by Jeff Sims
To be perfectly honest, the real issue he had with the Barrister was that its crew represented a real, potential threat to his leadership.
Fruid’la responded, “Computer, send the following message to the Barrister.”
He said, “GBAGs, I am thrilled to see that you have successfully arrived. I am certain that with your help and thoughtful participation we will be successful in the upcoming campaign. Please accept my humble apologies as I am too busy to converse with you at this time. Please take position 332 in the fleet. Again, thank you in advance for your service. Sincerely, Supreme Admiral Fruid’la.”
Oh well, there was little that he could do about the Barrister or its crew at the moment. At least by putting them in the back of the formation he wouldn’t have to deal with them again until they reached Conron.
That spurred another thought - perhaps a stray missile would hit the Barrister during the battle and kill everyone on board. He made a mental note to have a few missiles specifically reprogrammed to target the cruise liner when the shooting started. It never hurt to have a backup plan he supposed.
Finally, it was time to jump to the Opron system. This time for real. Fruid’la now ordered that ships jump through 3 at a time. The hyperspace corridor was 4 lanes wide and 4 lanes tall. Therefore, there were enough slots in the hyperspace lane for 16 ships to safely jump at once. However, one of the outer lanes was reserved for traffic in the incoming direction.
The effect was similar to driving southbound in the northbound lane of a three-dimensional highway. Further, one was traveling at an insanely fast speed with one’s lights off. It was extremely unlikely that one would encounter another vehicle, but if one did, the result would be catastrophic. In Fruid’la’s opinion, the risk of losing a ship just wasn’t worth the time gained by sending 4 ships through the hyperspace lane at once.
Since there was an opening, Supreme Admiral Fruid’la ordered the command carrier Retribution to move up and jump in the spot vacated by ship #4. This was ideal since he would be in the second group of three ships to arrive in Opron.
It was time to leave. The Retribution jumped right on schedule and completed the 6 hour jump from Netron to Opron. The tactical monitor updated immediately upon arrival. This was possible only because they received an updated scan from the Intimidator.
Fruid’la reviewed the scan. There were no other ships in the system. Specifically, the Alliance cruiser that was supposed to be guarding the hyperspace lane was not there.
He considered contacting the Intimidator directly, but realized that he should probably go through proper channels. He could have asked one of his analysts to do it, but they were not currently at their stations.
Fruid’la said, “Computer, contact Sub-Admiral Valod’la and have him patch in the Intimidator.”
…Connection established…
Fruid’la waited for the other being to complete the abridged Hiriculan greeting and said, “The scans show that the Alliance corvette is not here. Can you confirm that it disappeared?”
The captain responded, “Yes Supreme Admiral, exactly 7 hours after we sent the secret code the enemy corvette was struck by an ion cannon blast and completely disintegrated.”
Fruid’la nodded knowingly and broke contact. The truth was that he hadn’t known that particular detail. He had only been told that the command would make the enemy ship disappear. He figured that meant that the command was a false order to get the enemy corvette to leave ahead of schedule; or even a threat or possibly a bribe. Either way, the High Council was correct; the command certainly caused the enemy corvette to disappear.
The armada micro jumped across the Opron system and reassembled at the entryway to the Opron – Conron hyperspace lane. Finally, Fruid’la thought. He could finally reveal the overall plan and give each flotilla specific instructions.
Supreme Admiral Fruid’la convened an impromptu teleconference with the other sub-admirals. Unfortunately, he didn’t set up the conference with the correct security code and no one could join the conference. He wound up having the computer contact each admiral individually and connect them all together via their ships’ computers. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.
However, the once all of the admirals were connected, the computer recognized that Admiral Fruid’la was attempting to bypass the security protocols and promptly ended the conference. Fruid’la then had to create a new meeting request with a new security code and send it to the other admirals. This time it worked and everyone was able to join the conference.
Fruid’la revealed the first phase of the plan. He said, “We are going to split into two separate groups. Flotillas 1 and 11 will conquer Conron. Flotillas 2 – 10 will jump undetected around the distant outskirts of Conron and proceed directly to Advranki Prime.”
One of the sub-Admirals waved his hand and requested to speak. Fruid’la really didn’t feel like being interrupted and briefly considered ignoring the request. However, one of these fools was more than likely an informant for the High Council. Or worse, he thought, maybe one of them was a relative of a High Council member.
There was very little patronage in the Hiriculan Navy. However, very little did not equate to none. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that one or more of these sub-admirals must have a very strong connection to a High Council member. That connection did little to change his belief that they were all idiots though.
Either way, he knew that he couldn’t risk ignoring the other being. He responded, “Admiral Tras’la, you have a question.”
Admiral Tras’la said, “Thank you Supreme Admiral. I do indeed have a question. Why don’t we all just fly directly to Conron, conquer it, and then move as a group to Advranki Prime?”
Fruid’la replied, “That is an excellent question. The answer is that we cannot risk giving Advranki Prime any advance notification of our arrival. If Conron sends a warning to Advranki Prime, the Alliance could marshal their forces and have countermeasures in place. The key to our strategy is to catch the fleet at Advranki Prime completely by surprise.”
Fruid’la essentially repeated himself for effect. He hoped that would end that particular line of questioning. He really wanted it to sound like it was his plan. He didn’t want to revert to saying ‘because the High Council specifically told us to do so’.
Admiral Tras’la said, “Perhaps we could modify the battle plan and stage the entire fleet all along the outskirts of the system. Then, we all could jump into the Conron system at the same time, completely surprising the Advranki and capturing their communications platform before they could send a message.”
Fruid’la responded, “That is, oddly enough, exactly what we are going to do at Advranki Prime with the exception of capturing the communications platform. However, in order to do so, we have to sneak around Conron first.”
Tras’la continued, “But why not consider a modification to the plan? The modified plan is clearly superior to the original.”
He was correct, Fruid’la thought. That was a much better plan than the one that they were going to follow. He wondered if this was his first test. Was Tras’la really trying to help him, or was he secretly spying for the High Council. Perhaps Tras’la also knew the master plan and was just waiting to inform the High Council should he attempt to modify it.
He responded, “The majority of the fleet is going to sneak around Conron because the High Council specifically told us to sneak around Conron.”
Fruid’la struggled mightily not to yell or berate this sub-admiral. He was, however, starting to have an intense dislike for the other individual. He mentally imagined reassigning the other being to the worst possible job he could imagine - enforcing Neto breeding assignments.
However, that job wasn’t bad enough, so he made a mental note to think of even worse positions. He thought that by the end of this mission he would probably need 11 such assignments. And if the cruise liner Barrister should happen to survive, then he would need even more.
Fruid�
��la paused and waited for any further questions. There were none. Mentioning the High Council seemed to have mollified the audience. Fruid’la smiled as politely as possible, made an all-inclusive wave, and said, “Don’t worry, everyone will get a chance to participate in a battle.”
He waited for the polite chuckles to stop and continued, “Immediately following this conference, flotillas 2 through 10 will jump in sequential order to a point 14 hyper minutes from Conron. They will maintain the 14 minute distance as they micro jump around the distant outskirts of Conron system. They will arrive at the 14 minute mark of the Conron – Advranki Prime hyperspace lane and proceed to Advranki Prime.”
Another admiral said, “Isn’t that dangerous? We have no idea whether or not a ship is in the hyperspace lane.”
Fruid’la displayed a schematic of the Conron – Advranki Prime hyperspace lane and answered, “Yes. There is a very real potential that you could ram another ship. Fortunately though, the hyperspace lane is fairly wide here. There are 6 lanes side-to-side and 6 lanes up and down.”
He paused for questions, then continued, “We will stay out of the two lanes on the left; those are reserved for oncoming traffic. Generally, there is only one ship in a lane at a time, so the probability of jumping into a lane at the exact moment that another ship is there is actually very low.”
He paused for a breath and finished, “We will jump to the 2 minute mark from Advranki Prime and then quickly jump out of the lane. We will reform into flotillas and make a micro jump directly into the Advranki system.”
Admiral Valod’la asked, “What are flotillas 1 and 11 going to do?”
Fruid’la replied, “Flotillas 1 and 11, Admiral Valod’la and Admiral Doak’la, you will remain in Netron another 12 hours after the last ship leaves. Then you will jump to Conron, engage the Advranki fleet guarding the hyperspace lane, and force them to surrender. After securing the Conron system, the flotillas will be separated and sent on separate missions to Solaria and Waylon.”
Fruid’la ended the conference and sent detailed order packets to each sub-admiral. He ordered the flotillas to jump. The Retribution maintained its unofficial number 61 spot in the jump order. With the loss of 60 ships, the Barrister remained in last position at number 272. The jumping strategy had worked thus far and he saw no reason to change it.
He walked back into the admiralty bridge, saw the 12 analysts sitting at their posts, and had a sudden realization. He realized that everything was now thrown into an absolute uproar. Now that he was splitting his fleet, he had 12 analysts, but only 9 fleets. That meant that there would now be three aesthetics officers.
Further, one of the sub-fleets leaving was assigned to one of the twins. That meant that now both twins would be aesthetics officers. That seemed very redundant to him. Now, he wouldn’t be able to immediately determine which one was the extra officer because both twins would be extra.
He decided that having three was untenable. He would rather have two empty seats than three redundant officers. He mentally debated which officers to assign to the smaller fleet. On the one appendage, he could keep the twins and still have one of them handle aesthetics. However, seeing the twins in the wrong chairs simply seemed wrong.
The decision made, Supreme Admiral Fruid’la said, “Savan’aa and Sierr’aa, I am reassigning you to the sub-fleet. Please pack and leave the ship in the next 16 minutes. Report to Admiral Valod’la aboard his command battleship.”
Fruid’la watched the ships from flotilla 2 disappear three at a time. He then watched flotilla 3 disappear. Sixteen minutes later it was the Retribution’s turn. Exactly 70 seconds later the command carrier began the 8 hour hyperspace journey from Opron to Conron.
………..…………
Admiral Valod’la and Admiral Doak’la each read their information packet in great detail. After the last ship from flotilla 10 departed, the two remaining admirals had a rather long-winded teleconference. After all, they had several more hours to wait before they could do anything.
Valod’la said, “What do you think this first part of the orders really mean?”
Doak’la replied, “Well, It sounds fairly straightforward. Fifty-nine of the 60 ships in our newly formed armada are to jump from here to a location 2 light minutes outside of the Opron system. The remaining ship is to search the immediate area for any remains from the previous battle.”
Valod’la said, “The battle where Admiral Lopeq’la accidentally killed his entire fleet by hitting a destroyer with an ion cannon just as was transitioning into hyperspace.”
Doak’la continued, “Then an Alliance vessel will appear in Opron and send us detailed scans from the Conron system.”
Valod’la continued, “The information will be 80 hours old, but it will be the best that we can obtain. Then once the informant leaves the 59 ships jump back. Then we jump the fleet to Conron and start a war.”
Doak’la thought that the other admiral was being a bit over dramatic, but he supposed there was some truth to it. All of the other battles had been isolated incidents. This battle was truly the start of the war.
Valod’la transferred from his command battleship to one of his cruisers. He brought the twins with him to help perform the detailed scan and also to perform a detailed analysis if required. Once they were safely aboard he ordered the other 59 ships to jump away.
Valod’la followed his orders and had the ship perform detailed scans of the entire area. However, he wasn’t holding much hope for finding anything. The battle occurred 9 months ago and ion cannons and antimatter usually don’t leave much behind.
“Captain, Admiral,” Sierr’aa said. When she had their attention she continued, “A Solarian freighter just exited from hyperspace.”
Admiral Valod’la said, “Hail it.’ Valod’la moved out of viewing range because he didn’t want the Alliance freighter captain to see a Hiriculan admiral aboard a lone cruiser. It would look way too suspicious.
The cruiser captain said, “This is Nien’la, the captain of the Hiriculan cruiser Intimidator. We are legally in neutral territory and are actively searching the area for any remains from the previous battle. Please state your name, ship’s name, and the purpose of your visit.” The captain did his best to sound bored and uninterested.
The freighter captain replied, ‘Hello, this is Jack Dogbarks, captain of the mini-freighter Jackal. I have a load of cargo that I am taking from Solaria to the Spindle Station.”
The captain replied, “Have a great day Jackal” and ended the connection. He watched the monitor as the Jackal micro jumped out of the area.
Valod’la looked at Savan’aa and said, “Did we receive any information from the freighter.”
Sierr’aa, responded, “Yes Admiral, we received a large information packet. I am decompressing it now and displaying it on the main monitor.”
Everyone on the bridge unconsciously walked to the monitor. Admiral Valod’la wound up standing in the middle with Sierr’aa on his left and Savan’aa on his right. He looked left and then right. He could not tell which one was which. He briefly considered forcing them to wear name tags, but decided against it.
Just as the orders had predicted, there were multiple sets of detailed scans of the Conron system. It showed that there were 3 enemy fleets, 21 ships total, sitting in close proximity to the entrance of the hyperspace lane. Specifically, the ships were parked in a standard defensive position.
The enemy ships were sitting at full stop about 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) from the hyperspace lane. It was a logical position; it was just inside powered missile range and was well outside of the system’s gravity; meaning they could micro jump if necessary.
Further, there was a naval space station located beside a mining platform. The station was about 6 light hours from the hyperspace lane. However, it couldn’t move on its own volition and there appeared to be no fighting capability or active warships stationed there. As a result, they could conquer the spaceport at their leisure after secu
ring the hyperspace lanes.
Valod’la couldn’t believe it. The information was 80 hours old, but it was complete and relatively detailed for a commercial shipping vessel. The information was invaluable and would form the basis for their attack plan.
He briefly wondered how the Hiriculan government had gotten the freighter captain to provide them detailed scans exactly when they needed them. It was essentially an act of treason.
The other 59 ships returned a few hours later. The two admirals completed their plan of attack. It was very straightforward and based entirely on the response time of the enemy ships. Basically, they had 4 minutes from the time the first ship appeared in Conron until the enemy’s missiles could reach them.
The four minute mark was technically 4 minutes and 14 seconds. It included the following:
-13 seconds for light to travel 4 million kilometers and reach the Alliance warships.
-180 seconds (3 minutes) for the enemy to arm and fire their missile launchers.
-61 seconds for the enemy’s return missiles to reach the Hiriculan ships.
Therefore, the majority of the Hiriculan fleet needed to be in Conron in less than 4 minutes to successfully defend the enemy’s missile volley.
The battle plan was to jump 6 ships at a time with a 60 second gap between groups. It was dangerous to jump this closely, but not nearly as dangerous as being outnumbered in an enemy controlled territory by a margin of 21 to 1.
This meant that at the 4 minute mark they would have 30 ships through. To get more, they would have to either compress the time between waves or increase the number of ships per wave. Valod’la didn’t want to do either. He hoped that 30 ships would be enough and that they could by win by threat of sheer force versus actually having to fight.
Valod’la said, “Doak’la, there is only one remaining issue to decide. Which of us is going to ride in the first wave and command the battle and which is going in the second?”
