Chapter Seventeen
Spin One
Bowden returned to his staffroom shortly after meeting with the Trzgarth Family.
“What happened?” Fiezel asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I tried to meet with the Trzgarth Family.”
“You did that . . . alone?” Hrensku asked. “You are a braver man than I.”
“I take it that things didn’t go so well?” Fiezel asked.
“The Trzgarth scion shot at me as I walked away,” Bowden said, “if that’s any indication.”
“You’re lucky to still be living,” Hrensku said. “T’Barth is an excellent shot. If he meant for you to be dead, you would be.”
“Well, here’s to small favors, then,” Bowden replied. “However, the Trzgarth Family is officially ‘out’ of the attack force.”
“What do you mean by ‘out’?” Raptis asked.
“I mean that I told them if they aren’t going to play by our rules, they’re not going to play at all. I told them to stop building corvettes, because I wouldn’t let them in our fleet.”
“What happened to not forcing the horses to drink?” Hrensku asked.
“I didn’t get a chance to show him how good the water tasted. He was antagonistic from the start, didn’t care what I said, and told me there was no way we were ever going to get their technology.” Bowden shrugged. “We’ll use what the Otlethes have. From what I hear, it’s nearly as good.”
“That’s what I always wanted to take into battle,” Fiezel said. “Something that’s ‘almost as good.’” He sighed. “We shot down a lot of fighters in Vietnam that were almost as good as ours. They never had a chance.”
“True, but even the second-best that the SpinDogs and RockHounds have is probably better than the Kulsians’.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the Hound-Dogs have successfully hidden every time the Kulsians have come. They’ve made themselves invisible. That implies a higher level of technical sophistication when it comes to sensors in general.” Bowden sighed. “Would I like to have the best? Sure. And there’s still a chance we will.”
Fiezel laughed. “I thought there was ‘no way we are ever going to get their technology.’”
Bowden winked. “While there’s life, there’s hope.” He looked up at a knock on the door to find Major Pyotr Makarov staring at him.
“Murphy wants to see you, now,” Makarov said.
“What’d I do this time?”
“One of the Families is really pissed at you.”
“That would be the Trzgarths.”
“It’s not a surprise, then?”
Bowden chuckled. “Let’s just call it a lucky guess.”
* * *
Murphy frowned when Bowden made it to the door of his office and waved him in. Not knowing whether he was in trouble or not, Bowden approached the desk, saluted, and said, “Major Kevin Bowden, reporting as ordered, sir!”
The frown deepened as Murphy returned the salute, then he grunted and motioned to the chair. “You’ve had a busy morning, I hear. The head of the Trzgarth Family would like to have you tossed out of an airlock. He was too pissed off to tell me why, though—beyond telling me that I needed to rein you in.” Murphy stared at Bowden. “Care to tell me why I need to rein you in?”
“The scion of the Family—T’Barth—didn’t take kindly to being told that I wouldn’t have his ships in the fleet.”
“I see. And you did that . . . why?”
“Because T’Barth told me in no uncertain terms that they would never give us their optical tracking technology for the corvette template.”
Murphy rubbed his chin. “The rumor is they have the best optical trackers.”
“That’s not a rumor; that’s a fact.”
“I would think you’d want them.”
“I do. Very much.”
“So what are you doing to get them?”
“Not a damned thing.”
Murphy didn’t say anything; his lifting an eyebrow was eloquent enough.
“Seriously,” Bowden continued. “First off, he wouldn’t talk; all he did was yell at me. And if the Family won’t talk, I can’t show them how it benefits them to participate in the project. I also won’t use nonstandard ships in the fleet; I can’t. I’ve already gotten a number of Families to agree to pony up their best gear. If I let the Trzgarth Family get away without providing their best equipment, everyone else is going to withdraw theirs. That, we can’t have. And finally, I have too much going on already to waste my time trying to appease a spoiled Family.” Bowden held up a hand when Murphy started to talk. “And, at the end of the day, I don’t have to. If they’re not going to conform, I’m not going to let them play. Eventually, one of two things will happen. Either their honor will demand that they be part of this, or the leading Families will squeeze them enough that they’ll change their minds.”
“They’re making a big deal about you keeping them out. There have been threats . . . mainly directed at you.”
Bowden smiled. “I won’t go anywhere by myself, then, and I’ll stay out of dark corridors.”
“This isn’t a joke. The Families play for keeps, and they aren’t above assassinating someone if they think they can get away with it.” Murphy clenched his hands sharply, almost as abrupt as a spasm. “I speak from experience.”
Kevin nodded. “They’ve tried to kill me a few times, now, too, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll try to keep myself safe, but I can’t let them get away with this. They’re either all in, or they’re out.”
Murphy looked down at a paper on his desk. “They apparently have one of the biggest autofabber capabilities among the SpinDogs. Losing that will cost you a number of ships.”
“I’d rather be without them than have someone that won’t follow orders. If I let them get away with this, they’ll never do what they’re ordered to in a fleet battle. Never.”
“What do you need from me?”
“At the moment, nothing.” Bowden tilted his head. “How many Families are there in the SpinDogs?”
“That’s a good question.”
“I hope you have a good answer, sir. It would make my life a lot easier if I knew how many people I had to coordinate with. Maybe a point of contact with each. Some idea of which ones—like the Trzgarth—hate our guts, so I know to tread lightly around them or find someone else to talk to them for me.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t. If you needed an exact answer, I would say about thirty. With the way ties shift among the different Families, I could give you an answer today, and tomorrow it would no longer be correct. And that’s just the ones who’re big enough to have a seat at the table . . . assuming you were ever able to get all of them to sit at a table together. There are also lesser Families under their umbrellas that accept the main family’s primus as their own. And not all the big Primae even recognize those smaller clans as true Families.”
“But if I got through to their primus or the primus’s representative, they would direct the lesser Families on how to use their autofabbers, if they had them.”
“Probably.” Murphy chuckled wryly. “I keep forgetting you haven’t spent much time here. The Families—like most of the things here—are fluid. Just because something exists today doesn’t mean it will tomorrow—relationships first and foremost among them.”
Bowden nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s kind of what I got from the SpinDog on my team. About the only thing they can agree on is their hatred of Terrans.”
“Some of them are okay with us.” Murphy shrugged. “Assuming you don’t get us all killed by the Kulsians, anyway.”
“I’m trying my hardest, sir, despite how much they’re fighting me on it.”
“Well, go get on with it, then. Time’s running out. I’ll have Makarov get you the latest list of Families, and I will send someone else to join your team.”
“Who’s that? What’s his specialty?”
“Keeping you alive. You can assign him whatever tasks are prudent, but his main job will be ensuring you don’t get killed.”
“That may be the hardest job of all,” Bowden said with a sour chuckle.
All the humor went out of Murphy’s eyes. “Yes. It may well be.”
* * *
The next few days went by like a whirlwind as Bowden tried to track down and get agreement from all the Families and the local RockHounds. Where he could, he sent Hrensku and Raptis to talk to them, so as not to have to overcome the innate distrust of having a Terran make the offer. In some cases, it worked, in other cases, the SpinDogs’ and RockHounds’ innate distrust of each other was such that even having a local make the presentation wasn’t enough. Then it was up to Bowden—and his new tag-along, Szymon Kaminski—to convince the Family to join the effort.
Kaminski was a Polish submariner who had spent all his time in the engine room and looked like Popeye after a can of spinach. Ironically, most of Bowden’s conversations with him were in the SpinDogs’ language—courtesy of the Dornaani language programs—as he didn’t speak English well. Bowden didn’t need him to talk during his presentations, though. All he needed him for—and what the brawny machinist’s mate did best—was to stand behind Bowden and glower.
With Kaminski in tow, Bowden didn’t have any more issues like he’d had with the Trzgarth Family. Not everyone was cheery and gracious—far from it—but most of the people he met with weren’t outright abusive. By that point, the word was getting around from Teseler and the Usrensekt scion about what was going on, helped along by Hrensku.
By the end of the second week, he had the agreement of all the SpinDog and RockHound Families he cared about . . . except the Trzgarth Family and two of their allies.
“What do you think, Boss?” Fiezel asked at their end-of-the-day meeting.
“I think I misjudged how much a person could hate someone they don’t even know,” Bowden said. “With everyone else falling into line, I really thought that the Trzgarths would bite the bullet and join us.”
Raptis’s brows beetled. “Why would you bite—?”
“It’s one of his sayings,” Hrensku said. He’d flown with Bowden long enough to have heard most of the incomprehensible Terran sayings. “It means to do something you don’t like.”
“But biting a bullet isn’t that bad. There are many other things that I’d want to bite down on far less than a piece of metal.”
“Don’t blame me.” Hrensku held up his hands. “I didn’t make it up.”
“Are you done?” Bowden asked.
Hrensku looked at Raptis, who shrugged. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good.”
“So, what are we going to do about the Trzgarth?” Fiezel asked.
“I’m going to sleep on it tonight and talk to Murphy tomorrow. Maybe he knows someone who can lean on them. Otherwise, we lock down the template and start building the ships in earnest. We don’t have time to screw around with assholes who don’t play well with others. It’s time to start completing the corvettes, training the pilots, and getting ready for battle.”
* * *
“What did you find out?” Murphy asked the next morning.
“I found out that, sadly, I was right. We gave all the Families what we thought was our best template for them to fab us a fleet of corvettes that we could use to take on the Kulsians.”
“And . . . ?”
“And the results are better in some places and far, far worse in others.”
“Explain.”
“As we knew, some of the Families were holding out on us with their tech. Most of these were RockHounds who had tech that they used out in the black, but never brought to any of the habs, so no one knew it existed. Since it was the best they had, though, they’re using it on their personal corvettes—the ones they won’t bring within sight of a habitat, so we wouldn’t know they exist—to give them an edge over everyone else.”
Murphy nodded, and Bowden continued. “When I realized that, I had my folks concentrate on the ships that Family heads were building for themselves. We collected the new tech and have distributed it out to the other people fabbing corvettes for us.”
“Except for the Trzgarth.”
“Yes, sir. Except for them. They remain holdouts.”
“Even without them, I can’t imagine that was easy.”
Bowden chuckled ruefully. “It wasn’t. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Malanye Raptis had to keep one person from knifing me when my back was turned; I’m glad I took her along as my liaison. The SpinDogs may not like me, but the RockHounds have a new level of hatred for me.” He shrugged. “Still, that was accomplished to the best of our abilities, and we raised the baseline tech level of the fleet quite a bit. We started out believing we’d gathered the very best systems for the hulls, but now, we’re damn near certain of it. Aside from the Trzgarth, that is. The problem comes, not surprisingly, when you start looking at computer systems across the fleet and the energy storage issues we might have.”
“Let’s start with the computers. What’s wrong with them?”
“What’s wrong?” Bowden laughed. “What’s wrong is that they don’t exist here. The Families have never fabbed most of the ‘high-tech’ systems before”—he used air quotes—“and they don’t really understand them. At all. And when I say high tech, it’s only because what they had prior is laughable. There was a far better computer system in the Hornet I used to fly than currently exists in the best ship of their fleet. Hell, the A-6E Intruders in my airwing had better computers, and they were designed during the Vietnam War and operated at four hertz!”
Bowden shook his head. “The bottom line is that we’re trying to slave twenty-first-century tech to something that’s barely the same as what we had in the 1960s. And it just won’t work. The digital systems won’t talk to the analog systems, and most of the locals don’t want the digital stuff on their ships in the first place.
“The biggest issues we’re having are with the Arat Kur systems you got for guidance and tracking, as well as the targeting computers and their interfaces with precision painting lasers. If we could get all of this working on every ship and networked across the fleet, we’d have such an advantage over the Kulsians that we could meet them anywhere and kick their asses. Hell, we could take a fleet of just a few ships to Kulsis and kick their asses there.”
“But you can’t.”
“No, sir, we can’t.” Bowden shook his head. “Not even close.”
Murphy chewed on the inside of his cheek a second, then he looked up and smiled. “I see the twinkle in your eye. You have a solution.”
“I do. Not a perfect solution, but good enough for government work, as well as our purposes here. Which may or may not prove to be government work.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense . . . ”
“AWACS. Like what we had back home.”
“An airborne warning and control system.” Murphy nodded. “I take it you mean for targeting purposes?”
“Yeah, but it would be a bit of a lash-up between multiple platforms. The important thing is that it can send sensor data to command hulls that can distribute that information to all the others.” Bowden rubbed his chin. “If we could work out fire coordination on a few platforms, we could manage the battle across the entire fleet, especially for long-range targeting. That would allow us to mass our fire and ensure our weapons go where we want them to.” He shrugged. “We really need this, too, because not enough of them are getting the hang of those weapon systems. It’s a digital world, and yet, they’re all still thinking analog.”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “Hell, what am I saying? Most of our guys are still thinking analog, especially the ones from before our time. The difference is that they want to get their hands on the new tech and experiment with it. The Hound-Dogs act like anything with a real computer is a plague-carrying tarantula.”
“What do you have in mind for your AWACS model? I imagine that this is going to affect how you do everything, won’t it? Both tactics and strategy?”
“It will, sir. We were building sets of squadrons—and we’re going to continue to do so—but now each squadron isn’t just a group of like-capability ships—it’s built around one or two ships with unique and crucial capabilities.”
“Something like the old carrier battle group?”
“Exactly. When we went on cruise, we had one asset with the decisive capability—the carrier. However, just like the carrier battle group, there’s no redundancy in that capability, which means a big portion of the other assets’ time is spent defending it.”
Murphy frowned. “So we need more than one AWACS asset per squadron. If they’re going to have the decisive capability we need, we can’t have them be single points of failure; we need at least two fully C4I-capable platforms per maneuver element.”
“We don’t have enough to do that. And it’s ‘squadron,’ sir.”
“Whatever you say, Admiral.”
Bowden raised an eyebrow. “Admiral?”
Murphy stared off theatrically, as if trying to recall a distant memory. “What did you navy pukes call the person in charge of a fleet? I know the CO of a ship is ‘Captain,’ regardless of rank . . . but what’s the title of the person above him?”
Bowden sighed and looked down. “Admiral,” he muttered.
Murphy smiled. “The bottom line is that I like your plan, Admiral, and I think it will work. We’re no longer on defense; we’re on the attack, and we need to think and act that way. Having only two fully capable ships per maneuver el—per squadron—will be hard enough. But if we’ve got only one per combat group, any plan you make will either be way too constrained because you’re protecting that asset or doomed to failure because that asset is way too vulnerable. There’s no happy medium. If you have two platforms, though—”
“—then I have some flexibility.” Kevin nodded. “Risk is more scalable and less absolute.” He pursed his lips and gazed intently at Murphy. “It all comes down to one thing, though.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“Whether we can get those ships built in time. Because I’ve been to the fabbers and the Families. They tell me that they’re building as fast as they can, and integrating the new technology is going to take even longer than the ships they’re building now. It’s going to be close, and having the Trzgarth involved—along with their fabbing capabilities—may make the difference.”
Murphy’s jaw clenched. “I guess it’s time for me to step in and see what I can do.”
“I’d appreciate it, sir. There’s only so much I can do from the grass-roots level. I really thought they’d cave by now, but—”
“Spite is a powerful thing.”
“Yes, sir. It is. And I need those ships or I’m going to get my ass kicked.”
“We can’t have that, because their next stop would be here at the spins.”
Bowden nodded.
“What did you say was the other issue?”
“Power storage, sir. You have to remember that the Hound-Dogs have never considered attacking the Kulsians. Not only does this mean they’re not mentally prepared to be the aggressors—and we’ll have to teach this out of them—but this generation of ships has some serious issues in power generation and storage.”
“Let’s face it,” Bowden said with a smile. “Attacking someone, especially with lasers, uses a lot of power, and the capacitors, cables, and power buses they have aren’t sufficiently robust enough to generate and distribute the power required to blow through the armor we can expect to face.”
Bowden winced. “Right now, we can tickle them with our lasers, but if we want to actually drill holes through their sides, we either need to fix this or get the Kulsians to remain in place long enough for our underpowered equipment to burn through. Even rolling the ship would be enough, probably. We’d just make a scorch mark around their ships. They’d probably never even know they were hit.”
Murphy nodded. “And the solution is . . . ?”
“Generating additional power is out for now. The corvette we captured had a small auxiliary fusion plant that appeared to be the backup in case its primary nuclear reactor was damaged or broken. I’d love to fab a whole pile of these, but it’s a bridge too far. We don’t have time to get them up and running, and trying to implement them across the fleet”—Bowden shuddered—“I’m afraid we’d go into battle and half our ships would either go dark or spontaneously turn into small, brief stars.”
“Don’t tell me what we can’t do. Tell me what we can.”
Bowden nodded. “I wanted to use lasers for point defense, with a secondary use as an anti-ship weapon, but we’re going to have to swap them out for railguns. We can still use the lasers for very close-in work, but that’s about it.”
“Goods? Bads?”
“Well, our power systems are better able to handle the strain of a railgun, mostly, but our accuracy goes to shit. With a decent targeting system, which we have, a laser really can’t miss. We just can’t put out enough power with the available collimators to damage a warship at any sort of range. The railguns can damage them, but we have to be closer to get the hit rate we want. We can still fire from longer distances than the Kulsians, but a maneuvering target will be a lot harder to hit.”
Bowden sighed. “If we beat back this bunch of Harvesters, the next won’t stand a chance against the Hound-Dogs’ fully matured fusion plants and upgraded weapons systems come the next Searing. Hell, we could probably go after the Kulsians in their own system in a half dozen years.”
“Let’s concentrate on this year, though, shall we?”
“Yes, sir,” Bowden said. “I am.” He grimaced. “Which is why we’re yanking out the big keel-following lasers we were hoping to use as ship killers and replace them with a railgun. We’ll swap it on the template so that the new ships being fabbed have them, and we’ll upgrade the others as we can.”
“And for point defense?”
“I’d like to use smaller lasers for that; when it comes to hitting fast targets, nothing beats the speed of light. But we still haven’t settled on a design that is small enough and packs enough of a punch.”
Murphy nodded. “It seems like you either have a working solution for each of your weapons or are drilling down toward one. I’ll see what I can do for assisting with the Trzgarth.”
“Thanks, sir. I’d appreciate it.”
“Don’t thank me yet. From what I’ve heard, this may not be possible, but I’ll do what I can.”