Con-Red: Recourse (45 page)

He reached over and activated a tactical map of the United Planets Federation
.  The large slowly spinning map flickered to life in the same place where the premier had stood moments ago.  It started out as a map of the entire Milky Way galaxy before a glowing yellow dot appeared in the Orion-Cygnus Arm between the Sagittarius and Perseus Arms of the spiral galaxy.  This dot and the yellow border surrounding it actually represented the Sol Sector and Earth within it which happened to be the seat of government for the whole Federation. 

As the map stabilized it began to zoom in towards the designated sector
and expanded it into the center of the holographic display.  Encircling the Sol Sector began to appear other sectors with each having a different color.  He eyed the one in blue directly attached to the border of Sol and knew it represented the Hydra Sector in which a single planet was now being displayed.  That planet was the frozen, lifeless planet of Athenia, the command headquarters of the whole of the Federation military.  Stretching out beneath the surface of this dead world was the sprawling complex of the Bureau of Defense.  It was deep inside this structure that the Admiral now sat and coordinated the deployment of the various fleets scattered throughout the UPF. 

Each of these fleets w
as shown on the map inside their respective sectors with small icons.  Other icon appeared as well, these ones were indicating different reports of pirate and terrorist activities, such as attacks, raids, and even just sightings.  In that moment the map updated itself within the Cetus Sector to show the newly reported Darma Horizon assault.  Looking around the edges of Federation control space he could see other regions controlled by different governments both friendly and unfriendly to the Federation.  Another Raid symbol appeared at a different sector, this one even further from Sol along almost the very edge of Federation space on this side of the galaxy.  This sector was called Scorpio and through it ran a long curved line that stretched all the way from Aquarius and a few other Inner sectors all the way to the Fringe Sector.  The Parlovski Trade Route, represented by this line, was one of the two main arteries through which goods flowed between the distant Fringe Sector and the rest of the Federation.  It was heavily utilized in the shipment of military supplies to systems without Gate access, which happened to be the majority within these far-flung regions.  Xwai knew all about this latest attack and had purposefully kept it from reaching other peoples ears.

Finally his eyes focused on the Fringe Sector
, which bordered Scorpio, where two planets were now highlighted in red to mark them as under attack by unknown forces.  Both planets also had Naval Task Force markings floating above them to represent the forces dispatched into those areas.  He had a feeling he would never hear from any of those ships again.  That would have bothered him considerably years ago had he not changed into the man he now was, but today he viewed their loss only as a means to an end.

A single ring called out to him while he studied the large map and demanded his attention.  “Holo coming through for you, sir.  A Mr. Skyler,” said his assistant through the office speakers
.

“Very well, transfer him to my terminal,”
Admiral Lin ordered after a momentary pause of contemplation.

When the transmission showed on his display he accepted it.  Xwai watched the large floating image of the Federation disappear quickly and get replaced with that of a ma
n in a goldish brown suit.  He was seated in a large, expensive looking, black chair with a beautiful view of a snowcapped mountain range behind him through a massive curved window.  Redic Skyler’s long, thick, shoulder length dark brown hair and youthful face masked his true age by decades.  Admiral Lin had known him for over fifty years now, ever since they had cooperated on the Odyssia operation together.  Back then Redic had been just a young up and coming power player within the United Planets Federation.  He had just taken over the leadership role within RedSky Enterprises from his recently deceased father, Redmond Skyler.

Everyone at that time had laughed at the
notion of the twenty something year old Redic taking over a corporation of such size and competing with the other already well-established larger companies.  Unlike most others, however, Admiral Lin, then only a Sector Commander, had felt something special in the man after a long conversation with him.  They had talked at great length all those years ago about forming a relationship together between the RedSky and the military.  Redic’s father had only started applying for military contacts, but Redic had greatly expanded that effort with new ideas and innovations.  With Xwai’s lobbying on his regard, the BoD had finally backed a series of contracts with RedSky Enterprises for both ships and ground instillation construction projects. One of these projects was the archeological habitat on Odyssia.  In the end the company was even allowed to take part in the exploration mission on the planet due to its extensive experience in surveying other planets throughout the galaxy.

Since then the company and the defense establishment had grown very close.  RedSky Enterprises had grown into one of the largest companies inside the Federation and now manufactured over fifty percent of the military’s hardware.  It has also expanded into many other civilian sectors over that period of time.  At that thought
Admiral Lin now gave a little smirk, remembering that only a few days ago Redic had brought the TransGalactic Corporation into its sphere of assets.  This ensured that the company would have an even more defined roll within the UPF, by effectively controlling the most widely used mechanism of travel between different systems and sectors.  There were a few other companies within the UPF that licensed part of TransGalactic’s patented tunnel drive technology, but they were quite small and made minimal market share.

“Redic, my friend, how may I help you?” Xwai finally said after the quick trip down memory lane, somewhat envying the other man’s youthful demeanor.

As usual Redic let out a big bright smile, “Xwai, it has been far too long.  How have you been?”

“
Yes it sure has.  It’s been a rather busy time for the BoD,” he admitted, allowing himself a moment of truth and weakness with his friend, “there has been a lot of hostile activity against the Federation recently and we are still playing catch up in order to find those responsible.  I am well, though, my friend, perhaps a bit tired.”

“I’m sorry to hear, friend.  I would be tired if I were in your position as well.  Loss of the Darma facility in Cetus is no small blow to the Federation,” Redic said and caused Xwai to perk up slightly
.  He fought the urge to deny the event, as it had not yet been revealed to the public.  The admiral gave his friend leniency because he was fully aware of Redic’s information network.  RedSky seemed to have an intelligence division of its own and appeared to always know the same information as the BoD.

“I also know there have been multiple attacks throughout the other sectors, both raids and anti-government attacks.  I’m sure the MIS and
FID will find those responsible and bring them to justice,” Redic continued after giving the admiral a little time to process the fact that he knew all about these attacks and the one on Chu-Tsao, “RedSky interests have also been attacked recently.  We managed to capture some of the criminals alive and have since turned them over to FID.  It seems to me like there is an abnormal amount of attacks within the past three weeks.  How does the situation look from your perspective?”

“The defense bureau has seen an increase as well.  At the moment we don’t have
a good explanation as to why there has been an increase in such activity.  There are a number of leads that we are following up on, perhaps they will yield something soon.  I hope the raids on your company were not too damaging.”

Redic smiled a little and nodded in acceptance of Xwai’s concern, “they were not very effective, but thank you for your concern.  We were very
fortunate in only suffered some injured crew members.  It could have been much worse.

“The real reason I contacted you is to find out what’s going on within the Fringe Sector. 
I know there is something amiss going on at Frontiera and Kapricara and would like to hear if you know anything about it.  You should know that we also lost contact with one of our smaller mining and production facilities on Bremagard yesterday.  I have rerouted one of our ships to the system to investigate, but if you have any assets in the area, I would greatly appreciate any aid you can offer.”

Xwai paused at this new information, wondering instantly if the infiltration could be spreading into other systems.  “I’m sorry to hear about your colony.  I will have to check about any resources I have in the area.  If we have ships nearby I will dispatch whatever I can to locate your people.  As for the other worlds, they should be back in contact with the rest of the Federation soon. 
We had some hostile actions against our relay nods around those systems and both suffered a series of terrorist attacks that knocked them offline.  The radiation storm within Frontiera is not helping either, but should subside soon.”

“That’s what the press is saying my friend, though, we both know that is not the case,” the other man remarked and leaned forward in his chair, his face now more serious, “
I would like the truth as you know it.  You owe me that much Xwai, after all these years.  I only wish to know what is happening to my employees, everything you tell me stays between us.  You know I’d never betray your confidence.”

“Alright Redic,” he breathed out and rubbed his somewhat dry eyes, knowing the man would never stop in his quest to find the
answers, “you did hear this from me, but in truth we have no idea what is happening on those planets.  We simply lost contact with them suddenly.  There were no distress calls or anything.  I have dispatched fleets to investigate, however.  Once I hear anything more, I will let you know.  How does that sound?”

“I see,” Redic slowly sighed and leaned back into his chair in thought for a moment, “do you think we
could be in a state of war and under invasion?”

“We can’t rule it out, but it is a bit premature to go down that path.  If we are,
I think we will be ready to handle the threat.  The premier just authorized us to active some of our reserve ships, so they would be able to help in the effort should they be necessary.  I’m it is nothing that serious, though.”

“You don’t think it could be…Them, do you Xwai?” Redic said softly, with regret hidden in his voice, “after what we did I wouldn’t blame them.”

“Of course I don’t think it’s Them.  After all this time? Why now?” the admiral almost shouted back in defiance, “we did nothing wrong to them.  We were only exploring.  They can’t hold us accountable for being curious about them when we thought none of them survived.  For all we know They are no more.  We have no evidence it was even them who attacked us fifty years ago.”

“I concede in that regard, but I still have my gut feelings on the matter.  Very well Xwai, please get back to me as soon as you know
anything.  I sincerely hope it is nothing,” Redic finally said and leaned over to turn off the feed, “be well old friend.”

“You as well, thank you.  I will keep you posted,” Xwai nodded before turning off the transmission
, growing mad at the situation for reasons unknown to him.  He resented the fact that Redic seems to know so much and was curious enough to poke his head into the matter.

“Michelle, no more incoming comms for the next five hours, unless urgent,” he commanded gruffly into the intercom at his assistant.

The admiral frowned and sat back in his chair, finally able to close his eyes.  He seemed to be getting more tired with each passing day and felt himself needing more down time than ever before to recover.  It barely took a few moments, though, before the intercom rang once again for him.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you sir, but you have a priority message coming through from Fringe SECCOM.  Message reads:
Federation
TF emergency beacon identified outside Fronteria, dispatching closest NER units to location.”

“Drop out in Three…Two…One!” called out the helmswoman at her station at the front of the small bridge.

Sitting just slightly behind her and the entire row of five forward command stations was Commander Jacques Durand the captain of the FNV
Rostov
and leader of her onboard Emergency Response and Assistance Team.  Jacques looked forward as the large synthetic viewport at the very front of the bridge and watched the transdimentional tunnel surrounding the corvette type vessel suddenly recede to give way to darkness and twinkling stars.  The entire ship seemed to be tossed up into realspace like a ball thrown into the air.  Without even having to see it, he knew that the portal that had transported them into the system closed quickly beneath them as soon as they completed their emergence.

“Sensor’s readjusting and stabilizing,” informed one of the other stations a second later.

As the crew waited the precious seconds for the sensors to adjust to realspace conditions Jacques was reminded once again of how underprivileged the ERA had become in comparison with the rest of the military.  The service’s funding had decreased substantially over the past twenty years and even more so during the previous two administrations.  Its active personnel numbers were greatly reduced and over thirty percent of its vessels had been retired.  This left the ERA with a smaller sized force covering the same areas of responsibility, meaning that each available ship was now busier than ever.  Down times had become less frequent and the older vessels they used went even longer between scheduled maintenance calls.  Jacques remembered times when they didn’t have enough ships to respond to multiple distress calls at the same time because some of their limited fleet was disabled due to engineering problems.

While the rest of the navy was decreasing their numbers as well, they were also being provided with funding to construct new ships or upgrade the ones they already had.  Such budgets were not made available to Emergency Response.  The
Rostov
herself was a hand-me-down ship with almost thirty two years of service that had been retired from the navy and transferred to ERA.  The only real upgrade to her was the installation of a ventral side hanger bay for her compliment of two shuttle craft, other than that overhaul her other systems remained unmodified from their original assembly dates.  There wasn’t even enough money to man the fleet with full crews.  The
Rostov
herself was functioning with just over a skeleton crew.  How the navy and government still expected them to do their jobs properly he would never understand, but he and his entire crew would continue to try their best.

“Searching for beacon,” the sensor station called out a few long seconds later
and Jacques saw a new symbol appear on the tactical sensor display, “secure signal captured sir,
Federation
transmission identified, plotting location.  Detecting single Federation class carrier and no other ships in system, designating her Foxbat One”

“Location received and
confirmed.  Setting course at three quarters?” replied the helm and the crewwomen there turned towards Commander Durand to confirm.

Jacques
nodded in acknowledgement and let them proceed with the routine procedure without his interference.  After almost a year with this crew he trusted them completely to do their jobs well and the work had become almost automatic for them.  He leaned over to one side, resting his elbow on the hand rest to his left and looked around the whole bridge slowly.  Every wall, except for the rear one, was covered from deck to ceiling in display panels that allowed him to see exactly what was happening outside the ship.  The bridge was buried deep inside the Odin corvette itself like it was on almost every other ship in the Federation Navy.  With no windows leading to the outside world they relied on an array of special imagers that feed the displays with a constant stream of information.  These electo-optical systems allowed the ship’s commander to have full control of what views he wanted to concentrate on and enhance, while at the same time staying protected in a bunker like environment.

For most people the situation might bring upon some claustrophobia, but everyone coming out of the naval academy was habituated to living within the windowless environment of the ship. 
It was also at the academy that Jacques decided on the ERA division of the Federal Navy as his career path.  He knew from the first battle simulation that he not cut out for the regular navy, but he liked the idea of helping stranded ships very much.  The Emergency Response and Assistance service allowed him to serve his government and help out regular citizens as well as his naval brethren when they were in distress.  ERA’s main mission was as priority responders to ship emergencies while they traveled throughout the Federation.  He liked the variety of his job, which allowed him to respond to a shipboard fire one day, a stranded ship the next, and maybe a pirate raid or two, or like today a distress beacon from a Federation naval vessel.  With the downsized force and aging ships, though, these missions were getting harder to accomplish at times.  They were only able to respond to a certain number of emergencies at any given moment.

“No response to our hails, sir.”

“She appears to be dead in space.  I’m only reading minimal energy output,” added sensors to the communication specialist’s comment.

“What do we have on lifesigns?” Jacques finally asked as the entire view around them began to shift when the ship tilted and turned to starboard to adjust its course for intercept.

He felt his body tilt with the ship, but just barely as the inertial compensators adjusted for the movement.  From the top right most corner of the viewport Jacques watched the system’s bright yellow K class star begin to appear and slowly moved until it took up almost the entirety of the forward viewport.  As the ship turned and accelerated the commander swore that he could hear the deck groan and creek around them all as the old vessel moved through space. 

“Nothing yet Commander, I think we are still a little too far out
for anything definite.”

“Yes, of course,” the commander sighed, cursing their old equipment again. 
An active duty Odin corvette would have already been able to detect readings at this distance, but then again those corvettes had gone through two or more modernization cycles.  The MKII or MKIII versions of the ship were all around better warships with enhanced shields, weapons, internal systems, and even power plants and engines.

It took almost a full minute for the
Rostov
to get within full sensor range of the disabled carrier and before the ensign was able to receive the relevant information. “No lifesigns detected Commander. I’m picking up a large number of naval locators, though.”

Jacques knew from experience that those readings meant that almost, if not everyone, was already dead on
board the vessel.  He looked ahead and watched the large ship grow in the forward display as the outside optics magnified its image while they approached it.  The closer they got the more she looked like an abandoned ghost ship, except for all of the personal locator beacons flashing inside of her.  On the outside she was completely blacked out with not a single one of her external signal lights active.  Without these lights on the
Federation’s
hull she was barely noticeable on visual inspection thanks to the blackness of space surrounding her.  What Jacques did notice as they got even closer, however, was that her formally well maintained hull was now missing pieces of itself.  He there was really only one explanation for the way that ship looked.

“Sir, I’m detecting multiple
signs of battle damage.  Hull breaches seen in over ten separate areas with many sections displaying unpressurized environments.  There is also extensive damage to the starboard side hanger, something really heavy went off inside of it seems like.  She’s been through a really serious mess sir,” the crewman echoed his thoughts accordingly.

“Getting a Friend-Foe challenge!
” exclaimed comms, “It’s the RAI.”

A response from the ship’s restricted artificial intelligence matrix was not a good sign and further confirmed the fact that there were no being
s left alive on the vessel.  “Send the authorization code,” Jacques ordered and leaned forward a little in his command chair.

“Code accepted sir.  It’s opening up the port side hanger for us.  Also receiving full damage report.”

The image of the
Federation
instantly enlarged on the tactical display and spun around to show all the damaged areas as the information was uploaded into the
Rostov’s
computers.  The breached areas were quickly visualized and the commander got a firsthand look at just how damaged the warship really was.  Her engines were shown to be inoperable as were most of the other ship systems.  Looking over her hull he could now see long black scars running all across her long body as well as from one side to the other.

“I’m detecting strange radiation readings from the ship’s hull, very high concentrations.  The computer d
oesn’t know what they are.  It’s identifying them only as exotic particles.  I suggest taking extreme precautions upon boarding.”  The sensor station warned as they got even closer to the floating carrier.

Commander Durand saw the ship now enlarging at a faster rate in front of them even without the help of the
Rostov’s
optical systems.  He knew it was time to get ready to board that ship and find out what really happened.  The navy was probably worried and wondering what had happened to one of their prized carriers. 

“Slow to a quarter and take us in close,” Ja
cques ordered and turned his chair around to the fast the rear of the bridge before getting up, “inform the team that I’m on the way.  Start boarding the shuttles.  Lieutenant Eisens you have the bridge.”

With that the commander walked through the rear door and into the gravlift that took him down into the corvette’s lower deck where the small hanger was located.

Finally walking through the darkened passageways of the
Federation,
Jacques felt as if they had stepped into a tomb instead of a once great ship of war.  The emergency lighting throughout the ship’s interior was patchy at best and left entire portions completely without illumination.  His helmet’s low light/night vision display allowed him to see everything rather clearly without the need for external lighting.  At the moment he was following and watching three of his soldiers search the deck ahead of him, all were highlighted in soft yellow-white lighting reflecting off the armored environmental suits they all wore.  Each member of his boarding team was actually new, only a month into their ERA rotation after graduating from the Marine Training Academy.  All graduating marines were sent to do various rotations with all the different naval services in order to get more experience and gain proficiency in doing multiple jobs.  They would come to ERA for three months in order to practice their skills at boarding ships and conducting shipboard rescue operations.   

The commander approached these men and leaned down to help them lift a metallic support beam that had detached from the ceiling and proceeded to pin one of the ship’s former crew members to the nearby bulkhead.  With their powered suits they were able to slide the heavy beam out of the way and inspect the body lying underneath it.  The man was clearly dead, but he was also the first one they had come across that had died of internal crush injuries instead of radiation burns like the others they had found.  What was curious, however, was that the man also had a pulse pistol in one of his hands and it seemed to be aimed down the passageway.  Jacques let his eyes follow the pistol’s aim point.  At first he saw nothing that really stood out within the corridor, but then all of the sudden he recognized the upper half of another body lying flat on the deck sticking out from a side room.  One of the soldiers noticed it as well and quickly jogged over to kneel beside it.

“She was shot, sir,” he called out a second later after turning the person over, “looks like pulse
blast wounds.”

It was just another in a long list of strange occurrences onboard the carrier
, starting with the fact that there were only a hundred and some crew members detected within the ship when it should have contained over six hundred.  As soon as his boarding team of fifteen had come aboard the ship they had discovered an almost completely empty port side hanger bay.  Since the carrier’s hanger actually stretched throughout the entire width of the ship they should have been able to see straight through to the other side of the ship and the system star hanging in space there.  Today that wasn’t the case, however, the whole starboard half of the large space was completely covered in debris.  To Jacques it was clear that some sort of huge explosion occurred there to demolish the entire space.

 
On the port side they noticed that each of the fighter and bomber racks lining its perimeter were vacant, indicating that all of its fighters had probably launched.  It was also evident that most if its shuttles and transports were absent as well.  With all of these craft missing there was more than enough room in the cavernous hanger for the two shuttles to land.  Considering the amount of damage the rest of the vessel seemed to have suffered this side of the hanger seemed to have been almost fully spared.