The Gathering Storm (The New Federation Book 4)

by Chris Hechtl

  Admiral Irons looked over to the Neodog colonel and nodded slowly. “I have every confidence in you and your personnel that you can. I didn't mean that as a slight.”

  'Thank you, sir. I understand Delta is still on paper. I'd like to see it progress further.”

  “We need to walk before we can run, Fred,” the Lieutenant General drawled. “We're also on a time crunch. The implants?”

  Admiral Irons nodded and held out his right arm. His hand morphed into a port. The general's eyebrows rose in surprise. “Just like that?”

  “Well, there are additional steps, but we didn't bring a full medical team with us. If you want to visit the medics on the battle cruisers, they can finish the job,” Admiral Irons said as the general tentatively put his hand on the admiral's cybernetic one. Protector established the link, opened a port and then data flowed into the general's implant memory buffers. A script was written to update his firmware the next time he went to sleep.

  “That's it?” the general asked as Admiral Irons withdrew his hand.

  “We have a couple horse pills for you as well. They will add to your current implants. You really should get the full package,” Major Burrows said softly.

  The general glanced to him and then shrugged. “I'm a bit long in the tooth to get the full treatment. I appreciate it, but I'd rather see the next generation get it. They'll need it more than I will. Most of my battles involve every officer's bane, paperwork and meetings. Endless meetings,” he drawled.

  “Trust me; you'd like some of those upgrades. Just better kidney systems will aid in bladder control,” Admiral Irons quipped.

  That earned a startled chuckle from the general and a mock groan from the other senior officers.

  One by one each of the other senior officers stepped up to receive their key updates and pills. While they did that, the general put on a dog and pony show for him. Not that he really needed to see it, but he knew it was also for the benefit of their morale too.

  He was gratified that even though the army was a reserve unit they had distributed the implant packages provided by Caroline, Sweet Revenge, and Justica to their personnel and had done a good job getting up to speed with modern Federation technology. He was impressed with their medical setup. They had several MASH units designed to be moved to an area and set up on a moment's notice. Given that the planet had its share of natural disasters monthly, they were well trained and known.

  They were still spotty on equipment though. Everyone took turns training on the new equipment. There were classes to get personnel up to speed. One of the colonels had even rigged up a crude simulator that ran a game engine to simulate various flight packages. Admiral Irons wasn't certain how effective it would be as a training tool, but he was glad to see they were trying to do something.

  The general demurred from getting a full package once more when he brought it up again. “I'm old and set in my ways. I know they say you can teach an old dog new tricks with enough incentive, but I'm ready to retire and go fishing.”

  “Right. You'd be bored within a week, General,” Colonel Fredrick Spot said in amusement. The chocolate Neomutt was something of a humorist in the group it seemed.

  The general shot the Neodog a look and then shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

  “As a career-serving officer you are entitled to regeneration and anti-geriatric treatments,” Admiral Irons pointed out, “along with the other implants.”

  “And Gabriella?”

  “Who is …?” Admiral Irons frowned until Protector put a brief bio up on his HUD. “Oh, your wife?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I … believe you can purchase civilian grade therapies for her once they become available here. Or, you can order them from the nearest medical facility, or she can travel there and undergo the procedures,” Admiral Irons said slowly.

  “She always wanted to go on a vacation and visit places,” the general muttered. He shook himself after a moment. “I appreciate the sentiment, Admiral, I really do. But I'd planned on growing old with my lovely lady. And I don't like the idea of living longer than my kids. A parent shouldn't have to bury their child. It's not natural,” he said in a soft voice.

  Admiral Irons stiffened slightly and then looked away. “I know the feeling,” he finally said in the same tone of voice.

  The general turned back to him in surprise. He studied him for a long moment and then nodded. “It seems you know something about that.”

  “I do,” Admiral Irons said, clearly still uncomfortable with the topic. “It is painful. Not knowing what happened to my son is also painful, but there is a slight hope that he's still out there or that he lived out a good life after the war.”

  “Yes, and you are doubly haunted by the time loss. My condolences, Admiral,” the colonel interjected smoothly. “I'd like to thank you for what you've done for everyone here and for civilization.”

  “We all must do our duty,” Admiral Irons said with a crocked smile as he got back to the here and now. “I've seen your want list. We brought what we could, and I've got replicators on the ships churning out parts. There are a few military industrial grade replicators on their way down. If you can find the power and raw materials, I can set them up with keys to produce more equipment. All you will need to do is feed them, they'll keep churning out the gear until the keys and program are complete.”

  “I appreciate that. Power is an issue,” the general said slowly, looking at the colonel.

  “We have a couple small fusion reactors coming down. One is enough to power one of the replicators, but that's it. You can't tie into it for any other power needs. It also needs its own fuel and servicing.”

  “And we're not up to speed on that,” the colonel said. “I don't suppose you can lend me a couple techs to service it and all the other gear?”

  “I'm afraid not. Those we're short of. You can put in a request for them through the ansible.”

  “Ah.”

  “I can have a couple techs come down and explain the basics. You'll have the manual and your implants.”

  “Does it need servicing daily? Hourly? Don't fusion reactors need an A.I.? Can they be used as a weapon?”

  “All good questions. They need monitoring but you rarely have to do much. As I said, you can see that with the manual. It all depends on the fuel you feed it. The cleaner it is, the fewer problems you have.” The general and colonel nodded slowly. “These systems are built for the field. They have a dumb computer system to manage the bottle. No, it cannot be weaponized. It's a power source. If someone tried to breach the plasma bottle, the A.I. would detect it and shut down. If it was breached, you'd have plasma but no explosion.”

  “Oh.”

  “Any other questions you can find answers to in the FAQ,” Admiral Irons said as Protector warned him he was about to run out of time. “Now, I need to jack in to each of you for a quick key upload and to initialize your implants. Colonel, since the general wants you to have the full set, why don't we start with you?” The colonel nodded as Admiral Irons morphed his right arm. Their eyes widened as they saw his right-hand turn into a port and jack set up.

  “This won't hurt a bit. You'll have a tutorial to go through and some sleep teaching when you go to bed. Nothing strenuous.”

  “Okay,” the colonel said, licking his lips as he held his right hand out with his jack port.

  :::{)(}:::

  Admiral Irons said good bye and boarded the shuttle. They lost some time in the good bye. It seemed everyone wanted to get a personal message off and of course time in front of the cameras, but Protector had anticipated it after experiencing such things in the past. Once they were on the ship again, they made up the lost time in transit to the neighboring world. It took twelve hours for the battle cruiser to make its way across the star system to the other habitable planet.

  Even before the shuttle finished its rollout, Admiral Irons grunted and adjusted to the heavier gravity field. The planet was uncomfortable to many in his party. He
shook his head. “Move slow until your body and implants adjust. Be careful, you can strain muscles and break bones.”

  “Yes, sir. I don't think we'll be playing basketball or hell, soccer while we wait,” a Marine grumbled. “Good way to break an ankle. I'd hate to even kick a ball under this. I'd break an ankle.”

  “Yeah, I'd stay away from jogging or anything strenuous until you adapt. We won't be here that long.”

  “Thank the gods,” the major muttered.

  The admiral was surprised by the larger crowd when he exited the shuttle. They were mostly Centenarians and eerily quiet. He waved and then met the matriarch governor at the foot of the boarding ramp. She was one of the largest of her species he had encountered, easily four meters tall. She was quite old, but she still had a glitter in her eye when they met.

  He ran through the usual pleasantries, adapted to an alien, and then they moved away from the shuttle to a tent that had been erected nearby.

  :::{)(}:::

  If anyone thought he would cut the mission short because of the gravity, they were sadly mistaken. He held in there, even when it rained when he went to visit a farm project that had been started from seed recently imported.

  The natives made certain to show him some of the improvements, but balanced those with the problems they were facing. There were issues with irrigation and flooding as well as the graboid worms. Since most of the herds were pacifists by nature, the predators were a problem. The visit to the new hospital complex was more pleasant however, mainly because someone had thoughtfully provided some air conditioning and screens to help cut the bugs down.

  “We are importing most of the equipment of course,” the guide said. “It has to be built to our bodies and to the other species on this planet.”

  “Understood,” Admiral Irons replied with a nod.

  “Importing the architectural components from our sister planet was prohibitively expensive and time consuming,” the guide said with a snort.

  “Understandable,” Admiral Irons replied with a nod.

  “You'll excuse me, but I am surprised you are so well-adjusted after such a short time here. The architects and engineers they sent could barely walk and breathe for the first week they were here.”

  “I work out,” Admiral Irons said with a shrug. “And I've spent time in high G. I know how to adapt.”

  “Ah.”

  :::{)(}:::

  After two days, Admiral Irons bid his good byes and left the planet. He was amused to hear sighs of relief as the shuttle lifted off and the crew tuned the force emitters to one standard G. “Better?” Admiral Irons asked Major Burrows.

  “Yes, sir. That sucked.”

  “I know. Wait until we go to a real high G world,” Admiral Irons said with a wicked smile. He chuckled at the horrified look the Marine shot him before the Marine got control of his facial expression.

  “Yes, sir,” the major ground out. He hoped the admiral was pulling his leg, but he knew better now. The admiral's malicious sense of humor came out only infrequently.

  “That's the spirit,” the admiral replied with a grin.

  “Sir. With all due respect, you are a sadist, sir,” the major accused.

  “No, I just have an occasional malicious streak that comes to the surface just like everyone else does,” Admiral Irons replied, still smiling.

  “Sure. And yours comes up at the damnedest of times,” the major sighed with a shake of his head. That earned a chuckle from the admiral.

  Chapter 55

  Antigua

  Moira smiled in relief at the news that Admiral Irons was back in hyper and returning to B-102c. He had approximately four and a half weeks to get back in the Delta 3 octave according to Captain Sprite's report.

  “I'm going to have Liobat slip the news into her next briefing. I understand she has been providing news material from the ansible reports?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Nadine murmured.

  “Very well.” There was one thing to be said about the admiral's absence. It had acquainted her with the reins of power, and it had made it clear that although she might not have thought she was ready for them, she was handling the job okay—with of course, plenty of support from Yorgi and the admiral's timely interventions whenever he stopped and got his ansible mail.

  “Coverage of the admiral is almost as big as the warfronts and local news,” Nadine stated.

  “Ah.”

  “I can provide some footage,” Sprite reported. Nadine and the secretary looked up in surprise. Sprite held her avatar's hands apart as if compressing or holding a window. A small, low quality series of images and even a video appeared. “Protector sent me this,” she said, showing the video of Admiral Irons meeting Governor Tribeck and shaking hands.

  “The media will hate how short it is and that it's low quality,” Miss Grant stated.

  “But it is something. Give it to Liobat. They'll eat it up,” the secretary stated.

  “Yes, ma'am,” the captain replied. She pretended to ball the window up and then toss it. “Sent,” she replied.

  Moira's lips quivered ever so briefly in a suppressed smile. She had gotten used to the captain and her impish attitude as well.

  “Can you send me a copy as well?” Petina asked plaintively. “I know the media has been complaining about the footage but the audience is clamoring for more,” she said. “Seeing video being transmitted in near real time like that … wait, you said he had already left, right? So that wasn't live?”

  “No. That's a canned video. I've been monopolizing the ansible to send reports to him. Protector loaded the buffer. Now that I'm not sending him daily reports, it is unloading stuff like that.”

  “Ah. Can the quality be improved?”

  “If I download it at a better resolution, yes. But that would take more bandwidth.”

  “I suggest you do so for at least the still images and some of the more remarkable moments,” Petina stated. “This is prime press material. It will make up for his departure and the absence of reporting up to his arrival in the nexus. It could go a long way to mend fences with the public.”

  “Understood,” Sprite replied with a nod.

  “Moving on, we've got a courier headed from Protodon to Nuevo Madrid to check on the status there and to deliver some state diplomats. I understand B-95a3 is a problem, however?” Moira asked.

  “Yes. Per your in brief from a week prior, we are aware of an enemy movement to that star system. We don't want the ship to be caught in any battle.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you know when this battle will take place?” Nadine asked.

  “Sorry, we don't schedule them quite the way you'd like,” Sprite drawled.

  The chief of staff's eyes narrowed in annoyance at the quip. “Excuse me?” she said in a warning tone of voice.

  “What I meant to say is, we don't know. Battles tend to happen when they happen. We have an approximate window of when we think the enemy might show up. It could be in that time period or outside it.”

  “Ah. Do you think the forces in the system will be enough?”

  “There are currently five destroyers, one escort carrier, two heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers against four cruisers, one of which is has been identified as a light cruiser. None of the enemy ships have been observed to have fighters, or if they did, they haven't shown them in use. I think they'll be lunch meat.”

  “So, why not let the courier pass?”

  “Because I can't guarantee that. They could come in wide and catch the defenders off guard. The courier might be in their path and easily intercepted. Navy policy is not to put civilians at risk if we don't have to. And right now …”

  “We don't have to,” Moira finished for her. She turned to Nadine. “Just imagine the headlines that we knew this was coming and did nothing to prevent it? They could be destroyed or boarded. I don't want that.”

  “Neither do I,” Nadine replied with a shiver. “Okay, you've convinced me. But what does the courier do in t
he meantime?”

  “They sit on the jump point to Protodon and wait until they get an all clear,” Sprite replied.

  “Ah.”

  “Can I use any of this? Show your caution and prudence?” Petina asked. Moira hesitated and then shook her head. “Okay,” the Neo replied, clearly disappointed.

  “Most likely we haven't received a report because the carrier is busy and has not been released to return to Second Fleet. Apparently, Colonel Kodiak is using them. That is smart,” Sprite stated.

  “Yes, as long as they aren't bombing civilians and causing a political mess,” Nadine muttered darkly.

  “I can't comment on that because I don't know. I can tell you that historically the Marines do their best to avoid civilian casualties even when the enemy uses them as hostages. But sometimes some things happen. It is war. Unfortunately, people die.”

  “Point,” Moira stated. “Okay, that does it for State's role there for the moment. Now, on to New Texas. I understand there is some bidding to build an army base there?” she asked, cocking her head to the A.I.

  “You would need to talk to those involved there,” Sprite replied cautiously.

  “I'm talking to you since I understand you did a little politicking in that regard,” the secretary said evenly as she looked at the A.I.'s avatar.

  “It was suggested earlier. I reminded Senator Russell of it in a conversation two months ago.”

  “Well, it has sparked keen interest in him and his supporters. They are lobbying to build the army base, actually to move the army to New Texas.”

  “That won't fly,” Sprite replied with a shake of her head.

  “See what you started?” Nadine accused.

  “I didn't start anything. He's overreaching. I don't know if it is a deliberate act as a negotiating ploy or just strategic overreach on his part or on someone else’s,” the A.I. replied evenly.

  “Understood. We still need to deal with it,” Moira replied.

  “I'll do my best to keep out of it,” Sprite stated, “except in any supporting role. I strongly suggest you bring Generals 1010111 and Anheuser into the conversation since it involves them.”