Fall of the Terran Empire - Traci Ganner series book 1

FTE - Ch 10

The dreadnoughts of Third Fleet made transit into real space first, followed by the battle cruisers. Something was definitely not right. They had received no ansible responses from the Acamar or Gamma Hydrae stations, so the fleet arrived at general quarters in battle formation with its heavies leading the charge. They had also dropped out of hyperspace travel a full four light-minutes from the Acamarian star system, so they could deploy and move in with the least possible surprises. If there was an enemy fleet here, they would have more warning of Admiral Pearson’s arrival. But conversely, he would also have more warning of what he would be facing, as the long range scanners went to work looking for starship emissions in and around Acamar’s outer planets.

“Well, Sebastian,” the admiral said with his arms folded as he surveyed the master plot. “It looks like there is no one to greet us today.”

“Yes, sir,” Commodore Santos stated, also looking at the plot. “It’s a little too quiet for my taste, sir.”

“Mine too. Bernie, have the scouting screen move to one light-minute out from the fleet. I want to know who we are going to be running into before we open the door and get surprised.”

“Yes, Admiral,” he responded.

“Well, Captain?” Pearson asked, as all of the staffers turned to look at Traci Ganner.

“Sir, based on the information we have received from the outer Acamar tracking station, we are likely to be greeted by a very large party.”

“Explain, Captain,” Pearson said, fixing her with a gaze of attention.

“Well, sir,” Traci began, “we are expecting Captain Sanderson’s heavy cruisers to be picketing the system with orders to meet us on this side of the star. They clearly aren’t here.”

“They could be delayed, reassigned, or any number of possible scenarios, Captain,” Admiral Pirelli stated. He was coming to the same conclusion she had, but he had yet to see all the pieces of evidence yet. There could be another explanation for the absence of all of the cruisers, couldn’t there?

“Yes, sir,” she acknowledged. It was really more in acquiescence to his statement, so she hurried on. “Sir, the Acamar outer station beacon is broadcasting a general alert status signal, but no information. That tells me that they were hit hard, with enough firepower to take out the Acamar command net. It’s also possible that the fleet base is unable to respond.”

“Captain, there is absolutely no evidence to support what you are saying,” Commodore Santos stated flatly. He turned to Pearson. “I think she is coming to some pretty remarkable conclusions, Scott.”

Admiral Pearson stared at Ganner for a few heartbeats more. “I think she’s right. When will we receive a response from the base?”

The communications officer held his tablet computer in the crook of his arm and responded, “Sir, our initial hail went out nine minutes ago. We should be getting a response back in another four minutes.”

Admiral Pearson waved the communication officer back to his station. Ten minutes came and went. The flag bridge aboard the Thor was silent except for the reports coming in from other sections of the ship. Admiral Pearson rubbed his chin, where some imagined stubble was starting to grow. There was no real stubble, of course; he shaved to micrometric precision each morning before ship’s dawn. He was still gazing ahead, radiating calm for his officers, when the comm chime sounded. The text of the message displayed on several terminals as the screen’s forward elements reported in.

“Sir, we have forty hulls identified on the edge of the Acamar system,” said Commodore Thompson, commander of the scout flotilla. “We can’t be sure, sir, but it looks like there could be upwards of thirty more stooging around in the inner system.” He paused to make sure the transmission lag had delivered the first part of the message. “They’re not ours, sir.”