He was back and reading from the Data Pad. "Your previous privileges remain and new ones are already implementable. They include, your own Carrier ship with a crew of 2000, your old ship and crewmates will remain and any new ones can be added as you see fit. No special permit is required, they just need to designate who orders them. You can decide never again to go into combat but then your current military progress will be frozen at this rank. Your wedding permit is upgraded to status rank 5 which means you can have up to 5 partners at one time, as well no child-bearing has been lifted and you can start a family whenever you want. And exclusive to you, you may freely choose your missions or plan them without reporting it to command, just when they are finished. Full report on that still stands."
He kept clicking "One more thing. 100 acres of farmland is available as well for you to do as you please."
I was confused so many new things at once. Marry more than one person is pretty standard but a carrier of 2000 people, 5 mile long ship that few people in our Gal Federation knew how to fly. Well there were only 13 of them. They weren't just ships but living breathing cities underneath capable of housing up to 20000 individuals if cargo and everything else is disregarded. But carriers often carry 500 craft that can attack or defend any point in space. It's a ship that not many people can handle and often get forgotten when warring with other races. But I see an untamed potential when using such a force.
But still I was anxious to serve on board one. "Will I command said carrier or will it have a trained captain?"
"It's under your own command, it's up to you weather you'll take a captain to manage the bridge while you concentrate on other duties, or escapades." He smiled here, "To be clear, it is a fairly new ship built just a year ago. Never has flown so it's naming and maiden voyage is up to you. The only thing you need to do is board it on the shipyard."
He now set his Data Pad on the table and interlocked his fingers looking straight at me.
"I want to board it immediately and rush for the Asteroid where deserter's base is. I have some fears that it has more slavers on it with potential victims."
"I see no problem with that take your unit and you can settle on your Carrier. Be sure to call back at least once a while." Commander said standing up and offering his hand. "General, I am happy to push you off on this maiden voyage good luck."
"Thank you sir." We held our grasp a little too long then we parted ways.
I was flying through the corridors leading back to my room. I was sending orders left and right and needed to get to that ship as soon as possible, even then my palpating heart could probably give way and start a seizure since I was so happy. After meeting with my team and doing some crash and burn wakeups we boarded the Blackness and headed to the Earth's moon shipyard. Which was on first impression a tiny spec, not imposing as one would think but as we approached closer, we saw that the shipyard base was occupying almost half of the moon's surface. And we could start to see a massive object, which left everybody on the bridge breathless. It was a ship with a big ball in its center, but 5 massive platforms could be seen going out of it in a circle. The shape of those platforms were as of those of a shamrock plant. It just was missing a stem to be a perfect replica, but it was nevertheless awe inspiring. We landed on one of the platforms which had a tunnel of sorts going into the belly of the massive ball that was on both sides of the platforms, I had no idea where I was right now, concerning that gigantic ball, but Blackness was easily able to go thru that and land on one of the empty platforms, but still this was pretty massive ship. I exited Blackness and started walking towards a man that was waiting with several people around him posted in two rows of 5. The immediately saluted and waited for me to approach the man.
"I am General Kal Farah I'm here to take command over the newly commissioned carrier ship. I think this is it, right?" The saluting soldiers went in normal standing stance for military personnel and the man in blue overalls started talking.
"Yes, General, I have the paperwork you only need to sign it and we will be over." While I signed the Data Pads and provided with my thumb imprints, he continued to talk, "Ship comes with 1500 military personnel, pilots, engineers that make this whole thing tick, 4 captains that you can choose from and array of weapons that," here he took a look over my shoulder and saw many people grouping behind me and staring into vast distances at this bay where we currently were, he went silent thinking few moments and then continued, "information about armaments and defensive turrets are only privy to highest ranking officers, that and escape shafts that only work in a certain way that captain or you may change at a times notice. What I mean if there is catastrophic core failure for some reason, you can activate the pods and this will work 100% of the time. The potential of someone sabotaging pods in such a way is almost zero. There were cases over the years where personnel were mad about this or that and then before desertion they would deactivate pods and destroy the ship, to prevent that the only one who can activate it is you General, the captain may get permission from you, but again, it's up to you who you divulge that information. This is one of 5 hangar bays each of them as you can see can house up to 100 fighter ships. If you are going to keep that ship then your capacity in this hangar decreases from 100 to 50, structural failure would be a problem if that number is any bigger, but this ship may handle any combat alone with just one of its hangars working, but in most dire situations all 5 of the hangar bays could be released and then nothing would stand in his way."
We were all in awe of this massive ship, many spots were taken and people were now entering this hangar bay staring at us looking amazed and in awe. We thought this would be fairly straightforward. But, Anna and I saw that this is much more complicated then I used to. Massive hangar bay that had only one tunnel entrance for some reason made me ask an obvious question but I could not figure it out.
"Why aren't the doors for the hangar bay on the front of the ship but instead of these short tunnels?"
"Glad you asked general. You see a massive door would be needed to close and open every time we are under attack, no amount of shielding would prevent a concentrated burst of fire from a few well equipped ships. This is the only ship in the fleet that has the tunnels hidden and the massive doors on front of the circles removed. Much more energy is now available, and we aren't concerned about concentrated enemy attacks. As well as fast deployment, it's easy to service them inside without any worries of a stray missile or torpedo hitting in the hangar bay. You have no idea how many good men were lost in other ships by a well-placed missile. I'll further debrief you on what this ship has at its defensive arsenal. But going further on those hangar walls, instead of doors, we placed laser turrets it's number and position are a top guarded secret, we are still experimenting on weather this will be beneficial in combat while attacking or defending, we are uncertain."
He was done with the hangar bay introduction, he led me and people behind me up to a large green door. "This here is med center, each bay has one housing unit containing medical center, in case the workers here experience an injury that would have to be treated pretty fast. Another, much larger med bay is in the command ball. The current capacity in that one is 200 people, which can be easily transformed and accommodate over 700, we are still working on the issues regarding the worst case scenarios." Again we moved behind him arriving at the hollow tube, "This is our Zero Grav tube that can get you anywhere on 100 levels in the ship." He entered it and so did I and Anna behind me, the rest behind us were occupied scanning across the vast hangar bay examining the various fighters and talking with the Carrier personnel.
We arrived at a long wide hallway, the man in the blue overalls guided us towards two massive wooden doors, snapping his fingers they slowly opened, both presumably had a magnetic lock, The doors were a thick white wood over 7 feet tall, Inside was a small sized office, with large desk, and a chair behind it," This is your office General." He started walking to an opening on the wall behind the desk, thru it was a room, when we arrived to the room it was massive. Simple color with a huge bed, "This is your room sir, with bathroom and a closet, the rooms for the crew are a bit smaller but with similar layout of bathroom, bedroom and closet." He left going back to the tube, we followed and finally arrived at the bridge, "This is this beauty's' center of command, here you can manage all the ships, control the landing of the pods, or make any strategic decision."
After the wide explanation of the gorgeous bridge we headed to engineering and saw some of scientific nuances that this ship had to offer. Regarding the capacity of power it could handle it was an amazing feet of humans to produce this masterpiece. Me and Anna were left alone and were staring, flabbergasted and in awe of what we had just received. I could only be happy. I had a massive grin on my face, as I was heading for my office, the main thing here was to get a competent captain that could lead this ship that we could trust.
