by James Edward
Ivor Semple and the rest of the surviving ships exited the Conrad gate to a view of debris scattered all over the battle zone. Ship parts, pieces, and unidentifiable parts floated everywhere. There were ships moving in and around the wreckage, salvaging what they could. Ivor noted that the three graviton ships were gone as he began to recognize the broken hulls of some of the more familiar PRC ships. They were immediately hailed by Lady Darla Song of the battleship Valkyrie with a curt statement.
“Warships, we have a holding area to the east of our processing warehouses. You are to proceed there and power down. Medical personnel will be on hand to shuttle the injured to more advanced medical facilities. Each person will be searched and scanned, reissued with Conrad uniforms, and processed. For the time being, you will be housed at that facility. Captains and execs will be brought in to the inner system for debriefing and processing.”
As they moved to follow the guide ship to their holding area, Ivor and his bridge crew got a good look at the two platforms. He was amazed to see that both were functioning and were being repaired. He judged that the two platforms had taken the brunt of more than ten thousand missiles and had survived. Now of the ten thousand, he had no idea how many had actually impacted the platforms, but from the look of the blast holes and ripped armor, it was quite a few. In some places, the armor looked like it was flowing into the missile craters. Ivor was surprised to see the large amount of warships in the area, most doing recovery of damaged ships and looking for survivors. He turned to his exec and said, “We didn’t stand a chance, XO. We lost the largest fleet ever assembled in the last two hundred years, down to the last ship, and they still have operational warships, undamaged and still available. It was utter folly to try to eradicate this system.”
The exec just nodded and stared at the view screen. “What do you think will happen now?”
“Well, we are to be processed. You and I will be separated and shipped inward to whatever fate is there. I understand that ZN2091 has no habitable planets, so I have no idea what is that will be. The crews will be treated well, and I will address them to behave. I have Olaf’s word on that. Apart from that, I have no idea, but at least we are alive, and we aren’t out on the rim—two pluses for us.”
There were two huge warehousing facilities parked behind the guard platforms. The ships were directed there and ordered to park single-file at one of the loading docks. When the pressure was equalized, a marine captain and a crack squad of troopers entered the ships followed by medical personnel. The marines took the healthy people out and moved them to holding areas in the heavily guarded facility. The injured were evaluated and shipped out on fast shuttles in system. A pilot and small crew then entered the ship, and when all personnel were gone, they moved the ship to a holding area where they would be evaluated and either repaired or scrapped. The captains and execs were housed in a different location. This procedure went on for each of the six ships, and as it stood, Conrad had gained six ships and approximately 6,500 new conscripts.
In the second warehouse, under heavy guard, were three thousand surviving PRC personnel that they had found trapped in the wreckage of the destroyed ships. Some of the blast doors had worked, and they were found before they ran out of air or froze. Most weren’t so lucky, and the grim task of removal and disposal was ongoing. The survivors would all be interviewed and processed, either to a life on Conrad or interment on Doust.
Ray and Olaf used their huge warships and the marines to transfer the remaining PRC crew members to the Jovan system and down onto Doust. They were shuttled down to the already occupied PRC prison camps. At the same time, they met with the AGW people that were imprisoned there, adding to their supplies and swapping people around. A week later, they left the system, dropping some hidden observer-communication satellites to watch the planet, which also allowed the inmates of the AGW camps to talk to each other and to get messages to Conrad.
EPILOGUE
RAY SAT AT THE HEAD of the table and listened to the half-dozen different conversations that were being bounced around the table. It had been two months since the major victory over the PRC invasion fleet, and repairs and medical were well on their way to completing their various tasks of repairing ships and bodies. The two badly damaged platforms were still getting internal repairs, but the outside looked good as new. The nanobots had repaired the skin back to its original state.
Ray knew that this diverse group of officers, scientists, engineers, marines, and security personnel all had different ideas as to what to do next. He looked over at his XO, smiled, and rapped loudly on the table. All conversation died, and all eyes turned toward him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he started. “We all have had a good rest and are all eager to get started on the next phase. This will be the formation meeting to decide on what, where, and how the next phase will be carried out. Sergie will report on the power of the graviton ships, and Lyn will report on the location that was obtained out of their flight computers. Others will report on the condition of the PRC and their strength as well as what we have here and our improvements and weakness. Yet others like Hammer will supply logistics in taking planets and defeating the PRC on the ground without killing the entire population.
“I am willing to entertain a three-prong attack because, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to take the fight to the PRC. Never again will we allow a fleet to come here and try to destroy us. Never again will we have people die violently in our own system; the days of defensive fighting are over. We have to start to liberate systems and throw the PRC back on their heels, find and destroy the R&D that created these graviton ships, and lastly, we have to break the stranglehold on the core systems.
“This will take some time to iron out and decide the how, when, and where, so each of you has been given a file and a committee number, for the various committees, that will best utilize your talents in that committee; it’s your job to come up with the suggestions. From there, we will decide what to hit. The when and how will be decided later, as soon as we are in agreement.
“Each committee leader will submit, at the end of the day, minutes of the discussions for that date. These will be rendered into bullet points that will be sent to the other committees so that everyone is aware of what we are working on. Perhaps an idea will grow from a joint sharing.
“People, you have a lot of work to do in a short time, so I suggest that you get started. Our attack date will be in three months. Thank you.”
Ray sat back and watched the faces of his team—first startled and then the look of determination began to appear. He knew that there would be long sessions well into the late hours but also that they would begin to build a consensus as to what would be the most serious threats and winnable fights.
End