“Run a station, the ship upgrade facility, and now apparently, a freighter business.”
“So I have plenty of time for doing more ship work.”
“I guess so. I’ll see what the dinos left behind, and send you anything which looks useful.”
“All we really need is a relatively intact hull for most of the available length. I’ll be gutting the interiors anyway, so putting in new engines will just add inside whatever hull there is.”
“Fine. I’ll look.”
In the end, I parked a dozen hulls in the desert where the last time I’d looked there were ship hulks. None of them were the same length, but all of them were intact forward of where the damage finished. There were plenty there with worse damage, but I chose the best ones. The newly commissioned freighters were all in orbit, parked not far from the station. As I looked through the comnavsat’s view down on the desert, I saw builder droids begin moving towards the new ship hulks.
I guess it was stealing, but the Rawtenuga seemed to have abandoned the area. There were no longer any intact ships in the system, and the escape pods I’d sent there not long before were all grouped together now, and heading for a jump point. I had no idea if they had the life support to get somewhere safe.
In another system I found one of the titan transports and its assault fleet, and with a bit of sun energy, I moved all the escape pods to a spot not far away from the transport. Almost immediately, a lander launched, and moved to pick them up.
On a whim, I moved all the remaining broken hulls and debris to a spot in my home system, where no-one would likely come across them.
“Nice,” said Hubaisha. “Can I buy some salvage droids so I can access all that?”
Twenty Two
Over breakfast, the battle adrenalin wore off.
Not enough sleep was evident on everyone’s faces. Even the AIs looked tired in sympathy for the rest of us. I told them to knock it off. They took it well, but I drew a few sharp glances from the team, surprised at my tone.
Now I was up, I wasn’t going to go back to bed, but Loren and Mel asked if they could, so I gave permission for standing down for the morning. Norden said he was going over to the station again, and he had a few takers as well. But I told them they had to go back to their own ships, and fly their own gigs over. I wasn’t sure why we needed to do this, but it felt like a good idea to hide we could do long distance moves at the personal level, as well as moving ships. It was just a gut feeling.
Serena went back to bed, and with Leanne and Tamsin on the bridge as usual, I went to my ready room and checked on the status of this enclosed cluster we’d created. There were still two large Rawtenuga fleets inside the area, but neither were going to be close to anything important before lunch time.
On the outside of the cluster, the dinosaurs had wised up to where they couldn’t get through, and were actively moving around the area as fast as they could. I told Tamsin to keep an eye on them, and monitor for distress calls. But as far as I could see for now, the troop transport titans were lagging the general advance, and only being used to hit planets with significant populations which refused to submit.
I was guessing though. But it seemed likely based on our last encounter with them, that when they visited a planet, they sent down ship marines to get it to surrender. If they fought back, they sent for the titans, but moved on and left the planet behind their lines. They did have plenty of time to consolidate rear areas as the front lines moved ever outward for them. They were only making sure fleets which might challenge them were being destroyed.
Which did account for what had happened to Arthur’s ships and Rogue. They fought back, and kept prevailing, so more and more resources were flung at them, as the dinosaurs simply were not prepared to leave any force intact behind them.
It made our job a bit easier, as it meant that unlike the Trixone in Keerah or Ralnor territory, they were not hitting every planet they came across with life on it. All the same, I suspected we’d find throwing them back a hard task. Which was presumably why my orders were to find where they were coming from, and closing that door on them. We could clean things up at our own pace afterwards, or leave it to the locals to do.
“Admiral Jedburgh on the horn,” said Leanne, suddenly.
“On the horn?”
“Old Earth slang, or so I’ve been told. The admiral would like a word with you.”
“Don’t keep him waiting then.”
The Admiral popped up as a head and torso.
“Commander. Take Judge to the Corona system, and collect the Excalibur fives they have waiting there for you. There will also be a container of parts. Swing back through Haven, as you’ll need to collect enough jump drives from the shipyard to fit to them.”
“Do we have pilots for them yet?”
“You will do soon. I suggest once they have drives fitted, they be jumped to one of your other ships. It’s likely you’ll need to pick up all of yours yourself, over a number of trips.”
“Aye, sir. Any time frame for this?”
“The ships are waiting now.”
“I’ll get on it then.”
“Carry on, Commander.”
The hollo vanished.
I walked out onto the bridge, and took my seat.
“Did Jill go back to bed?”
“No, she’s in her ready room.”
“Get her.”
The hollo popped up a moment later, and she looked up with surprise on her face.
“Did we get orders?” she asked.
“I did. You have squadron command for a while. I’m off to pick up some Excalibur fives.”
“Pilots too?”
“Not yet, but being organized.”
“I’ll hold the fort then.”
“What fort?”
She chuckled.
“Old Earth saying.”
“Seems to be the day for them. I’m going via Haven.”
“Oh good. Can you order pizza for lunch?”
I face palmed, and her chuckle became a full laugh.
“Order it yourself.”
“Aye, sir. Have fun.”
“Milk run. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Famous last words.”
I assumed that was another old earth saying, but her hollo vanished without me finding out. I looked over at Leanne, who was keeping her face straight.
“Corona, please. And no more old Earth sayings.”
“Damn,” she muttered, and this time it was Tamsin who laughed.
Within minutes, we were in orbit of Corona. It took longer to raise the planet itself to find out where we were supposed to be, and where the Excaliburs were. Leanne jumped us again, and this time we were right over where the ships were waiting in neat rows. They had neither jump drives nor AIs, so were not able to get up into orbit without pilots, which we didn’t have. Which is why the admiral had sent me, apparently.
With permission to take possession granted, I concentrated on them all as a group, and moved them into orbit next to Judge. Then I concentrated on each one in turn, and moved it to a fighter bay. Once done, I found a shipping container sitting on its own, and moved it to a spot on the cargo deck which Leanne had highlighted for me.
The manifest appeared on a screen in front of Tamsin, and seemed to be mostly varying sized seats for the fighters, from large ones for big cats, down to Lufafluf sized. The seats included appropriate sized controls. There were far more of them than there were fighters, so someone had over ordered.