ONE: Epilogue of Hermesh

29. The Fallback

"They're saying he's alive!" Tekkar heard the excited whisper of an officer, behind her.

"Where do you think he is now?" another one asked, "Might be en route to Alamiin."

"Don't think he is. If I were the Commodore, I wouldn't risk facing the War Council; especially after openly admitting to what he has done!"

Tekkar was about to spin around and reprimand the two officers when her communicator activated. It was General Naaroke Barmin.

"Captain Tekkar, I see I've caught you on route to the frontline." She heard the General's voice echo in her left ear.

"Yes General," Tekkar replied, "The 2nd is less than 0.5 Centrons away. We are to relieve the Helmeshi's 7th.... "

"Those orders have been rescinded." General Barmin replied, "I've just informed Rear Admiral Ronack of the new directives. I'm contacting you to make sure you got the message before reaching the 7th."

"I appreciate that, General. But the 7th has been fighting continuously for over 20 hours."

"Don't worry about them. Two Xacreth fleets are already on their way instead."

Tekka noticed the floating command screen in front of her flashing new orders, relayed directly by Rear Admiral Ronack. The 2nd were to rendezvous with the Amarthian 5th Fleet; the same fleet that fought at the Battle of Ralnac.

Tekkar knew that only a handful of ships of the 5th Fleet had survived that engagement. However, those that did were upgraded, and were joined by new battleships, which brought the 5th back to its full strength before rejoining the fight at the Boran Expanse.

The Captain read the orders a couple of times to make sure she was not mistaken. It stated, in the absence of Rare Admiral's ship, Tooran would have temporary command of the 2nd Fleet. Normally, Tekkar would have queried this particular order, if only for the sake of politeness.

However, she had noticed various activities along and behind the frontline. These activities, even though apparently, seemed routine, observing them closely convinced the young commanding officer that preparations were underway for something very big. And whatever it was, Tekkar had a feeling it was about to happen soon.

Relaying the message to Tooran's navigator, Tekkar activated the live map of the Boran Expanse. For some reason, the map was still plotting the course of the 2nd Fleet on route to meet up with the Helmeshi 7th.

But Tekkar soon realized the information displayed wasn't exactly wrong but lagging by approximately 25 minutes. Strangely enough, the map was also showing the 5th Fleet holding their position near the border of the Upper and Central Expanse, in the opposite direction, where the 2nd Fleet was heading.

Realising the possible implications, Tekkar looked around the bridge to make sure that nobody else was watching, before swiftly locking access to the map, for her eyes only.

Tooran after linking up with the rest of the 2nd Fleet, headed for the new coordinates for redeployment. What she found there startled her beyond words. Not only was the 5th Fleet there waiting for them, there were also five more Fleets waiting there.

Looking again at the map which had now corrected itself, Tekkar noticed many other fleets were about to join them. What confused her further was the fact that these were not reinforcements that had arrived and were awaiting deployment, but battleships that were pulling back from the Boran Expanse.

Before Tekkar could make any enquiries to understand what was going on, her 1st Officer spoke, "Captain, a Xacreth shuttle is requesting permission to dock. They're saying Commodore Reemon Erra is onboard."