02/30/4389 GSF // 8:45 AM Mother Theresa Time // Mother Theresa Commons, Sector G17, Alpha Ward // Romero System, 2 Systems from Galaga System
Admiral Rebecca Black
Commons
The hustle and bustle of the commons was well underway under the morning’s artificial light. Overhead an advanced array of holograms and braided fiber cables worked in tandem to create the appearance of a wide open cloudless blue sky. Even the most perceptive eye could not tell the difference between the fake sky created on Mother Theresa and the actual sky on many of its citizen’s home worlds. Below these artificial skies citizens of the GIDM hustled too and fro along their daily agendas, rushing around quite like bees in a hive. Life on Mother Theresa was peaceful, structured, consistent, and free of strife. The citizenry bobbed too and fro with smiles upon their faces and happiness residing in their hearts.
The Admiral smiled, taking in all the sights upon her usual morning stroll. As Admiral of the Mother Theresa Rebecca had a long list of duties and tasks to complete throughout her day but regardless she always strove to ensure she had time for a walk through the commons every morning. It was a grounding exercise, as nothing in Rebecca’s life went without purpose, but it was one she certainly found enjoyment in. Walking along the footpaths and hallways of the Commons was not only important for herself but for those amongst the citizenry and common soldiers alike as it fostered a relationship between herself as their de facto leader and them as her charges.
Rebecca briefly strayed from her usual path to admire a bakery along the way. She briefly shared pleasantries with a couple of the citizens waiting in the queue for service before stepping to the counter to admire the many fresh loaves the baker had in stock. Just like a bakery on the surface it was likely that this baker had been up since the early hours of dawn hand kneading and preparing the dough for the day. The baker himself soon appeared while Rebecca was surveying the bread, insisting greatly that she take a few loaves for herself as a gift. She graciously accepted, tapping a few commands in her PDA to summon an assistant to take the gift back to her quarters.
Sparing a few words of gratitude and farewell for the baker, Rebecca made her way from the bakery and back onto her usual path. A bright red light indicating a priority alert flashes from Rebecca’s PDA. As she stops to read it a deep frown grows upon her face. At about the same time a soldier manning a transport buggy rounds the corner in the distance. By the time Rebecca has finished reading the report the soldier and buggy arrive and without a word she boards the buggy. Quickly she is whisked onwards towards Command.
Briefing
As the doors to the briefing room close behind Rebecca the intense noise from various command staff rushing too and fro is finely cut off. Rebecca takes a moment, leaning back against the door itself and letting an audible sigh escape from her lips.
“Sophia, organize long range communications with Malik of House Balam. Also plot a course for the Galaga system and set the fleet on high alert.” Rebecca called out, directing her orders towards the ship based AI. Wordlessly Sophia carried out her orders. Rebecca preferred her AI to respond as little as necessary, she was an old school individual and never personally enjoyed conversing with AIs. Rebecca pushed away from the door and strode forward towards the large table in the center of the room. As she did so a hologram of a tall imposing man with dark short hair wearing a military dress uniform appeared.
House Balam was run by Anthony Malik, an old school vet like Rebecca herself who had ties to GIDM nobility. Rebecca and Malik had a long standing professional relationship from before the final days of the GIDM that had carried over and led to their fruitful partnership in these trying post-GIDM times. Malik was a traditionalist and preferred to display that in his attire, donning a military dress uniform that even included a cape. A tad dramatic in Rebecca’s opinion.
“Rebecca, you received my message I presume?” Malik’s face betrayed a look of worry that his voice endeavored to hide.
“Of course Malik, why else would I have put everything else on hold for you? Certainly not because I like you, you know that.” Rebecca responded coyly. Malik did not respond immediately and Rebecca quickly realized that the situation must be dire. “What’s going on Malik? You didn’t include a lot of details in the SOS.”
“Taurus is lost.” Malik said flatly, letting the words hang in the air.
“Lost?!” Rebecca practically shouted, shocked at the news. “How could an entire planet be lost?! You sent out the SOS not even an hour ago. What’s going on Malik?”
Malik’s face darkened at Rebecca’s outburst and it was clear to her that his words were true as the man suddenly seemed to put on an extra twenty years in the way that his shoulders sagged and his demeanor changed.
“It’s bad Rebecca, at 0500 hours early warning systems beyond Taurus’ orbit detected a multitude of signatures on approach. First scans indicated it was merely space debris and we decided to ignore it unless their trajectory showed any sort of indication that they were on course for population centers. Early trajectory showed that very few were even close to such a path.” Malik takes a moment, clearly trying to find the words.
“At this point we had no idea how big of a mistake that was. As the objects neared orbit they started to breakaway and show signs of trajectory adjustment. Before we could react a majority of our population centers were now under risk and the density of incoming objects was too great for ground based orbital defenses to counter. Estimates say we managed to shoot down only twenty-two percent of oncoming UFOs.”
“What were they Malik? You said they changed trajectory mid flight? Were they ships?” Rebecca asked.
“No, something else, they almost seemed like masses of rock and biological material. We weren’t able to react quick enough to get any sort of in-depth scans. Logistics is still trying to sift through all the data we’re receiving still from planetside. They landed on a majority of the major population centers, puncturing domes and cavern ceilings alike and causing depressurization lockdowns all across Taurus’ colonies. Within a matter of hours planetside defenses were in shambles and communications fractured. We’ve been trying to evacuate anyone that we can but there’s zero organizational structure planetside.” As Malik finished he seemed to deflate a little. This was easily the biggest crisis Balam had faced since the fall of the GIDM. Rebecca herself wasn’t too sure how to proceed, especially against an unknown threat that had yet to make any demands. She was still trying to process the pace in which things had happened.
“Rebecca, one thing's for certain!” Malik started suddenly, stepping closer so that the hologram grew into a more detailed image of his face. A wild, almost unhinged look suddenly found itself upon the man’s face. “This is no human attack, this isn’t another one of the houses, none of my rivals have the capabilities and everything that I’ve seen or heard reported has indicated some other form of life.” he exclaimed, practically rushing to get the prior words out as if someone might cut him off. Just as suddenly he reverted back to his more exhausted looking facial expression. “All these years thinking we were alone and finally something else has appeared. Woe be us for the circumstances that it has arrived under. I never thought I would live to see alien life, and I never certainly anticipated that I would suffer from alien aggression. Yet I assure you these attackers are certainly extraterrestrial in nature.” Malik stated in an almost philosophical way.
“Malik, just give me a second.” Rebecca said, holding up her hand as she tried to process everything Malik had thrown her way. It only took a moment for her to prioritize and decide the next course of action. “Malik, tell me what you need. Mother Theresa is already enroute to Galaga as we speak.”
Malik’s face darkened even more, “As I said before, Taurus has fallen. My son and daughter were stationed there at the capital, Maldone. They were enroute for a priority evac but the position was overrun and they were forced back into the capital complex where they had to take refuge in the bunker. I need them safe before I can figure out how we should best retaliate.” Malik all but pleaded.
Rebecca sighed inwardly, this was the exact reason she’d forgone having children herself. Malik was a long respected comrade who had always put duty and responsibility above all. She understood his desire to save his children, at the same time Malik ruled over 6 systems besides Galaga and those systems were home to billions of civilians. Regardless of her personal feelings Rebecca would do all she could to assist Malik and House Balam.
“Alright Malik, I’ll dispatch an extraction team while the main carrier group makes its way towards Galaga. When I get there though I expect a face to face so we can best decide how to proceed on preserving as many of your citizens life’s as possible. Mother Theresa out.” Rebecca abruptly cut comms before Malik had a chance to respond, hoping her words found their way home. With that she turned and strode from the briefing room. The moment she was through the door she began barking orders and issuing commands, she had an entire fleet to organize as well as an extraction to get underway and a very short window of time to get it all pulled off.
Briefly her mind trailed back to the morning, the time she’d spent at the bakery, the artificial sun on her skin and the common citizens she’d greeted all replaying in her head. Rebecca had an eerie feeling that peacetime was something she’d not be able to enjoy again in the days to come.
“Send me Colonel Raleigh.”
Geoff Morgan
Eudora
Captain Geoff Morgan anxiously fiddled with the cover of his pants pocket, something he’d found himself doing an awful lot lately. Ever since the events on Taurus he and his crew had been grounded pending reassignment. He and his men hadn’t done a thing wrong, but regardless they seemed caught up in machinations far beyond their understanding. Like he had many other days since, he found himself once again wandering the main hander of the Eudora.
Bright flashes of light from further down behind one of the URV’s was likely one of the mechanics, although having been grounded as long as they had been it was likely they were merely working for the sake of working rather than actually fixing any sort of real problems. Most of Eudora's crew was starting to get antsy, they’d been pending reassignment for months now, stuck in a hellish bureaucratic form of limbo. Geoff strolled further along the hanger, surveying equipment and counting munitions for likely the hundredth time. The rushed sound of footsteps soon caught his attention, a petty officer was rushing down the main hanger towards Geoff with an obvious look of excitement.
“Captain! We’ve received new orders! The Eudora flies again! Reassignment has been delayed until further notice!” They called out as they neared. The captain was shocked, and so too were the many heads that bobbed out from various places about the hanger.
“New orders?” Geoff asked, surprise evident in his voice.
“Aye Captain! Priority alert from command to get the Eudora in flying order! Departure cleared for tomorrow morning!” The officer reported.
Geoff was struck dumb with surprise, not only were they avoiding the reassignment they were all dreading but they were also to ship out as suddenly as tomorrow. Geoff had no worries about readiness, the antsy crew had kept the ship in shape and ready for departure since the day they’d been slated for drydock. But regardless, protocols had to be enacted and followed and there was quite a lot that would need to be done before the Eudora flew out tomorrow morning.
Geoff routed his comm unit to broadcast his next words shipwide.
“LMV Eudora, this is your captain speaking. We have received priority orders and will be shipping out as early as tomorrow morning. All hands to stations to prepare for departure. I repeat, the LMV Eudora has received priority orders, all hands to stations to prepare for departure.”
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