Sparks Snippet 3

 Still in chapter 2... this should get some attention...

Rear Admiral John Henry Irons sat back with a sigh once the commander was out of his office. The young man looked a little dazed, probably a good thing. He rubbed his temples. “Where do they get them?” he muttered.

“Problems, sir?” his yeoman asked, coming in and setting a tablet down along with a couple of memory chips. Data was in the network for easy access, but sometimes you had to get someone's attention by physically handing them a copy to remind them of its importance. especially when they got bombarded with so much information hourly.

He sometimes wondered if his half-ass Trinity project might be the way to go. Having some sort of A.I. personal assistant assigned to a flag officer seemed like a smart move. Even just a class 1 dumb A.I. like the one in the office might work.

“Only the usual. Anything of importance?”

“Only the usual,” she replied with a smile. “The ones on top are the priority, sir.”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “Let me guess, crap from BUPERS and GI on safety and stuff?”

“Some of that. There is one message about delays in production.”

He grimaced. There had been a lot of that lately, most of it from a couple of suppliers who were having trouble shipping components in. They should have built up a reserve, but they hadn't. Either that or they'd blown throw it during some recent downtime due to factory damage.

He nodded. “I'll check those out,” he said. “I don't want the yard to get thrown into chaos,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said as she withdrew.

He turned to look out at the yard he was managing. Really, it was just one part of the massive yard that spanned millions of kilometers of cubic space. He also oversaw some R&D, but his primary duty was to manage the capital ship lines. Or, to clarify, manage the supervisors and slip managers who managed the yard components, plus the managers and so on who handled the logistics.

In other words, he was a cog in the wheel, a glorified paper pusher. He rather missed getting his hands dirty. He liked the rank but missed getting into the nitty gritty.

It still beat his last job setting up redoubts in the southern half of the sector. The redoubt program was a classified project “just in case” something happened to civilization. The best site he had picked and set up had been Bek. Bek and Nuevo in the Rho sector were in an isolated pocket of space. In order to get there, you had to go through hyperspace rapids or a long dangerous jump from B-107.

The pocket of space had become increasingly isolated since the Hyperspace Guild had decided to charge double or sometimes triple rate to navigate a ship in and out of the pocket. They had become increasingly isolated, and the retirees who largely made up the populations on the various worlds seemed to like it.

By building a small repair yard and reactivating some of the military personnel as reservists, he'd given them a renewed sense of purpose. He hoped it all worked out for them. Personally, he was glad to be back in a real shipyard.

The Norfolk Naval Shipyard built everything from battle cruisers to Leviathan Mark II class super dreadnoughts to monitors and super monitors for the surrounding three sector fleets. There was a repair yard nearby that dealt with refits and repairs as well as one in each of the sectors. He even had a battle moon and an Olympus class battle planet under construction.

He grimaced ever so slightly at the thought of the duo. He had inherited the big boys, the “Death Stars” as the media called them. He'd had a light hand in designing the Olympus class as a commodore on the Weapons Development Board. Since he'd written a dissenting opinion and offended a few people, his stay on the WDB had been brief.

His eyes scanned the half-constructed behemoths. He still thought of them as insane wastes; the scale of the things was just stupid crazy. And the fuel use! He shook his head. They could send an entire battle fleet for the fuel to run one of those things. They were there to inspire fear, to cow fleets into submission.

Oh, there was a solid bit about being a mobile base. He understood and agreed with that part. A battle moon or battle planet could hold a fleet within its titan hangars. Each had a repair yard, something necessary when they were operating in the boonies without support. Not that any of the big titans did anything like that. They were too precious to go anywhere except the core worlds where they were seen regularly. They were a comforting presence for the people there.

The pair he was currently working on would be the second set for the sector and was destined for the neighboring capital of New Alexandria when they were done—well, one there and one at a naval base to deter pirates. He wasn't sure which one. The priority would shift about. They had time to figure it out; the battle moon would take another three years to complete.

He snorted to himself. Like any self-respecting pirate would come within a hundred light years of such a thing!

He pulled up the chip with the logistics issues and then began to read it, focusing on his work of finding ways to keep the yard running smoothly.

<(((@)))>

Near end of the day John received a call from Admiral Bismark. His boss. Admiral Leon Bismark had helped his career. He was also considered a personal friend. “Sir? How has your day been going?”

“Well, it was going fair to middling until I got a certain call about someone's precious baby boy who you crushed earlier in the day. Eating junior officers for breakfast again, John?”

Admiral Irons snorted. Typical, he had expected the call, just not so soon. “Hardly. I take it the political network got word of the crushing defeat of his proposal?”

“Pretty much. What did he do to piss you off?”

“He didn't so much as piss me off as annoy me for not doing his homework with his half-ass proposal,” Admiral Irons replied with a shake of his head. “Did you see his pitch?”

“No, that was curiously left out.”

“Yeah. Well, he ripped it from a video game. No background, just a vague idea all eagerly wrapped up in a bundle. A high schooler could have done better work.”

“Ah … are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. I've actually played the game a long time ago. He redressed it with a mod, but it's the same thing.”

“Oh, that's … lovely. If word of that got out …”

“Yeah, I know. Which was why I was saving it for later if the political powers that be got too uppity.”

“Ah,” Admiral Bismark nodded slowly. “Playing with fire by jousting with politicians you know.”

“The ones in uniform should know better than to play with engineers,” Admiral Irons stated. “Can you believe he didn't even do an engineering study? Or research into his project?”

The other admiral smiled. “Ah, you are a bit pissed.”

“Annoyed,” Admiral Irons argued. “We, and by we I mean the navy, has been doing this for centuries. You'd think we would have tried just about every design by now. You'd think he'd realize that and look into it. He didn't. He launched into a spiel about how it would save weight, fuel, and be one heck of a ship …”

“Dazzled by the fantasy and you popped his balloon?”

“More or less. I ordered him to do an actual engineering study. If he's smart, he'll replay our conversation, pick up on my hints about real world experience and how things fail, and maybe do some historical research too.”

“From your tone you sound like you doubt it.”

“Pretty much. He's a skater. He was stuck here to round out his education and get an engineering tab in his jacket while someone else thought of something bigger and brighter for him to do to advance his career and the family's. This project has nothing to do with his actual assignment. If he doesn't complete that too, I'm going to land on him for it too.”

Admiral Bismark snorted.

“Well, I do wish you'd pick and choose your battles a little more carefully, John,” the admiral stated with a nod. “We'll see how this goes and if they want to push it.”

“I think if the family is smart they'll look before they leap. If they don't, then they don't belong in the navy anyway.”

“True,” Admiral Bismark said. “But you and I both know that hasn't stopped them before.”

“True.”

“He really pitched a gimble pontoon drive though? From a video game?”

“Yup.”

“We're so past that.”

“Oh, I don't know, mechanical if it is simple and robust. This design isn't no matter how he dresses it up. The Marines still use something similar in some of their shuttles. Army too for that matter. I'm not interested in it in a starship however.”

Admiral Bismark nodded. “Well, have a good evening,” he said with a cock of his head.

“Yes, sir, I'll do my best,” Admiral Irons said.

Admiral Bismark frowned. “Trouble on the home front?”

Admiral Irons sighed. “No more than usual. What can I say, teenagers. And teenage daughters should be kept in a barrel until they turn twenty-one.”

Admiral Bismark laughed and cut the channel.

<(((@)))>

Sparks Snippet 2

 

Chapter 2

 

Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Sol star system

 

Lieutenant Commander Nick Pruitt smiled in anticipation of his latest proposal. He was eager for it to work out; he was sure he had a solid plan. Sure, he hadn't done the write-up on it but he had the basic concept down. Besides, all of the hard work had been done for him in the game engine by the designers!

He was certain that his proposal would put him on the list for early promotion if BuShips was receptive to it. He was confident but nervous though, his boss was hard to interpret. The rear admiral had come up with dozens of his own designs over the years and had a history of making things work. He was actually famous for that particular trait. That and being apolitical.

“He'll see you now,” the yeoman said with a nod.

He got up, brushed his pants and tucked his tablet under his arm and then went into the office. He stood at attention. The admiral nodded. “All right, what do you have in mind, Commander?”

The commander immediately began his pitch for a new cruiser design. He watched the admiral as he sat back and watched him, rocking slightly in his chair and steepling his fingers together.

Nick was certain that his family connections would help push the design through to the next phase. He would get the credit for the initial hard work of coming up with it. Let the engineers do the little bits of making it work, that was what they were good at after all.

“So, you thought this through, Commander?” the admiral asked after the pitch. He stared at the spinning image of a light cruiser. He'd seen the design before. Of course, he'd seen a lot of ship designs over the decades he'd been in uniform. This one was very familiar though.

“Yes, sir,” the commander said with a nod.

Getting pitches for new designs from eager junior officers was nothing new. He also got them from the occasional navy contractor wanting a work contract, if only to design something that ended up redundant and useless. This particular commander had delusions of grandeur. He never did the actual work on a design he came up with, that much was obvious from his latest pitch.

The design finally came to him when he ran a search through his implants. He snorted “No, I don't think you did.”

The commander scowled slightly. “Sir … it will work. I ran the simulations myself. Tactical simulations prove its value. The ability to turn on itself is priceless in battle.”

“Engineering simulations? Or did you get the idea from a video game?” the admiral demanded, eyeing the young man. He was very young he noted again. Green, and he had no business as a lieutenant commander. Not when he came up with crap like this.

“Well …”

“Yeah, that's what I thought,” the admiral said as he tossed the tablet onto the table in disgust. The image floating on his work screen continued to spin. He left it up for the moment.

“Were the tactical simulations in our computers or in a game?” the admiral asked.

“It will work!” the commander insisted. “Sir,” he added after a moment, seeming to calm down and remember his place after a sharp look from the officer across the desk from him. “It has been used many times in game mechanics! I'm quite good at it; there is a cult following for the basic design …”

The admiral looked at the design again and snorted. It had two pontoon engines on either flank. They could swivel a full 360 degrees. He'd seen such a half-baked design before on ships and shuttles. It put a lot of stress on that joint plus you had to run lines that could handle that sort of swivel design.

In theory it was great for a VTOL. But it didn't pan out when you had to move the nacelles and when you factored in the wear and tear and what could go wrong; it was a no brainer.

In other words, it was much better to just stick engines forward and back with vectored thrust and be done with it. Keep It Simple Stupid, something this kid had yet to get through his thick head.

“It will save weight, fuel …”

“Let me stop you there,” the admiral said, raising a hand to stop him. “First, you didn't run an engineering simulation. Specifically, point stress load on the pivot points or the structure. You'd need heavy structural reinforcement. Second, you have to have fuel lines that can swivel, which means a point of failure. Third, while swiveling the ship is vulnerable. If anything goes wrong, a micro meteorite, a piece of dust, anything gets in the gimble to muck it up and it's stuck in a bad position. I've seen it happen.”

The commander frowned.

“This is where real world experience comes into play, Commander, something you clearly lack. So, homework for you. Run this past an engineering simulation.”

“But, but, to do that, sir, I have to have engineering experience. I need a naval architect to design it …”

“Ah, so, you work in BuShips and come up with ideas and let others do the hard work of executing them? Is that it?”

“I … that's not what I said, sir.”

“No, it is what you implied. Do your homework first. That now includes research on past similar proposals with an eye to what worked and what didn't. I expect an answer back next week. That's on top of your regular duty assignments, Commander”

“Ah, as I was saying, sir, I'm not …”

“Then I suggest you figure it out, Commander. Dismissed,” the admiral said sharply.

The commander instinctively came to attention and then exited the room.

The rear admiral let out a raspberry sigh and then shook his head. You'd think by now the kid would have realized you don't come to a senior officer with a half-baked idea unless it was solid and you were ready to really get behind it and push.

<(((@)))>

Sparks Snippet 1

 So, I sent Sparks off to Goodlifeguide.com yesterday. The countdown has begun.

  Inferno is complete and in the hands of the Betas. I think only Wayne is left with it. If anyone else wants a go at it, let me know.

  I am a little over half way done Wildfire, the first of the Tales of Ragnarok duology. I'm also poking at Embers, the last of the Ragnarok trilogy. :)

  The current plan is for me to finish the series, the trilogy and the duology this year... if I can keep this pace up. We shall see.

Anyway, on to the snippet!:

Note to the Reader

 

So, I goofed a bit. Normal actually, I am after all, human and fallible.

Over the years, I tried to identify where the Xenos came from. The Andromeda Galaxy was used once, and the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy was mentioned in Pirate's Bane.

After crunching the numbers with Ulrich's handy hyperspace spreadsheet calculator (which I've misused and he mislabeled), I realized that wasn't going to work. Sagittarius is 70,000 light years and Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. The calculator put a transit at 3,713 years at the highest octave of Foxtrot band.

I was going to fudge the Andromeda Galaxy, have an additional 100X isomorpher that kicks in after a couple hundred light years, but then hit on something else, something simpler.

The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is just twenty-five light years away, a hop and skip for a civilization used to crossing our own galaxy on a regular basis. When I plugged the numbers in, lo and behold it worked out, thirty-seven years give or take a month. Okay, that works.

So, I'm retconning the location and using that. Sorry about the confusion.

Carry on!

 

Chapter 1

 

Sol, Alpha sector

 

President Fergus Hagus felt his fur rise as he considered the future. He had yet to make his mark in office; many of his opponents were saying he was a wash, a nonentity, a place holder. A yawn was the usual shtick from the pundits.

His simian face grimaced as he looked out the vast virtual window. It wasn't real of course; you couldn't have a window directly into the office of the Federation president, not in this day and age of piracy, assassins, and terrorists. It was still nice to pretend that the view was real though.

He needed something big. After the previous administration had come up with the gates and the one before that had come up with the Canis Expedition, he didn't want to be known as the Neochimp from nowhere.

He also needed to solidify his base. Terrans still had the largest voting block and therefore most presidents were Terran. That wasn't going to be forever though; he knew that. Just the knowledge that he'd had to choose a Veraxin running mate made it clear that the times, well, they were “a changin" as his grandsire had liked to say back in his heyday.

He turned to the list of bills making their way through Congress.

His hundred-day bills had been okay, nothing spectacular. Unemployment was way down, the economy was up, and commerce was doing well. There were a few minor fires on the war front but nothing threatening to really overwhelm them and turn into a galactic war again.

No, the bills were his best bet. He needed to find something that matched his administration's theme and get behind it and push. But, he had to do it in such a way that it didn't threaten to destabilize or undermine the bill itself. People were ornery; his detractors and political opponents were known for going up against something just because his side wanted it. Hell, he'd done it a time or two himself!

He shook his head.

The biggest bill was one to move the capital. That was a dead-end. There was no way, no way in hell he was going to get behind something like that. Nope, nonstarter, and not just because of the political fallout. The politicians in favor of it wanted a roving capital. They were idiots. It was good image, but not in practice since the capital would be in transit and thus unable to administer the government for those periods of time. Besides, it wasn't like you could pick the ansible network up and move it! All roads led to Terra.

He shook his head.

Well, if he couldn't find something to get behind, he could and would help to block that stupid idea. He just needed his people to craft a message that kept it neutral and his reasoning for practical and pragmatic thinking and steer well clear of anything even remotely sounding racist.

He nodded to himself and made a note about the inability of moving the network, the costs involved, the time spent, and the time in the limbo of hyperspace.

Just about all of those messages would appeal to one or another branch of Congress. The deficit hawks would not like the costs involved, not that the Federation had a deficit anyway! But they still wouldn't like it. The strong executive branch groups would not like having no one at the rudder while they were moving around. The big argument was the ansibles. He made a note to have the scientists and engineers involved in explaining the impracticality of that one.

When he was finished, he made a puttering sound and looked away. He checked the clock on his virtual HUD; he still had ten minutes to mull things over before his next appointment.

There was a movement to downsize the military, specifically the navy. Their push for bigger and bigger ships had gotten a trifle ridiculous over the years; the new Olympus class battle planet was the latest debacle. They honestly didn't need the damn thing; no one in their right mind would go up against something of that fire power.

It was also impractical in that the thing was too vast to go through a gate. Which meant it couldn't respond to any of the quarterly police actions that cropped up.

He frowned thoughtfully, considering the problem. He'd been in the senate when that debate had been underway; he wasn't sure if he wanted to bring on that sort of fight and anger the hawks. Could he offer some sort of compromise? Scale back on the number of the things the navy wanted to build in favor of something else?

He frowned and tapped a stylus on his chin for a few moments, considering the problem from all angles. No, he couldn't see it. Each of the things was a fleet unto itself, with an additional fleet supporting it. The closest he could come to scuttling the program was to take away the interstellar ability. That part was silly.

He checked and noted one flag officer had been against the idea. He read the name and then nodded. Commodore Irons, yes. He checked and noted that despite his opposition Irons had been recently promoted to Rear Admiral. So, he hadn't made friends with anyone for his opposition but he hadn't won enough enemies to scuttle his career.

That meant there was some hope for reason and sanity. He just needed the right approach to the problem.

He heard a tap and then a soft click as the door opened. He looked up. His chief of staff stuck his head into the room. “Time's about up …” he said softly.

“All right, I'm done woolgathering for the moment anyway,” the president rumbled good naturedly.

“Gaming?” the Neodog asked as he came fully into the room.

“Gaming the future. Trying to find something to stand behind,” the president said. “It's tough in this day and age to find something you can get behind and push.”

The Neodog nodded. “I hear you, sir. We're trying to craft some legislation but were curious about your thoughts. I can send you the brief.”

“Please do,” the president said. He'd seen it before but was curious if it had been updated.

“In the meantime, we've got a delegation from Tau on deck. The Taurens are still waffling at the price of terraforming in their sector …”

The president scowled. “None of that. They know the deal. If they want Federal funding, they have to accept open admission to all species.”

The Neodog's ears flicked. “I know that, and you know that. They just want an outlet to express their concerns …”

The president sighed internally but nodded. He settled himself and mentally pulled out his best polite but firm expressions from his playbook. He didn't want to aggravate anyone but he had to hold firm to this xenophobic claptrap. You couldn't cater to bigots. That offended the rest of the population when they heard, and it wouldn't do him any favors in the upcoming election.

“Here is the thumbnail brief …”

<(((@)))>