I smiled widely at the doctor, and made ‘gimme’ motions with my hands. “Well, let me have it, Doc. What mad genius things have you and your team come up with to make our enemies wish they were never born?”
The doctor did not disappoint, and pulled a set of rough blueprints up on the main screen. “Well, we’re at a middle ground between the Assassins and the Reapers here, in terms of size. We’re tentatively calling this ship class a destroyer because of that. We are using the X’thari lance technology for short-range fire, and for stealth attacks. Because of the space needed for that and the secondary weapons, we won’t be able to have the rail guns on them. Just no room for them.”
“So, an escort ship to go along-side our Reapers when they’re in combat, leaving the heavy assaults to the assassins?”
Bazalgette shrugged. “The designer pointed out that the Assassins are really wasted in fleet action. Sure, they can fight in formation, but they’re really best at sneak attacks and wolfpack tactics, even as detached forces going behind enemy lines or hitting pirates. The Reapers are clearly the focus of our fleet’s firepower, once we get into a brawl, so if we had each Reaper with a few escorting destroyers, and the gunboats buzzing about, that would free the Assassins to do hit and run tactics for better effect, or sneak past to hit whatever our real target is.”
“All right, I’m liking this so far. But the lack of stand-off weaponry is not something I’m comfortable with. Getting in close and slugging it out with people in our weight class or higher is what hurt us last time. What options do we have for that?”
“Well, we have missile launchers amidships, and torpedo tubes fore and aft that are capable of fitting both the Dragonbreath and the Starbolt torpedoes. That will give them some extended range, as well as giving them attack options that don’t include pointing directly at the people they’re trying to kill or getting in close.”
“Very well, that will do for weapons. How are they defensively? If they’re going to be charging into fire, then I’m going to want them to be coming out the other side.”
“X’thari ships use a technorganic hull structure that has many of the benefits of our current hulls for the Assassins and Reapers. Our materials people have created an alloy of the two materials, which we would be able to produce with our fabricators. Well, technically it wouldn’t be an alloy, as the two materials aren’t metals, but the process is similar enough that the materials people are calling it one. Preliminary reports indicate that hull strength increases by 30%, and is less prone to fracturing than our typical hulls, but the stealth profile is reduced by 10% and mass increases by 10%. Costs increased by 12% on initial runs due to the materials used, but over the long term, it should be cheaper, once you’re in action.”
“Hmm. Not something we’ll worry about with the Assassins or other small craft, then, since the Assassin mission profile emphasizes stealth. And the gunboats… thirty percent won’t do anything for them. What would it cost to convert the Reapers to this new hull material?”
“A week and a half in the yard, starting with stripping the old paint, infusing the existing hull with the mix that will cause it to ‘fuse’ the two materials, and then repainting. It would give both the Reapers and the destroyers a significant boost to their survivability.”
I clapped my hands, and smiled at them. “You guys have done excellent work on this. Transmit your findings to Raven, and the team at the Dimiya yards. If they agree with your assessments, then add the destroyers to the build lists. The new destroyer class will be called the Knight class, since these will be jousting with enemy vessels, it seems. Raven, do you have an updated target fleet group manifest?”
“Yes, Commodore.”
The view on the screen shifted from the schematics of the proposed Destroyer and an ‘order of battle’ emerged.
Standard Black Star Navy Fleet Group:
2 Reaper-Class Cruisers
6 Knight-Class Destroyers
8 Assassin-Class Corvettes
16 Gunboats
1 Smerti-Class Carrier
1 Large Freighter (Logistics)
I looked over to Raven, and said, “This is the standard plan we want to build up to for First Group, and the new Fourth and Fifth groups, right?” When she nodded, I turned back to the screen, and said, “All right, I’m generally happy with this, as we can break it down into lighter groups if we need to, sending a group of Assassins with a Raven as support if needed. Most of the logistics for the small ships is in food stores and repair materials, since the ammunition for an Assassin’s main gun can be manufactured easily wherever there’s an asteroid with enough metal in it. But the fighters and bigger ships have munitions that need to be refilled when they’re used. We haven’t had a problem about missing a fleet train until now, because we haven’t had extended fighter operations of fleet battles, but it is better to plan for it now.”
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Raven nodded. “The Pocket carriers like the Vicious Return will be phased out of standard fleet formations as they are replaced by standard carriers. However, I have had a request from Major Kahn for a pocket carrier to be assigned to each of his Marine Assault ships, along with a trio of Crow-Class assault ships. As you know, the Crow-Class is a modified version of the Raven-class freighter, with the freighter cargo compartment replaced with mission-variable setups, and increased armor and weapons abilities, making them effective trans-atmospheric gunboats with the Dragonbreath torpedoes to give them enough hitting power to make them a threat. That would allow his Marines to conduct independent operations without relying on the Navy for constant support.”
Hmm. A single pocket carrier could only field one squadron of fighters. So which of the three designs would the Marines want? “What kind of fighters was the Major looking to have on those carriers?”
“Thunderbolts, for the most part, with Marine pilots. We’ve been discussing it, and the Thunderbolts are as close to a general-purpose fighter as we have right now, capable of performing multiple roles. Anything too large for the capability of a squadron of Thunderbolts, the Assault ship, and the Crows, and they ought to have Navy assistance to begin with.”
That suited the Marines fine then. Still, something was still bothering me, though. That outline of the projected group manifest just didn’t look right. “The Reapers are going to need some serious revision if they’re going to become fleet command ships. They just aren’t designed for that kind of detail. Oh sure, they’ll work in a pinch, but they’ll need upgrades if we’re going to have that be a standard part of their mission. Do we have any plans for a command ship?”
That the doctor was happy was no surprise. But when the others started grinning like loons, I knew something was up. “Let me guess, someone decided that they wanted to design a command ship while we were designing my new destroyer?”
Raven politely cleared her throat, and said, “Well, I just so happen to have lifted the schematics on all current Imperial ship designs back during the war, so we had something to go off of already. And since we were going to be expanding the fleet, it was put forward by several groups that we needed a true command ship for the different groups. Plus, the Nuedo Evo Navy will be wanting something more than a corvette or cruiser to hang their hat on.”
I shook my head. It was good to have good people, who knew what they were doing, but sometimes I wished they hadn’t picked up my sense of showmanship. “Well, all right then, hit me with it. What have you guys cooked up?”
A new schematic appeared on the screen, and my first thought was this was one big sucker. It was clearly no mere cruiser, even a Heavy Cruiser, but an actual BATTLESHIP! I turned, and looked at the smiling group, and said, “Really? I know we’re expanding an all, but do you really think we’re at the point of needing fucking battleships? Sure, it isn’t a superdreadnought, but that thing is a helluvalot bigger than any ‘mercenary’ company other than those Kul’tiras guys have.”
Raven simply shook her head. “Well, ‘Admiral’—” I glared at her, and she smiled, “Oh yes, you’ll find that the upgrade kit has been delivered to your room already, waiting for you to use it so next time we go into a fleet action, we get more bonuses from it.” I shook my head. My people were really too good for words sometimes.
Raven continued, ignoring my mental musings, “We actually started the design process for it, since the Nuevo Edoans were going to need an actual flagship at some point, once we’d built them up to the point where they can stand on their own. But we wanted something leaner and meaner than the superdreadnoughts you normally see.”
I sighed, giving up on the argument for the time being. “Fine, fine. So tell me about this beast. I can see the ‘leaner’ part, since it doesn’t have nearly the bulk of a superdreadnought. But how about the ‘meaner’ part?”
“Well, the shields and engines are all superdreadnought strength, and the armor is actually 10% stronger than the typical Imperial superdreadnought. Of course, it has less point defense because of it, and it has a flight deck equivalent to the Reapers, instead of the larger deck on an Imperial ship.”
“Crew complement is smaller as well, due to the smaller size, and the primary weapons taking up a significant area of the ship. The primaries, by the way, are four forward-facing railguns equivalent to the Reaper-class guns. In addition, we have more than a few missile launchers and X’thari lances, scaled up to battleship strength, for close fighting, and eight torpedo tubes on each side of the ship set up in a ‘broadsides’ configuration. It may be small, compared to a superdreadnought, but it can definitely bring the pain.”
I nodded slowly. A ship like this would solve a lot of the problems we’d faced at Nuevo Edo, but it would require much more of a crew to keep running. Still, if they were going to go with his plan to push into the gates and start seriously exploring, then they would need something like this.
“Then the Wrath-class Battleship is officially part of the Black Star Navy. Add it to the build lists.”
(CNS Luvon Gilrie, Nuevo Edo Gateway)
Captain Faylen Zylna leaned forward in her seat as they passed through the Gateway. She was young to be the Captain of a navy ship, she knew, but the Assassin ships were entirely new, from the Navy’s perspective, and they required a certain kind of thinking that older, more experienced captains didn’t always have. In short, they needed someone who was willing to do insane things, like the Black Stars did.
Of course, her being young and having fresh ideas wasn’t the only reason she’d gained this posting. She had been told as much by the Admiral when she’d met with him and a Zumrora from Intelligence. The leader of Black Star was a notorious womanizer, and she was attractive and single. At the very least she wouldn’t get sent away as easily as an older man. And the Navy needed this exercise, to know how to use the ships they’d bought from Black Star.
Thankfully, she hadn’t been ordered to do anything so stupid as to try and seduce the owner. The Admiral had wanted to put an intelligence asset on her crew who WOULD have had that mission, but Zumrora had apparently shot that down, saying that the owner would see through it, and who knows what would happen. But she had been pointedly told that while there was no order for her to seduce him, there was also very much no order for her to avoid his advances, if he made any. She felt like bait in a trap.
“Captain, Nuedo Evo Navy ship Santiago is challenging us.”
“Send the response we were given, with the orders we were given to rendezvous with the Black Star forces here. And get send the greeting package to the Black Star ships.”
Time to get this ‘exercise’ started, she thought.