Chapter 3
Subject: Rear Admiral Sven Nilson, Oasis System Security Flotilla.
“What do you mean it’s gone? How does the gate become ‘gone’, Ensign?” Admiral Nilson was at a loss. A distress call had come in from the rift gate operations center, but it had come buried in a mountain of sensor data and logs. Far too much for him to sift through personally; that’s what a bridge crew is for. The communications officer before him paled somewhat, eyes darting side to side in panic. Admiral Nilson let out a long sigh as the ensign stammered. “Look, just summarize the message and let me know what Captain Russo needs to take care of it.” The junior officer looked like he was about to vomit.
“The gate was attacked, sir,” the ensign’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Ships came through the gate and attacked Captain Russo. Gate operators self destructed the gate to stop more from coming through. SAECOM is down. Captain Russo’s squadron is dead. We haven’t confirmed with our sensors yet, of course. We only have light speed comms now. Sir.”
Nilson stiffened. “I see,” he said. A billion thoughts ran through his mind at the same time. “Forward the sensor data to intel. Did the gate operators notify fleet command before pulling failsafes?”
“Yes sir. They sent the same message to us and fleet command and another third group the system labeled as ‘classified’.” The ensign had his footing now and was apparently eased by the Admiral’s matter of fact questioning and apparent total calm. Nilson was anything but calm and was shocked at how steady his voice sounded.
“Dismissed ensign, I’ll take it from here.” Nilson picked up his coffee and strode out of the mess, heading for the command deck. With his unladen hand he pulled his smartlink device out of a pocket and sent a comms request to the intelligence department head.
“Sir!” She answered almost immediately.
“Is it true? Are we under attack? Is Russo dead?” Nilson asked. Rumors had a way of getting blown out of proportion between the gate and all the way down the well.
“Sir, sensor data shows eight unidentified ships coming through the gate at even intervals. They engaged Russo’s squadron and destroyed them with close range energy beam weapons. The Palisade either killed or badly damaged one of the unknown ships with two railgun strikes. Another was very near the gate control center when the self destruct occurred. We believe the unknown ships are alien in origin, sir. The Bastion’s systems can’t identify them, it’s defaulted to calling them ‘Adversary’.”
“And the gate, it’s gone?” Nilson held his breath after asking it.
“Total loss. SAECOM with it. A distress call went out to fleet command and a classified element that we are looking into.” The woman’s tone changed to be straight matter-of-fact, “we’re breaking down the combat data but it isn’t looking good. They killed our ships in just a couple of hits and we’re totally cut off and are relying on light speed comms and sensors. The relay for the whole system’s FTL comms ran through the gate’s operations center and it’s gone.”
“Thank you Lieutenant Commander. Send the battle data to tactical and my terminal on the bridge, and get ready to forward everything to the rest of the flotilla. Get me a profile on those adversary ships and start looking into the finer details on how our weapons performed against them.” Nilson dropped the call and immediately scrolled to the Bastion’s executive officer.
“Uh, hello?” A tired voice answered after a solid minute of ringing.
“God damnit Commander! We might be a fucking discount bin flotilla but we are still in the fucking navy. Answer the comm like a goddamn XO.” Silence met him on the other line. Nilson sighed. “Shit has hit the fan and Russo is dead. Everything is fucked. Get to the bridge and check your messages. I’m forwarding everything to you.” Nilson dropped the call and stopped. He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his thinning hair. Tactical pause, he reminded himself, don’t freak out, take a tactical pause and think it through.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Nilson said to no one and walked onto the bridge. This ship, the Bastion, is one of the few ships in the flotilla designed around modern combat doctrine, and he was quick to snag it as his flagship when it came available. The context was unusual, the ship’s former captain had a meltdown on a classified mission somewhere on the fringes a few jumps away from the Oasis system and found himself disappeared by Systems Intelligence, but Nilson was happy to have a real flagship regardless of the previous captain.
The ship’s XO, an underachieving cousin of some politician back in the center systems, fell into his spot through pure nepotism. It only made sense to crush his dreams of being a captain and pull double duty as the captain and admiral for the tiny security flotilla that was his fleet. Nilson couldn’t imagine what it would be like to command the ship through such a fucked up intermediary as the XO he now had to drag along behind him.
The bridge of the Bastion was a half circle arrangement, with a row of workstations facing inward for easy communication between the ship’s captain and the various critical departments. In the center of the half circle lay a holographic display that the ship’s captain could manipulate with gestures and voice commands to get a big picture of the system, run combat simulations, and send orders to the fleet.
The second Admiral Nilson walked on the bridge, everyone fell silent and turned to him, like a beehive suddenly stopped in time, with hurried conversations cut off mid sentence.
“General quarters, flotilla wide,” Nilson stated flatly to the room, making eye contact with the comms department head. “There’s a half dozen adversarial alien ships somewhere on the outer edge of the system an we need to go kill them.”
A flurry of activity broke out as soon as he finished talking. Alarm’s sounded and the ship’s public address system keyed on. “GENERAL QUARTERS! GENERAL QUARTER! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS. HOSTILE CONTACTS CONFIRMED IN THE OUTER SYSTEM. SET CONDITION ORANGE!”
Nilson would have rolled his eyes at how scared the announcement sounded, but truthfully, he was scared shitless too. Nilson strode up to the combat information display and pulled up a simplified system overview.
The Oasis system had a security flotilla that had been whittled down from an actual fleet of around three-dozen ships to what it currently consisted of, either twelve or fifteen warships, depending on who’s counting. Three of the ships were docked permanently for repairs that would never come at Oasis’s mostly-shuddered orbital station. Further, Russo had three that were now dead. That leaves a combat capable group of nine warships. Four in orbit around Oasis III’s largest moon and five more either orbiting Oasis III itself proximal to the station, or docked to it.
Nilson was in command of the only real modern warship of the bunch. The Bastion is a heavy cruiser; full of piss and vinegar. Heavy armor plating, twin spinal railguns, a full complement of missile tubes, and an array of coilguns. Three of the remaining eight that could fight were older patrol cruisers, a class of warship that was designed to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades with an emphasis on endurance. Fast ships with a ton of missiles and good sensors, but lacking in armor and close in weapons. Great for patrolling the frontier, not great for fleet combat. Two were older destroyers like the now dead Palisade, and the remaining three are frigates with a kitchen-sink assortment of weapons systems and sensors kludged on by whatever discount shipyard got the refurbishment contract for warships destined for systems the Dominion didn’t care about anymore. They wouldn’t be much help.
Nilson formed three squadrons out of the mess of ships. The frigates would be left around Oasis III to defend the station. The two destroyers would form their own squadron, and the three patrol cruisers would form up with the Bastion. Nilson knew he was going to have to do most of the work with the cruisers, but maybe he could put those destroyers behind something and have them run dark, maybe drive the adversary into a trap…
Commander Davis, the Bastion’s XO, strode up and took his post. He looked like shit.
“Davis, read through the summaries and take point on answering requests from the other ships in the flotilla,” Nilson said without turning back to look at him a second time.
“You got it,” Davis responded meekly. Nilson cringed at the informality and ground his teeth. He hated being left with the dregs of the fleet, but, he reasoned, if there was anywhere to stick a politically appointed worthless officer and a bunch of half-functional frankensteins monster warships it would be Oasis, the system where nothing happens. Until now, apparently.
“We gonna let the administrator know?” Davis asked. It wasn’t a terrible question, and it had crossed Nilson’s mind. Oasis III had a population of just under a hundred thousand people, and it had a semi-functioning corporate government. They would lose their minds and be up his ass constantly if he told them aliens were attacking.
“Great initiative Davis! Let the administrator know that there’s a potential security issue near the gate and the fleet will be responding. Let him know that the details aren’t confirmed yet, but that we have lost FTL comms and are going to investigate further. Don’t mention aliens unless you want to be giving hourly updates every hour until this is over. You got it?”
Davis paled for a moment, then seemed lost in thought. Probably debating whether he’d ever share initiative again, Nilson mused. To Nilson’s surprise, Davis winked at him.
“Got it. I’ll let him know we’re going on a milk run.” Davis said in a self satisfied tone.
“Alright,” Nilson started thinking out loud, manipulating the ships on his display and preparing to get the fleet underway. “Nav, I’m dropping a course that will put the destroyers in orbit around Oasis V while we head up the well counterspinward. Make it as quick and efficient as possible. Intel, work with those destroyers to keep them as silent as possible. They’re our ace in the hole and I want them to be a surprise for the enemy. Tactical, study that combat data and see if you can come up with some options for killing those ships once we get close. Ops, get with engineering and get an updated fleet wide readiness report.” Every department head answered with a crisp “aye sir" and got right to work.
Nilson was about to ask Davis to put together a personnel schedule to make sure the crew didn’t get burned out on the trip out, but thought better of it at the last second. “Ops, you better put together a schedule for the crew too. Let’s not exhaust the crew on the trip up the well.”
Nilson looked around the bridge compartment, each station was a flurry of activity as the crew came together to get the fleet ready to fight. Even Davis was working on something. God help us when we find those ships, he thought, but didn’t dare say it aloud.
