Con-Red: Recourse (55 page)

It was at this same moment that the uplinks on Shadow Two activated and started to feed raw data direct
ly to Athenia.  These sophisticated systems picked up the pair of previously tracker marked ships almost immediately and were further confirmed by the trace amounts of gravitons flowing from their locations.  They slowly moved in space between the system’s first and second planetary bodies, possibly on patrol, and were quickly analyzed.  Working as a synchronized unit the three drones concentrated on one of the ships at a time.  Each one scanned every centimeter of both oval looking vessels from different vantage points.  These three views would later be complied into one completely detailed three dimensional image by the computers inside the Athenia BOD. 

Both ships were of the same design.  Each
was four hundred and fifty meter long and two hundred twenty meters wide at the widest point.  Rounded blister-like projections covered the hull and seemed to be spaced mostly symmetrically throughout the midnight black hull.  It was also noticeable that the bow of each vessel contained a trio of pointed, pincer like projections.

Further scans of the system revealed n
o other ships within the vicinity. It was hypothesized that the particles these alien ships gave off were only present during each ship’s movement, so it was always possible that they were simply holding positions. This had been anticipated and so drones simply adjusted their tactics.  Because of the enemy’s stealthy designs detection with conventional sensor arrays was all but impossible.  Even so they were physically present, thought, and therefore couldn’t hide completely.  With the two known ships as guidance the Phantoms began to meticulously search the space surrounding them for any anomalies.  It was not long before these anomalies within the known starfield were detected and focused on. 

Once detected each drone automatically switched on its spectrographic array
and began to further investigate the findings.  In total six anomalies were detected by the sophisticated sensor as it analyzed the entire color spectrum within the given grid.  They appeared to be ships of three different classes and sizes, ranging from two hundred eighty meters to six hundred meters in length.  Each was of an organic design like their two tracker marked counterparts.  There was a pair of infinity shaped frigate sized craft as well as two large vessels with concave ventral surfaces and wave like dorsal hulls.  The largest of these ships appeared to have curved scoop like projections on both the top and bottom of its oval shaped body.

After a quick preliminary scan of these ships the Phantoms silently continued to move towards them
in order to obtain a more detailed examination.  The scatter fields that encompassed each one were designed to intercept the particles of thrust being ejected behind the small drones and redirect them in hundreds of different directions so as to completely disperse them.  These low powered fields made the drones almost impossible to locate based on their propulsion systems, unlike other ships in the Federation’s fleet.  These fields also dissipated any energy signatures being given off by the craft’s internal systems.  Because this advanced design they were incredibly difficult to locate by most known sensors. 

None of the Phantom’s designers at Caelum Defense Technologies nor the Federation Naval operations monitoring the progress knew the exact capabilities of the alien detection systems.  As such they had no idea as to how successful the recon mission would be. 
It was a small miracle to everyone involved that the drones had not yet been destroyed.  Tirelessly and fearlessly the three automated craft continued towards their objections.  One at a time they began to scan and document every feature of the enemy ships just as they had moments before with the marked vessels.

Just after they had finished scanning
the second of the six stealthy enemy ships one of them disappeared in a sudden burst of graviton radiation.  It quickly reappeared back in reality directly in front of Shadow Two.  It was then that without warning the entire sublink video feed dissipated into static from each of the three Phantom drones.

“We lost them sir.  No more signals detected,” said the Intelligence Officer that had suddenly appeared inside the room, “subcom relay is still active though.”

“Did we get anything useful?” the admiral inquired as he turned away from the outer sectors map now being projected within the center of the office and moved to sit back down at his desk.

“Yes sir, I believe we did.  These scans along with the data recovered from the
Federation
should allow us to extrapolate some sort of preliminary defense and tactics against the enemy.” The officer paused for a second and looked down at a display inside his palm, “we know these ships are difficult to locate, but I seems we found a way to detect them.  The engineers can possibly modify some of the automated sensors to exact spectrums given off by those vessels.”

“Have you devised any counters to the enemy tactics used at Frontiera?” Xwai asked while rubbing his temples with his fingers, the headaches were coming back in force.

“There have been some proposed by the Tank, but they are only based in theory at the moment.”

“Well tell them to get whatever they have finalized and ready for transmission.  It seems like we will get a chance to test their theories soon enough.”

“Rahias?”             

The admiral nodded slowly and looked back at the large holographic map, “what do we have in the region?”

It took only seconds for that information to update on the display as the other man punched various commands into his wrist computer, “Admiral Singh and the
Regal
CBG would be the largest force we have in the vicinity.  They can be at Rahias within twenty-four.  TF One Seven Seven, Akula, is on patrol inside Ursa.  She’s smaller, but only eight hours away.  The closest forces would be the Pisces fleet.  It’s small, but we can probably redeploy a few task groups to reinforce Rahias.”

He let out a long breath and stared at the floating display for a long minute before issuing the order, “do it.  Make sure to transmit the recorded footage and any devised suggestions as well.  We’re going to need all the help we can get.  Also issue alerts to the surrounding sectors, just in case we read this wrong.”

“I’ll get right one it sir,” the officer replied before turning quickly to walk out of the room.

Admiral Lin
n sank back into his plush chair at that moment.  He felt completely drained.  Every command he issued felt like a fight inside of himself.  It was beyond his explanation as to why everything involving the defense of the United Planet Federation had become so hard for him to think about.  Quick flashes of death and defeat erupted in his mind, causing him to second guess each and every order.  He felt as if he was sending all of his men into the arms of death.  His skin crawled at those thoughts and sweat drenched his uniform.

“
Admiral Linn, I have the Premier on comms for you.”

And with that the day continued for the weary Commander of Armed Services.

“Daadddyyy…when are you coming home?”
Chloe, his precious angel of a daughter whined and frowned at him as they talked to each other through the secure sublink, “you’re not going to miss my birthday are you?”

“You know I always try to make your birthday baby,” Styker Telwin said with a smile and reach over to stroke the holographic cheek of his daughter thousands of light-years away.  The image was surrounded in a
haptic field, which allowed him to in at least some way feed her against his skin.

“Okay daddy, if you promise,” she paused and sniffled a little, “I miss you lots.”

Tears threatened to erupt from his eyes at that moment, but he held himself back, trying to stay strong for his child, “I miss you too Chlo.  I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“
Daddy is helping to keep people safe from the bad guys, just like the security forces baby,” the off screen voice of his wife added.

“I know mommy, but why don’t they wait until after my birthday to be bad.”

That last comment made Styker chuckle and shake his head, “I completely agree.  They are so mean, aren’t they honey.  That’s why I’m going to take care of them for you.”

She tilted her head to the side for a moment and actually contemplated what he said before actually acknowledging it, “okay, thank you daddy…I love you.”

His heart sank again for a second almost skipping a beat, “I love you too precious.  I’ll bring you back something nice.  Tell your bother to behave!”

He shouted after her playfully making her finally smile and nod.  She blew him a quick kiss just as his beautiful wife stepped into the picture.  Smiling she shooed the little girl away, telling her go play before looking back towards Styker.  For a moment there was silence as she waited for their daughter to move out of range.

“Got hung up again, huh? You’re not going to miss her birthday, are you?”

“
Marie you know I’ll try my best.  I can’t just leave my job whenever I want,” he replied, trying to no sound defensive, but failing.

“Yeah, I know…I’m just saying.  It’s hard on her,” she added while rubbing her pregnant belly.

“It’s not easy for me either.  Whenever this is over, I’ll come straight home.”

“Is there something I should know Sty?”

That question along caused his heart to jump and flutter.  Styker’s guilty conscience tried to anticipate what she meant.  “What do you mean Marie?”

“There are just rumors floating around some of the news stations about something happening in the outer sectors.  They are saying other fleets are being mobilized for a conflict of some kind.  People are saying the Entechs are resurging…” she trailed off and looked away.

“There’s nothing you should worry about hun, I promise.  Rumors are usually just that.  The news agencies just want ratings,” Styker let out a smile trying to comfort his wife, “they just want us out here for a little while longer to look after the trade routes and help the other forces with exercises.  It’s just routine happenings, nothing serious.”

Miranda let out a sigh and looked up to meet Styker’s eyes, “I guess you’re right.  I’m sorry.  I have just been having this really bad feeling lately and I’ve never experienced it before.  Maybe it’s just the pregnancy.”

“It’s alright, really.  I’m sure it’s the stress of the whole situation.  Try not to worry, it’s not good for the baby,” he smiled again and added while looking back at her.

“I’ll try to not think about.  You just keep safe, ok?  Come back soon, we love and miss you,” Styker’s wife said.

At the last part he caught her eyes darting away from his, causing his breath to quicken, “I love you guys too.  I’ll be home as soon as I’m able.”

With that the feed ceased and the projector turned off.  The light had barely faded when Styker felt a pair of soft hands wrap around his body from behind.  At the same time a full
set of lips touched his bare neck, causing him to shiver throughout.  He hated himself for taking pleasure in this and not having the fortitude to pull away.  All thoughts of resistance faded from his mind once he felt the hands move across his chest and start to undo his uniform.  Styker turned his head and smiled into the eyes of his lover, Commander Tiari Okawa, touching his lips to hers after a long second of studying her soft oriental features.

Half exposed they quickly fall on the bed in each other’s arms under the yellow sun rays shining through the room’s viewport.  Not a minute later, however, they were interrupted by whistle sound coming through intercom.

“Attention, attention, all senior staff report to Assembly One,” called out the voice of the carrier’s XO Captain Vishta Vokarum.

“Well that’s horrible timing,” Tiari burst out into laughter and groaned as she pulled away from on top of Styker.

“We’re getting underway,” Styker commented in an instantly professional voice while pulling himself together.  He looked over out of the viewport and watched the planet that used to rotate below them started to recede.  The large carrier began to rotate as well, putting the world into a different plane.

Commander Telwin stepped through the invisible acoustic field and was instantly bombarded by the intensive noise coming from all around the immense hanger deck. Since their departure from Demolon the whole ship had flared to life with activity.  The hanger had become the forefront in the
Regal’s
preparation for battle.  It was like an angry hive in nonstop motion of both men and equipment.  All around him various technicians and engineers of the different squadrons moved from one naval craft to another.

Each Dragonefire, Cyclone, and Valkyrie
squadron aboard the carrier had its own maintenance crew and leading each of them was a crew chief.  Styker watched a number of these chiefs shouting at their personal teams, directing them as they took care of their designated squadron.  Among these men and women servicing the individual craft were a number of engineering robots.  Some were helping to replace components deemed unworthy as others loaded ordinance into each ship’s launcher magazines.  This maze of activity didn’t just end on the hanger deck either.  Above them all a conveyor like system of cranes moved different fighters and bombers from storage bays overhead.  All in all over eighty craft of different classes crowded the large hanger.  Each one getting prepped for a worst case scenario.

Finding out the news about Task Force
Federation
had come as a small shock and left everyone in the briefing room speechless.  They had all converged on the meeting room full of laughter and bravado, but that all slowly faded when they realized that the man leading the briefing was not one of their own.  The man turned out to be part of military intelligence.  He barely said a few sentences before turning out of the room’s lights and playing the footage recorded by the
Federation
during her brief engagement.  The serious nature of the officer gave everyone pause.  From that moment each and every senior rank aboard the
Regal
grasped the gravity of the situation.  Not one person had gone to bed the night before thinking that when they woke up the following morning they would be thrown into a state of war.

Watching the recording of the engagement at Frontiera had caused Styker’s heart to sink.  He knew he wasn’t alone in wanting to be present at that battle so that he could offer any assistance possible. 
His mind had absorbed the entire scene unfolding in front of him and in the end he was left somewhat dispirited.  The ease with which the alien enemy had cut through the Naval Task Force had been shocking, but what had really caught Styker off guard was the confused and erratic behavior observed by the ships crews.  An enemy that could get into the opponent’s head and control their actions brought with it highly distressful thoughts.

Styker remembered the pin-drop silence in the room when the projector was finally switched off.  The Military Intelligence officer had let everything sink in for a moment before beginning
to lecture on what had actually been learned from all of the death and carnage. 

“As you could all tell from the recording our enemy’s threat is not to be taken lightly,” he had said coldly, as if staring everybody in the room down, “their tactics are highly sound and appear to be geared towards the Federation direction.  Our analysts believe that they had been studying us for some time, so in that regard we are already at a disadvantage.”

At that moment various ships and fighters had begun to appear at the head of the briefing room, “the enemy also has superior stealth and certain shield advantages that we will go over.  You have already witness some of their firepower from the data collected about the main gun.  We have brought with us as much simulation data as possible and it is being loaded into the
Regal
’s RAI core.  I suggest all of your pilots get as much sim time as possible to acclimate to the different tactics used by the enemy.”

The next hour or so had been spent on going over the various known ships.  It was then that everyone realized just how painfully little the MIS actually knew about the alien capabilities.  All of it had mostly been compiled from capital ship recordings or flight data footage transmitted by Federation fighters during a number of dogfights.  It was of course better than nothing, but Styker would have liked to have some more concrete technical data. 
He had learned long ago that wishes never actually got the job done, so he took in whatever the speaking officer had to offer.  One critical piece of information that gave Styker some hope was that MIS thought they had actually uncovered the way these aliens altered the minds of the Federation Naval crewmembers and had devised a way of possibly beating it.  It was only the use of the words ‘thought’ and ‘possibly’ that caused him some pause.  Using his SWiC, Shipwide Communicator quickly reserved simulator time for him and his squadron.

During the briefing the
Regal
Carrier Group had dropped into subspace for its day long journey making the ship’s simbanks the only way for pilots to conduct training missions.  Styker was glad he had booked the time in advance because there was an immediate rush on these prized simulators the moment the briefing ended.  His entire squadron had met him moments later and together they spent the next four hours flying countless missions against ships and fighters they had never encountered before.  The simulator’s computer systems were actually able to somewhat mimic the perceived effects of the enemy mind altering attack during any given simulation by distorting the visual projection.  This distortion made the engagements confusing and disorienting.  It was something completely new to Knight Squadron and greatly increased the difficulty of conducting missions.

As he continued to walk towards Knight Squadron’s designated area at the other end of the hanger bay his own defeat during a number of the last simulations replayed in his head. 
He had lost simulated engagements before, but had never been beaten so handedly.  In fact almost all of the Knights had perished in the first simulation they had run with the distortion algorithm active.  It was difficult to accept at first, but as they began to experience the effects with greater frequency it became easier to fight them.  The main problem was the level of exertion needed on each pilot’s part to try and overcome the confusion.  Every minute of combat was made to feel like an hour, but in the end they knew it was possible to fight through.

It seemed that perhaps naval engineers had found a way to repress these effects of th
e unknown alien mind weapon.  A group of these engineers had accompanied the Intelligence personnel and had begun instructing the
Regal
’s hanger crews on how to implement the needed upgrades.  These modifications were now being completed throughout the whole hanger bay.  Every fighter, interceptor, and bomber stationed on the carrier was getting worked on in sequence under the direct supervision of these new technical experts. 

He watched his chief engineer of many years emerge from his own Dragonfire’s underside and stretch a little. 
Surrounding her and the fighter were the other nine craft that made up Knight Squadron.  They were all getting worked on as well by their own teams.  The rest of his squadron mates were there as well, completely final inspections.

She noticed
the commander and quickly brushed her short blonde hair back into a ponytail with her hands.  With an ever present smile on her face young face she strode forward to greet him.  She was dressed, as always, in her gray hanger uniform with yellow indicator bands running down her sides and chest.  The yellow was the color of an engineer and the three slanted red strips that ran across her yellow chest band designated her crew chief status. 

“How are we doing Chief Orellia?” Styker spoke up first as he looked into Chief Stacy Orellia’s brown eyes.

“She’s all washed up and ready to go sir,” Stacy forced a grin and tried to answer back in her usual reply, “we just finished reprogramming the ESA.  I have to tell you sir those engi boys don’t have much of a sense of humor.”