Reaper's Crossroad (The Hunter Imperium Book 3) Read online

  "One each to those four jump points, in the order I looked at them, and then keep giving them another one in turn until they have three each. Then three with Redoubt."

  "Three?" squeaked Alison.

  "Confirmed," said Jane at the same time.

  "Three. It only gets worse from here. The battlestations will buy us time so we can use our ships for other things."

  "What things?" asked Amanda.

  I sighed.

  "That bad?" asked Annabelle.

  "Hopefully not. But potentially yes."

  "Timeframe?" asked Susan.

  "Short to middle term. Wayward fleet can now start to look at other tasks as soon as each system has at least one station. The titans will join the fleet, or form the flagship of fleets of their own, when each has three stations. Time scale for that is up to Bob."

  "What tasks can Wayward fleet look forward to?" asked George.

  "Anyone heard from Arthur lately?" I asked, instead of answering.

  "Ah," said Miriam. "Yes, there's trouble coming our way."

  "Speak for yourself," said Aleesha, and those dating Author's people all laughed.

  One of them was Greer, and for a moment I wondered if he'd been bonking Guinevere.

  "Actually he's overdue," I said. I looked at Bob. "What happened with Round Table Two? Did they get repaired?"

  "Alas no Jon. The ship was a write off. I'm building them a slightly modified Scimitar."

  "Modified how?" asked George.

  "Their fighters are bigger than the Brawler, so I'm having to increase the size of the launch tubes and flight deck elevators to BigMother size, which means they get four less launch tubes. But I'm told that’s not a problem. I've also replaced the pilot's barracks with officer accommodation, so all of the crew have the same standard of digs. Should be complete in a few more days, as it's been well down on the priorities. Guinevere is happy though. Last I heard she also hadn't heard from either of their other two ships, but this wasn’t out of the ordinary for them."

  Maybe so, but I’d be climbing the walls. But they weren’t my responsibility, at the moment anyway, and so worrying about them was pointless, especially since I had so much else to worry about. Arthur would pop up when he wanted to.

  "You lot better come and gush over what's been created on the beach," said Hubaisha.

  I saw Eric grin suddenly, and he was first out of his chair. The other parents followed him close behind, and the rest of us rose as curiosity, and lack of any action happening again for at least another few hours, got the better of us.

  We found all the kids in a group, admiring their creation, their parents standing behind them looking proud and happy.

  On the beach was a surprisingly accurate sand sculpture of a Gunbus, even to the name 'Nascaspider' written on the sides at the front.

  Fourteen

  The new battlestation took out the Keerah fleet as easily as it had the Ralnor.

  Once again, we'd assembled to watch it, while Lacey and his fighters acted as backup, once again not being needed. I pinged him to ride his pilots hard for the rest of the day, and bring them to the beach for a day off tomorrow. I scheduled all the marines for the day after. For a moment I hoped Thorn didn't have any plans on coming home for the near future.

  Those not staying the night headed off at sun down, which included all the families. I'd had a word with Hubaisha, and we used the main screen for flat screens, while the others went on showing the three species back to hitting each other again. Only now they were using missiles mainly for reducing the size of debris, and closing into gun range to fight.

  Over dinner and well into the evening, Hubaisha screened the first three Deadpool flat screens, although I’d had to send them to her. Everyone enjoyed them immensely, but Aline did give me an odd glance during the second one. They'd kept making reboots for over a hundred years after the title actor had hung up his red leather mask, but no-one in my opinion did the main character better than the original actor, and unlike a lot of other series I enjoyed, they eventually gave up.

  Being who these people were, all the blood and guts, swearing, and sex, went down a treat, and Amanda even demanded to know why I'd never shown these before. I actually didn’t have an answer. But then, I'd only been showing them old stuff for two years, and you can't view everything from over six hundred years in only two.

  The surprise as people were heading off for bed was Hubaisha requesting a list of what I did have, first so she could watch them herself, and also so she could recommend some for Thorn. I wasn’t sure Thorn would like Mr. Pool, but then, I didn’t know him all that well. Maybe he would. I limited Hubaisha to only Thorn, as this kind of thing could make good trading material, if converted for a wider audience. Something to talk to Jane about.

  During the night, with me sitting alone in front of the screen, the plants won the next bout, and hit us with the same results. The fighters didn’t launch, but this time the titans were on hand as backup. I gave some thought to captains for the two new ones.

  When I did go to bed, I thankfully had no dreams at all, and was up in time to do laps of the island with BA. By the time we started the last one, the whole team was following along behind.

  After breakfast, Jeeves turned up and took Angel back to Haven for a play day with her brother and friends, and as Lacey arrived with the first of the pilots, we all returned to normality. For me, this was my private office on the top floor of my personal tower. But I didn't stay there for very long.

  I'd been thinking about captains again, and getting nowhere, when a white dot popped out of the Shipyard, and identified itself as Orion's Belt. Except the specs were all wrong. I quickly pulled them up, and sat there with my mouth open for a while.

  Before I had my jaw back under control, a second white dot popped up, and it identified itself as Orion's Buckle. The jaw flopped around for a bit longer.

  It took me a bit to figure out what Bob had done. In the first place, he'd obviously freed up another two titan station sections, so we could use the side full of titan turrets for ships. Then he'd broken Orion's Belt up into two half ships, and married them to the station sections.

  So one ship with launch tubes for two thousand, was now two ships with launching for one thousand. But no, I could find only five hundred each. And then I noticed each had a dock big enough for a super-cruiser, or two normal cruisers, and more docks for destroyers and corvettes.

  I remembered asking if he could build something to carry our smaller ships around safely, and now he had, just not the way I'd thought he would.

  As I watched, Fearless docked to Belt, and Homer and Bonko's Club to Buckle. A short time later, all the destroyers and corvettes came through from Redoubt, and split themselves between the two ships. A thousand drone fighters now streamed out of the shipyard, and also split themselves between both ships.

  And now I knew where Bob was getting the extra-large launch tubes from for Guinevere's new ship. He was pulling them out of the unused part of Orion. I chuckled to myself. We didn’t have the pilots for Orion at all these days, so she'd been a waste as she was. Now we had two new carriers, and capable of carrying up to cruiser sized ships around, while being more than capable of defending themselves.

  But I now needed another captain, and another crew, and I had no idea where to get them from. The only people I could promote really wanted to be where they were, and I knew damned well I'd never be able to dig O'Neil out of John Wayne again. And I'd never seen George or Miriam looking so happy as they were now.

  I rose, and headed for the travel car station. Jane always had one waiting for me, now was no different, and I went to the military space scraper, where my four stars now had offices. A little word from Janice, and I found them all in a small conference room.

  "Stay where you are," I said quickly, as I went through the door, making sure they didn’t try to get up.

  They rose anyway, all smiling, and waited for me to sit at the only empty chair, obviously set up f
or me if I came by. I waved them down, and they sat.

  "What can we do for you sir?" asked Bigglesworth.

  "Has anyone talked to Bonko lately?"

  "I did," said Vonda. "He came by yesterday, and said his crew were bored. They'd all spent time doing the rounds of the station network, they'd spent a lot on wine, women, and song, his words, not mine, and could I please find them a job again. He also expressed his profound annoyance for not being included in that plant action, and would we please get our collective act together."

  The others were laughing.

  "So he just docked his assault cruiser on the new carrier because he wants to be in the action from now on?"

  "Pretty much, yes."

  "Good. What's Chet want to do now?"

  "He's having a day off on yonder beach with all the pilots," said Jedburgh.

  "Let me guess, Lacey didn’t want to be ranker on the island?"

  Bigglesworth laughed.

  "That would be my guess as well," he said.

  "When are you four going?"

  "We were there the day before you were," laughed Walter. "Jen invited us to talk about flag officer stuff."

  "But you got some relaxation time in?"

  "Oh yes," said Vonda.

  They were all smiling.

  Fifteen

  "Captains."

  "What about them?" asked Jedburgh.

  "We need three new ones, and crews to go with them."

  "We have crews," said Walter. "Why do you think fifteen thousand people came with you on this jaunt, instead of going to Gaia? Granted only a few hundred are ship crews, but that’s how you make up thousands, when large groups of people doing specific jobs decide they want to stay where the action is."

  "We haven't known what to do with them," added Vonda.

  "Why not?"

  "Your policy of minimum crews," said Bigglesworth, "and not enough ships. And the fact none of them are captains, and only a few of them were XO's. None of them have the experience to take on command. The highest rank among them is only a Lieutenant Commander. Lot of Lieutenants, JG's, and Ensigns. And most of them were on ships which still had full crews, so a lot of them are not even bridge trained."

  "So train them."

  Walter raised a hand, and made a tick sign in the air.

  "Get those with bridge experience on an appropriate ship. Even if you have to keep the captain happy by telling them its temporary while ships become available. Which is partially true. Have the AI's on the ships coordinate with Jane for training schedules. Let's start getting the crews on each ship up to the limit of each one's officer accommodation, and maybe start doubling people up on shifts, with actual training going on during downtime. We will eventually have more ships, and we'll need trained crews for them when they come out of the shipyard."

  I paused. Jedburgh looked like he was doing notes in his head. He stopped, and nodded.

  "We really ought to get a proper rank structure going, so we know who has seniority."

  "Already done," said Walter.

  "Have I passed over anyone by mistake?"

  They laughed. I'd been promoting people based on knowing them, or taking someone else's word for it, or seeing them in action.

  "I never really built a proper navy, did I?"

  "It was never needed before," said Jedburgh. "Your ships joined the rest of the sector navy's, and we fought a war. Your duchy was never going to need a navy, just militia defense ships."

  "Well we need one now."

  "Yes," they all said together.

  "Any reason I haven't heard this before now?"

  "Well," grinned Walter, "there is a war on, and you do keep disappearing."

  I had to smile at that. It didn’t stop them requesting time, but given events lately, I might not have made it anyway. And for once I finally had to admit to myself I really was an admiral. I sighed. They waited for me.

  "Okay, let's get this navy formalized. Once we get a civilian government, they can decide what we do with it, but for now, get the formal structure going. Do we have anyone with a fleet captain's rank, who isn’t captaining a ship?"

  "No," said Jedburgh. "No full commanders either. There are a few just promoted commanders who are now XO's, but they need a year at least before we give them something small to captain. Your Eric Neilson was actually the best choice for that last Scimitar, even if he was technically a civilian."

  I looked around at them one at a time.

  "Did one of you influence Bob to get Eric to pilot the ship out to me?"

  They all looked sheepish.

  "Good. Doing your jobs. That's why I have you. To pick up the slack because I have absolutely no idea how to run a navy."

  "You'll learn. We all did."

  Jedburgh look totally serious. The others nodded.

  "Talking of which," interrupted Walter, "sort of anyway, we need a proper naval uniform. Your slinky outfit is good for marines, and young’uns, but it’s the wrong look for both naval officers, and the admiral in command. At the least you should be wearing fatigues on the bridge, sir, but it would be better if you personally were wearing something which said 'I command here' to anyone you're in coms with."

  I opened my mouth, but he went on really quickly.

  "And no I don’t mean any of your old entertainment spandex uniforms. If you want something to go by, use Babylon 5 as an example. They did a good uniform. Keep your same colour, add epaulettes or move the insignia to the collars, but the jacket should be a proper jacket. And the trousers are real trousers, not work out pants. And shoes rather than boots."

  I looked at him, wondering how long this had been building for. And wondering how and when he'd watched B5. I finally noticed they were all wearing fatigues. I started chuckling. They all looked at me wondering what the joke was.

  "That was a load off, wasn’t it?"

  And we all had a good chuckle.

  "Show me designs. Get George involved since he knows the most about suit design, and probably has some other ideas for good styles to use. I must admit I don’t want to go back to wet navy styles, but I agree a lot of the space opera uniforms were pretty awful on some people. Truth be told, I only went with the slinky look because the team were using it when I met them, and I was able to firm it up front and back so it wasn’t so skin tight in the wrong places. Although I did hate wearing fatigues, so find me something better."

  "Yes Admiral!" they all said together.

  Sixteen

  "Captains," I said again.

  "Trident and Valkyrie need senior captains, and no, I'm staying on BigMother."

  They nodded as if they expected it. I wasn’t going to rationale it, but I knew where I fit, and it wasn’t on a ship bigger than some stations.

  "We also need at least one captain for Orion's Buckle." I made a face. "Whose stupid idea was that, anyway?"

  "Bob," they all answered together, and we all laughed.

  Bob's penchant for whimsical ship names was legendary. BigMother for example, was one of his. "Park that big mother…" he'd told me when I’d first turned up with the captured Junk Heap One. When I took the ship back, he'd renamed it as a joke.

  "Maybe it needs rethinking?"

  No-one came up with an alternative, but they all nodded.

  "What's Chet want to do?" I asked again. "I assume you've talked to him about his future?"

  "Not really," said Jedburgh. "He seemed content to captain the biggest carrier we had, in spite of the fact you took all his pilots away. But he knows in time we'll get more pilots. When the first crop are ready, we can assign them to him for their rookie time, before sending them back to where they came from."

  "And once we get this alliance going properly," added Vonda, "we should be able to recruit a lot more from all the members. Eventually they'll all want their own fleets of Scimitars, and the fighter pilots for them. Marines too."

  I looked around at them again.

  "And what you're not saying is, this navy could be
come an alliance navy rather than our ex-duchy navy?"

  "Big money is on that boss," said Walter. "Just the fact that Admiral Jen takes orders from you, means at the least, ours will be the senior service wherever we deploy. And she might even be interested in joining us, rather than leading her own peoples."

  I could see where some of the beach talking had gone.

  "Okay, in principle I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t want it happening until they have decent admirals to replace her. The pillok I saw last time I was there made me ask for his replacement. And he was supposed to be the best for their end of that space."

  "So when we get the alliance going," said Jedburgh, "we need to get an alliance level flag training program going?"

  "Training programs at all levels I think. I mean Grace still isn’t a fully trained bridge officer, and she's actually been fighting BigMother. How many other junior officers do we need to train up?"

  And we were back where we started from. Walter tapped his nose, and I sighed.

  "Get it done please. You'll find Jane took a copy of everything she came into contact with, so most of the sector training material will be available. We need it merged into something we can use."

  "I'll put Gloria Peterson on that," said Walter. "We do have a lot of non-ship admin people we can use as well, and she's a whizz at getting this sort of thing done. I'll let her pick a team and run with it."

  "Fine. So we leave Chet on Orion's Belt, and …" I stopped. "I am not calling a ship anything buckle. Jane?"

  "Sir?" came through room coms.

  "Rename that ship Orion's Stars."

  "Which ship?"

  "You know damned well which ship."

  "Confirmed. What do I tell Bob?"

  "Nothing at all."

  "Confirmed."

  She left us with a chuckle.

  "Any suggestion for Stars?" They looked like a joke was about to break out. "Captain suggestions?" Blank looks now. "What about the other two titans?" More blank looks. "Well what use are you lot?"