Quast 5
Admiral Quast, though just how much of an Admiral was he now with no ships, was waiting for one of the council members. Not that he was put out or anything, he was 15 minutes early, so he was sitting calmly.
When Paul Nantz entered. "Admiral I trust you have not been kept waiting." Paul decided to be nice. He had been against this plan, but had been over ruled.
"No sir, I was in fact early so any waiting was all on me." Quast was just happy he was talking to him.
"The first city on Cyliene will be completed in a year's time. Since it took us close to 2 years to move all your people last time, we are assuming it will take close to that long this time.
For that reason we plan to start moving you next month. We have a number of papers explaining the process that we will be handing out.
The person that the contractor hired to work the garden and greenhouses during construction has agreed to stay and teach your people how to garden and use the greenhouses. She was trained by Alexis Castle who is the best we have. The Castle's have set up all of our colony planets and made them all work perfectly.
Ariel and Athos are thriving and growing nicely. Callisto is still in the early stages but is also growing nicely. We owe them a lot." Paul informs him. He was still amazed actually just how lucky they were to have detective Beckett come back with them and everything they brought with them.
So many events had to happen to make this all work. He was suspecting the Oracle had something to do with it, just wasn't sure how.
"We will be responsible for growing our own food?" Quast wasn't sure any of his people had any knowledge about that.
"Only to a limited degree, Sarah Belcher will be in overall charge as she has been from the beginning of construction. There are a number of people from Tellus that will be going with you. They will be handling the gardens, repairs of the infrastructure amongst other things.
Hopefully your people can handle the rest of it. Once your city has reached capacity and you are all settled in, the contractor will start construction of the second city. That city is likely to be all people from Tellus.
Your city has been adjusted for the change to add an airport. This has forced us to change the second city to have more dock access to catch fish and other seafood, for both cities. I hope you like seafood.
There are presently three long range shuttles that travel the distance between Callisto and Cyliene. Callisto will be your closest support, only a few hours away. As both colonies grow the number of those shuttles will increase. Callisto will be transporting over all your meat since they have a larger land mass than Cyliene does.
The architect has tried to give the housing an individual look so not everything is an exact copy. There are one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom what you would call condo units, I'm told." Paul pauses to allow Quast to process what he has been told so far.
Quast was happy to hear about the housing part. He hated subdivisions that were all cookie cutter. All of your neighbor's homes looked just like yours, very boring.
"You will not find any yards. There is however a large number of parks spread out all over. Each varies in size. Some are small and quaint while others are larger. Part of these areas are meant for games. I'm told you have a game you call baseball, perhaps you can modify a few of the parks to support this game.
Also each house will have a furniture package of basic needs based on the number of bedrooms.
Oh there is also a pair of Engineers who's only job is to make sure the city floats where you want it to. There is a built-in system to move it around slowly. It can take days to move a few miles I'm told." Paul tells him.
"The airport?" Quast asks.
"The Architect and contractor have made the changes to add it. It is not yet complete. It is part of the year left in construction. When complete simulators for our fighters will be sent for assembly for your pilots to train on. The parts needed to construct the fighters themselves will follow.
However armament is something we do not as yet have the capability to transport, and the city does not have the ability to create any. Transport of armament will be available when our first destroyer is completed. Part of its first cruise will be to bring you armament." Paul tells him. "Transfer from Tellus to orbit yes. From planet to planet, no. We are still working on a plan for that since it is likely to be needed."
"How is your construction of it going?" Quast had only seen the skeleton form.
"Last I knew it was on schedule, more or less. It is presently in year 4 of a 7 year construction schedule. Designs for a Cruiser class that will also hold a very limited number of the fighters your pilots will be training on has been completed. I'm told it will have twice the fire power of the destroyers" Paul informs him giving him a timing to work with.
"I would pay good money to get a tour when you are finished." Quast was dying to see it firsthand. "Have you considered talking with my people to review the system we use and adapt what you like to your new ships?" They had a lot of practice manning war ships after all.
"We have actually. A number of your people have already been brought in and questioned. A few of your people have already volunteered to help man the ship when completed. We have suggested that they talk with your command structure first. We have no desire to steal your people.
However if we lose, so do you. I can arrange for you and your people to talk with our command structure. All our lives are at risk." Paul tells him wondering what he is thinking.
"Can I ask how you believe or know interstellar war is headed your way?" Quast had always wondered about that ever sense the information on that dart.
"I can make arrangements for your command structure to understand and show you what we know. What we don't know is how much time we have or what exactly is headed our way." Paul knew they needed to know. Just wondered how they would take them having help while Earth didn't. Not like it was their fault.
It was one month later now:
Admiral Quast was sitting with all his other ship captains. The lone exception was the cruise ship captain. Quast and the captains had all watched the recordings that the people of Tellus had recorded of this Oracle person. Most didn't know what to think. One or two were pissed as hell. Earth doesn't get any help but these people do? They got that it wasn't the people of Tellus's decision, but it didn't lessen the blow any.
"Everything she has provided has worked out for them. The FTL, two different versions in fact, along with all the other stuff.
This isn't a bad planet, but it's not Earth. Life here is hard, or at least it was until they started making colonies." Jerry points out.
"Can't see her, only hear her, and even the people that do see her don't see the same thing." Another captain points out.
"And the material this building is made of that they can't identify. Resistant to everything. I saw the list, some of what they used should have cut it like a hot knife thru butter. Yet it didn't even leave a scratch or heat it up any." Another captain points out.
"These aliens are advanced that's for sure. Far beyond anything even some of our Sci-fi movies have dreamed up. Is that who are this Oracle is? Maybe that's why we can't see her. Something so not human it would freak us all out?" Still another ship captain questions.
"We can debate that point for years to come I'm certain, right now however we have a more pressing question. … Do we join them and how much do we offer if we do?" Quast may be the Admiral and just pull rank and tell them what they are going to do. But the stakes were high, really high.
If an interstellar war was coming and if Tellus lost, they wouldn't last a day. They would have only what weapons Tellus gave them. A few fighters only armed if Tellus gave them armament. Nothing heavy on the horizon. They would end up fighting hand to hand against an enemy that not just controlled the skies but space above it.
"I've been asked by several of the crew, especially the lifers, if they can join the Tellus space navy. They are loyal to the US Navy, problem is there is no US Navy. Not unless we build our own ships and I don't see that happening anytime soon." A captain speaks up.
"Me too." …. "Me three." …. Getting nods from the others.
"If there is going to be an Earth Navy, we need what Tellus can teach us, and maybe we can teach them. Lord knows we've had more practice at it than they have." One captain has noticed these people are just not like them. They are less aggressive, which was good and bad. Good for no planetary conflicts, bad for a war that was headed their way.
"War is a messy business, and requires hard decisions. Aside from some training exercises they have no combat experience. And as sad as it sounds, we have had lots of practice at that." Quast knew when to be humble. His planet was gone, how much more humble does it get?
"We need them to win, not just survive to fight another day. A stalemate means we just keep on fighting forever." One captain points out.
"Perhaps a demonstration is what they need. Or us, since they may be better than we give them credit." A captain offers.
"What are you suggesting?"
"If these weapons can be locked in a stun setting, so that no one gets hurt, a squad of our marines against theirs in a controlled setting." The captain offers.
"Blue flag versus red flag?"
"Exactly, we did it all the time. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina, for example. Or Infantry School at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia."
"And if these cruisers of theirs they have planned have fighters, even in limited numbers, our carrier crews have training. Yellow shirts, red shirts, white shirts, purple shirts. If we want to win, why should they have to learn the hard way what we already know." A captain points out.
"I'll see if I can arrange a meeting." Quast tells them. "In the mean time, assemble a squad of Marines willing to teach these people how we fight. Maybe if we kick their ass they'll listen to us. And find another group of the carrier flight crews to go over techniques on a carrier. For us if something goes wrong you end up in the water. I don't think there is any water in space."
They were all smiling at the first part then lost their smile after the second. You can't drown in space. Fighting in space was a lot more complicated. And when it came to that, these captains were afraid they were about to get schooled.
Turned out they did have a training facility and Tellus had a group willing to take them on.
And they did have training weapons that were only capable of firing on the stun setting. Each weapon was fired by each group to demonstrate that they had not been tampered with and worked properly.
It had taken some time to set up a new course. Earth Marines had at first complained that their opponent knew the course too well and they knew nothing. So it was adjusted to make it more neutral.
There were observers for both sides along with camera crews and a few set cameras to record some things for play back later so they could pick it apart.
Earth Marines ended up kicking their ass in less than 6 hours in an anticipated multiple day event. Tellus Marines had no understanding of what it took to win in ground combat.
The Tellus Marines thought of it as a game. When you lost you reset the game and tried again. They didn't put heart into the fight.
After combat there was a combined dinner where both sides did a lot of talking and the Earth Marines kind of over did it a bit. However they had gotten their point across. Another round was agreed on the following week. This time some betting on the side took place.
Two of the carrier captains with their CAG"S met with the design team of the cruisers. Both sides were happy that they had planned properly. The designers had however not thought of using colors to handle who did what. Noise was not anticipated to be a problem; still the designers liked it so it was added.
The earth team was however impressed that each fighter had its own bay for launching/landing and maintenance. With a pressure bulk head door that separated the two. If one bay was damaged from enemy fire it did not prevent the cruiser from launching or recovering its fighters.
All the fighter armament was deep inside the ship that would likely prevent another USS Arizona.
The Earth personnel were a little put out that they did not share the rest of the design concept. All they saw or worked on was the fighters and fighter bays and how they worked. However it was what they were there for.
Besides Earth reminded themselves that if their people helped to man it, they would find out eventually. Making it no great secret, just a secret at the moment.
Admiral Quast had called the captains back in to go over what everyone found out.
"Their planning is excellent, their training techniques are on a par with ours except for their lack of heavy weapons. However how they use them is pitiful. We have another blue flag, red flag in a couple of days. Our Marines are looking forward to it. I think theirs are too. They do seem willing to learn at least" One captain tells them.
"The primary problem is that their Marines see it as a game. When they lose they just press re-set. Maybe something with controlled real live weapons fire would get home the point of it being permanent." One captain offers.
"How do we get them into heavy weapons? We didn't bring any. Hell we didn't even bring any weapons at all. Not that ours are better than theirs. Which clearly they are not." One captain points out.
"We may have a problem with that. We have maintenance guys, just not the designers. I think we could build them from what we know, but it will take time." One captain points out.
"Get to work on that. The maintenance guys should help. Even the Marines who use them know something. ... What about the cruiser and its fighters?" Quast asks.
"Their ship design is excellent. I'm not sure our shirt colors are necessary, but they did accept their use readily. They liked the idea of seeing what or who each person is and what is expected of them, instead of recognizing them by face." One captain tells them. "They also accepted all our handle signals. They even added the control board to keep track of where everything is. Not quite as useful here as on a carrier, but they liked it."
"And their fighters!, … Oy!" Getting everyone to nod their heads.
"These things are lovely even just to look at. Each is a two seater, front/back. Much like the F15E Strike Eagle or the old F14 Tomcat. They have 2 different weapon load outs depending if they anticipate fighting in space or in atmosphere. Our pilots are going to love them. Talk about one bad ass fighter!" One captain tells them all.
"We are going to need a lot of simulator time before we can fly them. Fighting in space is different. They even showed us a dramatization of what it can do in space. … I just about got my drink to come out my nose when I watched it spin on an axis and fire flying backwards and then spin back around and increase speed." One captain mentions.
"I spit my drink back into my glass." Once captain chuckled over what he had done. "They have a nose mounted gun that can fire forward in a 120 degree arc. Its space package includes two rocket pods and eight other hard points for missiles.
They have a new variant already on the design board. It has a quad weapon turret mounted top side aft that has the same firing arc. The pilot controls the forward gun while the rear-seater will control the aft gun. OR he can let the on board computer control it if he is otherwise engaged." Another captain was impressed.
"Oh, and if the fighter goes into atmosphere the aft gun is retractable into the fuselage to maintain aerodynamics. …. It was amazing." His CAG wanted one, bad. "It was definitely BAD ASS!"
Quast's eyes were wide. He had yet to see one. "Fuel?"
They all shook their heads. "They have a rechargeable fuel cell that we don't understand."
Quast was silent for some time. "I smell Oracle." Quast was betting.
"They didn't say. It is possible, however they are good. This Oracle didn't design the destroyer or the cruiser. …. We asked."
"Fuel for the ships?" Quast asks. Getting several to open their mouths and look lost.
"We didn't ask. It didn't occur to us. These guys aren't as bad as we think, at least in ship design. … They don't however have any heavy ground weapons. No tanks, artillery or anything like it. … Also nothing like a stinger missile system or patriot. …. Or cruise missile. Hell not even one helicopter" One captain tells them. "In space they would likely kick our ass. On the ground, ..." He trails off not in the least bit impressed.
"There was a hint of something that was in development. No specifics but it sounded like part tank, part artillery, part Humvee. They were pretty tight lipped about it. ... They seemed unconcerned about tires deflating, so maybe some kind of tracked vehicle. They were having problems with the interface. What ever that means." One captain tells them all.
"And no ICBM's. In fact no nukes of any kind. They never saw the need." Another captain adds.
"We asked. They haven't even tried to mine for the Uranium necessary to create one, let alone process it into plutonium. They just never had the need and don't see the need for it now. …. I don't know what they are using as weapons on these ships, but they all have trust in this Oracle that what they do have is all they will need." Another Captain tells them.
"Probably just as well, look where it got us." Quast comments. Getting all of them to either nod their head or hang it down in shame. They had let the djinni out of the bottle and look where it got them.