John continued to review and sign overdue paperwork...yes housing needs to be renovated for the influx of people, yes we need another Pilots school, and Marine training camp. "Are we going to talk about what just happened?" Natalie asked as she strode into Johns office "What is there to talk about. Everything is said and done. Either Kelly will crack or she won't, and we can't do anything else." was Johns response. "Are you serious John. You just sentenced that guy to a slow and painful death. We need to talk about this. I know this isn't you and you would never do something like that. Well, pull a gun and shoot them yeah, but not torture and slow death." Natalie snapped at him. "Douglas, I won our little bet. How is Plan A progressing?" John asked over the stations Comm "I had my doubts Captain that you could fool her based on what I read on Mrs Natalie and from your own observations, but Plan A is working well. Both Subjects believe the other has undergone a terminal injection of Nanites and will die in the next 6 hours. The test to use nanites to get rid of biological trash has been a complete success. Dr. Burmingham says 'Those little buggers are completely safe for human interaction. I jumped into a vat of them, and they never touched me' so what the prisoners are watching are a holographic representation of those Nantes destroying biological trash waste that the occupants of this station make. In other words Mrs Natalie, no sentients were hurt making this HALO. We will continue to monitor both prisoners and inform you if they break Captain." Douglas reported. Natalie glared at the Captain "You played me...well done John. I had no idea you could be that devious." John smirked as he responded "This old wolf still has some tricks and you are right, I would just put a gun to their heads and shoot them over torture. I cannot though, the people of those systems raided want them back to stand trial against their people. They know they cannot have them yet until we have had time to interrogate them though. Anything else Nat?... Good cause unless you are going to help with this paperwork I need some time alone." With that Natalie ran from the room, she was an amazing Operator and Spy, but horrible with paperwork.

Kara was staring at John "Why would your old friend think you would do such a thing Captain?" John sighed..." Because Kara, when Humans go to war it can bring out the Darkest parts of us. It can also bring out the greatest things Humanity can do as well though. War changes us on a primal level Kara, and once we cross certain lines, we have a hard time finding ourselves again if we even can. She is worried that I will lose myself to this war, and she might be right. That is why I am trying to do this with my friends to remind myself of who I am, so I don't lose myself. At least that is what I hope will happen. Does that awns er your question Kara?" Kara nodded. John just hoped his gambit worked to break the two, otherwise, it was all for nothing.

Four hours later Jacob Whitley broke and confessed in his part of the planning and execution of the raids. Although he could not tell us about anymore Block-Ops bases he told us the name of the IntelDiv Operator Elise Richards, with that we were able to dig into her background and find everything about her that hadn't been sanitized by IntelDiv. What we did find though allowed Natalie to break her 3 hours later, and she gave us coordinates to 3 Black-Ops basis. 1 was within Imperial space but the other 2 would be scouted out and if possible destroyed. Both prisoners would be held for the foreseeable future under 24 hour watch with very little human interaction. They also received Intel on the Comm frequencies that they used to communicate and dates and times when support vessels would check in. With that he sent out a coded message to the field agents they had near those two bases to check them out and report back what they found if anything. 

On a positive note, the second War Games was a blast, and 60 new Marines and 10 new Pilots finished training and joined their Ranks. Tortuga had completed her pickup circuit and was on her way back to Atlantis with 400 Marines, 150 Enlisted Fleet personnel, 50 potential Fleet Officers, 40 Pilots, 1 R&D, and 3 Medical Doctors. The new facilities should be complete by the time they got here, if not they would delay training for only a day or two. John had ordered the increase of construction drones planet side to make sure completion of the Marine training Camps were completed. The automated Mining facilities were running at 100% capacity and the Ore Haulers would be complete within the week. Depending on if they needed more to haul Raw Ore from miners to the processing stations they might have to produce more. John made a note to have the recruiters to push for more medical doctors, the ratio of personnel to doctors was a gap that was rapidly expanding that they needed to close ASAP. John needed someone to help run logistics for Atlantis facility itself, one for running the Heirs and Rebellion, a recruiting officer to oversee recruitment, and the list went on. He had called for a council meeting to bring up these shortcomings and to hopefully address them. That thought reminded him that he was running late for the meeting he had called for....AHHHHHHHH, 'Jeeves why didn't you remind me that I had a council meeting?' Jeeves quickly came back 'I did Captain, you growled at me and continued to go over your reports and continued to make notes. When your Comm went off you threw it across the room and almost shot it." .....oh

John ran into the meeting room 20 minutes late, everyone was seated and waiting for him "Thank you all for coming. I am sorry for being late but paperwork buried me, and I was distracted. So, first order of business is that we need Logistics officers appointed to help run logistics for Atlantis system and the Heirs. Any thoughts or suggestions?' chirp...chirp...chirp ' Come on people, either someone steps up or you guys give me a suggestion?" John noticed Jimmy and Natalie whispering back and forth and it almost looked like they were arguing "We have a pair, but they are a pain in the ass John you will hate them. Believe me you do not want to work with these two..." Natalie smacked his arm and cut in "Shush you, John these two are amazing, they used to work for a big company and are very dependable. They got into gaming late in life as part of retirement, and they are Jimmys' sisters. That is why he doesn't want you to bring them on. Both are currently in Imperial Space though, so it would take a couple weeks to get them here, if they are willing to come. I will contact them after the meeting and let you know." John nodded and thanked them both. "Second point of the meeting, we need someone to Oversee recruitment, I.E. Personnel Officer, again recommendations or volunteers?" Rebecca immediately responded "I think Lieutenant Daniel McPherson would be perfect. He is very personable, good at reading people, and I was going to put him in for promotion anyway. Putting him in charge of Personnel would be a good step up for him, I am sure though he will eventually want to get back in the Fleet track though." John thought about it "Bring it up to him, he will be in charge of it for the immediate future, if he will want to transfer back at a later date, we can do that but it won't happen for at least a year." 

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

John continued after finishing going over officer gaps "Now onto other matters, you all have seen the numbers the Tortuga is bringing in, I have transferred more construction drones planet side, and we should be on track to have the facilities completed before they get here. If not we will house the Marine recruits on the station for a day or two. Same situation for enlisted fleet school, under construction but should be done. Now any questions, concerns, moans or groans before this meeting ends?" Dr. Birmingham head of R&D immediately jumped in "Sir, we need to both expand R&D facilities and upgrade. Right now the facilities are adequate barely, but with new scientists and Doctors coming in every couple weeks we will run out of room to expand within the current setup. It also limits what and how much we can research and develop. On a positive not the prototypes for the Medium and Heavy Chassis are on track and doing well so far and if everything goes well we can put them into development in 2 weeks." John nodded and had Jeeves take note into looking at expanding and upgrading the labs. Smitt followed the Doctor "With the increased Marines and the projected numbers based on current recruitment, I would suggest we start construction of two more Marine training Camps otherwise we will get backed up in 3 months time. Also with the current rate of production of Mark II MECHs and training we should be able to field two whole divisions (16,000 per) within 6 to 8 months time. They will be green though and untested." John nodded and smiled. Stein jumped in right after Smitt "We need to both increase recruiting of both Enlisted and Officers and the facilities that train them I would suggest double the size of training facilities, but we do not need to worry about upgrading them at this time." John turned to Pride, head of Pilot training "Let me guess, you want to double the size of Pilot training facilities?" John smiled as he asked. Pride winced and responded, "Nope I want to double and upgrade immediately if we can." John just smiled and made notes of everything. "Anyone else?.... Good moving on."

"Moving on, through interrogation of the captives you got from Traga System, we have the coordinates of two more Black-Ops bases outside Imperial controlled space. I have already made our people aware of them that are located near these two bases, so they can scout and report back. At this time no attacks have happened in either region. What is our response if we do find Imperial bases? IntelDiv might write off 1 attack but if we keep hitting them it could expose us before we are ready to come into the open. Thoughts and recommendations people?" John let everyone know as he forwarded the Intel to everyone present. "First point is that we do not know if anything is there yet. Second, we have no idea what they plan in those areas and until we do we cannot act. Until we receive more Intel, we cannot make decisions, so I would suggest we wait and shelve this until we get some Intel back from the two sites." Natalie responded while everyone nodded. "Consider the subject shelved until we can confirm the Intel. That's all I have, does anyone wish to bring up any subjects or concerns?" John finished up his portion of the meeting.

----------------------------------------

Two weeks had passed and the Intel on both sites were back in, one was a site was recruiting members just like the one in Traga System while the other proved to be some R&D facility. They had no idea what IntelDiv was working on at the R&D base, but based on their track record and since it was outside Imperial space they didn't want anyone to find out it was theirs and let it led back to the Imperium. They could be developing new tech or some bio weapon, until he had solid Intel from inside the facility they wouldn't know. Natalie had forwarded what they had found to the Moles inside IntelDiv, but so far they had not found anything. She didn't expect a response from any deep assets unless it was really bad. Johns inclination was to destroy the raider base before it became a problem and sit on the other facility until they had solid Intel or to hit it from orbit. Right now the Council agreed that until something happened they shouldn't give IntelDiv reason to think that their operations are being targeted so John had to sit and wait on two potential explosive situations not to mention the third site they had no clue what was happening there. 

The development of all the new facilities was putting a strain on the resources available, good thing the automated facilities worked 24/7. John had tasked drones to see what could be mined on planets 2, 7, and 8. So far surveys were only in the preliminary phases and John would not get an in depth report for another 24 hours. Jimmy and his sisters would arrive in the next 24 hours, although he said he wasn't sure he would survive them that long. Either way, they promised to start getting the logistics in order and help organize the industry in the system. John also had the twins looking at developing either automated farms on one of the Green Zone planets or developing some Hydroponics Farms on the station. They also needed to build an H3 mining and fueling station around planet 6. Training facilities for incoming personnel came first though. Once the next wave of Fleet recruits finished training, they would have enough to outfit another Assault Transport with crew, and they could start recruiting in more star clusters other than the 5 they already were. All of the systems they recruited in were independent of their home worlds or Neutral star systems, none of the Regional Governments took them serious yet, except for the Xaranx and Aran'Sul. Although Aran'Sul had the ears of many of the Minor-Powers in the Region, none were willing to sign up...yet. Neutralizing the base in the Traga system had bought them goodwill with the Gol'dan, Pre'da, and the Bran'ga. All of them controled 2 to 3 star clusters and 30-60 habital worlds. Aran'Sul believed they would be willing to discuss trade deals but not a Military Alliance, not yet anyway. The trade agreement had been ratified by the Xaranx and the Da'Gog Confederation, which centered on Arkonia Prime, was debating presently to sign a trade deal with the Heirs of the Imperium. Both were powers that controlled only a handful of worlds and both had militaries that the Imperium would crush in less then a day, but they were taking a chance by trading with them. It was good first steps.

'Captain, you have an Alpha level message that just came in, you want me to patch it through now?' Douglas called over the Comm line. 'Patch it through..." Attention whoever is listening to this. I work for IntelDiv, I help with handling the Black-Ops funding and personnel. Word came down from you guys were looking at a specific R&D base outside Imperial space. I looked at the coordinates that were sent, according to what I was able to pull IntelDiv is working either on a Bio or Chem weapon there. It's still in the early stage of development though and will not be viable for weeks at least, if not months. Attached to the message is a list of personnel and a layout of the facility interior. Good luck."' Douglas get on the line, I am calling an emergency meeting of the council. Make sure all members are made aware and the meeting will take place in 10 minutes drop anything they are doing this is the priority."