The Gathering Storm (The New Federation Book 4)

by Chris Hechtl

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Let's kick ass,” she said as she checked her weapon and then secured it.

  “Ooh rah, ma'am,” he said as they boarded the bus.

  Chapter 49

  Dead Drop

  Prowler UFN-003P returned to Dead Drop in the usual explosion of energy announcing a ship's arrival. No matter how a ship translated there was always that tell tail of energy announcing their arrival. Some ships tried to hide it by emerging with an obstruction between them and a target. Sometimes that worked.

  For the prowler, they didn't bother. Instead they came in low on the negative Z axis to the plane of the ecliptic, over two hundred million kilometers out from the normal jump zone.

  Captain Fen smiled mirthlessly as she noted that the enemy had anticipated they'd come out high where they had left in their previous visit, since it was amply scouted. She heard her crew snicker softly as they changed over to sublight systems. She was tempted to blow a raspberry transmission to the Horathians along the way but her professionalism got the better of her.

  Maybe when she left she thought. Or, she could drop a beacon with a delayed message. That would throw them off and really screw with them she thought with a mental grin.

  Instead of giving away her position further, the small ship deployed a series of recon drones at targets in the inner star system. Each of the robotic probes would take a long ballistic flight through the system. Programming them to use planets and moons as slingshots had been easy; programming them to avoid any shipping that might detect them had made them delay launching them for several hours while they worked the known flight telemetry out and adjusted for it.

  And all that time she couldn't enter cloak. That was a little nerve wracking when she noted the enemy ships changing course to come at her.

  Once they were underway, the small ship went into full cloak and changed course to avoid the Horathian's search area. They had no intention of going to Garth again, they were just supposed to scan the system in detail and probe that fleet in orbit of the planet. Since the recon drones were going to do the work for her she settled on a course on the outskirts of the star system. They had weeks to get to their rendezvous point. From there they would receive the data dump from the drones and then they could get the heck out of dodge.

  But she did content herself with watching the enemy chase ghosts all over the system.

  :::{)(}:::

  “They are back,” Berney reported. Sedrick tried to suppress a yawn but the admiral didn't. Once he got it out of his system, he shook his head blearily. “Sorry. Just the one reported sighting?”

  “Yes, sir. The prowler. Smoke and Mirrors is in effect.”

  “This could be seen as a good thing, right, sir? They are scouting again instead of coming in. So, Smoke and Mirrors is working,” Sedrick pointed out.

  “Unfortunately, yes and no. I think they are looking for confirmation of Smoke and Mirrors. When they don't find it, they'll realize it's a bluff,” Admiral De Gaulte stated as Berney got up and got him a cup of coffee. When the chief of staff set it down in his hands, he smiled his thanks and then took a dutiful sip. “Strong,” he murmured.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I'm not complaining,” the admiral replied, taking another sip. “I need something to clear the cobwebs out and caffeine is better than a stim. Any hope of trapping them?” he asked. Myron's frustrated headshake told him all he needed to know. “Mighty inconvenient of them not playing to our tune. Ah well,” the admiral said with a shrug. “Keep the fighters inside.”

  “Sir?”

  “Don't bother trying to run them down. I don't want the enemy to see how many or what type of fighters we've got,” the admiral explained. Myron grimaced but then nodded. “The same goes for the other ships. Anything that can should be running silent. Pass the word to ships on the other side of the system to go dark now.”

  “Yes, sir. It may or may not work.”

  “True, but I'd like to make them work for their supper. Besides,” the admiral smiled thinly as he raised his cup, “they might get curious and get a little too close for their own comfort.”

  “Well, there is that,” Myron replied with a nod.

  “Saturate the area around Smoke and Mirrors with active sensors.”

  “It is a full prowler, sir; it has cloak and stealth abilities,” Sedrick warned.

  “But anything it launches doesn't. Plus, if we put enough sensors out there, it'll make them cautious.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Myron shrugged as the intelligence officer looked at him dubiously. “Hey, at least it's something.”

  :::{)(}:::

  A week after their arrival Captain Fen was grudgingly certain Admiral White was right. The ships in orbit had to be decoys. They might be pretending to be hiding but it was all too pat. Besides, she'd been there long enough to get visual of the area and there was no tell-tale glitter of ships on her scopes.

  No, they were decoys. Cute. A bluff to keep Second Fleet from going in and buy them time. Time for what was the big question.

  She did note that a lot of the ships they had encountered in Garth had shown up, including a squadron of battle cruisers. There were quite a few cruisers and destroyers in the star system, enough to make four squadrons of each. There were also a lot of small craft, HKs, Apollo class corvettes, and Manta class frigates, but oddly enough, no sign of fighters. It had taken her a few hours of puzzling over why before she got it.

  They didn't want her to know what they had. Cute. It would keep her guessing she had to admit. They had their previous trip's data to go on, but there was a time gap since then. They could have been reinforced up to their full TOE, but she doubted it. She could only see the two escort carriers along with the fleet carrier Nimitz.

  :::{)(}:::

  “They are still here?” Sedrick asked; grimacing at the report of a fresh division of ships had arrived during the night. Ordinarily he'd be glad of the additional support but it just told the enemy about them.

  “Yes. They are lurking about. While they are here, we can't perform any flight OPS with the carriers or fighter barges and platforms, nor can we do any training exercises,” Berney replied with a shake of his head.

  “And there is no hope of catching them?” Sedrick demanded.

  “Did you look up the capability of prowlers? They are smaller than a destroyer, unarmed, and expensive as all hell for good reason. They pack in some hellacious stealth tech including a full cloak. We're talking the ability to bend the electromagnetic spectrum around their ship. When they turn it off, they've got smart paint and other tech to fall back on. So, they are a hole within a hole, blending in smoothly. It really is like trying to find a ghost,” he said, waving a frustrating hand at the holographic plot of the star system.

  “In order to find them, we have to know their projected course, speed, intended mission, and have the ability to do so. Our gravitational detectors aren't fine enough to localize them from these ranges. And our neutrino detectors are mostly useless.”

  “What about emissions?”

  “She's on passive. Running silent. Oh, you mean her exhaust?” Berney asked. The intelligence officer nodded. “Look it up,” he replied sourly.

  “Or, you could save me the time and trouble since you already know,” the intelligence officer grumbled.

  “For a spook, you aren't well informed, are you?”

  “I focus primarily on people.”

  “Right. That explains a lot. Okay, they have very good recycling systems. They can also store their waste that can't be recycled, compress it, and then dump it in a direction we're not looking.”

  “So, we can't see a puff when they maneuver?”

  “Not unless we're looking in the right direction with a lot of sensors all at the same time.”

  “Ah.”

  “The good news is the admiral's order to go active around the planet allowed us to find and kill two of their recon birds. We're running a third down no
w,” Berney said, pointing to a spot on the plot. “There might be more.”

  “Frack,” Sedrick muttered. “If even one of them gets in deep enough, Smoke and Mirrors is blown.”

  “It most likely already is. They can use their passive sensors, remember? That includes telescopes.”

  “How …?”

  “They open a slit in their cloak and scan a desired area with a telescope. No energy emissions obviously. They can pick up transmissions that way too.”

  “Frack. You just love ruining my day,” Sedrick complained.

  “You asked for it,” Berney replied, turning away with an indifferent shrug.

  :::{)(}:::

  Garth

  Glennis grinned when she saw the latest report from the bulk freighter that had just entered the star system. It was a message from her husband with the best of all news; the emperor had consented to sending a heavy fleet to relieve Admiral De Gaulte. They were still hashing out the details and preparing for the movement, but at least the process had begun.

  On top of that, the freighter contained an assortment of fighters. Most of them were older fighters that had been scavenged by the empire over the centuries based on her initial read of the manifest, but that was fine. There was also a squadron of Raptor II fighters. The fact that the Empire's R&D had come up with enough upgrades to mark a fighter as a class two showed hope for the future. Even more importantly, the same bulk freighter had kits to upgrade the Raptors in Garth and Dead Drop as well as blueprints to build components in the planetary factories.

  They would need retooling, but she'd get her people on it immediately. They needed every advantage they could get.

  The second freighter had an interesting manifest as well. Half of her cargo was made up of components for the ships waiting to be refitted, but there were passengers to flesh out the shipyard as well as some equipment for the yard to activate more of its modules. She nodded slowly. Agnes would most likely focus on that ship's cargo. She would leave the good captain to it while she focused on the fighters and blueprints for her planetary and orbital factories.

  In the meantime, there were also several warships passing through her star system as well, including another escort carrier. Cyrano would appreciate that she thought.

  :::{)(}:::

  Dead Drop

  Captain Fen watched as the communications station lit up. “Incoming transmission from Recon Drone Four,” Midshipman Gaspy stated.

  “Four of them?” Darion asked. “I only see the one feed,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

  “No, just Recon Drone Four. None of the others have transmitted as of yet,” the ship's A.I. replied. “They are overdue so may be considered destroyed or lost,” he said.

  “Darn,” Darion murmured, shooting a glance to the captain.

  “One may be all we need. Are you processing the feed?”

  “Still buffering and filtering it for security,” the A.I. replied.

  “Why? Paranoid there is a virus in it?” Bonny asked.

  “You can never be too careful,” the A.I. replied reprovingly. “Transmission complete. I am unpacking it now. Done. Processing it now.”

  “I want confirmation of the ships in orbit,” the captain said immediately. “Helm, we're done here. Alter course as planned for our exit point.”

  “Aye, ma'am. Coming about to a heading of four-two degrees by negative six degrees,” the helmsman said.

  “The admiral was correct. There is no sign of the dreadnoughts in orbit other than one ship that we have fingerprinted as Executioner.”

  “Ah.” The captain tugged on the hem of her jacket. “So, he was right all along.”

  “It seems that way. Proper analysis will have to confirm that of course, I'm just giving you the rough version based on my read of the raw data.”

  “Well, we've got plenty of time to process it on the way back and in hyper. But now it's time to go home.”

  “Aye aye, ma'am.”

  Chapter 50

  Horath

  Emperor Ramichov continued to look for schemes but he was increasingly surprised over not finding one. He had initially been surprised and wary of Countess Newberry's vehement assurances that nothing nefarious was afoot. He was certain something was going on though, and if she didn't see it, she was either incompetent or in on it.

  Irazabeth had her hands full stroking her husband to tamp down his paranoia. It wasn't easy, weathering his rants took a lot of patience on her part.

  For her part, she worked her family contacts to make sure there really wasn't a plot to unseat them underway. Nothing was found, which didn't really prove anything. It just meant the conspirators might be damn good at information control. Not that she intended to tell her husband that, he was paranoid enough as it was.

  She did find out that Catherine, dear sweet Catherine, was trying to pull strings to get the other families moving on sending ships off to the front. She seemed focused on the Wong family for the moment, so she continued to monitor the situation.

  “I don't believe … of all the gaul …,” Pyotr snarled, storming into her room. She looked up and hid a sigh. “They are really going to do it,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “They are sending that task force off.”

  “Well, you did call for it. We've delayed it, but they are calling us out on it publicly. We have to deliver. And we have to deliver results too.”

  “I know that,” he said as he began to pace.

  “They don't have the resources to send the ships all the way in though, do they?”

  “No,” he admitted. “This is a stopgap measure. I did get them to commit to that. The ships go as far as Dead Drop. They can perform hot pursuit to run this Second Fleet into the ground, but for the moment I don't want them going any further than that.”

  “Well, thankfully they are willing to listen to reason,” Irazabeth said as she rose and kissed her husband on the cheek. “As are you my love. Now, what about commanders? Are you looking into finding someone we can trust?”

  “I … yes,” he hissed slowly, letting her know he had missed that backup plan.

  “I understand Wrong Way Wong is interested in going as well ….”

  He scowled. “Damn him!”

  “The Wongs have been on the fence since Mason disappeared, remember?”

  He grunted. Their dynasty was woven through a series of marriages, both his own as well as through his children. Wedding the ruling families to his own drew them together out of self-interest. With Mason out of the picture … “I suppose the Stuarts aren't happy either,” he grumbled.

  “No, no, they aren't. Catherine has been wise to not throw her weight around. Perhaps it is wise of us to keep her with the navy for the time being? Maybe give her a promotion and send her off somewhere soon?” she suggested slyly.

  He grunted again as she stroked his arm. “I'll consider it,” he mumbled.

  “Please do carefully, dear. I know as your heir she is needed close to the throne, especially in these trying times. But she is a target for the others to either take out or to rally around.”

  He nodded as he sat down slowly. “You always do see the picture clearer than I do,” he said.

  “We each see things in different ways,” she said smugly. “We work best when we work together,” she said, caressing his chest.

  He nodded as he kissed her.

  :::{)(}:::

  “So, are we about finished here?” Theo asked tiredly, looking over to Countess Newberry and then the rest of the staff.

  Malwin nodded. “We've got the list. I'm sending out the orders now. Most of the ships are already prepared for the movement,” he said.

  Not without the emperor trying to do a bit of foot dragging he thought—creative foot dragging. They had one and only one squadron of dreadnoughts. Obliterator was the new flagship. In order to get the emperor to commit, he'd tried for Retribution, given the emperor's perchance for wanting ships with a significant name. But the countess had
noted the Brahma class SD's name matched the Sword of Retribution Fleet, which was the public reason the emperor had demurred in favor of Obliterator.

  And with Obliterator came her sister ship and division mate Neptune. Both of the Reaper class ships would lead a mostly cohesive squadron of Bellerephon class dreadnoughts including the Bellerephon XXI herself.

  “We need to get them underway before he realizes Neptune comes with the package and decides Obliterator needs a new division mate,” Lewis said sourly.

  “Already on it. Sorry, Lewis, but I did this one myself. Orders are sent. I took the liberty of letting the crew know to prime the pump. They've got six hours to get into space.”

  “Ah. Once they are underway, if he tries to change his mind he'll look foolish,” the countess murmured. “That's good that he'll be stymied from stalling any further, but it could put him out towards you for a while, Malwin,” she warned, looking directly at the praetor.

  “I'll take my chances,” he replied, taking a sip of tepid coffee and then grimacing. “Need a fresh cup,” he mumbled.

  “Here,” Ahab said, getting up to get his own cup. He took Malwin's and then went over to the urn to refill the cups.

  Theo nodded as he sat back, finally feeling a little at ease for the first time in weeks. It had taken that long to get things this far. No, longer, but he'd only begun to feel the stress and frustration in the past couple of weeks when the emperor had been peevish and his excuses had begun to wear thin.

  “Once they are in hyper, we'll need to work on follow-up reinforcements, plus more supplies. Definitely more supplies,” Lewis said.

  “One thing at a time,” Malwin said as he gratefully took the cup from Ahab and took a sip. He cradled the cup and then stretched with his free hand. “What time is it anyway?”

  “O-dark-thirty,” the countess replied as he saw the clock on the wall at the same time the digital display lit on his HUD.