Our forces are uniquely trained for the unusual tactical situations we face. Each Tactical Group houses nearly five hundred of our ISIE officers among their two thousand Marines; and, each carrier accommodates four of our specially designed thirty-five-person long range shuttles. Unlike the short-range ones, these have small galleys, sleeping births, four three-piece washrooms, and a small lounge; and, are capable of higher FTL velocities. They also are endowed with defensive and limited offensive weaponry and some amazing grappling technology. It is not unusual for one of these vessels to grapple an opponent, reel themselves into it and breach its hatch to gain access to the moving target; putting thirty-five well-armed and armored personnel in a corridor before an enemy can react. Twenty of these valuable vessels are housed aboard each supercarrier to support nearly one thousand ISIE agents assigned to each behemoth. The other significant difference is the use of our covert crafts. We know these cloaked units as “subs” because they are essentially invisible to an enemy as are the submarines that navigate the waters of various planets. Ten Special Forces Marines are deployed on each of our subs; and, our sub personnel are trained to work their vessels into positions in very close proximity to suspect or enemy vessels to monitor their communications and examine their interiors with the unconventional reflected x-ray sensing equipment, they possess. Their SF Marines are capable of extra-vehicular missions; where they place monitoring equipment right on a ship without being detected and under cover of the sub's cloak; so, they are invisible during the mission. When IGB does tactical drills, we include these operations.
Though slow and somewhat tedious, the enemy on our border appears to be the strongest and most intent foe the Federation has dealt with, so far. Their seemingly endless replacements of destroyed vessels and massive numbers of front line ships make the Spiel look like a kindergarten class at play time. And, of all our antagonists, this one is the most mysterious. The stay massed just outside Federation space. Orion has captured just one abandoned vessel and only one of the attacking species. Their plan seems very long range. I believe they are trying to defeat us by “a death of a thousand cuts.” When we get close; they self-destruct. No one knows much of anything substantial about them. I cut the orders needed; so, we can meet Mobile Fifth on time, as promised.
Tactical Action Message #IGB62-467
CLASSIFIED - SECRET (NTK)
ENCRYPTED
AUTHENTICATE ROOT I.D. IGB#8319276ZIL
From:Admiral Kurt Brubacher Commander Inspector General Branch
To:Admiral H Brubacher D.C. IGB, Theatre Eleven Command, Theatre Thirteen
Command
C.C.Admiral George Bryant Fifth Mobile RAC Commander, Office of C&C OFSA
Date:August 2, 2261
Admirals,
You are ordered and required to execute all the objectives below.
1) All forces under your command will make best speed to position RA 15h, 46m, 4.92995s Dec. +52º, 52', 2.0267"; at 98.9 Ly (position is relative to Sol system).
2) When there, you must detach all covert vessels from your commands and combine them with those already at the above location.
3) Once item two is completed, you are directed to move all remaining ships in your Command to meet the Mobile Fifth RAC flagship Valhalla, wherever it may be stationed, at that time.
4) You are instructed to present a list of your most senior officers with covert vessel command experience to this office, in a classified meeting to be held by audio-video link, at seventeen hundred hours, today, while in transit to the above position.
Thank you.
Admiral Kurt Brubacher
My orders should put us at the subs staging point at ten hundred hours August 7, 2261, and at the Valhalla between thirteen and fifteen hundred hours; depending on their position at that time. We will have to depart in the next half hour; and, we will be in a vortex for four days.
A lot of water had traveled under the bridge; since this enigmatic opponent had appeared on our doorstep. My mind begins to wander back.
Chapter 2 The First Close Encounter
Friday, January 7, 2259
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." - Ayn Rand
As the Commander of the nearest large force, I ordered Inspector General Branch to make double time to R.A. 16h, 1m, 53.3457s Dec. +58º 33'. 54.905" at 96 Ly in response to an urgent call for help from both Draco and Boots Fleets. A force of around twelve hundred warships, they could detect, had assembled at our border for fifty light-years either side of this staging point. When we arrived, I redeployed my forces and half of the other two fleets to the most critical points in the line's center; sending the remainder off to the ends to guard our flanks and act as a reserve. Then, we spent the next few days making counter-moves to keep this enemy off balance until more help could arrive. But we were just eighty-nine vessels, in total, with sixteen hundred fighters to defend a border section over one hundred light-years long against this massive force. The ploy had worked. Help arrived in time.
Fifth Mobile RAC took up defensive positions blocking any potential incursion points. George Bryant deployed sixty vessels opposite the strongest force in the center of the one hundred and five light-year-long front. Another sixty were sent to each potential pincer attack point two light years either side of center. Eighty were held in reserve, two light-years back of his front-line forces. But all two hundred forty had landed here, first. Together with IGB and local forces, it appeared as an incredible armada, of much more formidable warships, on enemy sensors. Admiral Bryant ordered several "subs" to uncloak; then, go dark again; a ploy to let our opponents know there were invisible assets to worry about.
For the first time, I could relax. I looked at the space in this region; not just into it. Its beauty is both unexpected and breathtaking. I would have to look to the stern to look back on the Milky Way. Off the bow, I am facing the space looking away from our galaxy. From home, I would not be able to make out half the details, I can discern from this vantage point, unaided. The open globular cluster NGC 5466 is just a few points to my starboard side; almost dead ahead. It is a thinly populated cluster; but, is still big and bright enough to grab attention. A little to the left of that and directly ahead, I see the muted outer arms and the bright core of galaxy NGC 5248 and the bluer NGC 5676 a younger galaxy, a little farther off in the distance. In all, there are nearly a dozen features, I can name right off the top of my head; that, are hard to see, without a good telescope, from Earth. But galaxy NGC 5778 is the brightest and most impressive. It faces me edge-on; but, its white, red, blue, and violet regions exciting its gaseous envelope into a glowing halo is startling from this perspective. It is so stunning; it seems to be calling to me. But at eighty-five million light years' distance, it is a little too far to make the trip. No wonder OFSA field personnel love their jobs.
George Bryant ordered us two light-years back of the line. That was the agreement, from the start. He would take command of overall operations when he arrived. We waited a couple of days; until he advised me they were secure; and, detached us from the battle site. Since I am essentially my own boss, I cut orders sending my entire command to Iota Bootes to begin a planetary audit. That will keep us relatively close to Fifth Mobile – just in case. In a pinch, we could get back in three and a half days; if the need was urgent.
Asellus is an advanced world circling Iota Bootes in an orbit in the warm part of the star’s habitable zone. I generated the warrants to examine its pertinent government establishments. Fifteen – thirty-five-person long range shuttles made their way down to conduct the investigation; which, took two weeks. After that, there was no justification to stay. We were forced to move on to other responsibilities and obligations.
IGB was still growing. By the time we finished with Asellus, another twenty vessels were ready; which was somewhat of a relief. We had been increasing and developing personnel in anticipation of the new ships; so, all our active crafts were crowded. It tak
es nearly forty thousand to crew one fleet; and, though twenty-seven thousand five hundred transfers were being shipped with the new vehicles, it meant we had over twelve thousand extra people billeted on the existing forty-nine ships. But, it had been worth it; because, those were all the senior officers, department heads and squad leaders for all the new commands. Most positions from Leading Crewmen supervisors to Vice Admiral Fleet Commanders and some Crewman Specialists' jobs were already filled. They had done regular shifts aboard IGB commands; so, they knew the system inside out. And, the new ships were already proofed. They had been through the arduous testing and shakedown, that; I developed for the OFSA a few years ago. It all meant that; once people transferred to their new homes, they would be ready to operate the in-the-field instant Fleets.
Twenty ships jumping into a confined region is pretty impressive. Superluminal technology exploits a Casimir Emitter to generate the exotic particles needed to open a Minkowski space-time; which is a type of controllable intra-universe wormhole. We direct a columnated beam of exotic particles in a straight line from our current position towards the objective, at a regulated strength; opening a wormhole to the destination. We travel through it at relatively leisurely sub-light speeds, to decrease time dilation; but, the vortex shortens the distance so much; we arrive in one two-thousandths the time it would take us to travel the normal distance in conventional space at light speed. Our actual velocity is usually twenty percent of "C"; but, we will go up to forty percent in emergency situations; experiencing much greater time dilation; but, shortening travel time, even more. Anyway, the point of all this is the apertures at either end of the phenomena. There is so much energy; each end looks tangible. It appears like a rotating ball of faceted glass - eddies and currents of white light, and red and violet energy, swirling inside its boundaries - a long tail trailing off into space in the direction of the targeted site. Though its iridescence is mesmerizing, it is terrifying, the first time you enter one. Twenty of these opening in a limited region is a sight to behold.
Things actually remained quiet on the front battle line for a month. That was really convenient for me; because, I had to get ready for the next expansion, in six months. I had to pick out people I wanted to promote or transfer; and, select those from other commands who were seeking relocation. They would overload us again, temporarily; until another twenty ships and twenty-seven thousand people arrived. I had to govern our examination schedule; so, Rigil Kentaurus was always an easy run; to pick up reassigned personnel.
In that period, the only communications I saw from Fifth was the usual crap that we all do, every day, to keep our teams safe, sharp and efficient; in preparation for whatever may be on the road ahead, and reports of counter-moves Fifth was making to hold the enemy in check. One thing I did gather from the memos and orders was that Fifth Mobile RAC was in a constant alert state. They ran fighter offensive and defensive drills, weapons testing and firing and shield stressing, daily. They practiced jumping in and out of positions in various formations; and, continuously ran war games. Even when the ships weren't very active, their fighters launched and practiced several times each day.
To any of us monitoring George's communications, it was a lesson in battle preparations. He would be ready when this adversary crossed the border. Another thing we all got from his observations was that this protagonist made all their moves and jumps at fifteen percent; using, what appeared to be similar systems to our own. This seemed to indicate; their ships were not as robust as ours. In addition, they did not react to our moves as fast as we counter theirs; revealing, their sensor systems are not as technologically advanced.
Before the war with the Spiel, we employed sensor drones to accumulate remote data. When we deployed them, each drone would open a jump point; travel to its assigned location; then, periodically send back smaller drones wormholes; containing all the sensor information accumulated between updates. But, George had come up with an idea for faster communication during that war; which was applied to sensor systems.
When an OFSA vessel wants to communicate with another, it uses a Casimir to open a micro-vortex and sends a group of nine lasers through it to the receiving party. This Minkowski Spacetime (MST) is too small for us to voyage in; requiring much less energy to maintain; but, has enough area for the nine beams to negotiate. Only the central laser contains pertinent information. The others surround and protect it from the forces of the vortex walls; keeping the data intact. The weaker wormhole is still sturdy enough to penetrate a regular one used for travel without interfering with it. So, we can drag it along with us, while in flight, to keep our networks functioning. This allows us to continuously exchange dispatches at ten thousand times the speed of light; instead of collecting messages to forward in a drone at only two thousand times light speed. At any rate, it was a small advance to adapt it to detection equipment. We launch the probe systems. They continuously return information via an MST they open. So sensor data is retrieved five times faster than before; and, it's continuous. All the while, our enemy employs a system much like our previous generation sensors. The same goes for communications.
In the end, we receive information on their disbursements and deployments; and communicate information and orders faster. So, we react much quicker than they do. We often see them shifting; and, counter the move before they have even completed it. And, they don't see that for quite a while, after; so usually, end up returning to their original formations.
On Friday, January 28, 2259, things seemed to change. I didn’t realize at the time that this was the start of a persistent pattern. It looked like there might be an all-out war, that day. George extended me the courtesy of copying me on all communications regarding this threat; because IGB had been involved. I monitored a series of two dozen TAMs that day; between George and his Theatre Commanders and them and their Fleet Commanders. Then, there was this memo.
MEMO
From:Adm. G.T. Bryant Commander Fifth Mobile RAC
To: Flt. Adm. W.O. Stephenson, C&C; Fleet Adm. G. Tonaka C&C OFSA
C.C.All Quadrant Commands, Inspector General Branch
Re:Bootes / Draco Battlefront
Date:January 27, 2259
Sirs,
The large body of offensive warships sitting off our border in a one-hundred-five-light-year-arc, from R.A. 14h, Declination 51º, to R.A. 17h, Declination 55º; at 100.9 Light-year distance, (all relative to Sol) launched an attack, at six hundred thirty hours, today. Specifically, this offensive charge, by this "inscrutable" opponent, was in the form of a one light-year wide wedge centered at 15h, 45", 00', Dec +53º 55’ 0” one-half light-year inside our border. We are currently trading continuous weapons fire with one hundred twenty-one ships launched into our territory.
In response to the attack preparations, we had massed at three points. One met the attacking force. The other two stand two light years either side of this battle line to defend against a pincer attack, should this push turn out to be a feint. The enemy has left large forces at both of these sites. Six Fleets of Theatre Nine Command are engaged in the action; while three Fleets of Theatre Ten are protecting each of the other two staging areas. Two Fleets from each Theatre Command stand one light-year back of the lines as a reserve. Twelve hundred Raptor class fighters are deployed, at the battle site, in defensive and offensive roles, continuously. Another six hundred are kept engaged at the other two points, at all times.
This could be a prelude to a larger attack; since this foe seems to have more than a thousand warships massed on our border.
I regret to inform you that; the FSS Tyr became a casualty of the battle. It was destroyed in the first hour of the confrontation with the loss of all hands but fifty Raptor pilots who were deployed off-ship, at the time. The Tyr had six thousand thirty-seven people on board when it took a hit to the AMPE engines creating an anti-matter reaction that annihilated the vessel. We have lost an additional seventeen Raptor pilots, to now. There are no other major casualty numbers to report, yet.
To this point, we have destroyed eighteen of the enemy warships and confirm one hundred eleven fighter craft kills. We estimate enemy losses at thirteen and a half thousand; though, this is a highly speculative figure; since we know so little about these people and their ships.
Our action is currently defensive; but, we will be launching a counter-attack at fourteen thirty, today; when, all required assets are correctly positioned.
We will endeavor to keep you up to date, as the scene changes.
Admiral George T. Bryant.
Specifically, what I later understood was that; one hundred twenty of these "Inscrutables'" warships had been monitored gathering into an attack formation, from as early as twelve hundred on January 25; so, Fifth Mobile transmitted an alarm to Draco and Boots Fleets, then watched this adversary ever more intently. Sensors reported the initiation of jump point apertures at zero thirty hours. With communications delays, this meant they had launched at twenty-one hundred thirty hours on Wednesday, January 26, 2259. Calculated trajectories indicated they would land by six hundred hours thirty minutes, on January 27, at RA 15h, 45m by Dec 53º, 55m, just a half light-year inside our border. So, George had ordered Stevens to have six fleets reposition to that location, by five hundred thirty on January 27; and have twelve hundred Raptors in flight by six hundred hours.
He sent orders to Admiral Palakiko to firm up her positions at the pincer points He added all the sensor logs to all the transmissions, during that entire period; to give all remote stations his perspective on the redeployments.
Righteous Reign The Series: E-version Boxed Set Edition Page 61