by Krystyn Dean
Back on board the Ronald Reagan
Just as the battle was winding down there was a huge explosion, it took a few seconds for it to register, the three Eldirelian war ships accompanying the inbound freighters had jumped directly in to the mine field. I had Fritz deactivate the mines so we wouldn’t destroy the freighters when they arrived. They would be good to have. About ten minutes later the freighters dropped out of FTL only to realize they were surrounded by several SOL/FED navy vessels. They surrendered immediately.
I just received word from Colonel Finnerty. Not only had they captured the command ship, but they had taken several prisoners. One of the prisoners is the Supreme commander for Apsis Prime Gwof, Kalach. I imagine our intelligence people will be eager to have a conversation or two with him. For some reason the Captain of the command ship, the dreadnaught Sossios Entayta, had failed to purge the computer files in the main computer. That will be another intelligence find. Now if we can kick the Eldirelians off Apsis Prime, this trip will have been worth it.
Colonel Finnerty is back on board. We don’t have space for the number of prisoners we took on Sossios Entayta in our brig, so Colonel Finnerty locked down one of the cargo holds on Sossios Entayta and has them under guard there. Captain Yeeslax and Supreme commander Gwof Kalach will be brought aboard the Reagan. I spoke to Gwof Kalach first, but he would only spew insults and threats. I have no time for that, so I spoke with captain, Yeeslax. I said, “Captain, we are going to invade Apsis Prime, there will be a major loss of life, both combatants and civilians. We will persevere, but I would rather find a way to do it without taking any more lives than necessary. Can you tell me who is in command of the ground troops?” “Captain Yeeslax said, “yes, I can, his name is General Kliriann. He is a career soldier. He is a hard man, but honorable to a fault. If he tells you something he will follow through. I am not sure how many troops he has on the surface, but the troop total in space and on Apsis Prime is about twenty thousand. Half of his force should have been on board the troop ships, but I don’t know what the rotation cycle is. The frequency we used to communicate with him is a secure link, you should be able to talk to him on three forty-five point nine five. I am sure he will talk to you, but I can’t even begin to tell you how he might react.”
Back on the flag bridge, I gave General Kliriann a call. He answered. “This is General Kliriann, who is this. I replied, “this is Admiral Anderson of the SFN Carrier fleet one, General. We have taken control of the system surrounding Apsis Prime. I would like to talk to you about finding a way to finish this with a minimum loss of life. We fully intend to take control of Apsis Prime and begin the return of the planet and system to the Rheagane people. Do you have any ideas?”
General Kliriann said,” this is a bit of a surprise, I never expected to see weakness in a human officer.” I replied, “General, please do not deceive yourself in to thinking I am weak. I will pound your troops into the ground from orbit, and when you begin to cower behind civilians, and you will cower behind civilians, my marines will fight you on every doorstep, in every street and every village until you are annihilated. We either work something out here, between us or there is no quarter. It can be no other way because if we are not there to protect you, the Rheaganese people will tear you and your troops to pieces.” “I have on board my ship Diviak Y’shol who cannot wait to rally his people to wipe out every Eldirelian on their planet, and we will help them. How long will your supplies last? How soon will you run out of ammunition, food, medicine? We can wait General, can you?”
He replied, “I could begin killing civilians until you leave.” I said, when the first civilian is killed, that is the end of Eldirelian life on the planet of Apsis Prime. We will unleash such a storm of hell on you and your troops that not the least among you will survive.” I went on to say, “General I don’t believe you want to sacrifice civilians and I don’t believe you want to sacrifice your troops in a battle that you have no chance of winning. Your power was in the space around Apsis Prime. That is gone. We both know you are as much a prisoner now as those I have in my prison ships. The only real option is to lay down your arms. If you agree to do that, I will send my marines to the surface to protect you from the Eldirelians. I cannot promise to repatriate you or your troops to Grenushania, but I can promise fair and humane treatment.”
General Kliriann said, “it is difficult for me to get my mind around surrendering, it is something Eldirelians do not do.” I said, “I understand General, but a wise human named Sun Tzu said once ‘He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious’. I believe you are one who knows when to fight”. General Kliriann said, “you will guarantee my troops will be treated courteously, that we will not be demeaned in any way? I said, General you will be our prisoners, but we will not mistreat your troops or your officers. You will be protected and treated with respect.”
I found it difficult to believe I had negotiated a surrender. It turned out later that the ground troops were tired, undermanned and dangerously low on supplies. The troop and supply ships that we destroyed had provisions and fresh troops to replenish the garrison. Without those provisions they would have been out of everything including ammo in a week or perhaps two at the outside.
Things had gone well at Apsis Prime. I had lost some ships and had others damaged, but I had one ship that had never made it to the battle. Where the hell was Captain Velions and the Monserate?
CHAPTER NINE
THE OCCUPATION OF APSIS PRIME
Eight weeks later I was realizing that taking Apsis Prime from the Eldirelians may have been the easy part. Trying to administer the planet and get it back in shape for the Rheagane people to take over may be the most daunting task I have ever faced. It was our good luck that Diviak Y’shol was on board. He was a hero with the Rheagane people now and was being pressured to lead the new government. We had already established communications satellites in orbit so Diviak Y’shol went on a worldwide broadcast and said: “People of Apsis Prime. I am proud you have asked me lead our government, however there are many people who are better prepared for the job of rebuilding Apsis Prime than me. I am a warrior; my task is to make certain Apsis Prime and any other system that needs protection will receive it. I am asking Admiral Anderson to allow me to form an all Rheagane Battalion of SOL/FED Marines. That Battalion will join the SOL/FED Navy in fighting oppressors everywhere in the Galaxy. That will be my task. A list of citizens has been put together for your consideration. Feel free to add names of others. Listen to the vision of these people and choose those you believe will best protect and serve our planet. The future of Apsis Prime is in your hands, choose carefully and then support those chosen to bring our world back and move us into a new era of peace, prosperity and security.”
Later that day, Colonel Finnerty accompanied by Sergeant Diviak Y’shol ask to meet me in my ready room. Colonel Finnerty said, “Admiral, Sergeant Y’shol has ask for our help in putting together a training base for a new Rheagane SOL/FED Marine training facility. They will need human training and support people to make the base work. We started talking about it and I remembered that the SOL/FED Navy desperately needed a training base for our own marines.
We have been getting our people by enlisting marines that were leaving or had just left their existing Earth military. That has just about run its course and we need to start recruiting and training our own people, and they should be from any system within the Federation who are willing to volunteer. I am sure the Egolari can get the word out to Federation space. I don’t know what kind of response we might get, but we need to start training our own marines wherever they come from.”
“Jaimie, I hadn’t even considered our growing Marine requirements. Good thinking. I can’t think of a better place to put a training base that right here on Apsis Prime. The Rheaganese population had been decimated by the Eldirelians and they have plenty of room.” Sergeant Y’shol chimed in to say, “Admiral, I believe my people will welcome a new SO
L/FED training base with open arms.”
I said,” hold that thought for a second, let’s get Sudeer and Qobrun in on this conversation.” I called Sudeer and Qobrun on the intercom and they joined us shortly. I had the Colonel and Sergeant Y’shol explain what they had in mind. Sudeer said, “While the overwhelming majority of Federation members support our defensive efforts, they simply are not able to overcome the centuries of pacification that has been ingrained in their societies. That is the reason we chose Earth to provide those services for us. That may seem mercenary, but it is not. It is a shortcoming of most of the species in the Federation that we are handicapped in this manner.”
“The SOL/FED Navy and Marine Corps is an integral part of the modern Federation. Every member of the Federation realizes that without the systems that can help defend us the Federation will cease to exist. There are some systems in the Federation that, could and would provide both crewmen for our Navy and recruits for our marines. The location of Apsis Prime, its financial situation and its almost unlimited space makes it a natural location for such a base.”
Qobrun spoke up, saying “Admiral, there is no doubt the requirements for trained people will soon outstrip the availability of suitable trainees. This would appear to be the answer to the problem. The Krayari may be able to provide some recruits and there are several emerging systems that should be able to provide recruits as well.”
I said, “We should ask the people of Apsis Prime if they would welcome a training base like we are talking about. If we get a positive response our next move will be to present a plan to Admiral Miller.” “This is not something I can not do without getting the approval and support from Admiral Miller and the SOL/FED committee.“
“Prepare a plan to implement this base. Set out the personnel, infrastructure and equipment we would require.”
“Diviak you clear this plan with Apsis Prime officials. If they agree, ask them where they would prefer the base. It should be close to a population center. We will need to hire locals to perform all sorts of tasks. Once you have that ready bring it to me. I will sign off on it. Do it sooner rather than later we will have ships leaving for Titan within a few days and I don’t want to hold them up.”
Colonel Finnerty called me a day later and said, “Admiral I thought you might be interested to know how the volunteer count for the new Rheagane Battalion has gone. As you know, a Battalion has about fourteen hundred members. Diviak filled his battalion in the first hour.”
“By the end of the day he had four thousand volunteers, enough volunteers for a regiment. We are going to need someplace to put all these folks.” I wasn’t surprised. I just hoped we got the support we needed from Titan.
We had survived the battle of Apsis Prime, but we had not gotten off Scott free. The Venture was lost, fortunately the crew escaped, including Commander McCreary. Mac had stayed with the Venture guiding her right up next to the Eldirelian cruiser. His idea was to blow the Ventures self-destruct as close to the cruiser as possible. His hope was to damage the cruiser and he succeeded admirably. The fighters finished taking out the cruiser, but it was the Venture that did the job. The Cruisers Karpov and Baker had light damage, we could make the necessary repairs to get them back to one hundred percent locally.
The Cruiser Sheppard, the Corvettes Norgass, Dauphin, Maiden and the Photon suffered moderate to heavy damage. We were making the repairs we could to enable them to limp back to Titan Base. I assigned the Destroyers Orleanais and Perth Shire to convoy them home. The convoy was ready to leave five days later.
The people of Apsis Prime supported the idea of a Marine training base so I put the plan on a data cube for Admiral Miller and sent it back to Titan with Captain Amber Cordev on the Orleanais.
Two weeks later, Lieutenant Gomez said, “I have a large number of ships de-cloaking at three hundred thousand kilometers’ Sir. Sensors count 39 ships.” “Very well Lieutenant,” I said, “Comm. alert the fleet, battle stations, this is no drill.” “Aye Sir,” said lieutenant Allan. Several minutes later Lieutenant Gomez said, “jump probe coming out of FTL on our port side Admiral, message reads: Admiral Anderson, this is Admiral Suresh. Second Carrier Fleet has arrived to support First Carrier Fleet. Code authorization Zeta Black nineteen. Congratulations on your victory. Arriving in system in about six hours. Dinner is on you. Rear Admiral Dylan Antonakos-Suresh.”
Eight hours later Lieutenant Jenson had seated Dylan and left the room, Dylan stood and said, “first, Admiral Anderso,n congratulations are in order. Admiral Miller asked me to inform you that you have been promoted from Vice Admiral to Admiral. It is my pleasure to present you a new set of devices. You now have command of all SFN fleets deployed, including mine. SFN regulations require that we both make a fleet wide announcement of your promotion and your new command, Admiral Anderson, would you permit me to do that now?”
Dylan made the fleet wide announcement, and I then went on line accepting the promotion and the new command, also welcoming Second Carrier Fleet to Apsis Prime.
Although Second Carrier Group was a welcome sight, R&R for First Carrier Fleet was not going to happen. After Dylan presented me with my fourth star he handed me an eyes-only message cube from Admiral Miller. I sat down and read it, I said, “have you seen this Dylan? He replied, yes sir I have, admiral Miller briefed me before we left. Interesting isn’t it. How do you plan to proceed?” I said, “I am not sure yet, let me get my head around all of this and then we can do some planning.”
After Dylan had returned to the Intrepid I read the message again and then gave Qobrun a call and asked him to join me in my ready room. Shortly thereafter there was knock on the door, Lieutenant Jenson said, “Lieutenant Commander Qobrun to see you sir.” I said “have him come in Lieutenant.” Qobrun entered my office. I said, “Qobrun, what can you tell me about the Alhena System.” Qobrun said, “Admiral, the Alhena System is a system with no habitable planets, it has a gas giant called Aratan. Aratan has one moon orbiting it’s called Serkis 3. Serkis 3 has an atmosphere, but it has no value other than a gathering place for smugglers, pirates and people who really don’t want to be found for some reason. An altogether unpleasant place. Why do you ask?” I replied, “The Federation Counsel has asked Admiral Miller to send us to the Alhena system to see if we can stop some pirates who have been creating havoc. They said it has been a problem for some time now, but it has become much worse.” “It seems the pirates are now entering orbit in the outlying systems and threatening to bombard the cities on the surface unless a ‘protection’ fee is paid. Numina 5 in the Hawi system was one of the first.” “When the pirates gave the people of Numina 5 their ultimatum, the officials basically told them to take a hike. The pirates made good on their threat and killed over three hundred thousand people before Numina 5 managed to pay the ransom. I have been ordered to take Group and stop the pirates. The orders say I the group should only be as large as I feel I need to take out the pirates”
“I see” said Qobrun, “I must say that I am somewhat surprised that the Counsel would waste the time of the First Carrier fleet on some unruly pirates.”
“What can you tell me about the pirates?” I asked Qobrun. “Earths ancient history is full of pirates, they sailed the seas of our planet and captured ships for their cargo. They also sold their captives into slavery, but we haven’t had pirates on Earth for several centuries, so tell me about these new age pirates.”
Qobrun said,” Admiral, they aren’t that much different than what you just described except now they tend to run in packs. They steal cargo, people and ships. If they steal a ship and the crew refuses to join them, they sell them as slaves, or if it is not convenient to sell them, they space them.”
“The Federation penalty for piracy is death. The pirates know this so they won’t surrender easily.” I would venture to guess that the SOL/FED committee has other reasons to send us to Serkis 3, although what they might be I have no idea. My advice would be to go in very carefully. There is
more here than meets the eye.” “I agree Qobrun. I have no idea what the committee is thinking. The cryptic nature of our orders leads me to think we are expected to come up with something ‘outside the box’.” “Outside the box, Admiral? I don’t understand the phrase.” “Qobrun, it’s a human catch phrase that means come up with a new and novel answer to a problem.” Qobrun replied, “Ah I see Admiral. The committee has some reason not to give you explicit instructions. They are hoping you will come up with a new and novel idea to solve the problem. Out of the box, as you say.”
“Exactly Qobrun. Now let me get to work to see what kind of a rabbit I can pull out of my hat.” “Rabbit out of your hat Admiral? Getting used to Humanisms is going to take a bit longer than I first thought.” Replied Qobrun.
I asked Mr. Turner to have Fritz come to my ready room, meanwhile I brought up a star map of the Alhena System and studied it. When Fritz showed up I briefed him on some of what Qobrun and I had talked about. I said, “Fritz, look at the star map of the Alhena System and tell me what you think.” Fritz looked the map over and said, “the gas giant Aratan is just now coming around the sun it will be on our port side coming toward us on our approach.” The combination of the planets movement and the fleets speed would suggest a head-on approach would be in order.”
“The report of the average number of ships in orbit around Serkis three at any given time is roughly fifteen to seventeen ships. They would obviously be no threat to First Carrier Fleet. We could destroy them with eight or nine ships.”
