by Chris Hechtl
“We don't know what is going on,” the press secretary stated, clearly annoyed at being kept in the dark. “Leaves are being canceled and rescheduled. I know a couple of hotel chains that aren't happy; they are losing business. It's not good, but so far, it only has a local impact. We just got hit by the hurricane and now this. If things keep up, we're going to see a really bad quarter.”
Jeff blinked. “Oh.”
Daffyd looked at the others and then to the governor. “Do you know anything, sir?”
Jeff frowned. After a moment, he shook his head. “No. And I'm not sure if I did know if I should tell you.”
Daffyd sighed. “Oh. That's pretty much what we thought,” he said, shooting the others around the table a rueful look, clearly sharing in their frustration. “Can you find out?”
Jeff drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment as he considered the problem. After a moment, he shrugged. “I can try. That doesn't guarantee I'll get an answer. Nor does it guarantee I'll get one either one of us will like.”
“Oh.”
~~~^~~~
Captain Daj Maul swore as his people rushed to bring Sun Tzu's systems to readiness status. He needed to know if there was anything else broken now, while they were underway instead of in hyperspace or while en route to DD01ns. He hadn't been looking forward to the stress tests they had been set to do, but now they had an even bigger series to go through. And they would be far away from any support. They had to get it right.
One way or another they were going to kick ass, he thought with a mental nod. He was acutely aware that it wasn't at all how the brass had planned, and that bothered him.
The rush of orders sent ships in Home Fleet moving to reinforce Second Fleet. Almost anything in space at the time was tapped to go he knew. That included Second Division of the first SD squadron.
The two ships in his division had been in space at least, though Sky Titan had only just started her builder's trials. Third Division was stuck however; Future Guardian was coming out of yard hands now that they'd sped up again. She wouldn't make the window for Second's deployment however. Her sister ship, Stellar Champion, was still torn open and would be at least a week to ten days before she was released. They'd need time to make certain the systems were set up right before they chanced a run like the one he was going to do. He didn't envy those crews or the yard dogs assigned to those ships at all.
Fourth Division was about to launch around that same time period, maybe a week or two after if someone shifted resources around to push Third out faster. The current plan was to send all of the ships in a single task force in three to six months or so. They'd have to play catch-up but that shouldn't be a problem.
Unless something goes wrong, he thought.
If they were going to send all six SDs to join the two DNs of First Division, shouldn't they just reassign them to Second Fleet and simplify the paperwork? He wasn't sure why the brass was insisting they remain on “loan” to Second Fleet. He shook himself and then refocused on the ship's status.
“Here we go again!” he breathed as he looked over to the feed from Sky Titan, Sun Tzu's sister ship. He had heard Ian was over there. The powers that be in BUPERS had a devil of a time prying him out of Bounty's chair during her refit. They'd ricocheted him around Home Fleet much like they had himself until they'd both ended up in command of a super dreadnought. He knew that if Ian hadn't dragged his feet their situations would have been reversed with him in command.
One thing he was heartily glad of, the Bekian flag officer Admiral Champion wasn't along for the ride. She had kept her flag off his ship since they had been scheduled for stress tests. It had been one less headache for him. Now, she and her staff would be forced to another flagship. Admiral Irons wanted to keep her in command of Home Fleet apparently. That was a little bit of a relief though command now devolved to him or whoever was senior to him in the current clusterfisk shaping up out there.
Well, they'd have plenty of time to figure it out later he thought.
~~~^~~~
Captain JG Ian McGuyver looked over Sky Titan's OPS repeater board and then over to the icons around his ship. His eyes invariably trailed out to see some familiar icons, Bounty and Damocles, and then a few others.
It was past time for him and his old ship to march to war. He hoped it would be worth it though. He couldn't help but be a little nervous about his ship's systems. They'd only just gotten the crew finalized a few days before. Builder's trials had only recently started. She was nowhere near ready for deployment; some of the ship's systems weren't online. Some of her stores were only half full. But, they were going anyway. Something would be done about that along the way he knew. He made a note to keep the XO on top of that.
~~~^~~~
Sprite intercepted a call from Governor Randall's office to the administration asking what was going on. There was a problem in answering. The governor might be discrete but his staff leaked. She knew that if Admiral Irons got the call he'd be bent by his friendship to the governor to reveal more than he'd intended and then regret it later. She wrote out a quick email stating it was classified but they were redeploying assets. She deliberately kept it vague and didn't explain why. She capped it with an apology for the inconvenience it was causing the governor and his people.
She knew that members of the governor's staff would read the email and no doubt leak some of the contents. It was innocuous enough to hopefully not be noticed.
~~~^~~~
ONI continued to process the download from Second Fleet, allocating additional resources to expedite what they could. Commander Lake overheard some of her people grumble over the fresh emergency. More than one person wasn't happy about being told to drop everything. Many were not informed about what was happening, only ordered to supervise sections of data as it came in. Several officers and noncoms resented being called in to work double and triple shifts on the weekend without warning. “We can barely get a handle on one and then we get hit with another crisis! What's the big deal?”
She finally had enough of it and turned on them. “Emergencies happen. Deal with it.”
“I know it's just, it waited this long …”
“You need more help?” she asked in a voice that said you'd better be careful about the answer.
“Yes!”
Her eyes hardened at that answer. She knew from the look on the lieutenant's face he was tired and overworked. They all were. And she also knew tired people overlooked things from time to time and mistakes were more likely to happen. That was why it was an all-hands-on-deck evolution; she needed as many eyes on the problem to filter for mistakes as possible. “We can work on that, later. For now, do what you can with what you have.”
The lieutenant grunted. “Right. Sure thing,” he said in a not quite insubordinate voice.
“What was that, Lieutenant?” Commodore Montgomery asked mildly as he came up behind them.
The lieutenant stiffened and then turned to the flag officer. “Nothing, sir.” He turned to Commander Lake. “Sorry, ma'am. Tired.”
“Ah.”
“Carry on,” she ordered, dismissing him as she turned to the side with the commodore.
“Grumpy?” Monty asked.
She snorted but her eyes strayed to the commander and then away for a moment. Finally, she shrugged and came back to him. “They'll get over it.”
“Okay. So, what do you have for me?” he asked, cocking his head.
“You know I can send you files if you call. I was going to do so once I had a big enough packet and had time to go over the summary.”
“And we both know we don't have time for that. So, give.”
She sighed and then gave in. Monty was set in his ways and he liked face time. “We do have some preliminary information from the intel and reports from Second Fleet and her intelligence team. We've confirmed some of their IDs of the enemy fleet units based on their sensor snapshots. It is enough for us to get fingerprints of those vessels. But we can't process the cha
tter they recorded. We can't even download it; there isn't enough bandwidth.” She grimaced at that qualifier.
“Don't worry about that. It is old and encrypted anyway,” he said.
She grunted. That would cut down on some of her people's workload, making a few happy and a few annoyed at having their time and efforts wasted. “Yes, sir. But breaking the encryption is a priority,” she reminded him.
“In battle, yes. And long term getting a handle on it is, yes, important. But not if they are smart enough to shift encryption keys. We have to assume they will do so. So, focus on what we can work on and solve.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What else?”
“We've confirmed they deployed some of their top assets. The Courageous fleet carrier along with their vaunted Skull Squadron. Admiral White's intel shop was correct there. According to the reports we've digested so far that ship had only E class fighters.”
Monty frowned. He was less versed in the various classes of ships and fighters than others.
“E class are the premier class of fighters. The best before and during the Xeno war,” Lake supplied for him.
Monty caught on and nodded in understanding. “Ah. So, their best and brightest indeed.”
“Well, one of several actually. Apparently, Second Fleet gave them a run for their money and they did punch a hole through them to allow the bombers to strike. They confirmed the two destroyed DNs. We'll figure them out eventually.”
“Less of a priority over what's left. We can figure out who we killed for the pats on the back later. We need to know what's left, what they can do, and who is in charge.”
“Yes, sir. According to our intel, Admiral, 'Wrong way' Wong has his flag on Courageous. But he's old and that datum might be out of date by now.”
“Understood. Do you have a profile on him?”
“Something of a sort since he's something of a celebrity,” she said, pulling up the file.
“Good. We'll need that as well as any other data on the ships and players involved. As soon as Second Fleet is done with their first dump, we are going to send them what you've assembled. So, start working on that too.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
~~~^~~~
“Here we go again,” Vestri Sindri complained, unconsciously echoing Captain Daj Maul's sentiment. Admiral Creator of Things had issued a series of orders shifting priorities to get any ship that could go out into space ASAP. It didn't matter what it was.
He was already getting all sorts of blowback from his people. Everyone wanted to know what the devil was going on. The problem was, he couldn't tell them.
He hated the idea of sending ships out without finishing their working-up exercises. Something obviously bad had happened to make them do that. That bothered the hell out of him. Something could go wrong, something overlooked, even something as simple as a tiny micro fracture could doom a ship in hyper. It was going to keep him up at night he knew.
He didn't know what the hell the tearing fury was either, but it obviously wasn't good. He just wished they wouldn't have these harum-scarum rushes; they destroyed his carefully constructed schedules every damn time. And it took weeks to get things back to normal, and while that was going on, certain parties were bitching up a storm because the schedule was in the can.
He resisted the urge to foot drag and demand answers. Instead, he shifted his people to the fitting and logistics yards and then called for recent updates on the ships that were within a week of launching. With any luck they might find a few that they could throw additional resources at to get them out of his hair faster.
Chapter 2
Protodon
“Finally!” an ensign said excitedly as the ship prepared to move out. Captain T'roi of the Resolution class heavy cruiser Xiten'xha chose to ignore it.
She and her ship had been stuck on picket duty for some time. At first she'd resented it; she'd joined to fight the pirates not to sit in Protodon and exercise other ships up to do the job. But, as she'd come to know Protodon and her job, she'd found she'd come to enjoy it. Not only was she the senior naval commander, but she'd also been on hand to see Protodon change and become a part of the Federation. She liked to think she'd played some small part in that.
Recently she'd been a little uncomfortable because she'd been informed that a flag officer and staff were coming to relieve her. Instead of going to the front as she'd expected, she had been informed only the day prior that her ship would return to Antigua to stand-down for refit and resupply. Her crew would have been broken up with those who were most deserving of promoting getting them and being assigned to other ships.
Her own fate had been uncertain, but she'd like to think she'd acquainted herself well in Protodon and would therefore have earned another command in a battle cruiser or dare she hope a super dreadnought?
But, whatever plans the black hole minded BUPERS had in mind were on hold due to the recent crisis. So, for the first time she was headed to the rescue of Second Fleet with just about everything in the star system. Even ships that she'd thought were marginal due to damage that was still being repaired were going with her instead of on to Antigua. She had two CEVs, her mixed cruiser squadron, two destroyer squadrons, the partially repaired ships, and some support ships to contend with. Most of the repaired ships were unsuited for combat let alone a flat-out run so she counted them out.
It wasn't enough to go up against the enemy capital ships she knew—not by a long shot. But, it was a start. They had taken on every fighter and bomber that could get to them from the orbital carrier fortresses near the jump point as well. The hangar decks were packed, but she at least had them on hand for Second Fleet. They'd have to do something about ordinance later.
“ETA on the jump point, one hour ten minutes, Captain. All ships are forming up on our beacon. The rest will jump when they get to the jump zone as specified in our orders,” her XO stated.
“Very well,” the captain said, settling herself in the saddle. Her people were anxious but excited. She couldn't blame them; she was as well. “Status on the hyperdrive?”
“Hyperdrive is charging at 1 percent a minute. Current level is 40 percent, 40.15,” the OPS tech reported. “All systems nominal.”
“Navigational systems nominal. Our hyper course is plotted and in the buffer,” her navigator stated.
“Helm is ready,” the helmswoman stated.
“Very well. Make sure you keep a running feed with the other ships, no sense anyone getting bumped. And remind people that even though there is some urgency to this, it isn't a race. We need to get there as a coherent unit.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“In fact, XO, look into more working-up exercises. We can't do them in hyper obviously, but we can look into working-up exercises as we transit B-95a3.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Ma'am, fresh orders from the ansible,” the comm officer reported.
The room seemed to stiffen a little.
“Yes?” the captain asked. “Should I be expecting a download?”
“No, ma'am. They are confirming that most of the picket in B-95a3 are enroute. We are to leave the two CEVs there as a reserve since they aren't fully worked up and ready. There is a confirmation from the B-95a3 picket as well as an update on their shipping schedule. The ships sent to Protodon should be arriving after we leave.”
“Of course they will. Well, they can mind the store, as humans like to say, while we're gone,” the Veraxin stated.
“Signal from the orbital fortress shell,” the comm officer stated.
“Yes?” the Veraxin asked, clearly getting exasperated as she signaled first-degree annoyance. She swiveled all eyes on the communication officer.
The Neodog shrugged as if to say don't shoot the messenger. “It is a simple wish for good luck and good hunting, ma'am. Shall I play it?”
“Pass. Pass on our thanks to them, Comm,” the Veraxin replied.
~~~^~~~
Antigua
&n
bsp; Admiral Irons held a conference to talk with the military leaders. It was the first that could include Bek who had recently had their ansible installed. “First, I'd like to welcome Bek and Nuevo into this,” he waited as the group nodded. They still didn't have a button for applause, he thought. “Now, the war front. Admiral White?”
“Thank you, Admiral. I want to make it clear that we are going to fight a fighting withdrawal and make the enemy pay in blood for every kilometer we lose. We'll buy you the time you need to get us some more reinforcements,” Admiral White stated. His tone came out as a robotic inflection, but it was clear for all those who knew him that he was determined to get the job done and see it through.
“We understand the sentiment, Amadeus, but is that wise? You will undoubtedly lose personnel as well. Fighters and ordinance, not to mention quite possibly ships. You can't afford to lose too many or the next engagement you'd be forced out without firing a shot!” Phil stated.
“They have the shorter logistics tail, but we've got replicators. We're already working on things. I've got my people working on the repairs twenty-four seven and they've made a hell of a lot of progress there. We'll get back to 90 percent soon. I also had some supplies I kept in reserve. With the reinforcements currently in the pipeline, we'll stop them,” Amadeus stated.
“Not the only problem. Admiral V'r'z'll committed to attacking Garth. She has no idea you were forced out of Dead Drop. She could quite possibly be sailing into a trap,” Admiral Subert warned them.
“And there is no way to warn her,” Yorgi interjected.
“Yes, there is. She left a picket in B-87R. I've already passed on orders to the ships. The courier is underway to catch up to them and bring them the warning,” Admiral Irons stated.
