17

President Madison had invited Secretary of the Navy Sam Lehman and Admiral Ford to the Oval Office to discuss the situation in the Barbary Corridor.

“Our actions against the Laapanese may trigger a response from the other two members of the Ja’alen Coalition,” the President said. “Or our show of force may make the Barbary pirates more amenable to our demands.”

“It all depends on the outcome of Operation First Strike,” Ford said. “Specifically, I don’t see the Barbary regimes agreeing to any of our demands unless we make it abundantly clear that failure to do so would result in catastrophic damage to their power. We have to be willing to use overwhelming force against them, and use it often. That’s why I’m contemplating the establishment of a permanent squadron in the Corridor.”

“Under whose command?” Lehman said. “You’re the only flag officer the Navy has at the moment, and we need you here to oversee the Navy’s expansion.”

“I’ll have to talk to Congress about appointing another flag officer to command the Corridor squadron,” Temperance said.

“Where would the squadron be based?”

“On Tortuga, with the headquarters in the consulate that’s being established there.”

“That’s quite an undertaking, Madam President,” Ford said. “Simultaneously creating a consulate and a squadron headquarters from scratch on a planet outside the Republic’s borders—unfortunately we’ll need a bureaucracy to handle the logistics of that evolution.”

“Congress will want oversight with that,” Lehman said. “They’ll want to exercise their advise and consent role.”

“Advise and consent applies to diplomatic offices like the consulate,” the President said, “but the creation of a new military command is entirely my purview as commander-in-chief.”

“Congress could withhold funding if they don’t get some say in the squadron’s creation.”

“It’ll be political suicide for them to interfere with the funding for our boys deployed in harm’s way. Let them try. Besides, I’m not worried about the House’s support.”

Ford leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together in front of him. “Any ideas on who would command the Corridor squadron, Madam President?”

“I’ll leave that to your expert opinion, Admiral. Give me a list of candidates, and I’ll take that before Congress to wrangle some kind of commission out of them.”

“We’ll probably have to make him at least a rear admiral.”

The President smiled. “Agreed. However, we can’t have a squadron commander holding the same rank as the Navy’s commander-in-chief. I think it’ll be a cakewalk convincing Congress to authorize your promotion to vice admiral.”

“I wasn’t trying to broker a promotion for myself out of this, Madam President.”

“Still, I think it’s best if you outrank a subordinate.”

“I’d outrank him by seniority.”

“Take the promotion, Darren.”

“Yes, ma’am. I think I already have a few candidates in mind.” Ford scowled. “One of those might be a little controversial.”

“How so?”

“I knew him from my stint in the Imperial Starfleet.”

“Another Terran citizen serving in the Starfleet?”

“Not exactly. He’s now an Imperial expatriate who resigned his commission in the Imperial Starfleet out of protest against the Empire’s policy of appeasement with the Barbary pirates. He’s living on Midgard right now. I still keep in contact with him.”

“What was his rank?”

“Admiral.”

Temperance started. “Officers in the Imperial Starfleet who hold the rank of captain or above are limited to Annosian aristocrats.”

“I know. He’s an Annosian living on a Terran world. He’s not the only one.”

“There are some xenophobes in Congress who’d have a problem with an Annosian leading one of our major military commands.”

“I know the man, Madam President. He’s a skilled fleet commander who’s also a principled individual. He gave up all he knew for his principles. He’s fully behind the idea of fighting the Barbary pirates. You want men like that commanding the Corridor squadron.”

“It’d be a hard sell, Admiral, but your endorsement should go far. How do you know him?”

“He was the commanding officer of the ship I served aboard. He’s the one who recommended me for promotion to lieutenant.”

“I can’t overlook a resource like that. Even if Congress fails to approve him for a commission, I’d like to tap into his expertise in one way or another.”

“If you can’t get him a military commission, then the next best thing would be to attach him to the consulate on Tortuga as a liaison between the consul and the squadron headquarters. He’d be a mid-level bureaucrat who wouldn’t need congressional approval for the appointment.”

“Before I even go to Congress about him, you have to see if he’s even interested in either position.”

“I’ll book passage to the Asgard system as soon as I leave here. I’ll go to Midgard myself to talk to him in person.”

“What are we doing to expand our Navy beyond the ten Apollos?” Lehman asked.

“I’m trying to negotiate the authorization of more Apollos,” Temperance said. “The House has approved funding for five more ships, but as expected the authorization is being held up in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee doesn’t want to commit to the construction of more ships that are untried.”

“Untried?” Ford exclaimed. “The Apollo has performed admirably in her pirate suppression missions.”

“The Senate Appropriations Committee believes that taking on our local pirates isn’t enough of a challenge to test the full capabilities of our very expensive cruisers,” the President said.

“Yet those same senators protest sending our cruisers into the Corridor in the first place. How do they expect us to properly evaluate their performance if using them against our native pirates isn’t enough?”

“Therein lies the paradox,” Lehman remarked.

“The ‘paradox’ is deliberate,” Temperance said. “It’s an excuse to stall further construction. The Senate isn’t exactly the biggest fan of our cruiser program.”

“The Progs aren’t a fan of the whole damn Navy,” Ford growled.

“So,” the President continued, “while the five future Apollos are held up in Appropriations, we need to find another way to expand our fleet quickly and less expensively.”

“We could always use escort ships for the Apollos. Similar to how our historical maritime navies used frigates and destroyers to escort their capital ships.”

“There are no escort ships currently on the drawing board.”

“Then we take another page out of history. Back when the United States was a fledgling country, newly independent from Great Britain, they needed to create a fleet almost from scratch to fight the pirates of the Barbary Coast. They bought civilian ships, armed them, and commissioned them into service in the fleet to be used in conjunction with the purpose-built warships. We can do the same thing. The Lanford Model 2300 vessels are tough ships, well armed for merchant craft. With a few easy modifications, they can quickly be turned into escort ships analogous to the old maritime destroyers and frigates.”

“Get some naval architects on that and develop a plan. We’ll still need congressional approval for the funding, but it might be easier to sell this than five more cruisers.”

“I’d still like to have those five cruisers, Madam President.”

“Oh, I won’t give up on that.”

--x--x--

The Gabrielle, free of the confining shipyard station for the first time since her repairs had begun, lay in geosynchronous orbit above the city where Boone Shipping’s Prometheus office was located. Tom Boone stepped onto her deck as her captain for the first time while she was under her own power. Her corridors seemed to glow brighter than he remembered—until he realized that he was walking through a section that had suffered damage. What he was seeing was a new coat of paint.

As he walked, he noticed the overhead lights flickering. He tapped the communicator earpiece that was secured to his ear.

“This is the captain,” he said. “We have some power interruptions in the lighting system on third deck.”

“I’m on it, Tom,” he heard Layla’s voice through the comms.

He frowned. “Where are you at?”

“Load center two.”

He veered toward the nearest elevator and took that down two decks. He headed aft until he arrived at the door to load center two, one of the ship’s electrical distribution stations. He entered the compartment, noting a pair of ship’s company peering at an open distribution panel.

“Where’s Layla?” he asked.

One of the technicians pointed to an opening in the wall. “First Officer Akbar is in there, Skipper.”

Tom turned his gaze to the square opening in the bulkhead, located near the deck. “What’s she doing in there?”

“We traced the problem to a junction box in that ductwork,” the technician said. “She was the only one small enough to fit.”

“I got it,” Layla’s voice said over the comms. “There was a loose connection in the junction box.”

Layla’s athletic shoe-clad feet came out of the opening first, then her sleek bare legs. Tom stared at her shapely bottom, clad in tan shorts, as she backed out of the ductwork. She came free of the opening and stood to face Tom, her blouse and shorts stained with smudges of dirt. A few strands of her dark hair had worked free of her ponytail.

“I didn’t know you knew how to fix electrical circuits,” he said.

“I took a few electronics classes in college,” she said. “I guess it stuck with me.”

“You’re the first officer, you don’t have to do the dirty work on the ship.”

“I was the only one available who could fit in that duct.”

“I know, they told me. Did you find any other nagging problems in your walkthrough?”

“A few minor things. Standard post-shipyard stuff.”

Layla grabbed Tom’s hand and led him out of the distribution compartment. She took him aft, to the main engineering space. Stepping into the large compartment, Tom noted the bustling activity of the ship’s engineering crew. The chief engineer himself was at the main console, his gaze locked on the readout screen.

Tom briefly scanned the readouts. The Gabrielle’s main propulsion was green across the board. Only her wormhole generator showed red.

“We’re still waiting for that component for the tachyon regulator on the wormhole generator,” Layla said. “Only three companies in the Republic make those components, and they’re all located on Terra. The components were shipped, but they’re still en route to Prometheus.”

“We’ll have them before we’re ready to depart though, right?” Tom asked.

“We should. Once the components arrive, shipyard techs will come aboard and install them for us.”

“Good. Are we ready otherwise?”

“Yep. Main propulsion is on line. We can do a shakedown run as soon as you give the order.”

“Send word to the surface recalling all our people still dirtside. I want to clear orbit by this afternoon.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Layla rendered a mock salute. “Oh yeah, that Annosian fellow, Kas Larinos, is already aboard.”

“Is he settled into his quarters?”

“He has.”

“Any complaints yet?”

“Not yet. He had breakfast on our mess deck this morning, and I hadn’t heard any complaints about the eggs and bacon that was served.”

“Maybe that’s one of our native Terran entrees that Annosians find more palatable.”

“We’ll see how he handles lunch. Today’s lunch menu is a choice of either chicken Alfredo or a Reuben sandwich with a side of fries.”

“How are we doing on the Annosian menu anyway?”

“Nowhere, Tom. Dr. Larinos hasn’t given us a list of Annosian recipes yet.”

“Well, he seemed unwilling to make our job any harder. I’ll talk to him at lunch to see what his intention is.”

“Sweetie, I was kind of hoping to have lunch with you alone in our cabin.”

Tom grinned. “I can talk to Dr, Larinos after lunch.”

--x--x--

High above the surface of Dundee, the third planet in the Verona system, the Columbia achieved orbit alongside the Apollo. Jack Boone waited on the starboard side quarterdeck as the docking umbilical connected the airlocks from both ships, linking the two.

The petty officer manning the airlock controls monitored the readout on the bulkhead screen. “Docking procedure completed, Captain. Umbilical pressure equalized.”

“Unseal the doors,” Jack commanded.

The petty officer tabbed a button on the touchscreen. The airlock’s inner door slid open. The men on the quarterdeck, except for Jack, snapped to attention. A tall, imposing man, nearly as tall as Jack, strode onto the quarterdeck from the airlock.

The petty officer of the watch sounded four bells and spoke into the general address system. “Apollo arriving.”

Captain Quintus Locke snapped to attention and saluted the national flag of the Republic that hung from a flagpole mounted behind the quarterdeck watch station. “Permission to come aboard.”

Jack returned the salute. “Permission granted.”

The two captains simultaneously dropped their salutes. Locke stepped forward and extended a hand. Jack accepted the handshake.

“Welcome aboard the Columbia, sir,” Jack said.

Locke inclined his head. “Thank you. And please, Jack, we’re colleagues. No need to address me as sir. Call me Quint. I’m only senior to you by a few weeks, and that’s by happenstance more than by our relative abilities.”

“Shall we discuss the mission in my cabin?”

“Lead the way.”

Jack guided Locke off the quarterdeck to the nearest elevator. They rode up several decks and stepped out.

“The internal layout isn’t much different than the Apollo’s,” Locke commented. “I know exactly where I’m at.”

“Both ships were built by the shipyard in Terra’s orbit,” Jack said. “I understand the ships built by the shipyard in Luna’s orbit have a slightly different internal layout. The wardroom being on the port side instead of the starboard side and slightly more forward, for example. Little differences like that.”

“They all fight the same, that’s all that matters.”

“Agreed.”

The two men entered the captain’s cabin, and Locke took the offered seat on one of two couches facing a table on top of which was a computer terminal. Jack retrieved a memory stick from his desk and inserted it into the terminal’s access port. He pulled up its contents, and Locke leaned forward to read the text on the screen.

“Our full set of orders,” Jack said. “I’m not sure how much detail you were sent via hyperwave.”

“Limited,” Locke said. “Encrypted hyperwave messages are, by necessity, short.”

“Which is why Admiral Ford downloaded our complete mission briefing on this restricted access memory stick.”

“Operation First Strike,” Locke read. “Nice name. Appropriate. The rules of engagement are simple. We’re to maintain heightened alert once we enter the Barbary Corridor. Any armed ships that approach us in a hostile manner will be dealt with at our discretion, and Admiral Ford has left it up to us to determine what we consider to be threatening maneuvers. Good, I don’t want to have to consult my legal officer every time a ship approaches.”

“You have a legal officer aboard the Apollo?”

“You don’t have one on the Columbia?”

“I guess they never got around to assigning one.”

“Lucky you. After the media reports regarding some of my actions during my pirate suppression operations in the 33 Eridani and the SSC292 systems, the Progressive-controlled Senate gave one of their staff lawyers a Navy commission and demanded he be assigned to the Apollo. The Senate has even proposed legislation because of my actions. Their proposed legislation is intended to prevent the Navy’s use in pirate suppression within the Republic’s borders, thus leaving it in the jurisdiction of law enforcement assets.”

“I read some of your submitted mission reports. I thought you did a fine job against those pirates. I’d have done the same thing you did.”

“You’d have been as ‘harsh’ as I was?”

“Of course. Those human pirates were every bit an enemy of the Republic’s citizens as are the Barbary pirates. Wasn’t Congress aware of what kind of officer you’d be when they put you on their list of captain candidates? You were one of Congress’s choices for captain, weren’t you?”

“I was one of the House’s choices. The House of Representatives, as the house elected directly by the people, got three of Congress’s five candidates, and the Senate, as the house elected by the legislatures of the Republic’s member planets, got two. I hear the Progressives weren’t too happy with that arrangement. Between the President’s five choices, and the three choices by the Conservative-controlled House, the Progressives believe that the Conservative Party now controls eight out of our ten cruisers.”

“We don’t command these ships in the interest of one political party over the other. We command them in the interest of the Republic, to serve and defend her.”

“Try telling the Progressives that. Everything is political to those people.”

“We’ll leave that bickering to Washington. Do you have a plan of action once we arrive in Laapanese space?”

Locke nodded. “The plan is simple, Jack. Rapidly cross the space from the jump point to Laapan, blasting all enemy corsairs out of the sky that impede our progress. Achieve orbit around Laapan and deploy our Marines to the surface to effect the rescue.”

“Brute force.”

“Yes.”

Jack sat down on the couch across from Locke’s and furrowed his brow as he mulled over the other captain’s plan. With what Jack knew of the Barbary pirates’ capabilities, a straightforward frontal assault such as that would be effective in eliminating the pirate fleet.

“Any thoughts?” Locke asked.

“Concerns, really.”

“Such as?”

Jack shifted himself on the couch. “The Empire routinely dispatches a warship to deliver the ransoms to pirate lairs holding Imperial hostages. That being the case, it would be logical that the Republic would do the same.”

“I follow you.”

“Deploying two of our warships, however, might be overkill in their eyes. The Laapanese might suspect that we’re not there to pay the ransom. They might suspect, correctly, that we’re there to take our hostages back by force. They’ve already threatened to kill our people if we don’t pay the ransom by the deadline, which is why we’re moving ahead with this rescue operation. My concern is, if they see two of our new cruisers bearing down on their planet, and they deduce that we’re not going to pay the ransom, they may go ahead and kill our people before we get there.”

“You don’t think we should go through with this mission?”

“Oh no, I fully believe in this mission. I just wanted to put out in the open one of the obstacles that we face. Our primary mission here isn’t to destroy the Laapanese fleet, but to bring our people back alive.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“I think full emissions control protocols should be observed on our approach to Laapan. In addition, we should maintain a formation with the Columbia and the Apollo as close as safely possible so that any emissions they do radiate might be mistaken by the Laapanese sensors as being from one ship. If we can fool the Laapanese into thinking just one ship is bearing down on their planet, we might be able to fool them into thinking that a ransom payment is on the way. By the time we’re in visual range of their planet, when they can visually distinguish that two ships are approaching, we’ll be in range to deploy our Peacekeepers. Any Laapanese corsairs that might be in range to respond will concentrate on the Columbia and the Apollo, hopefully leaving the landers unmolested.”

“What about patrol craft spotting us before we get to the planet?”

“If the Laapanese are like the Hicanians, they don’t have the assets available to maintain an extensive network of patrol ships. Any ships not deployed on piracy missions will be held close to their planet to defend it.”

“If the Laapanese are like the Hicanians.”

“The Laapanese are members of the same Ja’alen Coalition that the Hicanians are, and the Hicanians are the senior members. My guess is, in a coalition of pirate cartels like that, the Hicanians hold that honor through brute strength.”

“So the Laapanese have the less powerful fleet. I got you. All right then. That’s the plan we’ll implement.”

Jack smiled. “Will this plan meet your legal officer’s approval?”

Locke shrugged. “If it doesn’t, the hell with him. We have Admiral Ford’s orders, and last I checked Admiral Ford outranks a lieutenant junior grade who until two weeks ago was shuffling papers on Capitol Hill.”

Jack leaned back on the couch. “What were you before you were given your commission, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not at all. I captained merchant ships. Had a couple ships shot out from under me by pirates on the frontier until the company I worked for started putting guns on our ships. Never lost another ship to pirates after that.”

“I was also a merchant ship captain.”

“I know. I did some digging on you when I learned that the Apollo was being paired up with the Columbia. You took a ship into the Corridor and successfully engaged a few of their corsairs.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

“That makes you more experienced against the Barbary pirates than I am. I may command this mission because I have a couple weeks’ seniority on you, but I do intend to defer to your greater experience in dealing with the Barbary pirates.”

“I think you put too much stock in my one encounter fighting the Barbary pirates. My tactics on that mission was evasion, not offense.”

“Still, it’s more than what I’ve got. Besides, in all my time at the helm of those merchant ships I skippered, I never entered the Corridor. You’ve done so more than once. I’ll listen to any suggestions you may have on dealing with the Corridor. The successful completion of this mission is more important than my ego.” Locke stood. “At 0900 hours Zulu tomorrow morning, we leave for the Corridor.”

Jack rose off the couch. “The Columbia will be ready.”