Lowering the Hammer Snippet 2

 Sitrep: So, Rea got the manuscript back to me early. So, I went through the usual stuff and shot it off to Goodlife. Shelley just said that they'd have it back to me by the weekend or in a week.

So, snippet 2:

Chapter 2

 

Atlas XIV

 

“So, where are we on things?” Catherine asked once the Admiralty had assembled. Among the senior leadership was her lover, Rear Admiral Elvira Varbossa. The assembled officers came to attention politely as protocol dictated.

Catherine glanced at the seat to the right of her that Captain Su was standing in front of. He wasn’t bad but she keenly missed Countess Newberry from time to time, specifically this time.

“We have the latest intel dump in, ma’am. It isn’t good,” the captain stated.

“Oh?” Catherine said as she took her seat at the head of the table. The standing officers took their seats quickly.

Going around the table were Vice Admiral Aden McRaven of Operations; Captain Sherman Su. head of ONI and Imperial Intelligence; Vice Admiral Hyman Preece, head of BuShips; Vice Admiral Latisha Nuert, head of BuPers; Vice Admiral Hsong Chen, head of Logistics; Vice Admiral Jennifer Post, head of Schools; Captain Lorna Justice, head of Medicine, and then Elvira as head of special engineering operations aka the battle moon itself.

Many of the officers around the table held double positions in the civilian cabinet.

Everyone felt the pressure of their position. But the cutthroat attitude was missing. Catherine was known to be ruthless but she had put an emphasis on quality and on civility. She was pushing professionalism and turning over a new leaf. After over a decade as Empress, she was starting to make some headway.

Well, I had been making progress until the damn Fed spy had gotten on board and broadcast our location to the galaxy and wrecked a lot of stuff, she thought sourly. May you rot in hell you son of a …. she cut the errant thought off.

“We have the latest news intercepts. The war in Tau sector has more or less ended several months ago,” Captain Su reported.

“Which?” Admiral Chen asked.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Is it more or less?” Admiral Chen asked.

“Ended as in they are in a truce and have been undergoing extended peace treaty talks,” Captain Su explained.

“Oh.”

Catherine grimaced. She had read the précis and wasn’t happy with the news.

“There has been a catastrophic change in leadership with the Taurens after the battle of New Tau Metropolis. Once their fleet was run down and destroyed, their government fell and a new one was elected to replace them. They sued for peace.”

“Darn,” Catherine said mildly. The distraction was one reason they’d been able to continue to operate. Clearly, that was coming to an end. That meant the Federation would be returning its attention to them soon enough.

Not good, she reminded herself.

“The Secretary of State Moira Sema is traveling to the sector now to finalize the peace treaty,” Captain Su reported.

“How did the Federation win?” Admiral Preece asked. “I thought they were in trouble given the distance and weight of metal against them?”

“Well, they managed to fight a rearguard action to delay the enemy, primarily around their carrier forces. The Taurens left themselves vulnerable to fighter and bomber strikes repeatedly. That delay allowed the Feds to get their wormhole open,” Captain Su explained. He used his implants to control the view screen nearby to show a series of still images and even a short video clip. “They sent two fleets over which took the Taurens with Fifth Fleet.”

“Oh,” Admiral Preece said. He looked thoughtful.

Looks were exchanged around the table.

“That leads to the second bit of really bad news,” Captain Su stated. The room grew tense. “The Federation has activated the gate here in this sector. They now have a straight shot from Rho to here.”

“Two fleets,” Catherine murmured. All eyes turned to her slowly. The admirals were not happy about the last news. Her eyes flicked back and forth. She’d read it but it hadn’t sunken in until that moment that the Federation was continuing to expand and grow. Meanwhile, her people were struggling to make good on what they had.

It just drove the point home that they were pirates. They had no business standing toe to toe with the Federation anymore.

“We need to accelerate the repairs and get the hell out of here,” Admiral Chen said firmly. That earned a few nods around the table.

“I’d love to but we are still making good on the repairs from the recent sabotage,” Catherine said with a nod to Elvira.

All eyes shifted to the raven haired admiral. “Yes, well, we have made good on most of the physical damage. But we do have some issues there. The software is still an ongoing trial to sort out and fix. The spy was fiendishly clever in putting viruses everywhere,” Elvira reported.

A few people grimaced.

“Stop making excuses. Can you get us out of here or not?” Admiral Post asked testily. It was a sign of the stress that she was under that he spoke to the Empress’ lover in public.

“I’m not making excuses, I am explaining the situation,” Elvira said before anyone said or did anything. Her eyes cut to Catherine briefly to quell Catherine stepping in. She could and would fight her own battles.

“At the moment, our risk assessment puts us at a 20 percent chance of success if we jump now.”

“Twenty?” Admiral Post asked. She didn’t look like that she liked that number at all.

Elvira nodded grimly and pulled the latest sim up on the main screen. “That is correct. The sabotage also slowed our forward progress. We are now getting back on track there.”

“Can we accelerate it if we raid for parts? The Feds make good stuff I believe,” Admiral Chen stated.

There were hopeful and even a few mischievous expressions around the table at that idea.

“That is very true, but …,” Elvira looked to the captain.

“The risks aren’t worth the exposure I’m afraid,” the captain said with a shake of his head.

“Without risk there is no reward,” Admiral Chen said doggedly.

“You’d think that, but in doing the risk assessment, we noted a few things. First, the components we need are no longer easily accessible here. The only two places we can source them are in the gate system and in the system capital. Both of which are heavily guarded by Second Fleet task forces.”

“And potentially another fleet by now,” Aden said quietly.

“Another problem is their built-in security and safeguards. Any hardware we catch will come with those problems that could set us back even further,” Admiral Preece warned.

A few people winced.

“Correct. We have become aware of some logistic nodes, but they are no doubt honey traps arranged for us to send a raiding force to,” the captain stated.

A few more people winced.

“I’d rather not lead them back here or have another raid go bad,” Admiral Post said dryly.

More than one person around the table winced again. Rear Admiral Paul Race, the former second-in-command of operations, had led a raiding force to take on a convoy of grav emitters destined for the gate system several years prior. Somewhere along the way, his task force had been spotted and ambushed. The Federation had done an excellent job turning the tables on the raiders.

A few ships had made it back; the admiral’s flagship had not been among them.

Catherine missed him for a brief moment. He had been a good fleet commander, solid and dependable. Pity he’d walked into a trap and gotten his fleet torn apart. She missed those crews and ships too.

“So, those are out obviously,” Admiral Chen said sourly.

“Correct. The only other known source is the factories which are located in Rho and thus out of our reach,” the captain stated.

“Damn,” Admiral Chen muttered.

The captain nodded. “My sentiments exactly.”

“There has been a recent uptick in scouting along the western flank. It is … concerning,” the captain stated with an eye to the head of operations.

Admiral McRaven nodded grimly.

“Can we wake some of the sleepers? See if they could help? I don’t know, isolate them like before?” Admiral Post asked. She looked over to Latisha and then back to the captain.

Catherine puckered her lips. She didn’t like the idea and the security risks involved.

“The problem is that they know something is off over time. Keeping them distracted with work and with sex helps, but eventually, they start to wonder. Like why there are only humans around them. That is a big one.”

“They are ticking time bombs,” Admiral Preece muttered. “Not worth the risk.”

“Well, I’d hate to wake a damn bear,” Admiral Post growled.

“We can’t. We don’t have any,” Latisha stated as she glanced down at her tablet. Admiral Post turned to her in surprise. “All of the aliens and Neos were turned over to the gladiator pits or to R&D or um … others. We actually have two hundred thousand humans and light chimera left in stasis.”

“I thought it was less?”

“We did another inventory after the recent incident and lockdown. There was an original crew of civilians and a skeleton crew of naval personnel of one hundred thousand people. Of those, roughly fifteen thousand were human form. We kept those obviously. Over time we added to the collection with people that were found in stasis pods that were brought in from abroad. Some we brought from the homeworld,” Latisha explained.

“Oh.”

Catherine nodded slightly. There had been some rancor about her including them in the evacuation. She didn’t regret the decision, though she didn’t trust the sleepers to help any more. The last bout of sabotage from a sleeper had cost them additional time and resources to set to right.

That and seeing the military personnel melt into puddles of goo when they activated their suicide nanites was … horrifying. It also did some damage to people and equipment around them.

“Well, what about the civilians? Can’t they help?” Admiral Chen demanded.

Captain Su shook his head.

“Why not?”

“They don’t have the requisite keys and tech,” Latisha interjected as the captain opened his mouth to reply. He paused, closed his mouth and then nodded with a glance to the head of BuPers.

“Damn it!” Admiral Chen growled as he clenched his fists.

“We’ve flipped a few of the civilians but oh so few. None have what we currently need. They have the general idea but not the specific knowledge that is required,” Captain Su stated. “Most were either low level techs or middle management.”

Admiral Chen turned to Elvira. “Wait, why only 20 percent? I know engineers; you are all conservative and like to think of yourselves as miracle numbers. What is the real number?” he demanded.

Eyes shifted to Elvira again. Some were amused, a few accusing.

The raven haired flag officer squared her shoulders slightly. “Twenty percent is the average from this week’s simulations,” Elvira stated firmly. She flipped her hands slightly in an indication of a shrug and something out of her hands.

“It was higher before,” Admiral Post pointed out.

“Before the sabotage you mean?” Aden asked mildly.

“No, I mean two weeks ago,” Admiral said, eyes still locked on Elvira.

“We had a node fail an inspection. It is currently being swapped out and then we have to tune the replacement and those around it,” Elvira explained. She hit a button on her tablet and then swiped the report to the main screen. A window opened and a node blinked. The cluster then blinked a different color around it.

All eyes turned to the report.

“Oh. Damn.”

“We’ll naturally rebuild the node and use it somewhere else that is less critical. But the components are scarce. It will be less … reliable. Scabbing in civilian and military grade components that were not designed for the purpose is … sketchy. Which is why we have a lot of variables to consider.”

There was a soft rustle, almost like a sigh of frustration from the assembly.

“Right. As to being conservative, you are correct. Engineers tend to be conservative because we do not want to create a situation of disappointment and we do not want to have a piece of equipment fail under load. Such things depend on a lot of variables that is outside of engineering too, however. The status of the helm team for one. The status of real world conditions, the engineering hardware as I mentioned, software, and so on.”

“Real world?” Admiral Post asked with a puzzled frown.

“If we are under attack or not. If we are rushed or taking damage, the odds of survival drop to single digits rather quickly,” Elvira stated flatly.

“Oh.” Admiral Post scowled. “Shit,” she finally said as she sat back in disgust.

Elvira nodded. “My sentiments indeed,” she murmured as she looked around the table.

“I hate to even suggest this, but what if we pull apart one or more of our capital warships? The biggest ones we have are super dreadnoughts. We have thirty-five of them, right? And we do have those three monitors but they are in mothballs.”

There was an instant look of hope from the assembly. Admiral McRaven didn’t look happy at sacrificing a ship or two under his command, but he was curious. The looks didn’t last long, however.

Admiral Preece shook his head in unison with Elvira. Admiral Chen looked from one to the other and then sat back in disgust. “No? Why not?”

“It is a matter of scale. The nodes we need are nearly the size of a dreadnought,” Admiral Preece explained patiently.

Admiral Chen blinked and then his lips puckered. “Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Faces fell around the table.

“Yeah, it is a matter of scale, which is a bit off,” Admiral Preece said dryly.

That’s what she said echoed perversely in Catherine’s mind but was left unsaid. She didn’t want to antagonize anyone. They needed to focus and work together to solve the problem.

“We can strip a few ships to make one node. It will have half the power of an all-up node,” Elvira said. She frowned as she tapped at her tablet until she found the relevant file and then loaded it and then swept up to push it to the main screen.

They looked at the bastardization of a bunch of nodes from a capital ship clustered into a hole on the hull of the battle moon. “We actually have done that on a few points on the hull. But they are notoriously hard to tune and stay tuned. It is also a pain in the ass to modify the mounts and it all sorted out.”

“Damn it!” Admiral Chen snarled. “Spirits, damn it!” he snarled.

“Let’s not tempt infernal retribution any more than we need,” Admiral Preece said dryly.

“I honestly think it is a good idea. We’ve already pulled all of the nodes from the monitor and other material in the boneyard,” Elvira stated slowly with a look to Admiral Preece. He nodded. “We’re at the point where we have too few options and manufacturing replacements is clearly out. So, we may need to give it a shot. If we keep the node clusters together, we would hopefully have an easier time tuning them. But it would only get us so far. A few extra nodes, maybe parts to rebuild two of the existing nodes to get them operational again.”

“But …,” Aden frowned. “What about the crews?”

“We pull them and distribute them to the other ships that have holes in their ship companies until we can find replacement parts of course,” Latisha said. “This would actually help us a bit,” she said with a look to Catherine.

Catherine cocked her head thoughtfully. Most of the ship companies were at 70 percent strength. The capital ships drew the most manpower. Since they were more or less anchored in place, there was no real call to have them fully manned at all times.

“I suggest we also shut down all construction programs. Finish anything we have left of course but then focus the yards on repairs and getting the ship online. We can’t hide here forever,” Admiral Preece offered.

Catherine looked to the chief engineer in surprise. He shrugged and flapped his hand.

“It’s not like the ships we can produce now can stand a snowball’s chance in Hades against the Fed ships at the moment anyway,” Admiral Preece said sourly.

Catherine’s gaze shifted to the head of operations. Aden had recently been pushing to swap out the old hulls for new. She had thought he was right; the old hulls were just that, old. No matter how many times they had been rebuilt they’d never stand up to a modern warship and definitely not to the Fed ships.

Besides, she had recently passed a resolution, backed by the assembly of pirate lords, to not fight stand-up battles with the Feds anymore. The pirate adage of “fight to runaway” was in full force.

“Very well. Stop production of new hulls but finish those you can. Mothball the rest. You can work on individual ships as resources dictate. Focus everything on Atlas.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Admiral Preece said with a note of relief in his voice.

“As to the proposal, pick one super dreadnought with good nodes. One that we can use easily. Pull her nodes for the ship and then pull components for the other ships. Transfer the crew where you see fit,” the empress said with a nod to the head of BuPers. Latisha nodded back.

“The officers won’t like it,” Aden observed.

“We’ll find a posting for them,” Latisha stated.

“They aren’t paid to like it. They are paid to do their duty and serve,” Catherine said firmly. That ended the growing dissent. “Get it done. If it works, we’ll look into an additional ship.”

“Shouldn’t we go with ships with the lowest efficiency levels? That way we’re not sacrificing our best?” Aden asked hopefully.

Catherine recognized the ploy and she empathized with it. She even agreed, but she knew there had to be a reason for wanting the best hardware. She turned to Elvira.

“It doesn’t do us any good if the hardware is subpar,” Elvira pointed out. “For this to work, we need good hardware—solid, dependable, and reliable.”

Catherine nodded. “Figure it out and have the final proposal on my desk in two days.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Moving on,” Catherine said. She looked to Captain Su. “I talking with Latisha and we are frocking you to Commodore, Sherman.”

The captain sat up straight.

“If you continue to do well, we will make the promotion permanent,” the empress stated.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll try my best.”

“Good. We will hold the ceremony in a few days. I’ll let the staff handle the details. Now … next on the agenda …”