Countryman surveyed the faces at the table. The vote was in, they’d made their choice. Williams with a glum face commented, “You people are nuts.”
Countryman ignored her, “So are we all agreed?”
General Kirk commented from her seat beside General Forrest, “I think we are.”
Ruri interjected, “If we are crossing Valorian space, Richards and I better get started. There are a number of things we can do to help further conserve fuel.”
Countryman nodded, “I’ll make the announcements then, but I imagine a lot of people aren’t going to be happy.”
Richards nodded, “We can shut down the factories, our reserves of material are basically spent anyway, and we can’t really afford the energy cost. It will mean we won’t be able to replace any spare parts we use or produce any consumer goods for the civilians.”
Greyman nodded. “Sad, but an unfortunate reality.”
Kirk spoke up, “I guess I should stop by the market soon and get those new clothes I need sooner rather than later.”
Ruri frowned, “That’s not a big deal is it?”
Countryman sighed, “Ruri aside, I think we can make do without new clothing production. I’ll just have to keep a closer eye on Ruri though.”
Several of the girls giggled, “Yeah that girl is hopeless.”
Williams groaned, “We already have a clothing shortage and you want to shut down the factories?”
“Not much we can do about it, but we can make do for a couple of months.”
Greyman interjected, “On a positive note, we have a food surplus. Hydroponics has produced a major windfall this year and last. We have enough food stockpiled to last us five years.”
Williams gave him a look. “Oh sure, at least we will die with full bellies. Food won’t help when we run out of heat and breathable air.”
Countryman nodded. “Sure, but at least it means we have something to trade.”
Forrest spoke up, “If it helps I can offer a few crates of rifles. We have a surplus of LPR-117, we over-requisitioned the rifle, and now I have twenty crates of them just taking up space in the armory.”
Kirk nodded, “It’s a good rifle, but it’s better suited to security work than anything else. I’m sure we can sell them, any security force would welcome them.”
Countryman recalled the rifle, the LPR-117 was a light particle rifle. It was somewhat sleeker than the XR-471 and had many of the same features. However, the weapon lacked the punch of the XR-471 and didn’t have the secondary ‘shotgun’ blast fire mode. As a general purpose rifle it just didn’t compare to the workhorse that the XR-471 was. But the rifle did have one feature that set it apart, and that was its ability to fire a stun bolt. Although in most cases the pistol form LP-1230 was generally better, being lighter and easier to carry. “Hmm, I guess we could try and offload a few of those, but I think we are planning too far ahead. We still have to reach the Krall before we can do any sort of trading. Still, it’s nice to know we will have something to offer.”
“Agreed,” said Greyman.
“Getting back on track, we should have enough fuel to actually reach Krall space, but I’d like to build a margin of error. Anything else we can cut back on to extend our range?”
“There are a few things, but we’ve already been running on rather minimal levels. The factories really are the only big ticket item left. We can dial the waste heat converters up a bit, but that would lower temperatures across the ship. As we are using some of that heat to keep things comfortable around here.” Richards said as the group moved into discussing new power-saving measures.
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A few hours later Countryman settled into his Command chair on the bridge. He surveyed the room below noting the faces at work and feeling the atmosphere. It was obvious to him that the last few months had certainly taken their toll on morale. Constant fighting was good for no one, even if they had won every battle. The costs were starting to pile up.
“Have Drakes and Reynolds returned to their ships?”
“Yes, sir. Their shuttles docked two minutes ago.”
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“Excellent, Eri, bring us about to heading nine three mark four and bring the main reactor online.”
“Spooling up the main reactor, warp power in ten minutes. New heading 93 mark four.”
Countryman leaned back for a bit as he watched the usual din before a warp jump. It wasn’t long before the reactor was back online. They’d been in the system long enough for it to go cold rather than simply idle, but they had just been here for a council meeting. This system had proven good for lying low for some field repairs. Sadly it had been yet another bust for fuel, in this case it was the site of an old abandoned colony. Several decaying refineries had been found in the ruins of what had once been a prosperous colony world. Now there were just decaying cities set in a dying wasteland. There was evidence the planet once supported a vast ocean, but it was now nothing more than scattered lakes as temperatures grew. The local star was rather old and was starting to transition into a red giant and the local planet was already suffering as a result. The cost of scavenging the old ruins largely outweighed the gains, but they had managed to get about two days' worth of deuterium from that planet. Sadly the local waters weren’t just drying up, but they were also quite depleted. Most of the local fuel had likely been used up by others long before they got here.
“Warp power confirmed sir, ready to jump on your order.”
“Take us out of the system, standard formation warp three.”
“Aye, sir. Taking us out, warp three.”
He barely even felt it as the ship went to warp. Yet he certainly heard it as the engines started to hum and then on screen the stars started to distort before seeming to streak. That was an illusion however one created by the warp field itself and not their actual velocity. At warp three they were only going around ten times the speed of light, which while fast wasn’t that fast. He just wasn’t inclined to go much faster until they cleared the system, as warp three gave them more time to react if they had to adjust their heading. It was a far better speed for in-system transits than the higher warp factors as long as you weren’t in a hurry or something that is.
Once he was sure they were underway, he relaxed into his chair and let the crew do their jobs. They had a long journey ahead of them. It would take several months to cross the Valorian core and reach Krall space and half of that would be spent evading enemy patrols. With any luck they would be in Krall space by mid-June at the earliest or early July. Hopefully without incident as they couldn’t really afford to do any fighting.
They were down to about 35,000 torpedoes fleetwide and the Enterprise was down to just shy of 150,000 missiles with no means to replace them. With the reserves basically dry, what little reserve fuel they had left was currently being allocated for use by their fighters and such flights were being restricted. They were also going to be reducing intraship shuttle flights and all further officer council meetings will be conducted in part with virtual attendance. All so that they could deploy fighters when they needed them. They were also reverting to standard hanger operations and forgoing the use of bay shields. Those devices were nifty now that Vera and Ruri had them working but they were also somewhat power-hungry.
This meant they could ill-afford their use right now given the current drought of fuel they were experiencing. The heavy fighting they’d been through with the Valorians certainly didn’t help and the fleet was certainly looking a little worse for wear because of it. As they weren’t just running low on fuel but spare parts and materials as well. As such both destroyers had minor hull breaches and cracked plating that they hadn’t been able to replace yet. The Enterprise was also in need of a proper refit from all the heavy combat. No hull breaches thankfully, but there were sections of plating that were suffering from minor fractures and cracking from extended combat.
As for their fighter craft? Of their complement of sixty X-1204 space superiority fighters, sixteen were out of commission. They’d also been forced to bench an entire squadron of X-1208 Sparrows due to combat damage and they didn’t have the spare parts to repair them. If anything the downed fighters were instead being scavenged for parts to keep the rest of the fighter fleet ready for deployment. A fleet that was now running on a very limited fuel supply and then there was their current supply of warheads for the fighters. They had 2500 fighter missiles and another 1200 fighter torpedoes. A sign of how hard hit their projectile reserves have been.
There wasn’t much helping that, torpedoes and missiles were by far the most effective weapon they had for fighting the Valorians. He sighed as he considered how much they had spent. It was just one more thing on the list that they were going to have to correct.
A figure came up to him, “Sir? Why don’t you go take a rest? I can watch the bridge for a while.”
He looked up at Greyman and smiled, “Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Suffer in silence, I’d bet.”
He chuckled, “You might be right, I think I could use a bit of time to relax. It’s been a while since I’ve done a tour of the ship.... You know what, I’m going to do that. See you in a bit.”
“Have fun sir, and take a guard with you, don’t want Williams trying something. She’s been up to something lately.”
Countryman smiled, “I was planning to take two, and she’s not quite ready for that.”
In fact Countryman knew exactly what she was up to, planning the final stages of her mutiny. The girl was going to launch it in the next few months to take advantage of the current low morale. Only she was waiting for a moment when things were starting to look up but before people got excited to take advantage of the goodwill she’d get for a quick fix. The kind of thing he saw in the past, he could recall a twentieth-century American president who basically did the same thing. Only instead of a mutiny, he got his power via a genuine election. The man didn’t have much talent himself, but he was still revered long after his death.
He thought Williams had the right idea in fact, but as he left the bridge Countryman grinned. The girl didn’t know what was coming. They’d both played their hands, and the only thing left was to call the bets. It was only a matter of time before all the cards fell into place, but Countryman already knew who the winner would be. She was dancing right into his own plans. Afterall you didn’t get to be 195 years old without learning the game and this wasn’t his first time playing the game. History was a funny thing after all, it remembered people like the demon president, but the people behind him were often forgotten. He chuckled at the memory, it had been so long ago but he remembered it like it was yesterday. All the while knowing it was time to put yet another fool in her place, like all the others he’d done so long ago when he’d helped end the Age of Fools.