Sitrep:
The video project hit a snag, I goofed on placement of a prop and had to go back and reshoot 20 frames. That was annoying, but at least I caught it early.
I am working on other elements and kicking myself because I didn't take advantage of the sales Daz3D had going. There are 3 figures I want for this video and they had been half off... and now are not. My bad. I guess it can wait a bit longer. I'm no where near that part anyway. :P
On to the snippet! Still in chapter 4:
~~(O)~~
Commodore Vestri
Sindri nodded as he read the reports. So far so good. The first of the heavy
cruisers was nearing completion. They'd had a few delays but nothing serious.
Once they had her out of the finishing slip, the yard dogs
would move into full swing to produce her sisters.
They had opted to
build heavy cruisers over light cruisers because of the pirates. Light cruisers
were good for scouting but that was being handled by the prowlers and other
ships. Heavy cruisers were the true workhorses of the fleet.
There were four
production runs of heavy cruisers planned and then he could switch to other
ship designs. He was sure that many thought he was going to produce light
cruisers next or even shoot for battle cruisers, but that wasn't his plan. He
wanted escort and light carriers.
He was pretty
sure Admiral Caine would sign off on the switch once he saw it. The cruiser
yard wouldn't have much of a problem retooling to produce the line after all
and he would welcome the additional firepower. Building the carriers would be
tricky though.
At the moment, they didn't have a fighter factory. There was the one small
production line of small craft, but it was currently churning out tugs and
shuttles and would be doing so for the foreseable future. The fighters for the
cruisers were going to be imported from Rho.
That had to
change though in time. They needed local pilots, and they needed a source of
fighters. The problem was where to get them?
Another issue was
local sector politics. Word was getting around about New Cornwall's good
fortune and some other star systems, most notably Tir Na Nog were up in arms
over it. Even though they had scored a full naval hospital and the Marine base
and training centers.
He shook his
head.
Some people were
not happy even when you gave them a lot of shit. They just put their hand out
for more without so much as a thank you. He grimaced.
He had, he checked the schedule, another three weeks on site before he was supposed to ship back to
Port Royal. Along the way, he was supposed to do a bit of check-ins and surprise inspections with the civilian contractors
producing components in PB1-68 and Ganwon-do. If all was good as anticipated
there, he would be in Port Royal for a few months and then back on the
road to New Cornwall with a fresh set of keys from Admiral Logan.
He shook his
head. Someone should send the damn things by secure courier, not make him burn
the time to go back and forth. He'd complained to Horatio and even John over
the ansible, but they'd just shrugged it off. He knew that
they wanted his face time with the natives in PB1-68 and
Ganwon-do to cement the Federation’s interests in
the star systems, but geesh!
The good news was
that he didn't have to travel by one of the freighters that was carrying cargo
to Port Royal. He had a courier he could snag and use. It was due in a week.
The crew would take three days to get to port and then would have the rest of
the time up to their scheduled departure date as time off or time to resupply
their ship.
He hoped they had
improved their spades skills. The last run had been hopeless and boring. A
fresh electronic library update would be nice too.
~~(O)~~
