Chapter Two Fifty Firebird Shakedown I (Patreon)

June 12, 065 SDE:

Richards stepped away from the diagnostic console and turned to Smith who was assisting her with the inspection of the first Firebird to come off the production line. The Council had authorized the early production of one model a few months ago, along with a number of the old C-type Haulers and a few Manticore-class Destroyers. They’d already inspected the Destroyers; they passed all inspections and the drone control systems were optimal. Richards heard the Manticores were intended to test the Firebird in a live fire exercise.

Something about a convoy escort mission, which made sense to her. The Firebird had been, among other things, designed for just such a mission. “Well the diagnostics look good. I’m not seeing any issues with the main systems and the computer isn’t finding any structural weaknesses either.”

Smith smiled, “That’s nice to hear, I was worried the wings might have issues, considering.”

Richards had her own concerns as well. She knew full well what Smith was getting at. The Firebird wasn’t much larger than a standard module fab, and was designed for smaller internal modules compared to say the Enterprise. Back home there were special fabricators that could basically just print a ship of this size, and while they’d built a few of this size, they were all busy being used to make more nano-fabricators as part of their ongoing industrial expansion. So instead of printing the entire ship, they’d built the ship in four sections then joined them together. Very different from the usual method of building a ship, but it had allowed them to build one in just two weeks. It hadn’t been that hard to modify the internals to create special joining interlocks at key points for the merger between the four sections, and in the future it could be repaired or refitted with traditional methods. “I’ve had similar worries, but the build looks solid. So we can hand it off for testing.”

“Sounds good to me, any idea who they selected for that job?”

Richard replied, “I heard Captain Dykes was in the running.”

Smith nodded, “Not a bad choice, she has plenty of experience with small ships and she’s taken more prizes than any other captain in the fleet.”

Richards had spoken with Dykes on more than one occasion. She had a knack for finding the limits of the old Vulcans and had requested more than a few changes. Like adding missile launchers and torpedo tubes. Additional armor around the port and starboard dorsal plates, a redesign to the turret layout, and the list went on. “Well she has a knack for keeping us busy, which means the rumor is more than likely correct. Besides with Drakes and Reynolds being on the council, the two of them are unlikely to be commanding a ship any time soon.”

Smith interjected, “I’ve heard they will be taking positions in the admiralty.”

“I’ve heard the rumor as well. I do know the council has already chosen the admiral promotions, but I have yet to hear who is actually joining the board of admirals.” What she did know was that Admirals would report directly to the office of the Supreme Protector, Countryman’s office. They’d be his direct advisor and his right hand, and the council was his left. Anything military related would be handled by either the Admiralty in regards to the fleet, or the board of generals under the General-in-Chief Protector General Forrest. She also knew General Kirk had retired from her previous position as commander of Alpha Division, now renamed 1st Division, to focus on her kids, but she was still active as a military instructor. She knew Kirk was particularly proud of young Jane T Kirk, who’d gone navy rather than follow in her mother’s footsteps and join the Marines.

“Right, well I haven’t heard anything about that either.”

“Then again Dykes might not be the commander. Jane Kirk has been making a name for herself lately, and I’ve heard she’s up for a command rank promotion.”

“Already?” frowned Smith, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t she seventeen?”

Richards chuckled, “Yeah, and she’s got a good head. I had the fortune to meet her during her apprenticeship. I can see why General Kirk is so proud of Jane; she’s got a destiny that one.”

Smith sighed, “Well I haven’t met her. Heard the stories, from the sound of it she likes to push boundaries and bend rules.”

“I don’t know about rules, but she does like to push boundaries.” responded Richards as the two of them made their way down the gangway, where they found Countryman and several officers waiting for them.

Richards smiled, “Came out to see the new ship personally, sir?”

“That and a bit of a tour with her new commanding officers,” said Countryman as he gestured to a pair of women standing next to him. Both looked young, but these days who didn’t? One of them was Captain Dykes, looking sharp in the standard duty uniform of the fleet. Sometimes it was hard to believe the woman was a hundred and sixteen years old, then again, she often had difficulty believing that she was almost a hundred years old herself. This year, she’d recently celebrated her 97th birthday. Meanwhile the Captain had celebrated his 256th birthday just two and a half weeks ago. 

The uniform hadn’t changed much in all these years either. The core elements of the full body skin suit over which officers wore black pants, and a padded navy blue jacket with silver trim, remained. Although more recently, officers had been given the option for a skirt. Dykes wore the standard form with the black trousers, and white undershirt. On her shoulder was the rank insignia of a captain done in the standard silver and gold. It was a delta with thick bars on either side and a stylized depiction of the Enterprise behind the delta. The emblem was done on a black background with the bars in silver and the delta in gold. On her right shoulder was the fleet patch, featuring several stylized ships flying in formation over a background of stars and done in bold stylized gold letters on the lower edge of the patch were the words ‘per ardua ad astra.’ Latin for through adversity to the stars, the fleet motto. Yet missing from her left shoulder was her ship patch. An indicator that she wasn’t actually assigned to a ship.

Dykes had cut her naturally green hair to regulation length. Although Richards remembered her hair hadn’t always been that color, she was one of the women who’d undergone a color change. Her skin was the same light olive tan it had always been, maybe a shade lighter, and her emerald green eyes seemed to glow. 

Beside her stood a familiar young lady with shoulder-length auburn hair secured with a regulation clip and wearing a translucent skinsuit over which she had a regulation white undershirt, a padded blue officer’s jacket and a black half-thigh-length skirt with silver trim. She also wore knee-length black socks and regulation duty boots. On her shoulder, she had the rank insignia of a commander featuring four thick silver bars, a slightly less elaborate gold delta with a stylized Enterprise behind that. Like Dykes she wore the fleet emblem on her right shoulder and was lacking a ship patch on her left.

Dykes stepped forward, “It’s been a bit Commander, how does our new ship look?”

“She passed my inspection, but determining if she’s worth service in the fleet will be your job.”

Dykes looked up the gangway, “Well she does have an interesting profile. Care to show me around?”

Richards nodded and turned to Jane, “A commander and first officer already?”

The girl puffed up her chest and grinned, “Mom was so proud when I showed her my new pips this morning!”

Dykes had a wry grin, “They are certainly keeping me on my toes with this one.”

Richards replied, “Tell me about it, now Jane pay close attention, as first officer you need to be just as familiar with the ship as the captain, if not more so.”

With that line she led them back into the ship. They had twenty decks to visit, but a good chunk of that was space taken up by key systems. Dykes, as they entered the ship said, “She’s quite right, and don’t expect your future promotions to be quite as meteoric as your previous ones.”

Young Kirk rolled her eyes. Richard chuckled to herself and started the explanation, “Now right off the gangway, we are on deck fifteen, there is another gangway in the belly of the ship, which is designed to disgorge troops and equipment if you ever land the ship somewhere. Something that seemed likely since we have had to conduct surface raids before, New Valoria, and Telgros are both well known early examples of such. In both cases a stealth capable ship landing on the surface would have been quite helpful as well. Now granted, the Firebird is a small ship, you ain’t fitting a full division on here, even a regiment is too much. But we were able to find space for a single battalion and all the required vehicles and equipment without compromising the capabilities of the ship." Richard then turned on Kirk, “Now a quick test...”

Kirk anticipating the question cut her off, “A division is ten thousand marines and is composed of two five thousand men regiments, which can be further broken into five one thousand men Battalions, which are further broken down in companies of two hundred and fifty men each and finally that breaks down into platoons which are fifty man units. Anything smaller is a squad which are informal unit structures of unset size.”

“Very good, now naturally a ship this small isn’t going to fit a thousand marines and their equipment without some compromises, the men and women of the corps will have to make do with some tight quarters. Each bunk room down on these decks has four sets of quad bunks.”

“I’d imagine the marines would get testy on a long haul.”

Dyke sighed, “Yes, well that’s a headache we might have to deal with. Now what vehicles can we carry for these marines? I don’t think you could manage a Scorpion.”

“Given the size of one? Certainly not, but you will have fifty Raptors, stored in deployment racks in the garage. Along with a hundred ST-42s or ST-48s, four APC-84s, and 4 Lancers. There will also be rack-stored ARV-22 Sentries. Furthermore the ship has been fitted with eight Nanofabs for the production of spare parts and equipment, four of them are located on deck eighteen with access to the garage. The other four are on Deck ten, with two of them right off the main engine room and the other pair right off the main shuttlebays,” said Richards as she led the group to the lift.

Countryman who hadn’t said much so far, interjected, “Ah yes I remember helping you and Smith puzzle out where to put those.”

Dykes inquired, “What kind of shuttle complement will we have? Any fighters?” Richard replied as she pressed the button for deck ten, engineering. “The Firebird isn’t meant to carry any fighter squadrons, her shuttlebays are modest, half a dozen personnel shuttles, four slots for X-1205 shuttles and two LPC scoutships per hanger.”

The humming lift deposited them on deck ten just outside the engine room. Young Kirk looked around, “A bit strange to see a ship so... empty.”

Dykes replied, “Well our crew hasn’t arrived, once the crew is here things will be a little livelier.”

Countryman said, “Not much, the crew will be quite small, only a hundred and eighty people.”

Richards took them to the double doors of the main engine room and showed them inside, “This is the main engine room, here you find the main reactor seated centrally within the ship. It’s a type III VRK-122 dual chamber antimatter reactor core. Exact specs are in the main computer and can be reviewed at your leisure. It is supplied fuel by four large primary fuel cells, located above and below us on decks nine and eleven. Now most ships of the fleet are designed to operate mainly on secondary power systems and the Firebird is no different. Located halfway between here and the wings on either side of the ship are the Fusion generators. They provide power for most of the main systems except the warp drive, the main guns and the cloaking device. Those three systems are too power intensive for the fusion generators to provide sufficient energy to power. However that doesn’t mean the reactors need to burn the entire time. The Firebird has several decks worth of batteries and capacitor banks for storing power in an emergency. In standard operation, you can run on the batteries while cloaked for about six hours, assuming you activated the cloak while the batteries were fully charged, that is.”

Richards took a breath and continued, “I should point out that even with the reactor online, you still need the batteries to maintain the cloak but running the reactor also spikes power consumption as the cloak also has to hide the energy signature of the VRK-122, so you don’t get as much extra time as you might expect. Regardless of those limits, at full charge you can manage forty-eight hours under full cloak. After which you will have to drop the cloak to recharge your systems. As for the standard Stealth Field Generator, that system can be powered by the standard fusion generators without any issues but I should point out that you’ll be working to find the full limits of the stealth systems.”

Kirk, noting something, walked over to a module directly above the main diagnostic display, “The Enterprise didn’t have this, what’s this for?”

“Actually she did, you’ve never been in Warp Engineering, that is the master warp field control module. Given the lack of a secondary hull, systems that would normally be offloaded to the secondary hull, like the antimatter reactor are located here in the main engine room instead.” Richards brought her attention to another seemingly nondescript module, “Now this over here, this is unique to the Firebird, this is the master control system for the entire cloaking system. From here the engineering crew can run diagnostics and adjust the cloaking field as required. Although in normal operation it might be best to just let the system run on automatic.”

Dykes and Kirk spared a moment to both look it over, before Dykes inquired, “I assume there is a similar system on the bridge?”

“Well yes, but some of the functionality present on this control module isn’t present on the bridge access terminal. They were deemed unnecessary for standard operation and more useful for engineers looking to fix any issue with the system. The bridge control terminal is currently integrated into the tactical station. Which I will show you when we get there, but next up is the crew section. Living quarters are placed on decks four, five, and seven, with deck six dedicated to the rec spaces, food storage, the main mess hall, and the ship’s hydroponics bay. It’s a smaller set up, so you’ll only have basic fruits and vegetables on offer from it. 

The tour, after moving through the main habitation and engineering spaces, arrived on Deck Three. Which is where the lower bridge was located, with the bridge extending up to deck two with the command balcony. Above that on Deck One was one of the two primary sensor clusters with the other cluster located on the ship’s ventral.

Dykes commented as she looked around the bridge, “A bit smaller, but not that different from standard starship bridges. Will be interesting getting used to, the Vulcan bridge was decidedly not standard.”

“Well it’s not as large as the one on the Enterprise, but it has the same general layout. Command balcony at the rear with conference rooms and the captain’s ready room behind that. With a direct access lift from officer’s quarters on deck four. Here on the lower bridge we have helm control at the front, tactical on the left, engineering on the right, and general operations at the rear of the bridge.

Dykes walked around the bridge, while Kirk noted the more condensed layout when compared to the main bridge on the Enterprise. “So why isn’t the bridge on Decks one and two? Isn’t that the usual?”

Richards replied, “We have to move it down a deck, in order to accommodate key sensor clusters. On the Enterprise, many of these systems are mounted in her secondary hull and aft superstructure, but we don’t have that on the Firebird. So instead we found the best locations for the main array around the same area we wanted the bridge, so the bridge was moved.”

Countryman spoke up, “Well, I need to get going, but before I leave. I do need to confirm the ship’s name for the register. Right now it’s slated as SFS Firebird, registry number SFR-53.”

Kirk blinked, “Why 53? We finished this first, shouldn’t it be one?

Dykes commented, “Fleet registry number one is slotted for the Enterprise. I know her original number was 1250 but that was in the old Earth fleet. I heard that there is a big recommissioning ceremony planned for after the refit.”

Countryman replied, “Those rumors are true, she’s getting a new prefix and registry number, not to mention a reclassification. Anyway to answer your question, the reason she is SFR-53 is because that’s where she fell after the council finished filing the construction orders.” he sighed, “Thinking up names for a hundred and sixty ships wasn’t easy and there is talk about ordering two more, a pair of agricultural ships.”

Kirk said, “I imagine not, and I think Firebird is fine for the lead ship.”

Dykes and Richards agreed. Countryman left soon after to do some paperwork. Richards left not long after, leaving just Dykes and Kirk on the bridge. Dykes walked up the stairs to the command chair, her chair. “So what do you think kid? Think you can keep the crew in line?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I won’t let you down.”

“Well we will see about that, shame about Bell getting that promotion. Then again it was time for him to get his own ship. She’d heard he was slated to get command of one of the destroyers when she came off the line, in the meantime he was in charge of his own Vulcan, and now here she was about to take on a new crew with a rather young first officer and an unproven hull. This might just prove to be an interesting new command.