Chapter 12

Being back home was glorious. I couldn’t wait to see Susan. She was predictably thrilled we were all back and that she could get me in our bed again. Her pregnancy was starting to show, and her hormones were running at full steam ahead. Both the hormones I was happy about that led to fun, and the others that ramped up her emotions which were sometimes a little less welcome.

I had wanted to drop in on Ensign Gordon at Port Ops to make sure he would ensure our nose art was covered up, but I was so impatient to see Susan I blew it off, hoping that he took the initiative to take care of his new best buddy. He must have, because I never heard from Colonel Barlow about it.

The next morning I headed off for Colonel Decker’s office for a debrief. I had written up a report while we were on our way back from Tulak and sent it over to him as soon as we were in communications range of Truman.

“Looks like you had a pretty uneventful cruise, Lieutenant” Colonel Decker stated.

“You know how these things go. Days of boredom, minutes of sheer terror, sir.”

He chuckled.

Colonel Decker continued. “I read your report last night. Maybe you didn’t solve the big mystery of how the Sa’arm communicate yet, but what you did come up with was excellent. Maybe a lot of what you came back with were more questions than we knew to ask before, but sometimes that’s what progress looks like. You did come back with some solid answers about what the Sa’arm use to detect ships however, at least in a planetary environment, and that can be enormously useful. We can start fitting ECM pods on our planetary assault craft tomorrow, and that can start saving lives right away.”

“How do you think your ship did on its first war cruise?”

“Well, aside from it being too small to bring women along and being woefully under-gunned, I can’t find much to complain about. I don’t want it to be bigger, though. I’d rather be able to hide well than fight well, to tell you the truth.”

“I guess you’re in the right business then,” Commander Decker said with a grin.

“Take a few days off to recover and think about what you’ve learned” Decker continued. “We hoped to set this up when we weren’t expecting any Sa’arm ships to show up, so you’d have no distractions during the planetary survey you did. I want you to head back out again in about a week to be there when we expect it most likely for one of their ships to come poking around. So far they seem to be operating on a fairly predictable schedule. The next time they show up, I want you to be there as part of the welcoming committee.”

“Normally I’d want you to get a little more downtime between cruises, but the Sa’arm is setting the schedule here and not us. I don’t want to wait an additional six weeks to see what you can come up with, because I really need to start showing HQ the value that you can potentially be to us. If they see us just farting around here to no useful purpose, well, let’s just say your next assignment may not provide you with the opportunities you might desire to make a difference in the war effort, and come sooner than you might like.”

“Not a problem, sir. We’ll be ready whenever you want us.”

“So go get some of that crud off your engine nozzles and then work up a mission plan with the expectation you will depart seven days from now.”

I couldn’t help but have a guilty expression. “Oh, you heard about that sir?”

“I hear about everything, Lieutenant. I’m in intelligence, remember?”

We shared a laugh. He didn’t seem upset at all.

A bunch of us were hanging out in the Sheep Pen when Ensign Hendricks burst in.

“Pappy, we have to overhaul the ship!” he exclaimed.

“What? Why do we have to overhaul the ship?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“We can make it better! I finished a sleep training module and it all came to me and we can get rid of the antenna masts and be stealthy and see better and...”

“Hang on a second, Ensign. Let’s go into the team room and you can show me what you’re ranting about. Todd, Chris, how about you join us for a minute.”

“No problem, Pappy. I was just not working for a little bit or something like that” Ensign Chandler joked.

We all headed into the team room and Ensign Hendricks started furiously scribbling equations on the white board as he spoke.

“Look, we have all these antennas all over the ship so we can have better sensitivity to the signals we want to receive than we would have if we just had a couple of general purpose antennas. We have so many we have to mount them on masts and they make things even worse, stealth-wise. We’ve got a radar cross section that’s abysmal.”

Heads nodded.

“Those archives had a module that covered something called automatically scanned arrays, antenna constellations and synthetic arrays. Essentially they use a surface -- maybe a fuselage -- where they’d embed a matrix of antenna elements in a ceramic substrate that could be combined, arrayed or turned into phased arrays dynamically. Using this...” and he scribbled some matrix functions on the board “ ... we could turn the hull into any kind of antenna or antennas we want. They’ll probably be more sensitive, too.”

More scribbling.

“Because we can phase the elements, we can ‘point’ the resulting antenna in any direction we want, using any part of the hull surface, and cover at least as much of the spectrum as we do now, probably more.” More scribbling. “And the best part is we get rid of all that crap hanging off our hull and can be the stealthiest ship in the fleet.”

More scribbling.

We all sort of sat there in shock. All of us had taken a lot of the sleep learning modules that covered the math Jeff was using, so we could actually follow what the equations meant as well as sort of understand his narrative. For about the next twenty minutes we all got up and asked questions about the formulas and their practical application until we fully understood what he was talking about, at least as well as we could without getting in the sleep trainer and suffering through this module that got him so excited in the first place.

“AI, have you been following this discussion?” I queried.

<Affirmative.>

“Is this feasible?”

<Some of this technology is currently in use on ships such as the Asia Class destroyers. It has never been used across the entire surface of a ship before. My analysis indicates that this is a workable concept and can feasibly be implemented.>

“What would it take to alter the Oxford to incorporate this?”

<The ship would require approximately two standard days for the required alterations.>

Darn it. There wasn’t enough time before the next cruise to do this and then have enough time to validate that it worked. Realistically, we’d need more than a month before I would be confident going into combat with such a drastic modification. Still, it was at least possible.

“AI, please connect me with Colonel Decker if he is available.”

<Working.>

A moment later we heard Colonel Decker’s voice.

“Lieutenant, is there something I can do for you?” he asked.

“Colonel, I hate to bother you, but one of my men has proposed an upgrade for the Oxford that is really intriguing. I wondered if I could get your input here.”

“Sure. What sort of upgrade are we talking about?”

“It involves removing all the antenna systems and using some old Confederacy technology. We could use the entire hull as a set of antenna arrays. It seems to be able to provide better receive sensitivity, but we certainly will end up being a lot more stealthy as a result, which could improve our operational effectiveness. The upgrade could be completed in 48 hours, and I assume a shipyard would be required.”

“That sounds interesting. You must be seriously considering it if you’re asking me.”

“I am. The only issue is that I know you need us pretty quick and if these changes don’t work we’d be letting you down. We don’t have time to test them and be able to revert back to the old configuration if we find this failed, and still be available for your mission.”

He asked the AI what the probability was for failure in the upgrade, assuming correctly it knew what we were talking about. The AI told him the probability of a degradation in performance was five percent, and that there was a near-zero percent chance it would negatively impact our radar or passive RF observability.

“I’m going to give you the go-ahead on this. Make this happen as quickly as you can, and if you can manage a day or two to confirm the results beforehand that would be very important. I don’t want to send you out if this doesn’t work, so we need to get some idea of what the impacts will be.”

“Thanks Colonel. We’ll let you know how it goes.”

“You’re welcome. Talk to you soon, out.”

“AI, am I correct a shipyard is required to perform this overhaul in the predicted time frame?”

<Yes, that is correct>

“Please coordinate with the shipyard for the soonest availability of a berth.”

<A berth is currently available. That factor was included in the time estimate. You have immediate clearance for shipyard berth six.>

“AI, please connect me with the Oxford.”

“This is PFC Wilson, the senior man on watch aboard the Oxford. How may I assist you?”

“Will, this is Pappy. I need you to work with the AI to do an emergency sortie. Get yourself to shipyard dock six at best speed. I’ll transport aboard shortly.”

“Dang, Pappy, you sure like to surprise people! I’ll get right on it!”

I disconnected and turned to Jeff. “Jeff, coordinate with the AI about the changes. If we’re going to become a stealth platform, make sure you do all we can without impacting our crazy tight timeline on this.”

“Will do, Pappy!” a happy Ensign Chandler replied.

“AI, inform Port Operations that we are conducting an emergency sortie drill.”

<Acknowledged. Informing port operations.>

Had I forgotten anything? I was putting a bunch of stuff in motion and I had never done something like this before. Someone around here was going to get pissed off if I hadn’t made sure every piece of Truman that could be involved with this was properly notified. I couldn’t think of anything I missed. As for the crew, well, I wasn’t too worried about them. They’d find out in their own time and wouldn’t be upset.

“OK, Todd how about you join me. I think between us, Wilson and the AI we can handle this.”

“Sure, sir. Lead the way!”

Hmm, I wondered if my XO was starting to pick up Army sayings now.

Todd and I made our way to a transporter station and were soon aboard the Oxford. PFC Wilson was in the conn, working with the ship’s AI that currently was managing everything, including navigation. It was probably doing just as well as the whole crew would have done. All Wilson had to do was tell the AI what the wanted the ship to do.

“Well done, PFC. I have the conn.” I said as I arrived. “How about you keep an eye on things in Engineering for us?”

PFC Wilson had been cross-trained in Engineering operations, so he wouldn’t take this as a slight, He was well qualified, and knew we’d feel a lot better having a human back there to keep an eye on things rather than depending solely on the AI. I just didn’t trust them completely with ship operations. There is a special value that people bring. They are curious, improvisational, and creative when the need arose, and when things went wrong, those traits could be invaluable.

“No problem, Captain. I’ll keep an eye on all that for you.” PFC Wilson replied. It seemed he was relieved to no longer be responsible for everything on the ship. I knew what that felt like.

We had left the port docks and were now approaching the shipyard.

“AI, I assume we have vector and clearance into the berth we have been assigned?”

<That is correct.>

“Please continue to navigate our way into the berth. You have the helm.”

<Acknowledged.>

We docked at the shipyard without incident.

<Docking is complete. Shutting down maneuvering systems.>

I was satisfied, mission complete, and we’d done something different, having the AI pretty much control a ship movement by itself.

“OK, everybody off the ship so the shipyard can do its work” I ordered. “AI, shut the ship down, except for the transporter pad.”

<Acknowledged.>

Ensign Williams and PFC Wilson preceded me to the transporter pad and we all went back to Truman.

Back at the Sheep Pen I found Sergeant White having a conversation with the AI.

<That is correct, Sergeant White.>

“So, nobody is wondering why on some dishes hardly anyone ever orders them again?”

<I am unable to determine the thoughts of individuals unless they act or speak to reveal those thoughts.>

“Argh. What I mean is, has no one tried to fix why the crabmeat and shellfish are so terrible?”

<Secondary samples of those items are replicated within Salty Jack’s in raw form on a regular basis.>

“So you only have one sample of them, cooked, that you can work with?”

<That is correct, Sergeant White.>

“And if I want the only other alternative in the entire Confederacy, I have to go to Salty Jack’s and they just dump it in a deep fryer.”

<That is also correct, Sergeant White.>

“Damn. The steaks are good. The roast beef is great. The Italian is darned good. But if I want seafood, it’s either crap from the replicator or Salty Jack’s.”

<There is no evidence to suggest that seafood from the replicators is unpopular.>

“That’s where we started this whole conversation! We’re going around in circles!”

<You have presented evidence that some seafood items are not popular. Many other seafood items are quite popular. Your assertion that all replicated seafood lacks in quality is contradicted by evidence.>

I was getting more and more amused by all this, but thought I would step in and help out. “Will, is fish seafood?”

“No, fish is fish. Seafood is seafood.

“AI, does this definition match yours?”

<No, it does not.>

“There’s your problem. Will, when you want to talk to the AI, you need to have someone with you who can translate.”

“Ah, fuck you Pappy.” “Sir.” he shot back with a smile.

We had a mission to plan, and to make it even tougher we would have to do a crash course with the sensors guys to familiarize them with the changes before the mission started. I had Hendricks working on a briefing for them so they would have some idea of what changes there were going to be in their consoles and how to make use of the new antenna technology. On this cruise Hendricks was going to be the most important man in the crew, as no one else really understood what all this technology was, what it could do, and how we could make best use of it. This was a heck of a gamble, and really not the time to be rolling the dice with our ship.

The XO, Chandler and I worked on the mission plan. A lot of it we stole from the last mission, but since there was an opportunity for offensive action we had to work out not only what we could do, but how we might work with a fleet. Would we be sneaking around out in front like the SSNs would do in front of a carrier battle group? Would we be one of the pickets, probably in the spot where it was hardest to stay undetected? Or would we be in with the fleet, to be sort of like that small kid who hung around with the school bully and got his jollies by sucker punching the victim while under the protective umbrella of the bigger kid?

It wouldn’t be our call as to how we would be deployed, but we had to work up contingencies on all those options, or any other possibilities the fleet commander might dream up. We had the fleet mission plan, but it hadn’t been updated to include our participation yet, so we had to guess what he might want to do with us.

We also had to come up with ideas about what to do if it all went wrong. Our data had to get back to Truman. Colonel Decker was very clear on this. We also fell under the general orders for the fleet about doing whatever it took to maintain an effective blockade. When would we fight? When would we run? When might we hide, and where?

And of course we then tried to tear the plan apart, to make sure that everything we were going to do was the best option we could come up with. I even had us wargame possible scenarios on the table with little pieces of paper representing ships. I had the XO in command of the fleet, I was in command of the Oxford, and Chandler was playing OPFOR. The AI was the referee. Chandler was a sneaky son of a bitch in those. I later learned he was pulling out ancient naval tactics used by the Greeks and Romans. Back on earth he had written a few books about this, and I was completely taken by surprise at some of what Chandler threw at us.

The AI would complain that Chandler was acting inconsistently with known Sa’arm tactics, but I let it go. If the Sa’arm acted as they usually did I wasn’t that worried. If they gave someone like Chandler command of their fleet, things could get pretty dicey. I wanted to be ready for anything.

After we took a break from planning, Ensign Williams briefed the rest of the sensors crew on our updated toys, and I sat in. I had delegated everything concerning the changes to him, and while it didn’t feel comfortable at all, I had other things I needed to be doing and he was arguably the best man for the job. So most of this was going to be new to me.

Williams started by describing the new antenna systems and how we could make parts of the hull into arrays and matrices that would work together not only to boost incoming signals, but be able to boost incoming signals from specific directions. No more having to swing an antenna array back and forth to determine the direction of a signal, or rotating it to figure out signal polarization. No more waiting for one of the dishes to turn to a different direction before it could point where we wanted. We could reconfigure this new system on the fly, very quickly, and could even cover a greater range in the spectrum than before.

We still had the remote array, but it would be stored in a bay instead of just latched onto the underside of the hull.

The antenna system was covered by a material sort of like the anechoic coatings used on submarines that reduced the amount of sound that would bounce off a hull, but ours did the same for electromagnetic waves. The material properties on this stuff allowed waves to pass in one direction without attenuation so they could get to the antenna elements, but anything coming out of the hull got redirected back towards the antenna system. That not only made the antenna system more sensitive, but it acted like a stealth coating. If we got hit with a strong enough signal the excess energy would be routed to a set of big capacitors that would absorb the extra energy and prevent overloading the receiver modules.

I’m sure that would give our hull one hell of a static charge for a while.

We would keep the active emitters on the struts as we had before, but the emitters would get covers. The struts were actually incorporated into the antenna system as well. The only part of the ship that wasn’t part of the new system was the area where the main engines would exhaust, and the engines themselves got a shroud to extend the antenna system and hide the engines as much as possible.

I think we were going to be ditching a lot of the ugly that had been sort of a point of pride for us before, but I think the crew would appreciate the improvements in performance this would bring us.

Williams went into detail about what would change with the sensor stations. Operators wouldn’t be selecting specific receiver antenna systems anymore, because we only had one now. If we needed to do several things at once, operators would split the system into independent sections, and they’d have to work out the priorities. The AI would be handling a lot of the system management for us, but we had to tell it what we wanted to do and if we were doing several things at once, which of those were most important to us.

Actually, this seemed to simplify the operator’s jobs quite a bit. They looked happy that they could focus on their real jobs more instead of figuring out which of our forest of antennas were available at that moment and best suited to what they were trying to do.

Then Ensign Williams pulled up a model of what the ship was going to look like on a holo projector. It was amazing. It was sleek and gently angular, a little flatter than before, and almost perfectly clean, as we needed just a couple of blisters for the optical sensors, particle detectors and some other equipment. There were still a couple of small antennas for communications, but were mounted along the hull instead of sticking up. We were going from being the ugliest ship in the Confederacy into perhaps the most beautiful.

My excitement at that was tempered by concern. No one wanted to be me before, partly because we were sailing in what looked like a junk heap doing something nobody seemed to understand. Now we were going to look like that red Corvette that pulls up in the high school parking lot, where everyone else driving their old beaters and other affordable first cars would gawk in jealousy.

We had also lost our six defensive missiles. There just wasn’t space to store them with all the modifications, and having them mounted externally would have interfered with the antenna system and degraded our new stealth. We had to choose between the missiles or the remote array. Chandler picked the array. I thought about it for a bit and decided he made the right choice.

There was always a price to pay when you changed things. I just hoped this wasn’t going to bite us in the butt.

I was taking a break in my quarters when it finally happened. I knew I was living on borrowed time with this and was dreading it.

“Lieutenant Jones, I am Lieutenant Carpenter. I am with the administrative office for the Second Military District.”

The display showed a severe-looking woman in full dress Navy blacks.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” I responded, trying to keep a friendly look on my face.

“You and some members of your crew have not filled all of your concubine slots, and the Major wanted me to help you fix that. You have a responsibility here and apparently have not fulfilled your duty since you volunteered for Confederacy service. I would like to meet with you tomorrow so we can go over some candidates we have.”

Susan, who was fortunately out of view on the other end, looked horrified.

“I apologize, but that’s not going to work for me. My schedule is absolutely full as we are getting ready to deploy on a mission in a few days and my ship is coming out of overhaul tomorrow.”

“When do you have some availability in your schedule?” she pushed.