Battle Lines

     First off, a sitrep: Okay, I am a bit more than 1/2 way through the book, I am up to chapter 17 which is another tie in to J4. It's tricky handling such situations as I mentioned to 'Minion Mike'. I am on track to finish Act II by the end of the week. (I hope)

    Thanks for the offers of Red Bull but I'll pass. lol I think I'm doing just fine as is. (Though I used to write a lot faster when I had sugar!)

Oh, I did this a while ago, I forgot to post it. This is Cheetahra from Agnosta. (I don't remember what generation she is) She is in the current time period. (Irons)

I have roughed out a lot of the characters. (I even accidently did 2 versions of Sindri!) I'll put them in scenes and render them later. (rendering takes hours and I want to write!)

Anyway, I just (a few minutes ago) gave Minion Mike the latest BL snippet. Here are both in 1 dollop. The following is RAW. I did a quicky spell check but none of the betas have fact checked it. (Sorry about the formatting)

ACT 1

Chapter 1

   Lieutenant Commander Ssri'allth, Naga captain of the Arboth Yris'ka'th looked around the bridge of his shiny new command with an air of approval. They still had some rough edges but they were getting there. He wasn't at all sure about the hyperdrive, they had yet to do a full jump but he was confident his new crew could handle whatever problems were thrown their way.

   Not bad for a former midshipman time lost. He'd been sleeping the sleep of ages on the derelict liner White Star before Firefly had rescued him and the others. He'd taken a few positions, winding his way up the chain of command to be the XO of Wendigo before taking on his beloved Hecate as skipper.

   Now his most recent transfer was again onward and upward. He had been transferred to newly built Arboth class destroyer, the first named after a Naga hero. Commander Yris'ka'th had distinguished himself during the Xeno war. He'd fought to defend Malta, one of the Navy's bases that had been handling the refugee crisis. He'd taken on a Xeno capital ship squadron with only a jury rigged squadron of small ships to back his Arboth class destroyer up. They'd performed valiantly, hitting and running before they had been pinned down and destroyed, but they'd destroyed five times their weight in hardware in return and bought the navy precious time to evacuate the base and get additional forces into the area to cover the refugee convoys.

   It seemed appropriate then that he was her skipper. The Yris'ka'th was Rear Admiral Amadeus White's flagship for the time being, most likely not for more than a year. They'd passed all of their trials and were busy with working up exercises while also planning their first offensive expedition.

Hecate's top slot had been taken over by former XO Lieutenant Gruber who had been promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant in order to take over the captain's position on the frigate. The Manta class escort frigate had been outfitted, painted black, refueled, and then sent on a perilous journey to scout the jump chain to Protodon.

   She had been replaced by a pair of newly constructed Horseshoe crab class frigates on their first shakedown cruise. They had green crews and untried ships. Hecate had an experienced crew which was why they had been selected for the mission. Even her new XO Lieutenant Riot was an old hand with the small ship's class.

   The frigate had orders to leave a chain of recon satellites in her wake. They weren't carrying enough for each jump point, just 1 per star system. There orders were to scout Protodon from outside the B-458 jump zone and then jump back and meet Admiral White's force in B-458.

The Naga captain worried about his old ship and crew's mission as he stood beside the Admiral. He coiled his tail and then rose on it up off the deck and his legs to stand near the admiral's height. It was difficult but worth the effort he thought. Such considerations quickly left his mind as he focused on the frigate and her upcoming scouting mission.

   Along with a better sensor package the small frigate had taken on extra food, fuel, and atmo for the trip, stuffing every cubicle of the ship and even storing containers on the hull. They still wouldn't have enough fuel to make it back to Antigua though, it was a 1 way trip.

   And to take on that amount of extra mass something had to go. Some of that mass would be dumped allowing them to pick up speed, but not enough. She had sacrificed her external and internal ordinance. If she got in a fight she would get chewed up or destroyed pretty quickly. Not a pleasant thought.

   Admiral White seemed worried about sending in an untested crew with a new captain. Captain Gruber had a lot to prove and that worried him as much as his inexperience in the captain's chair did. Sometimes that eagerness to prove oneself could be someone's undoing.

  “Hassan can handle the job admiral. I know it,” the Naga captain. “I've trained him.

   The admiral turned to look at the Naga and then grunted. He didn't say anything, just turned back to the view screen.

   They watched the ship spool up her hyperdrive and then jump silently. The brief flash of light as the ship departed made the Neochimp grimace. His fists tightened behind his back but he gave no other outward sign of discomfort. That flash was a problem for the ship but hopefully not a big one.

   “Well, that's that. They are on their way sir.”

   The chimp nodded as he turned back to work. “Then we'd better be soon. No more last minute delays. If we can't bring it with us now we'll leave it behind and it'll have to be shipped to us later.    What are we missing? Other than a lot more metal to back us up.”

“It's in the pipeline sir. For now we'll do our best with what we've got,” the Naga replied.

The Neochimp eyed his new flag captain and then nodded slowly. “That we will. So, let's be about it then,” he drawled. “We have a rendezvous to keep. And some pirates to kill.”

“Aye aye sir. Logistics is still in flux. But Commander Sprite has set up another simulation with Lieutenant Fletcher sir. The intel is old but it is all we have to go on until we get Hecate's data dump.”

  “Understood. Let's see what he's come up with.”

  “Aye sir. Any word on any more ships?”

  “No,” the neochimp heaved a sigh. “Your ship is the last we're going to be assigned from Antigua before we move out.”

  “I was hoping admiral Irons would see fit to swap out a couple of the pickets since they are making more steadily now.” That was true, the yard was churning out a gunship every week, a corvette every 2 weeks, and a frigate every 4.

  “I was as well. But many of the ships still need a shake down to get the bugs out. I'm also not thrilled about throwing green crews into combat. No offense,” Amadeus stated looking at the Naga.

“None taken. I've earned my spurs though in Destros and Mandolin sir.”

  The admiral nodded. Ssri'allth had been a young militia recruit barely out of the larval stage of his initial life cycle when the gunship he had been serving on had fought off pirates who had come into Destros to prey on the swarms of refugees there. He'd served his ship and captain well according to the records. They had went on to fight a scrap in Mandolin with a Xeno scout six months later. His ship had been battered but he'd survived and had been drafted by the navy through then Lieutenant Vargess.

  “I know. That's why I requested you as my flag captain.” He didn't add that he'd wanted Captain Vargess but Admiral Irons had been too stingy to loose the other man's services. He had to admit the captain was busy dividing his time between his ship and overseeing operations in the star system. Running ops was tricky, he had to coordinate with all the other departments to make certain everything ran smoothly. There were already a lot of hiccups with the issues with the yard.

  “To think one damned virus could do this much damage,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Yes sir. It's thrown our timetables into the sand storm,” the Naga stated. “But one cannot plan too far ahead without running into the god Murphy's meddling anyway,” he stated.

  “True. Too true. Okay, let's go see what Fletcher has set up for us. I'm betting he cranked in the intel Firefly sent along about that Cutlass so we'd better take the simulation seriously if we want to get through it with our head and asses intact.” He understood the need to train hard, to simulate worse case. But he didn't want to scare his people too badly either. He was also concerned that if they had too many bad dress rehearsals Irons would call the whole thing off until they could get more ships. That was the main reason he'd pushed to get Hecate out into space right away. Now they were committed. “We'll do a hot wash after dinner.”

“Aye aye admiral.”

---<>---<>---

They'll be fine,” Commander Sprite said from the holotable behind him. Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons turned to her avatar and then back to the screen he had been watching. TF22 had just departed in a flash of light.

“They're running late. Three days behind schedule.”

“That's because we had problems with the logistics on our end. And the Marines needed a replacement for Sergeant Snorkle. To get crushed like that by a falling crate...His injuries couldn't have come at a worse time.”

“I know.”

“Captain Ssri'allth can handle his ship,” Lieutenant Fletcher stated.

“I know. He's good otherwise he'd never have taken her on. I'm not really worried about them.”

“Then what are you worried about?” Protector asked. “I can tell from your vital signs that you are concerned about something.”

The admiral exhaled slowly. “Sindri. I'm grateful on the one hand that they pulled out all the stops to build Yris'ka'th but on the other hand...” he stopped and shrugged helplessly.

“You didn't like that they went behind your back to do it? Chancing the schedule? There was some slippage and some juggling of the convoys, but they did a damn good job. That was quite an effort,” Sprite said.

“I know. They pulled out all the stops to get that ship out of the dock. They played musical slips to get her in and out and built. I know they wanted to time her completion for when we were slated to return.” He smiled slightly.

“And damn near killed themselves in the process,” Sprite observed. “Weren't they a bit put out when we didn't return as planned.”

“The effort wasn't wasted,” Lieutenant Fletcher stated.

“No, but we had several people down for exhaustion, nine injuries, fortunately none fatal, and six cases of brown out and 1 burn out. That's what I didn't like.” The admiral said. He flicked a signal through his implants to shut the screen off as he went to his chair. “We lost some experienced people. We can't afford that. We can't kill ourselves like that and get that sort of return.”

“But it was worth it to get the ship.”

“Trading trained people for a ship? I suppose so in some cold logic. But loosing them meant the schedules were juggled all to hell. It ricocheted down the pipeline. Fortunately Kinja and Sindri got a handle on it when they did.”

“You mean Vargess did. He caught it early on.”

“Yes. He pulled their chestnuts out of the fire. But you see what I mean though?”

“I see it in theory. This is going to be a long campaign. Slow and steady like the turtle versus the rabbit's sprint and then fool around. I think we need to find a happier medium though,” Sprite said.

“Set the pace. We're going to pick up the pace, that was what I was planning. Now people are leery about it. Though they shouldn't be. They handled Yris'ka'th so they should know they can handle it. Just not at such a breakneck speed.”

“True. Which is why we have the second tin can slip built and the third nearly finished. And you have an appointment with Commander Wong and the destroyer pipeline industrial complex. Which means,” Sprite heaved her equivalent of a sigh. “I get to be unplugged. Again.”

“Looks that way,” the admiral said with a shake of his head. He rubbed his jaw again and then looked at the plot. TF22 would be all right. Amadeus knew his business. He exhaled again and then stood. “Let's be about it, shall we?”

---<>---<>---

13.9 weeks from her departure from Antigua Hecate jumped into the outer reaches of the Protodon star system well short of the B-458 jump point. Over ten million kilometers short, almost as if they'd planned it that way Captain Gruber thought with a slight trace of a smile of approval. It wasn't a perfect act of astronavigation, he'd wanted to be a bit closer in, but it would do the captain thought with a grudging nod of approval to the Neochimp navigator. They needed to conserve as much fuel as possible for the trip home he reminded himself. While they sat there they scouted the system from afar with their eyes and ears, barely drifting in at less than 1kps.

“Good work nav, helm. Get some rest,” the captain ordered to the helmswoman and navigator. Petty officer second class Adel Shazam nodded wearily. She would most likely barely sleep the first day. That would be rough but the stress of wondering if they had been spotted would eat at her. Not that they had to worry too much. By the time the enemy saw them and reacted they would be on their way out. And if they did happen to come they could always jump out long before they got within weapon's range.

“We have positive confirmation of an enemy presence sir,” the communication's rating stated. He held a hand to her ear.

“Don't you mean negative?” the captain asked as he sipped at his coffee. He could see the plot forming up. A few ships were there so he could see what Jimmy meant.

“Sir?”

“Never mind. What do you have for me?”

Jim frowned and then seemed to shrug the quip off. “We definitely have signs of occupation sir. There is unrestricted chatter going between the planet and the ships in orbit. We're picking it up. Some of it is encrypted but the majority is not.”

“Why encrypt when they have the planet? And that's just radio chatter right? Not laser?”

“No sir. We'd have to be closer and in line of sight of the transmissions to get a look at that sir.”

“Go on Jim,” the captain stated as he set his cup down in it's holder on his arm rest and came over to the rating's station. He leaned over the man's shoulder.

Jim looked up to his boss and then back to his number 1 screen. He pointed to the ships in orbit. “Sir, at least two of these ships are transports, the small one and the medium class Clydesdale here,” he said, flagging the two ships. “There are two tin cans as well, possibly a third. There are some smaller ship's, I haven't broken them down by class yet since I've been focused on the planet. As you can see, several freighters too. We're locking down the other ship types now.”

“Understood.”

“It seems that the transports are in a different group than these ships sir. They are recent arrivals. Something is going on, I'm not sure what.”

“A swap meet?” Adel asked from the doorway. They turned to look at her. “You know, a spacer's swap meet. Spacers get together and trade goods and stuff. Crews swap, marriages, swap cargo and passengers, news, stuff like that.”

“Oh.”

“I don't know. I'm not sure... it doesn't feel like that but I could be wrong,” Jim stated slowly. “The freighters seemed to be paired up with the tin cans sir.”

“Oh?”

“Yes sir. I'm not sure why.”

“I think I do,” the captain said straightening. The ratings turned to look expectantly at him. “Remember that ship that got away? And it's partner the Cutlass that Firefly took down?” He checked the front of his turtleneck sweater for coffee stains. He hated wearing white, it showed everything.

“You're saying these are raiding pairs sir? Did we ever figure out what they are after?”

“Intelligence isn't saying.”

“If they even know,” Adel murmured.

“Enough. Keep listening.” He pointed to the helmswoman. “You go eat and rack out. That's an order.”

“Aye aye sir,” the two ratings said in unison. Jim snorted. Adel left. She seemed to dodge someone and then kept going. The captain turned back to his half filled cup and the plot.

They heard a throat clearing in the open lock. The captain turned to see his XO and chief engineer standing there. The XO indicated the chair and then tapped the doorway meaningfully. The captain's stomach rumbled as if on cue. He couldn't help but smile slightly. “Yes, right. Dinner. I'll check in after supper then. Don't wait up on me,” he said. “You have the bridge XO.”

“I have the bridge aye sir,” the XO said as the captain left the bridge.

---<>---<>---