Dragon squared, p.12
Dragon Squared, page 12
“Who’s running fighters now?”
“Rockmonster. She’s the group captain in command of Hekule. But only the Spitfires. Wing Commander Jane is commanding the bombers, although most of them are AI flown, since we don’t have the pilots, or even the trained avatars for them.”
“Shouldn’t Jane be a group captain as well?”
“She doesn’t want it,” said Walter. “She’s quite happy being the rank she is, and was going to let Leanne be her superior.”
“Except Leanne has other responsibilities,” I added. “Are you bringing us more pilots?”
“Quite a few, actually,” he said. “Most are junior officers, as are those who’re coming from ship crews. The second tier crews have experienced captains, but only for protectorate work. My Gatekeeper colonels have done the full course for the ship, but lack experience fighting them. But they’re up for being moved to an offensive force if needed.”
“You’ll need to work with Leanne on assignments. We’ve plenty of protectorate ships which need crews. And even more Spitfires and Excalibur Sixes. So if anyone wants to change their role, and can demonstrate they’re up for it, that’s possible to do.”
“I’ll get on with that this afternoon. Where do I meet with them all?”
“Hell’s Bomber’s auditorium,” said Walter. “Organize that with Leanne as well. She’ll send everyone jump icons. Include the colonels and majors from your brigade as well.”
Woof nodded, and looked at me.
“When do you need to know about my choice?”
“Whenever you want to tell me.” He smiled. “During daylight hours.” He smiled wider.
“If you want the fleet,” said Aisha, “those ships are already available. You’d either have to crew them yourself, or Daggo takes them over.”
Daggo was his AI co-pilot. Woof nodded to her.
“If you want the fighter and bomber command,” I said, “then Daggo will get a good chunk of the bombers to operate. And any Spitfires needed to make up the last full squadron.”
I was assuming there wouldn’t be enough pilots for the last squadron to be complete. That would be too coincidental to actually happen. And operating a part squadron was not a good idea. Jane was running the existing extra ones herself. They’d be the first to be replaced with pilots.
“You and Dianne should talk about reorganizing the squadrons,” I went on. “If your pilots are mainly junior officers, then we’ll need to spread the more senior ones further. If there’s not enough squadron leaders, then promote the best of the flight lieutenants, after you put them through one of your simulator tests.”
“I’ve not done one of those in a long time. Actually, it might be an idea if I fly some simulations in a Spitfire and Excalibur Six myself. I’ve not flown the Six at all yet. Tell you what, if you’re okay with it, I’ll schedule some simulations with me as the squadron leader, and allocate those in the pool for promotion to my squadron so I can see what they do.”
“Whatever you want. Maybe rotate the flight lieutenants through being the opposing squadron leader to see if any are ready to step up.”
I trusted Woof to know who was ready for promotion. With him getting his second star, we’d lost him in this role when he’d gone home to run his militia. I looked at his new boss.
“Walter?”
“Fine with me. How do we use your troops though, Woof?”
“Any way you need,” said Woof. “We can deploy in any unit size from platoon up to regiment strength.”
“Do you have two regiments or three?”
“Three, making a brigade. The fourth is a month or so out, and we expect to be up to division strength within four to six months.”
“How did Vonda react to losing you?” I asked.
“No idea, actually. I was just told we’d left the Imperium, and to go see you. I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone.”
“Do your people need accommodation?” asked Aisha.
“No. We’re using barracks at home. All we need are deployment squares.”
“Those we have, but you might have to deploy after the dragons do.”
“Makes no difference to my colonels.” He looked at Walter, and grinned. “Now your colonels, and one brigadier.”
“Let’s get that meeting going,” Walter told him, and rose, looking at me.
“Go.”
He and Woof both touched their belt buckles, and vanished. I looked at Aisha.
“We better put more troop jump cruisers on the stations.”
“Already on that.”
Twenty Seven
“It’s begun.”
I shot Leanne a look which was supposed to infer more information was needed. She grinned at me, but said nothing more.
“What has?”
“A Keerah civil war.”
That got my attention.
“Where?”
She popped up a navmap. It was one of the new areas of space she’d only just added today, and it showed two Keerah worlds, with a battle between identical ships happening midway between them.
“The coms system is completely intact all through that area. The battle just started, and I was informed by the avatar monitoring that system.”
Another screen popped up giving a tactical plot of the battle itself. They were using old style ‘ship of the line’ tactics, except they were lined up across the direct route between the jump points in that system.
“Are they trying to get past each other?”
“Looks a bit that way. We just seeded some bots in the government buildings in the capitals of both worlds, so we might be able to find out what triggered this.”
“I’ve been expecting it. Wherever you get equal ranked whites leading different worlds, they’re unlikely to agree on who’s the new emperor. That’s most likely what’s going on here.”
“Why trying to get past?”
“First one to destroy the other’s government buildings wins? I don’t know. I don’t care either. Keep an eye on it. As soon as one side wins, send in someone to clean up what’s left, and remove the coms from the entire area. Let’s leave one side thinking they won, and then wondering why nothing more happens.”
“Make that standard operating instructions for if this happens in the future?”
“When it happens. It will probably happen a lot. Probably is already happening a lot where we’re not monitoring. Maybe not along the frontier, but everywhere else.”
“You expected it?”
“I told the emperor before he died in the desert I expected some level of civil war. He didn’t believe me.”
“No-one can dispute it now.”
“Better pass the vid on to Jane, so she knows to look for it herself. Jon will need to decide what he does, or doesn’t do, in response.”
“Confirmed.”
I looked at Aisha. The three of us were still at the conference table.
“Find out if Syrinx and Tanith can spare me a minute or two.”
I kept watching the tigers fight it out. They were equally matched fleets with the exact same type and number of ships. In theory, they’d either withdraw without doing any real damage, withdraw with both sides taking as much damage as they could without losing ships, or one side would prove to be better trained and prevail but at a high cost in casualties. Or I could be totally wrong.
When destroyers started plinking out on the map, it was pretty obvious both sides were serious about winning. So they might in fact mutually destroy each other. Syrinx appeared in my peripheral vision, and sat at the table. A few moments later, so did Tanith.
“Anything interesting?” asked Tanith.
“Two Keerah factions fighting.”
“I wondered if that would happen.”
“I expected it. But that’s not why you’re here. Do either of you know how the door Aisha ripped off the Imperium council chamber came to be stuck there? I just found out about it, and your inability to put in a new doorway for them.”
They looked at each other and grinned.
“That was me,” said Syrinx. “No-one calls my Matriarch a bitch without consequences. I glued the door in place where Aisha had thrown it as soon as it happened, intending it to just be for a day or so. But when the British didn’t replace the man who said that, and he turned up at the next meeting, I made it permanent, and jinxed the walls as well, so nothing there could be changed.”
“So what was trying to put a new doorway in all about?”
“David asked us to. Tanith didn’t know I’d done it, and I wasn’t going to admit it was me, so I put on a show.”
“I worked it out,” added Tanith. “It wasn’t me, and Haynes and Gitte had already done something to the door, so I guessed it was Syrinx. So I put a show on as well.”
“Have you been doing much magic for the Imperium since we split?”
“No,” said Syrinx. “Both of us have been concentrating on continuing the training without interruption. In fact, since the calls for other things have stopped, both of us have been getting some time off for a change, like you suggested.”
Both of them were leaders on their own worlds, which were colonies for Karn and Kelewan now. And they still bore the brunt of the advanced mage training. They’d both been overworked for a long time now, just not doing anything near burn out level magic, like I had been.
“How many of the battle mages went back to work?”
“Most of them,” said Tanith. “At considerably higher pay rates.”
“What about the rift mages?”
“Less of them,” said Syrinx. “Some took the opportunity to join the mage guild. They’ll do rifts for the Imperium if they pay the going rate for them on a one by one basis.”
“So if Jon or Jane wants any long distance rifts done, they’ll need to ask one of us?”
“That’s right. Are you expecting any requests?”
“The rift to bypass where the Darkness area of the spine was will need to be done soon. Assuming Jon still wants it done. I told him to claim ownership of the whole lower spine himself. And I’m claiming what the Rawtenuga devastated. But if Jon wants his part joined up to say Sanctuary, it will probably need a rift mage who can do real distance. Aisha is working on how that might have to be structured.”
“So spread the word among the better rift mages to check with you before doing any long distance ones for anyone?”
“That would be best.”
Which was when I remembered the auction of systems on Long Bar which had already taken place. Some of those now joined up with Imperium systems. I’d been thinking I didn’t need to do anything, but we’d already opened that door, so I would need to.
“Any new instructions for us?” asked Tanith. “You’ve been so busy with the military side, we’ve left you alone about the mage side of things.”
“No. Just keep on with what you’re doing. If you need to see me about anything, just ask Aisha to slot you in. What happened with the Vincent and Solidario mages?”
“Still attending classes. Are we supposed to charge them now?”
“No. Any mage who needs or wants training can get it. That hasn’t changed. I assume we still control the guild?”
“Yes,” said Syrinx. “I did ask Celestine if she wanted to start her own Imperium one, but she didn’t. Her people are still listed, and the Vincent mages don’t seem to care who controls it. I doubt anyone hiring mages through it even knows who controls it.”
“Anything else I need to know?” They both shook their heads. “Good. Carry on then.”
They both nodded, and vanished.
Twenty Eight
“Most of the Rawtenuga and Trixone area has comnavsats in it,” said Aisha. “That’s why we forgot about it when doing magicsat changes.”
“Put the magicsats in then.”
“Do we really need to monitor the old Trixone zone now?”
“Probably not. Just do all the systems we know are habitable, but uninhabited. For now anyway. Once we get ship traffic anywhere, we’ll need to fill in the gaps. I guess it’s been long enough for the Trixone or their vassals to have claimed some of them, so I guess you’ll need to check each planet to make sure someone hasn’t. Check for ships as well. Make up a map of the uninhabited ones worth anything to anyone, and I’ll join them up into a cluster at some point. Show me the ones from the recent auction.”
A navmap popped up. It showed a dozen systems, all of which now had rifts joining them to Imperium systems, Terra, or Alliance systems. I’d done all of them, but what I hadn’t done was close off that cluster, or the few ways away from it along the Long Bar. With the exception of Marvonic’s system, which had no access to anywhere.
“Does anyone who bought those planets actually want access to anywhere else in that mini-cluster?”
“Most of them still don’t have a first city laid out yet. I can find out, but since they all are basically single systems joined to another one somewhere else, I doubt it. Even the corporate ones are joined to their current head office system.”
“Okay, don’t bother asking anyone. They were sold with a rift, the rifts went in, and I don’t remember anyone wanting them for local trade there.”
I looked at the map, zooming in on each of the jump points.
“There’s no ship activity near any of the jump points which were already there. I’m going to remove all those jump points then. If anyone asks what happened to them, tell them to talk to me.”
“Will do.”
I concentrated on each system, and one by the one, the old jump points vanished. That solved any problem with ships moving out from them into the Bar to explore, but still left Jon’s explorer ships the ability to jump home easily if they wanted to. I doubted they would. It was a big fleet, with a huge job, and everyone there was where they wanted to be.
“Do me a recommendation for separating Jon’s space and mine, and I’ll talk to him about it later.”
“How urgent is that?”
“Not very, but we better have that discussion before Jon asks for a rift mage to join up Last Hope.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Find me the best planets in my space. Then find out if any League members want any more planets. Then see if Jewell will tell you who was interested in the next Long Bar auction.”
“Are you thinking of selling some planets yourself?”
“Yes. The League needs its own funds as well, and while I don’t need the credits as such, me paying for large chunks of the League military and a lot of the mage training is a step backwards. I’m thinking we keep on with the auctions, with me taking a percentage cut of the proceeds, say the ten percent Jon uses for most things, which then gets split up among the team. You two get a third each of my share, and the team can split theirs with their co-pilot as well.”
“Or we just get equal shares,” said Leanne. “No extra work. We set up an auction company with a share for each of us, and it charges ten percent of the hammer price as a fee on top.”
“Do that. Maybe include the court running charges in that, and divide the fees for court sessions up among us as well.”
“Then you get two shares,” said Aisha. “Since you do most of the heavy lifting in the court.”
“Not necessary, but I won’t argue with you. The rest of the funds from planet sales go into a League account for paying for military and mage training needs. Paying the royalties on equipment for example. I know Lufafluf was going to pay for their PCs, suits, and jump buttons, but at some point the League should start to pick that cost up. May as well start doing that as soon as we can. I guess that means we need a League bank as well.”
“We already have one. Jewel sent me a list of those interested in more planet auctions. She says there’s an uproar going on at the moment over us claiming space they consider theirs. But David admits they can’t get to it anyway without any senior rift mages, and Jewell had already told him you’ve removed the other jump points. They could replace them, but he knows you’d only remove them again. The argument is mainly with Jon and Jane though.”
“Suggest to Jane that they do the same as us, and continue auctions, but they get ten percent of the sale price between them, and however they deal in the exploration fleet.”
“Jane is laughing. Jewell says that might work.”
“Good. If any of those who are still interested in buying have a specific planet in mind, and it’s ours, tell them we’ll entertain offers. If there’s only one buyer at the moment, then there’s no need for an auction.”
“On it.”
I remembered I’d been watching a battle, before being distracted from it. The navmap was still up. I looked at Leanne, and she smiled back.
“Mutually assured destruction,” she said. “Almost. The carriers survived, but with no fighters left. The battleships are covering them from missile fire, as they each retreat. All six ships are not looking in good condition. The cruisers and destroyers were all destroyed or mission killed. Some of the latter are trying to effect repairs enough to retreat.”
“Send in Chaos. We might as well complete what they started. Have her mop up the coms devices after. They may as well know we let them fight it out, and then finished it up. It might stop some others from starting, if they pass it along before we remove the whole network around there again.”
“She was waiting for the order.”
New dots appeared in the system, and the remaining Keerah dots vanished very quickly. The hulks left over from the tiger battle vanished, as did survivors, and our ships vanished again. A moment later, Hells Bomber was there, Excaliburs appeared across the system, then vanished, and the station did as well.
“I’ll time the removal of the rest of the coms, so their messages and the destruction of their fleets can get to the two Keerah planets, and beyond. But I thought we may as well clear the whole area now, since Hell’s Bomber was done for the day for everything else.”
“Good. How did Woof’s meeting go?”
