Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

himself. He
stopped to take in a lung full of unrecycled air. It had the smell of an
impending rainstorm, and that was confirmed by the dark clouds on the horizon
coming towards the city fast. The freighter’s crew was already gathered at the
base of the ramp waiting for transportation to the Admin building. The
spaceport maintenance personnel were getting last minute instructions before
taking possession of Titan’s Gift. He was the last member of his crew to leave
the ship. As he slowly walked down the ramp, he wondered if Foster would keep
her word about praising his performance. He saw a lightning strike in the
distance. It was followed by a rolling clap of thunder, and he wondered if that
was a bad omen.
     
    Day
107/2543
    Belloc
told his desk computer to close the report that was being projected against the
far wall of his office. It was almost midnight, again, and he very much wanted
to go home, but there were things that had to be addressed before he did that.
This latest report from his Secretary of Defense was one of those things. There
was good news and bad news. The good news was the revelation that Cate Foster
had brought back  enough technical data to allow for the accelerated
manufacture and assembly of their own version of the Oracle computer. Janicot
predicted they could begin to use it in six months. Belloc suspected that was
overly optimistic, but anything less than a year was acceptable. He made up his
mind to approve Janicot’s recommendation that Foster be put in charge of the
project to build their own Oracle plus the R&D for their own super-Oracle
device. How long it would take to get the next generation capability was still
unknown at this point.
     
    It
was the bad news that threatened to aggravate what he suspected was a
developing ulcer. Janicot’s planning staff had come to the conclusion that the
Union had to make a major attack on the industrial infrastructure on Makassar
and on the HQ facilities on Hadley in order to disrupt the FED buildup in the
Franklin Tri-system. That would mean pulling cruisers away from commerce
raiding. Secretary for Industry & Trade Frank Shaw wasn’t going to like
that. The man was fanatical about the need to conduct economic warfare on the
Federation by going after their freighters. Unfortunately, Belloc could see the
logic of both strategies. What he didn’t know, and what no one could tell him
right now, was which strategy gave the Union the best long term payoff. What
made it all worse was the knowledge that if they had their own Oracle computer
operational right now, it could give them that answer. But they didn’t, and he
needed to make a decision right now. Or did he? He told his computer to call
Janicot’s office.
     
    “What
can I do for you, Nathan?” asked Janicot.
     
    “I
thought you might still be there, Mykhel. I’ve just finished reading your
report, and I wanted to talk with you about the proposed raid on the Franklin
Tri-system. How long would it take to get all the required ships together?”
     
    Janicot
didn’t hesitate. “Seven months for the minimum force level, nine to ten months
to bring the strike force up to where I’d really like to see it.”
     
    “I
see. If you sent out ships on commerce raiding with instructions to be back
here no later than nine months from now, how much of a dent would pulling those
ships in later make to our commerce raiding efforts?”
     
    This
time Janicot did hesitate. “Well, we’ve been averaging about two FED freighters
crippled or destroyed each month. Given that we’d have to start holding back
our ships in about five months to make sure they’re here when we need them, I’d
say that we’d be giving up the opportunity to take out a minimum of 20 enemy
freighters. But according to Captain Foster’s data, once Makassar starts
ramping up production of ships, they’ll get to the point where they can replace
those 20 freighters very quickly within another two to three years. It