“Sir, our ships have entered the atmosphere of Fadlar 12…”, Commodore York announced via the subspace comms link.
“Good, have you sensors detected any sign of our friend yet?”, asked Jovien standing in front of the holographic video link in the Kordon Prime command centre. The image of the commodore shimmered a tilt of blue has the image refreshed several times a second. Jovien awaited the commodore’s response eagerly.
“We are conducting a search pattern now sir, if they are here, we will find them.”, replied the York.
Jovien leaned forward towards holographic video table with hand pressed hard against the silver edges of the tables frame. He needed the results badly, the fleet was positioned at the Fadlar / Aviod wormhole and were being reinforced constantly by forces coming to Fadlar. But without a destination, they were next to useless. The Governor had decided only to commit 2 Predator class corvettes to the location of the target, Jovien had no desire to fly blindly into a situation without knowing what exactly he was up against.
Admiral Thomas, the successor to the late Admiral Greyward stood at Jovien’s side.
“Jovien, I wouldn’t worry about it to much.”, he hinted, “You know we will find them, we have already scouted pretty much all but 3 of the planets in this system. There isn’t really anyway else they could be.”
Jovien smiled and nodded, “I know, but still, I just can’t stand this damn calm.”
“Calm?”, queried the Admiral.
“Yeah, you know? The calm before the storm.”, Jovien replied.
The Admiral nodded, “Ahh yes I do.”
Both men looked at the hologram of the Fadlar system in the centre of the room being projected from the central strategy table.
“You do realise, that if the blue’s are anything to go by, this is going to be a very short fight…”, mused Thomas.
Jovien glanced sideways towards Thomas, “That’s something that Greyward never would have said…”
Thomas smile faded, “Sorry, I know you two were at the academic together.”
Jovien looked away, “It’s not that Thomas, it is, well, it doesn’t matter, my point was he never under-estimated the possible threat we faced, in fact he always tended like myself to over-inflated it, so that we had made doubly sure we were capable of dealing with it.”
Thomas feeling awkward looked towards the hologram vid link to commodore York, “York anything so far?”, he prompted to distract from the awkwardness.
“Nothing so far Admir…. No hang on…”, the commodore paused. Jovien stand up leaning off the edge of the table and began eagerly watching the hologram. Behind the commodore several crew members could be seen rushing in a flurry or activity, which by all indications signed to Jovien that they may have found what they were looking for. “Admiral, Governor, we have found them!”, came the eagerly awaited answer.
“Yeah!!!!”, cheered the Admiral making a punching action with his fist. Jovien grinned, “I didn’t know you were that interested in finding him…”, commented Jovien.
The Admiral glanced over to the Governor, “Are you kidding, just because I wasn’t all gun-hoy like you were didn’t mean I wasn’t eager to find him.”, replied the Admiral.
Jovien turned his attention back to the commodore, “How sure are you commodore?”
“100% so far Jovien, I can see they have a large presence on the planet, I’m getting reports from our sister ship that they have also located large number of structures on the planet but in a different location. I’d say we just located their major colony.”
Jovien clapped, “Good job man! Now commodore, bring the rest of our fleet to that planet, you know what you needs to be done. Admiral, issue orders to our reinforcements to get them into Fadlar as soon as possible.”
Admiral Thomas saluted, “Yes sir!”, Commodore York saluted also “Copy that!”.
“Sir…”, interrupted York, “Should we position our ships to engage the enemy now?”
“What is your tactical analysis shown Commodore? Does the target present a problem?”, asked Jovien.
“Negative sir, they currently have little to no real defences, in fact I’d dare to say that with a single ship we could easily deal with them.”, informed the commodore.
“In that case commodore, with the admirals permission, once your ships are in position you made by all accounts begin the attack.”, replied Jovien.
The Admiral shook his head, “I have no objections. Tactical data we have received indicates no serious threat to our vessels from the target. Commodore, you have a go.”, confirmed the Admiral.
On Fadlar 12 the 2 Predator class corvettes moved into parallel positions side by side and began to slowly accelerate over the rocky landscape. Has they reached a low sloping hill the tactical office shouted out that they had achieved weapon lockon. The commodore asked, “Can you identify the target?”
The tactical officer rapidly operated a number of controls on their console before replying, “Yes commodore, scanners indicator it is a low level production factory belonging to Governor Zolbad.”
“Perfect, issue orders to our sister ship, we engage at once! Tactical, open fire!”, yelled the commodore.
With that the frontal arc of the corvette erupted in a blazing of yellow tracer rounds. The pattern of the shotguns resembled a shotgun spray, with rounds flying for miles in a multitude of different directions. Each shot tracked onto a structure belonging to Zolbad. Loud thundering claps of gun fire could be heard through the valley of Zolbad’s colony as the corvettes flew into eye sight of its residents. The poor citizens of Zolbad’s Fadlar 12 colony began to scream in panic as a hail of rail gun round began to peat the city, countless thousands started to run for cover not knowing what or why the attack had come.
“GOD DAMN IT TACTICAL!”, screamed the commodore, “Did you not check the DAMN weapon setting before firing!?”, growled the commodore.
The tactical officer jumped suddenly at the shock of the commodore’s disapproval, “Sorry commodore, I have setup the weapons according to standard military protocol.”
“Sod standard military protocol, if you had checked your personal command interface, you’d see I issued a order 10 minutes ago to change targeting preferences to economic and military structures only and not civilian.”, yelled the commodore.
The officer was sweating from the commodore anger towards him. Trying to win back some respect, the young officer tried to correct the weapons systems targeting preferences.
“Forget it Al!”, growled the commodore, “Commander Hayworth, relief Lieutenant Murray from his station.”, commanded York.
The commander got up from his seat and briskly walked towards the young lieutenant.
“Sorry son, I’m going to have to relief you of duty.”, insisted the commander now flanked by 2 security officers.
Al looked towards the commodore, who was no longer concerned with the young man and more focused on the battle taking place outside. Al stood up and followed the 2 security officers out of the command deck. Commander Hayworth in the mean time had taken seat at Murrays former station.
“I’m assuming charge of tactical commodore, what are your orders?”, informed Hayworth.
“First of all correct that fools weapon settings then focus fire on that damn factory!”, the commodore barked. “Oh and Hayworth?”, the commodore continued.
“Yes commodore?”
“Don’t you dare miss!”, stated the commodore staring directly at Hayworth.
“I don’t intend to.”, came the reply.
Continue reading The Rising of a New Threat
