“Alright let’s get this thing started.”
Captain Jason Hunter set his portable tablet down on the main light table in Argent’s war deck operations center. Zony and two of her specialists had been hard at work most of the morning getting a series of multi-layered tactical screens set up for the briefing. She was seated at the opposite end of the darkened facility, working at a large console and watching the command computer’s responses to her requests carefully.
Present was Commander Toby DeMay, skipper of DSS Dunkerque. The Perseus group’s third capital platform had finally arrived at Blackburn along with some of the strike fleet’s munitions and supplies. Hunter wasn’t happy about the inexplicable and nearly continuous delays in getting his ships where they needed to be, but he was gratified to have avoided the administrative friction these kinds of supply operations often produced. His back-channel arrangements with Admiral Benjamin Powers, CINC Eastern Banner, seemed to be paying off for now.
Also present was newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Yili Curtiss, Argent’s Chief Engineer. Her timely actions on Bayone Three’s surface to not only recover the Copernicus engineering corvette, but also set up a surprisingly effective power system for 14th Infantry had finally gotten the attention she and her orbital combat engineers so richly deserved. By now most of Argent’s crew had noticed the newly decorated engineering command insignia, the new Skywatch Commendation Medal with a Combat Action Cluster and a third Silver Star on the commander’s Surface Warfare Ribbon alongside her second Purple Heart. The engineer herself, naturally, had little to say. She was busy with a set of weapons schematics on her own tablet.
Hunter’s executive officer Commander Annora Doverly was seated near the head of the table. She was still heavily involved in coordinating logistics for the battleship’s immense recent reinforcements. Skywatch knew there was a war coming. Whether it started on Bayone Three or ended there was simply a matter of semantics as far as the strategic situation was concerned. The flag officers Hunter could still trust had rightly concluded Argent was the only ship in the formation heavy enough to anchor a true amphibious operation. For now, that was the only realistic option. Other battle groups would arrive eventually, but like all fleet officers, both Hunter and Doverly knew the dangers and the practical reality of promised defenses responding to right now attackers.
The commander had deftly presided over the re-activation of the 12th Marine Mechanized and the 99th Marine Amphibious Companies. Twenty-eight of Argent’s sixty-eight paladin mechs had been re-armed and re-fitted to support sustained ground operations planetside. The Seventh Marine Strategic Air Group and 40th Airborne accounted for the rest of Hunter’s rapid response ground forces. The Perseus flagship could now launch, recover and provide fire support for nearly 900 mechanized marine infantry.
The fleet carrier Song of Heaven had detached Squadron One-Six for temporary reassignment to Argent, which brought the battleship’s fighter complement to 94 attack craft organized into five fully-manned squadrons. The storied “Devil Cats” brought two-dozen battle-tested Wildcat fighters with them, along with sixty additional deck crew reinforcements and full racks of reloads and spare parts. Admiral Neela Hafnetz, the flag for Strike Fleet Athena, had personally recommended One-Six. The new pilots brought Squadron 85‘s “Los Gatos” back to full strength, meaning it was no longer necessary to leave six of the squadron’s Wildcats behind on combat operations due to pilot shortages. The Tigersharks and Red Buccaneers were grateful for the energy weapons support the new wall of Cats could bring to bear, and Lieutenant Roscoe himself had rolled one of his trademark kegs into the officer’s mess when he learned the “Archangels” were no longer the only full-strength Wildcat squadron aboard.
Newly promoted Master Chief Petty Officer Duncan Buckmaster celebrated right alongside Argent’s pilots, as he had been presented with a half-dozen Mackinac heavy transport lifters, each of which could ferry up to 12000 tons of either cargo, vehicles or armor from orbit to surface. He was now officially “Chief of the Battleship,” complete with his new nickname “COB.” Buckmaster was in charge of the nearly 1000 members of Captain Hunter’s deck crews on all three of Argent’s cavernous flight platforms.
The new “Macks” were expected to make things much easier for spacelifts, which had been one of COB’s biggest problems. The big vessels could function either autonomously or could be controlled by wide-spectrum remote electronics, which Lieutenant Tixia had been kind enough to set up for Flight Two’s benefit. Only Argent’s center flight deck could accommodate vessels like the Mackinacs and the larger electronic warfare and rescue corvettes, not to mention her formidable Tarantula-Hawk gunships.
Buckmaster was the senior crew member tasked with instructing newly arriving crew and marines on the role and function of a strike battleship. Most Skywatch personnel, whether they were fleet or ground forces, were more likely to know the details of platforms like the heavy battleships Kingsblade or Resplendent, as they were the vessels that hosted appearances by high-ranking civilian politicians and were the sites of ceremonies of interest to the general public.
Argent, on the other hand, was one of the fleet’s workhorses. A true hybrid, she combined advanced HAVOC anti-proton main batteries with an innovative arrangement of three flight decks each capable of launching craft ranging from probes to fighters to amphibious vehicles and armor. Where heavy fleet carriers like Song of Heaven and Bretagne were each equipped with two spacious decks designed to launch alpha strength fighter wings as rapidly as possible, Argent’s three-deck arrangement was optimized for versatility. Although she couldn’t stage the kind of sustained long-range fighter operations of the specialized carriers, she was no slouch when it came to force projection, especially considering her unique wing of gunships, which could operate in nearly any attack role. More importantly, when it came time to close range and engage in weapons-to-armor slugging matches, Argent had considerable advantages over the lighter-armed Skywatch carriers.
Most of the new crew and marines weren’t all that impressed until COB explained a fully loaded strike battleship displaced five million tons and had enough hull volume to house 32 of the ancient wet navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers. She was 72 stories from base to the very top of the Skywatch sensor deck, 1700 feet wide from port-side Flight One to starboard-side Flight Three and just over 2700 feet long. Buckmaster made a point of explaining all this on the ten-minute walk from the ship’s aft-most radiation shielding to the deck five observation bay, which was the forward-most point aboard ship. By the time his presentation concluded, his audience often had new appreciation for the phrase “capital ship.”
But the captain’s secret weapon was still DSS Dunkerque. Commander DeMay had pulled her crew together faster than any other officer could have. Argent’s adopted escort strike cruiser was now at full strength and then some. Although she didn’t yet have the new weapons systems installed like those on DSS Fury, DeMay’s cruiser could still dish out considerable punishment with her standoff plasma cannon main batteries, especially in space-to-ground engagements against enemy infantry and armor. It was what the strike cruiser was invented to do, and by the looks of things, that fact hadn’t been lost on Toby DeMay or his crew. The fact that Argent and Dunkerque now shared advanced datalink and could synchronize their point defense, battle screens and electronic warfare suites to tolerances of a tiny fraction of a second didn’t hurt either.
Nevertheless, what ate at the captain as he took his seat at the head of the war deck’s planning map was the fact that his marine battalion’s commander was missing on the very planet his ship was about to defend against a probable invasion force.
“Seems Admiral Powers and my darling sister have done rather well. We managed to refit, re-arm and repair all but two of our ships without drawing the attention of anyone else at Skywatch Command,” Hunter began. His officers and other crew members took their seats around the enormous light table. “What else has been done?”
“Signals section is up. We’ve run regression tests on the entire array and all three watches have been briefed and rated on the most recent set of combat drills,” Zony reported. “If someone lights a match anywhere in Sector Two, we’ll hear it burning in stereo.”
“Outstanding. Engineer?”
“All reactors at full capacity. All engines operating at five nines. Capable of maximum velocities in all flight modes,” Commander Curtiss replied. Anyone familiar with Argent’s unusual third-in-command would have likely recognized the importance of this briefing. Yili didn’t bring any of her gadgets.
“Understood,” Hunter replied. “I’m operating on the assumption we won’t have to do much chasing this time, but it’s good to know we have the horses if we need them. Space wing?”
“COB assures me the deck crews are up to speed,” Commander Doverly replied. “The pilots from the One-Six are going through the last of their ratings simulations on our recovery systems. I expect they will all be cleared for combat operations within the next 12 hours.”
“COB?”
“The commander’s right, sir,” Buckmaster replied. “We’ll be ready.”
“Very well.” An ultra-high-resolution image of Bayone Three snapped into view on the map table’s surface. Starhaven, the garrison for Komanov’s 14th Infantry and Lethe Deeps Planetary Defense Base were all visible in the eastern half of the continent. An icon marked the last known position of Colonel Moody’s Paladin Six-Four. The display’s POV was roughly sixty miles above the surface, viewing the planet from what would be considered a “combat orbit” by Skywatch. The ocean beyond the eastern shore was just visible along the planet’s curved horizon.
“Yesterday morning, I issued an order that will either be the biggest mistake of my career, or the reason the population of Starhaven lives to see their next harvest,” Hunter began. “Zony transmitted a declared fleet opposed invasion. Target: Bayone Three. I have committed the balance of Strike Fleet Perseus to Operation White Wing. Within the next six hours I will order the entire force to a standing alert condition two.”
Silence.
“I don’t need to elaborate the urgency of this situation. Commander Hunter and I have our theories as to why Colonel Atwell not only delayed his attack but announced his intentions in advance. Nevertheless we can only assume by now he has concentrated his plans and intends to hit the Bayone System with enough force to drive us all the way back to Vicksburg within the next few days. Hallows Moon was hit this morning in an attack that cost us most of 98th Recon and our spacehead over Bayone Four.”
The view pulled back to a point where most of Sector Two was displayed. “I have deployed the strike fleet at what I consider to be the four most likely attack sites. Revenge, Constellation and Exeter have been assigned to support 14th Infantry from Bayone Three orbit.”
The other officers watched the display carefully.
“Commanders Walsh and Islington have formed Attack Squadron Victory and are anchoring our defense at Dante’s Twins near X-Ray Tango. Spruance and Teller’s group have established a command zone in the Shiloh corridor. Revenge, Constellation and Exeter are providing orbital fire support for 14th Infantry over Bayone Three and Fury has taken up a patrol route for Manassas Station on the Gitairn side of El Rey. We have the 808th available to float if we need it. I chose Blackburn and the Rho Theta perimeter as a re-supply rendezvous so we would have equal flight times to reinforce any attack vector from Barker’s Asteroid to the Dead Reach. Raleo is now completely isolated, which, of course, invites Atwell to approach from the far side of Prairie Grove and fly right into the teeth of our heaviest strength.”
“The theory being Shiloh and Manassas block any approach from El Rey or Prairie Grove,” Buckmaster replied.
“Exactly. Atwell’s main body rendezvous point is somewhere along the eastern edge of Sector Two. Either he’s parked at X-Ray Tango, behind the Twins, in El Rey or Prairie Grove or in the Raleo system. At this point no matter which direction he picks, he will hit at least one of our pickets and need several hours of lead time to get within range of Bayone Three. That puts Argent and Dunkerque in position to reinforce the line and make it a fighting retreat all the way to the surface where Second Marines will be waiting at full strength to blow his invasion force out of the sky transport by transport.”
“What about the un-engaged squadrons?” Commander DeMay asked. “Will they have enough time to hit Atwell’s forces and open a second line?”
“Absolutely,” Hunter replied. A yellow circle appeared around the winged avatar for DSS Fury and her patrol zone. “If I could choose, I’d like to see them hit Manassas and approach from straight north on a one eight zero true. That would put Walsh and Islington in a perfect position to sneak in to his wake and commit some old-fashioned mayhem against his lighter units on the approach. If we can tangle that formation at system’s edge, we might be able to end this thing in space. The only X factor in all this is the whereabouts of DSS Orca.”
“A true fleet carrier would change the balance of power completely,” Doverly added. “We lost track of Task Force Poseidon before we arrived at X-Ray Tango, but we do know Kingsblade was not its only capital platform. There is also the issue of the remaining missing crews.”
“Are we even certain Orca is still in the fight?” Buckmaster asked.
“Whomever committed Poseidon to pursue us sacrificed Aike, Ceres and Leto to cover her withdrawal,” the commander replied. “She’s a ship of the line, just like Argent. A CVA can cycle more than 150 fighters. Now granted, those fighters aren’t going to be terribly effective if they were automated like they were at Uniform Tango, but I don’t need to point out she has half-again our force projection, and if Atwell comes up with some pilots, she can do a variety of damage and hit us from a long ways out.”
“That brings me to my second point,” Hunter continued. “We’ve done our best to try and analyze the teleportation technology Atwell apparently deployed at Station 19, against Exeter and against our own crew over Bayone. Zony has collected all the hardware Argent has recovered so far, but we can no longer recharge any of the units we possess. That makes it very difficult to analyze or test them. We have no defenses against the technology yet, but developing them is at the top of our priority list. For the time being, we are going into this operation presuming our enemy has the ability to transport both ships and crews practically anywhere at will. The most urgent consideration is boarding actions. All Perseus ships have sufficient marine deck security, but it doesn’t hurt to devote max attention to anything unusual. I want the message to our crews to be this: ‘Don’t wait. Sound the alarm.’ No Perseus officer or crew member is to give anyone a hard time for overreacting during this operation. After what happened aboard Exeter I don’t need to explain the potential for loss of life and valuable fleet assets.”
The other officers nodded their assent.
“Admiral Hafnetz assures me the first battle group to arrive will be Strike Fleet Athena. They will be in position to relieve Spruance and take up a forward position at Prairie Grove. Admiral Powers has performed some headquarters magic and managed to redeploy other warships from Southern Banner to help us, but the main event is our responsibility. We have eleven starships, a full space wing, an overstrength battalion of mechanized infantry, an armor company, an artillery company and the finest crews in Skywatch. On this op there’s no points for second place.”
The grim faces around the war deck told the captain his warning had been soberly heeded.
“I'm certain I also don't need to inform any of you the fact Lieutenant Ria Cooper, Constellation's first watch tactical officer is still missing. I expect a report from Commander Hunter within the hour. Our working theory is her location might give us some valuable information on the whereabouts of the rest of our missing men and women. Let's wrap up our final reports and prepare to make way. Toby, Annora, we have an appointment aboard Dunkerque. The rest of you are dismissed.”