Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code by Christopher L. Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

self-destructive lunacy is where her rhetoric inevitably led. This is the last gasp of internal revolt, Jon,” sh’Mirrin assured him.
    “I hope so,” Archer said. “Because it looks like we’ve got plenty of external problems to keep us occupied.”
    Once sh’Mirrin signed off, he winced and rubbed the bridge of his nose to try to ease the tension. He heard the heavy footfalls of his aide, Captain Williams, as the big, square-jawed man entered the room. “Can I get you something, Admiral?” he asked in his Midwestern drawl.
    “That’s okay, Marcus. It’s just . . . I was hoping things would be quiet for a while. Give me a chance to get used to the new job. Instead, everything seems to be piling on at once. The Ware, the Keepers, the Klingons . . . Couldn’t the universe have cut me just a little break? A few days. I don’t ask much.”
    Williams chuckled. “The secret is to delegate. Rely on your staff, just like you did as a captain. That’s how Admiral Forrest did it.”
    Archer looked up at him, reminded that Williams had been the aide to his old friend and superior officer, the late Maxwell Forrest, before he’d come to work for Archer. “So basically you’re telling me you did all the work, is that it?”
    “Mmm, ninety percent. But I try not to brag.”
    Noting the data slate Williams carried, Archer asked, “What have you got there? Is that the progress report from Admiral Osman?”
    “Yes, sir.” The broad-shouldered captain handed him the slate, but then said, “To sum up, Apollo and Soyuz should be ready to launch in three months, and Ares and Charybdis are on track for next spring, provided Grennex Aerospace lives up to its promises.” Archer nodded. The Rigelian shipbuilding firm had been contracted to build upgraded impulse assemblies and navigational deflectors for the new wave of Columbia -class ships now being built under the supervision of Alexis Osman, the Alpha Centaurian chief of staff responsible for overseeingthe research, logistical, and administrative aspects of Starfleet, and Captain W. M. Jefferies, the head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Two such ships, based on the old NX -class design of Archer’s Enterprise with a cylindrical secondary hull slung underneath to house a more powerful warp reactor, were already in service to complement T’Pol’s Endeavour . If construction proceeded apace, those ships, Buran and Shenlong , would be joined by six more within the next two years—the four Williams had mentioned, plus Phoenix and Valiant .
    Williams went on. “And the admiral’s included those development proposals you wanted for the Ceres and Poseidon classes, along with the latest performance specs on the prototypes.”
    “Good.” Archer had been working with Osman and Commodore Jefferies to develop new ship classes to take Starfleet into the future, but there were disagreements within the Admiralty over the best approach. Archer favored the Ceres class, a hybrid of the Daedalus and NX -series designs with innovations from Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite technology. The prototype had performed well in trials since its launch a year and a half ago, and Archer and Osman planned to incorporate its advances into future refits as well as new ship construction. They’d even gotten interest from civilian contractors seeking to upgrade classes like Earth’s DY -series transports and J-class freighters, or the wide range of ships built by Grennex.
    But the Daedalus -class ships that Ceres had been intended to replace had proven surprisingly reliable, once upgraded to post-war specs. Their cramped, submarine-like conditions, accommodating an atypically large crew complement for ships of their size, seemed outdated in peacetime, but had proven useful for missions that required transporting large numbers of personnel or colonists. Thus, many of Archer’scolleagues found the Ceres project redundant, arguing that it would be better to focus on the Poseidon class, an