Abernathy yawned and said a few words to his AI. “Found them,” he finally announced, “the records thought the ship was out of service. The Anglic Union, part of some treaty arrangement, supplies the Imperial Fleet with a certain number of ships of their design that meet certain specifications. They stay in service with us, for not very long, mostly so their officers have some idea of how a real fleet operates. That reconnaissance cruiser was with us for half a year before we ruled it Not Fit For Purpose and credited them with the three years it had been expected to stay. The Langley was then taken off the rolls and marked ‘presumed sent to breakers’. That whole program, them supplying us with ships and crews, gets changed once the accession talks succeed. ”
“Weirdest design of a ship I’ve ever seen,” Pelham said. “What were they thinking?”
“Anglic Union has a tradition of producing very odd ships,” Wu said, “sometimes ships with interesting performance parameters, though not ships that anyone in their right mind would want to buy.”
“They have access to our designs,” Pelham mumbled, “we even offered them assistance in implementing construction of needed components, but they weren’t interested. The Imperial Fleet has the best ships in the galaxy, after all, but they insisted on making things of their own design. Strange. Well, back to work.”
~~~~~
Eyes on the Skies
Sector Headquarters, Barham
Martingale 6, 853 AIS
Hiram Waters stood by his aircar, inhaling the sea breeze. There was a stiff on-shore breeze, bringing the roar of the surf to his ears. If he were to distress his cyborg bodyguards by walking across the parking lot, he could watch the waves break. When he had been a young man, two centuries ago, he would surely have done that. However, when he had been a young man, he had had no need for bodyguards.
The display in his eyeglasses, eyeglasses being a device the local Imperials thought was a quaint affectation of the backwards Anglic Union, displayed a few words. The pinnace from the Langley should be in sight to the north. He peered in the direction the glasses indicated, letting the glasses increase their magnification. Now he could see a small white dot.
He had been slightly early. It was an excuse to get out of the office, something he was not often able to do. Barham was a beautiful world, with warm seas that encouraged swimming, at least when the surf was not too high. Today, alas, he had business to attend to. While he waited, he re-read the grumblings from the System Governor. The Imperium was now decidedly late on forwarding Barham’s share of the Imperial Fisc. That was starting to become a problem, a problem that he had been invited to help solve. Why did the Imperials insist on forwarding all money from the value added and income taxes to the Imperial Capital, only to return much of Barham’s contribution to Barham? Surely the Anglic Union would do nothing so Goldbergian. Well, it was their country, which the Anglic Union would hopefully never belong.
