Legacy of the Guardians
by AJ Marks
Part 19
Jack looked up at the knock on his door, waving George Dinen into the room.
“Good, glad you made it,” Jack said, putting a paper aside and rising to meet the vice-Admiral. “Wanted to say thanks for today, and congratulate you for such quick thinking.”
“Thank you sir,” George replied, shaking Jack’s hand, before sitting down again. “Glad it worked out.”
“Well, you justified my decision on promoting you. Some planetside had other thoughts about your promotion,” Jack said to him, having sent off a couple of e-mails about what happened. “I knew you were the right man for the job, Steve thought so to.”
“I’m flattered,” George said, not sure what else to say. Like Jack, he allowed his actions to speak for him.
“You read that diversion quicker than I did,” Jack said, knowing if George had not, they might not be sitting here talking about it.
“Well, to be honest, I was nervous about doing that,” George said. “It had the potential to backfire badly if I was wrong.”
“That kind of thinking in the field wins battles,” Jack stated, knowing if George had gone by the book, Fleet R would have been too far away to help.
“Well, it seems like something the Skartians would do,” George said.
“They haven’t changed tactics in years,” Steve said, joining them.
“Nope, always were more original with their ideas to conquer us from within than their battle plans,” Jack said. “Though, we should be cautious in dealing with them from here on out. With a new ally, they might learn some new tricks, and this might have been a way to test our combat readiness.”
“They may also not tolerate failure, so they might become involved directly as well,” Steve said.
“Great, an unknown,” George said, echoing Jack and Steve’s thoughts. “I’ll keep the fleet on alert for any new ships entering Sol space.”
“They might try another attack within a few days,” Jacks aid.
“Great, the question becomes how soon, and where?” George said.
“I’ve got a couple of ideas, nothing much, or good, but perhaps between the three of us we can come up with some sort of plan that we can use against the Skartians,” Jack said, standing up and pacing the room as he thought. He also wanted to cripple the enemy fleet.
“They won’t fall for the same trap again, by the way, how many ships did they lose in that battle?” Steve asked.
“Good question,” Jack said, returning to the desk to sort through the information of the battle. “Here it is, according to intelligence they lost thirteen ships in their attempt on the station and three in the diversion attempt, including four heavies. Our losses were only six ships.”
“Any important ships?” Steve asked, causing Jack to look at the report closely.
“A cruiser, two destroyers and two frigates to along with fifty-seven fighters,” Jack said. “One battlecruiser, a cruiser, four destroyers and three frigates will require more than two weeks to repair, and one carrier, two battlecruisers, three cruisers and fifteen destroyers and frigates will need minor repairs, with all of them scheduled to be back in action by the end of the week. The Seydlitz survived without a scratch I see.”
“Performed perfectly,” George replied having been on board it during the battle. “Her shields are defiantly stronger than previous shields, and her power output, very impressive in battle. I know the tests showed promise, but in battle, it was something else.”
“If we only had a fleet of them, we could end this war quickly,” Jack said, thinking about the possibilities.
“We’ll have to make do with one for now, with a second under construction, still going with old World War One battlecruiser names for this class?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, possibly the Goeben, or Mackensen, not sure yet,” Jack replied, allowing his mind to stray off subject for a moment.
“What do we do next?” George asked.
“Time for a staff meeting, we’ll do it on board the Seydlitz in two hours,” Jack said, looking over at George. “Will that give you enough time to prepare?”
“Yes sir,” George replied.
“Good, we’ll see you then,” Jack said, watching as George walked out and headed towards his ship. Steve looked back at Jack before mentioning something about getting though some reports before the meeting and headed off to his office.
Jack set up a reminder on his calendar and went back to work, gathering up as much information as possible for the upcoming meeting. He decided to go over the old plans they had during the last war, and see if they might help out here.
*****
Ahmed made a point on congratulating everyone on a job well done during the battle. They had managed to survive a battle no one expected to survive. Of course that was thanks to Admiral Dinen. He knew his crew, had worked with them before as their second in command, but it felt strange to now be the captain of the ship.
He returned to his office to go over the numbers, checking to see how the ship performed in combat. He was disappointed to find it had performed only at fifty percent. He knew a lot of the problems came with the repairs, but still, he wanted to get that number up in case something else happened. The engine was scheduled to be done in a couple of days, and that would improve the effectiveness tremendously.
He looked over the report from the damage control team, and saw no damage suffered during the battle, which relieved him tremendously. It would not delay the repairs on the ship. However, other combat losses could push back the readiness of the ship depending on damage to other ships.
Ahmed hoped to be back in full combat readiness real soon. He ached to get back into combat.
He recalled the battle, and wondered how Admiral Dinen knew they would attack the station. He felt relieved seeing the ships from the fleet coming out of the asteroid belt to help out in the defense.
Seeing the Skartians fleet in full retreat was gratifying considering the situation. He wished he knew what might happen next.
*****
Sam felt frustrated, all of his efforts had gotten him nowhere. In fact, his last attempt almost got him arrested. The only reason he had not been, the local police captain was also an undercover recruiter who recognized him. He gave Sam a warning that he wouldn’t be able to help him a second time.
Sam thought he had it all figured out in those couple of lines Marcus wrote. Same had a feeling he knew where he had to be, but once he got there, he had no idea what to do. Even if he did, he would not know what would happen. Would he be shown the same thing Marcus was? Sam really started to feel obsessed with the building, and wanted to know the answer to his question.
He decided to approach the captain once more, and see if he could somehow get help. He had to be in a certain spot, and perhaps, the captain could arrange for a friendly patrol tonight, or someone who would look the other way for a couple of minutes.
He quickly made his way out of his room and towards the police station.
*****
“Thank you all for coming, as many of you know we are preparing for another Skartian attack. We believe that we can severely cripple the Skartian fleet on their next attack, which will put them, perhaps, in a negotiating mood,” Jack said to the group. He looked out at the group of captains and other officials who could make the meeting. He hoped to get some beneficial ideas out of it.
“Has there been any other intercepted messaged to or from Earth?” one captain asked.
“No in the past couple of days,’ the intelligence officer replied, and continued on. “But, we have reason to believe that despite our recent capture of several Skartians on Earth more are still planetside. We are working on a way to pinpoint those areas even better to send in teams.”
“Thank you Lieutenant Kinsu,” Jack said to the intelligence officer. “Any other questions before we start the meeting?”
“Are you going to bring up the fleet from Earth to the station?” Admiral Gansiu said.
“I’d like to keep your fleet as part of Earth’s defense until we have crippled their fleet a bit more and the threat of invasion is diminished,” Jack said to him. “I might be taking the second Carrier division and sixth battlecruiser fleet and placing it temporarily witih Fleet R, would that leave you with enough ships to stop an invasion?”
“Well, I’d still have three battlecruser and two carrier groups, that should be enough for whatever makes it though,” Gansiu said after thinking about it for a few seconds.
“Good, then fleet R will be temporarily made up of the first, third fifth and sixth battlecruiser fleet and the second and fourth carrier groups,” Jack said moving on to the next point in the meeting. “Now, we need to come up with a plan to prepare for another Skartian attack. It could come at any time, and they will probably use another deception like the previous one.”
Jack looked around at the group as the map came up in the center of the table. People began to murmur to the person next to them as they threw out ideas and arguments to such ideas. Jack did not even try to keep up with the amount of information coming out, and looked over at Steve.
“Seems like a lot of ideas coming out,” Jacks aid to him.
“Yeah, seems like everyone likes using the idea of the asteroids to hide in,” Steve said.
“The Skartians will be looking for that one, seeing how I used it recently,” George said, and Jack had to agree with him. That plan was probably out of the question now.
“How about we keep a few ships in there, make them think that’s what we’re doing,” Gansiu said, thinking out loud.
“That would serve a couple of purposes at the same time,” Kinsu said. “They could scout out the fields making sure that the Skartian fleet can’t sue them either.”
Jack listened in as the conversation turned to how they could use the asteroid belt to their advantage once more. They worked on what might come next if the Skartians invaded again.
“I’ve got an idea,” Kinsu finally said, outlining an idea she had. Jack and other others listened as she spoke for the next couple of minutes.
“Hmm, that just might work,’ Jack said finally after giving it some thought. “We’ll try it and see if anything happens.”
They hashed out a few of the details and finally after a couple of hours the meeting broke up, everyone leaving except Jack, Steve and George.
“You think it’ll work?” Steve asked, taking a sip of coffee.
“It’s a well thought out plan, I think it has a good chance,” Jack replied, thinking about the plan.
“How about something to eat?” George said.
“Sounds good,” Jack said, as they got up and headed to the cafeteria on board the ship.
“You decided which ships you’re going to have patrol the asteroids?” Steve asked. As they were on board the elevator.
“Not yet, see which ships will require more extensive repairs and which ones can go out right away,” George replied. “Don’t want to put too many there and not leave the fleet enough to respond with.”
“Wise plan,” Jack said, as they reached the cafeteria.
“The ship is spacious even here,” George said. “We were able to run around the bridge and not run into each other, a nice change.”
“Leaves lots of room for upgrades.” Jack said. They all knew upgrades were a fact of life with a warship. If it did not have the space, it could be quickly left behind.
They went over and grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to work.
End part 19
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