“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.
He looked to his first officer. “Contact Dauntless, they are to start transmitting as soon as we pass into Olympus territory.”
Dawson turned his eyes back to the screen that now showed the enhanced image of Cloud station. Yes, soon.
“We are receiving communications from Dauntless Captain.” Comm officer said.
Captain Reginald Smith of Bismarck turned to him from his study of the screen in front of him.