“I’m so glad everyone is here on fairly short notice for being on leave. Though this is important as you can imagine.”
Arrayed in front of still radiant vice admiral Oliver was Edward, David, Alex and Elliot all in various states of “haggard”. Jet lag was still plaguing their bodies and it was showing.
Edward raised an arm “Question admiral,”
“Yes?”
“To get to the point, why did you bring all of us here to this meeting room for, and how urgent is it to pull us off of registered leave?”
Oliver sniffed, leaning back in his seat with a characteristic smile spreading across his face, “You don’t know how good it is to hear someone be straight forwards after working with all of your colleagues for a few months. They can’t help but dodge what they are actually asking about or understate the severity of their problems…”
Edward and David exchanged looks, trying hard to not show any reactions.
“Right, sir… But, again, what are we here for and why does everyone, including a diplomat have to be here for.”
“They’re here as they part of your staff, I know the Lieutenant commander and the Lieutenant here, though I haven’t met the diplomat here and for you I’m Vice Admiral Lee Oliver.”
Elliot immediately shot up to attention, just like he had when Oliver first came in, “Nice to meet you uh- Sir!”
Oliver laughed, “Pleased to meet you too. Fletcher, you’ve seemed to have gained a lot of Canadians if I’m right?”
“It looks that way.”
“So, now the introductions are out of the way I should stop stalling myself then. So, the reason why I have dragged you all over to this base in my sunny home of California is for a new assignment, as you may have guessed.”
The vice admiral pressed a button by his seat, the centre of the conference table lighting up to display a map of the solar system.
“Never gets old…” he chuckled “So, you got hit by a pirate attack by Pluto when came back from Caelypsus and managed to capture the vessel. On board we managed to find the ship’s mainframe data fully intact thanks to the quick work of your marines, and capture a Pakistani Hyperspacial scientist who went missing a while ago. Apparently, he got corralled into it by some Chinese soldiers during the war, with one thing leading to the other, ending with him being in the service of some space pirates. And that vessel is not the only one of them.”
“The news has made that rather clear…” Edward muttered.
“Indeed, it has. A couple of high-profile hijackings and thefts of various vessels have occurred from about a month after the war ended and we still haven’t tracked down all of the Chinese and Russian vessels that were in deep space when their governments surrendered. So henceforth, while you’ve been away, we’ve been searching through the solar system and responding to several other incidents, but it's stretching things a little thin…”
“And I’m guessing my fleet has finished it’s maintenance in drydock?” Edward asked.
“Exactly, all of you are going onto an anti-piracy patrol. Across two systems. As when we found their little Sol base with the help of our scientist friend,” the map zoomed in on a patch of space in the outer solar system, marking a little dot down, “we quite quickly concluded it wasn’t their main base given the size of it, and the arrival of a stolen hyperspace ferry. So, when combined with some other attacks against some new mining colonies in one of the furthest systems we control, its safe to assume these people have quite the operation and a secret hideout somewhere…”
Oliver cleared his throat, sliding a pile of papers over to the other side.
“So, your mission will be to eliminate the Sol outpost of this pirate group and to locate and destroy their main base in system B-10349, about 40 light years from Sol. Though, like last time, I have a couple of presents for you…”
Edward’s eyes widened as he looked back between the group. Elliot and Alex were confused; however, David’s mouth was curling into a predictable Cheshire cat smile. He turned back and steadied himself, “And what sort of present might it be sir?”
“Oh,” Oliver chuckled, “I’m talking about the delivery of the rest of your fleet!”
He pressed a few more buttons on his control panel, a set of data sheets and schematics.
“Ya’ll better be appreciative of this; I spent a lot of time making this presentation.”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Now we have the Town Class ICNS Edinburgh, two Cavalier Class frigates and your scheduled Achilles class Battle Carrier… It’s the first of it’s class you’ll be getting as well, hot out of the drydock to get some lovely photo ops of it cracking the spines of some dingy pirate vessels. If I was the jealous sort, I’d say I’d be envious of your assignment.”
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“To be honest sir,” Said David, “I’m a little jealous I don’t get to captain one of these fine ships…”
Oliver laughed, “In time, in time! Though, I don’t think Fletcher’s surprise is gonna help that feeling.”
The screen embedded into the table went blank for a moment before filling with the sheet of one of the specific ships. A ship that Edward thought he was dreaming when he saw it amongst all of the others: It’s sleek smooth body like that of a stealth fighter, It’s size and armament that of a battleship, and it’s engines proportioned in such a way to the rest of the craft to suggest an acceleration unbefitting of regular battleship.
“Meet the ICNS Vanguard. It was going to be apart of a class of three. Then everyone else realised how expensive the damned things were and how we were lacking escorts and smaller stealth ships… Like I was telling them…” Oliver sighed, “So the materials and funds are going towards said escorts and stealth interdictors, but we still have one stealth battlecruiser to use.”
“Sorry,” Edward raised a hand, trying to keep his composure as his mind raced, “You did just say it’s a stealth battlecruiser!?”
“Indeed I did.”
“And what's the sense in having a battlecruiser have stealth when all of it’s escorts wont!?”
“Exactly what I said, but it seems like they wanted a stealth fleet and forgot to make the escorts and other line vessels. To be honest I feel the project only got through because the whining from the reformers convinced everyone that it must be a good idea if they’re complaining about it.”
“How are they still alive!?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Out of the corner of Edward’s eye he could see Elliot and Alex whispering to each other, with Elliot brow furrowed in confusion.
“Anyway Fletcher, its still good in independent operations though the technical issues have been a bit of a bitch to deal with so far, so the thing has been passed over to you. So, try not to cook yourself in it and give some good reports back to the design staff.”
“Cook. Myself?”
Oliver waved his hand, “If you look through the document, I sent you you’ll find the information on it. Long story short, don’t keep the thermal stealth mode on for too long. Don’t worry, the captain knows about that as well.”
“So then, anything else sir?”
“Edward, could you ask your staff to leave the room for a moment?”
Edward let his eyes linger on the vice admiral for a moment before complying, ushering everyone else out of the room as the blinds closed. Edward felt the lingering sight of Elliot’s concerned eyes on him as he left. Celling lamps replacing the sunlight, everything falling silent with the slam of the door.
“I’m not going to lie to you Edward, the information we managed to extract from that man from Caelypsus is not good at all.”
He swallowed, “How bad?”
“As in the incoming government has done a 180 from wanting to trim the budget a bit to throwing several extra billions our way. Shit is gonna hit the fan if the stuff we know is remotely true.”
“So, can you tell me anything about this then? Anything more than the gist that some civilisation created from the seventh lost colony fleet might not be all too friendly?”
Oliver sighed, his tanned face falling into his hands, “This is still top secret and as such falls under the document you sighed several months back. But the information we can tell you is this: The seventh fleet went back quite a fair bit in time and formed a nation called the “Awakened Directorate” and has been building up for a fair bit of time. We still don’t have much of a clue of who they actually are, other than they have a pretty tight grip on their citizens. So, the guy has been rather tight lipped. Hence, we have no idea of what sort of forces they have at their disposal, and little in terms of their technology level. Though we do know one thing about that.”
“And that is?”
“They have advanced gene modification tech, given that our guy is clearly human, but from what the lab coats have said, has had some major modifications. There is no trace of any known genetic disorders, their blood clots faster than regular humans, their purple skin is UV resistant, their body seems to be sculpted for beauty and they have an above average cognitive ability. The only issue with their DNA at all seems to be a slight fertility problem apparently from what they have seen. To me this seems like we’re looking at some sort of creepy space cult.”
Edward’s chin fell into one of his hands in turn, the other fidgeting on the desk, “And the system that the pirates and our mining colonies might be close to their border?”
“So, your secondary objective is to tell us if any contact happens immediately and to not make any rash decisions. Your RoE on any suspected “Directorate” vessel is to only fire if fired upon and dear god, do not fuck up a first contact or else your career is down the drain, got it?”
“Got it…”
“We also want any prisoners who might be their citizens to be taken care of, but also to try and get any intelligence out of them, if possible. High command is extremely anxious about getting data on what systems they control and what sorts of ships they have, so taking one of them without them seeing if you find one in service of the pirates is a high priority.”
“Do I need to write this down sir?”
“A document will be provided, but it doesn’t have much more than what I have just told you here. We don’t have much at all about these guys and our efforts to gather more info are on a strict need to know basis. But a word of caution.”
Edward swallowed, “What is it?”
“Keep track of everything and leave nothing to chance. Any questions?”
“Yes… Can I keep the diplomat as part of my staff? The mission might require-“
“As long as you apply to the department to make him a permanent attaché, and given your mission they should accept. Dismissed.”
----------------------------------------
“Hey, Ed, what sort of spooky stuff did the yank tell you then?”
Edward sighed, “Nothing I can disclose right now David, you know that.”
The four of them had reconvened together in a small cubby in one of the residential blocks, and while Elliot and Alex had shown some level of concern, David however had seemingly regained some of his usual self from his rather lethargic state that he was in upon arrival.
“Edward…” Elliot’s eyes were dark, his voice slightly wobbly, “Is this going to be safe? And am I-“
“It’s about as safe as any combat-based assignment in space is and you can stay apart of my staff if you want. Its up to you if you go and I’m not going to drag you into another combat zone if you don’t want to.”
“I want to go with you, and I’ll help you in any way I can.” There was no hesitation, his gaze firming and they looked at each other.
“Then I’ll sign the papers for it then. But I think I might need to apply for some new transfers. Four people isn’t exactly a proper Admiral’s staff after all.”