Mission 1 - The Briefing

  TA419 - 01/02 (Two Months after an Abhailen Force’s raid on Vanadis Site 2).

  TSU Home-Fleet Defence Platform '1'.

  Fred Synapse was a friendly-faced old man. If you’d seen him on the street you’d probably picture a kind old pensioner - but dressed in a well-pressed white uniform, littered with medals and insignias, walking through the most powerful entity in history’s headquarters with confident strides - those who past him instead saw a living war hero, if a friendly looking one.

  He came upon a large, of all things, hardwood door and, after a brief moment, entered the office of the highest military official in the solar system.

  "It's been too long, Admiral," Head-Captain Synapse said as he crossed the small distance into the Admiral's office. Lord Grand Admiral Columbae turned from the panorama windows of the room’s entire outer wall and looked upon his friend, "It has, Fred."

  For the highest-ranked officer in the largest military history had ever seen, this office was a fairly modest affair. In the centre of the room, a long coffee table surrounded by plush chairs lay, and behind that, a wide hardwood desk and chair - but the real selling point was the back wall of windows.

  The Admiral had been staring at that panoramic view of unobstructed space in all its glory - the twinkling of far-off stars to the right, the grey box shapes of many of the ships in his command to the right, and the jewel of it all to his left - the blue planet, Bhaile.

  For fifty long years, the Admiral had defended that beautiful sight, and he would gladly do so for fifty more if he could.

  To a casual onlooker, the two might have appeared as siblings, both in their seventies and of decent height and build; that said, both had let their training regimes go a little as of late. Synapse's head of well-combed grey hair was a dead ringer for the Admiral's own, well, ten years ago anyway. These days, Lord Columbae was utterly bald, hidden beneath his pristine military cap. Both wore the same crisp white uniform pants and jacket, with black dress shirts underneath.

  But that was only to the casual observer. To Captain Synapse, they were very different men. Synapse took pride in his ability to command a warship but had never wanted more, turning down multiple off-the-books promotion offers. The Admiral, in contrast, was a big-picture man, a leader of not just a couple thousand people but, now, as the head of the TSU-navy, the lives of hundreds of thousands. It was a weight Synapse couldn't even imagine feeling.

  Beckoned to sit at the office’s central coffee table, a young aide brought in a tray of beverages before just as quickly exiting. Synapse happily accepted, adding some sweetener to his cup and eyeing the wealthy selection of snacks on the tray.

  Not only did their responsibilities differ, their styles of leadership were also markedly at odds. The Admiral was a gambler. To the masses, he was anything but; a stern but fair pair of old hands who carefully predicted battle after battle and managed hundreds of ships flawlessly.

  Synapse, however, had seen the truth. The old ship’s captain could still vividly remember the sensation of tension and unease standing on the bridge of his previous vessel, partaking in battles that could have gone wrong in any number of ways. But those errors hadn't happened. The coin tosses had worked exceptionally well time and again throughout those three years, and Synapse, as one of the Admiral’s chief sub-leaders, had basked in the triumph of many of those victories.

  When the war ended, it was a famous decision to have Columbae promoted to the role of Grand-Admiral. A household name with the friendly face of your grandfather to oversee the peace they had finally won back. Or so the story went.

  "I won't waste your time, Synapse," Lord Columbae said, easing into a chair across from the captain. Synapse followed suit, deciding not to go for a biscuit after all.

  "Have you heard of The Scarlet Scourge?"

  "Hmm? Do you mean the pirate? I believe our people even gave her that title, right?"

  "Quite indeed. The Scourge is undoubtedly the most rampant and successful pirate on record. She has evaded multiple attempts at capture and endlessly disturbed our supply lines. And we have reason to believe she has retired from pirating."

  'I suppose even pirates settle down someday,' Syanpase mused, "What's this leading into, sir?"

  The Grand Admiral tapped a button on his wrist’s handheld, and the inner wall of the office flashed to life. It was one giant, seamless projector screen of the highest quality. The image shown was less impressive, black and white with score lines running through it - CCTV footage maybe - depicting a rugged woman in her 30s dressed all in military greens and carrying a very real-looking assault rifle.

  "This photo was taken around seven years ago during the invasion of Bhaile. It's our best image of the infamous pirate."

  "She survived the invasion? That's impressive," Synapse relented. He and Columbae had been in charge of preventing the invasion's retreat once Abhaile began to lose the war five years ago, and they’d made sure very few of the invaders survived.

  "Quite so, combined with her pirate record, this Scarlet Scourge is one of the best pilots in service anywhere. Six months ago, she and several other lone agents and splinter cells of the former Abhialen forces were all recalled back to the Isles of Remembrance. Scarlet would be just the most notable. Here," the admiral tapped his screen, and a new photo of much better quality popped up of a standard military propaganda poster, "Not just old soldiers either, the remnants have been recruiting, from the occupied continent, from the Nation-Satellites.

  Anyone disgruntled at TSU and the post-war occupation of planet Abhaile is being targeted for recruitment. This, of course, has weakened their security, and a mole of mine took this photo of a poster present all around the remnant’s base for the rank and file to see."

  The poster was titled 'The 5 Great Aces of Remembrance' followed by five names. Two caught Captain Synapse's attention: the ‘Scourge’ in number two and number one, “The Bane of Konpei, huh?”

  A rueful grin crossed the Admiral's leathery face at this comment, "You always do catch on quick, old friend."

  Synapse nodded, "Two months ago, one of my officers, Donald Moncha, went to inspect and provide a field pilot's opinion on a prototype Casnel project. The base was attacked by a rebel group whose leader went by that very title."

  "That was the starting bell. From that attack, this insignificant rebel force gained three state-of-the-art top-spec Casnels, no doubt to be studied and piloted by three of these five ‘Great Aces’. And that's not all. We have reason to believe they aren't just hiding in the isles of Remembrance but rather have set up extensive mining operations, from which they have not only repaired surviving Abhialen vessels from the last war but begun building new ones and new mecha. The stealing of the Casnels, calling back personnel and recruiting new members - everything indicates, under a new name taken from their island sanctuary, 'Remembrance', that the Abhialien remnants are preparing to start another war."

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Synapse’s breath caught, and a bitter feeling took his stomach. Had they done it again? Did you learn anything from last time? The previous war had occurred specifically because The States Union had grown lazy. They had been so sure no one else could fight a war in space that they kept decades-old warships in service and shunned innovation, dedicating their funds instead to expansion and trying to colonise further than just these two sister planets.

  They had ignored Abhaile while it had invested everything into weapons technologies, vastly superior warships and the creation of the combat mech, Vijiaks.

  Had they made the same mistake again?

  "Intel suggests between fifty and one hundred ships. This home-fleet of mine alone has five hundred. However, a guerrilla war with a hundred ships is not out of the question. Take a look at this," Columbae said grimly. The screen swapped to a map of human-controlled space, the blue planet Bhaile on the left, the red planet Abhaile on the right, two grey orbs representing the moons and many grey rectangles marking out space stations and the cities in space, the Nation-state-Satellites.

  With a quick button press, blue x-marks appeared everywhere, on both planets and moons, on the grey rectangles, on spots where nothing appeared but Synapses recognised as the orbital routes of smaller satellites and stations;

  "This, my old friend, is every TSU-held installation that could not adequately defend against a Casnel lead strike team. Many are minor; individual relay points, refuelling stations, and sensor outposts. Others have defences like Vanadís site 2 did, but that could not beat ace pilots like we saw two months ago.

  Some even have small fleets, five to ten warships, but again, such defences could be easily taken down by a similar-sized enemy fleet with a Casnel to open a path. This strategy, I believe, is what Remembrance intends to go after, cripple our supplies line, humiliate our forces and shatter the public’s faith in us," Columbae finished.

  ‘The stolen Casnels are the key, huh? Just like in the last war, machines made of Goibhnui, better movement, power generation and firepower - able to single-handedly sink ships and take on whole battalions of lesser mechs solo. The Admiral is right; with those on their side, a guerilla war is more than possible.’

  Synapse swallowed hard as he mused over everything the Admiral had explained. He took a moment to evaluate the map and came up with the first of two crucial questions: “How are the radicals reacting?"

  Technically speaking, Synapse was in no position to know that within the admiralty and Union’s political sphere were those who believed Columbae to be a ‘Dove’, a soft man too passive to protect the solar system against new threats. Because of the grandeur of his station at the top of TSU, the Grand Admiral was as beholden to bureaucracy and politics as many of his subordinates. TSU wasn’t one country or continent; it was two planets, a moon and a raft of independent colony stations under one flag. Synapse, if anything, held great admiration that the Admiral managed to be more than just a figurehead.

  The radicals were perhaps the group most unhappy with Columbae’s refusal to conform to the regime as a puppet. This group advocated harsher occupation, new laws, and even, at the very fringes, the suggestion of demoting all citizens not born on planet Bhiale to a 'lower standard of human'.

  "It's what they have been waiting for. They're pushing for a ‘TSU-special force’ with carte blanche to put down rebellions before they happen.

  If our enemy succeeds unchecked in their plans, the radicals may get the first step of their wishes. Our response is limited. Say we could guess where the next Remembrance attack would hit; even with my authority, it would take time to force through an order to send a fleet to protect individual depots and satellites, days in which the attack would already be over if our foe is wise enough to make these attacks fast and in quick succession."

  Synapse nodded and asked the second question, "What's your plan?"

  "Always straight to the point, I appreciate it," Columbae said; looking, Synapse realised, awfully tired. He was learning all this today, but Columbae had known two months since the attack on Vanadis, heck, probably six months since the Remembrance forces started preparing - that was a long time to be worried over something this dire. Columbae folded his hands together and leaned forward;

  "A three-pronged approach. I can more easily reinforce any installation I fear getting attacked that has some pre-existing defences. For example, Major Elton and his carrier ship, LongParish, can be routinely moved from flotilla to flotilla at my command far easier than other units under less cooperative leadership. Likewise, your old understudy, Vice-Admiral Louise, his ninth patrol fleet, can be shunted to help defend patrol and supply vessels with the right amount of planning.

  The second step is a rogue unit. I need someone to go off the grid, giving the appearance of having abandoned command after being appalled by a Remembrance attack or some other similar fabrication – when, in reality, this force would head precisely to the predicted locations of attacks on smaller installations. Such installations might otherwise take too much bureaucracy to defend fast enough by normal means. When all this ends, I would come out and declare it had never been rogue at all."

  "You'll get a lot of flak for that," Synapse added.

  "I'll get a lot more if every TSU warehouse, sensor and barracks gets burned to the ground," Columbae replied.

  He waved a hand to dismiss the concern evident on Synapse's face, "Thirdly, my intelligence units will try to discover Rememberence's end game. If this guerrilla war is in aid of a truce, in aid of better conditions for their occupied planet, that's one thing. But suppose it's intending to unite all space fronts, either by showing TSU's inability to protect anything other than Bhaile or by inflaming the radicals into pushing the space-dwellers so far that they snap. In that case, we must not allow that to pass; if it does, an unrepairable gap between our two planets may form."

  "So then, where do I come in?" the Head Captain asked, although he already knew the answer. There was no obligation, of course. He’d turned seventy a few months past, hardly a standard soldiering age. He could retire now, and no one could or would try to stop him. His current duties were ceremonial, and asking him to be involved in such an operation was something only this admiral would even consider.

  "I need experience, cunning, and someone absolutely trustworthy to lead the rogue force. Not only will they see a great deal of fighting, but they'll also need to be fast and powerful, which are qualities your ship, the Curadh, has. The person I choose will be entrusted with new Casnels. Bailey Mechanics have, at my request, sped up their own rival Gen-3 project, one to counter the enemy’s stolen units. Well, old friend, will you consider it?"

  The Captain stood and held out his hand without hesitation. The Admiral followed suit and shook it gratefully, relief flooding his wrinkled face in a way that made Synapse certain that Columbae hadn't been sure if he'd agree or not. Caught in yet another gamble, he supposed.

  "Not to sound ungrateful, but a Casnel is the minimum to fight other Casnels. I also want new Vijiaks for the rest of my squadron if I'm to send them into battle."

  "Already handled. And I never said just one Casnel either," Columbae smiled, the first one with any semblance of mirth today.

  "I take it Bailey Mechanics will be my first stop then," Captain Synapse added, returning the smile.