Chapter 11

Subject: Admiral Nilson

Despite winning the battle for Oasis III, the situation was untenable. The alien ships had managed to fire on the planet, although said fire seemed largely ineffective. The beams didn’t hit anything important, although they did start a few large fires. The bizarre spike-projectiles they launched all broke apart in the atmosphere of the planet; sensors on the surface confirmed that the projectiles fell apart into a cloud of tiny particles. Nothing who’s impact would threaten folks on the ground. 

The problems started when Nilson considered the next step. They’d killed almost all the ships, but one was still out there. It had completely disappeared off sensors, and with that beam weapon, it could ambush and kill any ship sent out after it. So, to chase it down, Nilson would have to send the whole surviving ship formation. But, that would leave the planet undefended. One shot from the alien beam weapon would turn New Carthage into glass and bad memories. And with only one surviving frigate and the e-war cruiser lacking power, there was no way they’d be able to pull off another defense without the Bastion and her destroyer escort.

To add to that, the stricken cruiser that they’d left behind around Oasis V, the Rahvan, was running on battery power. Half her crew was still alive on a ship with a ticking clock. Rescue would certainly be possible, but even half a cruiser’s crew would tax the life support systems of any of Nilson’s ships to the point that they’d have to either send the whole formation, or make multiple runs. And, if a ship went solo to make those runs, they’d be an easy target for the Adversary. And considering the Rahvan is three-days away at full burn, not including deceleration, the Bastion would’t be able to capitalize on the Adversary showing itself to kill the would-be rescue ship. It would simply take too long to get there, and the damn thing could hide again just as it’s doing now. 

The safest move, and the one Nilson was cursing himself for choosing, was to put his ships in high orbit around Oasis III and wait. Protecting them and the planet, while sacrificing the Rahvan and allowing the Adversary free reign over the rest of the system. He’d made the decision, and his crew accepted it without question. Everyone was traumatized from the last week of battle, and Nilson suspected the crew was happy that he’d made the hard choice for them.

In his twenty-four years of fleet service, Nilson hadn’t ever experienced a week like this. Not even close. He doubted any human spacer had, except, of course the Second Fleet’s famed fleet admiral. Across known space, mankind had fought every alien civilization to a standstill at every turn. It had been almost a hundred years since the Great Incursion that led to the formation of the United Human Dominion, and the military build up that since had ensured peace. Only minor border skirmishes, security actions, and the occasional separatist movement kept the fleet in practice. Actual warfare was largely a thing of the past.

Nilson could barely eat, and his sleep was plagued by nightmares of Chief Engineer Pruitt, covered in blood and soot and crying while he begged Nilson to save his crew, to not abandon him. His waking moments were filled with guilt as he ran through the battles over and over again. Seven of his twelve ships destroyed. One on life support and dying slowly. Thousands of spacers lost to the void. 

He’d put the planet on lockdown, securing the heavy lift shuttles that could make the space-to-surface trip safely away to their docking points aboard the station. He’d also reassigned Davis to a command staff role— Liaison Officer. He’d be in charge of liaising with the planetary administrator, an absolutely unenviable job, but one that Davis himself had asked for. Estevez was his new XO, with Sahr in line for spot three. 

Personnel reassignments and handing out commendations were all busy work to kill time and calm nerves. He couldn’t even busy himself by examining the wreckage from the dead Adversary ships; the damnable things started disintegrating as soon as they were derelict. Estevez suspected it was intentional, to avoid giving information to their enemy. All they could do was wait. Wait and hope the fleet back home decided the Oasis system was worth recovering. Hoping a fleet would tear out of rift space and save the Rahvan, and send a nuke into the bridge of the last Adversary ship. If it had a bridge.

After days of lingering in orbit, stewing in anger, doubt, and self-loathing, hope came back to Nilson in the most unexpected way. 

“Admiral Nilson to the bridge, Admiral Nilson to the bridge,” the ship’s PA announced. Nilson was in the mess pouring himself another cup of coffee from the seemingly perpetual supply the ship was loaded with. It was the good stuff too. Nilson topped off his mug and rushed onto the bridge. Much to his surprise, everyone was smiling.

“Admiral!” Estevez was alive with excitement, “jump signatures detected in the outer system; they’re broadcasting as UHDN ships!”

Holy shit, Nilson thought. “Estevez, this is way too soon for a gate builder ship from the central systems to have made it.” He looked at the combat information display, three ships. “And three ships is not a fleet. Who are they and where’d they come from?”

“It was a warp jump, and they-“, Estevez looked at her display just as the comms officer spoke up. 

“Admiral! Incoming tight beam. It’s coming from near one of Oasis III’s moons, sir,” the comms officer seemed confused, like he distrusted the information the ship was feeding him. “There’s no ship on the scope from where the tight beam is originating from. Should I accept?”

Nilson and Estevez looked at each other. Estevez’s excitement withered into a look of concern. Nilson hovered his finger over the ‘battle stations alarm’ button. “Answer it, put it up on the main display.”

The holographic display of the system disappeared and was replaced by an image of a man. A man with a beard. Wearing a green sweater. He wore a lopsided grin. He was clearly not a fleet officer. 

“Howdy, Admiral” The man spoke, his accent a quaint drawl that reminded Nilson of frontier adventure streams. “I’m Agent Jim Crawford of the Systems Intelligence Division, Special Investigations Unit. Sorry for sneaking up on you, but we got the distress call from the rift gate control station before they nuked themselves and I figured it’d be wise to keep a low profile until I got an eye on the situation.” 

Nilson narrowed his eyes and looked to Estevez. A feral grin played across her face. She looked up and gave him a thumbs up, apparently the universal symbol of ‘this checks out’. Nilson looked back to the display. 

“Rear Admiral Nilson, Oasis Security Flotilla. We’re more like a squadron now. We’ve been attacked by the alien ships that came out of the rift, and they did a number on us. We’ll send over a full sensor package recounting of the last few weeks for you to review. Are those three ships that just jumped in with you, Agent Crawford?”

“Call me Jim, Admiral. I’m not military and it’s always weird when military folks call me by a title. Yeah, those ships are with me. I was out and about a few systems over doing some uh, ‘looking around’, we’ll say. Joint ops with the fleet. Technically, Senior Captain Aleki Anae is in charge of the battlegroup but he’s keeping his head down too. We work together, so I volunteered to give you a shout while he’s on the prowl. How many alien ships are left, Admiral?”

“One’s left, Jim. One out of eight. We don’t know where it is, all we know is it ran off after getting it’s ass kicked around Oasis III. Sensors pegged it heading counterspinward down the well, but we lost track of it when it went behind one of the planet’s moons and it’s gravimetric signature is too weak to reliably track. I’ll send that over too.”

“Thanks for that Admiral!” Jim said jovially, “listen, most of what I get up to is classified. Need-to-know. Well, I’m looking at the situation here and I figure there’s at least a few things that you’re in the need to know. And, I think the situation is a little extreme, so I’m gonna flex my authority a bit here.” Jim took a deep breath. Nilson braced himself for whatever that meant. 

“Because of the alien incursion and the direct threat to a human colony, including the damage rendered to a habitable planet by alien forces, I’m declaring an emergency in this system,” Jim’s eyes glazed over slightly, as if he was reading from a script or a law book. He continued, “as the senior civilian authority in this system, and by virtue of an alien incursion presenting as a threat to intersystem commerce, I’ll be asserting control over all assets in this system, fleet and otherwise. Nilson, you work for me now, but it ain’t a big deal. I’m gonna be giving you tools to go kill aliens so it ought make you happy.”

“Threat to intersystem commerce?” Nilson asked. He had a lot of questions, but the justification for seizing control of fleet ships away from a fleet admiral seemed… well, bizarre.

“Yeah well, aliens coming in and killing everybody would sure put a damper on intersystem commerce around here now wouldn’t it?” Jim winked; Nilson winced. “Trust me Nilson, I’ve got four experimental stealth destroyers prowling the system right now looking for your demon ship. Work with me here and we’ll get things back on track real quick, together as a team.”

Nilson briefed a glance to Estevez at the mention of more stealth ships in the system. Estevez looked awestruck. She glanced between the sensor operator and Nilson, and shrugged to indicate she had no idea there were more ships in the system. 

“Alright Jim, I’ll admit you’ve caught me in a time of need and I’m grateful to have the assistance. If you can, I’d ask that you send those three big ships on the edge of the system downwell. I have a stricken cruiser that has surviving crew that need rescue. It’s urgent.” Nilson wasn’t below begging at this point, but he knew it was an easy show of good faith, and the agent had to bite on it. 

“That’s their first stop Nilson, second stop is in formation with your flagship.” Jim grinned at that. It made Nilson uncomfortable, like the agent was a salesman trying to pull some tactic to build rapport. He didn’t trust the guy yet, but by all accounts his story checked out. The Bastion’s sensor operator slid a handwritten note on the podium at Nilson’s command terminal. 

“Alright Jim. My sensor operator is indicating that since you are apparently totally invisible to our systems, we can’t actually send you any information outside of the tight beam that you initiated to start this call. So, I hope you have some sort of secret means of sending sensor data over.”

Jim’s smile hadn’t waned, instead it grew stronger at the utterance of the word ‘secret’. “Oh I’ve got secrets Nilson,” Jim purred, “I’ll turn the active sensors and IFF transponders and all that on so you can see me. Once we’ve had a chance to digest your sensor data I’ll hit you back with a plan. Keep an eye on your private messages too, I get kinda busy over here and can’t always do a big formal call in front of everyone, if you know what I mean.” Nilson knew what he meant. It meant, ‘I’d love to tell you secret shit but I’m on the bridge display in front of everyone and they aren’t allowed to know’. 

“Understood, Agent. I’ll wait to hear back from you.” Nilson signed off and dropped the call. “Comms send a message to Chief Engineer Pruitt at once, let him know rescue is coming.”

“Aye admiral,” the comms officer replied. 

“Estevez, you already know this but please send over everything on the Adversary and our actions since the incursion started. But, wait until that ship confirms it’s identity and check it against the records,” Nilson knew as soon as he added the second part that it was a mistake to say it aloud. He didn’t need his crew knowing that he doubted the agent. But, he had to do his due diligence. Estevez nodded and got to work. Nilson turned back to his display to see the new ships and their projected path. The SIUS Wraith, Jim’s ship, Nilson supposed, had shared an intent to navigate down into formation alongside the Bastion. The formation of three ships in the outer system, shown as two modern battlecruisers and a ‘surface combat support ship’, named the UHDN Vengeance of Tethys, had already updated their navigation tracks and shared an intent to burn downwell towards the Rahvan. Already. 

“Estevez, are you seeing that those ships in the outer system have already updated navigation? Do you think they have their own FTL comms system?” Nilson asked, excited by the prospect. 

“I do, Admiral. It would make sense that a fleet of this composition and nature would have their own, separate SAECOM system, especially for classified operations. Running everything through a public relay is a security risk.” Estevez paused briefly before adding, “the ship name checks out. The Wraith is a known SIU stealth frigate, but it didn’t show up on the registry until the IFF tagged it. Interesting. Same as the Vengeance of Tethys. It’s an experimental ship, I’d wager. No idea what it’s capable of, but it’s huge. Easily twice the size of the battlecruisers.” 

Nilson nodded at Estevez and typed an excited text message to Jim asking to be relayed to the new formation’s sensors. FTL communications would be huge. Jim’s reply came quick. 

I’ll do ya one better.