Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

  Convoy

  The Shelby Logan Chronicles 1

  Chris Hechtl

  Copyright © 2016 by Chris Hechtl

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictional. Some may be parodies. Some characters are with permission. Any resemblance of some characters and places to others are strictly in the mind of the reader. Grin.

  Cover art by Chris Hechtl 2016. All rights reserved. The models are owned by their respective creators and used under the usage license. Some models were made by Chris Hechtl; others were purchased on Daz3d.com or Renderosity.com.

  Cloud texture downloaded from the web.

  Special thanks to Chris “Mechmaster” Smith for fixing the planet. :)

  Proofread and copy edited by: Duncan Anderson, Wayne Gaskin, Mike Boos, Poon Yee, Tim Brown, Tom Stoecklein, Mike Kotcher,

  Professionally copy edited by Rea Myers.

  Formatted by Goodlifeguide.com

  Dedication:

  I'd like to dedicate this one to my brother-in-law Jay who is fighting what we think is an early form of MS like his sister. Good luck bro, and keep your chin up. We are all rooting for you!

  Book List:

  The Founding of the Federation Series:

  First Steps

  To Touch the Stars

  The First A.I. War

  Stepping Stones

  Tales of the Founding of the Federation 2 (Forthcoming, working title)

  The Wandering Engineer Series:

  New Dawn

  Fools Gold

  Destiny's Choice

  Ghost Station

  Plague Planet

  Pirate's Bane

  Ghosts from the Past

  13 Degrees of Separation

  Jethro Goes to War Series:

  Jethro Goes to War

  First to Fight

  No Place Like Home

  Recruiting Drive

  Gods of War

  The Federation Reborn Series:

  Battlelines

  Pirate Rage

  Retribution

  Tales of the Federation Reborn

  Horatio Logan Chronicles:

  Enemy of my Enemy

  Shelby Logan Chronicles:

  Convoy

  Independent Anthologies and Short Stories:

  Multiverse 1

  Multiverse 2

  The Bootstrap Series:

  Bootstrap Colony

  Second Chances

  Other Series:

  Princess Rescue Inc

  Afraid of the Dark

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Author's Afterward

  Cast

  Recommended reading order

  Appendix

  Note to the Reader:

  The following book starts during events in the book Pirate Rage and extends into Retribution and The Gathering Storm.

  Introduction

  The United Federation of Sapient Star Systems was founded by several species and became a beacon of civilization for four centuries. Most of the Milky Way Galaxy had been explored in that short time period. One hundred and twenty-one sapient species counted themselves as full-time members. The Federation advanced technology and the evolution of its member species. It was a golden age for sentient life in the galaxy. That was, until they made the mistake of expanding their exploration from the Milky Way to the nearest galaxy.

  The wormhole gate that was meant to open new worlds to Federation explorers quickly became a portal to hell. Xenophobic aliens poured through the gateway, invading Federation space and laying waste to everything they found.

  During the war, Horatio Logan served to the best of his ability. When his last ship, the Washington, was shot up, he was deposited in a life pod outside the Pyrax star system. While he and others like him slept, the Federation burned. Six centuries later his pod was found. It and its contents were sold in a series of unsavory deals. Chief Petty Officer Logan was awoken to a new dark time. He was considered an indentured servant of the Anvil Space Station. He became her chief engineer and labored for nearly a century to keep her population alive. He fell in love, had a child in Shelby Logan, and lost his wife when she and thousands of others were executed.

  Horatio continued to labor as the chief engineer of the space station but was deeply embittered by the situation. He raised his daughter and did his best to teach the people on the station. Shelby grew up under her father's tutelage to become an engineer and administrator in Anvil's engineering department. She rose through the ranks to become one of his assistant chief engineers.

  Near the turn of the last century, a stasis pod was found in the outskirts of the Senka star system by a tramp tender the Io 11 running from pirates. Within the pod was a long-lost Federation admiral, Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons.

  Admiral Irons and his internal A.I. helped the mostly-female crew escape the pirates and then rebuild the ship during their journey. The admiral dealt with his time shock by setting a goal of restoring the Federation and reigniting the light of civilization in the galaxy once more.

  But forces were at work to stop him. The pirates were far more than the simple scourge they had first appeared to be. Horath, their homeworld, declared itself an Empire under the leadership of Emperor Pyotr Ramichov and launched a brutal offensive to take control of the sector, and eventually, the galaxy. The Empire had started on a path of xenophobia and initiated acts of genocide against the populations it conquered.

  Admiral Irons was dropped off in Pyrax on Anvil station where he met a near death Horatio Logan. The admiral helped to stabilize the chief and then repaired the equipment in the sickbay to allow him and others to be treated and nursed back to health. While Horatio was recovering, Admiral Irons worked with Shelby Logan and the crew of the Io 11 to make some long overdue repairs to the station's infrastructure.

  When word came of the pirate attack on Agnosta by the yacht the Carib Queen, Admiral Irons marshaled the Logans and others to do something about the threat. Together they salvaged a Federation warship, Firefly. Admiral Irons gave a field commission to Horatio Logan to the rank of commander and Shelby Logan a field commission to lieutenant commander.


  With them and others at his back, they worked tirelessly to restore Firefly and along with her other long-forgotten ships. Shelby Logan took on Firefly as her chief engineer. Together they were able to use the salvaged ships to fend off the initial pirate invasion. Admiral Irons then settled in to begin rebuilding the navy.

  When Admiral Irons relinquished command of Firefly he tapped Renee Mayweather to become her captain, promoting her over the others including Shelby due to Renee's skills and polish in the command chair. Shelby took on the XO slot and trained her replacement in engineering as she settled into the number two slot on the ship. She quickly formed a good working relationship with her captain and the ship's smart A.I.

  The plan was for Shelby to work on her command and ship-handling skills while the navy built the shipyard and started construction of a new factory ship, the Prometheus. She was destined to take control of the ship upon its completion so she did her best to learn as much as she could in the limited time she expected to be on Firefly.

  Admiral Irons' newly-reformed Federation Navy was on their way to rebuilding the Federation, only for the admiral to be driven out of the system into exile by Pyrax’s cutthroat politics, leaving Shelby's father, Commander Horatio Logan, in charge of the naval forces in the star system as senior ranking officer. Without Admiral Irons and his precious keys, most of the work in the yard ground to a halt. Without critical parts, Prometheus like many other ships that had been started was mothballed.

  While Admiral Irons had several harrowing adventures, he also did his best to send back information and care packages to Pyrax to keep the navy alive. Horatio did everything in his power to not only continue the navy but to do his best to expand it with the limited resources he had available. Each time parts for Prometheus came in, he had them installed.

  Firefly settled down into patrolling Pyrax until Commander Logan decided it was time to continue the mission to rebuild the Federation.

  Commander Logan dispatched forces to build a marine base on Agnosta and sent ships to reach out to neighboring star systems to establish trade and picket forces. Admiral Irons sent word through freighters of discovery and restoration of the space city Antigua Prime in the star system Antigua. A short time later, a frantic freighter came into Agnosta with a dire warning of an impending attack on that star system. Firefly rode to the rescue and was not only able to get there before the star system fell but to also crush the enemy fleet and save the day.

  Meanwhile, after helping to stave off a Xeno plague on Epsilon Triangula, Admiral Irons took his yacht, the Phoenix, to jump across the middle of the sector into an empty star system with the intent of transiting through it and others to get to an out-of-the-way star nexus called Bek. But when he exited hyperspace low on fuel, he fell right into the hands of the pirates who had been stationed there as a picket force. Unaware of whom they had captured, Irons was able to lead a successful mutiny and not only captured the ship alone but also other ships in the star system.

  Firefly received intelligence of another impeding attack from the captured databases and personnel in Antigua right after the battle so the crew flew to the rescue of Pyrax. She passed through the star system and arrived in B101a1 where Admiral Irons had taken his small forces into the teeth of an enemy task force far larger than his own. Together they defeated the enemy task force and won the day.

  Once the battle was over, Admiral Irons took stock and split the survivors. Some of the salvaged ships with prize crews and all of the prisoners were dispatched under Firefly's watchful eye to return to Pyrax. The admiral led his remaining battered forces with the newly-captured and rechristened battlecruiser Maine to Antigua.

  The return of Firefly and the ships she had been shepherding caused a renewal of faith in the admiral and the purpose of the navy. She also carried long overdue promotions to the naval forces. Horatio was promoted to captain junior grade. He did his best to follow the admiral's plan to expand the navy once more.

  One part of that plan was to finish Prometheus and other mothballed ships. Shelby had taken on a ship as her prize captain for the short return to Pyrax. She found herself transferred to Prometheus to oversee her final construction and fitting-out phases. Firefly was dispatched with a new crew to patrol a section of the sector between Pyrax and Antigua.

  Once Prometheus had completed a series of builder's trials, she was used to help expand the industry in the star system for a few months as her escorts were constructed and tested. When her escorts were completed, the ships were dispatched along the southern jump chain loop to make contact with the various star systems and start them on the long process to full members of the Federation.

  The Prometheus group ran into some teething problems interacting with some local civilians but did their best to spread goodwill as well as the technical fruits of the factory ship's industrial plant. In the star system Nightingale, they were attacked by a group of marauding pirates and were forced to stop there. They had picked up intelligence after the battle of additional raiders in the next system, Epsilon Triangula. Their orders were not to engage so they stood on the defensive in the Nightingale system. Not ready to sit on her thumbs, Shelby directed her factory ship to build additional defenses to protect her forces as well as the star system.

  Meanwhile, Admiral Irons' force managed to pick their way north from B101a1 through the sector to Antigua. There he founded the new capital of the Federation. Once he had a shipyard and the beginnings of ansible communications underway, he took a side trip to a secret research facility he had used to create the nova bomb and where he had been given his rebuilt body and A.I.

  While there, he woke the sleepers that remained and tripped a Xeno virus. He was also declared president pro temp by the last president of the Federation in a message that transcended time itself.

  He returned from the facility with the group of sleepers, including two additional flag officers. Admiral White, a Neochimp, became their battle fleet commander and took the fight to the enemy in Protodon while Admiral Subert took over Pyrax from Captain Logan and setup shop there. Captain Logan was relegated to running the shipyard itself again, much to his relief.

  Between the two shipyards, the Federation began to build the ships and weapons needed to crush the Horathian pirate threat once and for all. Horatio was tasked to oversee the construction of the fleet in Pyrax. His people started to draw the partially constructed ships they had been building for the past decade and then plugging in the components that Admiral Irons shipped in from Antigua.

  While they were doing that, pickets were established and reinforced in neighboring star systems. An expedition was planned and mounted to get into the Bek nexus through the rapids with the light cruiser Caroline. Ships were dispatched to the neighboring sectors of Pi and Tau to begin scouting them and make contact with the surviving populations there to lay the groundwork for the return of the Federation.

  But as the Federation expanded, the Horathian Empire wasn't sitting idle either. They had begun expanding their empire, and when word of the admiral and his reborn Federation was picked up by forces en route to Protodon, they moved in with the intent to destroy the upstarts and crush the seed of free civilization once more.

  With grievous losses, Admiral White's Second Fleet fought them off and forced the remaining Horathian warships to retreat.

  As the battle for Protodon raged, the Office of Naval Intelligence found out about the possible pirate presence in Epsilon Triangula. Admiral Irons ordered Firefly to go to Epsilon Triangula to find out what was going on there. She was ambushed by a pirate task force led by Admiral von Berk, who then retreated when fresh Federation reinforcements started to flow into the star system. The Federation fleet did its best to stop them, but the enemy used captured and brainwashed victims to pilot their ships to get around the blockades.

  The ansible network continued to expand. When an ansible was set up in Nightingale, the long siege was lifted. Prometheus was ordered to move forward to Epsilon Triangula a
lone to render aide to the crippled heavy cruiser. Shelby hastened to obey.

  Word spread by courier vessel to the Horathian capital of the battles in Protodon. A force was dispatched under Admiral De Gaulte, one of the Horathian Battle Fleet’s leading strategists. He, alongside his OPS officer, Commander Catherine Ramichov, the eldest princess of the realm, marshaled a fleet to oppose the reborn Federation in order to snuff it out before it became more of a threat.

  Admiral White's reinforced Second Fleet moved in to block Admiral von Berk, but before they could engage, the battlecruisers they'd fought earlier reappeared in the star system. The battlecruisers fought a delaying action, allowing von Berk to escape.

  As the fleet expanded, Admiral Irons pushed to promote officers to fill in the new gaps. Horatio Logan found himself promoted to commodore rank.

  Prometheus arrived in Epsilon Triangula and helped complete enough repairs to Firefly for her to return under her own power to Pyrax. The ship's crew was then tasked to help rebuild the planet's battered infrastructure and lend aide to the people.

  A battered and humbled Firefly returned to Pyrax shortly before Caroline's triumphant return. A few weeks later Prometheus also returned to Pyrax so her crew could enjoy a long overdue liberty and her ship could begin preparations for her next mission.

  Prologue

  “A couple more jumps and we'll be at the base. Unless of course they moved it,” Captain Fernando Lafayette of the Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser Fancy said moodily as he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. As senior officer, he was in command of the detachment from Fourth Fleet. He had two senior officers on board but they were not in his chain of command. His eyes scanned the plot. Another twenty-two minutes of deceleration and they would be on top of the jump point. Preparations were already underway to get the ships rigged for hyperspace. As the time ticked down, he noted the hyper capacitors were slowly charging.