by Chris Hechtl
“We regret to inform you ... oh no ...” she put a hand to her mouth as her eyes welled with tears. “Mom. Dad,” she said in a strangled voice as the tears began to flow.
...*...*...*...*...
Anthony “Sparks” Spakitelli got the e-mail from the admiral as well as a request for a status update. He shook his head in shock as he read the e-mail reporting the loss of Kiev 221. He started to swear softly under his breath. First he lost his wife to the damn pirates, now this. Life wasn't fair. It sucked. He wanted to punch the screen, scream ...
“Is that who I think it is?” Roger Freeze asked, reading the header over his shoulder.
“Yeah. And we need to talk to the family,” Sparks said, clearing his throat. He looked up to his buddy. Freeze had been his best friend for decades. They had been through thick and thin. He was the reason Sparks had continued living after Ezri's brutal murder.
“Why?”
“Sit down. This is going to suck what I have to tell you ...”
...*...*...*...*...
April O'Neill, reporter extraordinaire shook her red mane out and then grinned coyly at herself in the mirror. Not bad for a woman barely thirty. Okay, she thought, sticking her tongue out wickedly and then tracing the tip around her red lips. Maybe thirty-eight, but with a hot body of a 16-year-old with double D breasts and a wicked mind. All thanks to the admiral.
She had used her body to get what she'd wanted from her boss. Knox had been hit from both sides and hadn't seen it coming. She'd played him and his wife against each other and her own interests. And here she was, director of the Antigua branch of Knox news, also the senior anchor, with thousands of credits stored away for her use. She was famous throughout the star system and even into the neighboring systems now that her broadcasts were being dropped off by passing ships.
Her first year in the system hadn't been all fun and games however. It had been hard work, she thought, practicing a pouty face. She had underestimated the task ahead of her. She'd forgotten the network of contacts and informants she'd painstakingly built in Pyrax. She'd had to start over from scratch once she'd stepped off the ship. But at least her reputation, once she'd let it be known, had worked in her favor. She grinned again.
She had arrived in Convoy 2B. It had been a better flight than Destiny she thought, shuddering ever so slightly. She vaguely remembered the pain and suffering she'd endured there. But her newly rebuilt body and implants had gone a long way to compensate for all that.
She'd been disappointed when she'd arrived and had not found the admiral waiting for her. Months had gone by and he hadn't shown up. She'd become a bit depressed about the situation, but resolutely held onto her goal. It had been hard, competition in the media field had been stiff at first. She'd gotten the permits and licensing easy, but had to start with what she had brought with her for news as a blog for the first several months until she'd picked up sponsors and regular advertisers like Chantel limited. Once she had a budget she'd been able to do limited new recordings and even hired a couple freelance video reporters. It had gone onward and upward from there. She'd even rebuilt her contacts in the community, political establishment, and law enforcement, though she'd had to feel her way out initially on the station. She hadn't had much to go on in the beginning and she was afraid she'd taken a misstep or two along the way. Hopefully no one noticed.
But she was here now, she thought, picking up a yellow sun dress to model against her chest. It wasn't quite the look she was after, it didn't have enough skin ... she frowned thoughtfully. If she left one of the shoulders loose, it might serve her purpose. And if she leaned in just right to the camera, she'd get the thrill she was after. She was sure of it.
“Ma'am, are you going to make that call before you're two o'clock? You have that meeting with the Chantel marketing department about their planned advertising campaign,” Lowel, her intern said from the doorway.
“Yes I know, just dithering I suppose,” she said. She strutted behind the paper screen set up in the corner of her office and quickly changed out of her conservative silk business suit and into the dress. She fidgeted with it a bit, pulling here and there to get it just right before she came out.
“How do I look?” She demanded. He leaned back into the room and then gave her a silent thumbs up. She snorted. “Why I bother to ask you I'll never know. You're the queer one,” she said shaking her head.
“No, I'm bi. Bobby's queer, Miza is straight,” he said with a grin in his voice.
She shot him a mock scolding look through the mirror. “Cute,” she said, modeling the dress. She ran her hands over her curves. No one could resist this. She had been looking forward to this moment for a long time now.
She brushed her hair with her long fingers, adjusted the outfit, and then checked herself in the full length mirror one more time to check for any issues or anything in her teeth as Lowel cleaned up after her. He slung the outfit over one arm as he tisked at her softly.
“Oh poo. Now scram, I've got an important call to make,” she said, making shooing motions with both hands.
“Yes ma'am,” he replied dutifully. “But don't forget your 2 o'clock,” he warned as he got to the door. He was already shutting it when she turned to order him to do so. She gave him a coy smile over her shoulder, purely for practice, then waited until she heard it latch.
She shook herself, then touched up her hair. “Nerves,” she muttered to herself as she sat down in the overstuffed chair. “Just nerves,” she reminded herself, priming her breasts and then pulling the hem down to just above her aureola. She put her hand down on the armrest, jacking in. It was the most secure way she knew. She applied an encryption key and then sent out an e-mail. She settled herself into the forums for a wait. She didn't have long. A reply came and she opened it. Her eyes scanned it briefly before she nodded to herself. Well, that was that. She'd find out more later.
She closed the link and then opened another, this one to the navy exchange. “Hello, my name is April O’Neill. I am an associate of Admiral Irons,” she said, smiling sweetly.
“Ma'am, I'm sorry but the admiral has a lot of people trying to talk to him right now,” the harassed rating said, shaking his head.
“Can I leave a message for him? It isn't urgent, but he did tell me to look him up. He and I have a bit of a history and well ...”
The rating's eyes widened. “Wait, you're that reporter lady right? April?”
She smiled again, this time with a bit of a gleam of triumph. “Ah, you recognized me!”
He nodded. “I'm sorry, ma'am. All reporters have to check through the public affairs department first,” he said. “I'll go ahead and put you through,” he said.
She opened her mouth to stop him but he had already dumped her out of the system and into a holding pattern for the public affairs flacks. “Fancy meeting you here,” a reporter for a groundside paper said in amusement.
“Oh shut up,” she sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought.
...*...*...*...*...
Sprite was amused and annoyed by Miss O'Neill's contact. She scanned it briefly, and was amused to see the woman had been through hell to get a hold of the admiral. Apparently the ratings were doing a good job playing Cerberus. She'd been beyond persistent to get this far she thought.
She was a distraction though, right now one the admiral and civilization could ill afford at that critical time the AI judged. She decided to delay letting him know about the vid mail. It was her job to screen his mail anyway, so it could wait. For now the news could wait in a buffer until he finished the initial steps in setting up in the system. He had ordered her to keep distractions at a minimum right? She tagged that order to the reporter's video mail in case she needed it in a hurry. She estimated an 84 percent likelihood that she would definitely need it, if only for her own defense when he found out what she'd done.
...*...*...*...*...
The Admiral reviewed the status of the Pyrax and Agnosta bases while thinking about his p
lan. A lot had to go off without a hitch if things were going to work out for them. He'd been worried about some of Horatio's decisions. Some had worked out better than others.
Robots and tugs had apparently already cleaned up the wreckage from the battle; the broken ships had been analyzed and then fed into the breakers for scavenging and recycling. A dwindling ball of wreckage was all that was left of them. That would be gone once Carnegie joined Remora's efforts in that regard. He wrote himself a note to go over Remora and possibly upgrade her. Or ... not, he thought. He had manufacturing equipment after all, once they were in place he wouldn’t' need the ship. After a moment of consideration he changed his plan to rebuilding the ship after he no longer needed her for the initial push with an eye to sending her out to Triang and other star systems to build up their infrastructure and defenses.
He'd been disturbed to find out that the two destroyed corvettes and the two captured corvettes had been Frankensteins, new built frames and hulls with a mix of civilian grade and military components to outfit them. That was something he'd feared for some time and the timing was ominous. They weren't as effective as a true military vessel but had come damn close, and they were older than the Apollo class corvettes he'd picked up in B100 omega.
He judged they were about as effective as 85 percent of the real thing which was really something to fear. If they were doing that with small ships there was no telling if they had done it with larger vessels. The thought didn't bode well for the future.
Apparently Horatio and Commander Woods had toyed with the idea of doing the same thing. He wasn't sure about the wisdom of it, for instance, where would they get the civilian parts needed? He was glad they hadn't done so. But the pirates had apparently massed quite a stockpile to do it themselves.
He shook his head and put that nasty thought aside. Six of the captured freighters had been sent to Pyrax to be used in the convoys. Three of the others had no functional hyperdrive or one judged to old and damaged to trust, they were being used to ferry goods and people around the system. The support ships that had been too heavily damaged or were considered too old, they had been stripped for parts and then mothballed. They floated, beacons attached to them in the small but growing navy yard. That was fine, he could rebuild them. Eventually, he thought.
Up until recently Horatio had left a rather green first lieutenant in charge of the system, Lieutenant Panski. She had done her best to handle the battered ships scattered about the system but hadn't had many trained people to work with initially. She had been swamped with volunteers however, far more than they needed. People were eager, and she'd ridden the euphoria and initial craze to join up with the military as much as she could before it had worn down with time. She had made the initial mistake of sending the best off on the first convoys as crew for the ships or as passengers. The dip in performance had shown in the reports Sprite had pulled for his reading. Then shipments of personnel, equipment, and other gear had started coming back from Pyrax on the convoys which had changed things. Not only did they have the trained personnel, but they also had parts to make repairs properly. A lot of the slapped together hasty repairs had to be pulled and rebuilt.
At first the lieutenant had been overwhelmed by the largesse. She had been in staff positions and had thought at first that she required meetings and micromanaging to get the star system in order. Apparently she'd learned quickly the benefits of delegation. The admiral shook his head. She'd been lucky. Several of the ensigns she'd received had been good, damn good with loads of initiative and a can do attitude. They hadn't let their crippled ships bother them, they'd just dug in and gotten their commands turned around to the best of their limited ability. He made a note to follow up on them later.
The senior lieutenant had found herself promoted to lieutenant commander and then she had been shipped back to Pyrax in Convoy 3a to take command of a new destroyer there. That had been a problem, she had made a lot of contacts with the leadership in the system. Her leaving made for a very big void and left her replacement at a big disadvantage initially.
The shuffling about had opened the command slot to a new lieutenant commander, one who Admiral Irons didn't recognize. Commander Woods was good on paper, but had apparently immediately complained about the lack of support from the Agnosta government, Antigua Prime, and Pyrax. Irons wasn't sure if it was whining or not. He was right in some ways, but he should have followed the lieutenant's example and rolled up his sleeves to get what he could done anyway.
Woods might be a problem, Irons mused as he checked his dossier file. The lieutenant commander had been a deputy yard manager in Pyrax while the admiral had been gone. He'd had a brief stint as an XO on one of the orbital fortresses in that star system before he'd taken the promotion and transfer to Antigua. The admiral had already made plans, and Woods might be in the way of them. If he was, he was going to get run over he thought. The officer's efficiency reports were barely above mediocre he noted. He needed someone with the skills yes, but also someone who was a hard charger. Someone who wasn't afraid to take chances. To roll up their sleeves and get in there to get the job done.
He pursed his lips and checked the commander's promotion. The date was there, and he frowned and then pulled up Sindri's dossier to compare. After a moment he nodded. “Good,” he murmured. Sindri had him by date of rank. Not by a lot, but by a couple of weeks. He could work with that. And if Woods had a problem, well, there were plenty of other postings to go around.
He returned his attention to the system overview Sprite was assembling. She was adding little bits of data to it periodically he noted. She wasn't entirely focused on it, she did have other duties. He frowned and then noted a bot adjusting a paragraph. Apparently she'd spun off a bot. Good for her, he thought in approval.
Apparently after he'd left there hadn't been much to see in Antigua, the only people who had really been do anything worthwhile had been the Yard Dogs. The stationers had been sullen and reluctant to do much at all after Admiral Irons had departed the system. They'd fallen into the funk that without keys there was little anyone could do and had been resigned to despair that their beloved station would slowly fall back into a derelict.
That was until the Yard Dogs had kicked things into gear. They had started competition with the stationers even before they'd gotten their first slip started, which hadn't set well with some on the station's governing board. There had apparently been a bit of foot dragging and a lot of shenanigans to prevent their launch despite the Warners and apparently Hishina Yan being on the Yard Dog's board. Their fresh blood, their willingness to dig in and make things happen and use what they had or find ways around the keys had gone a long way to brighten things up in the star system. The economy had picked up noticeably with their help, shaking some of the apathy out as people started to think about what they had and how to expand on it.
Apparently the stationers had been refocused on rebuilding the station and system architecture right up until Admiral Cartwright had put in his appearance. Now they were focused on rebuilding the damaged and destroyed infrastructure and rebuilding the ships Firefly had captured to protect that investment. Good, Irons thought with a nod of approval. The burnt hand did indeed teach best.
Horatio certainly hadn't let the lack of command keys to slow him either. No, he'd adapted, and if they couldn't build power plants, weapons, or replicators, they had added to the yard's super structure, and built massive storage depots stuffed with components that he could build and stockpile. Things like structural parts, life support, computer and electrical components ... the list went on and on.
And even though he couldn't make hyperdrives and other parts that didn't stop him from making the sub-components that he could for them that such as casings, wiring harnesses, EPS, electronic components, motors, and the thousand and one small common parts that weren't locked out by a replicator's key.
The parts Irons had managed to send to Pyrax over the intervening years of his exile had let Horatio launch a half doz
en frigates, a bunch of gunships, and keep the current fleet in running order, while also allowing them to get some small but noticeable progress done on the larger ships still laying in the docks.
He shuddered to think what Horath would do with that stockpile.
Horatio had taken that into account. According to his report thick shoals of mines were around the jump points. Two ships were on station at each point to pass along navigational directions to those ships that visited the system. Orbital weapons fortresses and platforms were at each jump point, but they lacked proper weapons and power plants. Three of the orbital fortresses were fighter platforms, the other three were shells. All were reliant on solar power beamed in from the solar farms further inward in the system. Horatio had cobbled together rail guns for the fortresses, but they lacked shields, missiles, and defenses. Apparently Horatio had been running a bluff there. Or he was relying on the thick rock to act as armor for the fortresses crews. Irons shook his head.
He'd also tossed together a hundred gunships and thirty corvettes, all sublight ships, most using civilian grade power plants. The largest sublight vessel to date was the Kittyhawk, CVE-001. She was an escort carrier. A ship he'd laid down some time ago, but its construction had been halted. Apparently they had gotten enough from his care packages to launch her, though the notes said she lacked a proper power plant and drive. She was little more than a fighter barge before Firefly had left for the battle of B101a1. If Irons faith in Horatio was justified, she was probably well on her way to be brought up to a proper warship at this point he thought.
Each of the ships in Antigua had full or partially full magazines and weapons from Firefly, apparently Firefly had gotten a little creative with his watchdog program and made parts for them. He'd have to keep an eye on that. Not that it bothered him, but if Firefly could find a creative way around some of the lock outs then others could as well. And not everyone had such a sterling record as the ship AI. He frowned thoughtfully and flagged that bit for the Intel team. He jotted out a bookmark for them to look into the idea and explore it further from the Horathian viewpoint. Could someone on the other side have used that trick? He frowned thoughtfully. It may have been used a lot during the Xeno war.