The Gathering Storm (The New Federation Book 4)

by Chris Hechtl

  He knew he shouldn't be happy about recruiting a subordinate's children to what could be a death sentence but he had no choice. Suitable troop material was short. One of their unwritten jobs was to see to the future.

  Then there was news of the new recruit Jethro had passed on to him through Bast and the ansible. The black domestic Neocat known as Kiki was an interesting find. She would have to go through Marine training but Jethro had recommended her for cadre training. Given that she was a survivor and had been on Destria during the invasion and occupation, Jethro had a great deal of confidence in the cat's ability to move forward with her career.

  Joshua snorted ever so slightly. Outwardly, only a slight dilation of his nostrils showed his untimely amusement. Kiki was a cat after all; cats landed on their feet. She'd do fine he thought as a gentle mental nudge from Mars made him turn his attention to a widow. He smiled sympathetically and quietly offered to escort her to her vehicle when she murmured that she needed to leave to go to work.

  “If you need anything, let me know. You have my number. We are a family, and you can count on the corps as family too.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured as she daintily got into the vehicle. Her sister was with her and took the driver's seat for the drive home. The major closed the door gently and then patted it.

  “Semper Fi, or whatever,” she murmured.

  “Take care, ma'am,” he replied as he came to attention. She sniffed, ducking away and nodded to her sister as her sister took off slowly.

  He turned and watched them go.

  :::{)(}:::

  Agnosta:

  General Forth received the news that Captain Church and the reinforcements had arrived three days after the Death's Head brigade battle with the cadre. The general was gratified that they had arrived. If all went well, they could start to turn the star system and the planet over to the army unit and bring Dana's unit back to be rebuilt. It would take time, but they'd get it done.

  What to do about the damn trigger-happy private was a problem. The ONI team on the planet had cleared the kid. An in-depth background look hadn't turned up any red flags. ONI teams were still interviewing everyone who had known the kid. Everyone from his boot camp DIs to his barber had been interviewed so far. No doubt the kid's family had also been interviewed.

  What interested him was the note from Monty. There was a subtle reminder about how everyone made mistakes, which was true. The incident would haunt the kid. He wasn't certain if the kid would remain in the service. More power to him if he did, but he'd have a long uphill battle if he did. At least Jethro hadn't been killed; that was the kid's one saving grace.

  He shook his head. As a general, he really shouldn't be bothered with the fate of a lowly private. But, the kid's actions affected the entire branch. Based on the one two-minute-long compressed video transmission of an interview he'd seen, the kid's contrition seemed genuine to his eyes.

  He sighed as he stared out the window. “Some people have to do things the hard way,” he murmured, doing his best to put the matter out of his mind unless it came to him officially.

  Chapter 12

  Antigua

  Admiral Irons was a bit happy when the flag promotions finally went through. He had found out that a lot of the resistance had been in Pyrax. Phil had only himself to blame, his antics had ticked others off so they'd played games with his promotion. Rear Admiral V'r'z'll had been a pain in the ass about her part in the proceedings. And then there was Commodore Xx'll'rr. She was not happy about being passed over for the Eastern Front command and not being on the promotions list, which was bullshit. She had only recently been promoted to commodore after all.

  But, it was finally done. He had the official documents on file and had the keys. He needed to tidy up a few loose ends soon, like get A.I. installed in the flag officers. To date most had the proper hardware but lacked the A.I. and wake up. An A.I. would have been of great help to Horatio he thought in a mental kick to himself for the oversight.

  One person he hadn't managed to get promoted was Captain Logan. She needed the damn thing, but the board had balked at promoting her so soon. She had only been promoted to Captain SG less than a year prior. He had decided to do an end run around the board and had dispatched a courier with the chips as well as chips for personnel along the route back. He had also issued orders through the ansible to have the Tau mission hold in Airea 3 when they arrived there. From their last report in Epsilon Triangula, they had a couple months. That was plenty of time for the courier to catch up to them.

  The following morning, he held a virtual ceremony to promote Admirals White and Subert to vice admiral as well as General Forth to Lieutenant General and Colonel 1010111 to Brigadier General. Chips had been dispatched to each of them. They would get the update and have to go through BUMED to receive their implant updates if necessary.

  Lesser officers would be promoted by their own chains of command when the ceremonies could be scheduled. Technically, he should arrange it so each officer got their own time in the spotlight, but he was well aware that most just wanted to get on with their jobs. They could arrange a more formal ceremony later for publicity purposes, though he was fairly certain Amadeus and a few of the others would pass on that. Phil, he wasn't so certain of.

  He also had a promotion arranged for Horatio but he was in Nuevo at the time. Chips with fresh orders, software upgrades, plus the promotion had been downloaded to the B101a1 ansible and handed to Justica's Captain Amus Chung before the ship left the star system for the rapids.

  With the ansible in B-95a3 online, it meant he could talk to the Neochimp after the brief ceremony. Amadeus was surprised when he got the initial download. He had hastily dressed in his formal uniform just in time for the call from Admiral Irons. “Great. More paperwork? What are you trying to do to me?” he asked when they were alone.

  Admiral Irons smiled at the image of the Neochimp admiral. The other officers had been busy with their own schedules so had signed off. “Pretty much. With the ansible up, you can cut down on transmission time. That's supposed to be a good thing,” Admiral Irons reminded him.

  “Says you. I know it's really so the paper pushers can use it to their advantage,” the Neochimp grumbled.

  “Now now,” Admiral Irons replied, knowing his tone wasn't being transmitted. “I think this will resolve our issues with Bek for the moment.”

  “For the moment. Wait until they start sending vice admirals. Do they have many full or any fleet admirals? Grand Admirals? Marshals I mean?”

  “I know they have a few full admirals,” Admiral Irons said as Protector put up the current known chain of command on his HUD. “No fleet admirals or grand marshals.”

  “Well, that's a blessing I guess.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So, am I getting more flag officers eventually?”

  “Eventually.”

  “What is the situation on reinforcements?”

  “You've pretty much hit rock bottom for the moment. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel with repaired ships until the latest round of construction is finished. You know the drill.”

  “Yes, I do. We need to keep the pressure on though, John. They are going to panic when the empire gets word of what happened.”

  “I know. The sooner you get into Dead Drop the better, but don't do anything stupid.”

  “Believe me, after getting my head handed to me in B-97a I've learned my lesson,” the Neochimp said. Admiral Irons could picture the growl in his tone. “I'm going to set up and probe ahead of me carefully.”

  “Good. We'll do our best to get you some more ships.”

  “A few of those super dreadnoughts would be nice,” Amadeus replied. His avatar smiled. It took a moment for Admiral Irons to realize that the other officer had attached a simple emoji to the last statement. Huh, he thought as he made a mental note to do the same in future talks. Or, could they scan his face and add the simple characters with a script? He made a mental note to ask.

&n
bsp; “John? Still there?”

  “Sorry, thinking. I know Vestri is pushing the SDs but it's going to take time. And they'll need time to work up. Sun Tzu is having all sorts of teething issues despite my blitz.” Which was true. The SD had been in and out of the docks multiple times as they dealt with her list of problems. Each time they sent her out for a working-up exercise there seemed to be another series of problems that sent her back into dock. At least most of the repairs could be handled by the crew in-house instead of the yard. But, each time the ship was laid up meant they weren't training and breaking in the rest of the equipment.

  Emphasis on breaking it, he thought blackly. For some sailors, it was a challenge. He knew soldiers and sailors could break darn near anything.

  “Darn. Okay, keep me posted.”

  “Will do.” He shrugged. Oh, he'd keep Amadeus posted all right, but there was no way he'd send Sun Tzu out anytime soon. He thought about asking about getting Bismark back but then thought better of it. Executioner was still out there. They also didn't know what they were going to run into at Dead Drop. No doubt as soon as the empire got word of what had happened they would be rushing all sorts of reinforcements that way. Amadeus wasn't kidding about being careful. He'd better be. They didn't need or want a repeat of B-97a thank you very much.

  “Oh, while I've got you,” Amadeus said as the admiral went to cut the channel. Admiral Irons paused. “Lieutenant Guidino has confirmed a little factoid she picked up yesterday. Apparently, we had a shot at a third Ramichov. Prisoner interviews confirmed the database records.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Commander Catherine Ramichov was Admiral De Gaulte's OPS officer. Since we didn't get a big enough piece of Executioner and we've confirmed the admiral was alive up until they jumped, my money is on their survival.”

  “Darn. Well, you can do something about that in the future.”

  “Count on it.”

  :::{)(}:::

  Captain Sprite read the email from a certain black cat and then paused for a full microsecond to consider it. Apparently, the warrant officer had weighed in on what to do about the hapless private before he'd been shipped home for his downtime.

  He was right she thought as she brought it to the attention of Admiral Irons. She silently put the letter into his inbox.

  Admiral Irons noted the email and then blinked at the original sender. He pursed his lips as he clicked on it. He noted it wasn't directed to him; it had been directed to BUPERS as well as General Forth. But the sender was what got his attention.

  He was glad to see Jethro was functional. That was something of a relief. Apparently the warrant had some time to think during his convalescence. “I've heard a ton of bricks has fallen on a certain private. I know there is an investigation, and I understand that. I appreciate the concern, thank you. I also understand other issues are involved and the investigation is not due to Undue Command Influence. He made a mistake. That happens in war. I've had a chance to look into what happened.”

  “He will have to live with what he did. Fortunately, I can too. He'll need counseling. Please do not destroy a Marine's career for a mistake.”

  The admiral sat back when he got to the end. Short and sweet. Jethro had a point. If ONI hadn't found anything wrong in the private's record or interrogation other than a trigger-happy idiot, he'd leave it be. The jury was still out there. He decided he would try to be hands-off and let Jersey deal with salvaging or flushing the kid's career from that point on.

  :::{)(}:::

  Admiral Irons nodded as he scanned the Fleet Times three days later. The central article was about the promotions. There were good images and even a short video of the various officers involved. It was a good fluff piece, something to help morale. Undoubtedly, the media would pick up on it soon enough, he thought. Some might question promoting Amadeus after what the recent see-saw battle Second Fleet has experienced, but those who did would be on the fringe. The last battle in B-95a3 had been a victory for Second Fleet. He hadn't quite destroyed the Sword of Retribution Fleet, but he'd come damn close to doing so.

  But as he scanned through the various articles, there were also questions about adding the Bekian officers to the command structure given what they now knew about Bek's problems. The editorials were bad enough. The questions and comments ran hot and heavy in both directions.

  He wasn't happy with the questions, but he understood them. He also knew that many of the Bekians who had come forward so far had a few rough edges. Some were steadily working them off, but a few seemed to cling to their thinking. He also didn't like their reluctance to embrace technology. He could understand some problems with picking up tech, but an aversion to implants when they had cybernetics? And what was the problem with A.I. and nanotech?

  He grimaced as he scanned another article. Cruisers had been dispatched on patrols through the sector. He nodded as he scanned the article. It was vague, which was good. He didn't like that the news of the deployments was there, but it was done. He was resisting pressure from Congress to put one in each star system. At least that little tidbit hadn't made the article.

  The navy had pickets in Syntia's World, Protodon, Senka as well as critical nodes in the sector. Each of the pickets was set to grow, when he had the spare ships to send them. They also needed to be constantly resupplied, which was an issue. Just finding the ships to rotate to replace them on a regular basis was an interesting exercise for his Operations Department. So far, the pickets had only caught a few enemy ships coming into the sector from those directions.

  Yesterday, despite protests from Rear Admiral V'r'z'll, Pyrax had sent two divisions of heavy cruisers and two divisions of older destroyers to Epsilon Triangula. When the ships arrived, they would relieve the Spirit of America. A single carrier group could hold the star system, but a mixed squadron could do it just as easily. The cruisers would cover the inner system while the destroyers were divvied up between the jump points.

  America had to wait on their arrival so as not to uncover the planet and cause distress to its population. She would return to Pyrax for rest and refit before being reassigned to the Eastern Fleet as their reinforcements. When the rear admiral had found out about that part of the plan her protests had dried up completely he thought with a snort of disdain.

  The Bekian admiral hadn't impressed him. She'd been reluctant to get implants, had thrown her weight around, and had made herself a nuisance to everyone. Her takeover of the Eastern Front command had been blunt. He'd made his irritation known with her so she'd promised to tone things down. If she was toning it down, he had yet to see it.

  Her one saving grace was that she really was good at carrier command. Throw in the fact that she was also willing to learn hyperspace tactics and strategy and willing to delegate and he'd come back from the brink of canning her.

  Besides, it wasn't like he had a whole hell of a lot of flag officers to spare. Not ones with her experience at any rate.

  He checked her orders and then nodded once. She was still agitating for her command to be a proper fleet of its own, but for the moment, he refused that request. She had a carrier force with a fleet train. The plan was to smash any enemy ships and orbital infrastructure she encountered and then move on.

  She had better get it right he thought as his attention turned to other issues.

  Chapter 13

  Pyrax

  Admiral Subert wondered what fool would want his job as he went from meeting to meeting. You'd think as a vice admiral they'd come to him, but not always. Not only did he still have to deal with the day-to-day dealings with running the star system's military infrastructure and fleet units, but he also had to deal with the civilian politicians, and the Bekians. At least the Eastern Front was about to launch he thought, making a puttering sound as he drummed his fingers on the table top in front of him.

  He had to admit he did have some good people now. Commodore Ortiz, a Bekian, was in charge of the fortresses in the star system now that Commodore Samese had be
en transferred to Protodon. Hector did a good job, and Phil grudgingly admitted he had no complaints with the man in the performance of his duties. More importantly, it was one less thing for him to deal with.

  He grimaced and checked the agenda for the current meeting. He tried hard not to roll his eyes in despair—more politics. Apparently, some of the politicians were lobbying for several projects. He wished they'd settle on just one and finish it, but apparently, they were eager to get into everything.

  Well, he was no engineer but he knew all the problems involved in their Dyson Sphere proposal. For instance, having to find the material to make the damn thing in the first place! Then there were issues like solar wind, heat, radiation, and the loss of such things for the colonies and proposed terraforming project. He'd heard that one Dyson Sphere had turned into a series of Mareska dolls in order to efficiently capture all of the energy from the host star.

  A simpler method of energy production was a solar tap. He frowned. Was that what they were really after? The meeting agenda was a pitch he knew; they wanted naval engineering “expertise” in their project. Well, they'd have to pay for it out of their own budget! He didn't have any to spare, and he'd be damned to send his people in without some sort of compensation. At best, he could offer one or two engineers, and they'd be consulting the books just like the idiots who wanted their help.