“Ship Master Farkas, reporting ma’am.” He said seriously. Instead of saluting back, Laura walked up to him and hugged him.
“I’m so glad you are back son.” Laura said.
Adrian relaxed, apparently this wasn’t official Fleet business.
“Good to be back mother.” Adrian said with a grin. Laura leaned back and hit him in the shoulder.
“Didn’t I tell you not to call me that?” She said, trying to appear angry, and failing miserably.
Adrian grinned even more and said. “Well, it was your idea to adopt me.”
It was a part of the dance the two of them played. She pretended not to like it when he addressed her informally. Adrian was brought to Olympus with the warning that he would never be adopted if he accepted to come. But after meeting Laura, the two of them grew close, and she became a mother figure to Adrian, who never had anyone like that in his life. And after Olympus decided to leave Sol, Laura asked Adrian if he would want her to adopt him. Give him her last name. He was already grown up at the time. He accepted and added her last name to his. Adrian Farkas Reiss was now his legal name. Although he went only by Farkas. There was no need for him to flaunt his connection to Laura, it was enough that the two of them knew. And of course, those closest to them.
Laura guided him to a chair in front of her desk, and took the other one.
“Tell me how was the patrol?” Laura asked. Even though she knew, with the FTL comms, they were in constant contact.
“Boring, as you already knew.” He said.
“It might be boring, but it gives you more experience aboard a ship. Although, you are the only Ship Master with real battle experience in the entire Fleet.” She said.
“Only because of a twist of fate.” Adrian said.
“Perhaps, but it still makes you one of our most experienced Ship Masters.”
Adrian shrugged. He wasn’t really comfortable with that. Every time he went on leave on Sanctuary he was gaped and pointed at. Everyone knew him, Olympus had an open system where most everything was accessible to the people. Everyone watched the records of his battle with the Concordis warship.
“Alright, I made you come here immediately because I wanted to be the first to tell you this.” Laura said.
“Tell me what?”
“I know that you noticed the ships we are building in the docks.” She said.
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, Tomas agreed to my proposal, those ships will be our new warships. And this station will be the Fleets shipyard. We also have the permission to build Fleet facilities on Thanatos.” Laura said with a smile that reminded Adrian of a kid in a candy store.
“Warships? How many?” Adrian asked, becoming excited as well. He always knew that they needed more ships if they were to protect their home.
“Twenty. And the best part is that we are the ones to decide which class we build.” She said.
“That is amazing. What did you decide?”
“We settled on 8 light cruisers, 6 heavy cruisers, 4 battleships and 2 dreadnoughts.”
Adrian was surprised.
“No carriers?” He asked.
“No, we decided that they weren’t feasible, at least not yet. With the level of technology we currently possess it is impossible to make fighters that can stand against a warship, or even keep up.”
Adrian nodded, that was his realization as well. He knew that there were people in the Fleet, those from the old days, before they went into space, that tried to push for more traditional Fleet. One that would mirror that of the Earth navy. Which was stupid of course, space was not water, or atmosphere. They borrowed the names, but the purpose and the way the ships fought would be nothing like navy.
Adrian could already imagine a fleet of 20 ships orbiting Sanctuary, it would be an awesome sight. Then he remembered something.
“Dreadnoughts?” He asked, confused. Adrian was part of most every planning for fleet, through Laura, and back when they tried to dream up warship classes there was no mention of a dreadnought class.
Laura smiled widely. “Yes, we managed to flesh out the details a few months ago and all simulations were successful, I didn’t tell you anything because I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Adrian asked weakly, he knew Laura very well, and he could feel one of her schemes coming up.
“Of course! One of the dreadnoughts is yours.” She said.
Adrian blanched.
“Oh, good! I’ll have a new toy to play with!” Iris exclaimed excitedly.
“What! You can’t. There are other more experienced Ship Masters!” Adrian said.
“Shut up Adrian! Don’t you dare turn this down!” Iris said.
Laura just kept smiling and shook her head. “No, there are not. There are those that served longer than you, but none have more experience than you. And your simulator scores are the best in the entire Fleet. You can’t wiggle out of this.”
Adrian swallowed hard, he knew that he was capable, but having an even more responsibility thrust on his back so fast wasn’t pleasant at all.
“How long?” Adrian managed to squeak out.
“Three months. We are building all the parts that we can here, and then sending them out into open space at another shipyard we have built between the orbits of Sanctuary and Boreas. The shipyards here just can’t hold a ship of that size. The other shipyard will be specifically equipped to build bigger ships.” She said.
Adrian felt light headed, Too big? He thought, the hulls he saw laid out in the shipyard were already double the size of Athena.
“This is going to be so much fun.” Iris cheered on in Adrian’s head.
“Alright, between the two of you, I know I will never be able to escape.” Adrian said, resigned.
“Good. Thank Iris for me.” Laura said, grinning wickedly. “Now, I’m going to send you all the data on the dreadnought class warships. You will need to study it all. We are putting new weapons systems, faster computers and a million other things that you need to became an expert on. Also, you need to choose a crew. You will be limited of course, you can request a transfer from the warships we have now. But many of those officers will be placed on other new ships. While those old ones will be given to the ones that were put on mining or transport ships. We are in a bit of a shortage of personnel, but there is nothing we can do about it for a while.”
Adrian listened carefully, nodding. “Okay, I guess I better get acquainted with the data, and then decide on personnel.” Adrian said.
“Good, I am needed down on the planet for a few days. Our weapons are being manufactured there, and I need to oversee a few things. You can stay on the station until your ship is ready. Officially you are still Ship Master of the Athena, but you can stay onboard the station in my quarters, here is the access code.” Laura said, sending him the access code to her quarters via her imp.
Adrian smiled weakly, and nodded again.
“Okay then, I will see you when you come back.”
They hugged again, and Adrian left, he downloaded the stations map from the net, and then followed the route to Laura’s quarters. He had a lot of studying to do.
Chapter Ten
November 2169 – OES Voyager
A flash of blue light announced the arrival of Olympus Explorer Ship Voyager into a new system. The ships gray hull glistened with the aftereffect of leaving hyperspace. Blue energy arcs jumped from the hull, but a moment later they were gone.
“Anything on sensors?” Ship Master Eric Donaldson asked his Sensor Handler.
“Nothing on short range. We will have a full picture of the system in a few minutes.” Sensor Handler said.