"It's taken a lot out of everyone Captain," Admiral Bensen replied, she was merely a face projected into mid air at the center of Blackwell's desk, but she looked so real he could reach out and touch her.
"And there's ships that need resupply more than the Dauntless, you over equipped and provisioned before your deep space haul."
Rebecca Bensen was the youngest Admiral in the fleet, daughter of famous previous Commander in Chief of Naval operations Cartwright Bensen, she had gotten a lot of merit off her father's back, but had earnt her own as well. Perhaps being so young she had something to prove, which made her a bit of a hardass at the best of times.
"I'm only a day and a half jump from Echo Platform, the Valiant who is schedueled to dock there won't make it for another two days," Blackwell argued, having raised from his chair and was pacing his office, the hologram he knew would follow him.
"The matter is final Captain. The Dauntless is to report to Sector Alpha-Niner-five to escort Psilon refugees."
"Understood," Blackwell said reluctantly.
He reached for the control that would cut the transmission, but was halted when the Admiral continued.
"I'm sorry Tom... but the wellbeing of the fleet overall has to take priority."
"I know," Blackwell said, settling back down in his chair and offered the Admiral the biggest smile he could muster.
"I love you Tom," the Admiral said.
"I love you too," Blackwell replied, and cut the transmission. He still felt uncomfortable exchanging personals on open com-frequencies, although his relationship with the Admiral had been old news since before the war he still felt he needed to keep it a secret, even if it was just from her father...
Without a moment to spare pondering on his lover, the Captain headed back from his rectangular shaped office through it's one and only door back on the Dauntless' bridge. The room was built in a tringular fashion, with the back wall slopping angled from the corridor centrally to two doors either side. The one to port, the Captain's office and the one to starboard the XO's office.
Blackwell took his vacant chair and settled himself in.
"Report," came the order.
The young officer at the Helm controls, situated just infront of Blackwell's chair, piped up: "Course steady for Echo Station sir as ordered."
"Belay that. Set a course for Sector Alpha-Niner-five, there's a group of Psilon refugees that desperately need escorting."
Never before had Terra Prime's resources been stretched so thin. The Succession Wars had proven costly for all involved, and it was not only the military, but the civilians of each Imperial power that were still paying that price. The Dauntless, Blackwell's first command, had seen it's fair share of action. Both he and his crew had been awarded various medals for bravery in the face of seemingly insermountable odds... but all of those were yet to actually be collected and were waiting for their new owners in the draw of some Admiral back on homeworld. Tom had taken a personal toll as well, his entire immediate family had been killed when the Klackons glassed the Terran colony on Rakella. He had also suffered physical hardship when he had personally lead the marine expedition into a Tachidi base, and came back with two less limbs. Trilarian regrowth technologies had been employed and the artifical legs Tom now walked on were infact superior to his originals... but as he'd complain to anyone who would less; they constantly itched.
With the Psilon refugees numbering 700, housing them in the belly of the Dauntless wasn't an option. Instead a tractor beam had been secured on the Psilon's marooned vessel and the Dauntless now slowly brought them home.
Blackwell, his black uniform ruffled and unclean, his top shirt buttons undone, and his rank insignia long since thrown onto the bedside cabinet flopped onto his bed. Rubbing his hands over his face and brushing the imaginary dust from his short brown hair, he closed his eyes. For just a moment he wanted to pretend he was somewhere else, on a beach on Proxima with Rebecca. He could just start to hear the waves when... his door chime went off.
"Enter," he said with a very deep sigh.
Tom kept his place on the bed, and his hands over his face splitting his fingers to allow whomever was entering to see his hazelnut eyes.
"Sorry if I am intruding Captain," said a voice.
It took a moment for Blacwell's eyes to focus thanks to the bright light shining in from the corridor through the still open door.
"Would it make any difference if you were?" Tom said, raising himself to a sitting upright position.
"What can I do for you this evening Lieutenant Commander?"
It was Tom's Executive Officer, Leon "Dutchy" Firman. It wasn't the first XO the Dauntless had had during the war, Tom's long time friend Richard Radley, had occupied the role previously... but had met with an unfortunate death standing at the wrong end of a Cynoid pulse weapon during the early days of the war. Dutchy had been the XO aboard the Tireme before being reassigned to the Dauntless a few months after Radley had died in the line of combat.
"I thought I'd tell you in person," Dutchy said, he wasn't often one to dance around the point, but tonight he seemed different.
"Tell me what?" Tom asked, now on his feet and heading for what he hoped was a restocked liquer cabinet.
"There's a rogue planetoid on our current course."
"Wow, haven't see ten millions of those before."
Pouring himself a drink, he gestured the bottle of green coloured thick liquid toward Dutchy in an offer to join him. His XO decllined the offer and continued: "We're receiving a Red-seventeen signal from it's surface."
"Red-Seventeen..." Blackwell echoed through the glass he'd raised to his mouth. Tom put the glass down carefully, and took a step or two closer to his XO.
"Are you a hundred percent?"
"Aye Captain."
Without saying anything Blackwell looked around for his Command Jacket. Sourcing it from behind the room's only singular chair he adorned it and looked Dutchy dead in the face.
"And you know that can only mean one thing."
Any first year cadet could tell you that all Allied military transmissions during the war were assigned colour coded configurated, with a uniquely numbered tag to identify the origin. For example, had the Dauntless been attacked during it's current mission the signal code would be Yellow-Fourteen, meaning whomever was receiving it would know which decription matrix to use to decifer the message. It had been seen by the Allied forces as the only way to successful communicate between battle groups without the Cynoids, Klackons or Sakkra intervening.
A red-seventeen meant that the Patriot, Admiral Bensen's flagship was sensing a communication. Only question was, what the hell was it doing in this area of the Orion sector?
"Replay the message," Blackwell said, his appearance now smarter and more commanding, as he entered the bridge and took his chair. Dutchy followed from the lift a moment later and took the tactical station.
A holographic representation of the video footage began to play out on the wall infront of Blackwell. Tom was expecting the worst. Although the Succession War was over, it had only been a few months... there were reports from the frontier that renegade Sakkra militarists had seized control of a variety of naval installations and vessels and were continuing their holy crusade against the regrouping Allied forces. Maybe Beccy's ship was attacked in hyperspace en-route, to god knows where and she and her crew crash landed on this planetoid... maybe she's all alone in a lifepod... maybe she's...
The signal wasn't the Admiral. It wasn't anyone Blackwell recognized. It wasn't even a Terran.
"What is this?!" Blackwell demanded to now of his crew in particular.
"THis is the red-seventeen transmission Captain," the Ensign at the Helm replied. Blackwell kept the urge to bite the young crewmember's head off for stating the obvious. Managing to keep his tongue Tom looked at the screen... the scene unfolding was what Blackwell could only imagine was falsified footage of the Dauntless herself being flanked by two Sakkra vessels and being destroyed.
"This is crap," Tom finally decided after seeing out the entirety of the footage, and waiting to see if it started again.
"Why the hell is this obviously forged footage being transmitted from a no-name rock on a Terran military signal?"
"I don't have an answer Captain," Dutchy said coming away from Tactical to face his commanding officer.
"Get this off my screen!" Tom yelled standing up and coming down towards the front of the bridge.
"Have scans revealed WHAT is sending out that signal?"
"That's the thing Captain," Dutchy said trying to calm the Captain... Blackwell had been awake god-knows how many hours on the trot, "The planetoid itself is transmitting it. There's nothing on the surface, bare a few annoymous rocks... but our scanners can't penetrate the surface."
"Damnit. Find out what the hell is going on!"
"Ensign Dorchester, send a message to the Psilon Commander, apologize for the interuption to their rescue but we've got an emergency," Blackwell was quick firing orders, "Dutchy send a damned probe down to the planetoid's surface and get me some readings on why they're using Beccy's frequency."
Dutchy almost batted an eyelid, he hadn't heard the Captain called Admiral Bensen by her familiar in public before, almost.
"And turn that video off!"
