Neptune's Massif (20 page)

Ian could understand the need for it. The
Poseidon
was already set up for underwater operations, and in conjunction with the new research base in the Hawaiian Islands, it would indeed be able to respond to emergencies far quicker than any space based assets.

He took the time to send a return note with his approval and recommendations back to Luke and the Council. He felt kind of silly doing that since they were only down on the planet below them; a short shuttle ride away. Not only that, he could have easily called the man. However, both of them were busy and sending a message was the better way of dealing with low priority items like the new base.

Getting up from his desk, Ian walked over to the balcony over-looking the new bridge of the
Star Dancer
. Several techs were still down there, working with the operators to work out any bugs or issues they could find with the new equipment. It was almost like the old girl was a brand new ship; of course, after so many changes and upgrades, you could say she actually was.

Since he had postponed the mission to Hyperion,
Star Dancer
was once again put on the schedule for Battle Cruiser conversion.
Prometheus
would still be completed first, but only by a few days.

When finished, the two newly redesigned ships would be the most powerful weapons ever built by humans; until the completion of the
Tiamat
. Although an argument could be made that the two smaller ships were the more powerful, since
Tiamat
's primary role would be fighter support and space superiority combat operations.
Tiamat
was a really big aircraft carrier, while both cruisers would be even more like heavily armed battleships.

Looking out the large view port, Ian could just make out the speck that was the frame of the Pleiades Two station that was now being built. Once that station came online, both stations would begin building a fleet of combat ships for the Talosian Navy, to replace the ships destroyed in the recent civil uprising. Those ships would not be the old heavy cruisers either; Ian fully intended to put everything they had learned into those ships that would consist of four carriers, at least eight more battle cruisers, twelve assault cruisers, as well as all the specialty and support ships the Terrans had designed.

"Sir, you wanted me to remind you of the upcoming meeting?" Mel said.

Ian nodded. "Thanks Mel." Commander Serena of the
Prometheus
, Commander Egran of the
Pegasus
and, John Harris, now commander of the
Zephyr
, would be arriving shortly, as would both Commodores Belirus of the
Tiamat
and Hawkins of the Pleiades Station. Jenny would be joining them as would Ty Anders and all available Raptor team commanders. Colonel Chloe Brighton from Operations, Major Eischens from the Intelligence division and even Beth in her official capacity as CMO were all getting together to build a preliminary plan for an assault on New Talos that would free the planet form the forces now controlling it.

The ships being sent back by the ARC had not yet arrived, but they were due in soon. In fact, Ian expected them to call in any time. He knew there would have to be one more planning meeting before the mission could be launched; one in which the ships Commanders themselves would be present to provide their own input and alterations to the plans.

Jenny and Star were the first two to arrive, but Cindy and the other Raptor team leader, Major Corvis arrived moments later. Ian had no more than let them in the door before the rest of the planned for people began arriving. The last to arrive was an out-of-breath Beth, who apologized for being late.

"You're not late, Beth. We haven't gotten started yet," Ian replied. "In fact, everyone else just got here too. Grab something from the replicator if you want and we'll get started."

Ian sat and took a drink of his coffee while everyone else got something to drink as well. When everyone had taken their seats, Ian began the meeting. "Folks, I've asked you all here today to help me form a plan of action to deal with the events transpiring on New Talos. At present, what intelligence we have on the situation is almost nonexistent. It is my intention to send the two Raptor teams ahead to evaluate the situation on the planet and take any immediate action that might be needed. They will also attempt to establish contact with Admiral Goya, or Councilor Noren.

"The ARC has released a number of Talosian troops and ships to us for this mission, but as you all know, they have yet to arrive. Once they do get here, we will meet again to go over the plan one final time before we launch for New Talos. As I am sure most of you know, when this all began, a Council Command Override was issued to all Talosian ships. The ARC reports that roughly half of the forces that were assigned to them evacuated before the ship self-destructed. Since not all the Talosian warships performed the same actions, we believe that Goya and Noren had the time to tell the override computer which ships were loyal."

"Sir! I apologize for interrupting you, but I have just received an encrypted message from Admiral Goya!" Star said anxiously.

––––––––

"Please play it as soon as you can," Ian ordered.

Instead of the grizzled Admiral Ian had befriended, the image of his pretty young aide, Brekka, took shape on the screen. "Admiral Williams, please forgive the use of Admiral Goya's codes, but I am acting under his orders to do so. Currently, the Admiral is undergoing emergency surgery to remove a badly damaged leg.

"Sir, he asked me to get a message to you to let you know what has been happening here and to let you know of the situation we are now in." She paused, sniffed while consulting her ever-present pad and continued. "Councilor Noren is in a stasis unit. She was shot in the chest by a laser pistol at close range when House Herecin and House Bjorin tried to kill the rest of the Grand Council. We currently lack the medical facilities to save her, but we did have a stasis unit. We did have the autodoc unit aboard the shuttle we escaped in, but it was damaged during our escape; Admiral Goya is being operated on by the Council Guard medic because we have no doctors with us.

"We did manage to save most of the Grand Council and have hidden ourselves in an old civil defense bunker. I cannot say where we are at, but Commanders Serena and Egran hold this bunker in their hearts as a special place.

"The situation on the planet is dire. Houses Boden and Westchurch have allied themselves with Herecin and Bjorin. We have discovered that House Herecin has taken the inmates from the Boden Lunar prisons as soldiers. One of the first things they did was attack all the main government facilities in Elysium. They are in control of the planet, although there are still isolated groups of loyal military and civilians still fighting them. Admiral, I have been asked to tell you that the population is being brutalized. The convicts released from the lunar facilities are performing every sick and twisted thing that enters their minds, there isn't any one to stop them. The constabulary was armed with stun batons and similar equipment. To the best of our knowledge, every one of them was hunted down and killed. The civilian population doesn't have access to weapons in order to defend themselves."

Again she paused, but this time it was to compose herself. "Admiral, Goya told me that he believed that you would be planning to respond to this event in order to restore sanity to our world. He asked me to tell you that all military installations in the system have either been destroyed or are under control of the rebels. All of the 'House Ships' that were equipped with an AI have been destroyed by Council Override, but there are several smaller ships still functional that are armed, but do not have the destructive capabilities of the larger ships. There are also the House Westchurch fighter bases on the moon Demir.

"We are not certain, but there is a possibility that one or two of the heavy cruisers might have survived the Override. Three ships had been undergoing massive repairs at the Herecin shipyards, and the special control programing might have been removed from them. We only suspect this is true based on rumors we had heard before the rebellion began.

"Goya didn't know what you could do to help us, but he prays that you will be able to pull yet another miracle out of hyperspace, this time for us. We will try to send you more information as we can. I have attached a file with all the data we have on the system. A good portion of it is speculation as we have no way to verify it. That is all I was asked to send to you Admiral, but for myself; I pray you act soon, every passing minute is costing lives."

As her image faded out, Star spoke again. "I have the data file ready for display."

Ian nodded to her. "Thank you, before we get to that, Serena, Egran, do either of you know where they are hiding?"

Serena blushed, but Egran spoke first. "Serena and I attended the Academy together. As cadets, we were rather smitten with one another and used a weekend pass to spend some time alone and away from the Academy. We thought no one had known about it."

"They're in the Cayroll Bay emergency shelter on the northern continent, Gerymain Provence," Serena replied. "It’s a large bunker intended for use by ships caught in the Northern Ocean during the storm season. There is plenty of room and a lot of supplies. The bunker has an underground hangar capable of handling the large ocean-going cargo ships. They could easily hide their shuttles there. This time of year, the area is most likely getting pounded by storms pretty regularly."

"I'll have a medical shuttle loaded and ready to go by the time the Raptors are ready to leave," Beth said. "At the very least, we can get them some help while the rest of the fleet gets into position."

Ian nodded. "Okay, as long as the doctor to go isn't you; we're going to need you when we retake the cities." He paused. "Star, please show us the data file. Also include the Council's location."

The office dimmed and a hologram took form over the large table. It was an exaggerated display of the New Talos system, showing all the facilities in the system. Each facility was marked in a different color depending of what was known about them. Red color was a hostile or rebel controlled area or facility, yellow was suspected of belonging to the rebels, and green was still friendly. No color meant no data was available.

"Does anyone know anything about those ships she mentioned that might have escaped the override?" Ian asked.

"I did hear a rumor that Herecin was trying to modify their AI to be independent of Council control. I don't think it would be a stretch for them to remove the self-destructs from their ships. After all, we all know they're built into the ships," Egran said. "The story I heard was that Herecin had actually lost the ability to build new AI which is why it was so important to them to reprogram the existing ones."

"With respect Commander, that doesn't make any sense; all they would need to do is relearn how to program the AI with the sleep-teaching machines," Corvis replied.

"It would make sense if you no longer trusted the AI that controlled the teaching equipment. Also, the AI would refuse to provide the knowledge if it knew the knowledge would be used in a way counter to the dictates of the Council, or that would harm the Talosian People," Egran replied. "Remember that Herecin wanted to take control for themselves. That would be considered a treasonous act by the AI, which is why they had been trying to deactivate so many of them."

"So, could Houses Herecin and Bjorin have modified a Heavy Cruiser to remove the AI as well as the Council override programming?" Ian asked.

"They could, but the ship in question would be greatly disabled in the process. The AI of a ship is far more than just an interface. Almost every single system in the ship is linked to the AI in some way. Most of these intimate connections are even unconscious on the part of the AI. The computers used to control and regulate the intermix for the power units is actually part of the AI. Maintaining the proper atmosphere is monitored and controlled by the AI. To completely remove the AI from a Heavy Cruiser would render said ship unusable until something could be put in place to pick up the slack that humans simply can't do. Making a hyperspace jump of any length is not even possible without an AI assisted helm and navigation control. Humans can't react fast enough. Even if we could, we would over-compensate because of the very fine course adjustments required of FTL travel. One millionth of a degree error is missing your target destination by hundreds of billions of miles. Not to mention you'd probably hit something before you ever arrived.

"I suppose you could build hundreds of smaller 'smart' computers capable of performing these tasks, but we are talking a lot of extra work," Cindy replied. "Fighting the ship would be even worse."

Corvis nodded agreement. "The easiest way to disable just about any ship is to take out or disable the AI units."

"Wait a minute, ARC ships don't have AI on them," Serena said.

"That is not entirely accurate, Commander," Star replied. "ARC ships do not have the personality programming required of an interface unit. However they do have a system that is, by definition, artificially intelligent."

"Okay, we're getting off on a tangent here," Ian said. "We'll have to assume that Herecin was able to get at least two ships functional and plan accordingly. From what we are seeing here, the rebels have control of the systems defenses..."

Ian and the group worked out how to assault and retake the system while trying to minimize civilian casualties, which would be almost impossible when the fighting moved to the cities. They worked through lunch and were just about to stop when Star informed them that the ARC fleet had just reported in. They would be arriving in Centauri space around noon the next day.

––––––––

C
ayroll Bay Emergency Shelter

Gerymain Provence

Planet New Talos

New Talos System, Carnius Sector

––––––––

A
dmiral Goya looked out at the storm swept sea and the darkening skies of a massive blizzard. It seemed as though even the planet disapproved of the rebellion of its children. He snorted at his own musings. As if the planet was capable of caring one way or another, no matter what the Benesians said. He turned his hoverchair as his aide entered the room.