Neptune's Massif (10 page)

Ty originally objected to Alan choosing six officers, but Alan countered with the fact that Ty had tagged two of his primary choices as possible trainers for specialty missions. Since Alan's entire job would be a 'specialty mission', Ty reluctantly agreed and assigned the extra officers to Alan.

True to his word, Alan called Doctor Juno as soon as they returned to normal space just inside the orbit of Saturn.

"Lieutenant Commander! You are very punctual! All of our equipment is loaded and we are ready to go. The entire team is very excited about our new base and has been looking forward to this move. The moon is nice, but it has no oceans," Juno replied.

"No, it doesn't. Not real ones anyway. We have just dropped out of hyperspace and are still four hours out. I was calling so you could notify your people, and get them ready to launch. We'll meet up with you as we get closer and head to the island together. I was going to ask you, Atlas has oceans; why haven't you considered moving there?"

Juno smiled. "Yes it does have oceans, very beautiful ones. Eventually, we would like to be part of the teams that explore those areas, but for now, all undersea work is restricted there. The preliminary survey of the oceans is still being conducted and not even the mapping has been finished. It is a very exciting prospect, but there is still much we can learn on our own planet. Perhaps the experience we glean on Earth will assist us in the exploration of the oceans of Atlas."

Alan nodded his understanding. "May I ask how many prototypes you managed to get built?"

"Well, we still had the models we were using for our own testing, and we had two extra built as research test craft, so the total number we have built is fifteen," Juno held up his hands before Alan could object. "I know that is more than you requested, Commander, but having the spares available can only be a benefit to us."

Alan laughed. "I wouldn't object to extra craft, Doctor. I was only concerned that too few had gotten built because of the short amount of time. As it turns out, I have two extra team members as well. So we will be training with six of the craft if that is possible."

Juno's ever-present smile returned full force. "That is very possible, Commander. We have plenty of craft available. Have you had a chance to create a schedule, so we may better work with you?"

"Actually, I haven't had the time as yet. However, I will get it to you as soon as I am able to get it completed, Doctor. I did want to tell you that two of the people on my team are already certified divers. One of them is deep water certified and has experience in high pressure atmospheres. Both are Talosian, but are very excited about working in Earth's oceans."

"That is so exciting!" Juno replied. "It will be very interesting to speak to him about what it is like in deep water. That is something we are not actually capable of on Earth yet."

"What do you mean? I thought we had deep water divers as well as deep water equipment available on Earth?" Alan asked.

"As with some other things, it is the definition that is misleading in this case. What is classified as 'deep water' on Earth is still well within the range of 'normal' for Talosians. When they say 'deep water certified' they are speaking of depths our current DSRVs have difficulty going. They are speaking of dives so deep that military grade shields have to be used to protect the diver from being crushed by the weight of the water and the temperatures which are far below freezing," Juno explained.

"Oh! I had no idea the two types of certification systems were so different," Alan admitted. "Yes, well, this will be an interesting adventure, if nothing else."

"That it will, Commander that it will. I will notify my people to begin final preparations for the move. At least if we forget something, it will not be difficult to retrieve!" Juno replied. "We will see you in a few hours."

"We'll keep in touch, Doctor.
Poseidon
out."

––––––––

R
uling Council Chambers

New Caldaria

Prime Stalk Facility

Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy

––––––––

T
he old being chastised himself. 'The humans have a saying - be careful what you wish for - that certainly applied to this situation. Since the Talosians at Earth had been leaving the supply base alone, it had been able to delay the discussion of what to do about Earth.

It knew that discussion would be forced out today. His spies in the other clans had reported that concern of their last remaining source of food was by far the most significant singular issue troubling the clans. A decision would have to be made once and for all. It knew that this decision would be the deciding factor for the survival of his race. But the issue was not as simple as many of the Praetors believed.

It knew most of the Praetors on the council preferred invasion and openly taking control of the human world once and for all. They believed that the remaining Great Ships would be more than sufficient protection against the Alliance should they discover and object to the Caldarian dominance of Earth.

The old being knew better. It remembered the war. It had been there when Caldaria fell. It knew that openly taking the human world would solve a lot of their problems, but doing so would destroy them when the Alliance arrived to free the planet. It understood the one thing the other Praetors did not; the Alliance strongly objected to any race being dominated by another. They would respond to the invasion of Earth, and they would do so in force.

There was also the existence of the force that had destroyed Dren. In all the reports received from the great ship, none of them had ever been able to identify the forces that had destroyed them. There had been reports of Talosian fighters in the system, as well as the one troubling report that three Talosian heavy cruisers had been sited shortly before all contact with the Great Ship had been lost.

Three Talosian cruisers should not have been enough to destroy one of the Great Ships. Defeat it, possibly. Dren had little combat experience, so the possibility existed that they had been defeated, but the reports from the base on Earth tell of the destruction of the Great Ship and that had included a visual report of its destruction.

If the report of the Talosian ships was real and not the panicked report of a scared underling, then some of the Talosians had survived the hunt and destruction of Talos. So, if that were true, had they made technological advance in the last thousand cycles? Very possible, if enough of them had survived the hunt. No report on the final success of that hunt had been received before the Alliance arrived at Caldaria.

Perhaps the humans of Earth had been the ones to create the mysterious weapons that had destroyed the Great Ship? No, that was less likely than the existence of Talosian survivors. They simply needed more information! It would have to prove to the other Praetors of the need for further observation before any plan to invade could be considered.

While it had been musing the issue, the other leaders had been arriving and the feeding was about to begin. It stood. "Welcome my brothers! Let the feeding begin!"

As it lowered itself back down to its stool, a server placed its evening hydrocarbons before it and retreated quickly. It opened the container and quickly began ingesting the contents. It wanted to finish the meal quickly so it would have the first opportunity to speak and head off the demand the others would make for the invasion of Earth.

It had just finished the container and was about to stand when it felt something was very wrong. Its legs refused to work! Annoyed, it tried to turn to summon a server but the turn only dislodged it from its stool. It fell, but lost its awareness on the way. When its large bulk finally hit the floor, it was dead.

Next to where the old being had been sitting, another, younger being stood. "Now, that we have that artifact taken care of, we may begin our planning. You!" it pointed to one of the now very frightened servers. "Get that mess cleaned up." It waved toward the remains of its former leader. "My brothers, I have reviewed our production and output quotas for the last cycle. It is clear to me that we have reached the end of the usefulness of this system. I propose we load our ships for battle, load the freighters with the remaining supplies, ore and slaves, and move into the human system. We have plenty of food there, as well as much more ore to build more ships and a planet full of slaves to do the work. We all feel this to be our best course of action, am I correct?"

"Calisa, it is not our best course of action, it is our only course of action!" another being replied from across the room as it stood to move to the center of the room. "However, we do need to choose a new leader for this assembly, you are far too young to assume such a roll."

The servers quickly cleared the center of the large room. Assassinations like had just occurred was not uncommon among lower castes, but it was very rare at this level. A new leader simply assumed the roll and if anyone didn't like it, they fought. The battles would take place in the center of the room and no weapons were allowed. Any participants that surrendered simply retook their seats. The last one to sit was the new leader.

––––––––

S
taff Briefing Room

Admiral's Office (Temp.)

Pleiades One Orbital Shipyard

High Orbit, Planet Atlas

Centauri System, Sol Sector

––––––––

"L
adies and Gentlemen, this is the planet Hyperion located in the Aurigae star system, Durnam Sector. Before it fell to Imperial forces fifteen years ago, it was a Talosian agricultural colony." Ian paused while he looked over the holographic image. "We are going to retake it."

From the assembled group of officers he heard Chloe Brighton reply. "Excuse me, Sir, your accent must have thrown me there for a minute. I thought I heard you say we were going to retake this planet from the Empire?"

Ian nodded and grinned. "You heard me correctly, Chloe. In two weeks, Star Dancer will be departing for the Aurigae system for the purpose of retaking the system from the Empire. There are a few reasons we are going to do this. First, this is the closest Imperial incursion to our space. It's not that much further away than Beta Hydri is and that makes me nervous from a security stand point.

"Secondly, retaking the world would go a long way in helping to quell the civil unrest currently developing at New Talos. I'll grant that retaking a more industrial or more heavily populated one would be better, but this one is the closest to us. It is also not very heavily guarded, since it isn't considered a priority target by either side. Like I said, it is a farming colony.

"Thirdly, we have received an official request from the Benesian High Priestess, Matriarch T'gan M'orel, to investigate the possibility of recovering missing Benesian ambassadors that were on the planet when it fell. She has only asked us to find her missing people, but after reviewing the Intel on the place, I decided we are going to reclaim it.

"Hyclarion is defended mostly by ground forces, but includes two light cruisers, a medium cruiser, and eight squadrons of fighters. The difficult part of this operation will be the ground troops. The Empire has a division of infantry on planet, but spread out to provide local security and to control the population. These troops are not front-line and have poorly maintained equipment. However, we have very few ground troops at all, even though ours are much better equipped, it'll still be a hard fight simply because there are so many of them."

"Not really, Sir," Major Reise replied. "You said yourself that they were spread out; divided into smaller units. It shouldn't be too difficult to deal with them as long as we can keep them from rebuilding into one unit. If we could borrow another battalion or two from the Talosian ships, we could easily handle them. But my question is, once we take the world, how are we going to keep it? We don't have any ships we can leave there for defense, do we?"

Ian shook his head. "No we don't but that will not be our responsibility, not fully anyway. As soon as we clear the system of ships, a defense network aggregator will be turned loose in the system. It will be up to Admiral Goya and the Talosian Defense Forces to man the system as well as assign ships for system defense."

"Who'll protect this system while we're out doing this, Sir?" another officer asked.

"Captain Serena will have overall command, and the
Prometheus
,
Pegasus
, and the
Zephyr
will also remain here for sector defense. In addition to that, I have been informed that several ARC ships will be remaining here indefinitely to bolster our defense. Folks, we can do this, and I feel we can do it pretty damn quickly, too.

"
Star Dancer
will stop a quarter light year outside the outer planet's orbit. We'll launch both our Raptor teams and four Condor-AS variants before proceeding in system on a slow, low-emission hyperbolic course.

"Our Raptors will head straight in.
Damocles
will set down near the continental capitol of Stardoc, while
Hephaestus
picks a spot near the planetary Capitol of Greywind on the southern continent. Their mission will be recon, evaluate and disrupt. They are also to determine if there is a resistance movement, and if so, try to make contact with them. Once the attack begins they will be free to raise all the hell they want for the enemy commanders on planet.

The Condors will hunt down and destroy the two light cruisers and try to soften up the medium before we arrive. When
Star Dancer
gets close enough, we'll splash the medium if the Condors haven't. At that time, we'll drop our Marines, and the fight will be on. We'll launch fighters for air support and enemy air suppression. At that point, I will call the Imperial Governor and demand his immediate surrender. Now, we all know that no plan lasts beyond first contact with the enemy, so it'll be adjusted as we go, but that's the gist of it. Questions?" Ian finished.

"How will we locate the Benesians the Matriarch would like us to find?" Someone asked.