Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread

[CaptRR]

Chapter 24

Josha watched as Fifth fleet accelerated away from Acamar VII. It was a strange feeling, watching a fleet as large as this one leave without so much as a mention. Usually when large fleets left their home station families and friends would gather in the orbital stations to see them off. This time though, operational security had made that impossible. As far as the families of the Dravens manning the fleet knew they were just leaving on a standard training cruise within the system.

Josha took a breath, he had taken a shuttle up to one of the orbital shipyards to clear his mind. He figured that watching the ships speed off might give him some perspective. Instead it filled him with guilt. Guilt at sending the Prince on an almost impossible mission, against his own people, and guilt at the lives that would be lost in the months to come.

Still Josha smiled, he had no idea what would happen when that fleet showed up in the home system, but he was sure their was no one more competent to lead it than Prince Dravel. He was young, yes, but he had his father's flare, add to that his keen tactical sense, Josha was sure if victory could be found Dravel would find it.

Josha turned from the large windows overlooking the planet, and headed towards the hatch that would take him to his shuttle. He had a full schedule ahead of him. The Weyrlings were making some strange ship movements, nothing major. A shipyard gearing down here and there, and the occasional warp point closure. Those things in themselves were not alarming the Dravens themselves had begun to close unnecessary warp points themselves. The gearing down of shipyards however was strange, after all technically they were at war with the CCCP, and the Argon's weren't exactly being the most friendly to the Weyrlings right now either. Nothing overt had happen, but they had been harassing Weyrling freighters, and if Intelligence reports were correct the Argon Confederacy wasn't exactly acting as a single entity.

For years the CCCP and Argon intelligence corps had been running major operations against each other, but the CCCP with its vast resources had been much better at it than the Argons. The results were major uprisings all over the Argon Confederacy, ships missing, and leader's being assassinated. The Draven Intelligence Agency predicted that unless something major happened the Argons would begin to splinter very soon. Josha didn't exactly look forward to having an unstable empire right next to Draven Territory, but at this point he couldn't do anything about it.

Josha almost laughed, the Dravens weren't exactly the symbol of unity right now on the verge of a civil war. Somehow though Prince Dravel had to pull it off and win back the Repubic. Then and only then could they start to repair all the damage done by Yalare. It would be hard to win back the trust of the Weyrlings, if Josha were in their shoes he would have left the alliance a long time ago. The Weyrlings at least seemed to be leaving the alliance in place, even if they had began to regard it as a burocratic mess, and even stopped asking for assistance from the other members.

As Josha entered the landing bay, he saw his aid standing beside his personal shuttle. As the aid spotted Josha, he began to walk towards him. Once he was within a few meters he produced a pad and began to skim its contents while giving Josha a summarized Version.

"Sir, I got a message from SysComm."

Josha nodded, SysComm was short for System Communication Center. They handled all faster than light, and slower than light communications going in and out of the Acamar system. The center actually contained representatives from all member of the alliance, since Alliance HQ was in the system, but the Dravens primarily ran it.

"Are they going to be able to meet our requirements?" asked Josha.

His aide looked at the padd again, "more or less, they said they can block all Draven communications going out of the Acamar system, but since we don't control the Weyrling or Thermolian communication nets someone could route though their communication networks and bypass ours completely. It seems more likely that someone would use the Termolians though."

"Why's that?" Asked Josha.

"Well sir, for some reason the Weyrlings communication nets have been almost unused. About the only thing that goes over the lines is Messages from other races going to their homeworld, if someone tried to use their net it would stick out like a sore thumb. The Thermolians on the other hand have an almost saturated net, it would be much easier for someone to use their net without them knowing about it, it would simply get lost in the static."

"I see. Well it will have to do. All we have to do is stop Yalare's official orders from going to the Alliance HQ, as long as we can do that we can stop him from asking for help from the Alliance."

The aide looked at Josha thoughtfully, "You really think the Allinace would give him help after how many time he's repeatedly thrown them to the wolves?"

"I doubt the Weyrlings would, but the Thermolians haven't had to deal with Yalare too many times, they would just be abiding by the Allinace Charter."

"I see" said his aide as they walked to the shuttle, "But isn't the Alliance going to get a little suspicious when they lose all contact with most of the Draven Republic?"

Josha nodded, "they most certainly will, but thats the purpose of our meeting with the Speaker this afternoon."

"What are you going to tell him?"

Josha srugged, "The truth, that Yalare is a madman, and that the military has been forced to uphold its constitutional duty and stop him. Considering the speakers past dealings with Yalare I don't think he will complain too much. Mostly though I just want them to stay out of this, we don't need Yalare using the Weyrlings as a propaganda tool. If the Draven people thought that they were being invaded it would make the princes job harder."

Josha and his aid entered the shuttle and took their seats, as they did Josha looked out the window. Just outside the launch bay he could see the Last glimmer of Fifth fleet disappeared.

"Good luck Prince. Let the creator watch over you."

Chapter 25

Comrade General Speratii was not a happy man. Another of his ships was having trouble with its stealth generators. If Speratii could have shot the tech responsible for the generators he would have. As it was though all he could do was send the ship back for repairs. He couldn't take the chance of his force being spotted, not this deep in hostile territory.

Slowly he took a deep breath and let it out through his mouth, he used the moment to calm himself. It wouldn't do him a lot of good to scream at his subordinates no matter how much he wanted to.

"Comrade Colonel Lackcheck, that makes the third vessel we have had to send back this month. What is the problem?"

The young Comrade Colonel squirmed slightly, the man had danced around an explanation for the Last hour, attempting to bury his commander in so many details that he wouldn't see the overall trend. It was common trick for someone who didn't want to answer the question.

"Well uh..." squirm "Comrade General... uh... the Generators were never meant to run this long. When Stalin himself laid out the uh... requirements for the generators it was never mentioned that they be designed to run for so long without a break."

Speratii leaned back; satisfied that he had finally beaten the explanation out of the younger man. "So" he said slowly, "you are blaming Comrade Stalin for your failure."

The Colonel's face got white as a ghost, and he stuggled for words, "No Comrade General... I was just noting that it wasn't a requirement that is all."

"Any decent Fleet Maintenance officer would have planned for our long stay," observed Speratii, "If you failed to plan the only conclusion I can make is that you are incompetent, and should be sent back to home world in disgrace. With might I add a full copy of you actions in this room. I'm sure Comrade Stalin would be very interested in how it is his fault that you are unable to do your job."

Now the maintenance officer was on the verge of panic, "No Comrade General I didn't mean it that way, I was just..." He stammered for a moment trying to find any way he could do get himself out of the situation. "I just meant that..."

"Colonial," said the General cutting off the Lackcheck sharply, "I will make you a deal. I will not punish you for your incompetence this time, but so help me if another ship falls out of the fleet I will have you thrown out an air lock, and I'm sure your family would get a call from Internal Security. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Comrade General," Said the Officer, still scared to death.

"Good, in that case get out of my office" Lackcheck obeyed instantly, and Speratii was left back to his maps. Speratii actually had no intention of throwing the man out the airlock, or turning in his family to Internal Security, but it made a great motivation tool, and right now he needed every member of his fleet operating at 100%. If he was spotted, the entire plan would go up in flames, and Speratii was sure that Stalin would not make the same idol threats that Speratii just did. He would simply carry them out, and hang his head up for all to see.

Comrade General Speratii went back to looking over the star charts. It showed the current traffic patterns, which were quite heavy, as usual in this system. In the center of the maps was the major population centers, and quite major they were. The entire system was among the most populated in the known universe, and the Industrial capacity of system was greater than any single in the CCCP. Slowly Speratii made some calculations, and estimated that he would have more than enough firepower to accomplish his goals. That is assuming the Intelligence people were doing their jobs. The Last thing that Speratii wanted to do was face the defensive fire from those planets, he doubted a strait battle with them would Last 10 minutes.

Yes if everything went as planned Speratii would accomplish the greatest strike in history of the CCCP. He looked down at the target area of his map, the fire patterns were perfect, his ships would have clear fire paths at the planet and her shipyards. Speratii smiled as he read the name of the planet "Kornephoros X".

The Dravens were in for quite a surprise.