Zedil scowled at the viewscreen, analyzing the information that was being shown there.  He was, at the least, relieved to be headed back to the Micronian planet...

It had seemed like an insult, initially, when Breetai had ordered him to remain behind with a small task force and maintain a watch on the Micronians' activity.  It was a dismissal, it seemed...with the Battle Fortress fleeing the system, the threat from a single planet that was just beginning to make its way into space seemed trivial.

He'd learned respect, the hard way, for the Micronians.  His task force was down several ships...and Breetai hadn't seen fit to replace them.  Apparently, the Battle Fortress had been taking its own toll, out at the edges of the star system.

But his relief came from the fact that he no longer needed to tolerate Khyron's insouciant manner.  His aggressive tactics were the sole justification for his rank...and it irked Zedil to have to show any respect for the Zentraedi whose reputation sometimes had him doing as much damage to his own troops as whatever enemy they were fighting at the time.

Much better, Zedil agreed, to be away from that, back operating on his own and trying to find some way to exploit the Micronians.  He lacked the facilities to reduce any of his own troops to send in as infiltrators...he'd been limited to more conventional methods of intelligence gathering.

And then, not so long ago, the relay team he'd left on the Micronian's moon had gone silent.  Discovered, no doubt...how, he was unsure.  After so much time, with such a consistent stream of reports, it had seemed like they'd found a flawless camoflage...

Yet another reason to NOT underestimate the Micronians, he reminded himself.  Despite Khyron's braggadocio, their diminutive enemies were more resourceful and dangerous than anything the Zentraedi had faced before, or at least anything Zedil could recall.  Yes, they were massively outnumbered...but in spite of that, they fought on...fought even harder, it seemed.  While the Zentraedi could turn out a fleet that could destroy the whole world in a single sortee, Zedil had his doubts about any lesser measures they could take.

This would require a very measured approach...

"Send out five recon squads.  Let's make sure these sensor reading are accurate.  I want to be sure where ALL of their ships are."  Not that long ago, he would have raced in without a second thought.  The Micronians had eliminated two of his larger ships, already...at heavy cost to their own forces, yes, but they could repair their equipment faster than anything he'd ever seen, while his own troops were all combat personnel.  His ships all still bore very visible scars of their prior encounters.  He did not want to find himself surprised by unexpected Micronian forces.

Fifteen pods launched, fanning out in a dome shape that preceded the Zentraedi task force heading back to Earth, in clusters of three, all close enough together to lend fire support, but far enough apart to expand the available sensor data massively.

One of those clusters sped past Mars, dodging around the still-expanding cloud of wreckage that was left from their one undisputed victory against the Micronians...the one ship they'd managed to destroy without suffering major losses of their own.

Captain Wilson scowled, looking over the reports in his ready room.  Apparently, whatever message they'd intercepted had really stirred things up with the anti-unification factions back on Earth...some of them thought the whole thing was a hoax, staged by the UEDF to get them to 'play nice'.  Some bought it whole-heartedly.  Most were stuck somewhere in between; with mounting evidence that there was, in fact, some greater threat beyond the scope of the planet (initial attacks had been written off as state-sponsored propaganda, but there were too many consistent reports across too many news sources for most to keep swallowing that logic), they were inclined to believe that something had happened, but they weren't necessarily ready to accept that their leader had just told them to stop fighting...that went against character for him.

So, things at home were still unstable.  The UEDF was also apparently channeling a lot of funding into several black projects back on Earth, because it was getting more and more difficult to keep the repair stations on Luna operating at full capacity.  His inquiries had been met with brusque statements that his superiors were 'aware of the problem'...but little more than that.  Definitely with no shift in results...

Commander Ritter's expedition could do little to shed light on what had happened to the rebel group...only a confirmation that they, too, had received the same message on the same channel, along with a statement that they ion trail they'd been following had gone cold as they were going through the Asteroid Belt, so it was possible that the whole thing was staged to throw the UEDF off the rebels' trail.

Too many unknowns... Wilson growled to himself.  He'd had Bixby analyzing every fragment of the signal that they'd received, trying to figure out some way to verify or disprove it...because if it was true, then the aliens were either on their way back toward Earth, or they'd already laid claim to the entire outer Solar System.

Revolt Squadron was coming along...the lull in the fighting had given Alexa enough time to get them whipped into half-decent pilots, scrubbing out the Academy nonsense that some of them had been taught and injecting a good dose of battlefield-proven tactical theory in its place.  But outside of simulator time, none of them were combat pilots, yet.

Every time one of them forgot that, she set up simulator time with them flying against whoever Hardy sent down from Echo Squadron.  And that kept the new kids from getting too big for their britches.

Her sensors pinged for attention momentarily, then fell silent again.  She scowled at the console a moment, before running a diagnostic cycle.  Everything was fine, it seemed.

"Uh...Lieutenant?"  One of the more mature voices in the squadron sounded on the comm channel.

"What is it, Jenkins?"  She'd finally managed the art of answering those comm calls without sounding bored or annoyed.

"My...uh...my sensors are acting weird...like they had a hit and then lost it."

Alexa stiffened slightly in her seat.  "Yeah...mine too.  Keep an eye on it.  Could have been some orbital debris that barely crossed the edge of our range...but it could be something else."

She called back to the Ranger and gave them a heading for the there-and-gone bogey...they were far enough out that Ranger probably couldn't pick up whatever it was, either...but they'd be keeping a sharp eye in that direction.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of Hardy's command style, but Anastasia couldn't argue much with results.  Things were running smoothly, the rookies looked like they might actually have a chance of surviving a first battle, and the flight rotations were as balanced as they'd ever been.  He might be a Wyoming farmboy by birth, she observed, but the man was doing something right, even if it was largely just standing back and letting his people do things their own way.

She mused on all of this as she looked over his service record.  Regular evaluations were supposed to be part of the job, as well, but Hardy couldn't very well evaluate himself and Captain Donovan had been preoccupied and pushed it onto her.  Today was Echo's down day...Fox and Revolt were flying the combat patrols...so today was the day to get the evaluation done.

She just needed to wait for Hardy to get there.  She glanced at her clock...two minutes left...

Cain was for once NOT in the combat simulator or in the gym practicing martial arts or sparring.. he was in his cabin.  And again.. he had sketched and drawn through all his blank sheets of paper in his sketch pad.  The Ship's quartermaster had refused to give him more as Cain had already filled 5 pads with sketches already!

Something about 'month's allotment used up' and now Cain would have to wait for resupply..whenever the Brass felt it important enough to actually do one... considering the state of affairs.

The Training chiefs had began to 'ration' Cain's combat simulator time or he'd be there now.. the rookies of Fox and Revolt needed the sim-time too.

So here he was bored out of his mind waiting.. and doing what he did when he was bored... working on playing the acoustic guitar his little sister had bought him as a gift.  Cain SUCKED at playing guitar... and he knew it.. but his little sister, Cynthia, had insisted he try to learn so he could play accompaniment to her piano playing... of which, in his opinion, she was a virtuoso!

He sighed... again practicing from the thin basic playing booklet he keep in the guitar's case.  He'd actually gotten to the point where he could play a four-string chord decently well... but the rest.. his finger s just seemed to have a mind of their own...

He sighed again... and tried more practice scales... like everything Cain did.. he kept at it like a life or death fight... eventually.. he might get it right...

Well maybe enough to, at least, spare other listener's ears...

Vance was sitting the in Officers' Club, sharing horror stories about the day the aliens arrived and attacked the UEDF forces, when he realized he was due to meet with Commander Keyes.

"I'll have to tell you about what happened to some of the other orbital platforms, later..." he said as he stood up.  The 'old-timers' nodded sagely, the newcomers were wide-eyed at what they'd been hearing.

"It wasn't pretty," he added.  He tired of the topic quickly, these days...but it had to be brought up any time some young buck started going on about how excited he was to get out there and 'kick some alien ass'.

As if it was just that easy...  Initially, he'd been annoyed at the presumption, implying that those pilots who had been out in space the entire time were somehow incapable of defeating an easy foe.  Then he started thinking about the kind of hazard those men would be when they actually had to face the enemy.  Better to slap them in the face with it now, where they can recover safely...

He gestured to the bartender that it should be put on his tab...one nice thing about the promotion was the pay raise.  He didn't drink much, so running a tab didn't create a large dent in his paycheck.  He moved quickly, returning salutes as he went...the downside of the promotion, in his mind...and was face to face with the Commander within moments.

"So...how'm I doing?" he asked.  It was a blatant breach of proper protocol, but thus far, she'd tolerated it.  And he figured that failure to present the 'proper' degree of regard for protocol would be a good way to minimize the chances that they'd promote him again.

"You're barely on time, Mr. Vance.  This isn't a combat operation, there's no risk involved in arriving on station ahead of schedule..."  She managed to keep the annoyance in her tone trivial--after all, in the grand scheme of things, there were definitely bigger threats to the operations of the Ranger than an almost-tardy Flight Commander...

She glanced at the files again, without opening them.  She knew what she was going to say.  "Your approach isn't exactly orthodox...which has been noted in your files," she began.  Before he could complain, she continued, "Also noted is the fact that we're not exactly operating in conventional circumstances, as well as the fact that your methods have been achieving good results, thus far."

She gave him a tired smile.  "In other words, Lieutenant Commander, I'm afraid you're out of luck and stuck with the job."

She opened her mouth to say something more when the ship-wide alarm klaxon sounded, announcing the approach of incoming bogeys that had not been identified as yet.  "We'll finish this later..." she declared, as she rose to depart.  They weren't sounding battle-stations just yet...but her place was on the bridge, before battle-stations sounded.

Cain heard the alert klaxon... and hoped it meant an end to boredom.  Putting his guitar in its case he left it open on his bunk as he stepped over to his locker and got into his flight suit.  Snatching up his helmet he was out the door in less than three minutes making his way to the pilot's ready room...

No scramble order had yet been given... but Cain had little else to do... his next scheduled patrol was still four hours away, might as well be ready for whatever, and it got him out of his bunkroom doing something useful.

Flight Operations was ordering Lt. Khan to pull her rookies back to provide close cover for Raven Squadron, defending the Ranger.  Chief Bixby debated with himself, whether to run for the hangar and get out there with the Two-Ex or stay and continue analyzing the incoming data that Revolt Squadron had picked up.

The enemy planes were not yet in sensor range for the Ranger...but if they continued on the course that had been detected, they'd be in range in seconds...and in weapons range within a couple of minutes.

Captain Wilson looked at the information over Bixby's shoulder.  "Go ahead and sound the scramble for Echo Squadron...sound First Alert for Fox, we'll have them ready in the cockpits if this proves to be too much for Echo to tackle alone.

The Flight Ops officer nodded, reaching out with a sure hand to flip a series of switches.  <i>Ranger's automated systems responded, adding a second alert tone to the Battle Stations alert.

"ECHO SQUADRON--SCRAMBLE ALERT.  REPEAT, ECHO SQUADRON--SCRAMBLE ALERT," blared out during lulls in the alarms.  A second vocal alert sounded..."FOX SQUADRON TO YOUR PLANES AND STANDBY.  FOX SQUADRON, STANDBY IN YOUR COCKPITS."  The alerts repeated, as Bixby compared the sensor feed from the Revolt Squadron plane that had picked up the enemy and the sensor information from Ranger.

"Sensor contact with the enemy in ten seconds," he announced.

Wilson looked over at him.  "Go get to your plane, Chief.  I've got a dozen people who can read a sensor display, you're the only qualified EWO I've got.  You'll be more use to us out there."  Without waiting for a discussion on the matter, he gestured for the regular sensor officer to resume his station, and added, without looking back, "That wasn't a suggestion, Chief."

Without another thought, Bixby dashed from the bridge, on his way to the flight deck to retrieve his flight gear and board his plane.

Vance was already on his way to the flight deck when the scramble sounded...he picked up his pace, going from a determined walk to a fast jog.  He was into his flight gear in record time, and moments later was climbing the ladder to his cockpit.

"Time to find out if they're just looking around again, or if they actually have something in mind..." he said to his ground crew, as he settled in.  It had been several weeks since any alien craft had been spotted inside of the Mars orbit of the Solar System...with the exception of the listening post they'd broken up on the Moon.  While he knew that hadn't been long enough for his squadron to forget how to fight the aliens, it was long enough for their edge to be a little blunted...

He could only hope the aliens had suffered the same downtime...and the same effects.  Without letting himself dwell on that notion much further, he fired up the engines and dropped the canopy, taxiing to launch position as soon as clearance was given.

At the sound of the Klaxon scramble alert... Cain broke into a fast jog pulling on his flight helmet and sealing his flight-suit gloves; changing direction to the flight deck...

He could not help but smile anxiously, {Finally... something to do... those aliens are certainly not sitting on their hands! One way or another its gonna come down to bloodying their noses enough they think twice about attacking earth... might as well get on about punching some alien faces in before reinforcements arrive!}

Cain arrived just in time to see Echo Lead climb into his waiting bird, engines already idling.  He also wasted no time hitting the cockpit ladder release at the side of the fuselage barely waiting the the ladder to fully stop before he was clambering up to the open cockpit.

Flashing a "thumb's up" to the flight technicians he closed his cockpit and sealed it, patching his helmet into the comm-net of his Veritech and attaching the umbilical cables to his flight suit... patching himself in the fighter's life support systems.  Almost immediately he turned down the comm-net chatter of the scramble alert as the communications flight control routed the Echo Squadron to its own encrypted comm frequencies.

Cain's hands flash over his controls and displays reading his systems readiness and weapon's stores... appreciative the Techs got his usually requested load-out of ordinance to his specification on the money.

{"Echo Five, 2nd Lt Edwards on deck, systems green.  On standby, awaiting clearance to launch! Echo Lead, got a sitrep, Sir?  Is this a precaution station alert or do we have inbound bogies?"}
This message was last edited by the player at 04:46, Fri 01 Jan 2016.