Chris Hechtl [Hechtl - Shiver Me Timbers

Copyright 2019 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, 2019. 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.

Proofread and copy edited by Wayne Gaskin, Paul Klebaur, Jory Gray

Professionally copy edited by Rea Myers.

Formatted by Goodlifeguide.com

The Founding of the Federation Series:

First Steps

To Touch the Stars

The First A.I. War

Stepping Stones

Cornerstone: Tales of the Founding of the Federation 2

Desperate Defense: Book 1 of the First Terran Interstellar War

Waking the Sleeping Giant: Book 2 of the First Terran Interstellar War

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

The Gathering Storm

Semper Fidelis

A Piece of the Pi Tales 2

The Turning Tide

Liberty or Death

Tales of the Federation Reborn 3 Folklore

Blockade (forthcoming)

Horatio Logan Chronicles:

Enemy of my Enemy

Court-Martial

Full Circle (merging with Pi)

Shelby Logan Chronicles:

Convoy

Shiver me Timbers

The Adventures in Pi:

In Search of Pi

Pi Fight

Independent Federation novels:

Kai's Story

Independent Anthologies and Short Stories:

Multiverse 1

Multiverse 2

Multiverse 3

Multiverse 4

The Bootstrap Series:

Bootstrap Colony

Second Chances

Other Series:

Princess Rescue Inc

Afraid of the Dark

Chapter 2

Note to the reader:

I found a couple of errors (okay, more than a couple) in Convoy when I went through it to write my synopsis and re-familiarize myself with the story. One glaring one was that Seydlitz went west and then north to Deadman's Hand. Another: Saladin didn't deliver the plague to Kingdom Come, Stinging Jack did. Saladin was on its way to Tortuga with the cure. Oops? I guess Captain Baker got his wires crossed. (yeah sure, Chris, blame the fictional character!)

Also, the events in A Christmas Intervention in Multiverse 3 take place a few weeks before the battle in Tau-1252.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiver_my_timbers

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 Pyraxs 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.