Episode 1: Dawn
"Vice President Bradley, please report to the bridge."
His eyes open, the room was as black as night. He turned over in his bed to look at the clock, it's green numbers were bright in the darkness of the room, 0915, asleep less then an hour. Rest is something Alan Bradley, Vice President of the Terran Alliance, doesn't get to enjoy. Not when your second in command of all of humanity. Less then an hour ago, Bradley was finally able to escape from a war briefing that had lasted well over twelve hours.
The Drengin Empire had broken the treaty signed twenty-six years ago, by invading the demilitarized zone. Spies report that a massive military build up of the Drengian forces is occurring. After this reports began flying about other major military mobilization occurring throughout the galaxy. The Yor Collective and the Dominion of Korx have already sent emissaries to the Drengin reforming their alliance from twenty-six years ago. While the Altarian Republic and the Torian Confederation have reformed their military alliance with humanity. The very powerful Arcean Empire have issued an order of neutrality in the coming chaos, as much as expected. As of yet, no words have been heard from the Iconian Refuge, Darth Legion, or the mysterious Thalan Empire. Many smaller civilizations have broken all formal communications with both sides.
The mission Bradley was given last night by President Gorgian was to seek out a meeting with Emperor Iso the Wise, leader of the Iconian Refuge, for they share a common disliking of the Drengian and have always been on friendly terms with humans. Already on board his ship the United Star Ship Mars, the Vice President of the Terran Alliance is always away from Earth on business, Bradley set a new course for New Iconia.
Alan got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Turning on the light he flinched as his eyes adjusted to the light. Looking at himself in the mirror he saw a haggard looking 47 year old man, who had the facial features more suitable for a farmer rather then a politician. His years as a fighter pilot in the Galactic Alliance Armada has left him with a grim expression, along with a light scar above his right eye. His line of work has caused his hair to gray prematurely, and now only a few strands of his original coal black hair remained. He wasn't exactly a tall person, but neither did he consider himself short.
He splashed some water on his clean shaved face, when the intercom sounded again. "Vice President Alan Bradley, please report to the bridge immediately." He wiped his face dry on a towel hanging over the shower door, "Well, at least they said please," he thought to himself.
The Mars was a fine ship, one of the best most thought, the best the crew thought. It was a simple ship of simple design, nothing over the top like the Altarian royal ships. A member of the Flagship class, the Mars was designed for combat and for diplomacy assignments. The designers describe them as "a little bit of everything, packed into one ship."
The ship was divided into two sections, anterior and posterior sections, containing eighteen decks. The anterior section, which housed the bridge, command points, and most of the housing, is shaped like a saucer. While the posterior section, housing engines and all of the "machinery" of the ship, juts directly out of the back of the saucer with two nacelle mounted on opposite sides of each other, these nacelle hold the hyper drive engines.
Not the first of it's name, the Mars official name is the United Star Ship Mars 14440-C, commonly referred to as the USS Mars C by the designers or just the Mars by the public and the crew. A ship named Mars has always been in the service of the Vice President since the beginning of the Terran Alliance.
The Mars was one of the four ships in the Flagship class, each made for one of the high officials in the Alliance government. The other three ships of the Flagship Class, USS Earth, USS Jupiter, and the USS Saturn, are in the service of the President, High Admiral, and Congress of the Terran Alliance. These three ships are of the same design and capabilities of the Mars, of all four only the Jupiter, under the command of the High Admiral, has ever seen battle. The President, Vice President, or Congress have never gone seeking conflict.
Alan Bradley wondered why this was, as he entered the lift to the bridge.
The doors slid open, before Bradley was the bridge. As simple in design as the ship that it commands. Cylinder in shape, the far wall is taken up by the monitor, while the back wall has many computer stations. Two lifts flank the room on the side walls, as well as connect the monitor wall with the computer wall. In the middle were three chairs, the middle chair was reserved for the Vice President.
In the chair to the right of the Vice President's chair sat a young woman. Vivian Kennedy, Captain Vivian Kennedy to be exact, stood when she saw Bradley enter. Her golden shoulder length hair waved through the air as she turned to face him. Her face was clean and glowing. Alan would have thought her beautiful in his youth, but his age had caught up with him and his tastes for women. She was twenty-five, a young upstart who energy and commitment had shot her up the ranks to Captain. She never expected her first ship to command would be the Mars under the watchful eye of the Vice President himself.
"Captain, what is the reason for getting me out of bed?" Bradley asked with a yawn, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"We've received a dispatch from Starbase Santa Fe approximately thirty minutes ago, sir." She said in a tone that was both frighten and bewildered.
"Get to the point Captain, why does this require my attention?"
"You have to hear for your self, sir." As she said this she signaled one of the crewmen at the computer wall. "We been able to clean up the audio but the video is still being interfered.
On the screen a face appeared, though it was hard to make out through the static and interference, you could see the look of panic on the man's face. Then he spoke:
"This is Commander Richard Stilne of the United Starbase Santa Fe. I'm am sending this message on all frequencies to any Terran Alliance or Ally ship in the sector or neighboring sectors. Please help! We are under attack! Attacked without warning, we believe they came from the demilitarized zone. A whole fleet! Our defensives are being overrun. We have taken heavy damage, and have many casualties. We have yet to determine who our assailants are. We do not believe they are Drengin or Yor. But their attentions are clear, they mean to destroy this Starbase utterly. I have never seen ships such as these in my entire career. They look almost aliv…"
The screen went silent, the picture went to complete static. "Is that all? What was the rest?" Bradley asked with a sense of urgency. He knew that war was coming, but he had no idea the enemies could mass an offensive fleet so quickly.
"That's all there is sir. The dispatch ends there. I sent out a probe and the data has just came back." She stopped.
"And?" Bradley asked even though he already knew the answer. "What of the Santa Fe?"
"Gone, sir. Completely destroyed, all that remains is a cloud of debris. There are no signs of escape pods or a fleet of ships."
"Dear god!" Someone gasped from the back of the bridge. Bradley ignored it, his mind was swimming in a field of possibilities. After what seemed an eternity he looked up. "Contact the Earth and send the display to my office. Find out the exact statistics of Santa Fe before it was destroyed. I want everything from how many people were aboard to what temperature the third deck hanger was at the time it was destroyed. Set up a team to try and get more of the dispatch cleaned up. I want to know what destroyed that starbase! Organize the senior staff to meet in the conference room in one hour."
"Yes sir!" Vivian said with out hesitation.
The conference room, located on deck two below the bridge, was a rectangle room with a long rectangle table as the main feature. Windows looking out into space adorned the far wall, while on the near wall were pictures of past ships named Mars. Monitors and other viewing equipment lined the table and unused walls.
The entire senior staff sat at the table, all but the heads of the table were occupied. The staff sat there chatting in a buzz of conversation, Vivian Kennedy sat silently to the right of one of the ends of the table. She knew what the message they received meant, though young, she knew war was on the horizon. She felt a complete wave of emotion soar over her as she sat there, everything from feeling ashamed that as Captain of the Mars she would not see combat to defend her people, to relief for the same reason.
The doors slid open, and the Vice President walk in with the same grim look he had when he heard the message earlier today. He sat himself at the end of the table to the left of Vivian. "Well, I'm sure all of you have heard the troubled news by now." He said in his bleak tone. "What we have been fearing for twenty-six years now, is comeing true. We are again at the brink of war. Now, let see what we can do to keep from going over the edge. What new information do we have about the Santa Fe?"
"Not much, sir." said a man by the name of Lieutenant Steven Trisk. The Head of the Department of Sensors was a middle aged man, probably in his early Thirties, he had a look of one who wished he was still in his party boy days. "We know that the explosion that destroyed the Santa Fe was triggered by a blast in the ammunitions bay. It looks like a beam weapon tore through the hull and hit the ammunitions bay, setting off the missiles that were stored inside. Set off a chain explosion that spread through the starbase leading to it's destruction."
"Thank you Lieutenant, what does Navigations have?" asked Bradley.
"Well, Santa Fe was located on the edge of sector 14-24, our current position is in the neighboring sector, 14-23." Avery Alexandra, also a Lieutenant, head of the navigations department explained. Like Trisk, Avery was in her early thirties, though she wore a look of strict determination."We concluded that if the Mars was in danger of attack by this fleet, they would have destroyed us by now."
"Most likely it was a lightning attack." Lieutenant Commander Jean Langevin, head of tactical department, added. Langevin is a strong loud man of fourty years. "The fleet swoops in from the demilitarized zone quickly does what it came here to do. In this case it was here obviously to destroy the Santa Fe, a tactically important border starbase. Then flees back into the demilitarized zone where the fleet knows it won't be followed."
"What about Earth? Is the planet in any danger because of this attack?" Captain Kennedy asked.
"Well, the main defense that Earth has, in this case, is the distance between here and the Sol System. A whole fleet won't be able to travel that far with out being detected." Lieutenant Alexandra explained.
"And if it did, the Sol Defensive perimeter will cut a single fleet to shreds. One starbase it could destroy, but a score of starbases and the defensive fleets will annihilate this mystery fleet." Lieutenant Commander Langevin boasted as he nodded his head and grunted in pride.
"What of the message? Have we been able to clear it up any, do we know what he was about it say?" Bradley wondered.
"Well, communications reports to me that the cut off word was "alive". But as to clearing it up to get the rest, they tell me, that there just isn't any left. That was the entire message." Vivian explained. "I sent the message to the science department and asked them to make a list of all the known civilizations that use animate material in their ship designs. They have informed me that of all the known civilizations, none use animate material in their ship designs."
"So what exactly does this mean?" Bradley asked. He was about to continue when he noticed the monitor on the table in front of Captain Kennedy light up. He could tell a message was scrolling across the screen.
Vivian read the message, knowing it had to be important to interrupt a meeting of the Senior staff. The message was written in a hurry, it jumped around constantly until she read the final line. Her eyes widened, and her face froze in a look of shook and horror.
Bradley saw the look. Questions filled his head, he also knew that it must be of extreme importance, for interrupting the meeting, and a military matter, for contacting the Captain instead of himself. "What is it Captain?" He finally managed to say.
Her voice barely a whisper she said, "Reports just came in, we were looking towards the wrong Earth sir. The USS Earth has just been destroyed by the Drengin. Sir, President Gorgian is dead, we are at war!"