Chapter 47: Chapter 47

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

Zeltros, 39 BBY/961 GSC. In orbit.

The call came from a tall human man in Mando armor—helmet off—with short, brown hair, gray eyes, a square jaw, and the typical muscular build I’d come to expect to see on most human Mandos. The two silver chevrons and gold… Star? I wasn’t certain. It was somewhat diamond shaped, pointing to the left, but someone could interpret it as a star—or maybe a comet. I’d label it as a star to be safe. Either way, two silver chevrons and a star marked him as either a lieutenant or first lieutenant, according to my studies of the official Mandalorian military hierarchy outside of the clans—O-1 or O-2.

Beside him, a woman wearing a slimmer, lighter set of armor held a datapad—sandy colored hair tied back in a ponytail, deeply tanned, and with light blue eyes. The four silver chevrons marked her as a sergeant—E-4.

I returned the salute reflexively as I stepped off the Rusted Silver from where I’d set it down beside the Dagger,Arthree rolling along behind me. Looking around, I took in the formerly busy flight deck/docking bay. The snub fighters it had held had been cleared out and replaced. At the moment, it held my two ships, an assault craft/gunboat, and a couple of mid-sized shuttles.

“At ease,” I announced, and the small crew who had stopped work got back to it. Looking to the Mando who had announced me, I asked, “Where’s Cindy, lieutenant?”

“Next deck down, ma’am. With her father,” he answered.

I nodded and started that way, the lieutenant and sergeant following along behind.“Arthree, please check over the Dagger and make sure it’s ready to go,” I told the droid, which beeped and turned, zipping away to connect to the ship. Glancing behind me at the two Mandos, I said, “Sorry, no time for the formalities. You are?”

“First Lieutenant Kace Taris. I’ve been assigned as your XO. This is Sgt. Dyre. She’ll be your adjutant. Anything you need, she’ll handle, or she’ll have our quartermaster take care of.”

Finding the stairs down, I hurried down them, the two Mandos following behind me. “Jaster didn’t give me any exact numbers when I asked for him to send some people. What are we working with? And what are your thoughts on the ship and its readiness?”

“The lead engineer’s done a damn good job automating things on her,” the lieutenant answered. “She bought a bunch of droids and filled most of the positions that would be needed to keep her flying but it’s always best to have someone living at the controls, or able to take over the controls, if something goes wrong. We’ve got a skeleton crew of twenty-four on essential systems—three groups of eight rotating out in eight hour shifts. Then there’s the wrench monkeys and the marines. Mand’alore Mereel sent a group of twenty engineers and they’re all busting their asses alongside the droids, pulling double shifts to refit and get the big gun installed. As you probably saw in the bay, we’ve got one refitted VAAT for troop deployment and thirty marines—all equipped with jetpacks. As for the ship…”

The lieutenant chuckled, “Not one of ours, but damn fine nonetheless. I read the report the folks on Serenno left for you. Everything on her is top of the line and she was kitted out for full stealth and recon. She’s not just for quick hit and run missions, or getting troops in and out fast. They think she’s built for surveillance, to recon an area ahead of an attack fleet.”

“Mm. Not surprised,” I murmured, hopping over a thick run of cable on the floor as I looked over the behemoth of a weapon to my left, running what seemed to be most of the length of the ship’s lowest deck. It would still be possible to load and debark from the bottom aft entrance if we landed, but it looked like the lower deck was going to be almost entirely dedicated to whatever weapon this was. All around us, engineers worked to pull cable, make welds, and install what looked like emergency cooling systems. “Did he forward the mission brief I sent to him along to you?”

“He did, ma’am. Wookiee colonists on Alaris Prime. Trandoshan blockade that looks like a trap. Fed installation on the surface cranking out bots. Senate dragging ass on negotiations. We’re going to do what we can to aid the Jedi on the surface and take out that Fed bot factory. How are we dealing with the blockade? Slip in behind them?”

“They’ll have droids or even a full force watching for that. No, we’ll go right up to the front door… and then kick it in, blast them to pieces, and run before their backup can come to save them. In the confusion, we’ll drop that troop transport down to the surface and let the marines do what they do best.”

The lieutenant hummed, reaching up and rubbing his smooth shaved chin. “It’s a decent plan. There’s just one problem, if you don’t mind me saying?”

“By all means,” I agreed. “Jaster sent people who know their jobs. It would be stupid and wasteful of me to ignore those talents.”

“Well ma’am, it’s just… How are we going to get that close without setting them off? The moment their sensors register the ship, they’re going to know what we are. She’s a stealth ship. Shouldn’t we be using that to our advantage?”

Chuckling, I nodded. “And you would be right, at least under normal circumstances. That is part of what I need to speak with our head engineer about. So, if there’s no other pressing business…?”

“Nothing that can’t wait,” the lieutenant shook his head.

Looking expectant, he asked, “What are your orders for now, captain?”

I shook my head. “We won’t be leaving Zeltros’ orbit for a few days, perhaps longer. Once I have a timeframe from Cindy, I’ll let you know more. I’d like you to have the crew run combat drills and for the marines to do some preparation themselves. I’ll put in some calls to the planetary government and ask for permission to run drills—they’ll probably take it better coming from me. Also…”

I paused, considering the feeling that had hit me before I’d even docked. I should have expected it, really.

Ship full of marines, mechanics, and sailors. Parked in orbit over the most well-known party planet in the Inner Rim—if not the galaxy. A planet whose population primarily consisted of empathic, beautiful near-humans whose idea of a good time could pretty much be summed up by ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’ A population whose government practically prostituted them out to the rest of the galaxy for fun and profit.

Reaching up, I ran a hand down my face at the prospect of the rest of my kind giving those of us who didn’t indulge in their vices a bad name.

“Shore leave,” I grumbled. “When they’re off duty, allow them planet-side shore leave. Under the conditions that they don’t cause trouble for the locals, they don’t bring anyone back with them, and they understand that narcotics and other recreational intoxicants outside of alcohol are strictly prohibited aboard ship and anyone caught with such contraband will be punished accordingly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the lieutenant nodded.

“Dismissed, lieutenant,” I told him, and he turned and hurried back the way he’d come after a quick salute. Glancing at my other tagalong, I said, “I don’t have anything for you at the moment, sergeant. I’m sure I will once I’ve had a chance to speak with Cindy, take stock of things, and gather my thoughts. I’ll call you once I have something.”

“Captain,” she saluted and hurried off.

Spotting the scantily clad blonde ahead, I hurried past the last of the workers to an area not far from the axe head prow of the ship. My newly contracted blonde mechanic stood gesturing between the weapon and the forward hull, hips cocked to one side as she glared and argued at volume.

“I’m tellin’ ya, ya can’t just stick it in the nose! It’ll compromise the hull if the boss has to ram somebody! It defeats the entire purpose of having a wedge-shaped ship-breaker nose! She’s gonna be pissed! You could’ve shortened the barrel and had a hatch further back—”

“And I’m telling you, I damn well can! If she thinks she needs to ram something with this ship, one of two things is going on. Either she’s dumb as shit and doesn’t know how to use the tools she’s got, or the ship’s already fucked and going down, in which case what matters is mass—one damn hole in the nose won’t make a difference, girl! This ain’t a damn fighter, she’s a gunned up light cruiser. And if she wants guns, then the bigger the better. There’s no point to halfassing it! A shorter barrel means lower velocity, and then what’s the damn point?!”

The man was older, with graying hair and a beard—wearing dark jeans, a white and blue shirt with the collar popped, a red leather jacket, and a faded red ball cap practically identical to Cindy’s own. Despite the weathering to his face, I could see the family resemblance.

“Ahem,” I coughed into my fist. “Excuse me.”

“What the hell do you want?! Mind your damn business!” the older man roared.

Cindy’s eyes went wide as she spun and blushed. “Oh shit! Sorry, boss! Ignore this old codger. He didn’t mean it!” Turning, she glared at him and hissed, “Dad! Apologize!”

“The hell I didn’t. I meant every damn word,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at me. “So this is her. I wasn’t expecting much, but a kid? Are you shitting me? She looks like she’s barely out of diapers.”

Cindy’s eyes went wide and she stood up on her tiptoes. I almost didn’t catch it as she hissed, “Dad, shut up! That’s the Ghost of Serenno! She took this ship without killing anyone. She’s not a child, she’s a damn Jedi Mandalorian.”

Looking me up and down, he scoffed. Contrary to his words however, the man felt curious. Ornery, cantankerous, and pissy—but curious.“What’re you walking around in your pajamas for? Is it past your bed time?”

“Dad!” the blonde threw her hands up as she made a frustrated noise, before pulling her hat off and smacking him on the shoulder with it. He just waved her off.

I met the old man’s eyes and smiled. For some reason, he flinched, and his eyes slowly cut to Cindy as a thrill of fear rolled off of him. The blonde slowly nodded, mouthing, ‘What did I tell you?!’

“It’s fine. You’re not military, though in the future I would prefer if you didn’t say such things in front of the men. I don’t want anyone getting any ideas about the chain of command, or the validity of my orders.”

“I’m so sorry!” the blonde mechanic yelped, stepping over and taking one of my hands in both of her own. “I promise, he’s not all the time, really! Please don’t fire me!”

“I’m not going to fire you,” I sighed. “I’ve worked with worse.”

Unfortunately, that was very true. After Schugel, I could forgive a lot. But if I saw signs he was going that way, I’d escort him to an airlock myself.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Feh. Cause she sucks up?” the old man accused. “I suppose now you’ll tell me you want me off your boat, if I won’t kiss your ass.”

“Well, that depends,” I shrugged, before reaching out and thumping the gun. “This is a rail gun, isn’t it?”

“Repulsor track coil gun.”

I rolled my eyes. If he wanted to prod and test, I would return fire. “Just another type of magnetic accelerator cannon. It shoots a physical projectile. So, what good is it? In what situation would this be superior to a turbolaser?”

Cindy’s father radiated annoyance, then suspicion for a moment before asking, “What do you know about naval battles in space?”

“Only what I’ve read. The tactics aren’t too dissimilar from old sailing vessels, relying entirely on black powder and cannon. Well, something of a combination of those and musketeer volley formations. Ideally, you position your fleet at the proper angle to the enemy fleet, get close enough, then let loose with a full broadside from every ship—or whatever main gun configuration they’re packing. Unfortunately, those ranges are entirely dictated by the strength and quality of their guns, the enemy’s shields, and both sides’ ability to manage power and heat. Those guns are just upsized blasters, meaning that we know their maximum effective range in vacuum and can plan around it. Sensors also play a vital role, but unfortunately, sensors do not work at FTL speed in normal space. Given the sheer vastness of space, you have to close to practically knife fighting range and stealth tactics are minimal due to those constraints. Those naval tactics are fairly standard across the galaxy and well-known, because everyone knows roughly what everyone else has in terms of weapons, shields, power plants, and heat management.”

Narrowing his eyes, the old man nodded slowly. “Right. Get in close and blast the other guy, and hope you blow his shields down and kill him before he can do the same to you.”

“Basically,” I agreed.

Sighing, I nodded. “I would tend to agree. I dislike the idea of closing into the range of my enemy’s guns to use my own. I would prefer to either be well hidden and taking a shot from so far away that he can’t see me, or sending artillery from over the horizon. However, there is no horizon in space and we work with what we have.”

Shaking his finger at me, the old coot grinned. “Ah, but there’s the thing! You’re wrong about that. There is a horizon—as many horizons as there are planets, moons, or big enough asteroids. And you don’t need active sensors to know what your enemy’s packing. Passive sensors work just fine. And while those don’t work at FTL speed either, they don’t need to. If you can see ‘em, you know all you need to know.”

Cindy sighed, moving away and leaning against the bulkhead as she crossed her arms. “Here he goes again…”

“Now, imagine this! You know you’re dropping into a hot zone. You know the enemy’s expecting you to drop out practically on top of them, because that’s ‘standard naval doctrine,’” he quoted, making a face that told me exactly what he thought of that. “But no! Piss on that. You drop out early. Way early. Halfway across the system. You move towards the planet, keeping the other planets in-system between you and the target, assuming there are any. You use the stellar terrain to your advantage and slip up close—too far for them to pick you out unless they know where to look, close enough to let your own sensors see what you’re dealing with. You can tell what kind of ship it is by the silhouette, drive signature, heat signature, and all that good shit. You can tell how strong his shields are because you can measure the output, plus if you know what kind of ship he has, you should already know about what kind of power output is going to his shields. You can see which way he’s going, how fast he’s going, and generally tell if he’s going to make any sort of course correction long before he’s going to do it. Big ships don’t tend to turn fast and you can predict how they’re going to move when they do.”

I nodded—the concepts were things I used practically daily, after all. “And from range, bearing, and speed you can attain a firing solution. Yes.”

“Bingo. Then, all you have to do is peek over the horizon, dial it in, and adjust your power output to be comfortably over their shield strength. Then,” he slapped the barrel of the massive weapon, “bang. Send ‘em a little hello. Maybe you get lucky and kill ‘em with one shot. Maybe not. If you don’t? Pull back, wait, and try it again. Make the enemy move. Make them waste time and effort searching. Put them on alert and keep them antsy for hours—days even. Then you fucking do it again.”

“Sniper tactics in space. Or, perhaps more accurately, submarine tactics.”

“Exactly. Get a whole battle group of ships carrying one of these babies and you can time your shots to take out practically anything.”

I nodded, before pointing out the obvious. “Assuming they don’t jump to light speed.”

The older man waved a hand. “And if they do, they’ve conceded the field. It’ll be a while before they can come back and try again. By that time, your other forces have already moved in and done whatever you needed them to, or at least gotten dug in.”

“Mm. And if they adjust their shields?”

“Dump more juice into the next shot. Something moving at a few percent of light speed isn’t going to be stopped by the shields on anything in production today.”

“Heat dissipation? Using that much energy is going to give away our position and make us stand out like a solar flare. We’d have exactly the time it took for IR to propagate through space across that distance before they spotted us. You’d need to be either very close astrologically speaking, or very far away. If they see a sudden heat flare like that, they’re going to perform evasive maneuvers. Whatever you’re shooting won’t get there in time. If they’re dumb rounds, they can’t adjust course in flight. If they’re in any way smart, that limits how fast you can shoot them without breaking delicate electronics—and then you have to overcome ECM.”

Here, the older man made an annoyed sound. “Sure. Yeah. They might see it. They might react that way. Thing is, standard naval doctrine isn’t to immediately take evasive maneuvers when they spot a flare of infrared. If they did that, they’d be breaking fucking formation every few minutes—any time a star shined on an asteroid just right and it had some kind of outgassing. And if sensors do come back saying it’s a ship, the assumption is that it just jumped to hyperspace.”

He began to pace back and forth in the confined space as he went on, defending the project he had clearly sank a lot of time, effort, and resources into—to the point that it had cost him his career, given what Cindy had told me. “I’ve prototyped some smart rounds. All my simulations show they’ll hold up under the stress. And even if they don’t, guess fucking what? You get that first shot off, it might not matter. But if they do survive, and you do decide to do the stupid thing and engage, you’re still starting out a million miles away. You’ve got all day to run at them, firing the whole way. Either they figure out what you’re doing and start taking evasive maneuvers and you stop wasting ammo, or they don’t get the chance and you core their ship, or take out their bridge. Or you can just wait. Get in too close for evasive maneuvers to matter but not so close they’ll bother with missiles or turbolasers. Then you hammer the shit out of them.”

That sounded like a potentially viable strategy, but there were other problems to consider, aside from heat. “What about wear and tear? A physical cannon has mechanical issues you can’t really ignore.”

At that, the old coot snorted, a smirk crossing his face. “Now, that’s where it gets interesting. The barrel isn’t actually the kind of barrel you’re thinking. It’s not meant for the round to sit flush, like a traditional physical projectile. Instead, the whole barrel’s lined with repulsors—like the kind on any repulsor lift, from vehicles to display stands. The round sits perfectly in the center, held in place by the repulsor field—just a hair’s breadth from the actual barrel. So, we open up the doors we’re gonna install here in the prow,” he gestured at the forward section of the ship and Cindy made an annoyed noise, “slide her forward on her track,” he pointed to the rails beneath the weapon, “lock her in and open the chamber to vacuum. Load in a round and get it set in place, where it sits there between the repulsor fields. Then, between the repulsor fields and the coils, we fuckin’ send it. Completely frictionless. From zero to a couple of percent of light speed in less time than it takes to blink. Physics does the rest after that, and whatever’s on the other end of two and a half feet of armor penetrator has a very bad day.”

“Depends on how long you need to charge the super-capacitors for to dial in the strength you need. One every one to five seconds. But after the first hit, do you think most ships will be able to react and start evasive maneuvers worth a damn within fifteen seconds? If you’re zeroed in, that’s between four and sixteen shots with a high probability to hit.” I opened my mouth and he continued, “And before you ask about tracking and point defense, no. The fidelity on most current gen tracking systems is shit. They can barely pick up missiles. They won’t see one of these rounds coming at them. Not big enough, not enough metal, moving too fast, and if they had the fidelity the damn things’d be going off for every micrometeorite and piece of space debris for a parsec. As for PD, most ships aren’t equipped with that kind of PD, unless they’re specifically there to take out missiles. Design philosophy hasn’t changed on that in something like a thousand years for most capital ships—which is to rely on the shields, instead of trying to shoot down most threats. They’ve got anti-fighter PD, but that won’t do squat against my baby.”

Well, it seems he’s thought of nearly everything. Nearly.

I nodded, a small smile tugging at my lips. “It sounds great. Amazing, really.” I allowed my smile to drop off my lips. “So much so that I find it hard to believe the Republic Navy passed it up. So, why did they? Why are you here, and not on some ship of the line somewhere testing this out on a capital ship?”

Anger, humiliation, and hate flashed across the distance between us for just a second, before the man bottled it all back up. Taking a deep breath, he grunted, “Probably because I told that cunt Lira she was fucking wasting her precious Venator-class. Damn thing’s seven, nearly eight times the length of this girl—about twelve hundred and fifty yards. Do you have any idea what I could do with half a mile of barrel for one of these babies?” he asked, idly rubbing his hand on the barrel. “I wanted eight of this diameter in the nose of one of those big fuckers. It could’ve kept up a continuous stream of fire that would knock out capital ships pretty much until it ran out of ammo. She told me she wouldn’t spare the room for even one. It’d take up too much space and not give enough in return. Said she didn’t want to build a ship around a gun. I told her conning towers are fucking stupid and a weak point screaming ‘shoot me here.’ Little brat didn’t like having it pointed out that one good shot on her baby would take out an entire bridge crew and leave a ship floundering.We had words. I was fired on the spot. Was kinda hard to go over her head on the firing when her daddy’s a bigshot in the company with a lot of pull.”

Sighing, he turned and looked down at the big weapon. “I’ve been working on this thing ever since. Paid for everything out of my retirement fund. Put everything together myself.” Cindy made a quiet noise and he chuckled. “With my girl’s help. Was planning to buy a use freighter, slap this thing into it, and test her out. Then, my daughter came home with some cockamamie story about some idiot willing to install and test it. And here we are. A washed up old man and a wet behind the ears brat. So tell me, brat. Why should I entrust my life’s work to you?”

I chuckled. “Ironically, for the very same reason you lost your job in the first place: nepotism. We’ll finish the install, then test it thoroughly. If I like the results, I’ll pass them along to Master Dooku and his sister, perhaps to our partners on Mandalore. Then, perhaps we’ll have that capital ship sized model commissioned. In the meantime, I’d ask you to stay on as a temporary part of the crew, while we’re on this mission. That way, you can monitor it and we’ll have the designer on hand to work out any issues that crop up.”

The old man considered for a moment, before asking, “And I don’t have to kiss your ass and all this ‘yes ma’am,’ ‘no ma’am’ bullshit?”

“As I said, you’re not military. You’re being hired on as a civilian contractor. Ideally, you should show some deference to your employer, but I won’t reprimand you for skipping the formalities,” I shrugged, before a slow grin spread across my lips. “I will warn you however that you are on a military vessel, surrounded by navy men and women and marines—all of whom are Mandalorians and all of whom know who I am. They can be quite rowdy when off duty. If you mouth off, and the insult is egregious enough, don’t be surprised if you find yourself on the receiving end of someone’s ire… and fist.”

“Hah!” the codger barked a laugh. “Shit. Nothing I ain’t handled before.” He offered his hand. “Name’s Cid.”

“Tanya Mereel. Now, you have my permission to do whatever you need to in order to get this weapon fully operational before we depart. Send all requests to my adjutant, Sgt. Dyre. Don’t take this as me writing a blank check. We don’t have an unlimited black budget. But I’ll approve anything within reason, if you can justify it.”

Cid nodded. “Got it.” Grinning, he turned away towards the prow. “Guess we’ll be putting in that hatch after all.”

Cindy sighed. “And we’ve lost him,” she murmured, before pulling me away from her father a few feet. “I didn’t know he was gonna go off like that—”

“It’s fine,” I assured her. “Is there anything you need?” Googlᴇ search NoveI(F)ire.net

“Everything,” she groaned. “I’ve already made a list. I need everything on it, like yesterday.”

“Consider it done. I’ll have a word with our quartermaster and have everything approved.”

Cindy sighed, leaning back against the bulkhead as a bit of the tension drained out of her. “Thanks, boss lady. That’ll help. Once we get everything, we can have her ready in a week, maybe two.”

“Mm,” I nodded, before bringing up what I’d come to see her about in the first place. “I hate to put more on your plate…”

The blonde laughed, reaching up and pulling off her cap to run her hand through her yellow hair. “Gotta earn my pay somehow. Lay it on me.”

“I have a plan for dealing with the enemy, but we need some things from the planet to pull it off. And I need your opinion on it.”

“Yeah?” she asked, radiating interest and curiosity. “Alright. What did you have in mind?”

Instead of answering right away, I asked, “Have you been to Zeltros before?”

Cindy blushed. “Ah, ehm, no boss. I uh, I considered it, but… Doesn’t really seem like my kinda scene. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if it’s yours—”

The sigh that left my lips was not a groan, but it was a near thing. “No. The hedonistic ways of my people are not ‘my scene.’” The blonde let out a quiet, embarrassed laugh. “I’ll cut to the chase, then. Have you ever heard of Hologram Fun World?”

“Oh, yeah! Wanted to go with da when I was little, but we never really had time,” Cindy nodded.

“My people made it. Most holoprojectors and cameras are garbage. I understand why—they’re cheap, use low bandwidth, have low latency—but they’re still awful. We’ve got full color hologram tech for personal use. The quality is so good you can’t tell it’s a hologram just by looking. So, my question is, what would it take to install a series of hologram emitters on the ship and pretend to be something else. Like, say, a CEC Class VI bulk freighter?”

Cindy frowned. “That’s awfully specific.”

I chuckled. “Yes, well, as it turns out the Class VI is based off the old Praetorian-class frigate. But you know what else comes very close to that profile?”

The blonde blinked, before her mouth opened in a silent ‘o.’ “That’s why it looked kind of familiar! Whoever made it just used that hull and made some modifications, most likely. Can’t even blame ‘em. It’s a tried and tested design.”

“Nothing new under the sun,” I chuckled. “If we can emulate their emissions profile and you can think of a way to spoof active sensors into thinking that’s what she is if they peek under her skirt, then we can get in nice and close for the first engagement and give them a nasty little surprise, before taking off. If we paint her up to look like someone else, we could even stage a false flag and sow confusion amongst our enemies. Then pull out of the hot zone, jump to hyperspace, make them think we’ve left. Come back and sneak up close to see how they react, then start harassing them.”

“That’s,” she hemmed, scratching her head. “Let me talk to the other engineers and da and see what we can come up with. You can get the hologram tech so we at least look the part?”

“Of course,” I confirmed.

“Okay. Give us a day or two and I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.” With that, I turned and left, heading for my quarters to see about that paperwork Cindy needed rubber stamped. I had a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to get us to the Kashyyyk system in time to enjoy a guerrilla war.