Shadow of the Blue Ring (10 page)

“Those really were the days,” James sighed, “we had no duty, no expectations, no one to tell us what to do, we were just free, living however we wanted to live and doing whatever we felt like doing.”

“I remember following your progress every day you were out there,” said Davidson, “you did so well to evade the Vulian military for so long. You were a truly great team, one of the best I’ve seen in my life. I imagine you miss them greatly now.”

“Yeah… I do.”

It was last time both he and his old friend Amario had been in a picture together, a reminder of the days they had shared together before the final battle of the revolution had claimed his life. Alongside James and Amario in the picture were fellow students Adrian Kavides and Victor Madolev, both of whom were now serving various roles in the fleet, engineer Simon Kitson who had been killed when Valdor had ambushed the group as well as the couple of Benjamin Miller and Lucy Maguire. For many months, the seven of them had travelled across Europe, fighting the Vulians and living every day on the run. Those days were hard on them but in between life threatening battles, they had also shared some wonderful times together.

“I do feel bad for the loss you suffered that day on Vulia,” Davidson said, obviously referring to Amario, “I had thought you two would be inseparable for as long as you both lived, until you died together as old men. It is a shame your friendship came to an end the way it did.”

“Amario did what he had to do,” James said with little hint of emotion in his voice, “he gave his life so we could do what we needed to do to finish the war.”

“A truly a heroic end,” said Davidson, “I imagine it doesn’t quite feel the same without him around but at least you still have Isha, you two have certainly brought plenty of happiness to each other’s lives. Speaking of which, where is Isha?”

“She’s with Kaydenne I think,” said James, “I don’t think she is taking too well to being dragged back here the way she was, she really needed that week off and she isn’t exactly hiding her feelings about it. At least the two of them are getting to catch up a bit. So, admiral, I’m pretty sure you didn’t come down here just to admire the office, can I assume that you being here means that we’re all ready to go?”

“More or less,” said Davidson, “Admiral Sytchev has called a briefing. He wants to go over the details of the mission with everyone before you head out there. All of your old team have arrived too, they’ll be meeting you up there shortly. If you have seen to all of your business down here, I will take you up there to join them now.”

“Well its about time we got this thing moving,” said James, shutting down his desk computer and lifting himself from his seat, “what about the Centaur, is it all prepped and ready to go?”

“Almost,” said Davidson, “we’re making a few final preparations to your ship before it is ready to go, admiral Sytchev will explain everything once your briefing starts.”

Davidson lead James from his office and into the halls of the Orion station. The station itself was almost three kilometres in length and it’s mass of halls and corridors were almost labyrinthine. Anyone could get lost among them with little difficulty. James had not spent enough time there to get to know his way around but thankfully Davidson seemed to know where he was going.

“What does Sytchev have for us then?” James asked, “I hope it’s more than Artennes was willing to give us.”

“I’m afraid it still isn’t much,” said Davidson, “we’ve assembled every resource we have on the subject. In fact admiral Sytchev was almost begging Artennes to turn over more data regarding the mission but according to him we have everything we need to know on the subject and it is more than enough for you to carry out the mission.”

“Typical politician’s response,” said James, “I haven’t felt right about this mission from the moment Artennes told me what he needed me to do.”

“I’ll admit I have my concerns too,” said Davidson, “if I had to say anything to you about it, I would tell you to watch your backs out there, this is a mission the likes of which you will not have faced before. Even against the Vulians you at least knew your enemy.”

“Do you know something that they aren’t telling us?”

“I wish I did,” Davidson sighed, “there is definitely something the council isn’t telling us. I don’t think even admiral Sytchev knows the details, I’m pretty sure the council wont tell him any of their dirty little secrets.”

Fleet admiral Dmitriy Sytchev was the man who would give the briefings for the most important missions within the Earth Nations Fleet. James had always respected his leadership credentials and his strategic skill but sometimes disliked his ability to be condescending and talk down to those below him in the chain of command. Regardless, he was an influential presence within the fleet and had done well to adapt to the role having previously been a professor and mentor at St. Petersburg academy in his younger years.

James, lead by Davidson, eventually reached the Orion station’s main briefing room, the rest of his crew already assembled there, Isha and Melina included. Isha barely even gave him a glance as he took a seat next to her, James knew she was still not in the best of moods, she had barely said a word to him since the journey back to Earth.

“Good, we’re all here, let’s get started,” Sytchev began the briefing, “now as much as I would like to give you a thoroughly detailed overview of the mission ahead, I’m afraid we simply don’t know enough about the situation to do so. There are, however, a few things we do need to outline before we get you going. Firstly, captain Tavarez, I know you can be hot-headed sometimes and you like to act without always giving too much thought to your actions. Normally we are sympathetic to your actions and do not see your tendencies as an issue except for this time, you have non-human crew-members aboard your ship. In light of this, I need you to act within the regulations set by the Earth Nations Fleet at all times. It would have dire political ramifications should any one of them be killed while under your command.”

“We all know what we’re signing on for here,” said Morelli, “forget the politics of this, the defence and security of the alliance should always come first in times like this.”

“I have to agree, admiral,” said James, “even Lord Artennes himself told us to use any means necessary to find out what happened to the ships we lost. We can worry about politics after we ensure our safety in the galaxy.”

“Regardless of what Artennes may have said, you are still serving in this fleet, not his. Your duty is to the board of the Earth Nations Fleet.”

“Our duty is to the entire alliance,” James said irritably, “as much as I want to see our race become a real force in the galaxy, we cannot act at the expense of the other races in the alliance.”

“Be that as it may, I expect you to act as one of our captains should,” Sytchev warned him, “I understand that this is a difficult mission, we have very little intel on the region of space that you are headed for. All we know is that the initial Churian ships sent into the sector were lost almost immediately and the warships sent in after them went missing too shortly afterwards. Until yesterday there were many within the fleet who were putting these occurrences down to space anomalies but the Vulian and Naisan casualties on the Muiran border confirm our fears that we have an unknown aggressor lurking in the shadows of the Blue Ring sector. Unfortunately, we have no data on any possible aggressors that could be responsible for these attacks so as such, I would advise extreme caution. You must be on the lookout for anything even remotely suspicious and you should always have an escape strategy planned in case the worst should happen.”

“Is there anything that you do know?” James asked, “whereabouts do we look? What are we even looking for?”

“All relevant data regarding the location of the missing ships is being forwarded to your ship’s main computer,” said Sytchev, “everything we know, you will know too.”

“What about my ship and my crew?” James continued to question the admiral, “I hear you were making some special preparations to the Centaur for this mission?”

“You will not be going on this mission aboard the Centaur, James,” Sytchev said with a serious tone, “you and your crew have been transferred to a new ship.”

“Excuse me!?”

What were they thinking? Reassigning him to a new ship at the last minute before a mission. Unless they were going to give him command of one of the triumvirate ships then it seemed pretty pointless to transfer his entire crew to an unfamiliar setting. If they had to take this mission, James at least wanted to be in a familiar surrounding.

“If I may…” admiral Jamerson cut into the conversation, noting that James was not the least bit impressed with the situation, “. . . I think you will like what we have prepared for you James, just wait and see.”

“Fine,” James huffed, “carry on admiral.”

“Back to the mission then…” Sytchev continued, “. . . your main goals for this mission will be to find the missing ships, both Churian and Tolian, recover whatever data you can from the ships and to find any survivors and bring them back safely so that they can tell us what happened out there.”

“Searching for survivors is a long shot,” said Ansare, “I can’t imagine that whatever has been attacking us is going to leave any survivors behind who can give us information on them.”

“Regardless, if anyone has survived the attacks, they need to be safely returned to the alliance,” said Sytchev, “Artennes has stated that the priority for this mission is to find out what happened to the Churian ships and bring back anyone or anything that can tell us what happened and what we might be up against.”

Still no answers. Just as Artennes had been vague with them before, now the admirals of the Earth Nations Fleet were doing the exact same thing. There was no way around it, they would simply need to work out the details for themselves once they arrived. Perhaps if they were lucky, all they would have to do would be go to a set of co-ordinates, find the ships and return with any data they could find after just a few hours… but nothing was every that simple, James knew to prepare himself for a potentially difficult mission that could see him gone for a fair while.

“There is little else I can say except to be careful,” Sytchev concluded, “you all know what is expected of you so all that is left to do now is get you underway. Admiral Davidson will escort you down to the shuttle bay as soon as all the final preparations have been made. This briefing is over, dismissed.”

“At least he gets straight to the point,” Saavoy muttered as Sytchev departed the scene, leaving the team to themselves, “anyone else get the feeling he knows more than he’s letting on?”

“Apparently the council are keeping the admirals in the dark on quite a few aspects of this mission too, it isn’t just us” said James, “I think the council are keeping something very quiet in regards to this whole situation. And as for reassigning me to a new ship at a time like this… I honestly don’t know what they’re thinking.”

“Well Jamerson did say it was something to look forward to,” said Isha, “maybe they’ll give us one of the triumvirate ships?”

“I doubt it, they wouldn’t risk one of those ships on a mission like this,” said James, “they could always be giving us the Athena, or maybe the Poseidon, but I can’t think of any other ship in the fleet that could be up for the task.”

Whatever the admirals were going to do, they wouldn’t send them into the Blue Ring sector without being properly prepared and while Jamerson would often frustrate James at times, he was not known for being dishonest, if he said it was something they could look forward to, then it was some comfort at least. His money was definitely on the Athena though, it was surely the only ship they could possibly give him. Outside of the big three and a few powerful cruisers that had recently been added to the fleet, the main portion of the Earth Nations Fleet consisted of medium class cruisers that on their own were not particularly powerful but alongside the larger cruisers, made up a force that was certainly capable of holding it’s own among the other galactic powers. The loss of all the major fleets during the occupation had certainly levelled things up in the galaxy and the Human race was taking every possible opportunity to put itself alongside the other races in terms of military strength.

With the crew getting more and more restless by the minute, it was a massive relief when Davidson did eventually announce to them that the final preparations for the mission had been completed and that they could now take a shuttle from the Orion station to the ship, whichever one it was that they were headed to.

“Come on admiral, the suspense is killing me, which ship are we getting?” James pleaded for him to spill the beans as they made their way through the station’s corridors but Davidson simply grinned.

“I can assure you that admiral Jamerson was not lying when he said that you will like what we have in store for you,” he said, “I’ve known about this project for a while but I had no idea it was going to be ready so soon. I wont say too much here though, it would spoil the surprise. I can assure you, however, it is worth the wait.”

Even his good friend was now dodging the questions. He supposed that there was nothing for it now except to wait and see where the shuttle would take them. With the whole team aboard and strapped in, Davidson lifted the shuttle off the ground and out of the Orion station’s hangar bay, making for the shipyards and the docks where the majority of the Earth Nations Fleet resided between missions. James kept his eyes peeled for anything unexpected among them but nothing was standing out just yet. The closest ships to them were the Athena and the Achilles, but they passed by both of them without a change in course.

“I guess you were wrong about the Athena,” said Isha, “you reckon it will be the Poseidon?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

The shuttle passed straight by the Poseidon just a few seconds later, they wrong about that one too. Just as they had bypassed the majority of the fleet, Davidson took them in the direction of a dock on the edge of the main series of orbital stations. It was not one James had ever seen before and he was unsure of exactly what was inside, they could still not get a clear view of what was behind it. It was only once they had a clearer angle that they could finally see what lay inside the dock…