Shelby 6 Snippet 6

 Sitrep:

So, Rea sent me the book back this morning. I just finished the edits and I'm about to shoot it off to Goodlifeguide for final formatting.

I also just uploaded the short teaser promo video I did to Youtube:

   In other news, I'm still working on the comic and R2. I'm printing some replacement parts now. Also, for some reason I'm being aggressively spammed by phone scammers this morning. Apparently Mark Rober's pranks got didn't stop them. I am getting calls every 2-5 minutes on my land line claiming Amazon has a $999 Iphone in my cart and I need to respond to them. lol

Ugh. Luckily I'm not in write mode so I'm not tearing what little hair I've got left out. 

Anyway... on to the snippet!

Chapter 5

 

TauR7-21

 

Commander Bluenose watched his boss warily. He'd liked the idea of being Admiral Yen's chief of staff since it was an out-of-the-way assignment in the northern reaches of the confederation. A nice place for his family to set down roots for a while. His wife hadn't been happy about being far away from the moving and shaking initially, but she had finally admitted that she liked being able to have a stable home.

Admiral Yen was known as a hoof-dragging old bull, stuck in the past. The recent changes had thrown him several times. The commander mentally shuddered as to how the admiral would have reacted if he'd been somewhere else, like say, in Purple Nights.

The admiral reacted badly to change and to new orders. So getting someone from the Admiralty asking stupid questions and demanding results for things out of their control had him in what the commander privately called a tizzy.

“What do they expect out of me? Miracles? No, we don't have any reports from the northern attack force! Damn it, if we get them, we'd pass them on! Why do they keep asking shit they should know?” he complained caustically.

“I'm certain it is just someone covering themselves, Herd Leader. They have to know we'd pass on the report if a ship came in. They might think the report was misplaced on their end.”

The bull's nostrils flared as he digested that soothing platitude.

“Maybe,” he rumbled after a moment. He looked away, clearly disgusted with the overall situation. “It's not like we don't have the same problem, waiting,” he said with a shake of his massive head. “I can't do anything about that. If we send ships out to see if there is a courier in transit, they might miss them. I'd get called out on waste by the IG's office,” he threw his hands up in the air in frustration.

“There are a few things we can be working on, Herd Leader.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you wanted more training with the new units …”

“Which we don't have.”

“There are some in the pipeline …”

“But we have to expedite their movement.”

“Yes, Herd Leader. But we do have access to the simulators and sim packages. We also have some of the intelligence reports from the early engagements. If we toss those over to intel and operations, they can throw some training packages together for our people to go over. Briefing material too.”

The admiral grimaced as he considered that for a moment. Slowly he began to stroke his beard, a sign he was calming down and actually considering the idea objectively. “They'd be out of date,” he finally rumbled.

“We … can use the latest intel we have and petition the Admiralty to see what is still up to date and what needs to be corrected. They occasionally send us reports. They've been more on us about progress as of late. Isn't it time we get on them to send us material to better prepare?” the chief of staff asked slyly.

The admiral slowly nodded. “You may be on to something. At the least it will deflect whoever is on our case and get them on someone else's.”

The commander nodded in relief as he began to mentally outline what they needed to do and the most diplomatic way of requesting updates he could manage.

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Perfect Mountains

 

Retired Admiral Kox was not thrilled at the crew who had arrived to gut a section of his station. Well, not gut the station, but take some of the ships outside it. He was the curator of those old ships. He might not have appreciated them as he probably should have, but he was a product of his generation. He'd been a battleline veteran.

He'd taken on the job of president of the museum to watch over those ships. He couldn't be prouder that some had been selected to be reactivated and sent back into service. He just wasn't certain of the timing or the choice in ships.

There had been some dark rumors that the ships would be sent to the breakers or used as targets in an exercise. But that had ended when he had received an electronic letter formally informing him that the ships were to be refurbished and reconditioned before commissioned back into naval service.

They would be making history again in other words.

The three carriers were not that popular; his guides generally skipped over them in tours. But now they had interest, so it was a pity to see them go. He'd ordered his people to document as much as possible about each. He'd tried and failed to get a list of things the navy intended to rip out. He could have pulled the material out and kept it for other ships, but that was not to be. It would have saved them the trouble, but apparently, they weren't interested in what he had to ask or say.

What was that line? Oh yes, old sailors don't die; they just fade away. Or the young ones just wish them to do so he thought sourly.

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