“Forgive me if I say that will take getting used to. Anyway, the second dynasty wars were devastating to the Reslorian empire. The Zikars came and did…terrible things. We did not have the means to defend ourselves adequately. We never figured they would come all the way out to us without a Gate in place, but they came anyway and tried to conquer us. We bled them, at least until our allies at the Commonwealth could get back on their feet, at which time they sent ships to drive the Zikars off, but not before the damage was done.
“We will not be as easy of a target in the future. The fleets, even with the modernizations and taking ships out of mothballs, it isn’t enough, not really, but once we’ve finished the refits, the empire will be better defended than ever. The recent addition of the Gates now at least gives us the opportunity to call for help before the enemy is at our door. I can’t tell you how much that is a relief to all our people. The Gates are bringing new life to our economies, and the security features calm our fears. It will be some time though before we feel we have adequate defense.
“But the opportunity to be offensive in capacity is very appealing to many of us, taking the fight to the enemy. It is the primary reason why most who have joined your fleet have done so. Those who came before us suffered greatly at the Zikars hands. They truly are ruthless fanatics. The thought of facing them again, or the coming Darkness...we are with you to the end. For our nation, for our people, for our children. Every one of us places our lives in your hands, High Queen, to do whatever it takes to stop the evil, that our families might live.”
The seriousness of the captain’s voice and conversation sent chills down Jackie’s spine. She knew what a gift she had in these people.
Chapter 5
Loyola Sentra System
The appearance of a task force of ninety-three Commonwealth ships plus the additional one hundred and three ships of the new Askirti First Fleet caused quite the ruckus in and around Loyola Prime. The newly formed Askirti Federation was formally recognized by the Commonwealth and the Reslorians, and under the very fine print of the treaty between the Commonwealth and the Westerly Federation meant that they had to at least acknowledge them as ‘friendly.'
After almost a year since the treaty was signed, the Commonwealth was ready to pursue piracy using joint task forces per the agreed upon terms. One of the very uncomfortable terms for the Westerly Federation was that Jackie, personally, would be the liaison. The same Westerly Federation that dismissed her. As such, the Commonwealth had largely ignored them until now, now that Jackie had her own small fleet of ships and was ready to take independent action.
The Westerly Federation was in a near panic to get ahold of the newly developed technologies now sported in not just the Commonwealth but also the Askirti Federation. That fear had helped pave the way for a series of agreements in the past week whereby they were forced to recognize its legitimacy overtly.
Part of the purpose of this task force, from the Westerly Federation’s standpoint, was the ability to see firsthand what capabilities they were missing out on with the new technology. The amount of fear generated not just from the Zikar Empire’s military build-up but also that of the Commonwealth’s technological revolution, economic explosion, and military build-up was leaving the them feeling the heat.
Jackie had been on the debarking side many times, but not so much on the greeting side. As she stood in the hangar bay of the ARNS Hania next to Commodore Reynolds and Captain Papadopoulos she had to remark how far she had come in just a year.
A Westerly shuttle landed, and some familiar faces appeared. Commodore Tabitha Summers exited the shuttle first, followed by Captain Jeri De Vitis and a few personal guards. The looks on their faces were memorable as they approached her, the look of surprise on the commodore and that of a proud father on De Vitis.
Jeri had been more than a captain to Jackie in her time on the WFS Colt, and later on the Nemesis. He was a mentor, her compass for right and wrong, and more importantly, was the closest thing she had to a father, her love for him being absolute. Her assignment to his ship by Rear Admiral Josh Waters was a friend of De Vitis’ playing a tasteless joke. While the rear admiral had thought Jackie an excellent candidate for XO, he could not help himself but assign the palest woman with alabaster white skin and snow-white hair to his best friend and captain of the Colt, Jeri De Vitis, who had a very rare, charcoal black skin tone. Jeri thought Josh was at it too long to be playing such dumb moves but did believe that it was funny himself.
Jeri’s qualities of honor had always captivated Jackie. He always had a good sense of justice and decency, which has been particularly evident during port time. De Vitis’ unusual skin tone and regal features always earned him the wanting stares of women where ever he went. And though opportunities always availed themselves, he was forever devoted to his wife, Ester. That sense of devotion enforced to Jackie this man was someone she would always have a place in her heart for.
##
Later in the ready room, they had just completed the mission briefing.
“Captain De Vitis, will you stay behind?” Jackie asked.
Once they were alone, “Jackie? I can’t believe you! I am so proud of you!”
“You are?” she asked with a smile.
“Of course, I am! I will say, I am glad to see Colonel Amori with you, he’s good for you, you know.”
“I’m coming to that conclusion myself,” Jackie responded with a smile and a slight blush.
“He’s a solid man, and scuttlebutt is that he has it for you!”
Jackie laughed.
“On a different note,” De Vitis continued, “being at the Battle of Wellington, I can still hardly believe that may be only the beginning of the conflict to come.”
“I know, with the Zikar’s military build-up, we could be on the precipice of a major conflict,” she responded.
“Jackie, things are bad in the Federation.”
Jeri’s demeanor had changed on a dime, his tone becoming somber.
“How do you mean?”
“You remember how each ship has a political officer assigned to it?” De Vitis asked.
The political officers had always existed in the Westerly Federation Navy. Which person was that ship's political officer was unknown, as it was completely random. Once upon a time, these officers had real teeth, but it had been many decades since anyone thought of them as more than paper pushers.
“Yeah, but they haven’t had any real say in such a long time, it was just kind of a dead position full of people just making out reports that ended up nowhere.”
“Not nowhere. There has been a been….a purge and it’s still ongoing. We think either the political officers are directly behind it or folks are being judged by what the reports contained.”
Jackie stopped cold.
“Wait! What are you talking about?” Jackie asked.
“Officers have been discharged. Captains have lost their positions. At first, it was thought to be mostly flunkies, but there have just been so many of them, it has caused a more than a bit of a panic. The Federation forces are in disarray.”
At this point, Jackie had a sick feeling in her stomach.
“What else?”
“First there were the discharges, then there were disappearances.”
“What?!”
“Folks have disappeared, and not a small number of them. They are arrested or just not showing up, nobody ever sees or hears from them again. People are running scared, Jackie. The indicators are that a Zikar invasion is imminent. Then with the Commonwealth pulling so far ahead of us, I feel like the Federation is coming apart.”
Purges and disappearances were not something the Westerly Federation was known for. Jackie knew the rot at the center of that nation had finally borne fruit.
“Jeri, are you safe?”
“I suppose I’m relatively safe, but I just don’t know. The spectrum of who’s disappeared is so broad, it’s difficult to formulate a profile to know if I’m a target or not.”
“Between you and me, you don’t have to leave this ship if you don’t want to. Call Ester, have her and Amelia go to the Commonwealth embassy. Until we know what’s going on, we should make sure your family is safe.”
Ester was his wife, and Amelia, his daughter. They both had that same unusually dark, charcoal black skin as Jeri. They were also as drop-dead gorgeous as they could be. Jackie often wondered about Jeri’s heritage and that of Esters. Most all humans were some shade of brown, with either an olive or yellow tint, but the De Vitis family stuck out almost as badly as she did.
“For me, I don’t think it’s time for that where I’m concerned, but I hear Avalon is beautiful this time of year, might be nice if they could visit,” her mentor said with a grin.
Jackie smiled. “They can stay at my place, I have two now. One in the city and one in the country. Please tell them to pack today.”
“I will,” Jeri said seriously, with a knowing look.
“Listen, if you change your mind during this assignment, ask for a meeting on the Hania. You can take a shuttle here, and never have to leave. You’re more like family than a friend, I will do whatever needs to be done to keep you safe.”
“Thank you, and I mean that. I believe though that with the deployment orders, the Nemesis and our escorts should be safe from whatever political maneuvering is that is going on.”
##
Pari, I have a special request.
<
I want you to penetrate the Westerly network and find out what you can. Create programs that sit and watch for patterns. I want to know if ‘The Chosen’ are part of what is happening with the dismissals and disappearances.
The Chosen was the name of the conspirators who seemed to have cells of operation in all the empires of men. They were also thought to have some hand in the massive increase in piracy the last few years.
<
Treaties I never signed. Can you do it?
<
Next question and this is a big one. I need a similar program to infect their warships. I want to know who’s on our side, who the political officers are and who may be working with the enemy.
<
Wouldn’t dream of it.
Air gapped systems were incredibly important on warships. It meant there were no networks between major systems like communications and weapons control. This would prevent someone from hacking a warship remotely.
At least they got that part right.
Jackie sighed
Okay, thanks. I guess after what happened at Wellington I should ask if you can do the same for the Commonwealth and the Reslorians.
<
At this point, little surprised Jackie when it came to her AI. It did know her very intimately as it lived in her mind and knew if she would approve or not.
Well, gee, this is my ‘surprised’ look.
Jackie gave a fake, teeth-only grin.
So, if we’ve been listening to our friends, what have been the results thus far?
<
They’ll get ahold of some of our equipment eventually.
<
##
The Nemesis task force was much larger than what was sent to Wellington last year on the diplomatic mission. While consisting of no dreadnoughts, the Nemesis was flanked by two battleships, eight heavy cruisers and an assortment of escorts and supply ships totaling one hundred and nine ships.
Jackie always wondered why the Westerly Federation had opted for the Nemesis-class battlecarriers as their new standard when the dreadnoughts were far more powerful. About fifty years ago, they stopped production of both dreadnoughts and battleships due to the cost of production and operation. The fact that the Commonwealths dreadnought was four times the length of the Nemesis did not seem to spur politicians to invest in larger ships to go toe-to-toe with their rivals.
Being as the Askirti dreadnought was the biggest ship in the formation at six kilometers long, the entire fleet formed up around it. It was a proud moment in Jackie’s life, as the ships of two separate nations allowed her to take the lead.
Using her algorithms for best positioning, the fleet would have had the Westerly ships positioned near the smaller escorts, such was their weakness, though she figured that would go over like a lead balloon.
To help them save face, she had it more evenly weighted by tonnage, though if they ran into a real battle, they would have to alter the formation to something realistic.
After they worked out some basic formations, even practiced a little while still in Federation space, it was time to head out.
##
Arriving in an empty system, it was time for a few wargames so that ships from three separate navies could learn to work together and get a handle on each other’s capabilities. It was the moment the Westerly Federation ships were looking forward to as they were desperate for first-hand intel.
While the exercises were just games, they were not accurate simulations. The shooting was simulated, as were the rail guns, lasers, drone defenses, etc., but the actual maneuvers were very real as the ships would perform actual maneuvers. The battle network would keep track of hits and damage estimates.
At first, they paired off the Commonwealth ships versus the Westerly Federation, while Jackie’s ships sat out. She was interested to see how they would fair being as the Commonwealth was using the new and improved designs. One of the Commonwealth battleships sat out to even the odds in tonnage.
When the exercise began, the Westerly Federation launched all its fighters from the Nemesis, not that they could do much against capital ships, but they could harass or even destroy the corvettes and some of the destroyers, which would reduce the number of guns the Commonwealth had and their ability to protect the larger ships.
The nearly two hundred fighters attacked the corvette formations with a vengeance, successfully decimating two-thirds of them, but they lost a quarter of their fighters in the first pass. The fighters then ran directly into the grasp of the destroyers. While they successfully brought down ten of the smaller warships, it was at a massive cost as only one in five returned to the Nemesis after being recalled after such wholesale slaughter.
The “destroyed” fighters were fated to wait out the wargame, with the pilots safely drifting in the void. The “lost” corvettes and destroyers suffered the same fate as well, with the battle computers disabling all propulsion and weapons.
All at once, each ship released their respective Smitz drones. The Smitz drones were point defense vehicles that detached from the hull of its host ship and maintained close formation while seeking and destroying incoming enemy missiles and rail gun slugs. Arnold Smitz had developed the first viable drone for space borne ships hundreds of years prior, and were now standard on all warships, each having a constellation of them.
By this time the capital ships were in range of one another was when things got interesting. The Commonwealth ships jinked and rolled far quicker than their Westerly brethren, and hence could significantly reduce the amount of damage they took. Additionally, the electronic countermeasures, ECM, worked to reduce the effectiveness of the their virtual missiles drastically. To add insult to injury, the Smitz drones, of which the Commonwealth now had double the number they had before
, each outperformed the Westerly Federations by a wide margin. The icing on the cake was the effectiveness of the Commonwealths virtual missiles, garnering a significant improvement.
It was an outright massacre. Every Westerly ship went down far quicker than their captains would have hoped.
##
“This is an outrage!” one of the Westerly captains complained.
“The battle network has to be rigged!” another said.
Jackie sat there impassively at the after-action meeting, a virtual conference, thankfully, that each captain could attend. The Westerly captains were going on and on with complaints, generally because they were sore losers. Most were political appointees or recently promoted flunkies who never would have reached the rank of captain without help.
The conference was arranged in a circular fashion, with the capital ship captains in the middle, then the heavy escorts behind them, and outward so that in this virtual reality nobody was very far away. Hosting over three hundred captains in a single location would have been difficult otherwise.
“I think instead of complaining, we need to ask what we can do better!” Captain De Vitis finally spoke up.
“Captains,” Jackie started, “I think what you are mad about is that your Federation was not included in the technology upgrades.”
“Yeah, like that technology exchange that crappy treaty was supposed to get us? That was a stab in the back,” yet another captain added.
“It would have been the Westerly Federation generously sharing their newfound technology had they not stabbed me in the back, as this technology was a direct result of the AI I alone now possess,” she retorted in a contained anger, speaking almost as a mad parent does to a misbehaving child.
“Having been a citizen my whole life, I will tell you this. Rot has set in. The type of rot that is dangerous to us all. A strong Westerly Federation is in the interest of everyone. In due time, everyone will have the latest toys. In the meantime, some of you will have to learn to play well with others.”
“Weren’t you just an XO a year ago? This is a complete farce! Why exactly should I listen to you?” the first captain asked in an infuriating tone.
Rumors of Wars: The Askirti Chronicles - Book 2 Page 5
