Searching for a Needle is publishing now!

 So, still under the weather from the second shot but getting there.

  Five years has passed since the fall of Horath. The Federation has regrouped after the disastrous final battle. Second Fleet has been rebuilt and is scouring the Sigma Sector for the pirate's base. But they are looking for admittedly a large needle in an extremely large haystack.

  The Federation is not ready to give up or go away. The pirates are regrouping as well though, and they have their own plans…

In a shocking first, B&N has launched the book first! Wow!

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/searching-for-a-needle-chris-hechtl/1139599844;jsessionid=72C227BC9D8850A7B054362812E05D1F.prodny_store01-atgap07?ean=2940162341406

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0965TKFGQ

Needle Snippet 4

 So, I'm a bit tired from the shot (flu symptoms) so I will be passing on releasing Needle until tomorrow.

On to the snippet:

Chapter 4

 

New Tau Metropolis

 

“All set? Everyone here? Okay, let's do this,” a familiar voice said over the PA as the ansible came to life. After a moment, the computer loaded the avatar of the speaker for the two people in the conference room to see.

“We've been through this before,” Shelby said, peeved that Fred had called in Sebastian Whitman, Secretary of State Sema's policy adviser in the State Department, to sit in via ansible. The Neochimp knew that going over her head wasn't going to work.

“With respect, Admiral, not every situation is like the last,” Mister Whitman stated. “I really don't want to get the secretary involved in this if we can avoid it.”

Her eyes narrowed at the implied threat. State was still having problems with the chain of command it seemed. “True. But some do follow a formula. And I agree, let's keep the secretary out of this if possible. She has enough on her plate. Besides, she isn't in my chain of command, and we don't need that sort of fight.”

Fred winced. He could tell from her biting tone that she wasn't at all happy about being called out on the carpet. He had done it in order to shortcut any crap that the governor could cause with the capital—not that the admiral was seeing it that way it seemed.

The good news was that her tone was being leached out from the ansible connection and there was no video, just their avatar busts. He was pretty sure that Sebastian could tell she wasn't happy though.

“All right, so, what is going on?”

Shelby let out a sigh. “From the top,” she stated, glancing at Fred. He nodded. “Bright Metalworks in Icaria sent their initial test shipment three months ago. It passed all tests so we cleared them for production and increased the size of the order to a level they stated they could handle in the allotted time between shipping deadlines. This, however, is their second shipment. Random test samples failed on several quality control levels, in some cases rather spectacularly.”

The Neochimp wrinkled his nose. He hadn't caught on to that part or that it had been that bad. Since their arrival and the start of the yard and other projects, the navy had opened up their production to subcontractors. He had lost count of how many there were in the sector, a statement about how much they were growing.

“What does that mean?” Sebastian asked.

“It means that if we used the crap they sent us, it would blow up in our face potentially killing people if not destroying a station or ship.”

“Melodramatic?” Sebastian asked through the ansible.

Fred cocked his head to the admiral.

Shelby shook her head. “Not really. There is a reason we have specs and that they are tough. We have to keep things within those specific settings to make sure they don't fail. This … it is almost like they deliberately tried to fail. And that is after we went out of our way to give them low interest loans, start-up equipment, and guides on how to start up their manufacturing. We literally showed them how to do every step of the process from raw material to finished product and helped them with the costs and equipment and yet they failed.”

Fred realized that the navy was still in the hole for their initial investment. She didn't appear happy, more or less resigned.

“I see. So, how bad is it?”

She blew out a breath. Okay, so, he wanted details. Fine. She went on to explain the situation again, this time in a bit more detail. When Sebastian asked if she could salvage a part of the shipment, she flat out refused and politely pointed out the regs on how the navy handled such situations. While she did that, Boni talked to Enki on a side channel and got Buships involved.

The thing that bugs me is that the previous batch was good. We used it!”

“So, it boils down to that they went cheap to cut costs in order to maximize profits,” Sebastian said.

“Exactly. Our contract states that they sell us the products at cost in order to retire our initial investment in their startup. Now they don't have to do that.”

“Can you eat it? Take the shipment, melt it down and reuse it? Or resell it on the civilian market?”

“Why would we accept waste? If we did that, we would open the door to anyone to abuse the system. Quality control and schematics are there for a reason,” Shelby replied with a shake of her head. “No. And no, I'm not going to be responsible for dumping trash onto the civilian market. That's criminal. No thank you.”

The Neochimp winced.

“It was just a spitball. You are correct; I spoke without thinking. I'll need to see those records.”

“We can of course give you ours. The problem is they are balking at giving us their records and emails,” Shelby stated.

“Oh?”

“Yes, and that is another breach of contract. We have a right to those records, especially given that we need to find out the root of the problem. If it is an accident, that is one thing. If this is malice, we need to get to the bottom of it and stop it. If it is greed, again, same thing,” Shelby stated flatly.

The Neochimp felt himself bristle. That was never a good sign. He hadn't known about the demand for the records.

“How are they refusing?”

“They are politely telling us to talk to their lawyers who are putting us off. Pretty much telling us to pound sand. I'm almost to the point of canceling the contract and blackballing them and anyone involved.”

“Now wait, let's not get hasty.”

“I have to set an example, and I have to follow through. That is my hardball line. That or sending the FBI there to get the records with a court order. I may have JAG and the local DOJ do that too. I'm still considering how much I want to get invested into this.”

“Ah.”

“Well, we have what we need to know on this end. We have seen this before; the secretary has set up a system to deal with it. I'll go through it with the staff. From your verbal report, it shows that they are at fault. But we will still need those records to back up any findings.”

“Sending them now,” Boni stated. “Enki is taking the packets in.”

“You should receive it all by morning,” Enki interjected.

“Ah. My thanks, Enki. And …?”

“Boni. My A.I.,” Shelby stated.

“Ah, Boni. My thanks. Ever efficient as always.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Once the call concluded, the Neochimp looked at Shelby. “So, that's it?”

“For the moment, no further shipments will be accepted. No payments sent and we are going to hit them with a bill since they are breaching the contract. We'll let the lawyers take it from here.”

The Neochimp nodded, but he didn't look thrilled. It probably meant testimony somewhere at some time.

~~~-^-~~~

Needle Snippet 3

 Sitrep: So, I got my second Moderna shot, I'm a bit fatigued but otherwise okay so far.

On to the snippet!

Chapter 3

 

Antigua

 

Vice President Jeff Randall smiled to his wife as he stood with the others at the commissioning ceremony. This was a special one, Admiral Irons was there. It had been a tough five years but you couldn't tell that from looking at Admiral Irons.

Meeting him was a different story though. He tried to be affable and approachable in public, but he was cold with many of the members of Congress, especially those who had come into opposition of him. He had never really gotten the concept of not taking it personally. Given some of the attacks in the media, especially the conservative fringe media, Jeff couldn't blame the man for coming off as cold to what all knew were his enemies.

His enemies too. He was a party man and despite the storms the administration had been forced to endure, they were still standing.

He felt his wife tuck her hand into his and squeeze his thumb and then stroke it. He smiled slightly to her and then went back to watching the show.

“And so, without further ado, I am passing the final duty over to Miss Chalice,” Admiral Irons said with a nod to a Neochimp woman in a pretty white and black dress. The woman smiled and even curtsied.

She had snow white gloves on and fluttered her hands as the lieutenant with her explained quietly what to do again. They'd probably rehearsed it, but in the heat of the moment, the woman had forgotten or gotten flustered.

She was there because she had briefly dated Admiral White when he had been in Antigua years ago. She'd tried to get him to join her family group, but he'd gone on the offensive with Second Fleet. He had never returned to Antigua but they had stayed in touch through occasional correspondence.

Their story had come out after the battle of Horath. She had become something of a minor celebrity for some and had been an advocate for the families of the soldiers and sailors who had lost their lives in taking Horath.

She finally caught on and nodded and then touched the big red button. It lit up and then a giant brown and gold bottle of champagne was launched at the bow of the ship on the other side of the glass.

It tumbled as expected and hit a plate on the bow as expected, shattering beautifully. The splash of alcohol spread out as the cheers began.

Horns and klaxons went off, and the mighty Admiral Amadeus White Super Dreadnought began to back out of the slip under the guidance of the tugs around her. The applause continued as they watched robots swoop in to clean up the mess in the vacuum.

He had heard that the glass was tempered glass. That had explained why it had exploded into small pieces upon impact on the neck of the bottle. The robots were doing their best to clean up the mess; one was even working to clean the glass. He turned away and nodded as an aide mentioned the party to come.

They mingled as the reception began. He politely nodded to his boss who nodded back.

Admiral Irons was a good man. He didn't expect or want a yes man. He took responsibility for his actions but refused to back down if he knew he was right. Jeff had initially expected the admiral to resign in the wake of the Horathian disaster but he hadn't. He'd hung in there despite everyone calling for his head.

That was contrary to his normal behavior. But the admiral was a rock that would not budge so the opposition had chosen to nitpick at him instead.

He looked over to some of the reporters in the periphery of the area. His A.I. picked up a few of the feeds and caught some talking about the “whole unnecessary waste of funds” for the ship. He shook his head slightly.

“Don't worry about them. Let's have some fun,” his wife said, giving a playful wiggle like she was dancing.

He smiled indulgently and wrapped one arm around her, tucking her into his side before going back to mingle with her and the other guests.

~~~-^-~~~

Needle Snippet 2

 Sitrep: So, still working on the video. Small amounts of progress on that front. I have a couple more elements to add and then some more tests before the final part is ready to render. I am playing with lights now, but I may have messed things up, render time just tripled. The warm weather isn't conductive to rendering though, which sucks. (I know, it will only get worse as summer rolls in!)

  My left shoulder is still bugging me, it's making things difficult. (Rotatory cuff) I'm hoping to avoid going back to the doc but we'll see. She tried to get me to go to Physical Therapy without investigating it and I'm a bit annoyed by that. I start writing Shelby 4 next week and it might be tough.

  Anyway, Carlos finished his read of Jethro 7 overnight, so we just have 2 Betas outstanding on that front. If any other Betas want a go at it, let me know. It is a ride, fair warning. ;)

On to the snippet!:

Chapter 2

 

Atlas XIV aka El Dorado

 

Empress Catherine Ramichov stood in her office before the wide window, hands tucked behind her back as she watched the view beyond.

The blackness of space was there of course, but so were pinpoint red, white, and green running lights of passing ships. The most distant were barely noticeable. They reminded her vaguely of fireflies. The closer-in ones were tugs and small craft working on various projects.

Including on the massive ship she was currently inhabiting.

It was far more than a ship of course. During the second phase of the Xeno war, the Mosasaur class battle moon Atlas XIV had managed to escape the destruction of Cheops and the yards there. The giant ship had only been partially finished and had just finished her drive tests when the Xenos had arrived.

She had fled into hyperspace with a skeleton crew of naval personnel and civilian shipwrights and contractors. So terrorized by the Xenos that they kept running, they'd run all the way to Sigma before their antimatter fuel had run out.

The ship had been marooned in deep space light years from the nearest star system. Even if the crew had been able to get to one, the nearest star systems had been dead useless systems of little value. Consequently, no one traveled to them. Occasionally, someone passed through them but only rarely.

The crew had managed to cobble together a stasis pod for everyone and then entered stasis. They had worried about being found by the Xenos so they had foregone a distress beacon. She had no idea why they thought that they'd ever be found. They nearly hadn't been.

Her ancestors had picked up the pieces after the Federation had been torn apart. They had collected technology and ships from across the galaxy. But a series of setbacks had forced them back each time. The largest had been the changeling bitch Hazel Takaeo. Six and a half centuries ago she had somehow shown up on Horath and had wreaked havoc. She had been killed by Catherine's ancestor, but the clone thing had not gone down quietly. She'd destroyed an entire city, and the A.I. within her had unleashed viruses that had shaken Horath to its foundations.

It had taken centuries to clear out the mess. Horath had muddled on, unable to build much for themselves and dependent on what they could loot with the “Gather Fleet.” Since they'd had an entire galaxy to pick through, it had been just a question of finding the loot and getting it back to Horath.

Her family and their supporters had focused on rebuilding their industry. One of the ways to do that was to incentivize the looting. They had put a special premium on finding shipyards and capital ships under what had been known as the El Dorado Plan.

Her grandfather hadn't been content with just the one approach though. He had initiated a recruiting program as well. Spies had sought out inventors and brought them or their work back to be incorporated into Horath's industrial base. Due to the nature of Horath's … unique approach to culture and life, they hadn't had much in the form of education or investment. It had been rather cutthroat, and children had been almost feral. Training had been in ways of killing and survival, a mob existence. Everyone had been focused on getting a berth on a pirate ship to make their fortune.

That had changed over time though with careful investment once they had taken a serious look at how to fix the problem of industry and being self-sufficient. They had made great strides decades ago, and around the time of her birth, an Antiguan by the name of Vinatelli had been recruited.

She grimaced as her fingers danced on the tablet to bring up an image of the man. Leonardo, a human, brilliant but oh so naive. His handler had recruited him as his wife, besotted him and gotten him to emigrate to Horath. They'd raised a family. Their children had been involved in keeping their father in the dark about the activities around him and focused on his work.

Leonardo had made incredible strides in bringing Horath up-to-date. He had taught them to break the problem down and work on what they could change, not focus on what they had lost and give up. He had taken the focus off of capturing old Federation replicators and trying to hack them in favor of old-fashioned construction methods. He had practically reinvented many industrial processes along the way.

But the blinders had come off when he had seen her people abusing other species. She frowned as she scanned the report. It was a cautionary tale written to warn them about keeping someone in the dark for so long and relying on them too heavily. She saw it as a cautionary tale against her family's genocidal plans. Leonardo had unleashed viruses and his own sabotage much like Hazel had. Her people had apparently not learned enough from the last time; it had brought them to their knees.

She hadn't shared those plans. She had listened dutifully to her family but also to other officers who had served with non-humans during Horath's rise. The various alien species had been driven out or purged from Horath over time. Neos had been the last to go nearly a century ago.

She shook her head. That had been a mistake. When her father had taken command and declared himself emperor, he had brought with him a fanaticism that had been a fatal flaw. He had surrounded himself with cronies who shared the same worldview. They had focused an unhealthy amount of energy on “ridding the galaxy of non-humans.”

Finding El Dorado had been something of a fluke. But it had been the lynchpin her father had needed to cement his control of Horath and the pirate clans. With it in his corner, they had begun the rise to the next phase of their mission, the declaration of empire and seizing control of the galaxy.

They had been so intent on building and securing their power base they hadn't noticed the sleeper when he awoke. Admiral Irons had managed to build a power base in Pyrax and built an impressive navy and eventually a reborn Federation right on their border just as they were moving to expand the empire.

All of the ships they had accumulated over the centuries had been useless against the admiral and his people once he had unlocked the Federation's technology—that and recruited people of all species. Faced with the dual idea of extinction as well as recreating the Federation, they had risen in droves, driving Horath back.

She had fought on the front lines for a time and seen her father's increasing dementia and rage get the better of him. His poor decisions had cost them ships and star systems and ultimately brought the Federation to their home star system.

She had been forced to seize power to stop the degeneration. But it had been too late. She had been forced to cut her losses in her home star system, tearing it apart with a Nova bomb and evacuating with what she could.

The bomb had cut off the enemy and torn them apart in her wake. She had used the chaos and confusion to run into Sigma. Not without being chased though—a portion of the Federation's Second Fleet and Fifth Fleet had followed her.

Killing some of Second Fleet had been a part of her goal. She had known then as she knew now that the Federation had better helm teams than her people, even with the slave water dwellers she employed. So she had known some of the enemy ships would escape. She had been right that most of their forces on the planet would die along with everyone she had left behind though.

It had taken her time to evade the vengeful Second Fleet and get them off her track. Time to wait and hope they hadn't found El Dorado. Time to then get back on track and to her new home. The new home of Horath.

No, not so much Horath as piracy in general. She was the self-declared pirate empress.

She smiled coldly to the reflection of herself in the virtual window.

Within the first year of their arrival in Sigma, she had seized control of all bases and star systems under her control and put her own people in place where possible. She had begun to extend her control outside of Sigma. Admiral Suirez had readily accepted her authority in Pi so she'd left him alone. There was a long turn around for Beta sector; she had only heard back recently. Couriers headed out to sectors beyond them were going to take far longer.

Her main problem wasn't just taking control; it was maintaining it, especially while facing the Federation's Second Fleet. It didn't help that Horath, her base of operations and thus foundation of her power, was gone or that she had yet to win an actual battle.

Her people didn't understand that she didn't intend to win a battle unless the odds were in her favor on several fronts. She had revived the old pirate code of “fight to run away.”

Her lips curved in a grimace. She hated that. She was a trained officer of Battle Fleet. It went against the grain to fight and not try to win. But survival was its own victory of a sorts. They were not producing ships or components after all, so they had to preserve what they had even while the Federation grew larger and stronger.

Second Fleet had punched out a lot of her bases in the first years; she had largely abandoned the southern part of the sector. They had begun the push north after realizing her withdrawal in the south had been a feint to throw them off her scent.

That was the other issue, keeping ahead of them and keeping her main base a secret. But along with those two issues, she had to find new ways to get around the Federation when they took a strategically important star system. That was becoming tough.

She was still maintaining relations with Pi, sending and receiving couriers every six months or so. But she was not sure how long that would last. She knew it wouldn't last forever. It didn't have to; it just had to last long enough for her engineers and especially her partner to come through for her and move El Dorado, preferably out of the sector if possible.

Her plan to bomb Horath had been spun as the action of Second Fleet. Admiral Irons had threatened to do so after all, and she'd used that threat against him. She spun it to rally her own people, and her version had been carefully crafted and spun in various releases to undermine the faith of people in the admiral and his Federation.

Her people were still trying to gauge the effectiveness of that part of her strategy. She tended to listen to their projections but flat out refused to believe the rosiest of them. She had been burned too many times by such things. The burned hand definitely taught best.

Her plan was to get El Dorado moving again. That was the next part of the plan, and it was critical. She needed a mobile base of operations, a place that the Federation couldn't easily track. A place that could run if pressed. But that was a bit easier said than done.

When they had evacuated from Horath, she had brought with them every gram of antimatter as well as many weapons and technology. She had distributed those things and personnel in the various ships in the retreating fleet. But not all of those ships had survived to get to El Dorado with her. That was one part of a complex problem.

The other was the age of the ship and the lack of implants to run it. The ship was a Federation warship so they lacked the keys to run it. Imperial Intelligence had been running a scam to use some of the personnel they had found in stasis to help revive their industry as well as the ship. They of course had focused on the humans in the crew.

She had refocused them on the civilian contractors. The civilians lacked the training of the military personnel as well as the security implants. With proper handling, they were working to get the ship right again.

Her father had been intent in just salvaging the ship and turning it into a functional industrial center. To that end he'd imported a lot of material and fuel to power the ship. The civilian contractors had rebuilt some of the basic ship functions and completed the yard. The yard was small but it had been turning out components and even repairing and upgrading ships.

Now she had it focused on repairing ships and trying to get Atlas moving again.

She shook her head. The ancient myth of Atlas holding up the world seemed bitter irony in her current predicament. But, she had an ace up her sleeve.

~~~-^-~~~