Hi,
EE Sitrep: Phase 1 of the Betas is done, (mostly) and I've passed it on to phase 2. I want to get it to Rea next week (even though she will be on vacation) if I'm going to make sure it is published by the end of the month as planned. (fingers crossed)
Also, I've been poking at Jethro 5, despite all the parties going on. (I've had 3 over this holiday weekend, and 1-2
every weekend of June. I am BBQ'd and partied out but we've got 1 more to go this upcoming Sunday, and then 3 more in August. :P)
Anyway, I blocked out a few of the chapters and I've gotten 2/3rds of chapter 1 finished. So far it is 61 pages so it is going to be a big book. I'm skipping around a bit until I get my groove back.
On to the cover:
Yes it is another space station cover. :)
I modeled a few bits but drew 90% from my library of stuff. You might recognize a few of the components from the previous covers. The ships (all but 2) were modeled by Rj001 over at Renderosity. I retextured and tweeked them a bit.
The 2 ships I modeled are the
Quantum of Space passenger liner and the
Ilmarinen in the background.
And now, without further ado what you really want, snippet 1. This is a
raw snippet:
Act I
Chapter 1
Commodore
Horatio Logan admired his last stop before his departure from the capital ship
line. He wasn't looking forward to getting back to his office and the mountains
of paperwork waiting there... nor the scowling yeoman whose job was to keep him
on task.
He
couldn't help but grin slightly like an errant boy playing hookey. Okay, maybe
a few more minutes he thought as he looked over to Commander Hsu Tong. Tong was
a good slip supervisor and construction manager. He had to be, otherwise he
would have never risen through the ranks to his present position, Horatio
thought.
Just
like the Commodore, the Commander liked to get his hands dirty. One of the
things that endeared him to the Commodore. But he was also busy, and it seemed
engaged with a thorny problem. As tempting as it was to sit in and listen or be
helpful, Horatio restrained himself and instead did a bit of wool gathering and
checking out the Navy's newest toy.
His
visits to the slips helped his morale. It made him feel like all the paperwork
he was drowning in was worth the sacrifice of his true love, getting his hands
dirty. He did his best to check on the progress of each ship at least once or
twice a week, schedule permitting. Lately he'd lost more and more of his time
to the evil yeoman so he'd been forced to settle into checking on those almost
ready to launch. He'd felt a bit guilty, but he understood he couldn't be everywhere.
Besides, when he did get into the ship block construction areas he invariably
forgot all sense of time. Since he had an appointment he couldn't avoid, he had
to at least try to pretend to try to keep his schedule in mind.
He
smiled briefly at the thought as his eyes covetously caressed the massive ship
in front of him. Here and there he could still see work crews doing a spot of
last minute work, but to his eyes she was worthy of the fresh smart paint
robots were touching up... and the hull markings someone was working on
programming into either side of the flanks just behind the bow as tradition
dictated.
The
work on Argus, their first Fleet Carrier was finishing up he judged. On
budget and on schedule. Slightly ahead he noted with a mental check. In a day
or so she would leave her building slip for the last time and head over to the
fitting slips. They only had a few pieces left in her grand blocks to connect
and some trouble spots to run down. Teams of robots and suited figures could be
seen working on all sides of her hull. Occasionally he could see the spark and
flare of welds going on as the tacked together outer hull received its finished
welds.
As a
Fleet Carrier, Argus would be the largest carrier in their inventory to
date, surpassing even Spirit of America. Take that Vestri, Horatio
thought with pride. Pyrax was turning into a carrier yard much to the amusement
of people like himself... and the annoyance of the battle fleet types that
populated the rest of the Navy.
He
didn't care, a ship was a ship. Every one of them was needed. It made sense to
produce carriers considering the force mix they were up against. A carrier with
the right compliment and armament could take down multiple ships well outside
her class under the right circumstances. At the least they could push the
sensor envelope of a fleet out... and do attritional damage to an enemy task
force or fleet.
Their
sensor coverage and flexibility allowed them to fill a lot of roles. And one
carrier task force could cover an entire star system if properly employed. The
crew of Spirit of America could attest to that.
Argus was massive, a 3 kilometer long, 700 meter wide, 400 meter
tall blocky rectangle with odd shapes sticking out from her keel, dorsal, and
flanks. 2 of the offset towers on her dorsal midships were her Flying Bridge
and Primary Flight Ops. The one on her keel was her back up Prifly.
She had
multiple flight decks, 1 on each face to allow her compliment to come on and
off quickly. The dorsal and keel decks were complimented by large flat
stretches of hull to aid landing and launches. Long catapult tracks cut the
deck like seams in the hull. The forward facing bays served as 2 of her 3
primary flight decks. The bow flight deck had clusters of sensors and grav
emitters around it. She had 1 pass through flight deck in her flank; something
considered a liability in her design by the ship architects since it had called
for massive structural engineering to redirect forces around the open bay.
There
were also a lot of misgivings about the Broadway in the ships interior, and the
large elevators and maintenance bays. Having massive locks to connect Broadway
to each of the bays was an engineering hassle in a half. He'd already read a
few memos about the hatches getting stuck by debris. He didn't envy the crew
when it came time to keep them in working order.
On
either side of the midships bay opening her flanks were studded with hexagonal
hatches for the small interceptors to launch on a moment's notice without
having to go through the carrier's normal flight deck.
Near
her stern there were 6 nacelles with engine pods to allow her sublight
propulsion. The 2 on the flanks were the largest, with double the number of
pods as those on tucked in between on her dorsal and keel stern.
Here
and there he could see small point defense phaser turrets and sensor pods,
along with half egg shaped grav pods. The defense turrets were a sop to the
crew. They would serve as a last ditch effort to protect the ship from incoming
fire but could only interdict some of it. Energy weapons were their Achilles'
heel. Hopefully, the shields were pretty powerful with redundant systems he
mused. And plenty of heat sinks, he thought, trying to wrestle the thought
train aside with difficulty.
A light
carrier like Illustrious had a compliment of 120 craft. That was, if she
didn't have to have guests on board. The compliment was usually mixed in
squadrons, fighters, interceptors, bombers, and support craft, though a
carrier's compliment could be tailored to a specific mission if necessary. He
remembered reading carriers that had been outfitted with shuttles to evacuate
people during the Xeno war. It had been an appalling wasted use of a warship
since even with a compliment of sky whale shuttles they wouldn't have made much
of a dent in a population.
A
straight carrier like Spirit of America had a compliment of 240 craft.
An assault carrier, a heavily armored vessel they weren't building could handle
300 craft but was slow on the helm and the same size as a Fleet Carrier which Argus
was.
Argus would have a balanced wing of 360 craft when she was fully
loaded. Each squadron was made up of 8 to 12 craft. The general use fighters
would hold the most slots since they were multi-role. Most likely there would
be a dozen squadrons of GP craft. Call it 144 total. Then another 6 squadrons
of interceptor craft for another 72. The same number of squadrons of bombers,
and 8 squadrons of 8 support craft like tankers, Eyes craft, SAR shuttles, and
lighters.
If he
remembered correctly each ship would carry about a dozen spare craft to fill in
if a bird was down checked... a couple of those would be reserved for personal
use by the CAG as well.
At
least for the time being the carrier community was keeping it simple, he
thought. They weren't pushing for stealth fighters or other craft. Nor
specialists like recon fighters, the eyes craft did that role much better than
a fighter even if it wasn't as fast and had a much larger crew on board.
Most
likely somewhere at some time they'd fit
in weapon drones of various sorts. At least he hoped so.
He
hadn't much experience with the carrier side of the fleet, so every exposure to
them brought something new to his education. Like the various rooms in Prifly
and the double bridge assemblies. One wasn't just a CIC with the other being a
maneuvering bridge.
Apparently,
the ship ran as almost two independent entities, with the bridge crew and ship
crew running the ship while the pilots and support staff running the space
craft. They had to coordinate of course, but... he shook his head.
There
was something to be said about a man couldn't have two masters. And that there
shouldn't be two captains on one ship he mused. But it wasn't his problem.
Besides, it had worked for ages, so obviously they knew how to get along.
It took
an entire team to run a plane, not just the pilot. The pilot, sometimes a
copilot and specialist or 2 depending on the class of the craft. Each plane had
a plane captain, a noncom who was in charge of the craft's maintenance,
loading, fuel, and care. Then there were specialists who stepped in to handle
certain tasks like avionics repair, software, munitions, that sort of thing.
Somewhere in all that the dumb A.I. had to fit in there he was sure.
No
wonder a carrier had a large compliment, even the CEV's had a lot of manpower
tied up in them he thought. And no wonder why they ran through so much fuel,
parts, and munitions. The extra personnel tied up into each bird explained why
the CEV's were having so much fits with the extra compliment they had on board.
And why they sucked the logistics down on any tender that came along side them.
He
envied their machine shops, now that he'd had a chance to look them over. He'd
seen plenty in his day, but the capital ships he'd been on didn't have those! A
plane could be torn down to the frame and rebuilt with them. He looked around
the compartment with the robot remote as he waited. He felt a tug as another
user tapped on it. He relinquished control and got back to the here and now.
He
wondered as he patiently waited for Commander Tong to finish up a conversation
if the shipyard in Bek was producing carriers on the level of America
and Argus. Hopefully,. Hopefully, the carriers would be the easiest to
convert to starships too. Or, if they couldn't be converted, Hopefully, they'd
serve as platforms to train the men and women who would serve on the starships
to come he reminded himself.
Horatio
rode as a guest in a remote flying along the ship's flank, then when it turned
into a bay he jumped from it to another bot as it went down Broadway. The
remote stayed near the center of the massive passage. Like the flight II CEV's,
both the floor and ceiling were being used to move traffic in an efficient
manner, though it seemed odd to have the crew on the ceiling upside down to
those on the floor. He shook his head and flipped his feed into another remote,
but it went up to the dorsal deck so he pulled out of the feed and then back
into an external remote once more.
A
carrier he knew was a projection of force, either used for offense or defense.
The carrier itself was virtually defenseless, one of the reasons he'd always
disdained flying on one. But he'd taken Junior's advice and pushed through with
the Kittyhawk class and he was glad now that he had. The CEV's had come
in handy and had proven themselves.
But the
war was getting serious and far more dangerous. The CEV's lacked the punch to
handle a fleet engagement, hence the need for the larger carriers like America
and Argus. They would need fleet trains and escorts to look after them
he knew, but they were going to do a lot to shift the balance in the reborn
Federation's favor.
At
least, he hoped so. The ships and crews had a lot to prove he mused.
“Sorry
about that sir,” Hsu said as he came over to the Commodore.
“No
problem. I was touring the ship remotely,” Horatio said as he unjacked. “Got it
covered?”
“I
think so. I'll check-in an hour or so to be sure of course,” Hsu replied with a
confident shrug.
Horatio
sized up his confidence and then nodded slowly. “It's always the fiddly bits
that slow a project up. Getting the bugs out, the fine tuning... that sort of
thing,” Horatio said, shaking his head.
“Yes
sir,” Hsu replied dutifully. He was the project manager in charge of the ship,
the first of her class. He was writing the book on how to build the ship class.
Fortunately he'd just come off work on the light carrier line and was organized
enough to keep up with the demand despite the need for so many assistants, both
organic and electronic. “I'd just as soon see the back side of her sir.”
“And
get started on the next project?” Horatio teased, shooting the Hsu an amused
look.
“Oh,
we're already on our way with Righteous Swarm sir. We're going to need
the slip in another day or so,” Hsu admitted. “I don't want to stall her if
Argus runs into a problem here,” he said.
Horatio
nodded. Such things sometimes happened but it was a manager's job to keep it
from happening as much as possible. Backups tended to stall an entire
production line with negative consequences for all involved.
“So
much for shifting some of your people over to help finish Collective Destiny,”
the Commodore teased. Collective Destiny was Argus's sister ship
currently nearing completion in a neighboring building slip. Hsu shot him a
horrified look. “What? Something I said?”
“Sir,
you know damn well C'll'n'kk doesn't play nice with others. Every time I let
her borrow something, or in this case someone, she doesn't return them! I have
to beg or steal it back!”
Horatio
chuckled. “I was planning on heading over there next if I've got the time. I'll
tell her you said that,” he teased wickedly.
“You
would,” Hsu said in mock disgust as he shook a fist at his boss. “Frack, she'll
be unbearable,” he said, shaking his head as he let his fist drop to his side.
“And she's bad enough as it is.”
“Yeah
yeah,” Horatio said, waving such considerations off. “Something tells me she's
not going to be too much of a pain in the ass. Didn't I hear through the
grapevine that the two of you had some sort of bet going on?” he asked slyly. Betting
between the slips was common these days he thought. There were 2 major shipyard
slips in the Pyrax yard, and each was filled with a Fleet Carrier at the
moment. Both groups had pulled out all the stops to get their ship out of the
dock and into the hands of the fitting yard first.
But
they damn well knew they had to do it right or their crappy work would come
back to haunt them. No cutting corners, no dangerous overlooked steps or loose
ends. Get it right the first time or there would be hell to pay. Admiral Subert
and Horatio had made certain they'd all known that. And they'd kept the
inspection teams going to drive home the point.
“Why do
you ask sir?” Hsu asked cautiously.
Horatio
snorted. He noted there was no evasion in the question, just a stall tactic.
Typical of Hsu. He liked to keep his tricks close to the vest. “Oh, just
wondering what you promised your people if you won. Beyond bragging rights of
course.”
“As it
happens,” Hsu swelled with mock dignity. “An open bar tap at O'shay's was on the
line. I... might have let that slip to a supervisor or two. I don't know how it
got around to the rank and file though,” he said virtuously.
“Heavy
and expensive with this crew... wow,” Horatio said, shaking his head. “High
stakes indeed knowing some of the hollow legs here,” he said. Hsu grinned
impishly. “She's going to regret not cracking the whip harder,” he said
thoughtfully.
“To be
honest she did the best she could given the circumstances. I spotted her three
days since we had that much of a lead on her.”
“Generous
of you,” Horatio said with a grin. “Since by that time your people had hit
their stride and knew what they were doing and she was just starting out,” he
said. “And I think she didn't poach as many people from you as she'd liked to
have. You had a lot more experienced people, given they've all had a hand in
building smaller carriers.”
Hsu
spread his hands in supplication. “Not my fault sir. She didn't get all green
horns. We just have different ways of doing the same job I think.” He didn't want
to admit that he'd almost let the bug talk him into doubling down with a
barbeque. He'd been tempted, but a few hiccups had made him think twice. He was
now glad he'd bowed out, even if she'd ribbed him a bit about it.
Horatio
snorted. “Well, don't be too surprised when she sends her spies around to
figure out how many corners you are cutting so she can replicate it. And she'll
want to double down,” he said.
It was
Hsu's turn to grin. His eyes twinkled. “She's welcome to try sir, but I know
we'll still kick her ass. I've got a good crew.”
“I see
that,” Horatio said with a nod.
He
didn't have much long to wait before the Commander cleared his throat. “Um,
sir, Argus will be ready to fly in two days right? I mean, at least go
out on builders trials?” he asked plaintively. “I've got the timing down to the
minute...” he paused when Horatio's chuckles interrupted him. “What? What's so
funny sir?”
“Nothing,
nothing,” Horatio said, waving the other man off. “So, we're waiting on her
shipment of fighters and other craft to fill out her compliment I understand.
The powers that be are polling the fortresses and other ships for veteran
pilots to fill in her upper ranks, but they are all starting with new ships.”
Hsu
grimaced. “That means they'll have to break them in,” he mused. After a moment
of thinking that sort of problem over he shrugged. “Hell, not my problem.”
“Well,
it will be someone's. The shipment is arriving on the next scheduled convoy I
believe. Which,” Horatio frowned as he checked his implants. “Should be jumping
in by the end of this shift. So, we'll see them in three days. Just in time for
her launch I think.”
“A day
or so after. She'll be in the fitting slip by then,” Hsu replied. “Not my
problem,” he said with another smile.
“Right.
And neither is finding her crew. And her skipper. I'm still working on that,”
Horatio admitted.
“Wait,
I thought that was BuPers problem?” Hsu asked.
“It is.
But I dabble,” Horatio admitted. He had settled on one candidate after thinking
about the options. He'd settled on Junior Valdez for a variety of reasons.
Getting it past BuPers shouldn't be a problem he thought. Selling it to both
Junior and Subert though.... He decided Junior would be easier.
“Meddling
you mean,” Hsu snorted, bringing him back into the conversation again. “Be
careful boss, they might want you over there,” he said, shaking a finger at
Horatio.
“Perish
the thought,” Horatio retorted.
“Anything
about our Bek friends?” Hsu asked, clearly anxious.
Horatio
shrugged. “They are still being debriefed by the powers that be I believe.
We'll see them eventually. I'll give them a tour.”
“You
would just to get out of doing paperwork,” Hsu replied in amusement. “You know
most people have aides and such for niggling things like that boss,” he said.
Horatio
snorted. “Yeah, but as you said, I get to get out and look around,” he said as
his implants pinged.
“Last
call for the shuttle. Gotta go. I guess I'll have to check on Collective
Destiny and tattle on you some other time,” Horatio said. He shook hands
with Hsu. “Damn good work here.”
“Awe
shucks,” Hsu said as they shook hands. “Stay safe sir.”
“It's
space. It's the navy,” Horatio replied.
“Exactly
my point,” Hsu said as Horatio departed.
~<><{<^>}><>~
