The Gathering Storm (The New Federation Book 4)

by Chris Hechtl

  Cynthia turned the case to her and held it up. Shelby put her right-hand jack onto the lock. She felt data flow both ways, and then the lock popped open. She opened the case to find a series of chips nestled in foam in neat rows on the top and a bottle of champagne at the bottom. “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “The additional personnel are a start on your flag staff. Make the best of it,” the admiral stated.

  “Yes, sir, we will,” Shelby said as she closed the case and turned back to the admiral's image.

  “Good luck, safe sailing, and good hunting to all of you. We will be waiting to hear from you. President Irons out,” he said. His image froze, then wavered and then was replaced with the crest of the Federation.

  “Damn,” Cynthia murmured softly, breaking the silence. She shook herself as Shelby turned to her. “All right, people, back to work,” she said.

  Before they did so, a rating began to clap. The applause quickly spread. Cynthia smiled in approval and clapped as well. Shelby felt her cheeks and ears heat a bit.

  :::{)(}:::

  Antigua

  Moira was still dealing with the Airea 3 fall out. She couldn't believe how much problems one captain could cause. Not that she blamed Captain Logan, not after hearing the full story. Her people had initially backed Airea 3, but she'd had them do a 180 once the full story had been brought to her attention by the navy.

  Still, the director was not happy and stroking him diplomatically to try to get him over his hurt feelings was taking more attention than she wanted to expend on the problem. She was thinking he was milking it to get more out of her. She'd gotten a picket out of the navy and a possible station. There was no way she was going to intervene with his attempts at blocking trade with his neighbors. She had offered to act as a mediator during that exchange. So far, no luck there.

  ET and Nightingale didn't seem to mind though. Their protests over the tariffs were pro-forma. They seemed to be bypassing the Airea 3 market in favor of others along the route while also expending a lot of resources on their new ETMI venture and supplying parts to the navy.

  Did the director realize what he'd done? That he'd denied his people the trade? She wasn't certain if he cared. He was certainly taking the shortsighted very selfish view of things. Greedy putz, she grumbled internally.

  There would be a lot more grateful people in Tau she was certain. After all, they'd sent a message on the independent freighter Cog to Airea 3 after all.

  There was some other mixed news from that area. The light cruiser that had been dispatched to track down the Horathian ship Marengo's trail to the Ssilli world had returned from Aquarius. Not only had they found the planet by tracking the ship's ion trail and the range estimates, but they'd done it in record time as well.

  She had returned at the same time one of her sister ships had returned with news of making contacts with the other two inhabited star systems in the nexus. They had made the expected contacts with New Brunswick and Himalaya. Both of the star systems were isolated and eagerly wished to join up. They had sent back delegates and had held hasty elections for senators and representatives.

  They were en route to the capital. Her State Department was sending a diplomatic team on a courier to make contact with each world and negotiate the final details as well as the transition period. Finding a water dweller to handle the Aquarius negotiations had taken some doing, but she'd managed to line up a pair of otters willing to take on the job. They were actually eager to see a new sea and make new friends.

  It had taken a bit of effort and politicking on her part, but she'd finally convinced Admiral Irons to send a shipment of ansibles there. News from the Federation would go a long way to cementing them into the fold.

  The third light cruiser visit was a bit mixed in some opinions. She was among them. The light cruiser had returned from the New Dublin warp chain. They had brought back observers as well as a group of passengers who wanted asylum. The captain had stressed that the observers were just that, interested in the Federation but not wedded to the concept. She seemed leery of them and for good reason given the star system's patriarch attitude.

  She knew that she'd have to treat the observers with kid gloves, much like the observers from Avalon and Requiem 11 and Protodon. Each of those star systems had come around eventually, but it had taken time. She wasn't certain about New Dublin though. She wasn't certain she wanted them in the Federation, not with their track record where civil rights were concerned.

  Then there was a problem closer to home. Several of her people were agitating to send a delegation to Briev in order to negotiate a peace and an eventual inclusion of the star system into the Federation fold. That wasn't going to happen, not until there was a change in government there. According to their latest intelligence reports, the Red Queen was still hanging onto power quite well.

  She grimaced as she considered her own people. Some were as dangerous as the enemy she knew. They had wanted to send parties on board the ships that had been sent ahead of the Eastern Front for instance, and had agitated to delay the mission until those people could be selected, briefed, and then sent to Pyrax. Of course, they had wanted the navy to guarantee their safety too. Admiral Irons had personally put the brakes on that one. Though sometimes she wondered why; he'd allowed a delegation to go to Nuevo Madrid and Destria after all.

  The first reports from the cruisers dispatched into Pi sector were interesting. The light cruiser division, Sharp Eyes and Chic'ch'll, had done well on their own. They had jumped fourteen systems into the sector before they'd returned. They had made successful contact with eight occupied star systems and met three other starships. According to their report, the duo had even managed to take out a Horathian destroyer along the way.

  They had just gotten their toes wet with exploring the closest branch of the sector. It was a good start however.

  So far, one star system was on track to join the Federation, Tir Na Nog. The planet was named after a Celtic mythical paradise. Before the Xeno war, it had been a medical colony in the area. It had been an anti-aging colony as well as a retirement world. Medical tourists had come for the regen therapies there. It had been a physical medical center, not a VR upload center into the metaverse as she'd read about in other sectors. She shivered at the idea of being uploaded into a computer. It was just too damn easy for a virus or someone to delete you. Why anyone would do that …

  She cut her train of thought off and returned to the Tir Na Nog issue. Their problem had been similar to all of the agro colonies in the galaxy. They had been specialists, relying on replicators. When the old Federation had fallen, they'd fallen hard. They'd had little industry and local agriculture to support their massive population. Worse, their population were mostly retirees, people past prime work let alone breeding age. Trying to feed such a population on a failing industrial base had collapsed the system. It had taken them centuries to dig themselves out of the hole they'd found themselves in.

  Tir Na Nog was along the jump line into the sector from Charon. It was two jumps away from Charon and was a crossroads star system.

  She frowned as she pulled up the records of the negotiations. So far so good. She had reluctantly authorized a State Department mission to go there and negotiate the final details, but the idea of joining the Federation enjoyed popular support. Better still, the planet had a democratic government. They would make the transition well. She put them on the fast track for approval.

  Charon and the two neighboring star systems in its cluster were still up in the air. Three other star systems nearby were on the possible list based on the intel ONI had provided. She nodded and decided to allow one of her deputies to travel to the sector. Which one now …

  :::{)(}:::

  General Forth was surprised by the report of Reckless returning to B-95a3. He had thought the Marine transports would remain in orbit for some time, but apparently Valenko had other ideas.

  To be fair to the bear, he'd only sent back one of the six transports at his d
isposal. He still had Zurkowski his Marine command transport to base his campaign from. Zurkowski had been named after an ancient Marine ground support pilot from before space flight. Reckless was something of a legend in the corps, even though she was tied to the original American Marines, not the Space Marines. According to legend she had been a Korean War mare bought from a racing strip and trained to carry ammunition and wounded during that conflict. She did the job fifty times on her own, despite being wounded. Her loyalty and heart had earned her undying respect from the Marines.

  He scanned the report as it came in, anxious for news. To his relief it was mixed. The Marines had a beachhead and were steadily expanding on it. The Horathians had put up an initial fight but hadn't had a lot of heavy weapons to contest the initial landing. An insurgency had begun right off as the Marines moved in to take and hold territory.

  Unfortunately, that was the good news. He briefly looked at the casualty list, including two shuttles, two fighters and several hundred troops. When he was finished, he soberly went on to read the rest of the bear's report. There was some resistance from the natives but it wasn't effective. It was also geared against both parties. They had yet to make allies on the ground, so their intelligence network was limited to their eyes in the sky and captured communications. Valenko's people had their work cut out for them.

  At the end of the report was an answer to his initial question. Reckless was returning the dead to the Federation while also making herself available to bring back reinforcements. He nodded as he copied and pasted the list of the dead to another file. He would go over it once more, then he would have to contact the War Department's Outreach Center to make sure they informed the families.

  :::{)(}:::

  Commander Jory Gray looked at the current design assignment and fought a sigh of dissatisfaction. Oh, he liked his job; it was just the current one sucked. He wanted to be involved in the warship designs, not the basic stuff.

  “Mercury, rotate the model on all axis, full three sixty,” he ordered as he played with a stylus. The dumb A.I. complied, spinning the model of the tug around on all three axes slowly, so he could examine it from all angles.

  There were problems with the design; there always were, especially with a tug. A tug was a small brain, usually a robot but sometimes a habitat, massive engines, bumpers, sometimes shields, and other bits, plus the usual sublight gear like fuel tanks, reactor, OMS, sensors, communications, and such. All in a tight package with a basic strong frame and little hull plating. There were a thousand and one uses for tugs, everything from search and rescue, fighting fires or blowouts in ships and habitats, personnel transport, moving anchors, resupplying, moving ships, and unmanned barges, all of it.

  No, the problem was it was a case of ten-pounds of crap in a five-pound pail. Whatever a pound was he thought absently as he scratched the stylus against his cheek and tipped his chair back by placing his feet up on the desk. He rocked himself gently by bending and flexing his knees.

  He hated simple tasks, but this one was deceptively simple. It was actually complex for what was needed. To get everything they wanted, okay, he wanted he admitted, in the frame, he had to make compromises. Nothing was fitting as it should. Some of the parts didn't quite fit up as well as he'd like.

  It all stemmed from his desire to put bigger, better engines in the thing. He grimaced. That had led to the need for more fuel to power the brutes, stronger EPS coils, shielding, a restructured frame … gussets had only taken him so far.

  “This isn't going to work,” he muttered. It wasn't just the desire for better engines; he was trying to make a generalist. All tugs were generalists, but there were specialist versions too. He'd hoped to fit a few of those roles into his design. He made a soft sound as he realized he might have to scrap them.

  His mind shied away from that idea since it meant throwing away a lot of time he'd spent already. But, if he did abandon the modular design he'd tried to incorporate and went totally drone, it would shave some of the mass and reduce the parts by … “Mercury, highlight the parts for the life support. Also, anything I added for the control cabin.” The requested parts were highlighted. They glowed purple in the design. “Okay, let's shut those off. Where does that leave us?”

  “Reconfiguration of hull interior is still necessary,” Mercury announced.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he took manual control with his implants and rotated the design until he saw the conflicts. “Fudgenucker,” he grumbled. “Well, that won't work.” He went back to scratching behind his ear as he considered the problem. If he bent the tubing … no, every bend added five linear meters of friction to the line and more stress on the pumps … if he moved, no, he needed that there so it was easily accessible for maintenance. His grimace increased as frustration began to take over.

  “How do they do this?” he grumbled. Every time he found something he thought would work, it caused other problems. Take for instance cargo transfer. Low priority shipments were sent out by unmanned barges. A tug kicked them out on a course to their destination with a judicious burn, then they detached. The barge sailed to its destination on ballistic; there was no one on board and no engines to brake. Tugs at the destination would be dispatched to catch the barge and then brake it until it could be maneuvered to dock with wherever it was going.

  He'd wanted a faster way of going about that on both ends. He'd been so sure fusion engines would be the better option. You couldn't throw more force emitters at the problem; they could tear a load apart if you weren't careful. Besides, you couldn't use them in close to another hull, which was where a tug practically lived.

  A computer terminal off to his left beeped, startling him into pushing off and then wind milling his arms to keep his balance. He managed to save himself just in time. He planted his feet firmly on the floor and then bent to recover his stylus. When he looked up to the offending terminal, he noted it was an email from the Hyper-Dynamics Research Department. They were new; most of the group were still feeling out their jobs and relying a lot on the A.I. That was fine; you needed a computer to run the sims anyway.

  Hyper-dynamics calculated the amount of slipstream drag for a ship while in hyperspace. Just how to do that sort of research had been discovered over time ages ago. The process was compared to a wet navy Terran process pioneered by a William Froude. Froude created the Froude number to work out the drag coefficient scale to real world scale. That number allowed builders to plan for engine size, fuel capacity, etc.

  The HDR number was generated by virtual simulations and sophisticated algorithms. It wasn't perfect, but it did give them a good idea of how a ship would react in hyper and therefore how it would perform. From there they could get a general idea of the ship's range and speed, something he was interested in with the project they were reporting on.

  The crews from the Sojourner and Paul Revere class courier ships had complained about the lack of a shuttle bay in their tiny ships. A courier was designed to move through space and hyperspace quickly, not land its crew. Which meant they were dependent on other ships or facilities when they arrived at a destination. Since some of those couriers visited rather rustic planets that lacked their own shuttles; that was a problem.

  He'd been tasked with finding a way to shoehorn a small personnel shuttle into the design. He had found that almost impossible. Attaching the shuttle to the exterior hull degraded her speed in hyper after his last HDR sim. His current design—he frowned as he pulled the results up. There were graphs and models, along with a nice image of the ship in hyper. It looked like it was surfing, a nice image. But, there were red shades where he didn't want. He rotated the image and then sighed.

  Since putting a boat bay into the couriers was out, it would have lengthened the hull and caused all sorts of problems, he'd tried a half measure by embedding a docking port into the ship. The shuttle was supposed to therefore be embedded into the hull with only its flat keel exposed. But, the fins had extended out slightly on either side. Not too bad for
the fields, but apparently enough to affect the slipstream effect and degrade performance below acceptable parameters.

  “Back to the drawing board,” he grumbled. The only other option he could see would be to replace the shuttle. But, that had been one of the smallest atmospheric shuttles in their inventory. One with folding wings would be necessary, not a delta shape. That would be a maintenance headache though. He'd also need to reconfigure the slot the shuttle docked into the hull of the courier; a task that would take a day or more. He shook his head and saved the work and then turned back to the tug problem.

  “Mercury, can you check the tug designs we've got in the files? Which one comes close to what I've got here?”

  “Accessing blueprint files. Do you wish to match specific final specs or some other parameter?”

  “Don't worry about mass or size, no, wait, damn it …,” he grimaced as the A.I. put up a screen full of 3d wireframes of tugs. “Narrow that field by the shuttles closest to the thrust to mass …” If he couldn't figure it out on his own, maybe it was time to see how someone else came close and then borrow their concepts. Or hell, scrap his design and graft what he could salvage onto their frame he thought as he outlined what he had in mind.

  :::{)(}:::

  “What is the update on Yorgi's mission?” Admiral Irons asked impatiently when he noticed there had been little news on that front.

  “Checking now,” Protector stated. “Based on the latest update, it has been determined that there are too many people for Admiral Sienkov's mission to all fit in a single courier, sir,” the A.I. reported. “He is also still rounding up investigators. The bureau isn't happy about handing over their best when they are just starting out.”

  “Frack,” Admiral Irons muttered.

  “There is also a dump from ONI going on, more data from the Pi contacts plus some cross-referencing going on with the latest captured Horathian war book that seems to be taking up a lot of his time.”