Commander Nate Novel half standing out of his chair, stared out at the same site everyone else in his fleet did, tens of thousands of IAFS men and women meeting their deaths, the sinking of a couple dozen of their best warships.
“The Command Centre Now Charlie!!” Nate bellowed – He seldom got angry, it never really helped anything to do so – And his puppet like face wasn't suited to such emotions, yet right now there was no stemming his seething fury.
The comms officer, turned and nodded – Nate sat back into the chair and flicked the switch on his right armrest;
“Are you comprised down there? Well?!”
The reply that came back static ridden, the brash voice of the commanding officer was deeply flustered;
“I-i, we don't know yet Sir, I have people searching every corner of this place, but we're short staffe--”
“Do it faster damn-it man!” Nate barked back.
“Y-Yes Sir. We couldn't stop it sir, I swear no one here in this room even touched the controls, but once it started it wouldn't stop – Commander Novel I don't what to say....”
“Spare your breath and keep searching, find the infiltrators now!” Nate flipped off the link, turning his attention back to the screens above him.
The radio lines were filled with despair, speculation and arguing coming from across his fleet:
“Oh my god, this is, its--”
“We've lost, there's no way we can come back from this! We've lost!!”
“Ah can-it you idiot – The TSU-s fleet were caught up in it too right?”
“To sacrifice their own forces just to hurt us, those bastards!”
“Bu-But that means we've won right?”
“Was that the TSU-s Fleet?” Added a stern voice cutting through the rest – Nate shivered a little thinking it was Commander Batty, but after a moment realised it was a male voice, just with a similar tone;
“Would it not be more likely that the weapon was fired remotely, some system we were not aware of? Perhaps even a dead man's switch causing the weapon to fire at half power if a certain number of days should pass without anyone entering a specific code?
If that were the case who's to say our sources haven't been corrupted, that what we were just shooting at was really the TSU-s fleet.”
“Oh gods!”
“He's right, they were only positioned in front of the weapon because TSU-s were coming head at it, but if they always planned to fire it remotely somehow....”
“Hold on now, where did the power come from eh?! That thing take ages to fire, surely its more likely a third-party has snuck into the weapon and done this?”
“Oh that could be it!”
“But doesn't the weapon keep batteries, enough that a few minutes of charging at full power like we witnessed, combined with that stored energy would allow it to fire a low power burst on command?”
“Low power?! No way, NO WAY!”
“Commander Novel Sir,” Interjected the voice of the control centre officer again, “I can confirm that, the read outs we're getting show that was only about a 40% power output – And our sweep of the base is showing nothing – Sir I don't think our defences have been passed, this was their plan from the beginning.”
Silence final overtook to line.
Nate swallowed hard, shut his eyes for just a moment, than began to issue orders before the cacophony of gossip could get going again;
“Gautier, Gaspard, Fraldarius and Blaiddyd – All of you are to leave the line and meet up with the ships that are retreating from the home-fleet – There will be lifeboats out there too, and fires that need putting out, get on it now – Kolme organise a Nemo escort to aid them too.”
There was no response for a few long moments, until one by one the captains of the four ships agreed.
“Right, next, any of you chaps got a number on the survivors yet? Just a visual is fine if our long range scanners are still being blocked by the discharge.”
“We count 18 ships heading towards us sir, all of them some degree of damaged.”
Came the reply from one ship's captain.
“Same count here Commander.” Added another.
Nate resisted the urge to wretch – The idea terrified every fibre of his being, that just 18 ships of the home-fleet had made it out of the blast – A blast that had only represented a mere 40% of the weapons total power.
He did his utmost to remain objective, to focus on giving clear orders;
“Charon you have an FE-16 high mobility jet on stand-by yes? Have it launch now at maximum speed and head straight for where the TSU-s fleet was 5 minutes ago, we have to confirm whether it was a decoy or not – And if it was the real fleet, we need to know how much of their force was destroyed.”
“Err, right, will do Commander.”
“Charlie can we contact the retreating ships yet?”
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Nate turned in the young, somewhat chubby, blond haired man's direction.
“No Sir, the discharge is still blocking long range comms.”
He said back.
“Fine, fine. Then--” Nate began.
“Now just hold on a minute!” Bellowed a verbose, brash voice back at him – Nate had only been made acting fleet leader yesterday, aside from the Rinie and Valliere, he didn't know most of the other ships in said fleet, he certainly didn't know who's voice addressed him right know, but address him it did, “Admiral Louise is in charge of this operation, and if, Only IF he has been harmed, than command falls to the next in line – Not you Mr.Novel!”
Nate clenched his fist, unable to contain the anger any longer – He slammed it down on his left armrest, a couple members of the bridge crew jumped at the act, having never seen the perpetually goofy commander act out in such a way;
“And should the Admiral or any of his deputies come in contact I will be happy to take council with them over what to do next – But until then rescue and information gathering is our top priority or would any of you disagree?!”
Silence. Nate relaxed his fist.
“Sir!” Charlie squeaked on his right, the young man's face was even paler now than it had been when the weapon fired 5 minutes earlier, “We have a laser-link connections to one of the home-fleet ships.”
Nate stilled himself as best he could, taking a deep breath, “Let's have it then chaps.”
Charlie nodded, the headphones held to one ear while he faced Nate, relaying what the damaged and retreating ship told him through the heavy static;
“The Flagship Never-More, Vice-Admiral Louise and all hands, lost.”
----
Well of course, Nate had known no other option was likely – The admiral liked to lead from the front, the Never-More had stood proud at the centre of the fleet, the core of the formation – And yet it still didn't sound real to Nate.
He had known and served under the admiral for a long time, considering him to be more than just a comrade but also a close personal friend – An indominable leader or epic proportions.
“The crew aren't sure but they think most of the deputies have fallen too, maybe one, a head-captain rank, escaped but they're heavily injured. Sir.... Sir I think you might be the highest ranking officer left able-bodied....”
Charlie finished, voice trembling.
Nate slowed took in the whole of the Fluchtig's bridge – He had served on quite a few bridges in his career, including as a junior officer under a once 'Captain Louise'.
For all the Fluchtig was a state of the art vessel, its bridge was actually one of the smallest and simplest Nate had seen. A small rectangular room, the far wall all reinforced glass, above it on the slopping roof a myriad of monitors – Currently these screens showed 30-something faces, the faces of his fellow captains within the Tristain fleet, quite literally looking down on him – The closet thing to 'friends' he had among this gallery were the Rinie and Valliere's captains.
His chair was on a slightly raised plinth against the backwall, to either side lay two exit doorways – A little in front of him was a second chair for Aurin, though the man generally chose to stand next to it instead.
Along the far wall, underneath the screens and reinforced-glass windows, was a long C-shaped bench on which the 5 terminal-stations of the bridge lay – In its centre the coxswain, to his left the gunnery co-ordinated, and the sensor specialist – To the right the navigator and the comms operator.
Of course it took more than those 7 to run the entire ship, in the secondary control room were rows of people tasked with sub-jobs of the ones being done on the bridge – And yet, Nate realised, right now the 7 people in this room, and above all else he himself – Not only controlled the fates of the Fluchtig's crew but of every warrior IAFS had left – 'The Tristian Flotilla has really grown alot bigger huh.'
Nate stood from his chair, looking up to the faces on the screen above firmly – Nate wasn't someone who cared about promotions or ladder climbing, he believed it right to follow good people like the admiral – He was happy to support and uphold the person he believed to be the very best of them – And this showed, of the admiral's inner-circle Nate was known to all as the black-sheep, the lowest among them – But he was no less a member of that circle, no less someone the admiral had chosen to confide in, placed in charge of watching his back.
“Everyone, it seems we have been out played this day – Our forces have just been cut in half, our moral has no doubt plummeted – Our enemy are most likely still on the way, now from a direction we can't even be sure of.
There is of course no retreat for us, if we leave now the enemy will certainly recapture the weapon and fire on our fleeing backs – But its more than that isn't it? We can not run now, we can't let the loss of our great admiral, of our brothers and sisters lost today and throughout this entire war be in vain.
We have just seen exactly what our enemy plans to use this devil's-gun for, is this not exactly what we created IAFS to stop?
Therefore I hereby propose to decree a top-level state of emergency, and in light of that promote myself to the rank of Rear-Admiral, Lt.Aurin to the rank of Commander, Lt.Kolme Nilas to the rank of Captain and field commander, Warrant Officer Scarlet to Lt.Commander, Ensign Hoki Bachika to 1st Lieutenant, Commanders Louise and Batty to the rank of Captain – With the mission to hold this weapon to the end – I will order the weapon begin being made ready for demolition right now and that all remaining IAFS ships come under my command as the newly reformed Tristain Absolute Defence Fleet – What say you all?
Will you stand by me? I have never asked for promotion, that is true, but the admiral trusted me with your lives and I will not run away from that – So will you now pledge your loyalty to me?"
----
One by one the replies came, each captain in turn giving curt responses, some even going as far as “It would be an honour, Admiral Novel”. Finally Nate's eyes came to rest on those of Kolme Nilas, the old man looked more ragged than ever, his skin ghostly at the site they had all witnessed – Nonetheless;
“You've had our backs before Rear-Admiral-Sir, all us pilots have yours now.”
Nate nodded, “Thank you Captain Nilas.”
And so it came to pass – In the space of one hour the most brutal and violent battle of the TSU-s – IAFS conflict began to unfold. In that single hour all was changed, before long it was indeed confirmed, what was though to have be the TSU-s fleet was a rouse – Containing only around 5 real warships, the rest had been old heavy duty freighters, painted and fitted with the equipment needed to look and be detected as warships from a far - An expensive but a highly convincing ploy.
Before long the real TSU-s fleet, still nearly 100 ships strong, revealed itself coming in from the South.
Soon five long hours of the now barely 50 remaining IAFS ships firing out at the invaders began – And after that all hell truly broke loose as mechs from both sides came into range of one another – Soon the longest and most bloody day of all those who lived to survive it – Began.