by Ivan Kal
***
Adrian was lying in bed inside the Ship Masters quarters reading a book, it was a good book, about the humanity’s first contact with alien life. He was quickly adapting to the life on a ship, he held the first watch, then let Bethany take over the second, and Noah the third watch. He was the one of their teammates that were assigned to this ship with Bethany and Adrian, he gained the rank of Adjutant and served as the ships third officer, Alexander was in the med bay serving and learning under Chief Medical Officer John Lightman, one of the two people that didn’t go on leave with the rest of the crew. The other being Chief Engineer Belinda Martinez, she remained to oversee the upgrades to the ship. They were supposed to install a new type of a communication device, apparently one that was faster than light, though it had the ordinary laser comm and radio capability as well, and there were also some minor adjustments to their drives, but those were finished two days ago. Now, the only thing that was left was the comm device, and that should be done in about a day or so.
Just as he was getting to a good part of the book his comm started beeping. It was the one on his desk, which had the video capability. Implants could send, receive and play video, but they didn’t support live video chat, for obvious reasons, they couldn’t transmit the users face.
Adrian got up from his bed and walked to his desk, it was close to 15:00 hours, and he wondered who it was, he had just gotten off his watch in the Command Center an hour ago. He activated the comm and was surprised to see Laura’s face. Judging by her expression he figured that this wasn’t a social call, so he snapped off a salute.
“Fleets Master.” Adrian said.
Laura returned the salute, and Adrian saw approval in her expression before it slipped behind her professional mask.
“Ship Master Farkas.” Laura said. Immediately Adrian realized that this was serious so he turned all his attention to her image.
“Approximately two hours ago, a Concordis warship was stolen by dissidents, at least that is the official version, and it has since then made its way to Cloud station, where we expect it to dock in four minutes. The truth is that there are no dissidents on board that ship, it is crewed by Concordis personnel, and we believe that this is a scheme on their part in order to acquire our technology. There are two Concordis ships on their way to the station. You mission is to disconnect from the dock as soon as possible, and set course to Cloud station at maximum speed. We are going to inform Concordis leadership to keep their two ships out of our territory, you are to position your ship between them and the “dissident ship”, board the vessel if possible, but if they refuse, you can’t under any circumstances allow that ship to go back to Concordis hands. If they don’t surrender to you, you have the authority to destroy that ship. Do you understand your orders?” She asked. Adrian’s mouth had gone dry, he looked Laura in the eyes.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good. I have given you command codes equivalent of a Ship Master, and have sent a squad of army forces to the ship. You have the authorization to undock from the station.” Laura said. She looked at him for a moment more, her expression showing an emotion Adrian hadn’t seen before on her face, and then she terminated the connection.
Adrian immediately jumped from the chair and dressed, while sending the command to the computer to put the ship on blue alert, meaning that everyone was to go to their posts. They had a few drills in the last few days, so he knew that they would follow the order. Bethany was already on the bridge as it was her watch. It took him less than thirty seconds since the moment the communication from Fleets Master ended, to the moment he stepped in the Command Center. The Command Center’s walls were round, and after they reached the height of a meter and a half they started to curve towards each other, making the room resemble the inside of a dome, all of the walls were also screens, using a type of nanotechnology any part of the wall could be turned into a screen, it could also project a 360° feed from the ships outside cameras, when turned on it looked as if the Command Center was on top of the ship and had the view of everything around. It didn’t have any special tactical advantage, but he was told that it looked amazing when the ship was close to a planet, such as Mars. The stations were oriented in a half circle all facing the same direction. Those were from left to right, science, sensor, navigation and weapons station, behind them a was a holo-desk, it was installed just a few days ago, and had the ability to show a 3D representation of the ships surroundings, it was a smart software that took all the information from the ship sensors and then created a virtual representation of the space around them, scaled down of course, it also showed a lot more information, but Adrian didn’t have a lot of time to get himself familiar with it. On the left side of the holo-desk was the communication station, it was the only one that was separate from the others, and was oriented towards the “side” instead of the “front” of the ship, behind the Holo-desk and on a platform was the Ship Master’s “command chair” and besides it on a slightly lower platform, was the High Prime’s chair. Adrian made his way to the command chair currently occupied by Bethany. When she noticed him she turned to him and scowled, not bothering to get up.
“Another drill Adrian? You are taking this position too seriously, you need to relax an-“
“High Prime, I need a status report from all systems.” He interrupted her. Then he turned to the acting Communication Handler Gillian Estevez, she was one of the Academy graduates that chose to enter service at the rank of cadet. “Contact engineering, they need to prep the drives, and inform the team working on the upgrades to abort any operations they have in progress and return to the ship.” Everyone turned around and just looked at him like he was crazy. Bethany stared at him open mouthed still sitting in his chair. Adrian looked at her with a stony face.
“High Prime, the Ship Master has entered CC, why are you still sitting in my chair.” He asked calmly. Something in his voice must have clicked with her because she got out of the chair. Adrian took his position in the command chair, he looked around and noticed that everyone still just looked at him, three of the older cadets who were now at the stations for Navigation, Sensors and Weapons had amused looks and were chuckling amongst themselves. The atmosphere in Olympus was more relaxed than in Earth militaries, but there was still a clear chain of command, and their behavior was inexcusable. They didn’t know that this wasn’t a drill, and even if it was, they needed to take it seriously.
“I gave you an order. This is not a drill.” He said to the room, only Communication Handler Estevez listened to him and got on the comms with engineering, Adrian told Iris to remember and remind him about Estevez later, the rest kept looking at him, while the three older cadets resumed their amused chuckling. He knew that they disliked drills, but their behavior was unacceptable. He informed the security that their presence was required in CC via his implant, and sent them his new command codes, the ones Laura gave him. He then informed those from the second and third watch he knew would follow his orders to the CC to replace the ones he was about to kick out.
He looked at the older cadets, one of them returned to what he was doing before Adrian walked in, while others shook their heads and talked ignoring Adrian. A moment later six security officers entered the CC. Adrian pointed to the three Cadets.
“Throw those three in the brig. Keep them there until I tell you otherwise.” He told them.
“Understood, Ship Master.” Their leader said. All off them looked as young as anyone else in the CC, but Adrian knew that they were older, some even from the time before Olympus went into space. They moved professionally and subdued the struggling Cadets.
“Hey! What the hell do you think you are doing!?” One of them yelled. Adrian stood up and glared at him.
“Did you think I was joking? I told you that this wasn’t a drill! You have cost us precious time we need to accomplish our mission. You are a disgrace, you don’t deserve to be here. Even if this was a drill, your job is to FOLLOW MY ORDERS!” Adrian yelled at them. They
grew silent at his outburst and the security took them out. As they were going out the three other crewmembers Adrian called to replace them entered the CC, one of them was Noah, they had heard his outburst and had a slightly frightened looks on their faces. He ordered them to their positions with Noah taking the weapons station. He looked at Bethany.
“High Prime, you have two minutes to get me reports from all systems on my display.” He told her calmly.
Bethany finally snapped out of her trance and got to work.
Comms Handler Estevez turned to Adrian.
“I have Chief Engineer Martinez for you, Ship Master.” She said.
“Put her through.”
A moment later the image on Chief Engineer Martinez showed on the display above his armrest. She had a hard look on her young face, she had dark hair and brown eyes, which narrowed as she looked at him.
“I have been ordered to abandon the upgrades and come back inside the ship by Fleet. Do you happen to know why?”
“Chief Martinez.” Adrian started. “This ship has been ordered to get underway to a hostile situation. You and your people have ten minutes to abort any upgrades you were conducting, and get inside the ship. If you are not inside the ship in that period of time, you will be left behind.” He looked at the Chief with stony face.
“A hostile situation? But-” Adrian sent her his command codes. She was one of the ships original crew, and had much more experience than him, and he knew that she probably didn’t have the habit of questioning her orders and wouldn’t have done so if Athena’s “real” Ship Master was in command, and Adrian was not willing to burn any bridges with her.
Her eyes widened for a second as her implant authenticated the codes.
“Yes Ship Master.” She said, and closed the channel.
Bethany who was close enough to overhear all of their exchange looked at him with a fearful look.
“A hostile situation?” She asked.
“Yes.” Adrian said simply.
“Comms, put me through the ship wide speakers.” Estevez nodded and a minute later the icon appeared on his display indicating that the ship wide speakers were on.
“Attention crewmembers. Approximately two hours ago, a hostile warship was headed towards Cloud base, followed by two Concordis warships, it is expected to dock with the station any moment now. We have been ordered to intercept and take that warship under our custody. Or if that fails to destroy it. We are not to engage Concordis vessels unless given reason to. This is not a drill.” Adrian took a beat to take another breath. “I know that this is not what you imagined your first true mission to be, but this it is. Remember your training, but keep in mind that this is not a simulation, if you make a mistake people will die. Trust in yourselves, and we will accomplish our mission together. That is all.” He closed the channel.
Bethany turned to him, with a professional expression, she had managed to push her fear down. Good, I will need her, Adrian thought. “Yes you will.” Iris told him.
He didn’t have a chance to respond because Bethany sent him the reports on all systems. He looked them over, noticing that everything was good to go.
“The team doing the upgrades is back inside, the drives are operational. And there is a squad of army forces requesting permission to come aboard Ship Master.” Bethany said.
“Allow them inside, put them in the cargo bay, Navigation, disconnect us from the dock as soon as they are onboard, and set a course for Cloud station, maximum speed.” Adrian said. He left his crew to do the rest, there was nothing else for him to do until they reach the station.
Chapter Twenty-one
“While we appreciate your offer ambassador, space around Cloud station is Olympus territory under international law, and we are not prepared to let you warships inside our territory.” Tomas said to the ambassador of Concordis, they were speaking over the comms, as usual the ambassador was on the surface of the Moon.
“Surely you see that we only want to help? We want to prevent any loss of life, and since it is partially our fault, we would like to be of service, seeing as you have no assets that can intervene.” Ambassador said. Tomas was grinding his teeth with every word the ambassador said.
“We respectfully decline, we are well on our way to handle the situation, if your ships enter our territory, we will take that as enormous breach of our trust.” Tomas said. “Inform your superiors of my decision.”
“Mr. Klein you must see th-” Tomas cut of the comm, not wanting to listen to the ambassador anymore.
“Laura, what’s the situation.” Tomas asked.
“We still don’t have contact with the station, nothing since they docked and sent their list of demands. We have no satellites in earth orbit to relay a laser signal around the Earth, and Cloud station wasn’t yet equipped with the FTL comms.”
Tomas grimaced at the mention of the demands. The list was full of crazy demands that no sane person would ask for, only reinforcing their belief that this is a Concordis plan.
“I want all of our warships recalled. They are to make top speed to the Moon.” He said. Laura nodded and opened a channel from the comm device in front of her. They had moved to one of the briefing rooms, following the departure of Athena. Many other Olympus staff members were in the room, each doing their job, gathering information, or relaying orders.
Elias was in the process of recalling army forces from Mars, in case this gets out of the control, but they won’t be here for a month or so. Seo-yun was in contact with all of their research facilities on the Moon, those facilities were in process of being reinforced, in case that they strike somewhere else also.
“How long until Athena arrives?” Tomas asked Laura.
“Another hour and thirty two minutes.” She said. Tomas looked at his screens, the estimated time of arrival for the Concordis ships based on the information they got from Cloud prior to the comms blackout was an hour and twenty nine minutes, Athena will arrive three minutes after the Concordis ships. The only good thing from this is that they will not be able to see her, as she would be coming from around the planet.
Tomas looked around the room, he never felt as powerless as he did now, there was nothing he could do that would help, other than believe in his people, he chose them, he gave them Olympus and now it was time for them to give back.
***
“He isn’t going to change his mind Mr. President.” Turner, Concordis ambassador to Olympus said.
“He can’t believe that his people on the station can take care of this?” President asked no one in particular.
“He seems confident that they will have the situation under control, I don’t know how, but I have been working with the man for a long time, I know him, he has something up his sleeve, I would stake my life on it.” Ambassador Turner said.
“Do we have any idea what it could be?” President Von Holt asked his advisers. They were sitting in the same room they were when they made the decision to go through with this plan.
“Our intelligence officers are confident that there is nothing they can do.” Admiral Weiss said.
“This is very suspicious, the plan is already going wrong, we planned on Tomas Klein being relieved when we offered our help. Maybe we shouldn’t have put this into motion.” Councilman Petrov said.
“There is no going back now, we are committed, there is no way they will be able to stop us, and our press teams will spin it in our favor, they will not be able to contest our entering their territory.” Minister of Defense Ross said.
“He is right gentlemen, there is nothing we can do now.” President Von Holt said. He prayed that they have made the right choice, and that whatever Tomas Klein had up his sleeve comes too late to make a difference.
***
Tucker Dawson, Captain of the Viking, kept his eyes locked on his display, the Admiralty had just confirmed that Olympus did not allow them to enter their territory, but his orders were to do so anyway, they already had scripted communications that will be sent
to Bismarck when they enter Olympus territory. The communications were nothing more than a series of posturing and threats on their part, which would hopefully convince the public that Bismarck’s crew was intimidated and choose to leave the station alone, should the communications ever go public. Though there was a catch that only he as the officer in charge of the mission was aware of. The plan was more complicated than it seemed. The marine detachment on the station had a mission that most of the high brass wasn’t aware of. Not even Admiral Weiss was aware of it, the one who gave the order was the Minister of Defense. They can’t leave anything that might implicate them. The loss of the server from the station would make it clear that they took them. But if there was no station, they wouldn’t be able to confirm that anything was missing. Dawson understood, and agreed with the Minister completely. Olympus was a plague on humanity, they talked about equality, about unity, and yet they kept their technology out of the other nations hands. He hated them, and most of all that pompous jerk Klein. Dawson’s wife was working for a subsidiary of Olympus before they started expanding in space. She held a high position, had a big salary, Olympus always paid well. But when they started transferring their business to space, they closed down, sold, or transferred most of the subsidiaries on Earth to space. He and his wife declined Olympus offer to transfer to space, even though his wife wanted to, but one of the condition was that Dawson resigns from Concordis military and join Olympus security. And he wasn’t willing to trade a life in the military for a security job. His wife argued with him for days before finally relenting, she lost her job but got a recommendation from Olympus. It did her no good, the state of the economy in Concordis was such, that at the time she just couldn’t get a job. From then on everything went downhill, they struggled with money, his pay wasn’t enough to cover the lifestyle she was used to, and they argued all the time, until she finally left him for a wealthier man. A man who could offer her the lifestyle she was used to. And Dawson knew that Olympus was the cause. He hated Tomas Klein with a deep unyielding force, it was the only thing that kept him going. And now he had the chance to break Klein’s hold on Earth. Tomas Klein thought himself Earths protector, he treated them like children, keeping all the new toys out of their reach. I’ll show him, Dawson thought, as looked back to his screen. They were almost there, a few more minutes and they would enter Olympus space.