Ivan Kal - Olympus

Adrian reached the meeting room and entered. The meeting already started, so Adrian made way towards his place at Laura’s side and sat down.

“So, we are in agreement about the ranking systems?” Oswald Mein asked the room, before being recruited to fleet he was in charge of the cargo ships, and later in charge of the few military ships that Olympus had, Adrian found out that they even existed just recently.

There were nods and affirmative answers around the room. He then recited the new ranking system from his datapad.

“So, the person in charge of all our fleets, will be called Fleets Master. The ones in charge of specific fleet will be Fleet Commanders, though we don’t have multiple fleets just yet.” Oswald said with a smile, his comment produced a round of chuckles from the room. “Next are Task Force Leaders for groupings of ships smaller than fleets, which will be called Force Leaders, Next will be ship commanders, what would ordinarily be captains, they will be called Ship Masters, first officers will be High Primes, third officers Low Primes, next will come Chiefs whether they are medical chiefs, engineering or others, all will hold the same rank. The next rank will be Adjutant, who is in charge of specific groups on the ships followed by Station Handlers, Navigation – Ship Handler, Communication Handler and so on. And then the crewmen, Cadets Tier 2 and Cadets Tier 1 being the lowest rankings in the fleet.” He finished and looked at the room for any objections, it took them a couple of months to agree on every rank, some wanted to transfer the Navy ranks from the countries on Earth, other wanted army or even air force ranks, they spent many meetings arguing until finally Laura had enough and ordered new ranks invented. After no one spoke up, Oswald sat down. And Laura spoke.

“Thank you Oswald, now since we are agreed on this, and in the nick of time as the first recruits are almost here, we need to discuss the plans for our shipyards.” She brought her datapad taped it a few times and brought the information she needed. It baffled Adrian why she didn’t just bring the information on her implant, and then realized that she like most everyone in Olympus were much older, some even from the time before, when implants weren’t common place, he deduced that it must have been habit.

“Alright, currently Olympus has three shipyards operational, with another one coming online in a month or so, orbiting Jupiter. Now, we have thirty seven ships given to us by Tomas, twenty cargo and transport ships, thirteen mining ships currently in the belt, and four warships also in the asteroid belt.” She looked at around the table for a moment, taping her fingers on the table. “We have seven hundred recruits incoming, and not enough ships for them to use, of course they won’t be allowed on the ships for at least three years while they go through the training, but it still leaves us with a task of deciding how many ships we build and for what purpose, that leaves us with thirty seven ships we already have, their crew will be rotating with our more promising recruits, and they will attend the fleet academy for at least a year, since they already have experience, some will stay on to teach a few classes before returning to their posts. But the new recruits will need new ships. Tomas gave us complete control over two of the shipyards to be used for the fleet. And he gave us green light to build a maximum of ten new warships. It seems that the League and Concordis have started construction on their own warships, they are of course keeping it a secret.” She smirked, and the rest of the room chuckled. “In three years we can build twelve warships, or sixteen of any other class. Now bear in mind that Tomas plans to cut us off in four years from his supply lines, he wants us to be self-sufficient, meaning we will need to increase the number of our own mining ships, and cargo/supply ships. But until then we can rely on Olympus supplies. Any thoughts?”

The rest of the room then discussed pros and cons of various combinations, ranging from building all warships to all mining and cargo. The discussion continued until Oswald asked.

“Do we have any information on the Leagues and Concordis intentions?”

“Our sources tell us that they sold it to their leaders as a precaution, and that they have no intention of starting any conflict, though we did notice a slight increase in their military activity on the ground, but that doesn’t really impact anything in space.” Laura said.

Oswald nodded. “And how much do we know about their ships capabilities, how many are they building and how do they fare against ours?”

“We have acquired all of their designs. Their ships have heavier armor but are smaller, ours are hundred meters long, theirs around eighty, and theirs use rocket propulsion, while our tech in that regard is much superior, our variation on VASIMR drives gives us much greater speed, and our ships are better armed.” Laura sighed. “We didn’t put any of our more advanced weapons on the ships. Tomas didn’t see the need.” She said in way that clearly conveyed that she disagreed with that stance. “And also, he didn’t want to antagonize the Earth governments even more than we already have, in case that they found out about the ships. So we have basic kinetic weapons, railguns that fire metal slugs at the fractions of speed of light, they might be crude and hard to aim at moving targets but still very effective when they hit. And missiles. We also have small laser emitters used for clearing debris or anything else that might endanger the ship, but they are low power. The designs that we have acquired show that their ships will be armed with missiles only, though of a slightly greater payloads, and they will have a greater number of missiles on board. Concordis has started building two ships, while the League has three under construction. If everything goes right they will be operational within two years.”

The room discussed the information for the next two hours, until finally deciding that they would commission four additional warships bringing their “Security” force up to eight, three transports and three mining ships. After which they will build one additional warship per two years with the rest being mining and transport ships. The Olympus itself had more ships, which Tomas used to ship materials mined in the asteroid belt, and on the Moon and Mars. The one shipyard still under his command was dedicated to expanding Olympus mining and transport capabilities, the greatest problems they faced were with the transport of goods. Olympus operations in the belt produced more than they were able to ship back to the Moon, but Tomas still insisted that the operations keep working at 100% capability, with the materials being stored on the mining sites waiting for transport. In fact Olympus produced much more than it used, and most of the excess materials were sold to countries on Earth. Probably one of the reasons why they didn’t push harder to shut down Olympus. At least until they get their own mining operations up and running, but until now they were content to buy materials from Olympus, and expand their influence inside the Earth’s orbit, their colonization attempts on the Moon have been small to date with just a few recon bases, and no settlements.

With the goal of the meeting accomplished Laura dismissed the room, Adrian stayed behind with Laura like he always did after a meeting. Laura usually discussed the meetings with Adrian, and asked him for his opinions on the topics.

“So, what do you think? Is it smart of us to increase our military capabilities in space?”

Adrian was familiar with most everything on the topics, learning things by attending the meetings, and basically shadowing Laura everywhere. He had no doubt that it was her intention, he realized quickly that he was being groomed for command, of what he still wasn’t sure. He attended classified meetings with Laura, in his spare time he studied on technology that was used on Olympus ships, from military vessels to transport and cargo. He studied regulations, and continued with his martial arts training. He learned about command from watching Laura, and learned about the logistics of space colonization.