Roger that, Admiral. The clock is at four hours and seventeen minutes. The Warlords, the Utopian Saviors, and Ramy's Robots have pushed through the Martian National Guard units and the support from the John Tyler and the Abraham Lincoln. And the Gods of War have pretty much cleared the upper ball of enemy fighters, Uncle Timmy replied DTM.
DeathRay is giving them hell, huh?
Aye, sir. He and Fish already have a confirmed seven kills apiece. The Gods of War far outmatched both fighter groups from the Tyler and Lincoln.
Damn.
"Air Boss!" Chekov shouted.
"Aye, XO?" Captain Michelle Wiggington responded as she settled into her seat at the commander of the Air Wing station.
"Status of the support wings?"
"Utopian Saviors and Demon Dawgs are on the bounce dirtside, and the Gods of War have cleared the ball and are crawling the hull, sir!"
"Good. Ground Boss, status!" The XO turned to the station adjacent to Captain Wiggington.
"Yes, sir!" U.S. Army Brigadier General James Brantley replied. "Warboys' Warlords are on the move and have surrounded the target. Colonel Roberts reports his Robots are with them."
"Good, Roberts and his marines will get the job done. ETA to target, Larry?" the RADM asked his longtime XO and friend.
"Hold on, Admiral." Wallace could see his XO stare blankly into space for a brief moment. Clearly, he was getting a datafeed DTM from somewhere or was having a discussion with Uncle Timmy. Wallace often had a similar stare, and it was so commonplace the crew never paid it any attention. Hell, most of them were doing the same. "Aye, sir. Robots look like they will be in the end zone in seventy-three seconds."
"Roger that, Larry." Well, there was nothing really to do but sit back and enjoy the rest of the show in his DTM. His crew had done their jobs, and the rapid-deployment exercise was going well. It had taken just a bit more than four hours for the blue team to deploy and attack. In less than two minutes the end result of those four hours would be that the Madira would have full control over a useless patch of Martian desert that had been designated as a target coordinate. But what Wallace and his XO (and of course their AICs) knew that the rest of his crew did not was that the USS Anthony Blair was about to drop out of hyperspace on top of them and QMT teleport an entire contingent of AEMs, hovertanks, and fighters right into the mix of his tiring soldiers. Those fighters would be a fresh attacking red force. And they would be ready for some payback, since the Madira had beaten them hands down in a previous war-gaming engagement.
"COB, how's my boat?" Wallace asked his Chief of the Boat (COB) Command Master Chief Charlie Green. Charlie had been Wallace's COB for more than a decade, and the rear admiral was certain that even bad Navy coffee wouldn't get the man to retire, ever. Wallace looked around the bridge and realized that he had the most senior bridge crew in history and wondered if any of them would ever retire. At least the COB was looking spry and youthful since his recent body rejuv procedure.
"Well, Admiral, she's in top form. Top form."
"Roger that, COB." Wallace took the coffee cup from Charlie and halfheartedly toasted him. The COB nodded and raised his cup and then took a long draw from it. The COB was famous for his Navy stories and his blacker-than-black, stronger-than-strong Navy coffee, and Wallace could tell from the bite of his cup that CMC Green was still making the meanest cup'a joe in the fleet. He tried not to grimace at the taste or at the fact that the COB was about to start up one of his stories.
"Sorta reminds me of that time—"
"CDC, CO!" The Combat Direction Center a couple decks below pinged the bridge and interrupted what Wallace was sure would be a riveting and humorous story.
"Belay that, COB." Wallace held up a palm to Charlie. "CO, go, CDC," the RADM replied.
"We've got a hyperspace-conduit signature opening up thirty thousand kilometers port and ten thousand down, sir!" The voice on the other end trailed off a moment. "It is squawking as the Blair, sir."
"Roger that." Wallace hesitated a few seconds to give his crew the time to respond. He didn't want to give the exercise too much advantage with his prior knowledge. But at the same time he didn't want to look like he was intentionally stalling.
"Sir." Captain Monte Freeman, the ship's science and technology officer (STO), looked up from his console.
"What is it, STO?"
"I'm getting a red-force icon for the Blair, and it looks like she's simulating a power-up of her DEGs. And there is something else—" the STO's explanation was cut off as alarms blared throughout the ship, indicating that they had been targeted by radar and hit by directed energy guns (DEGs).
Sir, the simulated attack is under way as planned, Uncle Timmy stated into Wallace's mind matter-of-factly.
Roger that, Timmy, the RADM thought to his AIC.
"CO, CDC!"
"Go, CDC."
"We just had a massive increase in the number of troop signatures detected on the ground, and they are all squawking simulation red, sir!"
"Roger that, CDC."
"CO?"
"Go, Ground Boss!"
"The Robots report outnumbered and being attacked by a force that just appeared on them from nowhere!" Army Brigadier General Brantley reported.
"Well, General, I'd suggest they fight back," the XO added with the most gruff Marine sarcasm he could muster. It just sounded gruff—Chekov wasn't that good at sarcasm.
"Roger that," the ground boss replied and then began issuing commands DTM to Colonel Roberts and Colonel Warboys on the red surface below. The air boss took the orders given to the ground boss to heart immediately and started signaling the fighters to attack any new vehicles entering the mix.
"Structural Integrity Fields at maximum and start shooting back, folks! Let's move," the XO shouted and rerouted simulated power to the SIFs.
"Nav!"
"Aye, sir?"
"Put us between the Blair and the surface. Don't want them taking potshots at our troops down there, do we?" Wallace tapped some virtual icons around his head to plan where to make his next move. Simulations of potential battle-scenario outcomes ran quickly in his mindview. With the advent of the new Seppy teleportation tech, the fleet needed to practice fighting against it. And since a few of the fleetships had been equipped with the tech as well, the U.S. military had been war-gaming with it. Both the Tyler and the Lincoln had teleported troops in and out and around the battlescape over the past four hours, forcing the Madira's groundpounders, tankheads, and mecha jocks to learn to quickly adapt tactics and think more four-dimensionally in their battle reactions. Wallace was becoming proficient at battle tactics and strategies involving troops and equipment appearing and vanishing and reappearing at different locations throughout a conflict. But they had yet to be in an actual engagement with the technology. Practice makes perfect, he thought.
Captain Benson Harrison, the chief engineer, a.k.a. CHENG, for the USS Sienna Madira, watched silently over his crew from the privacy of his office. His door was locked, and he was "indisposed" at the moment. In fact, he was both an observer and—as prearranged by the admiral—a red-team spy. He kept a very close eye through DTM on the ongoing battle simulation and how his second-in-command, Lieutenant Commander Joe Buckley Jr., was handling the situation of being in charge. To Harrison this was more than a test of his second-in-command of the engineering nexus of the mammoth supercarrier: it was a job interview for his replacement. But Joe didn't know that.
Benny, as he insisted his team call him, had watched Joe closely from day one. In fact, on Joe's first day of duty on the Madira he had performed amazingly as a main propulsion assistant in order to make the ship's hyperspace jaunt projectors give the ship one last and badly needed jaunt out of the line of fire of an enemy railgun. Amazing and timely performance, yes, but his—the then-new lieutenant's—actions led him and an engineer's mate to be fried through and through with high-energy gamma rays. The two barely made it to sick bay before their organs ceased functioning. Fortunately, they surviv
ed, were both rejuved, and even commended for their actions. Both were promoted. The engineer's mate resigned as soon as his four years were up. But Joe stayed on as a career man like his father had been. Benny appreciated that, especially after having put in his thirty years for the Navy. And since that day a couple years before, he had been grooming Joe to be his successor whether Buckley wanted the position or not.
Melissa, he thought to his AIC. Sim a malfunction in the Damage Control Assessment System. With that shut down, he won't know what is working and what isn't.
Aye, Benny, Melissa Four One Four Eight Mike Juliet Oscar replied. Done.
"Okay, Buckley, let's see you get out of this one." The CHENG leaned back in his seat and smiled.
"Joe! We just lost the DCAS!" Lieutenant Mira Concepcion shouted from her console at the damage control assistant's station.
"Roger that, Mira. Get that thing back up. And get someone visually checking Aux Prop, Main Prop, SIF Generators, DEG power, and catapult-field power systems every thirty seconds until that thing is fixed!" Lieutenant Commander Joe Buckley Jr., acting CHENG, ordered in response. Like the CHENG, Joe had worked by the first-name-basis protocol in engineering. It had originally taken him time to get used to the approach, but after a few years of it he found he liked it. On the other hand, Joe was more likely to slip into official Navy protocol in crisis or heated discussions than Benny was.
"Joe, we've got reports from CDC and the STO that the Blair has popped into realspace and is QMTing troops and mecha dirtside left and right! They want to make sure the SIFs are set to block a teleported boarding party!" Technology Officer Lieutenant Commander Janet Wilbanks barked her report as she frantically typed in commands on her console.
"Yeah, I see that, Janet. Keep the structural-integrity field frequencies shifting on a random pattern. Any structure to it will allow some weisenheimer with a quantum computer to crack it. Set an AIC-to-AIC connection between your station and the air boss to allow any approved boarding to briefly run a standard SIF encryption pattern." Joe thought about it as he replied. As long as the SIFs were allowed to vary in frequency at random, there would be no way anybody could hack the sequence and slip through. The shields would simply be impenetrable as long as they held—theoretically, of course. However, there wasn't any guarantee that the SIFs would prevent a QMT teleport. The quantum-membrane technology used in the teleport projectors was still very new and not well understood. Even though the U.S. Navy hadn't figured out a way to use a QMT teleporter to penetrate a ship when its SIFs were activated didn't mean the Seppies hadn't. And who knew what kind of bug the sim was going to throw at them?
"Roger that, Joe." Janet turned about the work, and Joe didn't give it a second thought.
"Mira! Where are my main systems visual confirmations? Are we sure everything is working?"
"First visuals are coming in now, Joe. Everything is clicking hot! The bells are ringing and the whistles are blowin'."
"All right. Don't make me ask next time. Every thirty seconds until you've got your station fixed!"
"Aye."
"Aha! I've got you now, Buckley." Benny laughed to himself and tapped in a ship-to-ship personal communications link.
"CHENG Blair. CHENG Madira."
"Benny?" The Chief Engineer of the USS Anthony Blair's face popped up on Benny's holoscreen.
"Hey, Susan. How's your second doing?"
"Good, so far. What can I do for you?"
"Tell your captain that if she were to focus on our SIFs, we wouldn't know if they were down or not for about thirty seconds. They might be able to QMT a raiding party through the back door." Benny smiled at his counterpart.
"Really? I'll pass that along. Appreciate the info, Benny."
"Anything I can do for you, as always." Benny leaned back in his chair a bit and relaxed his back muscles. The holoview shifted to compensate for his change in position.
"Well, if you put it that way." Susan paused briefly and stared blankly into space. "My second has a tendency to ignore secondary power conduits. In about three minutes Main Prop is gonna overheat and blow out a main power-transfer conduit. I want to see how long it will take him to find an alternative route while he's under duress. We'll be dead in the water for several minutes probably."
"Got it. I'll pass that along to the bridge. They might be able to prolong your overheating problem."
"Thanks, Benny. Knew I could count on ya."
"Roger that, Suze. Benny out."
Melissa, send a message to the CO that we're gonna be boarded in a few minutes and that the Blair is gonna be stuck in place about the same time, Benny thought as he looked over his ship through the DTM interface. Even though there was simulated damage, he was still keeping an eye on the real status of his beloved supercarrier. At least, it was still his for now. He hoped he'd have good hands to leave her in.
Roger that, Benny, his AIC replied.
Chapter 3
July 1, 2394 AD
Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha, a.k.a. Ares
New Tharsis, Capital City of the United Separatist Republic
Friday, 7:40 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Friday, 3:40 AM Madira Valley Standard Time
"The QMT facility is fully operational, Madam President." Admiral Sterling Maximillian of the United Separatist Republic Navy looked in at Elle Ahmi through the long-range quantum-membrane communication link.
Elle only halfheartedly paid the highest ranking officer in the Separatist military any mind. Just then the brilliant colors of the gas-giant planet's rings were cresting over the horizon and casting a brilliant purple and blue hue over the valley below. She looked through the partially transparent holoview and out the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side at the beauty of the Jovian system. Moons Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, and Iota were clearly visible, although Iota had never really qualified as a moon in Elle's mind, but astronomers will be astronomers. The sunlight reflected from the gas giant onto Epsilon in just the right way so glimmers from the man-made albedo changes could be noticed. The mining facility there was growing every day, and soon they would be exporting that to the other colonies—all of them but the Sol System, of course.
"President Ahmi, ma'am?" The admiral interrupted the Separatist leader's tranquil moment.
"Max, what does the governor say?" Elle walked barefooted across to her desk and sat in her oversized leather desk chair. Other than her desk, the room held only the Martian oak four-poster bed and a formal sitting area with a modern Ares-style honey leather couch, love seat, and straight chair combination complete with area rug and coffee and end tables. The formal furniture was rarely used, as Elle was always too busy running a brand-new country, world, star system, and multigeneration-long plan to overthrow the Sol System government. Entertaining guests was something that she had little time or use for, unless it suited some part of her ingenious, intricate, and, as history has shown, murderous and bloody plans. Along those lines she had high hopes that soon, very soon, she would be hosting a foreign dignitary from Ross 128.
"He has agreed to your proposal and has promised action today. He is waffling on us a bit, though. I think he is waiting for his one last shot at Moore." Sterling paused for a second and, Elle thought, was discussing something with his AIC. "I'm having the recording of our conversation uplinked to Copernicus now."
"Waffling! Waffling! You tell that weasel slimy shit that if he even thinks about waffling on me, I will personally gut him from asshole to cerebrum while keeping him alive to watch as I eat his fucking insides! You got that?" Elle's hands trembled and her eyes widened with anger. Ross 128 was critical to her plans. She rose from her desk chair, turned, and grabbed the wooden guest's straight chair from beside her desk and beat it into the floor several times while screaming violently. "I will smash that sonofabitch! Do you fucking understand me?"
"Ma'am. Uh, I will—"
"Do you fucking understand me?" she tossed a piece of the chair's leg at the viewscreen, cracking it o
n one corner.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll take care of it."
"Good, Max." Her mood and personality seemed to change almost instantly to her more calm and calculated persona. "When do you snap back?"
"We are loading personnel now. It was a good R & R for my crew, but we're ready to come home. As soon as we get loaded up and our package arrives, we'll be under way."
"Good. That package is precious cargo, is of the utmost importance to our cause, and will be treated as such. You understand me? You see it to it that no harm comes to it. Personally, Max."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I mean it. Any harm comes to that package and I'll personally kill the person or persons that allowed it—after I torture, dismember, and kill their family and force them to watch. You get me?" Her fists clenched tight as she glared at her top admiral.
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