Still, it was progress, more than Bondarevsky, for one, had ever believed possible at the outset. Another few months and they might actually have a fighting ship.
If, in fact, Ragark gave them another few months.
Operations Planning Center, FRLS Karga
Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System
1445 hours (CST), 2670.356
It was a measure of their progress that they now could hold their conferences aboard Karga, rather than assembling aboard Independence. The Operations Planning Center for the supercarrier was located adjacent to the admiral’s ready room and the flag bridge, and was considerably more impressive than the escort carrier’s cozy conference room. In the center of the large chamber was a holographic projection tank that could display anything from tactical dispositions of a squadron to starcharts of entire sectors. Seats rose in tiers on all four sides of the oval compartment, allowing senior officers from several ships in a battle group to attend the briefing at the same time. Each person had a computer terminal attached to his seat which allowed him to call up details from the holo-tank, and there was an excellent intercom system that allowed everyone, no matter where he or she was in the room, to take full part in the discussions.
Jason Bondarevsky had chosen a seat near the top tier by the door, well out of the way. He’d learned to watch and listen at these conferences, but saved his input for times when he could tackle Richards or Tolwyn in private. Too many voices arguing over priorities or procedures was a sure recipe for chaos, and the Goliath staff had proven this on more than one occasion over the last two months.
Richards was in the place reserved for the Kilrathi admiral, near the head of the oval in a private box seat something like a small throne. Tolwyn had a less impressive version of the same accommodations at the other end of the holo-tank, the spot where a Kilrathi intelligence or political officer would have been accommodated in an Imperial vessel.
The rest of the room was well-filled. This particular conference was far more extensive than the usual daily briefings, including officers from other ships of the battle group as well as the carrier’s department heads and other important members of the team. The progress made to date had allowed Richards to convene this meeting to begin a new phase of the project.
“All right, people, the sooner we get started the sooner we can get out of here.” Richards’ voice came through clearly over the intercom headset Bondarevsky, like the rest of the assembled staff, was wearing. The original Kilrathi earpieces had been too large and bulky for humans to use, so Lieutenant Vivaldi, the Communications Officer, had raided the City of Cashel for a supply of marine tactical transceivers. Murragh and his fellow Kilrathi wore the original gear. They were clustered on one side of the holo-tank, a block of nonhumans who somehow seemed out of place now on their own ship. “Mr. Bondarevsky. Status?”
Bondarevsky cleared his throat. “Primary Flight Control will be on-line this afternoon, or so Mr. Diaz has assured me.” He glanced toward the salvage specialist, who gave a little self-satisfied nod. “That means that by tomorrow morning we’ll be able to start pretending we’re a real carrier. If the sensors behave themselves, we should be able to track anything in this part of the system, although I’m still worried about the interference from the brown dwarf’s strange radiation. A brown dwarf just isn’t supposed to cause this much trouble. And the ring system still drives our sensor probes crazy.”
Richards smiled. “Why should the sensors be any different from the rest of us?” he demanded. That raised a few laughs, from humans and Kilrathi alike. “Excellent work. With PFC and the starboard hangar deck up and running-and Mr. Deniken’s weapons in place-this boat can start looking after herself. Commander Tohvyn?”
Kevin Tolwyn nodded. “Your capacity will be limited for a time, but I’d say you won’t need us to look after you…if you have the planes to fly your own patrols.”
“Exactly.” Richards frowned. “I’m not about to start using our Kilrathi planes yet, not until Mr. Bondarevsky’s training and simulation program is running. In the meantime, by the power invested in me by our beloved leader, Old Max, I am hereby ordering half of the Independence Flight Wing detached for duty aboard Karga.”
Galbraith was quick to react. “Now wait just a minute, Admiral,” he said. “I don’t think-”
“Spare me, Captain,” Richards cut him off. “I’ve already discussed the matter with Admiral Camparelli. And you know my orders give me broad discretion for requisitions of this type. At any rate, you’ll have replacements waiting for you at Landreich when you head back there next week.”
“Head back?” Galbraith frowned.
‘That’s the point to all this,“ Richards said. ”Old Max made it quite clear that he wanted Independence back on active service again just as soon as we felt we didn’t need her for protecting Goliath any longer. Well, we have guns and we have a flight deck. With half a flight wing we can handle most standard operations, and when we get our people trained on the Kilrathi birds and get the other flight deck up to speed we’ll have everything we need here to protect ourselves. Independence is to make her way back to Landreich to link up with a new battle group. You can make good your shortages of planes there.“
“I…suppose that will work out all right,” Galbraith said.
“Good. Commander Tolwyn, you may assign whichever of your squadrons you see fit, of course, though I would suggest that you balance the two wings as best you can. Consult with Mr. Bondarevsky. I’ll approve whatever TO amp;E the two of you come up with.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Kevin Tolwyn said, turning a brief grin on Bondarevsky.
“Do you see any further difficulties in starting flight operations, Captain?” Richards asked, looking at Bondarevsky.
“No, sir,” he replied. “Nothing major, at least. Starboard side’ll be crowded for a while, with all those Kilrathi birds in the hangars, but there’s a fair amount of room to spare. Luckily the Cats built this tub with the idea of having to operate all their birds with one crippled flight deck.”
“Too bad for them they didn’t actually do it,” Marchand said from here place a few seats down from Bondarevsky. “You may not think it’s a major problem, sir, but as far as I’m concerned juggling all those planes is going to be a nightmare. How soon until we can start shifting a few of the Kilrathi junkheaps over to port side?”
“Probably a couple of weeks, Boss,” Bondarevsky told her. “Until then, you’ll just have to make do. I’ve seen you work. You’ll handle it.”
“Good,” Richards said. “Now, Mr. Graham, what’s our schedule on shields and drives?”
“That same couple of weeks, sir,” Graham replied. “That is, if we don’t run into any more trouble with the shield generators. I’m not happy about their power consumption. I’m pretty sure the battle damage was a bit more than the initial surveys showed. There was a hell of a lot of energy soaking through the whole system when Juneau and Dover hit the old girl, and I don’t think Commander Kent’s first estimates took into account the overload factor.“