by Chris Hechtl
“We've sent out the latest patches and updates as I said. Unfortunately, we can't do much more with the Raptor platform as it stands. Obviously, recalling them isn't an option. That's why I was pulled from it to focus on the next generation of fighters. They were languishing in development hell. Hopefully, we've put a stop to that,” she said, then suddenly got more self-conscious as she realized just what she'd said and who she'd said it too. If the princess had anything invested in stalling a program for whatever reason, it could go bad, very bad for her.
“So I heard. There was some competition between the design groups. I understand you pitched an open-source approach to the tech to cut through the crap. You have my thanks for that,” she said with a stately if small head bow.
“My thanks,” Elvira said, blushing as she went around to her side of the desk. Technically, she outranked the princess but things were just a tad complicated. “Well, this is what we've come up with. We've cut the problems down and …,” Elvira showed her what progress they had made in solving what many had thought of as unsolvable.
Privately Catherine marveled at the woman. The more she listened the more she realized the woman was a treasure. Too many people had gone into R&D and had thought the idea of recreating the Federation tech was hopeless. They had become leaches, creating paper studies that did nothing, all in order to suck funding and preserve their image that they were making progress. The few who managed something didn't last long.
Not this woman. She had a workman-like approach to it, knocking the problem down to the smallest detail much like Da Vinatelli had taught them. She then built on small successes to achieve bigger ones. From the sound of her impromptu briefing, they barely needed input from El Dorado.
Catherine listened and asked questions as Elvira worked her way through various virtual models and over to show her guest 3D prints of parts and models of complex systems. “See, we broke it down. We can't replicate the E fighters; there is too much there that is miniaturized. For instance, we can't replicate the nanotech, and the processes to make some of the parts are just beyond us. But, we can work on the concepts and reverse engineer some of those. And we can reverse engineer some of the simpler parts and put those into production,” Elvira said. “We are now producing parts for the E class fighters and others in our inventory,” she said proudly.
“Ah.” Catherine had to admit she liked the other woman. She wasn't bogged down or overwhelmed; she was clearly working the problem and looking for answers. “You are breaking it down into small chunks?”
“That's how to do it,” Elvira replied with a nod. “We start with one system, tear it apart down to the last bolt, and then examine each. Sometimes we do it under an electron microscope or other system. It was a pain in the ass booking time on those units until I got the budget to have one of our own set up. And finding a place for it, the power …,” she shook her head at the memory of the battles she had fought.
Catherine nodded. Clearly the woman didn't need to be distracted, nor her team. “What else? How far along are you?”
“Well, we're stuck on the power plant obviously, so I decided to skip trying to reverse engineer the antimatter reactor and drive and focus on what we can do. That led us to batteries at first, and then a microfusion reactor. We have ironed out most of the bugs. From there we've been working on a new smaller grav emitter that a shuttle team had been working on …”
~~~^~~~
Admiral Cartwright received Elvira's report as well as Catherine's and nodded. He scanned the document and then sat down for a more detailed read. Both women seemed to be on the same page as far as small craft went. Shift priorities away from assault shuttles and attack craft to better fighters and bombers was the prudent thing to do. He knew General Levot wouldn't like it, but for now the ground wars had to take a back seat. Robert should know that there was no point having an army if they were bombed into oblivion from orbit after all.
Her report and Catherine's called for them to throw the best fighters they could make into full production even though they were still ironing out the bugs in the prototypes. They could make patches and updates as they went apparently. He got that part. Training could be done with simulators, not a problem there. Many of the fighter designs were already loaded in their simulator complexes. Altering the closest one to the specs of their new fighter would be simple for the coders to achieve. They could then keep it up to date as the systems changed.
Keeping the fighter up to date would be tricky but he saw their logic. Where things got a bit foggy were the finances and the means to implement the fighter designs across their entire industrial base. Catherine's proposal was for them to send out contracts to buy fighter parts from the conquered colonies that could make them, providing the designs, software, and manufacturing process for free along the way to cut down on time. He wasn't certain if that would fly in some circles.
There was an undercurrent of resentment in some of the lords. He and the other admirals were well aware of it, and some actually had sympathies. The emperor was also aware of such sentiments, no doubt from his tap into Imperial Intelligence and the Ramichov family intelligence network. One of the things the Empire was set up to do was to keep the lords in line by limiting their access to military equipment. Everything was supposed to go through Horath.
What these two women were considering was dangerous long term. But he didn't see a way around it. If they extended their logic to other industrial projects, he knew it was a small leap to doing the same open source for ships and other tech.
He frowned and then put a call in to Elvira. He wasn't surprised that she took the call right away. One tended to do that when they got a call from the head of the navy he thought cheerfully. From her expression, she seemed distracted.
“I'm going over your brief. I'm in general support of it, but I've got some issues.”
“Yes, sir?” she ventured cautiously. He saw her put a tablet in front of her and raise a stylus to take notes.
“You know the contractors are supposed to bid on this. That is one way we are paid for the investment in research and development. How is all this going to be paid for anyway?”
She frowned. He waved a hand as a fresh thought occurred to him. “I know, above your pay grade. You didn't think about the finances, just the engineering headaches. Sorry, Elvira.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If they want to win, they'll find a way I suppose. We'll have to pull together like never before, and I don't even know if that is possible,” he said, sitting back and looking up above his camera for a long moment. He inhaled and then exhaled slowly. “Okay, don't worry about that one. Focus on what they need to get the job done. Don't overlook anything. Don't worry about data size. Get them everything right down to how to make a bolt or diode. Whatever it takes.”
The raven-haired women nodded. “For want of a nail, a shoe was lost,” Elvira murmured.
He blinked in confusion. “Excuse me?”
Elvira shook herself. “Sorry, sir. It's a saying in logistics.” Her eyes took on a faraway look for the moment. “For want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost. For want of the shoe, the horse was lost. For want of the horse, the battle was lost,” she quoted, and then her eyes returned to normal. “I might have paraphrased that a bit. Sorry, sir.”
He nodded, catching on. He'd actually heard the saying, but he'd forgotten it until her reminder. “I get it. It makes sense in its way. But don't get …,” he paused and then grimaced. “I was going to say, don't get bogged down by the problems of the little things, but you just pointed it out and I just said to do so. Sorry.”
She smiled sympathetically. “It's okay, sir. We're all worried.”
“I know. And morale is a problem too. We need to be seen working the problem. And we need a win.”
Elvira nodded. “Yes, sir. We'll play our part.”
“See that you do, Elvira,” he said with a nod before he cut the channel.
Chapter 20
Horath
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br /> During the next cabinet meeting, the emperor put off the decisions about the changes to the fighter and bomber production lines and demanded to know where they are on plague program. “What was name of the program? The Four Horsemen? Ah, Pestilence? I want that project expedited.”
There was a long silence in the room as the cabinet members looked at each other. The project was a joint one between the three departments of Biosciences, Purity and Enlightenment, and Imperial Intelligence.
“Well?” he demanded, glaring about him. “Out with it!”
“Sire, we don't have data on the Tau mission. We aren't certain if it worked. The plan was to get that data and then tailor the plan to use the optimal entry and carriers to get the job done,” Countess Newberry stated. She didn't like the program. It seemed elegant on the surface but it was very messy.
“You may never get that data! Not with the Federation in the way! And besides, you have the lab notes! Just go off that!” the emperor insisted, waving a dismissive hand to her objections.
The countess worked her jaw, swallowing a hot retort that wouldn't be prudent let alone something survivable. “There is a bit of a difference between what happens in a lab and what happens in the field, sire. For instance, in a lab we deliberately infected the subjects. We control the situation and deny them medical aide so we can watch the progress of the diseases. In the field they might have some immunity, they might be upwind, they might have quarantines, they might have good medical tech, we honestly don't know. The idea was to observe and report on that as well,” she said doggedly.
“The other problem is, sire, we don't have ships and personnel to make them in the field. We'd have to make batches here and then send them out,” Dame Lacie Mengla, the Minister of Biosciences interjected when the countess paused.
The emperor turned to her. “So?”
“So, we'd have to ship out entire ship loads of them and still not have enough to spread the plagues. It would take repeat trips,” she explained patiently.
“Again, so?” the emperor demanded.
“Wait, why aren't we factoring in other ships spreading it? Isn't it contagious?” Duke Rico demanded. He hated the idea of using a bioweapon but if it distracted the enemy and bought them time, so be it. They'd have to worry about control and potential mutation later.
“With a near 100 percent kill ratio, it kills the hosts before they can spread it far. That means others can institute quarantine measures. We'd have to infect every planet, every platform. Individually,” the dame explained.
The emperor blinked. “Oh.”
“It is a pity we can't get this behind the lines and hit the enemy where it really hurts. Hit their population centers, force them to shift resources to combat this as it eats away at their production and causes panic,” the emperor mused. His eyes gleamed an ugly glitter as he got an idea. Before he could say anything, he was interrupted however.
The countess shook her head. “It won't work, sire. First, we'd have to get a ship through. Second, they are undoubtedly instituting vaccination programs to make their populations stronger.” She didn't mention that she and Admiral Grant were looking into that venture to raid the enemy's shipping. So far, they hadn't found a viable plan given the certainty that the enemy had picket forces in each of their occupied star systems and the blasted ansible.
“Besides, we did try that,” the duke said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It didn't work.”
All eyes turned to the duke. “Excuse me?” the emperor asked.
“Has anyone forgotten about Epsilon Triangula?” the duke asked mildly as he picked up his coffee cup and drained it. He grimaced at the cold taste. “We got the report, it was your people who instituted it,” he said, looking at Countess Newberry.
She grimaced at being thrown under the bus. She knew better than to glare.
“Refresh my memory,” the emperor said dryly.
Duke Rico frowned as if dredging the memory up and then began. “Well, field command found out about Admiral Irons. Apparently, the intel shop had a weapon and decided to try to smuggle it into Antigua, to get around the defenses there, or into Pyrax when they got word about the events there. The idea was to set it off there and destroy the heart of the Federation before it spread.”
“A noble idea. You said it didn't work though?”
“No,” Countess Newberry stated, taking up the narrative. “The Prinz Zir was supposed to go to Pyrax but diverted to ET to check them out. From their report, they apparently found Admiral Irons there on the planet pushing to get the population to join the new Federation,” she said. “Given the population is one hundred or more times that of Pyrax and they have a good tech base, the captain decided to deploy the weapons there in hopes of catching Irons and destroying ET.”
The emperor's eyes narrowed. Then something hit him. “Wait, the plagues affect Neos and aliens not humans!” the emperor said, glaring at her. “You said this was a field test? Before it was deployed with Fourth Fleet?” He looked from her to the duke and then over to the Minister of Biosciences. “Am I missing something here?”
All eyes eventually fell on the countess. She grimaced but decided to take the plunge. “It was a Xeno plague,” the countess admitted. Dame Mengla winced. “A couple stasis pods infected with Xeno nanotech. They were bombs we found years ago. We've been sitting on them, waiting for the right time and place to use them.”
More than one person in the cabinet protested that idea. Some did so rather loudly.
The emperor started to join in with the shouting match before he slammed a fist into the tabletop and rose abruptly. That startled the others into sitting back into their chairs and falling silent.
“You are telling me, your people deployed a Xeno weapon, one capable of infecting this entire sector right here? On our front door?” the emperor demanded icily.
“It was a field decision,” she stressed, feeling sweat prick her skin. She couldn't let it show however so she kept her reactions under firm control. A lot was riding on the next few moments, including her life.
“A field decision. Not one you'd make obviously,” the emperor said, drumming his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. She gave him a short head shake. “I take it they have been dealt with?”
“Yes. The Prinz Zir is MIA on a mission to scout Senka. They left short of the necessary supplies to get there and return and were overdue and considered lost. Admiral Frost is most likely dead.”
“Do we have any more of this? This Xeno plague? Here?” Admiral Cartwright demanded. Now was the time to find out that burning question if he wanted to set up some sort of method of combating it should it ever break containment.
The countess looked over to Dame Mengla and then nodded curtly. “Yes,” she said succulently.
There was a small gasp around the table.
“You have Xeno nanotech bombs here?” the emperor demanded. “In Horath?”
“Intelligence and the Ministry of Biosciences has each of them under wraps. We have only a few in each sector,” the countess explained. “They are not on the planet.”
“Why haven't I heard of this before? Where are you getting them?” the emperor asked before anyone could say anything.
“We … obviously picked them up in salvage OPS,” she said, glancing at Admiral Grant. He nodded in support, but from his expression, he was clearly unhappy about getting roped into the conversation. Not that he had much choice. “We kept it low key. All parties were kept on a need-to-know. Intelligence kept them as a reserve.”
“I see.”
“Anyone can get more, sir. All they have to do is go to a Xeno-infected planet and scoop them up. Containment would be a major issue, but there are ways and means to deal with that,” the dame explained patiently. “There is more than one infected planet in this sector. There is one only a couple jumps away from Antigua, ET, and Pyrax actually,” she stated, looking to the countess for support.
The countess nodded once.
“That do
esn't fill me with a lot of relief to know a weapon that could wipe out our empire is easily accessible or our stupid, remarkable stupid people are willing to use it!” the emperor said in a snarl, glaring at the intelligence officer.
“As I said, it was a field-level decision. One I've taken steps to rectify, so it will not happen again,” she stressed.
“You'd damn well better! I want all these weapons under lock and key where no one, no one but me!” He tapped his chest meaningfully for a moment. “ …Can ever authorize their use!” the emperor growled, stabbing the tabletop with his index finger for further emphasis.
She nodded.
“And we'll store them far outside our home system! The stupidity of such a thing ….” He shook his head. “I want them moved. The ones here need to be moved outside our system and others carefully, as soon as possible.”
“We'll make the arrangements, sire,” the dame stated.
“You'd damn well better make it happen soon. And no slipups,” the emperor growled.
“I still think it was damn foolish for them to even consider it. Those sorts of weapons should be destroyed on site. Some weapons are too dangerous to play around with,” Admiral Cartwright ventured.
The emperor shot him a pitying expression that made the admiral rear back in surprise at the put-down. He frowned pensively.
“How did they stop it?” he asked, turning to the intelligence officer. “I understand once unleashed there is no way to stop it. So how did Irons do the impossible?”
The countess frowned. The reports on how he had were sketchy at best. “He wasn't alone. We're still picking up details. Based on what we know, he used a nuke to destroy the central infestation, and he indoctrinated the medical establishment on the planet. They created their own nanotech to combat the Xeno nanotech and then spread it across the planet.”
“Oh.”
“We saw some of it in the water dwellers collected there. We've purged them of the nanotech now.”
