off on thrusters before spooling up its main engines for descent back to the planet and its next load.

  The robotic arms – like the shuttle, under the computer-assisted control of a human pilot – pulled the engine assembly into the center of the spacedock where the frame of the new ship waited in its davits. The arms moved the assembly to the rear of the frame and lined up the engine assembly with the frame with finicky precision. Much smaller assembly arms used hydraulic hammers to pound massive tapered sheer pins into position in matching holes in the frame mounting tabs and the engine assembly hard points. More robotic arms, their bases maneuvering on the rails and ribs of the spacedock, descended on the connection points and began welding the assemblies together.

  The traverse of the largest pair of robotic arms ran down their tracks to the end of the spacedock where another shuttle was maneuvering for position. Slung below it was the electromagnetic impeller assembly. For all its size, the heavy-lift shuttle looked like a hummingbird carrying a two-foot length of water pipe. The robotic arms took possession of the impeller, and the shuttle released it and drifted off on thrusters before spooling up its engines and heading groundside.

  The robotic arms oriented the impeller along the axis of the ship and slowly lowered it into the center of the spacedock above the frame in front of the engines. Once aligned, the traverse began moving aft, sliding the impeller into its home in the gap at the center of the engine cluster.

  “Would ya look at that shit,” said Adam Gaudynski, welding foreman on the spacedock. “It’s like playin’ with blocks.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Norm Chesney, spacedock shift supervisor. “Plug it together and get it outta here, then do it again. And again and again and again.”

  “And the impeller sticks way out the front like that?”

  “Yeah. See that plasma conduit? Goes out to them thrusters there about a third of the way back. When they want to flip ship, it spins like a top.”

  “Yeah, it would, with them thrusters out on the stick like that. Whip the whole thing around like nothin’.”

  “Just make sure your guys get the weld right on that plasma conduit, or there won’t be anything left to flip around.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we got it. This ain’t our first big dance.”

  They continued to watch as the construction arms pounded tapered sheer pins into the impeller mounts.

  “How many of these we s’posed to build?” Gaudynski asked.

  “Us, or the company?”

  “Company.”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, and everybody else is doin’ the same. All the big shipbuilders. And this is just the test run. The real production numbers will be a hundred times that.”

  “Fuck me. Well. I hope nobody decides to give the Navy a bad time. I predict if they do, they’re gonna have a real bad day.”

  “I think that’s the general idea.”

  Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Your Highness,” said the Honorable Frederick Cloverdale, Ambassador to Estvia for the Democracy of Planets

  “Of course, Mr. Ambassador. It is always nice to see you,” King Michael said. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  They both sat, and a steward poured coffee and left. Cloverdale, as was his custom, took two cookies on a small dessert plate, and, copying the king, set it on the arm of his chair.

  “This is not one of our regularly scheduled meetings, Mr. Ambassador. I take it something has come up.”

  “Indeed, Your Highness. Indee
d. As I had predicted, Sintar has resumed warship production.”

  “But you would expect that, Mr. Ambassador, wouldn’t you? Have they not just returned to the status quo?”

  “No, Your Highness. Our information is they have started a major building program. The Imperial Navy is swallowing up all the yard capacity in the entire Sintaran Empire. Freighter construction. which was previously carried on in parallel with warship construction, has come to a halt entirely.”

  “Interesting. Well, the lack of freighter construction should represent an opportunity for your shipbuilders, Mr. Ambassador. Shippers will get their new freighters from somewhere.”

  “Alas, no, Your Highness. The surplus of freighters Sintar built up during its hiatus of warship construction has left them with a lot of product to move.”

  “Ah. A pity.”

  King Michael sipped his coffee.

  “And you consider this resumption of warship construction – and with such, er, enthusiasm – to be significant, Mr. Ambassador?”

  “Oh, yes, Your Majesty. With no freighter construction at all, the Empire’s capacity could produce as many as two hundred thousand new warships a year. If they hold up on retiring older vessels, in ten years they will have doubled the number of their warships.”

  “Sobering numbers, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “To be sure, Your Highness. Given that, I wondered if you had completed your review of your defensive posture with specific regard to the purchase of DP warships. We have a number of squadrons coming available every week, and delivery could be most timely.”

  “From your report, Mr. Ambassador, it doesn’t sound like we would be able to hold off the Imperial Navy with ten thousand new ships.”

  “Ah, but you need not be invincible, Your Highness. You just need to be more trouble than the next fellow.”

  “Hoping the Empire will look first where the defense is least.”

  “Exactly, Your Highness.”

  King Michael considered – or appeared to – and then nodded his head.

  “Mr. Ambassador, I think it’s time we discussed more specific numbers, in terms of ships, dates, and prices.”

  “Very good, Your Highness.”

  Cloverdale reached into the file envelope in his lap and withdrew a thin document.

  “I took the liberty of bringing along a little schedule of what is becoming available, when, and the approximate costs, Your Highness. That last is open to negotiation of course.”

  Democracy of Planets Prime Minister Harold Pinter was meeting with his Defense Minister, Pavel Isaev, and his Foreign Minister, Jules Morel. They were in the prime minister’s office in the Executive Building, in the side seating area. The wide picture windows gave a splendid view down the Central Mall to the Legislative Building.

  “So how is our little project with regard to Sintar going?” Pinter asked.

  “Pretty well, I think,” Morel said. “People are starting to be concerned about Sintar under this new emperor of theirs.”

  “Good. But if Sintar makes countermoves? Moves that are explicitly peaceful?

  “It won’t matter at this point.”

  “It won’t?”

  “No. In the frame we’ve been developing, it will merely convince people we’re right. ‘You see? They’re trying to lull you into complacency for their big move against you.’ We can make anything they do fit our narrative.”

  “That seems amazing to me,” Pinter said. “Well, you’re the expert in this area, Jules.”

  “We’ve got it covered, Harold. Not a problem.”

  “What about warships?” Pinter asked. “Are the independent star nations buying any?”

  Morel turned to Isaev.

  “Actually, yes,” Isaev said. “We currently retire over a hundred thousand ships a year. Our retirements are all booked for sale through the next year, including the ones we built up over the last year by not scrapping them in anticipation of selling them. Even Estvia is buying some of our warships, and they’re pretty gun-shy about ticking off Sintar after that little unpleasantness a couple years back.”

  “Amazing. So our plan is actually working,” Pinter said.

  “Apparently so,” Morel said. “So far, at least. The independent star nations are more distrusting of Sintar, and the whole area is arming up.”

  “When do we go on to the next step, Jules? Getting the independents to join into an alliance?”

  “I think probably another year. Let’s let them get our warships into service and feel confident about them and their ability to use them.”

  “OK. That makes sense to me.”

  “In the meantime, though, we should probably start heating things up a little. A little commerce raiding, perhaps. No matter how Sintar responds to that, it will reinforce the framing we have already imposed. That will set the stage for independent star nations to ally.”

  “All right, Jules. Go ahead with that when you and Pavel think it best. Keep an eye on things, and let me know if we need to change anything.”

  “Will do, Harold.”

  It was their favorite time, cuddled up on the chaise on the pool deck of the Emperor’s private gardens on a Saturday afternoon, after Peters had swum her laps. It was just a bit on the chilly side, which made the warm sunshine welcome.

  “So the new warships are starting to come in?” Peters asked.

  “Yes,” Dunham said. “They’re rolling in by the hundreds, and starting to work up.”

  “How are we crewing them all?”

  “We’re also sending current warships we would normally have retired over the last two years to the smaller spacedocks for conversion to the crewless types. As crews come off of those ships, we have enough personnel to spread around to the new ships.”

  “I’m surprised there’s enough crew coming off the old ships to man the new ones.”

  “The new ships have only half the crew to start with. There’s no environmental section, so there’s no potable water supply management or processing or testing, no waste management or processing or testing, no atmospheric monitoring or carbon dioxide processing, no temperature and humidity maintenance, no pressure maintenance. We’re doing quite a bit of training of people out of those specialties into the ones we still need, but they’re all technical people, so it’s working out. And don’t forget a single crew may have four or six or eight or even ten physical ships they are working crew on.”

  “Oh, that’s right. How did I forget that? So there’s plenty of people if you figure that all in.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a good thing. The ships are really rolling in. But Leicester says he has a handle on it. And a lot of the ships are picket ships, which are basically robot ships. Not fully, but they spend most of their time in hyperspace, so one small crew can manage several of those.”

  “Wow. It’s completely remaking the Navy.”

  “Yeah. You’re going to have guys coming into the Navy now that spend their entire careers crewing ships, doing patrols, fighting space battles, and never leave their home planet. They may never actually see a ship except in VR.”

  “And they’ll never be in harm’s way.”

  “Which is the whole point. We never lose all that experience. Instead we gain experience constantly. Even from our mistakes.”

  They fell quiet for a while. Peters broke the silence.

  “What is Sintar Specialty Services up to now?” she asked.

  “Making a lot of money, I suspect. They’re getting design royalties on all the ships, plus they’re the lead contractor on all the HARPER systems.”

  “Did they farm out the contract management?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I wonder what they’re up to.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because they have a track record, Bobby. Anything they’re working on is likely to turn out to be really important sometime down the line. Don’t forget the HARPER system wasn’t something the Navy asked for. It was something they proposed and had ready
by the time the Navy realized they needed it.”

  “Hmm. So you think they’re on to something else?”

  “They’re not the types to sit around. I would keep an eye on them. A helpful eye. You know. Make sure they have whatever they need, in terms of data or access to personnel or records or specifications, stuff like that. Whatever they’re up to, we’re probably going to like it in the end. Let’s make sure there aren’t any roadblocks in their way.”

  “That’s probably smart. I’ll let Saaret know.”

  Once again, they lapsed into silence. Peters cuddled closer to Dunham for several minutes.

  “Bobby?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s been a couple of years. I think it’s time.”

  Dunham knew what she was talking about. There was only one item on their personal calendar that had been scheduled a couple of years out.

  “The DP is trying to foment a war, Amanda.”

  “Which could take years to boil up and years more to decide. Bobby, I don’t know there is any perfect time to have children, in terms of the outside world. But I do know it’s getting to be time for me. I’m twenty-eight now, and it’s only going to get harder and more dangerous from here out.”

  “Ah. You’re probably right.”

  Peters didn’t say anything. She let Dunham roll the idea around in his mind.

  “So how do we even go about it?” Dunham asked.

  “I need to tell my nanites to suspend activity and let my natural cycle resume, and then we should probably wait a couple cycles for things to steady out. To make sure my system is back to normal. The nanites will tell me when we need to abstain if I don’t want to conceive that month.”

  “Well, that sounds pretty easy.”

  “Oh, it’s not hard. We just need to decide.”

  “Well, if you’re good with it, we can go ahead.”

  “You want me to tell the nanites to suspend preventing pregnancy?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. There’s probably one more thing I should tell you, Bobby. My mother is a twin. It runs in the female line, and it usually skips a generation. So we may get more than one, right off.”