Chapter 39: More Visitors

To I think everyone's everlasting surprise the rest of the visit by the remnants of the Wolf attack was absurdly simple. I was alerted by the AI when the Jackson finally slipped into a repair bay about four hours after I crashed into bed, but Commodore Sprague had requested that the formal meeting be delayed until morning as his own crew was collapsing where they stood due to lack of sleep. So it was nearly ten o'clock local time when I finally walked into the briefing room to find Yvette, Louis and Tamara reviewing the damage reports.

"What are we telling the Admiral?" I asked as I took a seat.

Louis smiled. "We will have every ship able to leave on her own power in four days. We are limited on the number of weapons and don't carry spare fighter wings, but we can have them all combat capable in six days with the exception of the Jackson. They still need additional crew and both Goddess class ships will only have half of their turrets operational. But give us six days and they can all make Borneo on their own."

I nodded. "Well, the Ishtar fender shop is doing well. What are the ships complements looking like?"

Yvette frowned. "To say it simply, decimated is about right. Only the captains of the Pembroke, Torrey, Thena and Morrigan survived. Commodore Sprague can handle the Sigurd, but the senior officer on the Jackson is an engineering lieutenant. The Tintagel's first officer is alive and will show at the briefing but that's all, and the Pebble Beach lost every officer they had. It's the Bosun who's going to be at the meeting."

I sighed. "When does everyone start arriving?" I asked.

Just then Captain de Wynter wandered in with her daughter just in front of her. I could see her daughter had a number of what looked like still healing burns around her neck and her hair was in an attractive, but extremely short style. Captain de Wynter smiled when she saw us.

"I just brought Jessica over because she told me something interesting and I had to ask," she started.

I looked at Louis who merely shrugged. "Ask away," I replied.

Jessica suddenly spoke. "Is it true that I can trade you plant seeds for a rabbit?"

Yvette, Louis and I sat silently for a moment and then Yvette burst out laughing. "Oh, that one is definitely a classic," she said. "We do have rabbits to trade, why do you ask?"

Jessica looked uncomfortable and blushed for a moment. "Because I heard it as a rumor over three months ago from Captain Nelson and I traded two nights in bed with a marine who was on pickup duty for a five pound bag of Kentucky Bluegrass seeds. My concubine back on the Athena has those seeds with her."

I smiled and called out. "AI, could you ask Brittany to come to the briefing room?"

There was a bit of a wait during which Monique and Yvette caught up on the status of the Athena's repairs. The communications links were back, so Captain de Wynter was able to talk to her crew. She had just signed off when Brittany arrived carrying a small white rabbit. "I'm guessing you needed one," she said.

Jessica gave a cry of joy and jumped to her feet. I just smiled and waved. "This lady has some seeds for us, and I wanted her to see the rabbits," I replied as Jessica dashed over for a closer look at the rabbit.

Monique just looked on for a moment. "The admiral wasn't joking," she said in wonderment. "You really have rabbits here."

Brittany giggled. "We have more than one hundred right now. But I'm guessing that most of your ships will leave with a few, if the captains agree."

Monique looked at me and I shrugged and said. "We are going to keep about eighty for breeding and there are another thirty or so scattered out with the other sponsors on Ishtar, but the goal was to have a pet and the AI accepted my argument. We started with fewer, but rabbits do know how to multiply."

Monique laughed at that as Brittany dragged Jessica out of the briefing room and off to look at the pod full of rabbits. Meanwhile, the other captains and representatives were arriving and I turned my attention to the meeting.

Each captain arrived and gave me the briefest of nods before taking a seat. I was looking closely to see if any were upset by the conditions on the planet, but overall they seemed content. They all filed in rather quickly with Commodore Sprague being the last to enter.

The man had a haunted look about him as he nodded to each of the assembled ship representatives. "Greetings. I wish this was under much happier circumstances, but I guess we are here to discuss the fiasco that was Wolf three-six-seven."

Captain Evans of the Morrigan sighed. "Our problems were the lack of intelligence we had, and the bad formation we got stuck in. We could see the incoming wave of Sa'arm interceptors, but Pollux blocked our shots until the enemy had already crippled the George."

Commodore Sprague sighed. "No useless accusations please."

Captain Clayton, just out of the Pembroke Castle's medical bay held up his hand. "No Sir, sadly Captain Evans is right. We did not expect the number of Sa'arm ships, and never expected the second hive sphere, which meant we came in with inadequate screening. But we also did not use the Goddess ships we had well. Hero class battlecruisers are great against enemy hive ships, but those interceptors can slash a Hero to death, and too many Hero commanders don't get out of the way and let the Goddesses and Asians do their job."

The Commodore stood silently for a moment and then nodded. "What about our fighters? They never reached the Sa'arm interceptors."

Captain Fletcher of the Torrey Pines sighed. "Some kind of dead fire cluster I'm guessing. Just a giant shotgun fired ahead of their interceptors. Our fighters don't have a lot of armor or shielding and a handful of ball bearings traveling at great velocity can rip one apart if they get by the shielding. I'm guessing the Sa'arm just tried throwing a few hundred thousand ahead of their interceptors."

"But that's... !" one of the others shouted.

Commodore Sprague groaned. "A perfectly efficient way to remove one of our favorite battle tactics from us. Capital ships have the shielding and armor to ignore that kind of attack. Fighters don't and it fits with how they disappeared, like a wave crashed over them."