———— Salvos, Loki Province Air Space, 2533 ————
The Multi-Vehicle Heavy Lift Transport Carrier, D Class hovered ominously above the icy snow fields of Loki. These MVHLTC-D’s were more commonly known as Stalkers, and were used for long range reconnaissance and atmospheric transitions.
As the Sparrow approached the hull of the ship, it was dwarfed by its size. The Stalker was as long as a 21st century skyscraper and half as wide, giving it a boxy, stubby appearance. The Sparrow shunted up into the bottom of the Stalker and came into a large hangar, three more Sparrows inside.
As Lauren set the Sparrow down Kylan jumped from the aircraft and slipped the M&S onto his back, a magnet holding it there. He made his way towards the front of the ship through thin, dark corridors made of smooth metal.
When Kylan came onto the bridge of the Stalker, a young lieutenant saluted to him.
“Lieutenant Riley Moore,” said the man, his eyes a dark hazel.
“At ease Lieutenant,” said Kylan, “Where’s your CO?”
“Admiral Flank is onboard All Bets are Off sir, we’ll rendezvous shortly.”
Bull and Lauren joined Kylan in the bridge; the three operatives seemed to take up the entire space in their armour. Bull stepped forward, his red and steel plating a menacing look.
“Who can get a COM console?” he said, commanding the attention of every non-commissioned officer in the bridge. They scrambled and in seconds an ensign handed Bull a bulky data pad no bigger than a laptop computer. He reached into the small pouch on his chest plate and pulled out a microchip.
The chip was about the size of a finger nail and held somewhere around seven hundred terabytes of video from the Naval Special Research (NSR) base they had destroyed in Loki. Bull slipped it into a port on the COM pad and selected a date three days before, at around eight pm. Nixon Team watched.
Two scientists, both wearing white lab coats and fussing over a small glowing sphere in the centre of the lab, were on the screen. The orb began to pulse as its light became more intense and a deeper reddish hue.
“Shit,” Lauren breathed. They had all seen this before, a device not unlike this one, turning that colour and pulsing like that. The orb was an IGPS, inter-galactic positioning system, and it allowed the alien species to jump to its location.
As they had already expected, soon fifteen aliens burst into the room out of thin air, the space shimmering around them as they materialised from teleportation devices on their home world. Just as things began to get violent Bull stopped the video.
“Flank was right, the device was an IGPS and they activated it,” said Kylan while he removed his helmet.
“So the Voii have finally found a blue colony,” Bull said more or less to himself. Blue colonies were those which had over seven billion people in total population and traded regularly with Earth, red colonies were those isolated from Earth either by choice, or by force. In the four years that humans had been in contact with these Voii, only red colonies had been found by the aliens.
“Yeah, well, I guess,” said Kylan, staring at his feet. This was bad, the worst, it was only a matter of time before the aliens found Torrance, and then…
“How long ‘till they find Earth?” asked Bull as he slouched into an operator’s chair.
“Not long enough,” said Kylan.
If the Stalker dwarfed the Sparrow, SSV All Bets are Off made the Stalker look ridiculously insignificant. The Stalker pulled into the hangar, and the cavernous space inside would alone cater for the size of one of the CNSC wet Navy’s aircraft carriers.
Nixon Team and Lieutenant Moore got off the stalker and walked quickly towards one of the elevators on its starboard wall. They got inside and Riley keyed for the bridge, noticeably uncomfortable in an enclosed space with three fully suited juggernauts of death.
The bridge was akin to that of the Stalker, but much, much larger. It was steeped in tiers, tier one being the COM centre and operations command. Up a few stairs was tier two, weapons systems and orbital defence arrays. Tier three was the AI control suite and tier four was the helm.
Admiral Flank stood on the upmost point of tier four. He was, ironically, flanked on either side by Air Force General Ramon and Army General Rascalov.
“Admiral, Generals,” Kylan saluted, as did Bull and Lauren before they all removed their helmets.
“At ease Commander,” said Flank. Kylan offered him the chip they had recovered and the admiral took it.
“I’ll save you the bother, give you abridged version,” said Bull, stepping forward. He was a junior grade lieutenant and his insolence didn’t sit well with General Ramon.
“I think we will manage Lieutenant,”
“No,” Bull interrupted, “They are here. The Voii are here and they know exactly where Salvos is. No more guessing coordinates, no more destroying red colonies on the fringes of CNSC space. They are on the fucking doorstep.
“Whatever, no big deal right?” he continued, “We’ll just evacuate Salvos, jump to a set of random coordinates then to another blue colony? Great, then six months later we do the same thing until we’re jumping to Earth with the Voii ready to fuck us in ass!”
The brass collected in the bridge of All Bets are Off had enough power to jail Bull for his insubordination, but Flank handled his rage well.
“Lieutenant Pattison, leave the bridge.”
Bull just turned and left, putting his helmet back on and polarizing the visor to hide the contorted anger in his smooth black skin. Admiral Flank rubbed his temples and spoke in hushed tones with the generals. Kylan just stood still and made no effort to butt in.
“Look, Commander Kylan,” General Rascalov addressed him in his sleazy Hungarian accent, “I know you have just come back from an assignment, but we will have to re-deploy you.”
“Understandable, that’s what NavSpecWar does sir,” said Kylan, tightening his grip on his helmet.
“Re-arm yourselves and calm down Lieutenant Pattison and meet me in the hangar at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. I’ll brief you and you’ll have an Army Rangers Special Forces unit at your disposal.”
“Aye aye,” said Kylan, saluted and turned to head to the barracks.
He’d get nine hours sleep if he was lucky.
