FOW Snippet 2

Chapter 2

 

Antigua

 

Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons felt the ambiguity in his thoughts and paused to try to sort it out.

He was 2 meters tall when standing, and had a classic human build maintained by his implants. He occasionally worked out with martial arts in order to maintain his body, or so he liked to pretend.

In all honesty his nanites would keep him perfectly preserved for as long as necessary. He just liked to work out from time to time.

He was a dark brunette with a goatee. Those could change in seconds if he wished but he kept them for consistency with the public. The goatee had come about during the Bounty incident in B101a1.

He had been an engineering admiral before his cybernetic upgrades and time in stasis. When he'd woke he'd found that he'd been promoted to Fleet Admiral and then had started a series of adventures that had led him to the presidency. Sometimes he had to wonder about the universe and how the Spirits worked things out.

He'd done an okay job so far though, well, with a few missteps and stumbles but that was to be expected. The Federation was growing, that was the important thing. Despite currently fighting two wars.

 He rocked from side to side in his chair as he recapped his situation. His assessment came down to 1 thing, he was concerned about being pulled in too many directions. The navy had committments in Rho, cleaning up the sector and picketing essential systems, in the north in Pi sector, fighting the pirates there and expanding the Federation's sphere of influence, in the north east in Sigma sector, where the pirate leadership was hiding, and the new war in Tau sector to their south west with the Tauren Confederation.

For six long years he'd been trying to make bricks with precious little straw. His lips twitched in an almost smile at the analogy. Apt, he thought as he turned away.

It wasn't his fault, well, not entirely, he corrected himself. He'd given Catherine Ramichov, the new pirate empress the fodder she'd needed to twist his words and muddy the historical record. He shook his head in annoyance.

He had threatened her father Pyotr with a bluff to strike his star system with a Nova bomb if the fighting got too intense. He'd been pushing to get through the pyschotic meglomaniac's mania, to force his hand or to force those around him to perform a coup and take him out of power in order to open negotiations.

Well, it hadn't entirely been a bluff, he thought darkly. He would have pulled a President Truman and used the bomb if the fighting had gotten too intense in the wretched star system and if casualties had soared. But the forces he'd sent in had been more or less holding their own at the time of Catherine's strike.

He was certain that his threat had played into her hands. She'd performed a coup against her own family and taken control... and orchestrated an orderly evacuation. The utter ruthlessness of slaughtering her own family was both shocking and brilliant. Only when it was clear that her planet was inevitably going to fall and his people were too deep in and committed to pull back had she struck.

His face worked again as he grimaced once more. To be honest he had known that the pirates had most likely captured nova bombs at some point. Naval Intelligence had theorized it and had 'unconfirmed reports' but that was it. But the idea that they'd managed to penetrate and bypass all of the security systems in order to allow her to use it... that hadn't come to mind. That was his mistake. He'd been too confident that they were inert.

The placement had also been an issue. He'd expected a ship to carry the bomb to the star. Instead she'd parked it hidden inside a space station. He doubted even Amadeus had anticipated such a threat. How could he have? They'd all thought Catherine had been bluffing to stall for time or for political capital.

When the nova bomb had gone off it had thrown the star system into chaos. Most of the pirate fleet had been away from any jump point and had died or scattered to deep space. Half of Second fleet had died along with their commanding officer, his friend Admiral Amadeus White. Other fine officers and enlisted had died as well. Marines and Army units had been trapped on the planet. Only a smattering of the units had managed to escape.

Not so for Catherine. She'd staged ships in deep space near the Finagle jump point. Amadeus had apparently figured that out and had put Admiral Dwight Harris on the problem while Fifth Fleet moved into Finagle to cut off retreat there. They hadn't anticipated the number of ships however, or their ability to escape.

His eyes went bleak as he stared at the ceiling for a long moment. That was another intelligence failure, but one he didn't put much blame on any one particular person or group. They'd known that the pirates had been collecting water dwellers to enhance their ship handling and navigation, they hadn't anticipated the scale that the pirates had gone into cloning those poor enslaved people.

Catherine's retreat with the water dwellers had allowed her core fleet to bypass the Fifth Fleet set in Finagle to trap her. She'd fled into the outer reaches of Sigma, and the finger pointing back home had begun.

Ships had scattered through deep space, all fleeing the dying star. The navy had been forced to split into 2 groups, 1 on search and rescue, the other giving chase to Catherine's fleeing fleet.

His political enemies had tried to shame him into resigning over the fiasco. He'd flat out refused. He'd weathered the storm for years. When it was clear he wasn't going anywhere they had done the next best thing to hamstring him though, cutting funding and support to the bone for the military. The forces in Sigma had been left to try to find the pirates without additional support or relief. That had allowed Catherine's trail to go cold. That had added to the arsenal of political ammunition his opponents had tried to use against his administration. The fact that they had a hand in it didn't seem to apply.

Catherine's bold attack on the Sigma gate star system had awakened them to her threat. It had also made for another round of political attacks on him, but the media had finally come around and pointed out that Congress had limited the deployments in Sigma. The rounds of committee hearings that his opponents had orchestrated had embarrassed them when that came to light.

The demands by partisans supporting the military to give them the tools and ships needed had finally begun to make some headway. But the real kicker had been Tau.

The war in Tau had finally gotten congress to let them off the leash. The idea of another Xenophobic species going on a rampage to conquer the sector and threaten the Federation had been a wake up call. His political opponents were in full retreat. Congress had authorized the funds and the mobilization to go to war.

Bek, Pyrax, Antigua and other shipyards were back into full production. Ships were steadily moving out of Bek again to Pyrax. They were staging there to build new fleets. From there they would go to the gate system.

For the moment they couldn't get to Tau or Sigma so he had authorized task forces into Pi to run the pirates out of that sector. It was good training and good PR, though it didn't look good that they were headed in the wrong direction. That would change in time though.

He also wanted to build a fleet to replace Second Fleet. That would allow Dwight Harris to bring his people home for a much deserved rest and refit. Not that some would want to go, many wanted to finish the mission. He understood their bitter desire for vengence. But it was unhealthy to hold onto it for so long without any sort of results. The psych people were pushing for more downtime for Second Fleet. They were getting more strident about it... as were some of the families of the sailors and marines. He couldn't blame them.

He made a soft puttering sound. That was a problem for another time. He'd agreed with Dwight that he could stay in Sigma until the gate was completed and relief forces could arrive in a timely manner to relieve him. Now that project was delayed by years due to the recent attack.

The attack did reawaken Dwight's desire for revenge again. He was limited on what he could do though, he had the defensive committments and relief forces were too far away to get to him. Fifth fleet was picketing the western side of Rho but... he grimaced.

They couldn't be strong everywhere. That was obvious. And this was the other jaw of the trap Catherine's raid had set off. Political forces were pushing for stronger pickets in Sigma and in the western reaches of Rho... and of course that made others want more just to keep up.

Keeping up with the Jone's, he thought in disgust. They didn't need it, but they sure wanted it because others were getting attention. He sighed heavily.

That was another factor in the political arena. Established star systems in Rho, and the power bases some had built had felt threatened by the growing block of voters in other sectors. It was watering down their power base and control of the Federal government. They had found ways to limit that by delaying votes to allow star systems to join the Federation.

They had also put restrictions on the star systems as well. The latest was that the system's economy had to be solvent for a period of 5 years before they could be considered for membership. That was being challenged in the courts.

He understood the cynicism at the heart of the arguement. Rho was the core sector, it was where the Reborn Federation had started. Now they were going to eventually be overshadowed by larger sectors. The neighboring 3 sectors had far smaller populations compared to Rho but there were many more occupied star systems. That would wrestle control away from established power blocks in the senate at the very least.

Representation was still in the hands of Rho, at least for now. Most of that was due to Bek's dense population. There was some undercurrent of resentment there, though that was changing as the sector's power brokers continued to try to unite their power block.

They had yet to get everyone on board. Some star systems stubbornly wanted to stay neutral and outside of the Federation. Some probably thought they could benefit from trade and commerce through their star system without having to pay taxes. He snorted.

Now that the Federation was settling down he knew that was a short sighted point of view. It was easy to bypass a reciliant star system if necessary, effectively blockading them.

Some of those neutral star systems had been in the hands of the pirates though, so they had caretaker governments for the time being. They resented the Federation's 'interference' almost more than the pirates. He shook his head.

That was just more fun for the boys and girls over at the state department, he thought as he picked up a tablet and got back to reading the position paper he was supposed to absorb.

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