Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (24 page)

“This
assumes that the rebuilding of Makassar is allowed to go ahead unimpeded.
Because the FEDs held back four ships from their attack on Sparta, they have a
strategic reserve that they can use to protect Makassar in the short run if they
wish to. P2 calculates that the destruction of our fleet will reduce the
probability that the FEDs will keep their strategic reserve in Earth orbit.
There’s now an even chance that those four ships will be moved to Makassar.
When P2 factors their fusion-powered, x-ray laser satellite capability into the
equation, the chances of us being able to inflict damage on their industrial
buildup in the short run is low. As you know, Admiral, Secretary Sorenson, we
stopped building ships with neutron armor when the FEDs made the move to
fission warheads on the theory that with our anti-missile defenses, neutron
armor was redundant, and giving it up would allow for higher accelerations.
However, with the introduction of their x-ray laser technology, neutron armor once
again would confer a distinct advantage in terms of attacking Makassar. The
ships that we have under construction now can’t have neutron armor added,
because they weren’t designed to accommodate that extra weight. We’d have to
start building armored ships from scratch, and that would take time. I should
also point out here that the projected buildup in tonnage includes metal that
can be used either for armor or for building the rest of the ship. Adding armor
to ships uses up shipbuilding capacity without adding to offensive strength. If
we build too many armored ships, then, all other things being equal, the
balance of military strength will eventually tip in the FED’s favor unless they
devote a comparable percentage of their tonnage to ship armor as well. Whether
they will or not is something that their Majestic will undoubtedly determine
and which therefore we may not be able to predict.

“The
problem with building armored ships specifically to attack Makassar is that we
can’t build them fast enough to get the probability of a successful attack over
50% if the FEDs decide to allocate their fleet to defend Makassar instead of
Earth. However, there is another option. Once again it’s an idea that P2 wasn’t
able to come up with by itself. One of my staff had an ‘aha’ moment. I can best
convey this idea visually.”

The
tonnage buildup graph dissolved and was replaced with a schematic of a
spherical ship, as seen from the top, that had bulges around the edges.

“Our
missile boats are 70 meters in diameter. If we modify a 300-meter diameter
freighter so that there’s room for missile boats to fit halfway inside, then
this freighter can carry 12 boats. The idea is that the freighter would carry
the boats to the general vicinity of Makassar. Upon release, the boats would
then accelerate towards the planet. After their attack run, they would
rendezvous with the freighter, dock with her, and she could then carry them
back here. Modification of an existing freighter is estimated to take three to
four months. If we stop construction of missile boats and devote all of our
shipbuilding resources to freighter modification, we could get two freighters
modified at the same time.”

Before
Foster could continue, Sorenson interrupted. “Wait a minute. I don’t understand
something. We had a freighter carry missile boats during the FED attack without
this kind of modification. Why can’t we just use the same method for this
operation?”

Foster
smiled. She had correctly anticipated exactly this question. “The five
freighters used to carry missile boats during the ambush had external grapples
that grabbed onto the boats. That connection was the barest minimum that would
allow the freighter to accelerate and pull its missile boats along with it. The
jump was a micro-jump that was for all intents and purposes instantaneous, and
therefore the grapple was subjected to jump stresses for a fraction of a
second. P2’s analysis shows quite clearly that those grapples would fail during
the 39 days it would take to jump from Sparta to the Franklin Tri-system. The
boats would then drift away from the freighter while still in hyper-space, and
no one knows for certain what would happen to them after that. They might
emerge from hyper-space somewhere in the Franklin Tri-system, or they might
not, but that’s not the only problem. Getting the boats attached to the
freighters with that grapple system was time consuming and required tugs to
maneuver the boats up to the exact position so that they could be grappled.
That system would be too slow and cumbersome to use to recover the boats in a
hostile star system where the freighters might come under attack while they’re
trying to recover the boats.” She pointed to the hologram. “By scooping out a
section of the hull so that half of the missile boat is tucked inside the
freighter, the boat will be securely held in place even during long jumps, and
the boat can re-dock with the freighter quickly and by itself without any
external assistance.”

Sorenson
looked impressed. “And would there really be enough room around the
circumference of a 300-meter sphere for 12 70-meter missile boats?” she asked.

Foster
nodded. “Yes, Madame Secretary, there would be. A ship that big has a
circumference of almost 1,000 meters. Twelve missile boats would need a minimum
of 840 meters. I would also like to point out that during the 78 days it would
take the freighters to travel to the Franklin Tri-system and back, we might be
able to modify another two freighters so that a follow-up attack on Makassar
could be made with 48 missile boats compared to 24 for the 1st attack.”

Sorenson’s
expression began to have a feral quality about it. She clearly liked that
point. Looking at Janicot, she said, “Well, if we can do that, then do we
really need to build large, armored ships at all? Why not just build more
modified freighters and more missile boats?”

Janicot
looked thoughtful. He was asking himself the same question. He turned to
Foster. “Well, Major?”

“The
missile boat carrier concept, as we’re now calling it, definitely has a lot to recommend
it. However, using unarmored freighters has the following disadvantages. First,
if they’re carrying missile boats into combat, they aren’t available for
carrying other cargo, and if we modify too many existing freighters instead of
building new ones, our internal trade and logistical support will suffer.
Another disadvantage is that freighters weren’t designed to resist damage if
hit by lasers or missiles. Hits that would only inflict minor damage on a
warship, even an unarmored one, could cripple a freighter, and that would
potentially strand the missile boats she was carrying in enemy star systems and
unable to jump away. There’s one more disadvantage. Twelve missiles boats
constitute a lot of mass that will degrade a freighter’s acceleration, which
starts out being about two-thirds of a warship’s acceleration. When you add the
12 missile boats, that acceleration will drop to about one-third. The only
reason we’re suggesting using modified freighters for attacks on Makassar is
that they can be ready quickly. The planning staff are not recommending using
modified freighters as boat carriers for fleet vs fleet operations down the
road.

“If
we decide to build new ships designed from the outset to carry missile boats
and be resistant to combat damage, then there are good reasons to consider
building a carrier that’s bigger than our 300-meter diameter freighters. This
schematic is offered as an example only.” The modified freighter schematic
evolved into a larger sphere with two rows of missile boats tucked into its
hull. “This example is a 600-meter diameter sphere. Each of the two rows has
enough room for 15 missile boats for a total of 30, but that’s not all. A ship
that’s twice the diameter has eight times the internal volume. That means that
this 600-meter warship, which we’re calling a Battlecruiser, can not only carry
30 missile boats, it would also have room to carry enough missiles to feed 100
missile launchers, plus room for 10,000 infantry and 200 contra-gravity armored
vehicles. This ship can carry out any mission that we might want to put into
operation all by itself, from raids and/or ground assault to fleet vs fleet
combat. There are two more advantages to this larger design. I mentioned that
the internal volume is eight times more than a 300-meter ship, but the outer
surface area of this ship is only four times larger than the 300-meter version.
What that means is that we can afford to put a lot of neutron armor on this
ship, and it would still have enough internal space for the power plants and
maneuvering engines that would give this ship a decent acceleration even with
all that armor. The thickness of armor I’m talking about here would be enough
to shrug off even a hit from a fission warhead, and the larger surface area
would allow for radar arrays that are powerful enough to scan right down to a
planet from out beyond the hyper-zone boundary.”

“I
wish that your people had come up with this concept sooner,” said Sorenson
wistfully.

Foster
was about to respond when Janicot held his hand up to her. “I’ll answer that
one, Major. Madam Secretary, this battlecruiser is so massive, which also means
expensive, that only Sparta could afford to build one here in our shipyards,
and I’d venture to guess only one at a time?” He looked to Foster for confirmation
and saw her nod. “It would also take a long time to build, so if we attempted
to build it here, it would end up being a small part of our fleet. However, our
dedicated Durendal shipbuilding complex will be able to work on multiple ships
at the same time when it hits its stride, and the cost of those ships will be a
tiny fraction of what it would cost us here. Having this concept earlier
wouldn’t have done us much good without something like Durendal.”

“Yes,
I see,” said Sorenson. “What’s the earliest that Durendal could build one of
these battlecruisers, Major?”

Foster
manipulated her data tablet, and a new image appeared above the table. “The
first ship in a new class always takes longer than later versions because
construction, even robotic construction, has to be optimized, and that can only
happen during actual construction. P2’s best estimate is that the first ship
will take 19 months to complete, with follow-on ships taking 15 months at
first, but eventually we should be able to get that down to 12 months. The
capacity buildup at Durendal now looks like this. To get the biggest possible
head start on long term capacity, Durendal won’t even start building any ships
for another 17 months. That means our first battlecruiser won’t be completed until
mid-2550, but at that point it could finish a new battlecruiser about every
45-60 days because it’ll have multiple battlecruisers under construction at the
same time.

“Alternatively,
the complex would have the minimum capacity necessary to start building one
battlecruiser within another six to seven months, and that one ship would be
available by mid-2549. The downside to that is that we’d have a lot less ships
in the longer run.”

“But
we’d have at least one battlecruiser a lot sooner,” interjected Janicot.

“Yessir,”
replied Foster.

“What
are you thinking, Admiral?” asked Sorenson.

“I’m
not sure yet, Madam Secretary. I need more information. Major, has P2 evaluated
the combat effectiveness of this 600-meter design versus the 400-meter FED
cruisers that we’re in the process of salvaging?”

“It
has, Admiral. On a strictly head-to-head basis, one of these missile boat
carriers with a full complement of 30 missile boats could take on a dozen FED
cruisers with a better than even chance of winning.”

Now
it was Janicot who had the feral grin. “So, in the time frame we’re looking at
here, roughly two years, our combat effectiveness would just about double if we
had one battlecruiser to add to our fleet of salvaged FED cruisers plus our own
new light cruiser construction, correct?”

“Just
about, Sir,” said Foster.

Janicot
turned to Sorenson. “I can now answer your question, Madam Secretary. The
problem I see with matching the FED’s buildup ship for ship is that we’d still
be fighting an uphill battle against their Majestic computer’s ability to
outthink our P2. It would only take one disastrous battle to upset the delicate
balance of power in the FED’s favor. If we can gain a temporary degree of
superior combat strength, we might be able to use that to set back their
shipbuilding campaign so that we’ll have the tonnage advantage going forward. A
ship that can shrug off fission warheads can also shrug off x-ray lasers and
would be able to overpower whatever fleet of cruisers the FEDs might be able to
field in defense of Makassar. It could then blast the industry there back to
bare rock, and they’d have to start all over again from scratch while we
continue building more battlecruisers. With the head start that we’d have at
that point, they’d never be able to catch up, Majestic or no Majestic.”