Blockade

by Chris Hechtl

  “Ah. Well, Senka might have more, but I don't know. We found the admiral's pod there or so I was told,” Faith replied.

  “Understood,” Sprite said, making a note of that. She also wrote an email on the side to send to the picket in Senka to be on the lookout for more things there, especially pods. “Thank you.”

  “Tis nice talking to you, lass,” Faith said as she signed off.

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  As Admiral Irons wrestled with the problems that the battles of PS-64 had brought on, Secretary of State Moira Sema had her own battles to fight. But one headache came through the ansible hard on the heels of the download.

  Flack from Captain Sindri's plan to relocate had hit the local Pi State Department like a bomb, blindsiding them. Her people were trying to smooth it over, but it wasn't working out well. There were threats of Tir na Nog pulling out of the Federation, even denying transit rights through their star system.

  After reading the briefs twice, she called Admiral Irons to discuss the situation. She was surprised when Protector gave her a fifteen minute face-to-face meeting that day.

  “Getting it from your end, Moira?” he asked once they met in his office and she laid out the issue.

  She shook her head. “You could say that. My people are trying to smooth the ruffled feathers, but it doesn't look good.”

  “Well, first, they promised more than they should have, especially from the navy. They didn't clear anything with us, just committed us to it. They also allowed some things to be taken for granted. We never committed to making Tir na Nog the capital of Pi. Far from it.”

  “I get that,” she said with a nod. “But we have to go to the table with something. You know how negotiations work.”

  “Yes, I do. We agreed to the picket. We agreed to a base. Those aren't going to change. I even signed off on the picket being a heavy cruiser, even though I didn't think it was warranted.”

  “Okay … but pulling out?”

  “Did you read more than just the squawking?” he asked with a brief smile. She blinked.

  “I take it that's a no?” he asked. She shook her head. “Ah. Okay, well,” he pulled up Vestri's files. “I've got stacks of reports from the personnel there including Captain Sindri. Everything from demands that all ships pass through the native station even before it was built, for large fees by the way,” he paused to see her grimace. “To Governor Osheen demanding civilian oversight of naval affairs. And since he's the local civilian in charge of the star system, he insists that and I quote 'I can't take a shit without getting permission first and then permission to wipe my hairy ass,'” he said looking down to read the quote off his HUD.

  Moira's lips twisted slightly at the pungent quote.

  “And then there is Dermitz Industries. They've been interfering as well, demanding expensive contracts, every piece be built by them, but they don't have the time to do it since they are nearly saturated. When they miss a deadline, they pull strings and howl to get out of having to pay late fees on delivery.”

  “I didn't know any of this,” Moira admitted.

  “I admit; you've got a lot on your plate. It is going to get worse as we continue to expand. I think you need to talk to your people. Someone dropped the ball and didn't brief you on this.”

  “No, no, they didn't,” Moira said in a slightly dark tone of voice. She was clearly not amused about being put on the spot and being called out on it.

  “I'm not just talking about your staff here. I'm talking about the staff there as well,” the admiral said. She nodded. “Your staff can't tell you what they don't know either,” he stated. She grimaced.

  “I think a chat with the undersecretary is in order. They need to stop making promises that they can't keep.”

  “Understood.”

  “The navy doesn't have a limitless supply of ships and manpower. We're scrapping the bottom of the barrel with these deployments in the other sectors while also trying to fight the war. We're also trying to rebuild the home fleets for the final push and to protect our vital areas. That is hard since we keep having to dip into them for reserves to reinforce the front,” the admiral said with a grimace.

  “I thought Bek was taking up some of the slack?” she asked.

  “Some. Not a lot. We're getting a pair of ships a month out of the rapids. They are stacking up in the Sargasso star system. We are bottlenecked there.” She winced and then nodded.

  “It's something we're trying to get sorted out.”

  “So, I tell my people to tell the Noggians to piss off?” she asked.

  “I think they need to take a hard look at what they are putting the navy through. Vestri needs a central location in the sector, somewhere with good industry and good people willing to exercise it and work with us. Somewhere defensible too. They promised they'd help us in every way and instead threw up all sorts of roadblocks, then are whining because we're moving on. But, as I said, we will keep our commitments. We'll leave the cruiser Frobisher there until we can find another to relieve her. And we'll build the naval base. A small one.”

  “Oh, they'll love that. They are going to see all that money flying right out of their system.”

  “Then they should take a look in the mirror to see the reason why. One of them at any rate. I never intended Tir na Nog to be as big as they thought it was.”

  “They won't accept any of that. Can I throw them a bone?”

  “After what they just put our people through, I'm not really interested in doing that. But, what did you have in mind?”

  “They want a bigger picket.”

  “Did you just hear what I said about scrapping the bottom of the barrel?”

  She grimaced. “Okay, I get that. But if a ship turns up locally, can we do something there?”

  “If we have an extra ship, we'll see. No promises implied or otherwise. Make that clear,” he said as he rose. She rose as well.

  “Thank you, Admiral. Now, I think I've got some people to scream at,” she said dryly.

  “Have fun venting and putting the fear of you in them,” he said with a brief smile.

  “Oh, I will. Believe me, I will,” she growled as she departed.

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  After Moira had left, Admiral Irons turned to look out the simulated window briefly. What he had failed to tell Moira was that he was sending a shipment of personnel to Pi to help man the captured ships in the next convoy. There were four ships in the convoy. One transport was stuffed with over four thousand personnel, many of them from Bek.

  The L-459 convoy had triple that number of recruits coming back to Rho for training. They were going to have to do something about that. The more they tried to centralize training for quality control, the more of a problem and bottleneck it was becoming. And they were burning up a lot of time in transit. Wasted time.

  Perhaps Vestri and others were right; they needed basic training centers, possibly even boot camps for the army and Marines in each sector. He made a note to explore the matter in the near future.

  “Sir, your next appointment rescheduled due to the shuttle being late,” Protector informed him.

  “Very well. I've got a few minutes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let me look into Vestri's other missive he sent while I've got the time,” he said, pulling up the dwarf's proposal. He scanned it again and then dived into the forums to discuss it.

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  Commander Jory Gray saw the header from Vestri and took a renewed interest in it. He'd been remiss in hitting his inbox for a while; it had sat there for days while he worked to get through a current deadline. But when he started to scan it, he immediately stopped and looked at the author once more. “Vestri, what the devil are you getting us into?”

  He clicked a link and was surprised to find a private forum where engineers that Vestri had sent the pitch to were going over it. Some were rejecting it instantly, but others were taking their considerations seriously.

  He wondered i
f it was because Admiral Irons was one of those people and was apparently a possible supporter of the project. When he saw the admiral in the forum, he checked the flag officer's posts.

  It was apparent as he read that Admiral Irons was okay with the idea of remaking the Stargate Program despite the risks. “But not until Horath falls. Only then can we invest in infrastructure projects like this,” the admiral had posted.

  “And invite the Xenos back?” he read. This one came from Captain JG Yao Li Wong, a colleague he knew well. Yao seemed rather skeptical. He wasn't certain if the bird was taking that stance as devil's advocate to test the admiral's commitment and to help him form counter arguments, or if he was genuinely against the project.

  “You don't understand how the gates work, do you?” someone else asked.

  “I don't want to. I don't want them,” another user had posted. Jory frowned pensively.

  “Well, before you get too uppity, let's educate everyone,” Admiral Irons had posted.

  “Didn't you hear what I just said?” Captain Wong stated. “Admiral, this is a bad idea. Potentially political suicide.”

  “Yes, I did, Captain. You of all people should know better. If you really insist on this, fine. I'll just work around you.”

  “You are really for this?”

  “A wormhole from point A to point B. From Tau to here. From Pi to here. Or wherever we set it up. No way to connect a gate to another galaxy. Single link. We now know what the Xenos did. We can set up our own defenses. All sorts of safeties.”

  “I concede that point. But the problem is the public doesn't understand that,” Wong replied.

  “Since it can't work without power, if they can't get Professor Gwildor's plan to work, it's a nonstarter anyway. But I've seen the transit time between sectors. If we can speed that up, I'm all for it.”

  “Hmm,” Jory said, plucking at his lip. Sudden thoughts about designing new capital ships that could handle an antimatter warhead were forgotten.

  “Think about it.”

  “I am,” Wong replied.

  “I mean take your time—a day, a week, whatever. But don't just throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's like nanotech. It is a tool; if used correctly, it is a great thing.”

  “Yeah, but the problem is, Admiral, for everyone who comes up with an intended purpose for something, even something innocent with the intent of making life easier or better, there is some yahoo out there who thinks of something to do with it that's not good or just plain stupid or worse, evil.”

  “Point,” Jory sighed. He was tempted to add his two cents in but decided to take a pass for the moment. He didn't want to get bogged down in that.

  Instead, he went back to the technical references. Admiral Irons’ point about it possibly being a nonstarter got to him. He pulled up the files and started reading.

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  The new data on the Meia clones made Sprite bring up the subject with Commander Fletcher and others at ONI. They mapped out the known origin points of pods with Meia clones in them. There was still not enough information to determine where they were coming from.

  "Some of this doesn't make sense. The pods were built at different times; we've determined that by dating the material involved. The computers in the pods were purged so all we have is their run time, which also matches their age," Commander Fletcher stated. "It looks like the hypothesis that someone is deliberately seeding these across the galaxy is correct. Why is a question we can't solve though."

  "Not without talking to them. I'm thinking that the clones are innocent. They have no knowledge of what they are or who created them or why," Sprite stated as she observed the captured Meia clone. There was no doubt she was a clone like the others. But, based on the DNA report, she and her sister clones were not copies of copies. They all came from a single source of DNA.

  She considered what Admiral Irons had said. It was important, but she also knew of several clones in the Horathian employ.

  She pulled up the files she'd loaded in a RAM module on clones. She considered what she knew about the clones themselves and then tried to build a profile of their prime. They were all natural pilots, human, so both were sought after by the Horathians. Also they were young and female when found, so easily indoctrinated. Was the female gender to make them more appealing and less threatening? Or was it just because of the prime? Could nurture really be more important on that side? It was obvious the Horathians weren't behind the pods if they were finding them too. Otherwise, they'd have squadrons of Meia clone pilots.

  "We need to know more about their history, their shared memories," she stated.

  "Most were very young when they were decanted from the stasis pods. Organics suppress traumatic memories so they most likely blocked it out," Fletcher reminded her. "And over time their organic memory tends to overwrite parts of their childhood."

  "It would still be good to know this information. Do any of them remember anything prior to being decanted? I'm looking into some cloning techniques. I understand some of the neural network can be randomized, but how much was carried over? Does it have anything to do with their piloting skills?"

  Fletcher sent her a series of emojis that amounted to a shrug for their kind.

  "All right. How likely is she to be rehabilitated?"

  "Psych is looking into it. She has some indoctrination but doesn't seem to harbor any of the xenophobia of true converts. Opinions of interviewers vary. Most believe she just wanted to fly."

  "Understood," Sprite stated.

  "I've got other duties to attend to," Fletcher stated and then withdrew.

  Sprite examined what she knew once more and then saved it. Then she wrote a bot to access historical archives to look into the past to see if there was any mention of a Meia clone on other worlds, and when. They were still in the process of digitalizing the archives though, so that could take years. She wrote an authorization to Enki to pass it through the ansible and then she reluctantly turned her attention to other duties.

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  In transit to Pi

  Horatio settled himself on the bunk as he finished reading the latest book. He'd gotten tired of reading reports and briefings. He knew he'd have a hard time keeping it straight, so it was best to let it come to him when he needed it later. Besides, half the players he may not even meet, so why read their life history?

  He checked the clock and grunted. They had a few days from their jump exit. “I can hardly wait,” he muttered as he laid the tablet on his chest and closed his eyes to let himself doze for a little bit.

  Chapter 28

  Antigua

  Home Fleet went on alert when an unexpected hyperspace arrival appeared on the star system plot.

  Vice Admiral Champion was still overseeing the alert and scrambling the nearest warships to the newcomer's arrival point when an order to stand-down came through.

  "Sir, I don't understand," she said when the connection to White Station was established.

  "I do. It's a friendly. You should be getting an IFF shortly," Admiral Irons stated.

  "Ma'am, we're getting an IFF now," her A.I. stated as she opened her mouth to ask how the admiral had known that. "IFF is of a Federation prowler assigned to ONI."

  "Ah. A test," she murmured.

  "Something like that," Admiral Irons said over the tachyon link before disconnecting his end.

  She shrugged as she turned to her people. "Pass the order to stand-down. Hot-wash on this …" she paused with a grimace, "unexpected exercise or whatever we can call it this afternoon."

  "Aye aye, ma'am."

  -~~~///^\~~~-

  Admiral Irons was on hand as Admiral Subert oversaw the debrief. He had put Yorgi on administrative leave to let things cool down, so Phil handled the debrief of Colton and his team.

  Due to the nature of their classified mission only a single encrypted message had been sent from the prowler the team called “The Bus.” He wasn't happy about it.

  From the sou
nd of it, Captain Colton wasn't happy about the mission outcome either. They'd spent twenty-five weeks on the mission to Lemnos and back. The team had taken three casualties, and the base complex had been destroyed by a remnant of the Xeno virus.

  The good news was that they had managed to secure and bring back samples and a copy of the archives prior to Commander Howell's arrival. The changeling had not infected the hardware or archives. They had also gotten a look into some of the labs and some samples along with a few prototypes. He appreciated how thorough they were by even gathering up paper and other documents.

  Everything was passed on to the cyber team for a thorough security vetting before it would be handed over to R&D. Just having something to compare their current archive to was worth the risk and losses in his eyes.

  Admiral Irons nodded once the team's hot wash was complete. "I heard," he said when Phil turned to him after Colton's team had been dismissed. "So, despite the casualties and the loss of the base, it's a win."

  Phil nodded. "Yes, sir, it looks that way. They could have been more careful, but it seems Colton knew that. He'd briefed everyone. Apparently, the virus had created a subnet with boobytraps that they tripped. They got caught up in the works after that."

  "Agreed."

  "So, what now?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean," Admiral Irons said. "I've got plans for the data obviously."

  "I meant what's next for the team. I offered the team some time off, but we're not sure about the next mission."

  Admiral Irons' expression cleared as he finally caught on. "Their next mission is in Pi. I need them there ASAP."

  "Ah. Well then, that means they need to get moving. They are going to spend a lot of time in transit. I can give them liberty while the ship is unloaded, replenished, and serviced. They will need to be fully stocked to make it to Pi."