The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught

by Jack Campbell

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tanya, there may be good reasons for us to go to Dunai. You don’t have to like it . . . I don’t like it . . . but please respect that I have to accept the authority of those over me when it is legitimately employed.”

  “I do.” She smiled apologetically. “You’re already under plenty of pressure. I know how unhappy the warships from the federation and republic are. Believe me, if anybody but you was commanding this fleet, they’d probably mutiny and sail for home on their own accord. At least you can blame that witch for it since the orders came with her.” Rione’s stock with the fleet, never high, had sunk to lows approaching absolute zero. “Our own crews aren’t thrilled, but they trust you to bring them home.”

  “I know.” That pressure never abated, the confidence of these men and women that he would treat their lives as the valuable-beyond-measure things they were. But he knew that he would be ordering those same men and women into situations where they might well die, that some of them would very likely not come home.

  “I’m sorry. But there’s something else you need to know about. I’m actually on edge because of another thing. It has nothing to do with politicians. I think. But it’s odd. Dauntless lost another power distribution junction today.”

  “You mean it’s too far gone to repair?” he asked, wondering why she was bringing that up. Junctions failed sometimes. The failures were pretty rare, but nothing worked forever.

  “It’s completely burned-out. There’s not even anything left worth salvaging.” She stopped walking and turned to face him, her eyes fixed on Geary. “I don’t normally bother you with materiel problems. Keeping Dauntless going is my job, not yours. But Dauntless had three power distribution junctions fail while I was gone. That is, two failed inspection, and a third was so shaky that my executive officer wisely chose to have it powered down as well. Fortunately, Varandal could manufacture replacements, but now we’ve lost another.”

  Geary looked away, trying to think. “Four junctions? In a few months? That’s a very high failure rate for a ship that hasn’t suffered battle damage during that period. I can’t recall hearing about anything like that a century ago.”

  “Ships were probably built differently a century ago,” Desjani observed, “and didn’t have to deal with the combat these ships have seen. But Dauntless hasn’t had a problem like this in the past. I told my people to find out what was causing these failures, but all the engineers aboard Dauntless and on the auxiliaries can tell me is that the junctions suffered ‘serious component malfunction significantly impacting operating parameters.’ Which is how engineers say ‘it broke.’ ”

  “That many equipment failures and no indication why?” He frowned down at the deck, then gestured to her. “Come on. Let’s look into this.” He led the way back to his stateroom, waving Desjani to one chair, then seating himself. Geary called up the fleet database, then narrowed the information display to junction distribution failures within the last several months. A tremendous number of tags related to battle damage popped up, so he narrowed the search to the last two months. “Dauntless isn’t the only ship that has had that problem. Warspite has lost five, Amazon three, Leviathan four . . .” Frowning, he told the system to identify common aspects for the warships with the failures, then stared at the answer. “The oldest ships in the fleet. Including Dauntless.”

  “Dauntless was launched nearly three years ago,” Desjani said. “There aren’t a lot of ships that survived that long during the war,” she added proudly.

  “Warspite is actually older than three years by a couple of months.” Geary called up his comm screen. “I need to talk to Captain Smythe about this.”

  The fleet had gathered its units closer together as the time for departure from Varandal approached, so Tanuki and the other auxiliaries were only a few light seconds distant. Captain Smythe’s image appeared in Geary’s stateroom with only a small delay. Smythe saluted in his usual slightly sloppy fashion, his customary cheerfulness not evident. “Yes, Admiral?”

  “We seem to have a problem with power distribution junctions on the older ships,” Geary began.

  Smythe sighed heavily. “By older you mean anything over two years since launch, is that right, Admiral?”

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “I’ve been looking into it and reached some unpleasant conclusions this morning after the most recent reports of equipment failures on Dauntless and Warspite came in. I wasn’t quite ready to report to you, but my results are far enough along to brief you now since you’ve asked.” Smythe looked down, his mouth working, then up at Geary again. “Your last ship, sir. Merlon. How long was she designed to remain in commission?”

  He had to stop and think about that. It seemed an eternity ago that he had strode the decks of Merlon, even though he had slept frozen in survival sleep through the intervening century between then and now, and his memories were still vivid. “She was about thirty years old when I assumed command. Her planned hull life was one hundred years. That was the working figure for ships of her class. The hull life could be extended if necessary, but it would have required exhaustive overhaul and replacement to keep one of those heavy cruisers going for another several decades beyond the century mark.”

  Desjani had a look of total disbelief. “A hundred years? They actually built ships assuming they’d last that long?”

  “They did last that long,” Geary said, “until the war started. We’d upgrade systems along the way to keep it all state-of-the-art, of course.”

  “Astounding,” Smythe murmured. “I wish I could have seen that ship. The engineering must have been exceptionally high quality.” He shook his head, smiling sadly. “Do you know how long these ships of ours were built to last, sir?”

  The memories of Geary’s first impressions had not faded. “Rough edges, sloppy welds. They were built fast. I’ve heard they weren’t expected to last long.”

  Smythe nodded. “Expected combat life spans were measured in months. Maybe a couple of years at the outside. Hardly any hulls made it to three years before being destroyed. Five years? Nothing survived that long. Absolutely nothing.” He waved around. “With apologies to her commanding officer and crew, Dauntless is quite an old girl now by the standards she was designed and built to meet.”

  Perhaps it was because the idea was still foreign to Geary, but Desjani understood first. “Dauntless wasn’t designed for this long a career. Her systems are wearing out.”

  “Exactly,” Smythe agreed. “Dying of old age, to use a living organism’s equivalent. The power distribution junctions failing on Dauntless and the other older ships are sort of canaries in the mine shaft, the first components to begin breaking down because they were never designed to work this long. See here.” A window popped up next to Smythe, and he pointed to some of the information displayed. “The junctions that failed on Dauntless in the last few months were ones that had somehow failed to be damaged or destroyed in battle up until now. They’re original equipment, and they’ve exceeded their planned life spans. It’s the same on the other ships of age in this fleet.”

  Geary winced, thinking about the scale of repair work that represented. “We’re going to have replace most of the power distribution systems on the older ships?”

  “No, Admiral.” Smythe spread his hands apologetically. “Everything on these ships was built with the expectation that it would only have to last a few years at the most.”

  “Ancestors preserve us.”

  “I’ve been talking to mine,” Smythe said. “Unfortunately, I doubt that our ancestors will show up to shower us with new equipment and help install it.”

  Desjani was watching Smythe with a horrified expression. “If all of the older ships are developing these problems . . .”

  “Then every ship in the fleet will develop them within the next few years, yes.” Smythe sighed again. “That’s the bad news.”

  “There’s good news?” Geary asked, wondering what this information
might do to his plans for departure.

  “Relatively good.” Smythe called up another window, pointing to the graphs and curves on it. “First off, the failures won’t all cascade at once. There’ll be a curve, starting out slowly as older ships like Dauntless hit their limits. For some time, if the auxiliaries we have work at it and aren’t diverted by the need to repair battle damage and manufacture weaponry and such, we can not only make new components faster than they fail and replace the old systems with equipment that should last longer, but we can get a little ahead of the game. We’ll still face a serious crunch about a year and a half down the line, of course, when the bulk of the existing fleet starts hitting the two-and-half- and three-year points in their lives.”

  Geary studied the data, nodding. “Is that all the good news?”

  “Well, the main problems are in systems and sensors. The hulls and structures are fine. They had to be built to certain tolerances and durability in order to withstand combat maneuvering, which also means the hulls and structures are durable enough to last. The government couldn’t cut too many corners there, or the ships would have come apart in action. That means we don’t have to worry about them cracking into pieces purely because of age though I recommend we do step up inspections for weaknesses in the hulls and structures developing as a result of accumulated strain.”

  “That seems like a good idea.” Geary used one finger to trace a curve on a graph. “If this holds, in a year and a half, about a third of the ships in the fleet will be as seriously degraded as if they had suffered major battle damage.”

  “It could hit one-half,” Smythe cautioned. “I used best estimates, but if contractors and shipyards cut corners, the equipment might not even hold up as long as that. And, of course, if you insist upon fighting battles, that will complicate matters as well because of the need to repair battle damage and manufacture replacements for battle-damaged parts and expended weaponry.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. What about regular overhauls back here in Alliance space? Are those factored in?”

  Smythe made a face. “ ‘Overhaul’ these days probably doesn’t mean what you think it does. What it means is making sure all damage is repaired and everything works.”

  Geary realized that he was staring at Smythe again. “What about replacing old systems? Upgrades?”

  “If it’s not broken going in, it doesn’t get repaired or replaced.” Smythe shrugged. “This way of doing things developed in the course of a very long war in which ship survival times were very short. Why go to the expense of upgrading a ship that would very likely be destroyed within a year and be replaced with a new ship?”

  Slumping back, Geary tried to take in the implications. “Things have to change. The system has to start assuming that ships will remain in commission for extended periods, and the overhaul, construction, and repair requirements have to be changed so that they’re based on that.”

  “What construction?” Desjani asked. “A few hulls are being finished and everything else shut down.”

  Smythe smiled wryly. “Just so. What you say makes sense, Admiral. But it will not only require a change in mind-sets among senior officers and the entire fleet bureaucracy as well as substantial parts of the government, it will also require significant sums of money.”

  “They did this on purpose,” Desjani growled. “They knew what was happening, and they still handed this whole mess to Admiral Geary.”

  “I don’t think so,” Smythe suggested. “Or perhaps not the full implications. Even we hadn’t realized what was going to happen. In Admiral Geary’s case, it’s because his experience with such things is prewar, and for you, me, and all of the other fleet officers, it’s because we’ve never encountered this problem. If somehow a ship survived past the life of its systems, it would undoubtedly have been so battered by combat as to be good only for scrapping to recover materials.”

  Geary looked at the graphs again, trying to sort out what he was feeling at this moment. “But just because we tell the government and fleet headquarters about this doesn’t mean that they’ll fix it. They might just let the fleet shrink rapidly through end-of-hull-life attrition.” Which didn’t mean they would also shrink missions to match fewer ships, naturally. He wondered how long ago it had been that people were first told to do more with less. Probably it had been when some protohumans were without enough stone tools. “Money, you said. How much can we afford to have your auxiliaries do? I know they can manufacture and install what we need, but how much will it cost?”

  Smythe smiled like a pirate eyeing a fat prize. “There we have some intriguing possibilities, Admiral. It would depend upon how we charged the work. I have training accounts. This would certainly fall under that. Battle damage must be repaired per fleet regulations and charged back to various headquarters accounts, but evaluating the extent of battle damage that must be repaired is an uncertain art. Sometimes, such damage can’t even be identified until quite a while after a battle, and then it’s a judgment call as to whether the failure was battle-related or not. I’m certainly not going to second-guess assessments that any failures are related to earlier combat engagements. And, of course, if we encounter failures of equipment during operations, then that would fall under operational accounts.”

  For the first time during the conversation, Geary felt like smiling back at the engineer. “How much could you soak fleet and government accounts before someone caught on and tried to rein us in?”

  “I’d never do anything improper, Admiral,” Smythe said piously, “but my responsibility is to keep this fleet’s ships running well. That will take work. The funding runs through many channels, many departments and organizations, depending on exactly what is done and why. Deciding how and what to charge and where to charge it and how to justify it, well, in the normal run of events that keeps a lot of people busy who should probably be doing other things. Under these particular circumstances, those decisions will require very judicious decision-making. Some of it may be a trifle difficult to sort out on headquarters’ end and inside government departments, especially since rumors are that financial tracking positions are being cut with the war over, but I’m certain that if anyone sees any irregularities in the process or finds a way to total up the sums involved across the board, they will get back to us regarding those matters eventually.”

  “Absolutely,” Geary agreed. “You’re already working up a plan?”

  “It’s close to completion, but some details still need work, and, as I said, funding considerations will need to be flexible.” Smythe grinned at Desjani. “Have no fear, Captain. Dauntless will have her youthful vigor restored so that you operational types can charge around trying to break her again. Titan has the most experienced crew, so I’ll assign her to get to work on Dauntless right away if that is acceptable, Admiral.”

  “Perfectly acceptable.” Geary gestured widely. “What about the fleet’s plans? How does this impact our intended operations?”

  “Ideally, we’d stay here and replace everything,” Smythe said, “but somehow I doubt the government would want us doing nothing but boring holes in space around Varandal for the next couple of years. If you’re asking whether this means we can’t head for strange and unknown areas beyond human frontiers, well, I don’t think it will prevent that. Better we go sooner than later, really, while fewer ships are actually suffering failures.”

  “Thank you, Captain Smythe.” After the engineer’s image had vanished, Geary looked to Desjani. “It’s bad, but it could be a lot worse.”

  “Thank the living stars we’ve got eight auxiliaries now,” she replied. “Did you see the look on Smythe’s face when he talked about gaming the system? This isn’t the first time he’s done that sort of thing.”

  “He’s doing it for a really good purpose,” Geary pointed out.

  “He’s doing this part of it for a really good purpose,” she countered. “What else is he up to? What’s he already done without being caught? Smythe might have casinos op
erating on all eight auxiliaries.”

  “Who do we know who could watch for that sort of thing?”

  Desjani paused to think. “I don’t know. Roberto Duellos likes to posture as a rogue, but he’s actually as upright as they come. What we need is someone who knows how things in Smythe’s world work so well that he or she could spot a quark out of place or hide a battleship in plain sight if they wanted to. At least a senior enlisted, maybe an officer who’s a former enlisted. I’ll talk to some people and see if they know any candidates.”

  After she left, Geary called up data on his eight auxiliaries so he could comfort himself by reviewing their capabilities. Titan, Tanuki, Witch, Jinn, Alchemist, Cyclops, Kupua, and Domovoi. He was extremely lucky to have Kupua and Domovoi, both of them part of the larger Titan class and both of which had been completed just before news of the end of the war triggered an immediate halt to most new construction. Having eight auxiliaries along during the long retreat from the Syndic home star system would have made that voyage a lot easier. Instead, he had been forced to make do with half that number, and lost Goblin along the way. This time out, having eight auxiliaries and fewer warships depending on them for resupply and repair should grant a decent logistics safety margin for getting well into alien territory and out again without anything running short.

  Naturally, there was a price to be paid for that logistics safety margin. The massive auxiliaries Titan, Tanuki, Kupua, and Domovoi could charitably be described as sluggish when their raw materials bunkers were fully loaded. Witch, Jinn, Alchemist, and Cyclops were smaller and a bit more maneuverable, but still far from justifying the official designation of Fast Fleet Auxiliaries. When in star systems, the fleet would have to limit its speed to accommodate the slow-moving auxiliaries, and if the fleet did end up fighting again, then protecting the lightly armed auxiliaries would be a major concern.