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Relv paced back and forth around the bridge of the Prominence. Maintenance bay 37 as it turned out was a high security facility. All of this crew had been ordered off the ship and he was told to wait on board with Ibek to receive the Primariate no less. His mind was racing trying to guess what this was all about. He had no idea who the current Primariate was and who knew what type of political machinations had occurred while he was on his last mission. He could be getting a medal or he could be getting court martialled for treason for all he knew.
Ibek was down at the main airlock awaiting their guest's arrival, but there was no way of knowing what was going on. The entire facility was under a blanket signal jammer, preventing even direct person to person communication channels being opened. This only served to add to the mystery and his level of frustration.
Finally the main doors to the bridge hissed open and in marched six heavily armed marines in front of the last person that Relv ever wanted to see again...Fleet Admiral Mafex.
"Welcome aboard Fleet Admiral!" he said as he snapped a sharp salute. No use in turning a court martial into a firing squad.
"If you look carefully you will see its Grand Admiral now. Don't make the same mistake again unless you want to find yourself demoted to Captain," he said with antipathy.
"Sincere apologies Grand Admiral. It is always hard to keep up with all of the changes in high command after being away for so long."
"I'd wager this was a change you were hoping never to see eventuate," replied the Grand Admiral as he slowly paced around the bridge as though reminiscing.
"Let's just agree I am surprised you would take on a non-fleet role given its lack of longevity and the expansive nature of our current situation."
"I see you're still smarter than I give you credit for. Let's just say it's the Primariate's final attempt to take me out of the war. I am an old man and she knows it. What better way to nullify me than to make me live the remainder of my days as the figure head for the navy and overseeing the development of our next generation of ships."
The Grand Admiral swept past him and sat down in the commanders chair. He sat straight backed and looked around the bridge.
"It's good to be back aboard my ship after so many years."
"With respect Grand Admiral is that why you are here? To take back the Prominence?"
The Grand Admiral let out a short derisive laugh.
"Do you think I have any interest in the Prominence anymore? Your precious prototype Singularity Pulse is over a hundred years old now. Even with all the attempts by your manipulative benefactor to stop research into these types of super weapons we have made significant advances. Since I am now in charge of our entire military development program I am going to make sure we accelerate it and have them fitted to every capital ship we produce. Perhaps if we actually use them our enemy might seek peace before we obliterate them."
"I see you are still firmly dedicated to victory by extermination," replied Relv sarcastically.
"We have wasted huge amounts of scientific resources studying the Orlak over the past century and where has that gotten us?" retorted the Grand Admiral sharply. Relv reluctantly conceded the point to save spiraling into a pointless argument about a war they had no choice in fighting at the moment. He decided instead to change tack.
"If you don't want the Prominence then what do you want?"
"I want you ejected from the nearest airlock out into the big black for mutiny. Unfortunately, as much as I would love to see that, I am here for the same reason you are. I too have orders to meet with the Primariate. I am to provide you with a briefing on..."
"I believe I ordered the Prominence secured until I arrived, with no exceptions. That included you Grand Admiral," interrupted an angry female voice. Relv spun around and the Grand Admiral stood quickly.
It was the Primariate and either side of her were two of the biggest bodyguards he had ever seen. They had to be genetically enhanced, there was not a part of their bodies that was not rippling with lean well toned muscle. The way they moved was predatory in nature, they looked alert and ready to pounce at a seconds notice. Even the squad of marines that came with the Grand Admiral looked meek in their presence.
Ibek followed them onto the bridge, a look of shock and disbelief on his face that Relv could not help but mimic. Genetic enhancement had been strictly outlawed for as long as Relv could remember, but that was not what caught him off guard.
The Primariate swept onto the bridge and stood in front of them both. She wore the black robes of office, covered in intricate patterns woven with platinum and silver thread. Each pattern represented a constellation or star system explored. Even her head plumage was braided with silver strands. Her robes flowed gracefully down from her shoulders tucking in tight around her waist and then flowing freely again over her legs. She was more beautiful than Relv could have thought possible.
Relv stared at the Primariate in mouth open, unable to find any words. How the hell had Mira managed to become Primariate? He kicked himself for not realizing as soon as he had received the docking order via his security chip. The last time he had seen her was just prior to his last mission. This was the last move he had expected her to make based on their final conversation before he shipped out.
At that time Mira was still head of the Ezati and the biggest power broker on Vaslus. She was also the biggest advocate for a peaceful resolution to the war. She had been able to successfully block the annihilationist from allowing the Singularity Pulse to be used against the Orlak. However as more colonies were attacked and in some cases decimated, it had been getting progressively harder to argue for restraint.
From the very beginning of the war Mira had been working the angle of learning everything they could about the Orlak, in the hope that a peace could be negotiated. Unfortunately the Orlak were alien in the true sense of the word. They were resistive and violent to the end even under extreme torture.
There seemed no way to even communicate with them so she turned to biological research on the Orlak as a way forwards. For a short time it had been her trump card, but so far it too had been fruitless.
Many of her backroom dealings were starting to go against her and funding for the research was starting to dry up. She had started to stockpile for one last push in hope of a breakthrough. All she needed was to live long enough to see it, so they had planned for her to make several jumps between colony worlds to match the expected jump time of his last mission. She could then oversee the research on the next batch of prisoners personally.
The decision was not completely selfless and for the greater good. In the past 6 years of his personal timeline they had become ever closer and although they had been able to spend only brief periods together their covert relationship had literally spanned over a century. They always did their best to jump their way through time together, even when separated by thousands of light years. It was something both of them cherished and neither wanted to end.
"Apologies Primariate, but as Grand Admiral I do have the authority to board any ship in my fleet at any time," argued the Grand Admiral breaking the stunned silence.
"And I have the authority to appoint a new Grand Admiral," she countered. Relv looked more closely at her and upon closer inspection it was clear that she had aged a few years not just a few months like she should have. Her once jet black head plumage was now streaked with a hint of grey. Her dark eyes were now set within a smattering of age lines instead of smooth skin.
"Once again I apologize. I should have realized you would want a private audience with the Rear Admiral," said the Grand Admiral with a level of smugness that was poorly veiled.
The Primariate ignored the insinuation and smiled at Relv. Apparently she did not care that the Grand Admiral knew about them.
"Rest assured Grand Admiral if I wanted a private audience I would have had one," she replied dryly. The look she gave Relv was that of a ravenous spider. Some things never changed and for the first time ever he
was glad for the presence of the Grand Admiral. With his current state of battle fatigue and her penchant for vigorous sex she'd probably kill him before the night was done.
"How?" was all that Relv could manage at that point.
"We can go over that in detail another time Rear Admiral. Right now it is imperative that we brief you on your next mission because you will have no more than a week to put together a task force and prepare."
"Are you serious? It will take at least 3 months to get my task force operational again. In case you haven't seen the post action report we took heavy losses in taking out that asteroid colony. The Orlak fought to the last, much harder than I have ever seen them fight on a planet before. I was only able to capture a handful of prisoners for interrogation, the rest died fighting."
"I am aware of the casualty situation," she replied with a stern level of authority, a reminder that he should not get too familiar in the presence of others. "You will be provided with fresh ships and crews where needed. Grand Admiral if you would provide your strategic situation report for the Rear Admiral please."
The Grand Admiral walked over to the tactical operations table and tapped his security chip against the authorization panel. A holographic image of the known galaxy and colonized solar systems illuminated in the middle of the bridge.
"We have had similar results with two other Orlak asteroid mining operations that we located after your task force last left Vaslus. One will require a second mission to finish the job. Both of these other asteroid colonies were located much closer to Vaslus than yours and appeared to have ship building facilities. However in both cases the Orlak managed to destroy them before they were captured. Which means we are still woefully short on information about their ship based technology.
The Orlak home worlds remain elusive and despite a massed scout effort this handful of asteroid colonies have been the only ones we have managed to locate. The only time they seem to come near planets is on the attack. This has made a decisive victory against them almost impossible.
When on the attack they had continued to use hit and run tactics on various colony worlds. They come in with a fleet, assault the planet in a systematic attempt to eradicate as much of the populous as possible. All we can do is hope that the local defense forces and civil population can last long enough for us the arrive. Along the outer colonization hub the jumps are anywhere between ten and fifty years so the reality is we find nothing except scorched earth. Even when the inner hub worlds have been attacked and the fight is still going when we arrive the Orlak evacuate their fleet before we can engage them and abandon their ground forces to fight to the last."
"Which they seem more than willing to do if my last mission was any judge."
"Fortunately, as you can see, the colonies hit seem to be relatively random suggesting that they are attacking what they can find and have no clear understanding of the location of Vaslus or which are our other key colony worlds."
"Until now," interrupted Mira.
"What?!" said Relv.
"As I said, they had been using hit and run tactics. Then they attacked Terbra, a terraformed world. This time they stayed around with the clear intent to purge the planet of every Terbran. When I arrived with my defense fleet the population of about 8 million had been virtually wiped out save a few pockets of resistance fighters. The Orlak also left a small defensive fleet behind this time. I lost just over sixty percent of my force in winning that battle. Their ships are hard to knock out and they have a nasty array of beam weap..."
"I am sure the rear Admiral can catch up on your detailed battle reports later," interrupted Mira impatiently. "About a month ago we deployed another task force to Elona after a comms-runner landed at Perimeter base and broadcast the attack alarm. It's a twelve year jump so at this stage we have no idea if the Orlak are even still there. Then four days ago the daily comms-runner from Plorus did not arrive. We have not seen any more since. As you can imagine we have thousands of these things moving back and forth between the colony worlds and Vaslus so for them to stop completely in a time of war..."
"It would have to be a well coordinated surprise attack or..." said the Grand Admiral.
"Or an attack so big it could lock down a solar system," finished Relv, his voice hollow. He could hear Ibek cursing under his breath and did not even need to turn around to know what level of despair was going to be on his face. He stared at the holographic map as the location of each attack was highlighted. His brow furrowed and he let out a short sharp profanity of his own.
"My response was surprisingly similar when I first realized too...it's a clear axis of advance now and its headed directly for Vaslus," said the Grand Admiral.
"What is my mission?"
"You will prepare a task force to blockade Plorus and assault it while we build and consolidate as many ships as possible back here on Vaslus for a final defense," said the Grand Admiral.
Relv managed a wry smile and turned directly to face the him eye to eye.
"You are still doing your best to send me on a suicide mission Grand Admiral. If this really is the Orlak's main attack then I am just acting as a blocking force. Would you like me to order all my men to fight to the last man or would you like that honor?"
"You have disappointed me throughout your entire career by staying alive. I will be expecting the same on this mission, but this time for the survival of Vaslus instead of just to spite me."
"And how exactly do you expect me to do that with a single task force?" demanded Relv at risk of completely losing his composure.
"We are not expecting you to block them with the task force. It's simply meant to keep the enemy occupied long enough for you to land your entire ground assault force. You will have an entire army including an elite commando battalion. They should more than make up for any deficiency in numbers on the ground. You will then avoid the enemy fleet if still present. If things become...untenable you are authorized to engage the Prominence and it Singularity Pulse," explained the Grand Admiral.
"Are you listening to this shit Mira?"
"I don't need to, it was my idea and my title is Primariate," she said sternly.
Relv shook his head in angry disbelief.
"You might have turned your back on your principles, but I have not Ms Primariate. Find someone else and let them choose between being a martyr or a destroyer of planets!"
Mira looked ready to explode and her eyes briefly unveiled her deadly side. The side that had kept her at the top of the secret police, seen and delivered torture, as well as assassinations. He was well aware of that side of her, but she had never displayed it towards him before. The moment passed quickly however and Mira restrained herself in a way that only a politician could.
"I am going to attribute your irrational behavior to the considerable battle fatigue you must be experiencing. I will give you a day to rest and recover and then we will meet again. I suggest you use the time wisely and have a long think about the importance of this mission to our very existence."
Prominence - Redemption Page 3
