“An emergency then is it?” Kel said after we had entered the secure access elevator. “Surely no other reason we aren’t partaking around the drum circle right now.”
“There’s been another signature.” The Admiral said.
Kel and Chyrkrady both glanced askance at eachother, before Kel continued after a moment’s pause. “Do we have an exact match?”
“No,” she replied. “And it’s nothing that I want you getting worked up about, but I wanted to keep you informed personally, since you are my direct liaison with General Halker, and because I know how sensitive the issue is for your people—for you.”
“Mmmm, yes—“ Kel said distantly. “Well I appreciate it Admiral.”
“Oh enough of that ‘Admiral’ talk Thirkle, I know this is a difficult situation, but you don’t get to be distant with me and hide behind formal terms of address. I need you here and now and you’ll damn well call me by my name.”
I saw what I thought was a faint smile tug at the corners of Kel’s mouth before the Admiral turned to Caleb and me, “but don’t you two for even a second think you can get out of addressing me as ‘Admiral’.” She snapped at us.
“Yes Admiral. Understood Admiral.” Caleb and I said in unison as we snapped to attention.
The Admiral smiled slyly. “At ease you two. You’ll find I’m not actually as uptight as rumor might suggest. I’m sure Krady has given you the whole spiel on excessive formality already, but I really must insist that you make the habit of addressing me as Admiral in public, same with the good Major here. Or perhaps he wouldn’t mind you calling him ‘Saxx’…”
The Major cast a few eyes our way, as though appraising a meal. I believed he very much would mind us calling him Saxx…
“Weee are cerrrtian they are need-to-knowww, Admiral?” The Major asked, half his eyes never leaving Caleb’s and mine.
“It’s only a matter of time before they’d have to be granted secret clearance. The recent developments have only moved up the timeline.” The Admiral replied.
Caleb and I looked at each other puzzled, diplomatic postings usually didn’t entail special clearances. And even though we were technically Navy, it was seldom necessary for the diplomatic office to be involved in military affairs.
“A whole lot of info is about to be dumped on you two.” The Admiral said. “I would tell you to sit down, but we still have quite the walk to the hanger.”
We exited the elevator and walked the main corridor. It was alive with activity. Armed squadrons headed here or there, sentries guarding access doors, it was the first I’d seen weaponry since my arrival.
Everyone snapped to attention as we passed, I did my best to march tall and proud, praying i exuded an air of authority, rather than looking as hopelessly out of place as I felt.
We came to the command center. Two guards, no older than myself, promptly opened the blast doors without The Major saying a word. We walked in, there were only a few others present, but the room was filled with tactical hologram projections and real-time data streams.
The Major manipulated the dials on the main console, isolating and expanding one of the holograms. It was a 3-D map of the galactic region The Hands sat in. The Human’s Homesystem was highlighted, about a forelimbs distance from our station icon on the display above, as well as another three points all the way across the room in a small cluster. The Major zoomed in on the cluster and the Admiral looked over to Caleb and me,
“What you are seeing is a gravitational lensing signature that we detected approximately 100 light-Cycles away from the Human Homesystem.” She turned to the Major. “Saxxon, if you would…”
The Major enhanced the focus on the hologram.
“The thirrrd gravitational lensing sssignature. A ssseries of irrrregular pulsessss like the others. No definitive pattern evident at this tiiiime.”
“Have we ruled out Hegemony presence?” Chyrkrady asked.
“Not at this tiiime, but Analysisss Operations is of the opinion that The Heg issss not involved.”
“Forget the opinion of Analysis Operations, what’s your opinion, Saxxon?”
“Hegemony presence in thisss sector would be blatant violation of treatyyyy. Much to risssk, for what? They have no purrrpose here. Analysis Operations’ conclusionsss are well-founded…”
“But?” Chyrkrady prodded.
“In lieu of alternative exxxplanation for signaturesss, safer to assume Hegemony presence. Sssafer to prepare forrr conflict.”
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“Well I for one agree with the Spider.” Kel declared.
The Major didn’t seem to mind the moniker, at least not from Kel. “It could be nothing, it probably is nothing, but there’s no reason not to prepare for the worst.”
“I agree.” Chyrkrady seconded.
“We all agree.” Admiral Preyl said. “The problem is that High Command doesn’t. They won’t be sending the reinforcement fleet I requested. We will have to make-do with what we’ve got here.” She looked over to Kel,
“However, I do have some good news…”
“Nooo, they didn’t… did they??” Kel asked, eyes growing wide. “They arrived??”
“You’re goddamn right we arrived!” General Halker said, bursting into the room. “Just got in 2 hours ago. Good to see you Thirkle.”
“Same to you Rod. How you liking that new star?”
The General looked to the insignia bar along his shoulder. “You know, I’ve always preferred even numbers, but I hear this fifth star gives me some more leeway to pick up the slack when High Command feels like dragging their heels.” He turned to the rest of us,
“Come, let’s get to the hanger, I’ve got something cool to show you all.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
We followed the General through the maze of corridors until we arrived at the restricted hanger. This time the two sentries were Humans. Already inherently intimidating, with their armored vests and HUD goggles on they looked like the stuff of nightmares. They saluted the General and escorted us inside… to a vast empty hanger…
“Well, what do you think?” The General bellowed into the space.
“How many?” The Admiral asked.
“Well let’s yall just have a look for yourselves shall we?” He looked at Caleb and I, “you boys ready?”
Caleb and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say. What were we supposed to be doing here? Before i could inquire, the General hollered into the distance, “Lieutenant Syks, let’s say hello!”
And with that, dozens of sleek craft miraged into existence in that once empty space. They were dull black, non-reflective, they looked like humongous Plick’taa larvae. Sitting on four curved feet, loading ramps descended from their bellies, on which countless black-clad Humans stood, pulse rifles slung over their shoulders.
The General turned back to the group, teeth bared slightly in smile.
“Almost completely black on the EM spectrum. And life support recyclers are so efficient that you could park one of these right on top of a Heg cruiser and sit there for a whole Cycle before you’d need a restock.” He boasted proudly. “Grav-Dampers allow unprecedented accel and decel too, only way one of these is getting clipped is if it was within washback range of a Grav-cannon, and even then The Heg would need a lucky shot.”
“I count 20. The sims had estimated the ideal ratio was 3 per Cruiser, so we’re still a far sight short of being able to take out a whole Heg fleet, but with the cloak tech I think we can find applications in recon.” The Admiral replied.
“Oh, well—“ The General chuckled, “—this is only Diamond Squadron. If you’d take a look outside through the viewfinder for a moment Admiral...”
The General handed a helmet to The Admiral. She donned it and looked out into the space outside the hanger. Though her practiced professionalism was quick to conceal it, I saw the unmistakable flinch of shock for just a moment. She was silent for a while as Chyrkrady, Kel, and Major Saxxon donned the helmets that General Halker handed to them.
“Jesus Christ, Rod!” Kel stammered. “That’s gotta be 200 ships!”
“152 actually.” The General said. “We have 7 rapid attack squadrons of 20 craft each, as well as 10 light Cruisers and 2 Heavy Support Ships. Encrypted cloaking so you can only see them if we want you to see them, or if you’ve got the passkey and the gear to view it on.”
Lieutenant Syks approached and handed Caleb and me our helmets. “Take a look boys.”
In the false-color display I could see the ships, tiny at that distance, but still unmistakably the machines of war. Were it not for the fact that they were on our side and facing away from us, I would be suggesting a rapid departure from the station.
“Impresssssive,” The Major said. “Their construction was per original schematicssss?”
“That is correct.” The General replied. “Fully Spyd compatible, Manni too.”
The Admiral finally spoke. “Couldn’t have had any better timing Rod. When can they be deployment ready?”
“As soon as you can fill them.” He said. “They are fully stocked and armed, all they need are bodies, right now they’re all running with skeleton crews.”
In that moment I cut in. “General, sir, are we preparing to attack someone?”
“They’re still a bit out of the loop then aren’t they?” He said as he turned to the Admiral.
The Admiral nodded and then addressed us,
“The stealth fleet you see before you is a joint venture between us, The Skythtaayr, and Humans. It is a… contingency.”
“In the event that The Hegemony attempts an attack, Admiral?”
“Yes and no Chakky, the planning, development, and construction of this fleet was to increase The Collective’s offensive capability generally, it just so happens that the completion and delivery of the stealth fleet coincides with the detection of the anomalous gravitational signatures.”
“The signatures that we don’t think are Hegemony?” I said.
“The signatures that we don’t officially think are Hegemony.” She corrected me. “Officially we think they are merely unprecedented natural lensing phenomena deserving of scientific analysis but no more.” She looked to Major Saxxon. “Off the record however, we don’t know with reasonable enough confidence that they aren’t indicative of a Hegemony threat, so we are treating it as one until we can rule it out.”
“Is—is this fleet legal, Admiral?” I stuttered out. “I mean, it’s—it’s a joint venture between only 3 races? Does High Command know about this?”
“Elements within High Command know, and have sanctioned, the deployment of this fleet. In part because they know the significance of the threat The Hegemony poses to us and the pertinence of being prepared—“ She paused and looked to Kel and General Halker.
“—and also because Human Command demanded it.”
“Demanded, sir?”
“I’ll be blunt, Chakky. Humanity has suffered more at the hands of The Hegemony than anyone else, what’s more, their Homesystem sits right at the border of Contested Space.
While for most of The Collective’s members, any direct conflict with The Hegemony has taken place long ago, far from their Homesystems, and the concept of the Front Lines is an abstraction.
But for Humanity, the Front Lines are where they live. If The Hegemony ever decides to wage war on us, Humanity will be the part of ‘us’ that gets hit first.
So when The Collective’s Human contingent recommended the development of a fleet capable of first-strike, recon, and area-denial capabilities, they weren’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer. And, quite frankly, after Humanity started reverse engineering The Hegemony tech left on their planet, and especially after their membership into The Collective, we weren’t in a position to stop them even if they wanted to.”
“Yes sir.” I nodded as I absorbed the information.
“You are very by the book, I can see that.” The Admiral chuckled. “I was like that too. But sometimes it is necessary to sidestep convention for the sake of security, especially when dealing with a potential threat as significant as The Hegemony.
Don’t worry Chakky, this is all sanctioned, albeit top secret. And although formidable, the offensive capabilities of this fleet truly serve to strengthen our defensive capabilities.”
“The Admiral is right.” The General offered. “I’d be lying if I said the thought of exterminating The Hegemony wasn’t at the forefront of my mind—” Giving a solemn stare of acknowledgment to Kel.
“—and every other Human who lived through First Contact.
But that isn’t the plan. This fleet might be able to take out a whole Armada, but even it couldn’t face the full might of the Heg. And even if it could, the future is isn’t in some centuries long war with The Hegemony, the future is in The Collective. And this is fleet is to secure that future, to be the shield, the armor of all our great races.”
Kel leaned in towards Caleb and me,
“Now you can see why Human Ambassadors to the Manni need top secret clearance, and vice versa. Likewise with our Skythtaayr liaisons. Speaking of which, where is—“
“—Sordeeth ssshall join us in the lab.” The Major responded. “There wasss a delay in his arrival, ship diverted for brief closer-range reconnaissance of latessst anomalous sssignature.”
“The lab?” I asked. “Wait, we’re going to the lab?”
“That isss correct,” The Major replied, again shrinking me back with his stare. “time to sssee the other secret weapon.”