Con-Red: Recourse

by Feinstein, Max

  “Regal, Knight One, are you seeing this? We have multiple fields of debris above the planet in what appears to be battle formations,” Styker began to send as a few of these fields began to resolve within his sensors and enhanced optical systems. “I’m picking up the remains of the Charles Delass and Rodin Allison as well as the Wenzhou. Along with these three 7th Fleet ships there are three or four other wrecks in orbit, mostly lively belonging to the Darma private defense force stationed within the system.”

  He paused for a moment as more data was processed on his squadron’s flyby, “also reading shattered amounts of neutrino particles and focused radiation, cause unknown. Nothing matches the known database. There was definitely a hostile engagement within the system, there are no signatures or remains of other vessels in the vicinity. It would seem that whoever attacked Chu-Tsao either cleaned up all of their damage before withdrawing or defeated the defense forces without sustaining any damage.”

  It was then, with no signs of any other foreign ships, that Styker discerned that something out of the ordinary happened. This was no simple pirate incursion as previously thought. The Delass and Allison were heavily armed frigates and along with the Griffen class corvette Wenzhou, should have had enough firepower to handle most assault situations. Even if they had been overpowered; however, they should have been able to retreat with survivors or in the least send out a distress call, none of which happened in this case. Whatever it was that happened in the system, was so quick that no one was even able to run to safety. All of this information caused Styker’s mind to run a hundred kilometers an hour in order to try and come up with different scenarios that could have transpired.

  One of these large wrecks, this one from the FNV Allison, enlarged directly outside Styker’s canopy as the squadron began to close with it for a visual inspection. He pulled back on the throttle and slowly decelerated the Dragonfire for a more thorough flyby. Besides his wingman and himself, the rest of the Knights proceeded ahead towards the Darma facility on the moon. He watched all of them fly past before receding into the distance beyond visual inspection range. The sensor data projecting within his HUD and canopy updated with newer fighter squadron designations as the cruiser Karabela and both of the CBG’s destroyers launched their own fighters to reinforce the Knights and Vipers in case any hostiles returned.

  The scene unfolding in front of him sent a shiver down Styker’s spine as he refocused on it. He realized quickly that the wreckage was a completely graveyard. His eyes immediately detected the tiny yellow glowing objects floating all around the dead remains of the large frigate. Without looking at his display Styker knew that those objects were in actuality bodies of dead crewmembers. Every naval personnel had uniforms that glowed a deep yellow in order to help search and rescue crews locate them. He switched his fighter’s scanners into search mode and they instantly detected the personal locators within each of the floating bodies. Each of their positions was quickly plotted on his sensor screen and update to the rest of the group. It pained him deeply to be so helpless in this situation, but the least he would do was help them be extracted for a proper burial. In his eyes they would all be heroes that gave their lives in defense of the Federation.

  Looking past these poor souls he saw something he had never seen before in all his eyes of service. The three hundred and twenty meter long frigate seemed to have been sliced cleanly into three large pieces. His eyes swept over the debris and were amazed at how clean each of the cuts was. They had severed cleanly through the entire hull and superstructure of the ship. As he closed in he could clearly see the melted edges along the outsides of each large severed section. There was a full diagonal cut through the forward portion of the vessel that stretched all the way towards the midsection, while the second cut had separated the entire rear of the frigate from the rest of the ship.

  Passing just above each portion of the ship allowed Styker to detect damage he had not seen before. There were dozens of singe looking scars scattered throughout the vessel’s armor plating with no actual signs of penetration into the interior itself. In addition there were other, larger, marks of battle that he understood well. Multiple areas of heavy ordinance detonations were witnessed on each of the floating broken sections, but mostly concentrated on the large central structure of the former frigate. Each of these ruptures looked to have occurred from an explosion inside the ship itself with the ripped hull plating splayed outward. Styker knew that such damage was usually caused by armor piercing warheads, but these looked somewhat different to him.

  It was then, while skirting between the middle section and the slowly rotating rear, that he caught movement along the outside of the cut through section in what used to be the frigate’s interior crew quarters. Moving the control stick around quickly Styker rotated the Dragonfire around so that its nose faced the area where he had seen the movement. He turned on the craft’s floodlights and watched the darkness in front of him recede. Styker’s optical systems were then able to instantly locate the movement and zoomed in for a better view. With that he could now clearly see the large six legged engineering robot crawling along one of the interior bulkheads. As Styker watched the robot paused to kneel down on the alloy surface beneath before firing out a plasma welding beam. Curious as to why the bot would actually be conducting welding on a dead vessel, he zoomed in further and on a whim focused his fighter’s spectroscopic array at the general direction of the robot. The scope instantly lit up with the detection of leaking nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon-dioxide. The realization of what that was hit him like a hammer, causing him to increase the gain on his detection gear.

  “Regal, Raven! Detecting multiple living personnel trapped within the Allison, repeat, I’m reading three to four life-signs within the vessel. Marking positions and request immediate SAR team for extraction,” Styker yelled out quickly as the area within the ship in front of him lit up with multiple locators inside. Each locator actually sent back stable vital signs from each of the individuals trapped inside.

  “Acknowledge Raven, data received. Priority Allison and dispatching SAR teams throughout. Proceed with your original mission,” came back the reply from the carrier before groups of AT-44 Shadow assault transports appeared on the sensor display from the Regal and other ships in the CBG.

  Styker wanted to stay and make sure that everything went smoothly, but he also knew that there was nothing more he could do. The search-and-rescue teams knew what they were doing and would not need him hanging around to watch their every move. With one last gaze at the working robot he noted that the air leak from within the ship had ceased, meaning that the machine had completed its task as its programming intended. Hopefully the people trapped within the wreckage would now have enough air to hold out until the SAR team cut them out. There was also some optimism now that the search teams flying towards the other wreckages would location other living crew members surviving inside some of the other destroyed ships. With that last thought he maneuvered away from the floating remains and finally accelerated after the rest of his squadron towards Darma Horizon, the moon based fuel facility.

  “Raven, we’re detecting high concentrations of darmatium around the moon,” Styker heard his XO Lt. Commander Gabe ‘Slinger’ Colvin express through the TacNet, “also picking up two heavily damaged fuel transports in decaying orbit. Looks like they were trying to escape the surface during the attack. Both appear to have ruptured all of their holding tanks. Going in for a closer look and sending a flight down to the moon’s surface.”

  The readouts on his screen showed him exactly what Slinger was referring to. There was a large expanding cloud of darmatium flowing from the two floating freighters. Darmatium was a highly precious and therefore lucrative commodity within the Federation and the Independent Planets throughout human controlled space. It was first discovered by Darma Industries in their quest for a new fuel source, while studying the feasibility of using Dark Matter. Through extensive and prolonged testing they founded a process of refin
ing raw dark matter into a usable molecular compound that they called darmatium. When this new molecule was fused together it generated an extreme amount of energy, allowing entire ships to be powered by much smaller reactor cores than previous. It also allowed smaller ships to utilize Transit Drive technology for long distance travel. At this point in time almost every star ship in existence used dark matter reactors as a source of power. Darmatium fueled reactors had also become the preferred electrical power provider on most Federation planets. Pretty much anything that needed power was now fueled by the stuff. Even Styker’s fighter and every other small craft in the military ran on it.

  All of this made the molecular compound a tremendously important asset to the Federation and its military. The fact that only a limited number of refining facilities existed meant that each one was highly valuable. While the loss of a couple such facilities could be tolerated, it would be a great inconvenience since that sector would need to be supplied by other nearby fuel depots and processing plants. It was no surprise to Styker that someone would want to attack Chu-Tsao as it was a high profile target. That was the reason for why each one was heavily guarded and why the military always contained war fighting assets within the vicinity. The great cost of the fuel also made it a high value target for daring pirates and terrorist groups trying to disrupt the UPF supply, use it for their own systems and ships, or simply sell it on the black market for large profits.

  “Raven, you have to see this,” Gabe called out to him and relayed a video link directly to his Dragonfire.

  The view projecting to him was shocking, but not entirely unexpected considering the violence they had all just seen in the system and even directly above the moon itself. Where the large processing and refining facility had stood, along with its massive circular transporter docking pads, was now a five kilometer wide crater. Styker’s analytical mind quickly went through what could have caused such a blast. At the moment he could only settle on one scenario. Something must have ruptured Darma Horizon’s extensive underground network of storage tanks with enough force to trigger a fusion reaction in the fuel stored there. A large amount of darmatium would have more than enough explosive force to cause such devastating carnage.

  It was no surprise either that sensors detected no life signs on the moon’s surface. There was nothing that, unshielded, could survive such a detonation. There were, however, reading of more distinct radiation emanating from the moon of the same type detected on the hulls of the destroyed naval vessels floating in space. The commander hoped that at least some of the data-cores onboard those ships were still salvageable so that they could help explain and identify what had happened in this system.

  What was clear to everyone, though, was that the Cetus Sector had just lost its only darmatium refinery and would now have to rely on those supplying surrounding sectors. This would put further strain on those more distant facilities, but they would certainly compensate, unless something else happened to disrupt supplies or their shipments. Should that ever happen, it wouldn’t take long for Cetus to deplete its meager storage capacity of the fuel. The sector had never really been thought of as an important asset to the Federation. It contained only a small fraction of the UPF’s population and manufacturing capability. For this reason only a minimal defense force was deployed within the sector to protect it and the Federation’s interests within.

  “Regal command, I’m confirming the destruction of Darma Horizon,” Styker signed into the communications link, “no life-signs detected on the surface.”

  Something in his gut told Styker Telwin that whoever had conducted this heinous act of war was not finished yet. Every instinct in his body told him that all of this was just the beginning of something much larger to come.

  X

  December 26, 2486 S.E.D – Post Invasion Day 6

  Federation Bureau of Defense

  Athenia, Hydra Sector

  “Why was I not informed of these exercises Admiral?!” the large holographic image of Ariel Osterberg, the United Planets Federation Premier herself, called out in question, “I’m the Commander in Chief, I need to know these things before some lowly reporter does! Do you have any idea how this makes me look? You forced me to lie to the Federation public so that they would not think I’m derelict in my duties as their Premier. It does not look well when the person in charge has no idea what her military is doing.”

  “It became my military after the Talbot administration Mrs. Premier,” Admiral Lin emphasized as he leaned forward on his desk towards the projection in front of him, “my job is to assure that our military is the most competent force in the galaxy and I can’t do that effectively if I have to ask you every time I wish to run an exercise.”

  “You forget your place Xwai,” Ariel came back quickly, not one to be pushed around and railroaded, “you only have the position because I allow it. I know you have more experience than anyone, but that only allows you so much leeway. This wasn’t just some small defense drill, we are talking about five entire fleets and tens of thousands of ground troops across six sectors. It could appear as a military mobilization to other governments when done in such secrecy. Did you even consider any repercussions?”

  “If you threaten someone Ariel, you better make sure you have the will to go through with it. Plus, the Independents and Entechs can think all they want. I don’t have to disclose anything to them. What the Federation Military Forces do is none of their concern. We have our own problems to deal with and need our armed forces to be in top form.”

  The Premier frowned and shook her head slowly at the much older Admiral, “you cannot simply disregard others because you don’t agree with them or deem them unworthy. We have been at peace for decades because of open dialogue with those groups.”

  “We have been at peace because we have a major military advantage over our enemies, Miss.” Xwai interrupted quickly, “that advantage alone is keeping them in check and making them think twice before they start making plans for our destruction. Mark my words, the Entech can smell weakness, like wolves, and if we show them any weakness they will strike a deadly blow against us.”

  “I sincerely hope that you are joking. There are no indications what so ever that the Technologists are actually rebuilding their military after the Crusades. Anyways, this is not the issue at the moment. I’m much more curious as to what’s going on with Frontiera and Kapricara. No one has been able to contact those worlds. Is this related to the so called readiness drills?”

  The Admiral listened to her speak and looked down at the top of his desk. At the moment it was set to display mode and the entire surface was covered in various reports from all around the Federation. When the Premier mentioned those two planets he knew there really nothing he could report at the moment. He wanted her out of the loop as long as possible for his plan to work. It was no surprise that she would find out after so many days. A planet loosing complete contact with the outside galaxy is bound to make news. His team had been working tirelessly to prevent regular citizens from knowing anything was wrong by intercepting all communications sent to Frontiera and Kapricara. For each video call they would answer personally and tell the sender that the person they were trying to contact was away on military training. Each letter, however, was answered back in the same manner that would be used by the person they were trying to contact. This was done with the aid of a sophisticated analytical program that was able to mimic a person’s responses by reading previous messages sent by that individual.

  “I’m sure you are aware of the uptick in pirate and terrorist activities over the past year, this is nothing more than that. The Fringe Sector has seen a slight increase in these hostile acts as we drive the criminals from the rest of Federation space,” the Admiral stated and looked back up at the hologram. “Some of these elements have attacked and disabled a few of our subspace communications relays. It just happened to have coincided with a large solar storm at Frontiera, which disabled all comm systems there and affected the connectivi
ty of the Transit Gate located there. Rest assured ma’am we are handling the matter.”

  It was that ‘ma’am’ comment that forced Xwai’s hand and the ever sharp Ariel quickly caught on, “so it’s normal to not hear back from your Task Forces in over three days? Why have I not heard of this hostile activity the moment it happened? I’m not naïve Admiral. I spent years in the military serving the Federation and can tell when there is something more going on.”

  “There is nothing going on other than what I have told you,” he replied in a defensive tone, getting agitated that she was reading him so well. She must know more than she was saying, Xwai thought to himself, and that meant that someone was informing her against his wishes. “You are simply being paranoid. My engineering teams and Naval Forces are doing great work in repairing the damage caused by the recent attacks. They do no need to inform me on the hour of their progress, I have full confidence in their abilities.”

  He looked down at his desk for a second, “there is a report right here actually about Kapricara. The planet should be reconnected to FedCom within the next few days. We are waiting for backup relay nods to arrive. Frontiera should not be far behind. Our experts are telling me the radiation storm there should subside and allow us to deliver more supplies in a timely manner. At the moment that storm is hindering our Gate operations and effecting even regular TDrive drop out.”

  “Well what are we doing about these pirate groups? They have never dared to attack a major military installation before. Have the terrorists responsible for this act been identified yet? There have been no press releases from any groups recently to claim responsibility. That seems very unusual.”