A Faded Star (27 page)

 “That's remarkable, Marli. Let me change the subject
for a moment. Have you seen Aden recently?”

 “Not since he reported back aboard Rampart. He was
pretty wobbly getting out of the hospital. I tried to get him to use a
wheelchair, but he wouldn't hear of it.”

 “The man has a stubborn streak. How are the two of you
doing, by the way?”

 Simmons looked off into the distance for a moment
before replying. “I think the attack is weighing on him. That damned agent,
Cobb, has been after him since it happened. He thinks Aden might be complicit
in the attack.”

 Kri snorted. “That's a load of crap. Aden would be my
last suspect. All he ever talks about is how happy he is about being in the
space navy. I don't think he's ever thought about anything else in his life.”

 Marli nodded in agreement. “I know the commodore's in
his corner. Cobb might be putting his hand in a meat grinder, going after
Aden.”

 “Well, it doesn't matter. No matter what silly crap
they say, allegations aren't proof of misdeed. Cobb's grasping at straws. What
he should be doing is looking into the actual Karn separatist movement rather
than trying to besmirch a good officer.”

 “Perhaps you should forward your comments to Lashmere
Intelligence.”

 “Oh, yeah. I'm sure they'd love to hear my opinion.
Could you imagine it?” Kri's voice took on an odd tone, imitating speaking
through a comm unit. “Uh, pardon me, you intelligence types, but you're on
completely the wrong track here. Go do your jobs as if you knew what you're
doing.”

 Simmons laughed at the joke. Kri grinned at her. The
pair had spent some fun times talking aboard the Rampart and on Aeternum. Marli
considered Kri silently for a moment. His sense of humor was so appealing.
Aden, for all his physical attractiveness, was so serious sometimes. He had a
melancholy streak he could never really hide. Kri was almost carefree by
comparison. Kri made her laugh every time they spent time together.

 Kri noticed her sudden scrutiny. She cleared her throat.
“Well, I better get back to the design commission. It's nice seeing you, Hal.
Let's grab dinner next time you're on the space dock.”

 “I'll send you a comm when I know what my schedule's
going to be like. See you later, Marli.”

 “Bye.”

 Kri walked into the manufacturing center while Simmons
headed to the lift down to the docking port. Her thoughts had become a jumble
while talking to Kri. She blamed part of that on the fact he'd caught her doing
something she wasn't technically authorized to do. Patting her pocket to
reassure herself the data pad was still there, she stepped into the lift and
punched the docking level.

 Her comm beeped, reminding her she had a design
commission meeting in fifteen minutes. She was going to be a minute or two
late, but that couldn't be helped at this point. She nearly ran, trying to make
up the time, her heels clacking loudly on the hard surface of the space dock
deckplates. A second lift took her to the conference level of the space dock.
She walked through the door just as Admiral Brand was calling the meeting to
order.

 Brand said, “Glad you could join us, Miss Simmons.
Please take your seat.” He motioned to the empty chair just to his right.
Simmons winced. She'd been supposed to brief Brand on the newest ship designs before
the meeting. She'd forgotten to program the reminder into her comm. Brand spoke
again, “Miss Simmons, if you would be so kind as to brief us on the final
design candidates?”

 “Of course, sir.” Simmons stood and fiddled with her
tablet for a moment till she got the presentation screen up. Tapping it again,
she brought the seven ship designs up on the conference room screens. She was
about to begin when Admiral Misato came into the room. Formerly the captain of
the Bastion, he'd been recently promoted to admiral to take Vesper's place.

 Misato looked around the room with his dark eyes. He
displaced a lieutenant commander sitting at the table, and once settled said,
“Sorry for the interruption. Please continue the briefing.”

 Brand said, “Of course, Admiral. Please allow me to
congratulate you on your recent promotion.”

 Misato said, “Thank you, Admiral.”

 Brand nodded and then said, “Proceed, lieutenant.”

 Simmons said, “Yes, sir. There are seven ship designs
we're currently considering. The first design is an all out stealth ship. It
comes in two variants. Both variants use the same basic hull design and can be
transferred from one role to another as needs of the fleet dictate. The first
role is that of stealth corvette. This design is primarily for covert
operations and intelligence gathering. It features the ability to carry four
platoons of Marines and has the ability to operate without support
indefinitely. The stealth ship design is intended to be as self-sufficient as
possible. The stealth corvette also carries a compliment of two hundred of the
new drone designs. They can be operated autonomously by the computer or with
human oversight. The second stealth ship design is a science and research
design. It features greatly enhanced long range sensor capability, a highly
capable computer system and larger storage capacity in place of three of the
Marine platoons. The research ship has the same drone compliment and
self-sufficiency capability. A large compartment in the center of the ship is
designed to be detachable and can be replaced with a module for the alternate
role. These ships are highly maneuverable. They are just under one hundred
fifty meters long and have a fifty meter manufacturing ring as part of their
design. Intended crew compliment is twenty-four officers and crew plus
Marines.” Simmons tapped her tablet, and the ship appeared on the screens,
replacing a long list of statistical data. The ship was a long scarab shaped
hull that wrapped around the top third of the manufacturing ring, which hung
below. The bottom half of the ring housed a drone launch bay.

 Brand said, “I like those. What's next, Miss Simmons?”

 “The second design is a basic destroyer design. We
found some platforms that had been previously used in the Aeternum's database,
but we've modified them pretty heavily. Old designs used by humans didn't have
any drones and rarely included Marine detachments on any but the largest ships.
Even then, they didn't call them Marines, which is odd.”

 Brand gave her a sharp look, and she veered back on
topic. “So, as I was saying, we used the basic destroyer and then modified it
heavily.” She tapped her screen again, and another list of specifications came
up on the screens. “The destroyer design is three hundred meters long and has a
one hundred twenty-five meter manufacturing ring. The specified crew compliment
is sixty plus a marine detachment of up to three hundred. Destroyers are also
the largest ship we've designed that can be flown in the atmosphere. Destroyer
class ships have a modified version of the stealth technology used in the
corvettes. They can use power to absorb and deflect sensor systems, but they
can't operate at anything like full power while in stealth mode. Destroyers
have a drone compliment of one hundred. Up to five operators can simultaneously
operate drones, but the system is designed to operate with two tactical
officers. The drones can also be run in autonomous mode. The destroyer has a
robust defensive weapons array roughly equivalent to what is currently on the Rampart
class.”

 Misato raised his hand, and Simmons nodded to him.
“Lieutenant, your ships seem to be under crewed. A one hundred fifty meter ship
should have a crew of over one hundred. Twenty-four crew could not possibly
operate a ship the size of the proposed corvette class.”

 “We've added a series of highly redundant automation
matrices as part of the integral ship design. The ships also carry automated
damage control systems that allow the ships to self-repair. Without human
input, a damaged ship can be as much as seventy percent destroyed and repair
itself to full operating conditions under ideal circumstances. The bridge is
the only location with actual watch stations. There is one roving watch stander
on the corvettes, but the bridge is the only location where crew members must
be at all times while the ship is in flight. Under emergency circumstances, a
corvette class ship could be piloted by a single officer, if they had
sufficient knowledge of ships operations.”

 Admiral Misato leaned back in his chair. After a
moment of thought he said, “Lieutenant, what kind of scenarios have you run for
crew degradation?”

 “You mean like for battle casualties?”

 “Yes.”

 “The ships are traditionally crewed with twice the
minimum number of crew needed to maintain optimal battle readiness. Each of the
recommended compliments represents a crew that can suffer half its number in
casualties before battlefield operations become degraded. All ship designs have
automated medical facilities that require only minimal human input for more
complicated operations. A human doctor is assigned along with two field medics
as part of the corvette crew for example. A single medic has the knowledge and
ability to complete all but the most complicated surgeries. The human doctor is
a backup to the automated system in this case. The automatic system literally
knows more and has better technique than human hands can ever hope to have.”

 “I see,” Misato said. “How about tactical operations?”

 “The battle computers on all ship designs are triple
redundant and have heuristic learning programs. As the ship engages in battle,
the computer calculates all observed variables and continuously provides
recommended tactical responses. The more a ship fights, the better it gets at
beating a given enemy. Defensive systems are equally adaptable. The defensive
canons, for example, have been given a variable yield and refire rate that
allows the computer to adjust for observed effectiveness against various types
of incoming fire. The defensive systems should be able to learn to intercept
anything from ballistic projectiles to pulsed beam systems. The offensive
systems represent a quantum leap forward much more than the difference between
the old Bastion style ships and the new Rampart style ships. The new designs
use a pulsed plasma beam main gun. The shots come much more rapidly, and to the
naked eye seem to be an almost constant stream of fire. Destructively, they are
incredibly dangerous. The new drone designs use a similar energy pattern for
their on-board laser systems. The thing we are proudest of for weapons systems,
however, is the new torpedo designs. These are essentially stealth drones that
launch under their own power and proceed, virtually undetectably, to deliver a
massive fission charge against enemy hulls. The nuclear reaction is clean and
efficient, most of the radioactive byproducts are consumed and channeled into
destructive force.”

 What kind of destructive yield are you talking about,
here, Lieutenant?” Misato asked.

 “The standard yield is in the range of four
quadrillion kilojoules for a single weapon. To give you an example, a similar
weapon deployed against Rampart would vaporize roughly fifteen percent of the
ship if it struck where the armor is thickest, around the center of the ship. A
hit in either the top or bottom of the ship would result in complete
destruction, most likely,” Simmons said.

 Misato let out a low whistle. “Impressive. Please
continue your presentation, Lieutenant.”

 “Thank you, sir.” Simmons tapped at her tablet for a
moment before continuing. “Ah, here we are. The third ship design we're
considering is the drone carrier. The ship is two hundred, seventy-five meters
long and has several unique design features. It has one large and four small
manufacturing rings. The ship can literally scoop up battlefield debris and
create new drones on the fly. The smaller rings are sized to produce up to ten
drones at a time. The internal compliment of drones is six hundred. The ship
does have a single pulsed main gun, but it's nowhere near as powerful as the
one carried on larger ship designs we're exploring. The ship relies on its
drones for both offensive and defensive punch. On board defensive systems are
similar to what is carried on the destroyer class ship. The drone carrier also
has a much smaller marine detachment, meant only for repelling boarders, for
the most part. Four platoons, like the stealth corvette carries. It actually
uses the same module to support the Marine platoon, so the drone carrier can be
refitted for scientific and research missions if needed. The drone carrier has
a crew compliment of one hundred plus marines.

 “The fourth ship design we've proposed is an assault
cruiser type. We considered separate cruiser and battlecruiser designs, but in
the end, the design overlap was too great. The assault cruiser was the best
compromise of all design needs. With a crew of one hundred, seventy, this is
the smallest ship we are considering that has a broadside armament. Rather than
a single or small cluster of pulsed energy cannons at the bow, the assault
cruiser has an array of six cannons on each side. The canons can be articulate
up to thirty-five degrees in any direction. These cannons are similar in size
and destructive power as the ones carried fore and aft on the destroyer class.
The assault cruiser also has another unique design. The large manufacturing
ring is absent, but the ship does employ a pair of smaller rings, recessed into
the hull that allows for sections of the ship that have been damaged to be
produced and then put in place using small craft. The assault cruiser is four
hundred meters long and has two fifty meter manufacturing rings tucked under
the widest section of the hull. The assault cruiser has an armored flank that
completely covers the manufacturing rings. The broadside armament is the
armored section. This allows hits to the weapons bays to not effect critical
functions of the ship. The drone compliment is two hundred. This ship is
extremely tough and is intended to be the main line ship in any fight. It's
fast enough to run away from anything capable of destroying it and tough enough
to blast anything that can catch it out of the sky.”