LOCATION: STO NAVALYARD
SYSTEM: VARLEN
DATE: 2400
After returning to Varlen to make her report, Valeria and the Eclipse were ordered to dock at the naval yard for maintenance. The yard in Varlen was the only facility on this side of STO space with the clearance to handle the top-secret ships. Even then, there were some steps she had to take before that could happen.
It wasn’t like Valeria could simply approach the massive hangars or radio ahead that she was on her way. All of her communications had to go through a tight beam laser link to a stealth satellite that only the Erebus class ships knew the location of. From there it communicated to the station and she had to wait for the encoded ping sequence that indicated she was allowed to approach.
Valeria loved to be in charge of an Erebus class ship, but she despised all the hoops she had to jump through sometimes. She did understand why they were necessary though.
The other thing she despised was how glacially things moved in the STO. She had been back for over two months, yet there hadn’t been a response to her report. She knew Vice Admiral Fletcher was still on the station because he had met her shortly after she returned, but she hadn’t heard from him since then. That all changed an hour ago.
Captain Greaves, report to meeting room six as soon as possible.
-Vice Admiral Fletcher
She quickly donned her dress uniform and made her way to the meeting room. Most of the people she passed in the corridors were engineers and scientists, but occasionally she saw other members of the Navy. The last time she had been in Varlen, there had been quite a bit more Navy personnel and ships. It wasn’t a good sign that most were now gone. The only reason she could think of for the lack of Navy personnel was that they had been shipped out. If she was right, the conflict with the pirates on the far border must be heating up.
Valeria arrived outside the door and knocked. She was quickly ushered in by Fletcher’s voice.
“Sit Captain,” the man gestured to one of the chairs around the large conference table. “I imagine you are wondering why no rescue attempt has been made for Captain Krieger and his crew yet?”
“Does it have anything to do with how empty the naval base is, Admiral?”
The man nodded. “That’s part of the reason. The other is that the STO leadership is denying us ships to go and rescue them.” Fletcher held up his hand to stop Valeria’s next question.
She closed her mouth and waited for the man to finish.
“The reason for that is the STO Leadership doesn’t understand the nature of the rescue. They think it's just another ship. One that was where it wasn’t supposed to be. They are not aware of its covert and top-secret nature.”
“What? Why wouldn’t they be aware of that?” she asked in confusion.
“Because I didn’t tell them. Project Erebus is a black books project. The less they know, the better, but it does put us in a bit of a bind.”
What Fletcher just admitted made her realize she was flying a ship that would be written off at any time. That was not a comfortable realization.
“If you had reported that pirates captured the ship, then we could have sent out a fleet. The people in charge would like nothing more than to deny the pirates access to STO technology. Even then, their goal would have been to neutralize the technology instead of trying to recover it. Because the ship and its crew were rescued, the STO leadership deemed it a low priority with the ongoing hostilities on the old Coalition border. They feel that the ship, or at least the crew will be returned in time.”
“They couldn’t know that,” she stated.
“You’re right, they can’t know that for sure, which is why I’ve called in some favors and managed to get three frigates and three corvettes together along with a salvage ship to go retrieve our property. I want you to take the Eclipse and act as a scout for the fleet. The ships trailing you aren’t cleared to know about the project, so I want you to jump ahead and make sure the way is clear. The ships should be here within another two days, so get your crew ready, you get underway in six hours.”
After being dismissed, she hurried back to her ship while sending an all-hands recall through her comm. The ship was already topped up on supplies and fuel, so she would be ready to go as soon as her people returned.
She was just about to enter the hangar where Delta’s Eclipse was being held when an all-station alert went out and the interior lights started flashing red.
UNKNOWN MILITARY VESSEL IN SYSTEM, ALL CREW TO ACTION STATIONS!
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Did a pirate stumble into the system? She hurried to the bridge of her ship, all the while sending orders to her crew to get the Eclipse’s systems online.
She was nearly ready to launch when the red alert was changed to yellow. Before she could wonder why, she received a comm from Fletcher.
It seems we have a visitor, and they brought our ship and our crew back. I want you out there keeping an eye on things while the rest of the fleet stationed in Varlen moves to intercept. Use caution, Captain. Your report didn’t mention them having a working frigate, yet they seem to have one now.
-Vice Admiral Fletcher
What? There is no way they could have built a frigate in three months. So where had they gotten one?
***
The jump into Varlen was a nerve-wracking one for Alexander. The ship was working fine, but he couldn’t predict what the STO Navy might do. Predictably, their arrival stirred up the fleet. Alexander worked quickly to remove the cables from the Epsilon’s Dawn and any sign that he had been there.
While he didn’t think they would begrudge him having to run power cabling to get the ship here, he wasn’t going to risk it. Alexander wanted to get back to the Fury as quickly as possible to avoid any unnecessary complications.
Considering the information that Na was texting him, he should probably hurry. According to the text, the STO fleet was already heading in their direction. The optical sensors even spotted another stealth ship leaving the facility. He was glad Lucas programmed an algorithm into the computer to pick out anomalies caused by the stealth ships. Without it, it would be nearly impossible to locate those ships without the jump wakes to calculate off of or randomly spotting stars being occluded.
Alexander had an ulterior motive for having the man program something like that. He wanted to see if they could locate the alien ships the same way they spotted the STOs. So far nothing had popped up. Mingyu would have said something if the computer had alerted them. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. The aliens who put him in this body likely had better technology than humanity. The code Lucas wrote might be completely useless at detecting their ships.
That was an issue for later though. For now, he had to deal with the STO.
A few hours later, Alexander was back aboard the Fury and on the bridge with Captain Na. They were far enough outside the system that the STO ships were still on approach. He figured jumping in farther out was safer than jumping in at the normal jump point. This gave them time to scope out the situation, and for Alexander to have cleared off the other ship.
The STO ships hadn’t contacted the Fury yet, nor had they responded to the hails sent their way or the emergency beacon going off on the Dawn. Na had already released the ship and moved far enough away to jump if the situation turned sour. Alexander was hoping that wouldn’t happen and that they would reach out once they got close. If everything went to plan, he wouldn’t need to announce his presence. The STO seemed jumpy enough without an eight-foot-tall robot appearing on their screens.
“The STO ships are now within missile range,” Na said as he gripped the arm of his chair tighter. “They appear to be holding there. The stealth ship is moving above us. Maybe to cut us off, it's hard to tell. Even with the program tracking it, that ship keeps vanishing off the scanner.”
“Do your best to keep track of it. I expect they will contact us shortly.” He would need to give the data to Lucas when they got back to see if he could improve the tracking software a bit more.
Alexander was proven right a few minutes later when the lead ship, a cruiser, if he had to guess, sent a tight beam laser comm their way.
“B.S.E. Eden’s Fury, state your business in this system!” a rather imperious voice ordered.
“Not the friendliest response, but at least they aren’t shooting at us. Go ahead and reply, Captain Na.”
The captain sent the canned response, letting the STO fleet know that they had rescued the crew of the ship and were there to return both.
“That is not an STO vessel,” the man said before his connection quickly cut off. Communication returned ten minutes later, but the speaker was someone different.
“This is Vice Admiral Fletcher, who am I speaking to?”
Mingyu looked at Alexander, his eyebrow going up. “Do you want me to talk to him?”
Alexander thought about it for a bit before shaking his head. So far the STO had only communicated via radio. So it didn’t make much sense to hide in the background.
“Hello, Vice Admiral. My name is Alexander Kane, owner and operator of Blue Star Enterprises, or BSE as our ship is designated.”
The line went quiet for a bit again, likely due to radio speed lag. When the voice returned, the man sounded relieved. “Thank you for returning our people and property, Mr. Kane. Would it be possible to send a ship to dock with yours to retrieve our crew?”
As if, he almost laughed out loud. “We would prefer to transfer them to one of your ships via our shuttle, Vice Admiral.” There was no way he was letting the STO board Fury.
“Very well, please have your pilot dock at the STO Blueridge.” The line went quiet after that.
“Which one is the Blueridge?” Alexander asked as he turned to Na.
“It’s the cruiser. If you don’t mind Alex, I would like to fly the shuttle there myself.”
“Are you sure? What if they take you prisoner or something?” He wouldn’t put it past the STO.
“That’s exactly why I can’t ask any of my crew to pilot the shuttle over there. Plus, I’m familiar with military law. I can handle myself if they get grabby.”
“If you’re sure, be my guest.”
The man nodded and left the bridge. Alexander followed him shortly after to gather up Krieger and his people.
***
“Ma’am, this ship has a full suite of laser weapons.”
She frowned at that. She had received orders from the Admiral to flank the ship and gather as much data as possible. It was an ugly vessel, with a mostly flat bow, and blocky outline. It reminded her of some of the ships she had seen in museums as a small child. They had painted the ship to make it look better, but she doubted anything would make this ship look good. It did look familiar though.
“Ensign, pull up the image of the space station we took when we visited Y6X-3H2. Now overlay the scan of this ship over the ships attached to the station.”
“It’s a match for the empty frame, Ma’am… How is that possible?” the confused sensor operator asked.
How indeed? That system didn’t have nearly enough infrastructure to refit a ship in three months. Yet it was clear they had done just that. They must have some form of advanced automation. Even the STO’s Navalyard took nearly a year to put together a new ship and that was considered fast. Three months was beyond impressive and she had to wonder if this was what was possible without all the bullshit and politics?