Under Siege, page 12
“Is it going to be safe leaving Argent unprotected?” Derek asked. “That seems risky.”
“You’re not wrong, but we won’t leave Argent undefended. Vesuvius won’t be going anywhere, so we can wait until Aries is online and you’ve assumed command of her. Unfortunately for you, you’ll be the one defending Argent, at least until another battleship comes online.”
Amanda watched her boyfriend—fiancé—grimace. That obviously wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and it spoke a lot about his character. He’d much rather be involved in the fight than commanding his own ship.
“I suppose that makes sense, but I sure wish that wasn’t the case,” Derek said. “Maybe we should be putting more effort into building some stealth warships that we can bring in. If we could deploy swarms of stealth fighters, it would make a huge difference.”
“I don’t disagree, but even utilizing one of our small craft bays solely for fighter operations, that’s not a tremendous number to throw into the fight. Even if we got to building fighters as rapidly as possible, we still wouldn’t have trained pilots for them. We have to fight the battle with the tools we have, and the longer we delay, the more the people on Vesuvius suffer. It’s a balancing act to make sure that we have the tools we need to win while not waiting so long that people are dying unnecessarily.”
That really didn’t make Amanda feel that good. She wanted to go in and start shooting things. Maybe she didn’t have the patience for a command slot. As a tactical officer, a lot of her problems looked like nails, so she was the hammer.
Or the Goddess of Death, as she’d found out some people had been calling her. That had both been amusing and embarrassing.
Unfortunately, their options were limited. It didn’t matter how much they wanted to smash the enemy if they couldn’t make it happen. Combat officers had to be realists. There was only so much one could do if the enemy was prepared, and what they needed now was more information.
With the six cruisers planting sensor buoys around the system while they were doing the same, the process of getting good coverage was going well, though it would take time for the data to get back to them. Sadly, they would have to make regular trips around the system to collect the data in person.
That made her pause. Why couldn’t they build some kind of controller buoy that was capable of sending far more data longer distances? The limiting factor was the fact that they were using low-power lasers for communication. What if they built units that were made to collect data and forward it to the other controllers using high-powered lasers?
Once again, the beams would be invisible, so one would have to be directly between two of them to detect that communication was taking place. The risks of discovery—particularly this far out—were minimal.
That was something to talk over with the professor. He could make some modifications to what they were building and perhaps give them a better means of collecting and collating a significantly larger amount of data and keep them from having to jump around the system to get it. They’d be limited to getting updates at light speed, but that was better than nothing.
“I’ve got an idea that might make gathering the data we need a bit easier, sir,” she said. Then she explained about the modified buoys she’d just come up with.
The admiral nodded. “That’s an excellent idea. Why don’t you go down and discuss it with the professor right now? While you’re there, get an update on when he thinks our new sensor array will be online. If there are kingdom warships here, I’d like to know about them sooner rather than later.”
She stood and inclined her head. “I’ll see if I can get that sorted out for us, sir.”
And with that, she left the bridge and headed toward engineering. When she arrived, she made her way to where the computers were set up and found the professor working at one of the consoles.
“Do you have any good news for me?” she asked as she stepped up next to him.
He smiled up at her. “Actually, I do. I think I’ve got the flaw in the programming worked out, and I’ve been running some tests. The system now seems to be able to appropriately pass control of monitoring specific stars to the computers tasked with monitoring them without issue. I’ve instructed the system to begin normal operations, and it’s building up a baseline right now that we can use for comparison to any future events. That’s probably going to take a while, and I didn’t want to pass that on until I was sure I’d worked out all the problems.”
She grinned. “That is excellent news. I’ll wait until you’re sure it’s working before I pass that along to the admiral. I also came down to ask about creating a different type of sensor buoy.” She then proceeded to tell him what she had in mind.
“That’s a sensible idea,” he said when she’d finished. “I believe we have the necessary materials and components to make that happen, though I’ll need to run everything past the engineer from Ringwald Engineering. Now that she doesn’t have to be aboard Lisa’s ship, she can help me get everything set up the way we want, and we might even be able to produce a few dozen of them within a day or two. I don’t want to delay your combat operations, but I can’t get it done any sooner than that.”
“That would be good enough, I suspect. The situation here doesn’t lend itself to a smashing attack. This will be a real battle, and we won’t jump into it until we believe we have what it takes to win. The Novarites are hidden behind their battlements, so to speak. We have to go to them, and that means we need to be prepared. These control buoys will certainly help.”
“How many sensor buoys are we looking at gathering data from?”
“The outer layer will have hundreds of individual buoys watching from way out in space,” she said as she leaned against the console. “I’m not sure what Lisa’s doing deeper in the system, but we’ll want to deploy some of them there as well. Getting them built and placed probably won’t be a quick process, but this gives us critical experience for when we go after the Poseidon Group inside the Confederation proper.”
He nodded. “Indeed it will. I’d estimate it will take us at least a day to finalize the construction plans for this enhanced sensor buoy. Once we have that, we can start construction, and that will take several more, considering the numbers we’re talking about. It may even take longer than that if we run into problems. I don’t know that we have enough parts or raw materials to construct the various things we’ll need since we’re talking about building a large number. It might be advisable to retreat to one of the smaller occupied systems we liberated and gather raw materials and parts for this process.”
The console chimed before she could respond, and the professor leaned over and examined the data. “This is good. It seems the system is operating as intended, and we’re getting data from different potential ships inside the system. The vast majority will be asteroids, and the system will be able to screen them out. Once we’ve identified something as an asteroid or some such, we’ll keep track of it but won’t have to worry about them for now.”
“Exactly how do you rule out asteroids? And how do you know they’re not ships?”
“The speed and orbit will tell the tale. The vast majority of asteroids will be near the belts and can be ruled out in short order. That isn’t to say that a ship might not be there, but there’s no way to flag it until it changes course or speed.”
She frowned. “There are asteroids elsewhere in the system. What about them?”
“Once again, we’ll begin monitoring their courses, and if they change speed or direction, that will raise a red flag. There are also vessels operating in the system, and we have to note which ones we’re already aware of. It’s going to be a process, but I’ll coordinate with the operations staff to work out any kinks in the system. Or rather, I’ll let them experiment with it while I consult with the engineer I’ll be working with to get these new sensor buoys built. Those will also have to be marked so we don’t inadvertently have issues with the sensor buoys we are, in fact, planting. Or the probes that Lisa has undoubtedly launched.”
“This is a lot more complicated than I’d originally expected. How in the world did you pick up Lisa’s cutter when you were aboard Scorpius? How did you even have a chance of noticing it amongst all these other false positives?”
“We cheated.”
She stared at him for a moment and then laughed. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did you cheat?”
“I instructed the computer to look for a vessel that was within ten thousand kilometers and ignored any hits from elsewhere in the system. It was a test to see what the capabilities were for a close approach, after all.”
Amanda shook her head. “I hope you were clear about that when you made your report. You made it seem like you could snap your fingers, and all the answers would be presented to you. If the grand admiral thinks it works that quickly, he’s going to be pissed when he figures it out.”
“We were clear,” the professor said with a smile. “I would never present something to the Navy with that type of obfuscation.”
“Okay, but I’m not sure that our admiral caught the nuances of that. I’ll read him in. Keep me informed about your progress with the sensor buoys, and have the operations people get in contact with me once they have control over the system. It might not present us with the data we need right away, but I want to have an idea of how difficult this will be, and that means having regular consultations with them to go over what we’re looking at.”
“Of course. I’ll instruct them on how to use the system, and once they have it in their hot little hands, I’ll have them contact you. I’d expect it will take a few days to clear out many of the false positives, but the proof will be in the pudding. It may very well be that something reveals itself far quicker than we might otherwise expect.”
She nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate all your hard work.”
“We all do our part to achieve victory,” the professor said airily. “Have you run into Christine yet?”
“No. Should I have?”
“I believe she wants to interview you and Derek. Something about getting your personal stories as the most rapidly advancing Navy officers in the history of the Confederation. Obviously, that’s for the documentary.”
Amanda closed her eyes and sighed. “I suppose that was inevitable. Maybe if I keep busy, she won’t be able to find me.”
“Keep dreaming, my dear. Keep dreaming.”
With that, she headed back toward the bridge. The idea of being interviewed for a documentary that would be seen by literally everyone inside the Confederation at some point made butterflies storm around inside her stomach. Why couldn’t somebody just be shooting at her? That was far less stressful.
Oh, well. She’d fight that battle when she came to it. Meanwhile, she needed to herd the rest of the cats under her care so she could have some decent information for the admiral. He wouldn’t be pleased at the delay, but sometimes that was outside one’s control. This certainly seemed to fit the bill for that.
Maybe a few days of gathering data would actually be useful. After all, if Lisa could slip deeper into the system and get the information they needed about what the Novarites were up to, it would shape their planning. They would also learn what kind of patrolling patterns the aliens were using, and that would give them an edge when it came time to fight.
12
Lisa stepped into the main conference room aboard Hunter and nodded at the senior officers gathered there. “I hope everybody hasn’t been waiting on me.”
Admiral Romanoff smiled. “Since you’re the one sending probes deeper into the system, we actually were waiting for you, but you’re only a few minutes late, so we’ll let it slide. Besides, you’re a civilian, so you live by a different set of standards than we do.”
“I do apologize,” she said, hearing the mild criticism in his tone. “I’ll try to do better next time. In my defense, I was getting the last of the data we gathered into a format that would make for an easier presentation.”
“I’m not trying to be too hard on you, Lisa. I’m really not. Why don’t you hand your data to Lieutenant Okubo, and he’ll get everything set up to display it when we get to you.”
Lisa handed the data chip to the young Navy officer who was sitting near the door at a console that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been in this conference room. The dark-skinned man smiled widely and nodded in a way that made her suspect that he was very friendly.
“Thank you,” she said before she headed to her seat.
“Now that everyone’s here, let’s get this ball rolling,” Romanoff said. “Admiral Toth?”
The former cruiser commander stood and gestured toward the screen as a map of the system appeared. “My squadron was able to place a full set of sensor buoys out beyond the jump limit along about three-quarters of the area we wanted to cover. My understanding is that Hunter handled the rest, so my congratulations to your staff for being very industrious, Admiral. As you can see, we positioned everything far outside the range of detection, but we’ll be able to see what’s going on inside the entirety of the system, though our resolution won’t be that great. The odds of detection are extremely low because even though we knew where to look for the buoys, we couldn’t see them. I don’t believe the Novarites will have better luck.”
Lisa examined how the now blinking dots for all the sensor buoys encircled the entirety of the Vesuvius system. Three-quarters of them were green, and the remainder were purple. She supposed that meant the purple ones had been placed by Hunter. Based on how far out the buoys were, they’d be able to get some information, but it wasn’t going to be nearly as good as what her buoys and probes would provide. In addition, collecting that data would be a huge pain in the ass.
“Excellent,” Romanoff said. “Sara, what have your people been able to pull together for us?”
Admiral Nastasi stood. “What’s populating now is every enemy vessel we’ve been able to detect. We’ve made some guesses about which ones are large Novarite warships and which are small. There may be some colony vessels mixed in with that, and if so, they’ll show up as large warships because we don’t have the ability to separate one from the other at this range. Also, almost the entirety of Admiral Toth’s cruiser squadron is jumping around and collecting data for this, and that’s a huge waste of time. Thankfully, Professor Prescott has come up with a solution.”
She sat, and the elderly scientist stood. “Actually, credit goes to Amanda. She broached the idea of creating a different kind of sensor buoy to be in charge of collecting data and then sending it on with more powerful lasers so that we’d be able to collect everything we needed even though we’d be limited by the speed of light in getting that data.”
“That’s good news, and we can work around the light-speed delay,” Romanoff said. “How long will it take to get those into operation?”
“I ran everything past Jan Sinclair—the engineer we borrowed from Ringwald Engineering—and she’s working on some modifications to one of our assembly lines to begin producing these controller buoys. Thankfully, they should begin rolling out in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we don’t have nearly enough components to produce as many as we’d like. That’s going to require either retreating to an occupied world and getting more raw materials and components or getting what we need from asteroid mining. The former would be quicker.”
“I’m not a fan of abandoning our posts here, but you’re right that we need better equipment,” Romanoff said. “Joel, if you would be kind enough to send one of your cruisers back to some of the worlds we’ve liberated and see about acquiring enough raw materials and component parts for these buoys, that will definitely help our operations. In fact, if you’d like to send two and hit a number of different systems, I won’t argue with that.”
Toth nodded. “I’ll make that happen, sir. I think I agree with you that two ships would be better than one. It won’t speed things up, but if we run into more problems that need to be solved with construction on our end, it would definitely be better to have as much raw material as we can get. If they run into one of those freighters that have been constructing the quantum gate leg that leads here, we might co-opt them to bring a lot of raw material, even though loading it could take some time. It won’t help us to have links to the quantum gate network if we don’t liberate the system itself.”
“I agree. Dedicate a third ship to getting that into motion. Then that ship can accompany the freighter to make sure no one gives them any flack. This is the highest level priority, and I don’t care if it disrupts operations on that world. We need that raw material and whatever components they can get that are either applicable or might be useful. In fact, why don’t you take your ship on that particular duty? I believe seeing three stars will definitely get their attention.”
“I’ll make the magic happen, sir,” Toth said with a nod.
Romanoff turned his attention to Lisa. “What about the inner system? I know you’ve been planting a number of sensor buoys and almost certainly launching probes as well. Why don’t you fill us in about what’s been going on and what you discovered, if anything.”
She stood, feeling a bit self-conscious. She was an introvert, and being the center of attention was never something she sought out. Even so, she’d gotten better at it, so she calmed the butterflies in her stomach and launched into an explanation of what they’d done.
“If you’d go ahead and load the files for us, Lieutenant Okubo?”
She waited for the data to update and show the locations of the sensor buoys she’d placed and the flight paths and estimated locations of the probes she’d launched to appear. “As you can see, our sensor buoys are significantly closer in. That means they’ll certainly benefit from being able to send their data out to us without having to send a ship in for collection. That would be a huge time saver for me. Please zoom into the inner system, Lieutenant.”
