Blood War 1: Last Stand of the Legion: Rift (12 page)

RIFT

PLEIADES FLEET COMPLEX

FLEET HEADQUARTERS

FLEET ADMIRAL RAURK OFFICE

"I am afraid I cannot agree with my very good friend Colonel Kitmura
," Captain Knott began. "I just do not interpret the data in the same way he does. There is absolutely nothing that points to any aggressive tendencies toward us by the aliens. Captain Kitmura has taken a few unassociated bits of information and fabricated them into a rather farfetched conclusion.  I think my presentation will show this."

At that moment the rooms alert light began flashing red. On the screen behind Knott the frightened face of the Fleet Watch Officer in the Operations center appeared.

"Admiral Raurk, Swift Boat TS 111 has just reported they are under attack by a large force.  We tried to confirm but have been unable to reach the TS 111. In addition, we are unable to raise the D50 or D51 outposts."

Admiral Raurk glanced at
Kitmura for a moment, then back at the screen.

"Captain, what ships are in Fleet Anchorage and are ready for launching?"

"Some of the Task Force scheduled to leave tomorrow may get underway but other than that, they will be on top of us before any real force can launch," the Operations Officer said.

"Sound recall for all personnel
," Admiral Raurk said.

A young naval lieutenant ran up to the Captain on the screen and handed him a readout.

"Admiral, we have emergency drones reporting massive decompressions on both D50 and M51. It can mean only one thing - that they have been destroyed.  We now show on our own in-system sensors, a large naval force of unknown origin on a heading of 128.90.457."

"Right for us
," The Admiral said quietly, almost to herself.

"Thank you Captain
," The Admiral said. "As soon as you can make contact with Combined Fleet Headquarters and advise them of the situation, then put them through to me no matter where I am. Also contact Admiral Kedar with Task Force 7 and order them to proceed at flank speed back to fleet anchorage. Advise Admiral Kedar of the situation and tell him I will contact him with further instructions later."

Admiral Raurk snapped off the screen. "I think this makes our little discussion academic."

She paused and looked at the other staff officers in the room who had been working furiously with their computers since the first message. 

"General
Buchman, what Legion forces do you have in the Fleet Anchorage and aboard the vessels?"

"I have one battalion plus a few odd units attached to various duties,"
Buchman said. "That would put my manpower level at approximately 300 legionnaires and ships."

"It's something. Get them launched."

"Ma'am," Buchman said. He turned and began giving orders through his communications link on his computer.

"Admiral Golepaul
, what is our naval situation?"

"A number of ships are in dry dock
or re-supply. The only ships ready to get under way is Admiral Lule's Task Force. It is scheduled to leave port tomorrow so many of the ships would have their drives spun up in anticipation."

"Get them out of the Anchorage or they will be sitting ducks. As for the rest of the Fleet
, order all to get underway as soon as possible. I just hope we have time to get some of them moving."

Dasan approach
ed General Buckman.

"General
." Dasan said.

"Yes Colonel."

"Sir, I don't think they are just after the Fleet. I think they will invade as well."

Admiral Raurk and General Buckman look
ed at him.

"Evidence
," Admiral Raurk said.

"None, but they put people on the ground at both Consus and Gaxola. I think those were part of a long range plan for this kind of attack."

"Twenty-five years?" Raurk said.

"They have planners. Maybe they are better at predicting their long term needs than ours are."

"Kitmura, what is your assessment?" Raurk said. "You seem to have a good handle on what our new friends are up to."

"Unknown Admiral. I have nothing that would indicate they would invade but Sand does have the most experience of anyone with them in combat."

"Admiral, his unit is already spun up for the live fire exercise tomorrow. I can't use them anyway - not enough ships."

"Are they ready for real combat
Colonel?" Admiral Raurk asked.

"Yes, we even have the munitions stockpiled for the exercise
," Dasan said.

"Very well, Colonel you will take your troops and defend Rift to the best of your ability and resources. Now get to it. We have no idea how long we have."

Dasan came to attention nodded then turned and trotted out of the room.

"I hope he's wrong
," Buchman said.

"So do I Dincin
, so do I. He only has a couple thousand trained troops. If they were to invade it would be with much larger force. I don't think our young Colonel could stop these guys," Raurk said.

The three of them stood there for a moment
, the thought of an alien invasion with no real defense was not a pretty picture.

"I will run this from the Emergency Operations Center. All staff will accompany me to the Center."

The Admiral looked at Captain Kitmura and said, "Captain, you are now a member of my personal staff. You will report to the Emergency Combat Information Center with the rest of my staff."

Kitmura came
to attention and nodded formally.

"Ma'am"

"This is a hell of a way for a Fleet Admiral to fight the biggest, most important fight in human history from underground. Let's get to the elevator."

LYTEN SYSTEM

RIFT

HIGH ORBIT

PLEIADES FLEET ANCHORAGE

HARBORMASTERS CONTROL CENTER

Dunc Havfu had long ago decided that if he could not have a ship to command at this point in his career, being the Harbor Master of the Pleiades Fleet Anchorage was a close second. The constant movement of ships and their tenders in and out of the anchorage was a joy to watch and required a harbormaster that could think on his feet and provide direction to it all. It required all of the command decision- making of a ship of the line with none of the personnel problems. Havfu was finding he was enjoying it more than having his own vessel. 

The Harbor
master’s Control Center was a round saucer-shaped platform with two arms that extended in an L shape from each side. The end of each of the arms then had three arms extending outward to accommodate the constant coming and going of various service ships. The top and the bottom of the saucer were covered with antennas and housings for the complex and various types of communication systems needed to run the harbor. Below the saucer off to the starboard side was the Headquarters for the Emergency Response units; it held all the rescue equipment and the personnel on duty.

The Harbormasters Control Center
was the true hub of the harbor and as such the hub of the Pleiades Fleet. All fleet operations while in the harbor were coordinated through the Center. It was now his during the next watch; his stomach knotted with excitement as he stepped on the operations deck of the Control Center. Someone had the operations screen on window. He could see almost the entire harbor even though it stretched for kilometers before him.

The space in the harbor was filled with all manner of large and small vessels, tugs, launches from the various ships of the line,
large replacement parts or old equipment were being moved by everything from single man tugs to the huge crewed tugs of the civilian contractors. Legion fighters were returning from their patrols or leaving on training missions. The Harbor was never still-it was a 24-hour day operation to keep the fleet at its required readiness level. 

Directly across from the Harbor Master
’s Control center, Dunc could see Battleship Row. Six of the Pleiades Fleet’s battleships were docked there. It was one of those rare times that many of the fleet’s most powerful ships were in port at the same time. Task Force 5 had just returned from their patrol and Task Force 8 was scheduled to leave in the next days. The Phoenix was being fitting with new drives and the Darco was waiting her turn to be fitted with the same new drives. Dunc could see the Von Fleet repair dock connected to the Phoenix. The outer plates of the Phoenix's aft sections had been removed in order to remove the old drives and replace them with new drives. Large tugs were moving carefully around the Von Fleet Repair Dock and the Phoenix as they moved another huge section of the ship away to make room for the required work.

Because the majority of the fleet
’s battleships were in port, that meant their normal complement of support vessels and the rest of their Task Forces were also in port. The Phoenix and Pereus's destroyers and escort vessels were being repaired, retrofitted and generally being updated since the battleships was down for a long period of time.

The Island in
the middle of the harbor was filled with cruisers and the smaller escort vessels. He could see the flashing red and green lights of the small tugs and individual riggers moving all over the huge island in the center of the anchorage. The yellow lights of the cranes and equipment arms moved equipment out for use or were storing it in the huge structure for future use. The island was a marvel in and of itself. It was a self-contained repair and refitting center for the entire fleet as well as docking facilities for cruisers and escorts. It was longer than battleship row and held most of the anchorage’s personnel and equipment. More than two thousand personnel were assigned to it in order to support the fleet.

To his left was the Destroyer Dock 1
, filled with seven destroyers from both Task Forces. Almost out of sight he could see the fuel farm where all types of fuel and hazardous materials needed by the ships of the line were kept as far away from the anchorage as possible to minimize the danger to ships at anchorage. Also to his left was the individual dock for the Solace - the fleet’s hospital ship. It had its own dock that stored its unique supply needs. To his right, he could see Destroyer Dock 2 also filled with ships. Far out to his right he could see the magazine storage facility with a number of small transport vessels loading torpedoes and the dozens of other types of explosives that were used by the fleet. They would be delivering them to the Task Force vessels that were about to go on patrol.

Dunc looked down at the huge solar collectors that circled Rift
in orbit beaming power down by microwave. It never failed to strike Dunc at the complexity of technology, manpower and coordination needed to support the fleet. He felt he was at the heart of the entire fleet when he stood and looked at it all, without letting the complexities of the job get in the way of his appreciation of what it took to keep it all working efficiently. He was still staring out the "window" when Commander
Tapuruan walked up to him.

"Morning Dunc
. Ready for the change over?"

"Of course, sorry I was late. I tried to get here earlier but the elevator was running late and I missed my usual shuttle."

"Yeah, we had a problem with Phoenix during the shift and Von Fleet had to scramble another repair crew together. They filled all of the shuttles."

"What now?"

Phoenix was being outfitted with the new FTL plants that Von Fleet had just sold to the Navy. Phoenix was the first battleship to have them installed. It had been one problem after another since the project started. It was interfering with other ship repairs and disrupting the harbor. The Phoenix had a quarter of her starboard side open to space to extract the old power plants and replace them with the new ones. Huge arms had been constructed and attached to the side of the ship to help the tugs guide the enormous engines into place. Short of the initial construction of the battleship, nothing this large had been attempted on a ship of the line before. Von Fleet had promised they could complete the refitting in the allocated time frame but there had been delay after delay and they were now weeks behind schedule. It was delaying all the other repairs that needed to be done to other vessels because it had turned into a black hole of equipment and manpower needs.

"One of the tugs was moving the main coil into the vessel when it lost all power. The other tug could not stop that mass fast enough and one of the new arms was twisted when control of the coils was lost. It damaged the Phoenix and the coils
, not to mention the swing arm. It could take a week to repair everything and get back to where we were at the beginning of the shift."

"
Shi
!"

"Yeah,
shi
does seem to happen a lot with this project."

"How is everything else?"

"The Solace got in last night. Apparently that plague was worst than they had expected. Even the Solace had a hard time with the number of patients. She is in for resupply and refuel. The Captain said she might need to return to the system -apparently the outbreak may have spread to another planet. The quarantine apparently did not work. I made her a priority. She is being resupplied with medical equipment and medicine. I pulled some of the assets off the Phoenix since they are at a standstill and put them on the Solace. Fuel is being loaded at this time. We should be able to turn her around in twenty-four."

"Nice. I'm glad we had extra hands so we could
get to release the Solace back out. Von Fleet screw up may have been for the best anyway."

"Other than that and a few other minor problems
, everything else is on schedule. I just got today’s timeline. It looks like a normal day."

"Great. I
’ve got it from here. Now get out of here Tapuruan before your lovely wife kills me. Any news on the baby front yet?"

"Any day now is all the doctors can tell me. We can engineer humans, colonize worlds, travel through
wormholes but we can't figure out when a woman is going to have a baby. I am going nuts."

"Well my old friend
, all I can tell you is that they do eventually show up. I used to swear mine were playing simulations in there. My wife said it was up to them, she was along for the ride and that is the way it is supposed to be."

"Great. You
’re some comfort."

"Just trying
to help."

They laughed together. Dunc caught something out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the screen.

"Did you see that?"

"What?"

"Wa Cao!"

They both
stared in horror as a torpedo streaked toward the Phoenix and exploded against the side of the huge ship. It shuddered as compartments were compromised and debris and bodies flew out of the interior.