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Chapter Twenty-Seven


Spin One


“Welcome back from parts unknown, sir,” Bowden said from the hatchway. “You wanted to see me?”

“I did. And more accurately, my travel was to parts undisclosed.” Murphy waved him in and to a chair.

Bowden sat and looked at his boss expectantly.

After a moment, Murphy looked up from something on his desk. “It’s done, I think. It looks like the Trzgarth Family—along with their allied Families—is going to throw in with us.”

“That’s great news, sir!”

“Well, it will be, assuming we can conclude it.”

“What still needs to be done?”

“They would like you to go and brief them on all the technology that they’re going to get for agreeing to what they called ‘this stupid plan.’”

“Go, sir? Where am I supposed to go?”

“To their autofabber. The primus and his scion will meet you there. They want a brief on the tech and how the plan is going to work out. Assuming what you tell them is the same thing that the intermediaries did, they say that they will join us.”

“Wouldn’t they like to come to the conference room? I really don’t want to go there again. Not without an army behind me.”

“You’re allowed one other person. Kaminski can go with you, but no one else.”

“Does this seem like a setup to you, sir? Because it sure does feel like one to me.”

Murphy shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I’d feel a lot better if you said you knew it wasn’t, not just that you thought it wasn’t.”

“The primus has pledged your safety upon his personal honor, witnessed in front of a number of intermediaries who were in attendance.”

“Were they from Anseker?”

“Oh, no,” Murphy said with a chuckle. “Family Otlethes would never allow itself to be perceived as requiring cooperation or assurances from Family Trzgarth. Nor could Anseker ask someone to do it directly in his name.”

“Well, how did it get done?”

Murphy shrugged. “Speaking as the primus among several of his lesser allies, Anseker ‘just happened’ to mention how much he wished the Trzgarth would join the tech-sharing effort. That ally mentioned it to someone who was nominally neutral toward both families, who in turn mentioned it to an ally of the Trzgarths.

“That ally related Anseker’s statement to the primus of the Trzgarth Family, who mused that he could foresee an exchange that would actually make joining the effort acceptable to him. Word of that response went back through the same chain and Anseker approved the deal, which resulted in a gain for the Trzgarths.”

Bowden scratched his head. “If it resulted in a gain, why didn’t they take the deal right away?”

“Because they were holding out for better terms, which, under other circumstance, they might have gotten.” Murphy shrugged. “But at the end of the day, Anseker never had to lower himself to dealing with them directly, the Trzgarths got what they wanted, and now they are genuinely interested in joining us.” Murphy stopped, but didn’t end on a tone of summation.

Bowden sighed. “Okay, what’s the catch?”

“The Trzgarth Family can’t come to us to join and coordinate. That would signify they are lower in stature, almost supplicants. So we have to go there and beg them to join us to keep their honor intact.”

Beg them?” Bowden made a sour face.

“Strongly implore them to join?”

“That’s not much better.” Bowden sighed. “Still, if that’s what it takes to get them to join, I can do it.”

“I’d hoped so, because they have four corvettes waiting to join your fleet. Well, after they’re specced up to the new template and change whatever else needs to be swapped out.”

“Okay, you got me. I’ll do it. I needed to go out on an inspection run today anyway.”

“Inspection run?”

Bowden nodded. “One of the midsize Families is cheating. Burg went onboard one of their Family corvettes, and it had better technology than what they ponied up for the template.” He shook his head. “These people. Always looking to get an advantage over each other, even if it means the death of everyone.”

“It’s a snake pit, to be sure. Just be glad you don’t have to deal with it every day like I do.”

“No kidding.” Bowden shrugged. “Okay, so I know we were running behind in production. Where does the addition of the Trzgarth ships put us?”

“At the moment, I have promises for a total of twenty-nine corvettes by the date you’ve told me you need them to start moving into position, upgraded to the latest template, of which seven will have the full C4I suites. Plus crews to fly them.”

Bowden winked. “My Aegis cruisers.”

Murphy nodded.

“Let me see,” Bowden said, doing the math in his head. “That makes . . . three groups of two Aegis and six regular corvettes.”

“That’s only twenty-four; I said you’ll have twenty-nine.”

“You promised me twenty-nine, but what are the odds that I’ll really have that many?”

“Pretty good, I think. I used an awful lot of competition between the Families to get those promises, and the heads that don’t live up to them are going to lose a lot of face if some of the others do.”

“That worries me.”

“Why?”

“I need these ships to work. I don’t want them slapped together at the last minute just so some Hound-Dog can say he or she met their quota.”

“Then I guess the smart Admiral would make sure he—or someone from his staff—stays very hands-on in the final portions of their assembly to make sure everything is put together correctly.”

“Because we have that kind of time,” Bowden said, then he shrugged. “Still, it beats getting a crappy product, so we’ll keep ourselves involved in the process, so they don’t give us shit.”

“What are you going to do with the extra five ships?”

“The plan calls for a rear guard that I can use as a reserve force in case something unexpected happens. The five remaining ships—four normal corvettes led by an Aegis—are my reserve. And, if I have to fill slots when I don’t get all twenty-nine that I’ve been promised, I’ll draw from there first.”

“So you’re all set?”

Bowden laughed. “Not hardly. That’s a great start, though. What about the small craft I asked for at the start of this whole messy process?”

Murphy leaned his head into a hand that almost started trembling with fatigue before he began rubbing his temples. “Small ships? That may have slipped through the cracks. Refresh me.”

“I need a small squadron of little, really fast boats—call them packets—that, once the attention of the bigger Kulsian hulls are fixed on us, can get in and knife them in the throat. Launch a flurry of missiles and get back out again.” He smiled hopefully.

Murphy did not look up. “So, the equivalent of World War Two PT boats.”

“Exactly. I was thinking we might be able to modify some of the RockHounds’ existing craft to hold a missile rack or two?”

Murphy looked up. His face looked gray. “Anything else?”

Bowden smiled. “Well since you’re asking . . . ”

“That was facetious.”

“Oh.”

“Look,” Murphy said, “I’m glad you’re focused on this battle. It’s brought out a spirit I haven’t seen from you in . . . well, that I’ve never seen from you. There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“So far, you’ve only been looking at the battle; you haven’t been looking at what else will be going on during, and after it.”

“I figured it would either be a matter of picking up all the pieces we could and regenerating combat forces, or we’ll all be dead and not have to worry about it. I was kind of hoping for the first.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that. As part of this attack, in addition to your corvettes, all of which need trained personnel, you are also now asking for fast support craft—with missiles. You will also need recovery crews standing by to ‘pick up the pieces’ as you noted. I’m sure you’ve also thought about chaser craft to make sure none of the Kulsians make it out of the ecliptic to send back a report to Kulsis. You’ll also need people to work as trainers.”

“That’s—”

Murphy held up a hand. “I’m not done. That’s what you need. I also need some landers.”

Bowden swallowed. “To deal with the Kulsians still on R’Bak.” He nodded, remembering the initial planning sessions with Murphy. “Mostly surveyors and mostly in the northern hemisphere. But I thought they’d be dealt with after the Harvester fleet was defeated.”

Murphy shook his head. “The more Bo and Cutter have looked at the ground situation, the more we realize it’s imperative to hit them right after the spaceside battle is joined. Concurrently would be best.”

“Sir, not to be impertinent, but . . . what’s the rush?”

“The rush is to hit our enemies before they can react or consolidate in response to what’s going on in space. Specifically, that means being in full readiness to launch counterstrikes against any planetfalls the Harvesters make into or near our allies’ towns and cities. We also have to be prepared to exploit any openings in the southern hemisphere: to hit whatever units the Kulsians already have in place, or may try to land, there.

“All those missions require landers and air support elements, fully manned and ready to go within minutes, or at least hours, after you engage the Kulsians.” Murphy shook his head ruefully. “And, if any of our personnel are double-tasked for both combat and combat support, we’ll need to have replacement rosters for when we take combat casualties.”

Kevin nodded somberly. “You need to know who’ll jump into the saddles before any of them are emptied.” He drew a deep breath. “That’s . . . that’s a lot of shit, sir. I also just realized I’ll need a combat support staff on one of the spins—probably Outpost—during the battle.” He sighed. “More people.”

“See?” Murphy said. “It’s a lot of requirements, and I need your help figuring it out.”

Bowden nodded. “We’re undermanned, compared with what Kulsis is sending now and what they could possibly send in the future.”

“We are. They have a whole planet to draw from. We just have the spins. Given a few more years, we could train up a lot of people from R’Bak, maybe match them body for body. But for now, we don’t have anywhere near the sheer number of people they can throw at any problem that arises.”

“Every one of our lives is worth several of theirs,” Bowden noted. “Every life is important and can’t be thrown away on a whim.”

Murphy chuckled. “I don’t imagine you would do that anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Bowden shook his head. “Still, we have to do what we can to minimize losses. Hmmm . . . ”

“What are you thinking?”

“We may need to readjust our battle plan slightly.”

“How so?”

“Well, as cool as it may be to go charging into battle, launching wave after wave of missiles, we may need to tweak our loadouts.”

Rather than repeat himself, Murphy raised an eyebrow.

“Our corvettes need railguns to supplement our missiles, sir.”

“Wait: now you want to go back to the original Kulsian design? A keel-mounted railgun?”

Bowden nodded slowly, thinking it through. “Yes, sir. Putting a laser in its place has been our goal, but it pulls way more energy. And it still won’t be as good a ship killer. Not by a long shot.”

“So you’re saying you want to change the corvette template again? Do you know what I went through to get the Families to agree to what you asked for last time? We’re already going have to add the Trzgarth optical trackers, and you want more?”

Bowden chuckled. “I deal with the Families every day—I just had to deal with the son of the RockHound Legate as a matter of fact—so I have a very good idea what you went through. As far as, do I want to? Hell, no, sir: I don’t want to keep wrestling with them, but it’s not like we have a choice.

“Besides, we need more point defense fire in our fleet, make them as close to invulnerable to enemy missiles as possible. That way, our corvettes can stay at a medium or long range while our improved missiles pound their ships into junk. That’s why we’re still looking for a better laser for our point defense.”

“You’re still trying to come up with a suitable laser?”

“Not so much ‘come up with’ as modify one that already exists. It’s the same problem we faced when we were thinking of a laser for the main weapon: we didn’t have the time or resources to build one from scratch.”

Murphy nodded. “So, you’ve been trying to find something that’s already on the shelf.”

“Right, and we haven’t yet. But we’re getting close. Since the laser’s purpose isn’t to kill ships but intercept missiles, we’ve narrowed it down to two candidates. If we can convert one of them into a high-pulse laser that puts a beam on target for 0.1 seconds with a hundred megawatt per second energy deposition rating, the mission kill percentage would be almost as great as the original point defense railguns. And the intercept percentage increases exponentially.”

“Who exactly is bird-dogging that conversion?”

“Well, it’s way outside my skill set, but Malanye Raptis was always interested in using a modified mining laser in place of the main railgun, so I had her do some research into it.”

Murphy chuckled. “Okay, that’s more believable. But why has she been the persistent advocate for lasers?”

“It’s all about the RockHound proclivity to hide,” Bowden replied. “When you’re looking at counter-targeting risks, lasers aren’t visible unless you’re looking right down their barrel or their beams refract as they pass an atmosphere or gas cloud—which aren’t present in space. But if you use railguns for point defense—which was in the current template—you end up with streams of radar-detectable projectiles which the enemy can use for counterfire targeting.” Bowden chuckled. “And those free targeting solutions are not what we want to give the Kulsians, since their sensor and computing limits are their single greatest disadvantage.

“Besides, with lasers, we free up all the hull volume we’d have had to set aside for the railgun ammo. That gives us room for more capacitors, which in turn allows us to beef up the energy to the main-battery railgun. And that extra power would give it another combat role: a way to cold-launch missiles.”

Murphy shook his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“In the battle we’re anticipating, there will be a lot of material flying around at very high velocities and temperatures. But a dormant missile launched out a railgun at lower velocity? Those might get missed, or presumed to be mines or sensor drones. With a larger railgun we can not only deploy all those packages the Kulsians expect, but also some missiles moving more slowly toward projected areas of engagement.”

Murphy nodded. “Which, when they are very close, could be activated and guided remotely. No sensor signature until they home in for terminal intercept.”

“Sounds like you’re starting to get the hang of ship design, sir.”

“I am not, but you seem to have it well in hand.” He nodded. “Figure out what you need to finalize the corvette design. Just be aware that these modifications—or any others you might have in mind—are going to cause more complaints and more delays in production. You might not have all twenty-nine corvettes ready by your jump-off day. Or some might not be re-specced in time, leaving you with nonuniform hulls. Which you swore you would not tolerate.”

“I understand,” Bowden said. “But if you can get me the ships, I can live with a mix of capabilities. The only thing I’d be lacking then was a squadron or two of fast attack craft . . . ”

Murphy shook his head. “I’ll see what I can do”—he smiled—“you damned greedy squid.”

Bowden replied with mock umbrage. “That’s Admiral Squid. Sir.”

Murphy chortled. “That will hang on you like a starving tick, Kevin. All the more because it came from you.”

Bowden suppressed a groan, already regretting his one moment of ill-advised jocularity.

Mostly.


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