Blood War 1: Last Stand of the Legion: Rift (10 page)

LYTEN SYSTEM

SWIFT BOAT TS 111

HEADING 153.429

PATROL SECTOR ALPHA

"Come on Chief Kim. Give me a break will ya."

"Gunners Mate Lee, I did not ask you if you wanted to perform the weapons check. I told you to do it. Now get it done," Chief Warren Officer Rajendra Kim snapped.

"Yes, Chief." The chances of actually needing the weapons on this old crate were next to zero. Yet the Chief was acting as if they were on a war patrol. The TS-111 was a Von Fleet D-14
, the oldest still-serving craft in the fleet. It had originally been designed to be a vessel capable of screening before the fleet, able to take on various types of naval vessels or act as gun platform. It had heavy armor and carried a variety of different types of weapons; mines of all types, Long Lance torpedoes with a extensive counter measures capability and extremely long rang; rail mini-guns that were capable of up to 250,000 rounds of thirty millimeter rounds a minute for close-in defense and finally a scram cannon for larger vessels.

The D-14 had just
been launched when Chief Kim had enlisted. He had spent his entire career in either one of the side seats as a Gunners Mate or as a commander. He had come to love them and understand their capabilities. He had heard the newly formed Armored Infantry had chosen them as their insertion craft with modifications to make room for the AI troopers. He had tried to become part of that program but was turned down because he was to close to retirement. He loved the old D-14's and he was glad to be retiring in one.

Chief Kim knew
there was little chance of needing their weapons but he was not going to let his crew get sloppy. This was his last patrol and he intended it to be as tight as his first patrol as a Swift Boat commander. He had hit his seventy-five years of service mark and he intended to retire with Suki to a nice warm planet with his retirement money and a land grant for his service. He and Suki were looking forward to a nice long retirement in the quiet of a veterans' settlement close enough to the shipping lanes for the kids to visit.  They were going to make choosing which their retirement planet, a nice long trip to as many systems as they felt necessary before they made the decision. They had never been able to afford that kind of trip while he was in the service but now with his free passage on any ship, that came with his seventy-five years of service and citizenship on all of the Confederation planets, he could afford to give Suki something they had always dreamed of throughout their marriage. She deserved it after all of the lonely and barren posts she had put up with during his long service. It was time to enjoy his retirement.

Chief Rajendra Kim monitored the rest of the crew from his console in the cockpit of the Swift Boat. He watched as Lee ran a detailed check of his weapons systems. He was a good spaceman and would be a good Chief if he took his job more seriously. He had not been in any combat yet. That always changed young spacemen.

"Chief, this is Lee. We are all green."

"Roger that."

"Kindhal, all systems are good."

"Ludwing
, I'm in green, Chief."

"Odaka
, I good to go too Chief."

"Roger."

Chief Kim eased the throttle forward until the Swift Boat was at patrol speed. The rest of the crew settled into their custom chairs and relaxed. It was going to be a long and uneventful day. Lee actually closed his eyes and was almost instantly asleep. It was widely believed he could sleep through anything, yet he could wake and be instantly and completely aware of what was going on around him. Chief Kim knew he was asleep by simply looking at his health readouts for each of the crew. He really didn't care as long as he could do his job.

He had been in enough battles during the early formation of the Confederation to have seen those readouts when they showed dead and wounded instead of someone sleeping. Lee had done his job and that
was all he had been asked to do. Chief Kim changed his helm view from readouts to a window view. He settled back in his seat. This would be the last time he would have a chance to pilot a ship in space. He loved it and would miss it the most. He loved the freedom he felt as the pilot of a vessel in space. He settled in his seat and set the vessel on automatic pilot.

LYTEN SYSTEM

RIFT

PLEIADES FLEET COMPLEX

FLEET HEADQUARTERS

FLEET ADMIRAL RAURK OFFICE

Dasan Daniel Sand strode down the corridors of Pleiades Fleet Headquarters headed for Flag country in his newly designed Armored Infantry uniform. The all-black uniform with his trousers bloused into highly polished boots meant he attracted more than a few stares. His black beret was slipped under the epaulette on the shoulder of his shirt. The beret bore the insignia of the Armored Infantry-an eagle, globe and anchor. He had found it in a history file of the old earth Marine's Corp. He felt it was an excellent representation of their mission. The earth was the birthplace to all the human breeds, so it represented all of the worlds. The anchor represented their partnership with the Navy and the eagle was still recognized across the worlds as the Confederations symbol. Over his left breast pocket he wore the new symbol of being Armored Infantry qualified, a representation of their armors helmet, some of the troops had begun to call themselves Iron Heads after the emblem. On one collar he wore the Confederation cluster symbol that represented all member’s worlds. On the other collar he wore the Legions gold teardrop ships emblem. His uniform distinguished the AI from the rest of the Legion but retained the Legions traditions.

He had changed much since Gaxola. His service cascade spread halfway
across the left side of his face and down his neck now. The red and blue tears had been earned across the known worlds. He was leaner and more muscular, if that was possible, and darkly tanned from the years on infantry missions.

Dasan walked down the long hall leading
to Admiral Raurk's office. Paintings of naval battles over the centuries lined the long hall. At the end of the hall a small staff sat behind consoles in front of the huge double doors leading into the Admirals office. At the center of the small staff sat the Admiral’s civilian assistant. She was a beautiful blonde Sol with the demeanor of someone who carried the unofficial power that came as the Fleet Admiral’s assistant. Dasan stood in front of her desk as she finished a call. It was only when she had turned the holo off that she turned to face Dasan. 

"Is she in?" Dasan said.

Maura looked up and smiled.

"Yes, Colonel she is waiting for you. General Buchman and a group from Intel are in there as well as her staff but she told me to have you go right in."

Dasan stepped into Fleet Admiral Usiche Raurk's office. Admiral Raurk sat at the head of the conference table; she was tall and beautiful, like all Sol's from prominent families.  Even with her hair was cut shorter than most men's, yet she still had the grace and presence of a model. She had chosen to look in her forties but age only added to her effect. Yet her beauty was not the reason her presence in any room naturally drew attention. Through her command of ships in many battles through the years she had developed a command presence built on years of life and death decisions others could only try and duplicate. Coming from one of the most powerful families on Earth, the word was she would finish her enlistment and return to earth to run for political office. Some thought she might someday be Chairman with her military and eventual political background. It was the first time Dasan had been in her presence and she lived up to the legends that had grown up around her.

As Fleet Admiral and Commander of the Pleiades Fleet she answered only to the Security Council
or the Secretary General. She bypassed the normal military chain of command. Her job was as much political as it was military; her authority was almost unlimited among the worlds under her command. She spent as much time solving political intrigues as she did her military duties. Currently Dasan knew of at least two treaty violations between Ceti and Groombridge, as well as an economic crisis on Cygni, both of which she was responsible for managing.

Dasan knew of her skill in managing difficult
situations, as she was the first to use the new Light Infantry Company he had just formed to settle the strike on G738. The Von Fleet Security Forces had decided to test Raurk's resolve by attacking Dasan's Company. She had released them and the Von Fleet Security never tried to directly test the new infantry again. After the success on G738 she had never hesitated to use the Light Infantry for the muscle she needed to deal more and more with the Great Corporations.

Directly
behind Admiral Raurk sat Ramona Oxford, her Chief of Staff, to her right, General Buchman, the Legion's Pleiades Fleet commander. He was leaning back in his chair listening to an intelligence briefing by the command staff intelligence officers; his staff surrounded him. He was a tough bear of a man with a brilliant mind. He had risen from the enlisted ranks all the way to the General staff. He was one of Dasan's greatest mentors through the formation of the Armored Infantry. This was not your normal intelligence briefing.

Vice Admiral Helmut Golepaul, Raurk's Chief of Operations was to her left
, Rear Admiral Ursula Van Vliet sat to Golepaul's right; a tall somber woman who, though not as brilliant as Golepaul, possessed an equally tough but instinctive intelligence.

Lieutenant General Ben Ruder sat behind Buchman, his chief of staff. A large personable man he smiled a greeting at Dasan. Ruder was the epitome of the
Groombridge spirit, open, friendly, and confident. Dasan felt the most at ease with Ruder; being around him was like going home again as both were from Groombridge.  Admiral Raurk away from the briefing and motioned for Dasan to sit down.

Captain Yasuji
Kitmura stood in front of the group with a briefing holo behind him. Dasan had served with Kitmura on several Legion posts; he was one of the best intelligence officers in the Legion. He nodded at Dasan as he sat down. Kitmura continued.

"Ma 'am if you will bear with me a moment while I digress, I think you will find it pertinent to my briefing. As you know we have been aware of the other intelligent civilization for close to 50 years. Yet despite all our efforts at communication the only information we have been able to compile has been through encounters like Consus and Gaxola as Colonel Sand can attest to." Yasuji nodded in Dasan's direction.

"Their expansion and ours have never crossed paths. We both have taken an arms length policy towards one another. But only the most backward of planners would not forecast at some point in time that our interests and theirs would eventually come into conflict. Our planners predicted this would not occur for another fifty years. This gave us plenty of time to devise a peaceful solution before either of us would be forced into a conflict. But something has happened to throw our planners timetable out the window. "

Kitmura waited for a reaction but there was none. The Admiral and General Buchman were used to doomsayers. It was their job to weed out the ones with the correct predictions from the Chicken Little's of the profession. The Admiral simply nodded for him to proceed.

"As you know we have just recently been able to break the alien’s syntax and only now are we beginning to understand their language. This is providing us with valuable insights into their civilization and thinking. In fact we think we have learned what they call themselves. They are the Xotoli. We think it means 'the people with six fingers'. We were making real progress, then, as if a door had slammed, everything turned into gibberish again.'

Kitmura paused for emphasis. A map of the Pleiades Fleet Area of Operations came up in 3D behind him. Their Area of Operations was referred to as the Fertile Crescent since it was roughly shaped like a crescent and it contained most of the Confederations natural resource planets. Numerous
wormholes provided relatively easy trade routes between the various planets. Fleet Headquarters and the fleet’s anchorage was located in the Lyten System, which along with Ceti had access to the most wormhole entrances but it also was closest to the only known Xotoli systems.

"We initially thought that we had been on the wrong track from the beginning in our assessment of the Xotoli
, especially when one of my people came up with the idea that the aliens were suddenly encrypting their communications. We ran everything we had on their language up to now, through our computers using several models and came up with 16 points of identification. More than enough to convince me that is exactly what the aliens were doing."

Kitmura paused
, glancing around the room, pausing almost as if to gather his courage for the rest of the briefing.  He went on.

"Why would the aliens start to scramble their routine communications now? Up until now they have showed absolutely no interest in us or in our monitoring of their communications. Why would they want to hide routine traffic? The answer I think is clear, this is military traffic and it concerns us. Not only have they started to scramble their messages but
they have also begun active intelligence gathering through drones. Something that, I am sure you are aware, they have never done before. These drones are extremely long-ranged and sophisticated. Nothing we have compares to them. We have yet to capture or even destroy one. Their speed is unbelievable. These two activities, the scrambling and the drones, in themselves seem inconsequential, but taken together they show a drastic change in the alien’s intensions a change from complete indifference to active interest. The third and most significant fact, the one that makes the first two even more ominous, is the most puzzling. The aliens apparently have lost the majority of their exotic natural materials. We don't know if their resource planners miscalculated or if there was some natural disaster or some internal conflict which caused the loss; all we know is they seem to be desperate for new sources of these materials. We believe crystals are at the heart of their drives as they are at the heart of ours but we are not sure. We were able to decode a word that is contained in many of the messages and we think it means crystal. Even if it does not, without crystals the Confederation could not long survive."

Kitmura turned toward the screen behind him.

"If you will look at the screen you can see the overall power usage curve for today compared to what has been the norm for the last 20 standard years. Up until now if there had been a change in the power usage it has been a gradual and steady increase. Now as of two quarters ago power usage is half the old norm."

Kitmura paused before going on, letting the facts be absorbed by the listeners.

"If you took only the first two factors, the scrambling and drones alone any number of conclusions could be drawn, including a prelude to friendly contact. But the loss of the natural resources coupled with the other factors can only mean one thing. The Xotoli are preparing for an attack."

The room seemed to explode as both Generals Ruder and Golepaul were on their feet yelling at the same instant. Like most colonists Ruder and Golepaul did not suffer
easily those they thought fools.

"This is ridiculous taking up the General Staff's time with this farce." Ruder stood and turned to leave.

"I am not wasting any more of my valuable time with this lunatic," General Golepaul said. He too stood up to leave.

Dasan glanced over at General Buchman. He sat in his chair
, his hands folded in his lap watching Admiral Raurk beside him.

"Gentlemen, a little professionalism please. Allow Captain Kitmura to finish his presentation
," Admiral Raurk said, her face the cold, hard mask she was famous for throughout the fleet. Her comment and a single look was enough. Ruder stopped mid-stride and returned quietly to his seat. Golepaul looked up and said

"Ma'am." He nodded formally and sat back down.

Captain Kitmura began again. "I understand your disbelief. When I first came to this conclusion my own staff began to wonder about my sanity.  I believe after much study that the Xotoli are xenophobic to the point of war against any other intelligent species. This conclusion is drawn from their total lack of interest in any of our attempts at contact and the fact they did not encrypt their messages for many years. You don't encrypt messages if you don't care what the other side hears. We never encrypted our messages during the war with the Chavaense because they could not understand what they meant even if they did intercept them. I believe the Xotoli think the same way about us. They have no interest in negotiations or diplomacy. Because of their xenophobia they feel they have the right to take what they need. They feel they are physically, socially, intellectually and technologically superior to us and we are not worth the diplomacy it would take to negotiate what they need. It reminds me very much of the Colony power on earth several centuries ago and of Chava and the Chavanese."

"But the
Rigil Kent situation was different. The Chavanese were barely out of the Stone Age when we colonized by Chava. We had no intention of eliminating them but they were too primitive to understand we only wanted to help them. We needed their resources and were willing to pay for them," Admiral Ursula Van Vliet said.

"Exactly. They fought us until we finally killed the last of their kind. We didn't want to but they could never understand our needs versus their home. I am sure the Xotoli feel the same way about us as we did about the Chavanese
, but either they don't have the time to negotiate with us or simply they are willing to annihilate us and take what we have. I believe it is the latter."