Knowing all twelve of the largest space faring vessels that have ever been constructed by humans are now gathered together here, waiting to attack a secret base built into a dwarf planet come over sized asteroid, you might think it would look pretty remarkable. You would think so, but you would be wrong. These ships are arranged at about one to three kilometers apart, the visual to the naked eye is less than stellar. Now on the radar screens and the HUD on the bridge, when you have name plates, and trajectory over lays, and drive ploom signatures and the specs of each ship associated with its distinct silhouette, now you get something approaching a spectacle. But all the average person sees is a slight glint in the far reaching blackness, that moves against a field of stars. It’s nothing to write home about, believe you me.
I could do without all of the proximity alarms going off randomly all day and all night, as the manoeuvring thrusters keep us in place relative to one another. The one kilometer distance is perfect for non disrupted communications, but hell on the ships warning systems. The targeting computers are likely to fry themselves unless their sensitivity is turned right down. Which makes a sneak attack a real threat, so the watches are set with greater overlap, and at no point is it ever allowed for more than forty five percent of the active crew to be asleep. Even less so for the infantrymen and the pilots. They rest in shifts with just one third asleep at any time.
Tensions are high, and oh boy!, there goes that fucking alarm again. The blaring klaxons, and whining targeting alarms grate on all of our nerves. Every shift we meet at our muster stations prior to doing anything, and those that will be fighting as boots on the ground are running their training exercises daily to remain razor sharp. All we do is train, prepare and wait while the clocks count down to armageddon. Sleep comes in fitful spurts and tempers are fraying at the edges. Discipline onboard the ships is tight, with no wiggle room whatsoever.
The walking corpse corps are ever ready day or night. They have been cordoned off in a cargo bay, along with the decanted walking tankers. The armorers swarming them like ants making all of the last minute fixes or upgrades requested by the – assets, let’s call them. The shedding of their humanity was this whole thing, that nobody speaks about now that it’s all over. Some people found it hard to adjust. A few marriages and families were served a pretty harsh reality when they woke up to find their loved ones are now a human imitation made up of microscopic machines working in tandem. Memories, futures, love lives all poured down the toilet, along with spoiled lungs, kidneys and the intestines themselves. It… was unpleasant.
Now that we are finally here, or there abouts, a flurry of inter flotilla activity has taken hold. With a week left roughly before the Jolene Roger shows up, the Dirty Starling and the Righteous Chord are all hosting different strategic planning sessions with Admiral Garneau, or his esteemed advisor Gerald at the helm. The traffic between the larger vessels is rather heavy, with the smaller away ships currying personnel and materials between vessels in the fleet. Last minute repairs to sensor arrays and hull plating to add extra armor taking priority above all else. It’s a good gig if you’re a low level pilot, scurrying about doing deliveries and interacting with other crews from around The Company’s interstellar interests.
As the long tense days wear on the largest vessels in the fleet disgorge their contingent of smaller, fast flying personnel carriers and the even more maneuverable fighter craft. Tugs and their single driver counter parts with extendable arms and working claws litter the field of view as they build all new protective measures onto the hulls of the behemoths in the flotilla.
News has spread throughout the flotilla that the Jolene Roger has a new toy to add into the mix for the war ahead. Lots of talk about what it could be. The admiral has been close lipped, refusing to address the gathered soldiers and crew until the last possible moments prior to the attack. This has caused a few minor incidents, but nothing that a few hours of extra labour, or a night or two in the brig couldn’t cure.
There were a few moments of panic as a slew of smaller meteors made it past the turned down sensitivity of the proximity alarms, which stunted the targeting lasers too. But the vibration of the rat-at-at-tat and the following pings of dust ricocheting off the hull brought about an even higher resolve with the radar watchers, and the sentry programs. It broke the tension, in a fashion, and let them know that they were protected even when they weren’t looking. Something, that should not have been possible.
– – – –
In a tiny office buried in the back of the physical paper archives, a tall beautiful woman named Gemma is rifling through deeply redacted coffee stained, dust covered reports from centuries prior. Her boss, and in some form or another, the head of her family, from fifth cousins by marriage, had pointed her in the direction of a secret stash of files that probably hadn’t seen the light of day in a couple hundred years. Spending a few days buried in the room looking through bankers box after bankers box of manilla folders, she finally found a stack that dealt with the horrific incident involving Margot’s Fever. A tragic event that killed hundreds, involved insurgents, as well as a tragic misfire by a potentially incredible new engine type, which was to bring us closer to the stars. We spent a whole month on it in school, and they teach entire courses on it in university. The memorial deck on Torus Station is pretty touching. Eerie but moving all the same.
If she thought it took her a long time to find this group of boxes, it’ll take her a week more just to dig up the psychiatric interviews with Margot’s Fever’s former captain. A man who claimed that the vessels witnessed split second phase out of our reality and then back again, had actually taken ten years on the far side of time in our solar system, and in which time he met, befriended, and was educated on the specifics of never before seen technology by a metal box of navigation goo, which he said called itself ‘K’ and then later on Kelvin. All of which was hidden from the public, and was provided in the exact same format as the files which helped to create the Fore E’s engine in the first place. An interesting pickle. Or so Gemma thought.
Part Thirty Seven: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.
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