Chapter 3

Ares Station, Mars orbit.

As the Cherry Barb slid into its berth the crew felt a soft rocking motion as the ship came to a full stop and the umbilical’s from Ares station attached themselves to the hatches of the Cherry Barb.

“Engines powering down, Commander I am happy to report that we have arrived at Ares Station.”

“We’ll done Lieutenant Brown.” Commander Frazer said, picking up his radio and signaling to Lieutenant Green for ship wide. “All hands, we have just arrived at Ares Station. Before we begin disembarking procedures, I just wanted to personally congratulate everyone on their exemplary performance. Despite the difficulty of our mission and the changing circumstances we faced, everyone conducted themselves and their duties with courage and skill. Officers as soon as your duties have been completed you and your crews are to receive 48 hours of liberty aboard Ares station. Ensure that all checklists have been completed and nothing is left needing to be finished.”

As the captain replaced his transceiver, he felt another small thump in the ship as the largest of the umbilical’s attached itself to the ship’s main cargo hatch.

“Pounds, the ship is yours, I have to go meet Admiral Jacobs.”

“Yes Sir.”

The route to the air lock that separated the ship from the station was normally a very direct walk, however Commander Frazer chose to make a few detours in order to watch the crew. While this had not been one of their longest missions it was the closest they had ever come to combat, and Commander Frazer wanted to see the crew with his own eyes.

Traveling through claustrophobic hallway after claustrophobic hallway he could see nothing out of order, any crew he passed would give him a quick acknowledgment before moving on with their duties.

The hallways of all frigates were by necessity very tight. Space was always at a premium on a spaceship and Minnow class stealth ships were even smaller than regular frigates. At 120 meters long the reactor took up almost a third of the ship, with storage for perishables and munitions taking up almost another third which left just the last third for bunks, showers and toilets, duty stations, a small exercise room, kitchen and galley. In theory a stealth ship could spend a year and a half in space before needing to restock on food, water or other supplies. Unfortunately, only 6 months of the food was “fresh” with the rest being made up of ration blocks. While having everything a human body needed, most of their flavors were described by crews as “spicy chicken, Korean beef and foot” spicy chicken was by far the most popular.

The sleeping arrangements themselves were simple, just three bunk beds stacked on top of each other in a small room. The rooms themselves were incredibly small with just enough room for three people to get dressed without bumping into each other, but the bunks themselves were surprisingly roomy and had partitions that allowed people a fair amount of privacy, even if it had to be enjoyed while laying down.

Passing by the galley the Commander passed by the currently empty room. Two tables were crammed in with just enough space for half the crew to sit at one time. Listening to the noise coming from the kitchen it sounded like the chef and his assistant were going over their inventory.

With a swell of pride at seeing his ship and crew working perfectly he finally reached the open airlock. Passing through each of the 4 doors that separated the inner hull from the outer hull and the outer hull from space Commander James Frazer found himself in a long surprisingly rickety hallway surrounded on all sides by the vacuum of space.

The umbilical was of course strong enough to handle almost any amount of force applied to it and flexible enough that it should never snap. It was also the closest most people would come to being in space. A series of thin tubes made of reinforced clear steel made up the frame of the umbilical and a type of flexible plexiglass strong enough to take small arms fire made up the walls. As it was between the station and the ship the umbilical had no gravity of its own, so a series of hand holds allowed people to pull themselves through the surprisingly spacious hallway. Stopping partway through the Commander looked back at his ship.

At just over 120 meters long the Cherry Barb was one of the smallest ships in the Navy. The matte black of the ship’s hull seemed to blend into space around the edges, even lit up by the station’s spotlights and with the running lights turned on it was still hard to see some of the edges. Further down the hull towards the rear section he spotted a second larger umbilical that already had people and supplies moving down it.

The ship sported surprisingly few point defence weapons, the weapons requiring special mounts in order to not effect the ships stealth, each one increased the cost of the ship considerably.

The two main turrets were each in their off position with the guns flat against the hull of the ship. They were frigate sized, which wasn’t saying much. Just large enough to damage another frigate, and the 5-kilogram slugs it fired would be almost useless against the armor of a cruiser.

Looking past his ship to the next berth Commander Frazer looked at a Heavy cruiser, the Anchorage he read on its side. At almost 500 meters it was one of the largest cruisers in use in any ships navy with only Super Carriers and the Dreadnoughts from other ships navies being larger. Heavy Cruisers were meant to screen Carriers and Super Carriers from fire while using her large guns firing 15-kilogram slugs to destroy any ships that managed to survive the nuclear barrage brought on by other ships. With 16 turrets each with 2 guns, hundreds of point defence weapons and 15 meters of the heaviest armour anyone could produce she was a match for any ship aside from Dreadnoughts.

“Looks like we won’t be here for much longer than the 48 hours we were promised.” Frazer mused to himself as he saw a small skid of food being pushed down the umbilical.

Continuing he carefully exited the tube being sure to not land on his face when he entered the stations gravity. Taking a moment to orient himself he looked around the station and found himself in a busy waiting room with rows of chairs in it. He was about to set off towards the Admirals office when he was approached by a lieutenant who saluted him.

“Commander Frazer?”

“Yes?” He said returning the salute

“My name Lieutenant Patrick Jenkins, sir. If you’ll come with me, I can show you to Admiral Moore’s office.”

With a nod the two of them began walking through the long hallways towards the center of the station. As they walked Frazer couldn’t help but notice the armed Marines in power armor posted at almost every door. Frazer had never liked the power armor finding it too creepy. Wearing their power armor, Marines stood almost 7 feet tall. The armor was a gunmetal grey, and extremely smooth with lots of rounded curves and soft edges.

Their faceplates were especially unsettling, just a blank grey area that gave away nothing of what the occupant looked like, sounded like or could be thinking. The way the suites were designed was to have as few weak points as possible, but this had the unfortunate secondary effect of making the Marines look completely inhuman.

“Has there been any security threats in the station? There are a lot more Marines here than the last time I was here.”

“All installations are still on Alert level 2 so we still have the heightened security. Hopefully it won’t be lasting much longer but it’s hard to say. I know the riots and panic back home have just about finished but civilian parts of the station here were always fairly quiet.”

“Really? No problems at all?”

“There was some fighting for a few days, public drunkenness was also up, but for the most part the people out here not prone to panic. If they were, they probably wouldn’t have come 54 million kilometers from Earth.” He said as they left the endless hallways and finally passed through a door into a series of offices filled with people bustling about. “Here we are Sir, just one moment please while I ensure the Admiral is free.” Jenkins said as they stopped in front of a door.

The Admirals aide walked over to the door, knocked and opened the door. Sticking his head in Commander Frazer could hear a muffled conversation before Jenkins pulled his head back out and turned to face Frazer. “The Admiral will see you now Commander.”

With a nod he walked forwards, entered the room walked in front of the Admirals desk and gave his best salute. “Commander James Frazer reporting as ordered Sir.”

“At ease Commander.” The Admiral said returning the salute standing up from his desk. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the seat across from himself.

Admiral Charles Moore was like most Admirals fairly old. Well into his 60’s but in extremely good shape thanks to modern medicine. With his white hair, genial smile and well-kept beard he looked more like someone’s grandfather than a decorated Admiral. But his sharp blue eyes showed the cunning and intelligence he held. One of the few people in the fleet who had real combat experience he had been a one of the major proponents of altering the doctrine of the entire fleet away from carriers and missile ships to large gun capital ships similar, to what the other powers used. He was also one of the only Admirals still vocal in his support for the minnows and other stealth programs.

Sitting down Frazer faced the Admiral trying to guess how this meeting would go.

“Welcome aboard James, how are you?”

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“Very good Sir, thank you for asking.” He said.

“Glad to hear it. Before we get started, I just wanted to congratulate you on your success a few weeks ago. Shadowing that Chinese fleet couldn’t have been easy, and Admiral Jacobs tells me that you and your crew performed in exemplary fashion. If it had come to shooting, we estimate we would have had a complete victory over the Chinese with only moderate casualties, largely thanks to you.”

“Thank you, Sir, I’m honored to hear that.”

“Now let’s get down to business. What do you know about these aliens out near Jupiter?”

“Not a whole lot Sir. Last count had 36 separate ships appear a few million Kilometers from Jupiter, a few days later they started to head towards Jupiter. Due to the distances involved and the treaties involving Europa no one really has much infrastructure out there.”

“That is correct. Currently the only people in the vicinity of Jupiter and her moons are the Europa Project and they are civilians. The project leaders have been attempting to contact the Leviathans with no success, if this is because they are unable to detect our radio frequencies or simply unwilling to respond, we are not certain. As they are set to be arriving at Jupiter very soon, we are scrambling everything we have in order to meet them there should their intentions prove hostile.”

“Sir, some of those ships are 7 kilometers long, and those aren’t the largest of them. All of them together out mass every ship in our navy. How large of a force is being sent?”

“Due to the disparity in sizes and the nature of this threat being an outside context problem the President, Congress and the Joint Chiefs of staff have all recommended a joint operation with the other major powers. The EU, Russia and China have all agreed to send ships.

We will be sending the 2nd and 3rd fleets, China will be sending their 1st and 3rd fleets, Russia is sending their 2nd fleet and the EU will be sending their 2nd and 4th fleets. This will be a total of 5 dreadnoughts, 2 supercarriers and all their attending ships. In total this will be well over 200 ships compared to their 36. Even if one on one they out mass us, our numerical superiority should be enough to ensure a victory should it come to fighting.”

“Can we trust the Chinese and the Russians sir?”

“We believe so, if the Aliens turn out to be hostile everyone has just as much to lose. They are sending roughly as many forces as we are so neither side should have numerical superiority either at Jupiter, Mars or over Earth. But the fact is we need each other. Our super carriers are 1.1 km long and our heaviest cruiser are barely over 500 meters, even if we sent every supercarrier and Heavy Cruiser, we have we would be unable to come close to matching the leviathans in tonnage, and neither would anyone else. The fact is, if this comes down to a fight, we need each other, and we all know it.” The Admiral said giving Frazer a look that spoke volumes about how dire the situation was.

“The fleets however will still need a few more weeks to organize and ensure that they will all arrive at Jupiter at the same time. We and the Chinese were ready for a war, so fortunately both of us have fleets prepared for long term operations, the Russians and the EU were both at a heightened state of alertness as well so it shouldn’t take them too much time to prepare their fleets. Due to the orbits of some of the fleets, and their locations a few of the fleets will be leaving in the next few weeks and several more have windows leaving in almost a month.”

“I can only imagine the headache of trying to organize this Sir.”

“If you think it’s a mess trying to organize different Carrier groups together try to get 4 separate governments 2 of which were almost at war with each other to coordinate the movements of 7 fleets in anything even close to coordination. I have the full fleet movements in your detailed orders for you, along with everything we know about these Aliens.”

“And what are our orders sir?”

“The Cherry Barb as well as the Pearl Gourami and the Zebra Danio are to leave in advance of the fleet and learn as much about the Leviathans as you can. None of you are to under any circumstances contact the Leviathans or the Europa Project. This is simply an observation mission. We have already redirected one of our stealth probes that are around Jupiter to make a close flyby of the Leviathans, it should let us know if our stealth technology will be effective against them.

Each ship is to maintain strict radio silence until the time detailed in your mission orders. At that time, you will send all information you have learned to the Rushmore. Admiral Jacobs will transmit it back to earth where it will be analyzed and shared amongst the other powers. Any questions?”

“So, we won’t be sharing this information directly with the other fleets? Everything will be vetted by intelligence first?”

“When you send the Rushmore the information the fleets will still be several weeks out from Jupiter. We will have much more manpower and expertise than will be available on the fleet so we will be able to make much more progress in analyzing any information you learn from them. As the fleet approaches Jupiter Admiral Jacobs will be still expected to keep in contact with us but he will of course retain full command of the situation. As for him passing any information you provide directly onto the other fleets…. Well your presence there is classified so he should not be telling them anything that will jeopardize your secrecy.”

“I understand Sir. Sir, what exactly is the chain of command for the Joint Task force?”

At this Admiral Moore hesitated. “Now that Commander, is a bit of a clusterfuck. Currently we cannot get any of the powers to agree on a unified command structure. Even the EU are pushing back at placing their ships under our command, although it seems the Russians are hesitant to trust the Chinese as well. For now, each fleet is maintaining its own command structure and the Admirals are to work out any tactics or problems between themselves.”

“That sounds like a nightmare Sir.”

“For now, it’s the best that we have. We will have to trust that each of the Admirals will be willing to work in good faith with each other.”

Commander Frazer thought that that sounded like a long shot but wisely kept his mouth shut.

“The initial reports said that there were only 6 ships, but now there are 36, how did the telescopes miss 30 ships sir?”

“The 30 new ships appeared from behind one of the largest ships, we suspect the radiation, and angle the telescopes had simply hid them from us until they began moving. Any further questions?”

“Just one more Sir, do we know when they will be arriving at Jupiter?”

“They should be arriving in a few days time. Your ship is being loaded with supplies as we speak, and your reactors are being checked. We estimate it should take 24 hours for your ship to be fully loaded, how are your people Commander?”

“Excited Sir. Our last mission finished earlier than we were expecting, and it was a success which is always good for morale. We were all hoping to get a little more than 48 hours of leave before the next missio, but we understand the urgency. I was hoping to get my crew priority use of the Ares coms systems so they could talk to their families.”

“Consider it done. Anything else Commander?”

“Not at this time. I’ll go through the detailed mission briefing in and contact you if I need anything clarified Admiral.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of getting you and your crew set up with some of the larger rooms on the station, I thought you would all appreciate the extra space. See Lieutenant Jenkins and he will show you to your quarters.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” Frazer said standing with a salute.

“Your welcome James, good hunting out there and stay safe.” The Admiral said returning the salute.

Commander James Frazer turned and left the Admirals office looking the find Lieutenant Jenkins so he could be taken to his room. Looking over the busy office the lieutenant was berating a younger officer. Walking over Commander Frazer only overheard the end of the rant. Lieutenant Jenkins stood up straighter as he noticed the Commander walking over.

“Lieutenant sorry to disturb you, I was hoping you could let me know where my quarters are.”

“Yes sir, if you follow me, I would be happy to take you.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

As the two of them walked through the halls, taking lifts and passing through secure doors Commander Frazer started to get the impression that Lieutenant Jenkins wanted to ask him something. A few looks from the corner of Jenkins eyes and a few times he was about to say something but stopped himself short.

Finally, the two of them were in a lift that took them from the secure center of the station to the civilian areas that ran along the outside of the station. “The Admiral thought your crew would appreciate being closer to the recreation areas of the station. You’ll still be in military billets, but these are some of the larger rooms we have Sir.”

“The Admiral thought right, it’s nice to be able to stretch out a little here.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what is it like? Serving on a stealth ship I mean?”

“Have you ever been stationed on a ship?”

“Yes sir, I was an ops officer on the Hawaii, I had always wanted to be on a stealth ship, but I was told that I didn’t have the right psych profile for it.”

“Not many people do, the berths on stealth ships are smaller than this elevator and shared by 3 people. It takes a special kind of person to stay in a ship that size for months on end behind enemy lines.”

“But there’s nowhere else you’d rather be?”

“Not even close” Frazer said with a smile “Right now I’d rather be having a shower in a private room, but there is no other ship I would rather serve on.”

“Of course, sir.” Jenkins replied with a less than polite tone that implied Jenkins would never want to leave his post.

‘With a stick up his ass that size no wonder he could never get on a stealth ship.’ Frazer thought but he only said “The crews on stealth ships are… interesting. We look for people who are intelligent and driven of course, but mostly we need people who will not break under any amount of pressure and can work months at a time with no break and not nearly enough sleep. All of this tends to leave the crews, somewhat unique and rather close knit.”

“What do you mean Sir?”

“We are far less formal than most crews, and while discipline is expected to be kept it is often relaxed somewhat. A little more socializing between officers and enlisted than you would normally see.”

“I see, that doesn’t cause any problems in the chain of command? Or people slacking off?” Jenkins asked as they left the elevator.

“With the right crew it doesn’t. Everyone on a stealth ship is there because they are driven enough to complete their work without having someone breathing down their neck. Not that we don’t have to encourage some crewmembers occasionally.”

As Lieutenant Jenkins stopped in front of a door Frazer kept talking. “Of course with the lack of free space you end up having no choice but to eat meals and occasionally spend your free time with just about everyone.”

“I think I understand Sir, I’m beginning to see why I might not have been chosen. I very much like to have everything in its place. Your room is here Sir. If there is anything you need please let any of the station staff know.” Lieutenant Jenkins gave Frazer a perfect salute with his back straight and his arm at a perfect angle before turning and stiffly walking away. He looked like someone from a recruitment brochure.

The quarters were small for a space station but came with an actual seating area and a couch. His quarters on the Cherry Barb would fit in the bathroom here. Having a quick shower and changing into his one change of clothes that weren’t a uniform that he brought from the Cherry Barb he finally opened his detailed orders and lost himself in the mission briefing and mission details.

What seemed like a few moments later but was actually several hours later the door chimed signaling he had a visitor.

Standing up he walked over to the door and opened it to see his Lieutenant Commander Bernard Bannon standing at the door holding a bottle of what looked like expensive liquor.

“Come in Pounds.” James said standing aside from the door. “How’s the room?”

“Haven’t seen it yet. I came here after making sure the Cherry was all set. Chief Hanlan was complaining about the station crews stowing everything in the wrong spots so I left him to it.” Bernard Bannon said walking over to the kitchen getting two glasses and pouring a generous amount of scotch into each glass.

“I see you did some shopping before coming over.” He said accepting the offered glass.

“Just the essentials, I’m having pizza delivered later too. So, what are our orders?”

James Frazer regarded his old friend as he sat down on his couch. Bernard Bannon and he first met at the academy almost 20 years earlier and had instantly hated each other. It was only after serving with each other on several different ships and literally saving his life during an emergency decompression when a fuel line threatened to destroy their ship that he and Bernard finally became friends. After that they quickly made up for lost time and became as close as two people could be.

“The coalition fleet is still being assembled and will take about another 2 months before it even gets moving. We are being sent in ahead of time along with the Pearl Gourami and the Zebra Danio in order to get a closer look at the unknowns, assess the situation and send back information for earth as well as the fleet.”

“So, business as usual. What do we have on the Leviathans so far?”

“Leviathans?”

“That’s what the people are calling them, even the news has started using it.”

“The reports called them that too, I’m just surprised it’s caught on so quickly. The Leviathans are still halfway across the system from our telescopes so it’s hard to even get an accurate count of them, some of the smaller ones were behind the largest Leviathans which threw off our counts. However, our telescopes can confirm there are 2 circular objects at about 20kms across being called Behemoths, 4 at about 7kms long called Kraken and we think 30 smaller ships at just under 400 meters long.” Frazer said.

“Jesus Christ, they out mass everything humanity has in the solar system put together.

Frazer continued as if his friend hadn’t spoken “They also seem to be biological.”

“Biological?”

“Take a look at these.” Frazer said indicating a picture of the Leviathans on his tablet. On the screen were the clearest pictures humanity had of the Aliens. The Behemoth was shaped like a jelly fish complete with several kilometer-long tentacles protruding from its underbelly as it moved top first towards Jupiter.

The Krakens were dwarfed traveling beside the massive creatures and Pounds had to remind himself that these were almost 7 times the largest ships in the American Navy. They were roughly conical with the smallest ends facing towards Jupiter. The front of the creatures had several protrusions coming from it and judging by their size compared to the rest of the creature they must have been several hundred meters long and very thick. “You see those tentacles coming from the front?”

“Couldn’t those just be sensor towers or maybe something for navigation?”

“Possibly, we have no way of knowing how they navigate because we don’t even know how they propel themselves from space at this point, no thrusters, no gravity drives we can’t even see any weapons. That’s not the issue though, these pictures were taken within a few moments of each other.” Frazer said scrolling through several pictures quickly.

Bernard Bannon watched as his friend scrolled through the pictures quickly and the protrusions on the front of the ship started to wave and slither back and forth in front of it.

“What the hell? Some sort of trick of the angle maybe?”

“Not from what our analysts can see. And believe me they have used every available resource analyzing this. Not only that but the EU, the Chinese and the Russians all agree, these things are biological in nature and whatever these things on the front are, are waving. So, before the coalition fleet arrives, we are to go and take a closer look at them, see if we can’t find out what the hell we are dealing with before everyone else arrives.”

“Do we nuke the hell out of em?”

“Shouldn’t have too, but I guess we’ll see.”