TFS Navajo: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 3 (27 page)

“I will respect your decision, of course, but I must say that I cannot imagine the timing ever being better than it is now.”

“That may be true from a political standpoint, Father, but my heart tells me that the reasons for such a momentous change should be obvious to such an extent that our people will naturally understand and accept that it is the right choice —
their choice
, not one that was in any way imposed upon them.”

“Your faith in our people is commendable — perhaps misplaced in some ways — but commendable nonetheless. You know my feelings on this matter, so I will say no more. When you do feel that the time is come, however, I pray that you will act swiftly and decisively, and that you will hear the whispers of your ancestors so that you may know exactly what you must do.”

***

Admiral Naftur awoke with a start, forcing himself to breathe deeply while the sedative-induced haze cleared from his mind like fog lifting from the plains surrounding Dru Tinari at the beginning of a new day. Under the circumstances, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in the medical bay aboard the Human destroyer
Theseus
— then a few more for the events of the past few days to fall back into place. Even as his thoughts began to coalesce and organize themselves, he had the distinct impression that, somehow, his entire perspective had changed. Pressing the button to call the nurse, he first sipped, then drank greedily from the stainless steel cup of water on the table beside his bed.

“Ah, good morning, Admiral,” the duty nurse said warmly as she entered the room. Without further comment, she immediately set about preparing to help the Wek officer out of bed for the first time since shortly after his surgery.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked, speaking slowly so that the AI had at least some hope of properly translating his dry, raspy voice.

“I wasn’t on duty at the time,” she replied, glancing at her tablet, “but it looks like it has been just over thirty-six hours since they brought you back from your brief visit to the bridge.”

“Expletive,”
the AI growled emphatically from the room’s ceiling speakers using an apparently censored facsimile of Naftur’s own voice. Although it could not locate a database entry to provide a precise, literal translation of the Wek word the admiral had used, the AI had little difficulty guessing its intent from context alone. “I am needed back on the bridge immediately,” Naftur urged, “and I would prefer to be in uniform if you would be so kind as to help me —”

“Really?” Nenir Turlaka interrupted from the doorway, “I never would have guessed.” Her words were delivered in a tone that left little doubt that she was still acting in her capacity as a physician rather than as a diplomat. “And what makes you think you are ready to just leap out of bed and resume your duties?”

Irritating though it was, Naftur was well aware of the necessity of convincing his doctors that he was both mentally and physically capable of leaving the medical bay and returning to duty. He was also aware that failing to do so might well result in further confinement — under sedation, if necessary. With the renewed sense of purpose that seemed to be growing of its own accord in the back of his mind, he knew with absolute certainty that he could not afford to waste any additional time convalescing in a hospital bed.

“I am actually feeling surprisingly well, Doctor Turlaka,” he said, swinging his feet off the side of the bed.

“I am sure you do. Doctor Chen and I do good work,” she said, taking the offered tablet from the duty nurse. “We have been keeping a very close eye on the repairs we made to your aorta, and I am happy to report that we have been very pleased by your progress. Our hospitals on Graca have access to some equipment that is perhaps a bit more advanced than what the Humans have, but their gene-based therapies are far better than ours … certainly beyond anything I would have expected them to have at this stage. I am sure that you are uninterested in hearing the specifics, but we were able to genetically encode a group of your own cells to essentially regenerate much of the damaged tissue in your chest — and at an astoundingly accelerated rate. That process is still ongoing, of course, but I believe it is accurate to say that the crisis has now passed.”

“I am pleased to hear it. So I am cleared for duty, then?” Naftur asked, smiling optimistically.

“We will
see
,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “If everything checks out this morning, I will allow you to resume some light duties, but only for short periods of time. Understood?”

“Of course, Doctor,” he replied soothingly.

“Mm-hmm. Let the nurse get you disconnected from everything and help you freshen up a bit, then I will look you over. Keep in mind that
you have been shot
, Rugali Naftur, and if you do not wish to find yourself back in surgery — or worse,” she said, pausing meaningfully, “you will follow your doctors’ instructions to the letter.”

“I will endeavor to be a model patient,” Naftur replied, testing his weight on his legs for the first time since his surgery. Gratified to be back on his feet, he inhaled deeply, expanding his massive chest and stretching to his full height of just over two meters.

Doctor Turlaka had been preoccupied entering information on her patient’s chart, but now looked up into Naftur’s eyes for the first time. What she saw there touched her emotionally, and in an almost primal way that she was certain she had never experienced before. Her practiced, authoritarian bedside manner evaporated in an instant. Without another word, she closed her eyes and bowed her head in a manner that, although she had never done so before, felt completely natural — spontaneous —
instinctive
.

Chapter 18

TFS Navajo, Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2

(0007 UTC - Combat Information Center - 1.5x10
6
km from Earth)

“At this point, the fact that your shields may not be fully operational is of little consequence, Captain,” Admiral Patterson stated flatly, struggling to avoid losing his temper with the two officers on his view screen. “Both of you are fully aware of what happened to Captain Abrams’ destroyer force at Location Crossbow. Every one of his ships were shield-equipped, but the shields were largely ineffective against the Resistance battleships’ heavy guns. I’m confident we will soon learn why that was the case, but it won’t be today … and certainly not within the —” Patterson paused to glance at a different screen, “less than eleven hours we have remaining before we come under attack. This is not a matter of meeting some arbitrary production schedule, gentlemen. We still have only four cruisers in space, along with three carriers, perhaps eight available destroyers, and a handful of frigates. Look, I have worked with both of you before and know you both to be competent, professional naval officers. So you tell me, does the force I just described sound in any way sufficient to deal with as many as eight Resistance battleships as well as this vague threat of some sort of biological attack?”

“No, Admiral,” both men replied in unison.

“I was fine with the original decision to launch the first four cruisers out of the Yucca Mountain Shipyard — again, based on the original configuration with no C-Drive and no shields — while delaying the ships at Pine Gap and Yamantau Mountain for upgrades. But we made that decision based on an aggressive schedule that the two of you assured the Admiralty staff you could meet. You said that if we allowed you to delay three of the four cruisers at each location, you could instead deliver one cruiser each with all of the latest upgrades installed. Now by my count, if you had met that schedule, I would have a total of six
Navajo
-class cruisers in space — two of them presumably with working shield systems — and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Correct?”

“Yes, Admiral,” both men replied again, feeling very much like first year midshipmen at this point, but also keenly aware that now was not the time to offer anything that sounded even vaguely like an excuse for the delay.

“Alright, then, so let’s hear it. When can I expect to see those additional cruisers making their initial climbs to orbit?”

Both men naturally paused for a moment to see if the other would speak first, but it was Captain Marko Budarin, Facility Commander of the Yamantau Mountain Shipyard facility in southern Russia, who rose to the challenge.

“Admiral Patterson,” he began carefully, “holding the remaining
Navajo
-class cruisers in port for upgrades was, as you know, a calculated risk. But —” he paused, raising both hands placatingly to head off Patterson’s anticipated objection, “as is often the case with such complex projects, there were several unforeseen difficulties that conspired to delay their launch. Fortunately, we now have the
Cossack
at Yamantau as well as the
Koori
at Pine Gap preparing to launch within the hour.”

“I am pleased to hear it. That should have happened a week ago, of course, but under the circumstances, late is most definitely better than never.”

“If I may return to the subject of their shields for a moment, sir, I didn’t mean to give you the impression that the shields are not operational. They will certainly work as well as those installed on the
Theseus
-class destroyers, but they still suffer from the same vulnerabilities as well.”

“As I alluded to earlier, that’s largely irrelevant at this point,” Patterson interrupted. “We need them up here immediately, regardless of the state of their shield systems.”

“Yes, sir, I understand,” Budarin persisted. “If you will allow me, however, to address your point about finding out why the shields were ineffective against the
Rusalovs’
heavy guns, I believe I have an answer for you.”

“Make it quick, Captain, but yes, please proceed.”

“Thank you, sir. As you know, most of the Science and Engineering Directorate’s shield development work was accomplished on site here at Yamantau. Within an hour of their receiving performance data from the shield failures at Location Crossbow, I had their team lead knocking on my door insisting that he be allowed direct access to the
Cossack’s
AIs. He said they had a theory about why the shields had failed to deflect the large projectiles and thought they might be able to implement a fix.”

“Captain Budarin,” Patterson said, shaking his head, “you, of all people, fully understand how overly optimistic our engineers can be when it comes to implementing a so-called ‘quick fix.’”

“Very much so, sir, but they showed me their data, and it did look like something that could be fixed pretty quickly with a software change. The problem with the large projectiles is that the AI was underestimating their kinetic energy due to their relatively low speed compared to other ordinance — our small penetrator rounds, for example. The rounds from our railguns travel at roughly six times the velocity that the
Rusalovs’
shells achieve. For the same size projectile, that means ours are carrying thirty-six times the energy that theirs are. The problem is that the
Rusalovs’
shells have a mass of around eight hundred kilograms. That’s nearly double that of our cruisers’ main guns or sixteen times that of our standard railgun mounts. Long story short, our designers simply did not anticipate our shields encountering any high-velocity projectiles with that much mass, so they were consistently underestimating the energy required to deflect them.”

Patterson drew in a deep breath and considered how best to respond. TFC was in the business of combining military operations and space flight — two Human endeavors where the loss of Human life had always been expected to some degree. He also knew that the men and women who were designing and building Fleet’s warships were the best and the brightest engineers and scientists that Earth had to offer. On a daily basis, they performed technological miracles that would have been considered impossible just ten years earlier — and on a schedule that often bordered on the absurd. Still, the idea of such losses due to what amounted to a simple oversight was difficult for the old admiral to accept.

“This seemingly small mistake has cost us six ships thus far. That’s over nineteen hundred lives lost — not to mention the fact that our destroyers might well have been able to prevent the attack on Earth altogether had their shields functioned properly,” Patterson said, pausing again to allow the gravity of his words to fully register with both captains. “While we cannot allow ourselves to slip into the mode of assigning blame, we absolutely must find a way to learn from this mistake and hopefully make it less likely that something like this will ever happen again … assuming any of us survive long enough to do so, that is.”

Both men nodded solemnly, realizing that there was nothing further to be said on the subject.

“So, Captain Budarin,” Patterson continued, “I assume you are telling me all of this because you believe the shield development team may be able to implement their fix before the Resistance ships arrive?”

“Yes, Admiral. It would, of course, apply only to the
Cossack
for now. The
Koori
will still have essentially the same configuration as the
Theseus
-class destroyers.”

“And is there a risk of the
Cossack
not making it into space at all if we allow them to proceed?”

“Unfortunately, yes. The team has completed their simulations and believe the fix will work, but integrating it into the ship’s gravitic system will require the AI to be taken offline temporarily.”

“Oh, come on, Marko, that’s easily a twelve-hour procedure, and once the AI is offline, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. They will either finish on time, or they won’t — in which case she’ll still be sitting in her berth during the battle, just like the other three
Navajo
-class cruisers at your shipyard. So why are we wasting time talking about this?”

“I know, I know, sir,” Budarin replied apologetically. “Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have even mentioned it, but they insist they can get it done in time to launch and have her in position to meet the Resistance battleships.”

Patterson glanced at the holographic table, noting the positions of the two groups of enemy ships converging inexorably on the Earth. “If they’re wrong, the absence of that one ship, with or without shields, could tip the balance against us,” he said, half to himself.

“Yes, sir. But if they’re right, her presence alone could well prove decisive.”

“It sounds to me as if you are recommending that we take the risk, Captain. And are you literally willing to bet
all
Human life on the outcome?”

Budarin swallowed hard, feeling the truly staggering implications of the decision resting temporarily on his shoulders alone. “I do not presume to comprehend the full scope of the situation as you do, Admiral Patterson, but yes, under the circumstances, I believe the potential benefits outweigh the risks.”

Patterson stared intently at both officers as his mind ran through a long series of possible scenarios — each one tending to sway him in one direction or the other. In the end, however, his mental “pro and con” list remained frustratingly well-balanced.

“Very well,” he sighed. “Please make it abundantly clear to everyone involved exactly what’s at stake. Also make sure they know that the words ‘there’s not a moment to be lost’ have never been more applicable. I’ll expect to see the
Koori
in orbit within the hour and the
Cossack
no later than 1000Z.”

“Aye, sir,” both men replied.

TFS Theseus, Location Willow

(3.3 light years from Earth)

“Ah, good timing, sir,” Reynolds said as Prescott arrived back on the bridge after seven hours of blessed sleep. “Admiral Naftur is on his way up.”

Since the departure of
Zhelov
and
Serapion,
for Earth,
Theseus
had received no new orders from the Flag other than keeping an eye on the original Resistance rally point for additional arrivals while ensuring that their newfound ally, the
Hadeon,
continued to hold her position at Location Willow. On the plus side, the full day of downtime had allowed her exhausted crew to temporarily stand down from General Quarters and rotate off duty for some critically needed rest.

“I’m amazed that Chen and Turlaka are allowing him back up here so soon. Then again, it surprises me they’ve managed to keep him down for this long,” Prescott said.

“I stopped by once to check on him. He’s done exceptionally well, but they didn’t give him the option of getting out of bed until this morning.”

“Knocked him out, did they?”

“Cold,” she chuckled.

“Listen up, folks, we will render honors to Admiral Naftur when he arrives to welcome him back,” Prescott announced, receiving a chorus of “aye, sirs” from around the bridge in reply.

“By the way,” Reynolds asked, “I assumed it was okay for him to be back on the bridge, but we’ve got this new hyperspace tracking feed posted up on the view screen all the time now. Do we have any restrictions on what we should and should not allow him to see?”

“That’s certainly a valid question, but Admiral Sexton fired off an order right after the shooting that both Admiral Naftur and Ambassador Turlaka are to be extended all the courtesies and access privileges of senior allied officials. So, clearly our commander in chief trusts them both at this point. Granted, we’re not going to be sending them home with engineering schematics or anything, but there shouldn’t be any problem with having them observe operations on the bridge.”

“Understood. I’m assuming they still require escorts, though?”

“Yes, but a single Marine is adequate while aboard ship. At this point, that’s primarily just for their own security and as a simple courtesy. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that they have earned our trust at this point.”

“Agreed. Being willing to lay down your life for someone you only recently met will do that,” Reynolds said.

During their conversation, Prescott noticed that Lieutenant Lee had returned to his post at the Science and Engineering console. Surprised to see him back on duty so soon after his brother’s death, he nodded in Lee’s direction while giving Commander Reynolds a questioning look.

“He’s okay,” she mouthed, nodding silently in reply to the captain’s implied question.

At that moment, the aft bridge entrance door opened to admit Admiral Rugali Naftur, dressed once again in his freshly ironed and mended gray and black utility uniform.

“Admiral on deck!” Prescott announced, prompting every officer present to rise and stand at attention while Naftur made his way to the row of command chairs lining the rear of the bridge. Arriving in front of Prescott and Reynolds, he executed a crisp left face, then returned the two officers’ salutes before offering his hand.