To Michael’s left and right, another flight of ten steps led to an overhead gantry, lined with yet more displays, here another ten men worked. He spied the commodore’s office ahead and just to the left of him. In the wall directly ahead was a giant viewer, partially obscured by this overhead gantry. It was currently showing the forms of the two Lincoln class supply ships which had docked earlier.
Michael could see the commodore waving from his office to enter, so he hurried along the central platform toward the side room, the frosted glass doors opened automatically.
Valente had guessed Michael’s surprise, “not what you were expecting?”
Michael had to admit, “not really, with a station of this size, I was expecting something a little larger.”
“That’s what surprised me too when I took command here three years ago, you would expect for a station that essentially oversees all operations in the Malthus system and for several light years beyond, to have quite a sizeable command and control centre, but not Charlie Gamma base,” Valente said shaking his head. “Please, take a seat.”
Michael sat down in a comfortable leatherette chair next to the commodore’s desk, as he did so a small monitor rose from the surface.
“As you are no doubt aware, the Jefferson class heavy cruiser, Eisenhower picked up a distress buoy from the Copernicus, which was conducting a survey of the Auriga system. From the logs and sensor data downloaded into the buoy we can confirm the Copernicus has been destroyed in orbit of the third planet in the system.”
Michael stared, his eyebrows raised in shock, fearing for the life of his former medical officer; his friend.
“However it is what destroyed the Copernicus, and the events leading up to it that has everyone talking.”
Michael peered at the small video playing on the monitor, he watched the monumental release of energy that shot past, coating the ship in its intense orange glare in the process, and whispered, “what the hell?”
The video showed the enemy ship, Michael at first mistook it for a Solarian battlecruiser. Yet when he looked closer he picked up the subtle differences, the lower, sleeker, more severely angled command structure. The pronounced weapon arrays on the wingtips, together with the fact that this ship was black in colour and not silver. The dark leviathan began firing on the defenceless Copernicus; the image quickly faded to black.
Michael had to ask the question, “is that a Solarian ship?”
“No, the Solarian’s have denied any involvement or even knowledge of the incident, but they are not saying who it is either. They are acting very strangely about the whole thing, and are absolutely adamant they will not get involved. So adamant in fact, that they have threatened to pull their ships out of the area.”
“That’s not like them, normally they are pretty co-operative with us, they never had a problem sharing information before, so why now?”
Valente simply shrugged, “beats me, E.D. F command has an inkling that the Solarians do know who is behind it. Or at least they have a very good idea, why they are being so reluctant, nobody knows. The planet isn’t even an E.O.C. A colony world, so there’s no threat of invasion for now at least. Command is monitoring the situation closely and has initiated a temporary alert level three on this, since it is an attack on E.O.C. A property, namely the Copernicus, and it is an incursion into E.O.C. A territory. This is our highest alert level since the Krenaran war captain.”
Michael was still wondering just what all this had to do with him, but continued to listen to the commodore’s briefing anyway.
“However, there are still a group of sixteen survivors from the Copernicus who were investigating some alien ruins on the surface, and we need to get them out of there fast. The Liberty is the only ship that can get there fast enough to save them, but you’ll need help,” Valente smiled. “Fortunately for us, a group of twenty E.D. F commandoes have been training for just this kind of scenario at Bravo Delta base on the colony world of Gamma Aurigulon not too far away. It’s a small military complex used for hostage retrieval training, Colonel Vargev is currently commanding them. They have been scrambled, and are currently on route to the planet in a Stockholm class lander, your mission is to rendezvous with the lander, transfer the troops onboard, and land them on the surface so they can extract the survivors.”
Michael understood the mission, however a few questions still lingered in the back of his mind, “if I may commodore?”
“By all means.”
“Why doesn’t the Liberty simply escort the lander in?”
“Command are worried that the lander may come under fire, as you know, the Stockholm class lander has no ship-to-ship weaponry, it is purely and simply a means of transporting troops onto the battlefield. Out in space it is highly vulnerable, that’s why we usually have to clear the bad guys out first using the navy, before we can send the landers in. If those commandoes die on-route, the mission is scrubbed and the survivors die as well.”
“Understood,” Michael replied, it had seemed as though the E.D. F had learned the lessons from all those failed lander missions during the war, so many were simply torn to shreds by stealth ships before ever reaching the surface.
“The Liberty is still not in active service while we are field testing these new graviton shields, surely there is another ship closer, who can perform the mission just as well?” Michael pleaded, his crew were still not back, and he didn’t want to be put in the position of having to take out the Liberty with a completely green, temporary crew, especially if he was expecting to take her into a fight.
“The Eisenhower could, but you know as well as I do, the Liberty is more than twice as fast as her, far more heavily armed and much more survivable in an engagement. Yes, the Eisenhower is closer, but the Liberty is faster, in this type of mission it’s a no-contest, we’ll just have to test the new shielding system in combat,” Valente said.
Just hope to hell they work like they do in the simulations, Michael thought, the power supply to the ships previous reactive hull armour had been removed to stabilise the load on the ships main power core, if those shields failed the Liberty would only be marginally more survivable than any other ship. “My crew have not yet arrived back from their shore leave, the Liberty can’t leave immediately anyway.”
“We have already contacted your crew and apprised them of the situation, most were on-route anyway, they have been given orders to scramble and should be here in the next couple of hours, no doubt you’ll also brief them personally?”
“Of course.”
“Look Michael, I don’t like rushing the Liberty back into service like this anymore than you do, but we both know the best chance for the survival of those scientists is if the Liberty is involved.”
Michael nodded, he couldn’t argue the point, the Liberty was the fastest ship in the E.D. F anyway.
“The Eisenhower has been placed on standby should you need her, and a taskforce of four other E.D. F ships have been dispatched from Delta base, they won’t arrive in system for another 2 days, and we are without Solarian help, it appears we are on our own on this one. Do us proud captain.”
“I’ll try my best, sir.”
The two officers saluted one another, and commodore Valente gave him a disc for his data navigator containing the specifics of the mission.
“Good luck out there, captain.”
“Thank you, sir.” Michael replied before the commodore dismissed him.
He wasn’t happy with the circumstances, the Liberty wasn’t really ready to be thrown into a combat environment just yet, and the Solarians acting weirdly was totally unlike them. He had a lead he could follow up on however, namely his own pilot, Eldathar, and failing that, ambassador Kerulithar on Solaria itself, the ambassador had helped them out once before when he accompanied them to the Solarian homeworld to enlist his people’s help in the Krenaran war, he was confident he would do so again.