Apologies everyone for the lengthy spans between uploading! I struggled a lot with this chapter's pacing and working out how to make it flow but I think it came out well. With the less time I have these days to sit down and write uninterrupted, I think you can expect longer delays between chapters but I will always try to release once a month. Now for the good news, I finished plotting out Phase 1 (or Drop Pod 1) and have started up on Chapter's 26 and 27 with possibly another interlude if I think it narratively fits. Hopefully, that shows while I haven't been posting that I haven't stopped working on this project. It's been encouraging seeing Banners still getting views and the number of people reading all the way through both stories (you crazy amazing people!) Okay - I've blabbed enough. Go read! I'll get back to writing :)

"Second-In-Command"

Harmony System

MCS Annapolis

2698, December 3rd

"What a mess."

Bish took in the holo-board watching as the laborious process of clearing debris around Harmony and Artemisium. Wreckage from the destroyed Militia 2nd Fleet and the IMC counterattack had to be carefully found and removed. Even the smallest piece of debris could prove hazardous to any ships without a D-CSAR. Coupled with Harmony's fires and the beacon destroyed, not only was the planet full of smoke but Militia ships had to be tasked with vital communications for the planet and diplomatic envoys. A dangerous position to be in as any lurking IMC squadrons could cripple their entire navy and communication chain. The task of it made Bish respect the system the IMC had put in place.

"Sir, they're ready for you." A Liaison approached him.

"Right," Bish reached over for his laptop and unfolded it, "Oryx and Raven squads, what's your status?"

"Oryx squad is at junction L ready for icepick." Oryx's Squad Leader reported.

"Raven is standing by at two-thirteen's control station, ready to go."

"Bishamon copies all." Bish disliked the extra work of being in command came with, but each time he said his code name he felt bigger than himself. "Alright, what track are we on? Oh I love this one. Commencing Operation Twisted Clone Deathmatch in five..."

"Oh are we on to metal albums now?" Raven's Squad Leader asked excitedly.

"How about a love song next?" Oryx asked. "You never hear operations get called after love songs. We can sail around the rings of Saturn..."

"... and put our ship on a burn..." Raven sung the next verse.

"So baby put away your fears,"The two Squad Leaders sung together.

"And together," Bish and a few Liaisons in the CIC broke into song with them, "lets head for new fron-tiers!"

Laughter broke out with smiles all around the CIC and over the comms. "Man, I miss the oldies. Music just hasn't been the same sense we ventured past the gates. All beat and no soul." Oryx said whimsically.

"Gotta love the Frontier Blues." Bish grinned.

"All in favor of the next operation being called Sol's Egress?" Oryx asked.

"Only if you don't sing it the whole time!" Raven joked.

"No promises. I met my wife with that song."

"Which ex-wife was that again?"

"Shut up," as a round of laughter made its way around the CIC.

Bish wiped a tear from his eye. It felt good to have a moment of levity amongst all the ruin that had befallen the First lately. Bish and the ground teams starting getting to work hacking terminals and making the whole of Artemisium safe for Militia use. Operation Twisted Clone Deathmatch was about hacking the main MRVN hub to make them distribute Militia Icepick code across the whole facility. Hopefully reducing the time it would take to capture all 300 of the outposts. Well, 297 now.

As Twisted Clone Deathmatch turned to Sol's Egress then to Homesteader's Courage, it was hard to imagine that just a few decks above them that repair crews were working on fixing the bridge. That while they laughed and joked, Graves was fighting for his life in a med ward deep inside the Annapolis. The bitter sweet calm that came after the victory of Artemisium had reminded many of what was to come.

Just as soon Bish had lulled himself into the sounds of the Frontier, a Liaison approached him with a message. Admissions Committee Councilor Warren wanted a word. Bish sighed and told the men on the ground to handle the hacking for a while, he was going to talk to the Council. Bish ordered the Comm-O to route the call back to his quarters for privacy, but also because it was too soon to use Graves' quarters on the bridge. It wasn't right.

Councilor Warren didn't seem to agree. Being routed to Bish's personal quarters didn't appear to be the reception he wanted. The disapproval was all over his face. Bish chaffed seeing insults that may or may not even be there. The hours since Graves had been injured and being away from Sarah may Bish feel vulnerable and alone. He was used to being around other Commanders, like Sarah, Mac, even Barker. Over the months after Columbia, Graves and him even had become something like friends...

"Why are you not on the bridge, Commander? Or the CIC?"

Bish drew a breath to concentrate himself, "The Annapolis lost it's bridge during the IMC attack, Councilor. But I wanted us to be able to talk privately, that's why we're not at the CIC."

"We must have triumphed then. Else wise, we wouldn't be talking at all." Warren said with the comfort and ease of a snake in silk.

The conclusion shocked Bish, who was still reeling from the battle himself, he felt they hadn't won at all. "Um, yes, that's correct Councilor."

"I admit," Warren launched into a confession, "Graves stealing the Second Fleet had us all worried but his genius seems to have been correct after all. We will memorialize his sacrifice to the Coalition." The last part added as after thought.

"Graves isn't dead!" Bish growled, fists tightening behind his back.

"He survived?" The subtle rise of an eyebrow of intrigue. "Then where is he?"

"In the medical wing," Bish slowly enunciated the words, "recovering."

"Lorck," Warren said, rotating himself to finally face the camera, "Instead of me asking you questions and you telling me answers. Why don't you just tell me everything that I need to know."

Begrudgingly, Bish did. As best he could. He explained the attack. How Harmony was on fire. How the Second was caught off guard and fended off while the IMC ships escaped towards Artemisium and launched a counterattack and snuck off during the chaos. How Graves nearly died from oxygen deprivation and frost bite.

"Hmph," Warren said clipping off Bish's last words, "it appears Graves' genius only mattered when he had a numerical advantage."

Bish bit his tongue, it was better to let small comments go. "We have operations ongoing to secure the Artemisium dockyard and convert over all systems. Once, ship repairs are underway, we should be able to start returning ships to Concord. With the comm beacon down on Harmony, we've been having trouble getting through. Harmony is going to need a new comms array as well as infrastructure supplies to support it's people. Our friends at Kodai should be able to find a solution to comms problem."

"I will pass on your message to the Kodai Councilor, Commander. Anything else to report?"

"No Councilor."

"Very well," and ACC Warren dropped the connection.

"Dick," Bish muttered and left his quarters. As he left the hall and turned towards the elevator his wrist-comm went off. "This is Bish."

"Sir, I have an update on the icepicking of Artemisium." A Liaison said.

"Cool, where are we at?" Bish happy for a change in news.

"Stations two-thirteen and two-fourteen are clean and green."

"Great! Any issues along the way?"

"Nothing the Grunts can't overcome themselves. More landing parties are on their way to secure AOD guns on the moon's surface. I also have status reports from the First Fleet."

Bish punched the button for the CIC deck. "Go ahead."

"Cleaning of the Minnesota-Falkland drift is proceeding slowly but smoothly. Recovery and engineering teams are estimating that the rod impact from the AOD gun did more good than harm as a full engine rupture could've made the situation worse. Uh, quoting, Captain Matthews, 'could've gone off like a frag grenade.' Spreading the Falkland's debris over a more spherical drift around the entire operational zone."

"So we got lucky?" Bish said. He had every intention of blowing the thing apart, good thing he hadn't. Maybe he should change his nickname to one of the Seven Lucky Gods instead.

"Yes sir. That was the good news. It gets worse from here. The wreckage from the Falkland is still tumbling through interstellar space. Due to the fracturing of it's hull, it's splintering apart after colliding with us. There's a trail of small debris from coming from the past as the wreck rotates. Roughly two to ten meter fragments traveling fifty meters a second. Slow enough to catch on sensors but wide enough to be danger for future jump travel."

"Okay, we got eyes on it?"

"We do, sir. There in lies the next part of the bad news."

The elevator arrived at the CIC and Bish approached the holo-board and the Liaison. She turned and grimaced as she pulled up the Falkland's debris trail.

"Tell me," Bish leaned on the lip of the board.

"We don't have any standard means of towing debris. We need civilian haulers. The Crows just aren't rated for this type of operation. Nor can we use the capital ships as tug boats as the debris from the Minnesota is structurally unstable."

Bish studied the holo-board and traced the projected path of the Minnesota. It's path was a shaky rotation slowly breaking away from the Artemisium moon's gravity. The old ship had survived since the Aries Raid.

"What about the crew still on board?"

"The Nevada and Virginia are in direct contact with the Minnesota's crew still on board and recovery efforts are still being planned but it's not coming well. Making an entry on the ship is proving hard to find."

"And we're still okay?" Bish asked.

"So far, we're structurally stable but decks thirty down to twenty-six have pressure leaks and the bridge debris is still floating with us. Repair crews are still assessing. No jumps for us until we make the dockyards."

"Still working on that."

"Understood, sir. That's all I have for you for now."

He thanked the Liaison for her time and reopened his laptop. The Militia had never been in a position like this before. Rebuilding, despite everything they fought for, just hadn't been something they'd had to deal with. Since the Anderson days, they'd been running from place to place, leaving behind corpses and broken Titans. It wasn't until Graves that POW camps were being raided, economic backing was stabilized, that the idea of a future was becoming realized. What Bish saw now was the problems of progress. The Militia had reached a new level where they needed a fleet of repair ships.

Bish queried into his laptop's sub-net the closest biggest supply yard of tugboats and salvagers. When he got the answer back he just laid his head on his palm. Of course, it was Quay. Pirates, smugglers, used Titan dealers and more. The fractious bunch of shady deal makers would make even Sarah think twice. Yet, they needed more help and crews to clear the debris fields. Their regular salvage and recovery crews were already pulling double shifts trying to get the area clear and work on the Artemisism yards. If it worked out, it could solve their problems a lot faster.

If he was going to go to a pirate run planet, Bish thought it'd be best to call up Droz and run it by him first. He pulled up his wrist-comm and called up Droz via the Annapolis' sub-net. The SRS Commander answered wearily, drawing out his Core accent.

"Commander Bish, sir."

"Bad time?"

"Paper work," Droz said with detest.

"The SRS has that?"

"Like you wouldn't believe. Since Sarah's been down the well on Harmony, it's left me with a mountain of the stuff. But, enough of me griping, what did you need, sir?"

"The Militia are in need of tugboats and more salvage crews, so I was thinking of hiring some from Quay."

Droz dropped something, a stylus perhaps. "Sir, where are you right now?"

"The CIC?" Bish replied perplexed by the question.

"I was worried you were are at the cantina. Commander, with all due respect, there are plenty of reasons, most of them non-military, why that's a bad idea."

"These drifts are getting worse and if they're allowed to spread they will affect the system sooner or later."

"Yes but hiring salvagers of questionable worth is... not a good look right now. Listen, Commander, let's talk about this in person, yeah? Draw up a plan of what you'd like to do and we'll run it by Sarah."

"Sure, Droz that'd be great."

"Right," the weight on Droz seemingly pushing the breath out of his lungs.

Bish dropped the line and began drawing up a plan to hire the necessary amount of ships and crew for the job. Quay had several places willing to do deep space salvage ranging from all sorts of prices from types of ships to crews to equipment. The best looking of these was the X'hin-Brand Company, who had multiple shops in all the major ports. They looked like they did work for just about any body. Their site claimed they were professionals but Bish still had his healthy suspicions. Like most of the places he searched, they didn't give out how many ships they had around. Which looked like he was gonna have to go down there to see for himself.

"Great," Bish muttered to himself.

A while later, another Liaison told him the ice picking crews needed his help again. This time Hyena and Fox squad were replacing Oryx and Raven. Both leaders seemed more focused on the task at hand than helping the work go by. Bish tried to use the same code names for the operations before but it soon became obvious that both squads wanted to be known for more serious named missions. So the work went by slower. Operation Fuze Eight turned to Junction-U to AOD Gun 231. It was dry, it was boring, and Bish was catching himself yawning more than once. He had gotten a thermos of coffee with extra punch just to stave off his feeling of fatigue.

"Commander," A Liaison interrupted him.

"Mh," he said winking away weariness.

"Commodore Lansford for you, sir."

That pepped him up a little. "Lansford? Did he say why?"

"No, sir. He requested a comm line as soon as one came available then urgently requested you sir."

"Great, transfer it over to my quarters. I'll be down as quick as I can."

"Aye, sir."

Bish excused himself from the current welding operation Junction-H and made his way once again to his quarters. The comm-line light was already flashing and Bish eagerly connected the call. It was a voice only call, easier to compress and send over the distance of the system.

"This is Bish." He said into the comm.

"Commander, Lansford here." Their opening lines perfunctory.

"Yeah, go ahead Lansford. Did we hear back from our guys?"

"I've spoken with Captain Vabrinski, sir." Lansford's voice was heavy and reluctant. Bish gulped, that wasn't a good sign. "Sir, the IMC ambushed our recon fleet mid-system. The Revere was the only ship to escape the system. The Huntsman and Explorer Two were both lost. Sho'ko's ship, the Explorer, was commandeered by the Mercenary team and then tried to jump a second time towards one of the habitable looking planets in the system. We can only presume... that they didn't make it. The Huntsman provided rearguard fire as the Revere readied for a short jump out of the system. The IMC could be searching for them right now. As of Captain Vabrinski's message they made contact with known ships of the Remnant Fleet but no visual sighting of the Colossus. So we can't be sure Spyglass was even there."

That was a lot to process and Bish scratched his head wondering how the operation got so QSF'ed so fast. Bish slumped into a chair still scratching his head. "So, what did we gain from all this? That the IMC are there? That we walked into a trap?"

"So it would seem, Commander Lorck."

"Are there any survivors? From the Huntsman or Explorer?"

"Captain Vabrinski seems to believe that the crew of the Explorer might still be alive on the planet they aimed for but with the damage to the Explorer, I find it... unlikely." Lansford cleared his throat biting back some emotion.

There was a lot of good friends for Lansford in this mission that he was confident in. His protege, Vabrinski and the young Captain Sho'ko who'd been part of the Montana crew for old Artemisium operation. The chance to make amends and repair old wounds in what was supposed to be an easy mission had blown up quickly and violently in Bish's face.

Bish lowered his head, "I'm sorry, I take full responsibility for the mission and I'll take it to Graves once he's awake. He deserves to know what happened."

"Commander," Lansford broached, "there's not much he could do anyways. With both fleets in the state they are, we can't mount a rescue operation. When we can – we should."

"I know. That's why I was looking into hiring salvage crews from Quay."

Lansford's end was silent and for a while, Bish thought that the Commodore had lost connection. When he spoke, his voice was somber. "While we could use the extra ships and crews in repairing both fleets and Harmony, I think this is a situation where the Coalition will have to step in. We have commitments now to their government and businesses."

Bish scratched his chin and frowned. Lansford was right. The political situation would mean he would have to use Coalition help to solve their problems. How many free ships did the Coalition have in it's merchant fleets? Or in the Concord Squadron? The situation with Warren was already chilly, it wouldn't look good to make a deal for Harmony while hiring others for the Militia. Maybe he was over thinking it? It would've been better if Sarah was here. Usually, he was the cautious one, now people were telling him to be cautious.

"I'm going to keep looking into options to get this fleet moving again. Our salvage crews are used to capturing a broken IMC ship. Not salvaging our own fleet. We're gonna need more people from somewhere..."

"I agree, Bish, I do. Right now, we're spread too thin. Oh! I may have some good news. I've just received word that the Benjamin Rush's engines have been restored and is no longer drifting."

"How bad is it otherwise?"

"Uhh," Lansford cleared his throat, "dozens killed, hundreds missing. All the holes made by those Goblins sucked the air out of most ship from the bow to just before rear engineering. The remaining crew could still be in lifeboats on the drift or..."

"Okay." Bish's throat felt tight. "Thanks for keeping me informed. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir." This time Lansford did drop the connection.

Bish sat there in his quarters listening to the subtle rumble of the Annapolis. The Command and Refuel ship had been the backbone of the First Fleet even before Aries. Even Sarah had been on it before him with General Anderson. Now, without her, Graves, mac, or even that drunk Barker, the Annapolis felt empty. It was up to Bish now to lead them. When he stood up from his chair, his shoulders felt the weight of new responsibility. He was still in charge and there was work to do.