Delphi Federation (Delphi in Space Book 6)

by Bob Blanton

  “We can only hope she’ll be more open-minded than their current president,” Marc said. “Do we have anything to worry about, Admiral?”

  “I don’t think so,” Admiral Michaels said. “From what I hear, the transition team has taken over much of what goes on; the president seems to have withdrawn, and except for the occasional outburst, is not involved in much.”

  “That surprises me. I never viewed him as a quitter,” Marc said.

  “I don’t think he’s quit; but there isn’t much he can do right now. His cabinet is actively working with Novak’s people and is blocking any of his usual moves,” the admiral said. “He’s only got six and a half weeks left in office, and the country is clearly behind Novak, so he doesn’t have many options.”

  “I think that’s good,” Blake said. “We’ve had enough excitement from him.”

  “I agree,” Marc said. “So, what’s the status of our aircraft carriers?”

  “Catie was right; it’s easy to modify the cargo ships to accommodate our needs. Since all our Foxes have VTO capability now, we only need to put in the maintenance facilities and expand the crew quarters,” Blake said. “We should have our first carrier ready by March.”

  “What about pilots and crew?” Marc asked.

  “We’ve retained a large percentage of the pilots and crew from the UK and France. They played it close to the vest until after the election, but right now, they’ve switched their stance and support their people staying with us. That frees up enough of our pilots to allow us to deploy one carrier. Of course, the pilots and flight crews can be moved to whichever carrier we want, so we’ll be able to quickly project force in any region as necessary. I’m working with Admiral Michaels and Captain Clark on how to increase our recruitment.”

  “Good, good,” Marc said. “And the airport change?”

  “We’ve repositioned the airport so it’s northeast of the city. We’re constructing the bridge to reach it. It will have its own terminal at the end supported by three pontoons. Then there will be overlapping plates to allow access to the airport itself. Studies show that it can withstand typhoon level winds without damage, although there will likely be a separation between the airport and terminal. That can be quickly corrected, and we will have procedures in place that will stop traffic over the joining plates whenever there is a shift, or we have a prediction of bad weather,” Blake explained. “It’s a rather elaborate design with lots of failsafes in it.”

  “Excellent,” Marc said. “So, when do we shut down the Delphi City airport?”

  “We’re not going to completely shut it down,” Blake said. “We’re going to restrict it to VTO only aircraft, and minimal traffic at that. We’ll start expanding the university area into the old runway.”

  “There’s going to be a clamor for the condos next to the airport now that the noise won’t be an issue,” Liz said.

  “I’m sure there will be; how should we manage that?” Marc asked.

  “I think you should charge anyone one month’s rent to change condos,” Liz said. “We have enough new people coming in to fill the ones that are vacant. Why shouldn’t they get the nice views?”

  “I agree,” Marc said. “Now Catie, what’s the status of our probes?”

  “The Asteroid Explorers have only been deployed for about four weeks. The reports coming back are showing lots of iron, methane, ice, and rock asteroids, but we’re not seeing any with significant deposits of the platinum group metals that we’re looking for. But it has only been four weeks; it will take two years to survey the belt, so it’s early. We just sent out the Solar Explorers twelve days ago; they haven’t even made it out of the solar system yet,” Catie said.

  “I thought they had space drives,” Samantha said.

  “They do, but we don’t want to burn up their reaction mass; we’re going to need it to go in and peek at planets we find interesting,” Catie explained. “They should be ready for their first jump in another two weeks.”

  “What about the new jetliner?” Marc asked.

  “We’ve started to build the airframe,” Catie said. “It should be completed in three weeks; then we’ll have to do stress tests on it for a couple of weeks, after which we’ll be able to put it in the wind tunnel to do the final check. I would expect at least one redesign before we’re ready to put one in the air.”

  “And our Oryxes?” Blake asked. “How many can we convert to VTO?”

  “Grr,” Catie groaned. “I had one more made last week by stealing the last two grav drives from the Scout project. We have enough material to make four more drive sets, and then we’re going to have to ration the rhenium. And some of the other rare elements are right on the edge of needing to be rationed as well.”

  “Do we have a projection on the supply?” Marc asked.

  “I do,” Fred replied. “Here you go,” he said as he flipped the report to each of their HUDs and put it up on the display.

  “This is getting pretty critical,” Marc said.

  “It is. Prices have gone through the roof, and some countries are hoarding what they have. They don’t know why we’re buying them, but they’ve decided to keep what they have until they know,” Fred added.

  “If we have to, we can mine it from the asteroids we’ve found,” Catie said. “It’s just not very efficient to mine a whole asteroid for a few kilos of metal.”

  “What’s the distribution of the metals we’ve found?” Marc asked.

  Catie's eyes went up to her HUD, and she hummed for a minute while she composed the report. Then she sent it to everyone, columnated and cross-referenced.

  “How did you do that?” Samantha demanded.

  “Do what?” Catie asked, looking as innocent as she could.

  “You just typed up a two-page summary in almost no time, and you did not move your fingers. And there is no way you can type that fast with your eyes. And don’t tell me ADI did it, because even if she did, the instructions you would have needed to give her would be more than a few blinks.”

  “You’re right,” Liz said. “And where is your Comm unit? I haven’t seen you carry one for two weeks.”

  “I made a smaller unit,” Catie said. She removed the gold bracelet that was on her upper arm. The part of it that had been turned toward her body was a 3 cm by 3 cm Comm. “Since I always use my specs to interface to the Comm, there’s no reason to have such a big display.”

  “That looks like a watch,” Liz said.

  “You can use it like one,” Catie said. “But it’s too big for me to wear that way, so I came up with an arm bracelet. The display is just black and white, so it uses almost no power. That way it lasts as long between charges as the regular Comm even though it only has one fourth the battery.”

  “My Marines could really use these,” Kal said. “They would be easier to conceal, or they could wear them as a watch. It would be a lot handier in the field than a regular Comm.”

  “I think that would also be true for the pilots and crew on the ships,” Blake said. “It would be easier to carry around.”

  “I want one,” Samantha said.

  “I want a couple hundred,” Kal said.

  “How big a hurry are you in?” Catie asked. “I can print them right away, or you can wait four or five weeks, and we can have Vancouver Integrated make them.”

  “I’ll take one hundred now, and wait on the rest,” Kal said.

  “Make it a full run; I’ll take the extra,” Blake said. “We’ll let the pilots order them as they go. Also, we can have our people carry an extra one in a shielded case and powered down; that way, if an EMP takes theirs out, they can replace it right away.”

  “Wait, I get mine first,” Samantha said. “And don’t think you’ve distracted me; I want to know how you typed that up so fast.”

  “I wagged my tail,” Catie said with a giggle.

  “I’m going to close this meeting,” Marc said. “It will take some time to digest this report. You guys can torture the secret out of her o
n your own time.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Everyone left the meeting except Samantha, Liz, Blake, and Kal. Of course, there was no way Catie was getting away. Dr. Metra ducked out right away, waving at Catie as she left.

  “Now spill,” Samantha demanded.

  “I went to Dr. Metra to ask about adding some implants in my fingers to allow me to type without using a surface,” Catie explained. “After talking about it, she came up with a better way. She put implants around my coccyx and connected them to the nerve endings that used to control our tails before evolution got rid of them.”

  “Where is Dr. Metra?” Liz asked.

  “She ran for the hills as soon as Daddy closed the meeting.”

  “So? Go on,” Samantha encouraged Catie.

  “It took me about six weeks to finally be able to use them well enough that I could skip using my fingers,” Catie said. “I keep practicing and getting better every day.”

  “How fast can you type?” Liz asked.

  “Two hundred fifty words a minute,” Catie said. “I’m still getting faster, but now I’m having to teach myself to type a word as a single thought. I’m starting with all the common ones, like the, and, or, you, he, she, cer, then, there, etc.”

  “What about capitalization?” Liz asked.

  “I mostly let my Comm autocorrect that. I have a shift key, but it slows me down.”

  “Are the implants noticeable?” Kal asked.

  “No.”

  “What about EMP?” Blake asked.

  “They’re hardened, and they’re so small that they’re not affected by it much anyway,” Catie said. “If they get burned out, I would need to have the nerve repaired and a new set of implants.”

  “What …”

  “Hey, talk to Dr. Metra,” Catie said. “She’s the one who understands it, I’m just the guinea pig.”

  Chapter 25

  Asteroid Mission Prep

  “These are the best burgers ever,” Catie told her Uncle Blake as she bit into hers. They were having lunch at Ruth’s diner in Delphi City.

  “They are good. But don’t tell your mother I brought you here.”

  “She knows I come here.”

  “But she doesn’t know I bring you here, better safe than sorry.”

  “Cer Catie, Mowgli has reported that it has found an asteroid fitting your target parameters,” ADI said.

  “Alright!” Catie cheered.

  “What’s up?” Blake asked.

  “We found an asteroid,” Catie said.

  “Tell your father, he’ll want us to finalize plans to get out there,” Blake said.

  “Hey, Daddy, we found an asteroid,” Catie messaged her father.

  “Good, let’s meet at fifteen hundred to go over plans. I’ll call your uncle.”

  “No need, he’s sitting right here, we’ll see you in two hours.”

  “Bye.”

  “Are you planning to go out with the team?” Blake asked.

  “Not sure. It might be fun, but it really sounds like it will just be a bunch of coordination work.”

  “You can’t get away with only picking the fun assignments.”

  “You and Kal, what’s with you two?” Catie asked. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

  “Good, just checking that you haven’t let that princess thing go to your head.”

  Catie threw a French fry at her uncle.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Catie and Blake walked into the Cabinet Chamber to find her father, Jimmy Gaines, the lead miner, and Nolan Bishop, the construction lead, waiting on them.

  “So, we finally found one,” Jimmy said.

  “Yep, and it’s a rich one,” Catie said. “There’s at least a month, maybe two, worth of mining on this one.”

  “Good, send me the assay report,” Jimmy said.

  “Where’s Paul?” Catie asked.

  “Working,” Jimmy said.

  “Show us the plans for the Sakira,” Marc said, looking at Blake.

  Blake pointed to Catie as she flicked the plans up on the main display.

  “Why does Catie have the plans?” Marc asked, a bit of annoyance in his voice.

  “She does ships,” Blake said, giving Marc a shrug.

  Marc shook his head and then turned his attention to the display.

  “We don’t need much of a crew,” Catie said. “I think we need to take twenty-four plus a doctor and two nurses if we can spare them. That means we have cabin space for one hundred twenty people.”

  “I want you to take the miners out right away. We’re low on material, and there’s no reason to wait for them to start mining,” Marc said.

  “Okay, Jimmy, how many miners do you want to take?” Catie asked.

  “Can they take their families?” Jimmy asked.

  “Let’s assume so,” Catie said. “We can adjust the numbers later.”

  “We’ve got plenty of miners,” Jimmy said. “We’ve been recruiting for six months, and we’ve done real well. Now, do we want to run three shifts?”

  “Why don’t we start with two shifts until we get the station built,” Marc said, “and no weekends. We don’t want to overtax the Sakira, and it will be complex enough managing things with the construction crew working at the same time.”

  “What about my crew?” Nolan asked. “Do you want a twenty-four-seven schedule?”

  “Maybe only two shifts, but seven days,” Marc said. “We want to get things established out there as soon as possible. I don’t like tying up a starship as a base station for the miners.”

  “Since time don’t mean nothin’ up there, why don’t I run five ten-hour days with one day off until we’re finished. That means I only need two crews,” Nolan said. “It’s only for about six months for us, so we can do it. But they’ll want to bring their families up unless you want to rotate them from here every three weeks.”

  “We’re going to have enough families with the miners; why don’t we rotate the construction crews and pay a bigger bonus for the separation,” Catie said. “It’ll make things easier. It’s only a ten-day flight on an Oryx.”

  “Why don’t we start that way and figure out what works best once things settle down,” Nolan suggested.

  “So how many people do you need?” Catie asked.

  “I’ll stick with the twenty I already told you,” Nolan said.

  “Okay, miners?”

  “You’ll need four miners plus two to work the smelter on each shift. So that’s twelve. Then let’s add two more of each to cover downtime, injuries, and such,” Jimmy said. “That means sixteen plus families. Count on fifty people.”

  “We need to add ten people for cooks and ship management, and ten for maintenance and flight crews,” Catie said. “That brings us to ninety people. As I said, we’ve got space for another one ten, so I think we’ll be fine.”

  “What about recreation space?” Blake asked.

  “The Sakira already has a rec space,” Catie said.

  “But you’ve got families now, you’ll need to add a different space for that; and I’d suggest you add a bar and a lounge area,” Blake said. “That will give people a place to gather when they’re off duty. You’ll also need to bring some security people along.”

  “Security people?”

  “Miners plus construction crew plus alcohol plus opposite sex hanging around means you’re going to have some fights up there,” Blake said. “You’ll want at least twenty security people to be able to have someone on duty any time of day.”

  “So, one ten people.”

  “Plus family.”

  “Okay, one hundred twenty,” Catie said. “We can add some rec space in Flight Bay One, and we can also add some more cabins. Nolan’s team can add more if we find we need them.”

  “Sounds good,” Marc said. “When will the Sakira be ready to go?”

  “Nolan, how long to add this?” Catie asked as she flicked him the sketch of the new spaces they’d just added.

  “Two we
eks,” Nolan said. “There’s ten days before Christmas, then another week ‘til New Year’s. We can be ready to go after the first of the year.”

  “Good,” Marc said. “Now, command staff?”

  “Who do you want to send?” Blake asked. “I’m willing to go.”

  “No, you’re needed here,” Marc said. “Catie, are you willing to go?”

  “If I need to,” Catie said. “You don’t have anyone else?”

  “We’re working on this defense plan,” Marc said, “and it really needs to be a member of the MacKenzie board.”

  “Oh,” Catie said. “I guess that narrows the choices down. Sure, I’ll go. The jetliner is going well; it’s really the airframe engineer’s project until we’ve verified the airframe. I can handle the logistics for ordering the components remotely.”

  “Good, it’ll only be for the first three months. Once everything is up and running, we should be able to send someone else out to run the space station. Go ahead and figure out how you want to fill all your slots and review with Blake,” Marc said. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Sure,” Catie said.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Dr. Metra,” Catie said as she pinged Dr. Metra on her Comm.

  “Hello, Catie, what can I do for you?”

  “We need medical staff for the asteroid mission,” Catie said.

  “How many people?” Dr. Metra asked.

  “We should plan for one hundred fifty, including children.”

  “You’re going to have families out there?”

  “Yes, it’s a long way from home,” Catie said.

  “Then you’ll need at least two nurses. Will you be running a night shift?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Then four nurses,” Dr. Metra said. “And one doctor. What’s the pay?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Let’s say a twenty percent bonus for being that far away; we pay ten percent for the space station.”

  “That sounds fair. I’ll check around to see who’s interested and have them contact you.”

  “Thank you,” Catie said. “Would you skip asking my mom?”

  Dr. Metra snorted a laugh, “Of course,” she said.

  “Bye.”

  Next, she called her uncle, “Uncle Blake.”