Mission's Edge

by Max Jager

  "I think it would be a good idea to have something to show for the extra time we seem to have been given and actually have something to present the squadron with. Well, it's almost more of a task force." Aaron sighed. "All right, let's get down to the nuts and bolts of this whole thing. Coren I want you..."

  Chapter 8

  Chapter EightIn the dark of the depths of space, 12 blades slid silently through the darkness, lit only by the light of a distant star. Grouped tightly around the two largest, they moved in a choreographed dance of manoeuvres driving first one way and then another. Suddenly, a violent burst of coherent light lanced out from the side of one of the smallest of them, and with an almighty heave, a barely visible asteroid was cleaved in two. At some unseen signal, they all leapt forward pulling in even tighter, diving and weaving through a storm of invisible incoming fire, desperately interposing themselves between the unseen enemy and their imaginary charges. The dance continued for about an hour, with three of the smallest vessels and two of the medium ones breaking away, destroyed as far as the war game was concerned. When at last the exercise came to a halt, they reformed, well clear of the asteroid belt which had provided them with real targets to fire at.

  "Jon, give me squadron wide." Aaron's voice was quiet.

  "Aye, sir." Jonas Barden responded, knowing what was coming. "You have a live mic, sir."

  "Well Ladies and Gentlemen of Task Force 43 this is Captain Hawthrone of Mission, we are as ready as we will ever be. While we're not quite as up to speed as we should be, we have run out of time. We did as well as I would expect an average task force to do, but we, we are supposed to be the best of the best. Our orders are to ship out to Ephesus as soon as we have refuelled and resupplied." Aaron's voice was strong and sure as he spoke. "Along the way we will have more chances to work together in the simulators, but I'm afraid that will probably be close to our last live fire exercise before we are thrust into the real thing. We will move to the rendezvous at 560 gravities, and from there to the hyper limit. Hawthrone, clear."

  "Kim, do you have a course for me?" Aaron asked, turning to the Astrogator.

  "I have a course ready, aye sir." Kim responded with a smile.

  "Forward it to the task force, and pass the heading to the helm, if you please."

  "Aye, sir." Kim pressed a button which would send the course to the other astrogators in the task force. "Helm, come to..."

  –

  Aaron sat in his ready room, going one more time over the intelligence appreciations from Ephesus and the surrounding star systems. In the two weeks it had eventually taken to work up Forthright and the rest of the squadron, word of two more disappearing convoys had reached Admiralty House. The Navy's losses had climbed to 5 light cruisers and 7 destroyers which had been shifted to convoy duty in the area, but the Navy's losses were nothing compared to the amount of merchant shipping which had been lost in the region. It was becoming a real problem area. While still technically on the periphery Ephesus was the hub of the region, giving access to about 15 other star system through the wormhole terminus in the system. Over the centuries, interstellar travel had grown quicker, and safer as ever faster Cherenkov drives were developed. Despite the travel time across the Empire decreasing from 6 months to only 4, it was still a considerable distance. In practical terms, however, crossing the Empire was much quicker through the use of wormholes, the curious and as yet unexplained folds in space which allowed nearly instantaneous passage across vast volumes of space. The wormholes were an un-patterned network, with two different phenomena. A terminus was a place where access to only one of these bridges existed. A nexus, where all termini led to, was the other end of multiple termini. While New Sol itself was not home to either a terminus or a nexus, the next system over, Genoa, was home to one of the largest nexuses in the known universe. It had no fewer than nine termini, one of which was deep in the heart of Orindian space. For this reason, it was also one of the most heavily fortified systems in the Empire. More importantly to Aaron and his companions, however, was that one of the Termini ended within a week's sail of another nexus which was the bridge to Ephesus. The journey, which using straight FTL travel would have taken nearly 2 months, would only be a total of two weeks. The Empire was one of the most heavily wormholed areas in space, which, without a shadow of doubt, had been a major contributor to its ability to control its massive volume and rapid expansion.

  The journey would provide time to work out some of the necessary wrinkles in the fledgeling task force's make up. Already Aaron could see the captains breaking into the informal cliques which almost automatically formed in any group of this size. He had done his best to mitigate the damage done by their formation, but in some respects it was impossible. People, even professional officers tended to form friendships and build biases. Still, his command team was much more unified, save for Coren and Beth, than some he had worked with in the past.

  The door chime sounded, and after Aaron keyed the acceptance key, opened to allow Ensign Harmon to enter the ready room.

  "Commander Chant's compliments sir, we have reached the Genoa Wormhole Nexus." Ensign Harmon's voice wavered slightly in the presence of such an august personage. Aaron had done his best to alleviate the weight of the Ensign's hero worship, but had been largely unsuccessful. "He asks if you would like to make transit yourself, or if you would like him to oversee the procedure."

  "I'll observe him oversee the procedure. I'll just come back with you." Aaron rose and followed the ensign back out onto the bridge. Coren began to rise from the command chair in order to surrender it to his CO. "Stay where you are Coren, you're going run this. I'm just here to observe."

  "Aye, sir. Sparky, make a note in the log of the Skipper's observer status on this transit. Give me ship wide, please." Coren smiled as he spoke. Usually, the Captain or XO handled command of a transit. Aaron letting him command this transit, even under observation, was an implicit signal of approval and a gesture showing Aaron thought he was command material.

  "You have ship wide, sir." Sparky's crisp response came less than a second after Coren had finished speaking. Aaron quietly slipped into the ATO's seat at Tactical and buckled himself in.

  "Mission, this is the TO, man transit stations and buckle in. Our place in the queue is 37th, so you have a little while. Chant out. Helm, notify me when we reach tenth in the transit queue." Turning to Aaron, Coren gave him an impish smile. "How am I doing so far Skipper?"

  "Pretty well Commander, though your delivery could use some work. You need to project more into the mic." Aaron's response held more than just a hint of amusement, and some of the officers and ratings on the bridge had to hold in snorts of laughter. "Also, you need more authority in your voice when you speak. Something a little more like this:" Here Aaron paused and then put on a highly over acted pompous attitude. "Coms, give me ship wide communications exactly 38 seconds ago. It should be the third switch on the left on your console."

  Suddenly Aaron cut himself off as the access hatch of the bridge opened to admit Beth. She took in the room with a sweep of her sharp green eyes, making note of the fact that Aaron, while present, was not in command. The voice of the duty officer rang out, "XO on deck." She crossed the space to where Aaron sat and smiled at him.

  "I see we've decided to allow Coren to make transit." Her voice was slightly mocking, as though she didn't actually think him capable.

  "I'm sure he will do an admirable job." Aaron's response was laced with a warning tone. Despite his best efforts, there remained an antipathy between Coren and Beth that nothing seemed able to breach, despite common ground.

  Turning to Coren, Beth addressed him directly. "Are you sure you know where everything goes?"

  "I have some vague idea. I've been through a few of these before." Coren' tone was carefully modulated, allowing nothing of what he felt to show.

  Beth moved across the bridge and settled into a chair at Aaron's elbow. She handed him the folio she had been carrying and began to speak in a l
ow tone. "Emily found some irregularities in power usage on one of the lower decks. Nothing to worry about in terms of operations, but odd enough to draw attention. She checked the measuring devices to ensure they weren't providing her with false readings. They weren't. Something is drawing more power down there than it should, but only does so intermittently. It's not enough for it to be a long distance transmitter, or even a drug lab. Our first thought was some sort of unauthorized entertainment equipment or something but matching the power requirements to the size of the thing would make it damned difficult to hide. We've involved Major Farshaw, but so far we have no real leads. Emily is also in the process of checking all the equipment down there to ensure that it's all in proper working order. It's mostly secondary water purification units and the like. What you are holding are our preliminary findings."

  Aaron examined the documents for a moment. "Could it be a still? On my first deployment there was an enterprising Petty Officer Second Class who camouflaged a still as an environmental maintenance plant. It was an impressive bit of work. What eventually gave him away was that some enviro tech noticed it wasn't hooked up and installed it properly. This led to the entire ship reeking of whisky for a week. He was smart enough to have a built in generator, so there was no power draw."

  "It could be. Our check of all of the equipment down there should reveal it if it is. I'm not opposed to the crew having drinks, but they really should do it the regulation way, in the mess." Beth smiled at Aaron they spoke. "It's more likely there is a faulty component down there that just needs to be sorted out."

  As they had been talking, the transit queue number had steadily been dropping. As they finished the number dropped to 4. They looked up as Coren' voice rang out over the ship wide com. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are manoeuvring into the pocket. Prepare for transit."

  The number dropped to 3, and the 12 ships of the task force slid forward into the pocket of space just in front of the mouth of the wormhole. "Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for transit in five, four, three, two, one. Transit!"

  For a split second space and reality seemed to bend beyond all recognition and then, without warning, everything normalised, except that all of the navigation and tactical readouts were completely different, showing not a heavily fortified core system with shoals of warships, but a modestly prosperous system in the middle of the empire, guarded by a heavy taskforce.

  "Tranist successful. Set condition Normal." Coren spoke in a clear voice as all stations began to report in ready.

  The communications panel beeped and the comms officer spoke into the silence. "We are being queried by the defence force, responding with standard acknowledgement and transponders. Captain Hawthrone? The station commander is hailing us and would like to speak to you, sir."

  "I'll take it here, Sparky." Turning to the comm screen on his panel, He put on his best commanding officer smile. The florid face which greeted him on the screen belonged to Commodore Andrea Garcia, an officer with whom he had clashed in the past. Though a thoroughly professional woman under most circumstances, she found it difficult to get past the fact that Aaron's father's cut-throat business practices had set her father back about ten years in the build up of his business. Aaron had been stronger in his attempts to distance himself from the situation than was advisable earlier in his career and had earned her ire for what she thought was disingenuousness. "Commodore Garcia, a pleasure to see you as always."

  "Captain Eagles Reach, welcome to the Erebus system. There is a convoy headed out your way. It's senior officer requested that I ask you to provide an escort to the Ephesus system. I told him it wouldn't be a problem. You will rendezvous with the convoy at point Able on your way out and proceed to provide them with close coverage for the duration of the journey. We're sending you the appropriate downloads now." Her smile managed to cover most of the maliciousness in her eyes. She knew full well that escorting a convoy of merchantmen would add at least a week to his transit and that it would frustrate him to no end.

  "Commodore, while I would love to oblige I have been ordered to make my way to Ephesus at my best speed. Surely you could carve a couple of light cruisers from your own deployment to provide them with the necessary coverage. The raiding has not yet reached so deep into the Empire as to make the passage from Erebus to New Amsterdam dangerous enough to require a full light task force for coverage." Aaron's smile was wintry as he spoke.

  "Captain, if I carved off a couple of light cruisers for every convoy that requested escort, I would soon find myself without any screening elements at all. You are headed in the right direction and it will only add a minimal delay to your passage." The delay was anything but minimal, but disagreeing with a superior officer to her face was a good way of committing career suicide, even if the request was unreasonable. "Besides, your deployment will require you to spend considerable time on convoy escort duty. It is well worth taking the time to practice such difficult tasks when the stakes are low. I am afraid that your request will not be possible and you will be guarding the convoy. I gave them my assurance you would do it personally. They seemed warmed by the idea of having a war hero guard them. Enjoy your transit, Erebus station, out."

  Aaron sighed and turned to Coren. "Looks like We'll be playing nursemaid for a convoy of merchantmen. Fantastic. I'll be taking over now. I'll spread the bad news." He rose and walked over to the command chair, which Coren promptly surrendered to him. "Helm, lay in a course for point Able. We'd best go meet our new travelling partners. Sparky, tell the other ships' commanders that I would like to have them join me for dinner so that we can discuss this latest wrinkle. When you've done that, see if you can't raise the convoy's senior officer. I would like to have a word with them. Ensign Harmon, what can you tell me about this convoy."

  "It's made up of twelve ships, sir, all of the Empress class. They are carrying a mixed cargo, sir. Mostly finished goods and heavy machinery, but they do have some military equipment and supplies for the station at Ephesus, which is why they are receiving escort priority this far from the front. They max their acceleration at about 200 gravities which means they probably won't want to exceed 150 if they can help it. Their top speed is a little more promising, as their designed for long, fast hauls but they still run out of grunt at 17C. They also make pretty big targets. They're at least 30 times our size. We're in for a long, painful slog, sir." He sounded despondent, as though he had really wanted to see just how fast their task force could make the transit to New Amsterdam.

  "Cheer up Jake," Aaron said, throwing him a grin. "Just because their slow, doesn't mean we can't make use of the time. And the promise of an escort doesn't mean we all have to go at that speed. We can send most of the task force on ahead. Unfortunately the Commodore has promised that we will be the one's personally conveying them, so we don't get off the hook."

  Just then Lieutenant Russell spoke. "Sir, I have the convoy's senior officer. A Captain Dimitri Markov. He's ex-Navy, sir. On the reserve list."

  "Thank you, Sparky. Send it over here." Aaron turned to the comm screen on his command chair and waited for a half second as the call was transferred. "Captain Markov, pleased to meet you. As I'm sure you've already been informed by Commodore Garcia, I'm Captain Aaron Hawthrone."

  "It is good to see you Captain. I wasn't relishing the idea of making the transit to Ephesus unguarded." Markov had the distinct burr of a working class man who had risen through the ranks which reinforced Aaron's decision to send Forthright on ahead. "I wasn't expecting to promised a hero such as yourself or such a heavy escort."

  "Unfortunately I can't afford to hold the whole task force to your maximum acceleration and speed. I will be sending the bulk of my force on ahead and keeping a smaller force with us to provide escorting services. I'm sure you understand." Aaron's smile was pleasant but his tone brooked no argument.

  "Like I said, sir, I'm happy for any escort at all. It does make me feel better to know that it will be you riding herd. If I'm allowed to ask, what class of ship are you
riding, sir. I don't remember it from my days on a man-of-war and I haven't seen any of them around since."

  "She is the prize cruiser command in the fleet Captain. The first of the Reprisal class Battle cruisers. As you can see, she answers to the name of Mission." Aaron proprietary smile broke through his professional demeanour. "We might have to have you aboard, old dog of war that you are, to show her off. If I may say so, I'm a little surprised you weren't recalled to active service, what with the war on."

  "Well, I left the service as a nothing more glorious than a Lieutenant (SG) and even accruing half time in grade, I'm still only a Lieutenant Commander. Too long in grade in the lower ones you understand. I'm a wonderful administrator, and a good spacer, but I'm no combat master. I know my limitations." Markov gave Aaron a rueful smile. "But as an old dog, as you say, I would love to have a look around your baby, or at least at the parts I'm clear for."