False Colors by William R. Forstchen & Andrew Keith

Author:William R. Forstchen & Andrew Keith [Forstchen, William R. & Keith, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780671577841
Amazon: 0671577840
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1998-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Operations Planning Center, FRLS Karga

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1445 hours (CST), 2670.356

It was a measure of their progress that they now could hold their conferences aboard Karga, rather than assembling aboard Independence. The Operations Planning Center for the supercarrier was located adjacent to the admiral's ready room and the flag bridge, and was considerably more impressive than the escort carrier's cozy conference room. In the center of the large chamber was a holographic projection tank that could display anything from tactical dispositions of a squadron to starcharts of entire sectors. Seats rose in tiers on all four sides of the oval compartment, allowing senior officers from several ships in a battle group to attend the briefing at the same time. Each person had a computer terminal attached to his seat which allowed him to call up details from the holo-tank, and there was an excellent intercom system that allowed everyone, no matter where he or she was in the room, to take full part in the discussions.

Jason Bondarevsky had chosen a seat near the top tier by the door, well out of the way. He'd learned to watch and listen at these conferences, but saved his input for times when he could tackle Richards or Tolwyn in private. Too many voices arguing over priorities or procedures was a sure recipe for chaos, and the Goliath staff had proven this on more than one occasion over the last two months.

Richards was in the place reserved for the Kilrathi admiral, near the head of the oval in a private box seat something like a small throne. Tolwyn had a less impressive version of the same accommodations at the other end of the holo-tank, the spot where a Kilrathi intelligence or political officer would have been accommodated in an Imperial vessel.

The rest of the room was well filled. This particular conference was far more extensive than the usual daily briefings, including officers from other ships of the battle group as well as the carrier's department heads and other important members of the team. The progress made to date had allowed Richards to convene this meeting to begin a new phase of the project.

"All right, people, the sooner we get started the sooner we can get out of here." Richards' voice came through clearly over the intercom headset Bondarevsky, like the rest of the assembled staff, was wearing. The original Kilrathi earpieces had been too large and bulky for humans to use, so Lieutenant Vivaldi, the Communications Officer, had raided the City of Cashel for a supply of marine tactical transceivers. Murragh and his fellow Kilrathi wore the original gear. They were clustered on one side of the holo-tank, a block of nonhumans who somehow seemed out of place now on their own ship. "Mr. Bondarevsky. Status?"

Bondarevsky cleared his throat. "Primary Flight Control will be on-line this afternoon, or so Mr. Diaz has assured me." He glanced toward the salvage specialist, who gave a little self-satisfied nod. "That means that by tomorrow morning we'll be able to start pretending we're a real carrier.

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