The ships sailed through the black starry sky, only the frothy phosphorescence of the wakes of the nuclear sub-fold engines giving any sign they were there. Their radar and radio antennas were still, unmoving in the darkness. Small destroyers, of both the aging Atlantic class and the newer Pacific class, cris-crossed the larger ships wakes, darting in and among the vessels they were sworn to protect. Rocky Mountain class heavy missile cruisers sailed in a rough sphere around the main portion of the fleet. The pickets of the fleet, the multi-purpose ships of the Continental class, stood nearly three hundred kilometers away from the center of the fleet. The fourteen large battleships of the Colonial class that accompanied the fleet had their large Gamma ray cannons elevated and turned out, trained on planets too distant to see. The half dozen massive planet bombardment ships of the Frontier class, with their Armageddon- and Apocalypse-type nuclear missiles, held the targeting coordinates of the thirty closest United Nations Alliance planets and installations. Finally, in the center of the battle fleet, were four of the gigantic ships of the Presidential class aircraft carriers, the USS George Washington, the USS James Madison, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
They were the thirteenth and last of the fleets to put to sea, a term that had stuck despite the fact that they were heading off into space. Somehow, the phrase of "putting to space" sounded too corny, and "Blasting off" was even worse, seeing that the largest ships had been built entirely in orbit.
It was fitting somehow that there were thirteen fleets, despite the fact that the number was traditionally considered unlucky. The namesake of this fleet's flagship, George Washington, would probably approve, as it had been the original number of colonies, hadn't it? Those thoughts, and many others, flitted through Rear Admiral, Upper-half, Sean Hull's mind. As he sat in his command chair, he looked out of the panoramic wrap-around windows of the Admiral's Bridge. Despite her use as a ship of war, the bridge was large, especially when mostly empty. The Ship's Bridge, one level below and nearly identical in size, but differing in layout, was actually running the ship. Sean was meant to fight the fleet from here, and needed a view to do so. Of course, they actually weren't windows, but flat screen displays that could display what ever he wished. Right now, they flawlessly displayed what was actually outside. The bridge really could be anywhere on the ship and give the same view, but it was on one of the upper levels of the massive central island of the aircraft carrier. Supposedly the newer UNA ships were smooth cigar shapes, with the bridge buried inside. It was outrageous. Commanders needed to be on top of the vessels they commanded, not hidden away from danger. He broke his gaze away from the Frontier class ship USS New Mexico and brought his mind back to his duties.
"Tac, what's the update?" The Admiral turned his comfortable leather chair to his Tactical Officer, who was monitoring the UNA's tracking and pursuit efforts, despite the fact that the fleet's own sensors weren't transmitting. The sensitive electronics were plotting the emissions of the UNA's own, smaller fleet that was trailing them.
"Still just two of the Unity class cruisers and their escorts, sir. Standard small-ship formation, about 10K clicks behind the Kansas and the Ohio, and a little below their attitude, as well. Also, one of the tecs on the Ohio thinks the lead cruiser is the UNAS Community. Says the nuclear engines glow with a little too much Einsteinium residue." The Tac set down his clipboard computer. "That's all sir."
"Alright, keep me posted. They're only supposed to dog us for another two and a half hours or so." At least, that's what the treaty said, he didn't add. Then again, like every thing else, the UNA had probably tried to screw us their too, Sean thought. Fuckers. The admiral picked up his coffee cup and looked out the windows again.
He looked aft, past the glowing atomic fire of his engines, past the "escorting" UNA ships he could not physically see, and nearly ten light- years towards Earth, towards the home that he, and many others, had been exiled from, in the name of humanity and peace.
Like the UNA actually cared about peace.
It was just a convenient excuse to get rid of the only people that had stood up to their imperialist ambitions. Sean looked at one his council's display screens that he had set up to show the Earth News hyper- light channels. There were massive parades in the streets of Chicago on Earth, New Phoenix on Mars, and everywhere else that, up until the time that the 13th Fleet had left the inner solar system a week before, was American soil. They were even covering the destruction of the original Lunar landing sites on the Moon. Sean brought that one up on the main display, which replaced center of the five flat screens that looked forward, and the image brought a smile to his face. The dumb shits watching this thought that they were actually destroying that historic spot, but he knew better. One of the last things done prior to the 1st Fleet's departure was to visit all the old landing sites and carefully remove everything. An expert team of historians and archaeologists along with military special operations forces and transport vessels had trained for months just to get every thing removed with out damaging it. Somehow, they had just cut huge blocks of both the Moon's and Mars' surfaces and pulled them up into waiting cargo pods.
The UNA had to know they had done it - Sean had commanded one of the battle groups. He had protected the Apollo 11 site, screening the specialists while they worked. His fighters had splashed a number of attack craft that had tried to interfere with the operation. The aging space farer shook his head while someone began stamping all over the supposed first-steps made by man on the moon. The UNA must have set the demonstration up just to score a few more points with the anti-American crowd, which was pretty much everyone behind his fleet. Sean flipped the picture off when they started to burn the flag. It was too much. He resumed his cup of coffee, pondering.
The American ships pushed through space, until they were well clear of the McGruder system, the end of "Unified Space" as the UNA called the ten inhabited systems nearest the Sol System. From here on out, the American fleets were technically free from the UNA's administration, but, in actuality, were still in areas heavily patrolled by the UNA's naval fleets. It would only be when they reached "The Line", an indefinite point in space where the UNAs navy was too far from its support bases to operate effectively, that they were truly free. And beyond that point, beyond where any UNA explorer ship had ever reached, past the range of its biggest fleets and largest missiles, was the US fleet's destination.
It was a solar system of twenty three planets. The American explorers who had found it had named it the Intrepid System, after the name of the aircraft carrier that had been the flag ship of the exploration group. The five planets closest to the system's Red Giant sun were inhospitable, deadly rock spheres, but were rich in resources of all types necessary for colonization and space travel. The three largest and outer most of the inner ring of "resource" planets were easily accessible to modern mining technology, and underground habitations could be constructed for use by miners and technicians. The two closer planets were smaller, and conditions prohibited placing even semi-permanent colonies. However, robotic miners and transport ships would be able to reach the much needed materials.
The next six planets were all in the star's "Habitable zone", able to support human life. It was on those planets that the United States had decided to colonize the nearly three and a half billion refugees. The planets were to become the "New" United States, living under the frame work of government laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, with all the traditions and refinements of the United States of America that dated back almost 350 years. Already, the First and Second fleets had arrived, securing the system and the immediate space around it with an impenetrable curtain of sensors, fighter and bomber patrols, starship battle lines, and more plasma and nuclear missiles than any non-American fleet in existence.
The official numbered fleets were massive affairs, with the 4th, 8th, 9th, and 11th fleets numbering well over 2,000 vessels. The majority of those weren't warships, but a wide variety of civilian vessels, ranging from private star cruisers to the entire fleet of a number of major shipping companies. Hanging off docking ports and jammed into cargo bays were literally millions of other ships, from short range orbital-hop ships, to shuttles, inter-system transports and taxis, old military fighters, small military patrol ships, even a few old chemical engine ships. Towed behind a number of the larger ships were vessels that had various mechanical difficulties. Any thing that was believed to be able to handle the trip was moving, even if sub systems, engines, even life support weren't working. About a third of the immobile ships were little more than hulks of dead weight, but the thought was that they could be cannibalized for parts or rebuilt on the trip. A few of the ships that were classified useless for either task were earmarked to serve as the initial habitats for the first settlers to land. They would serve as a basis for the new cities and military bases that were already being planed by architects, builders, government officials and military leaders.
They needed to build up their forces, secure the remote system and become prosperous, because intelligence was developing a chilling picture. The CIA had penetrated a number of UNA facilities and, though a full picture was no where near developed, the smaller puzzle pieces were falling into place.
First, on nearly a dozen moons orbiting secluded planets, the UNA was constructing massive battle cruisers, aircraft carriers, and transport that rivaled the American ships in size and complexity. The first of these ships were due out of their yards in two years, and they had the range and fire power to make themselves a serious threat to the US. Secondly, to go along with the ships, the UNA had begun a massive military recruitment program, swelling their ranks of soldiers and Marines with millions of new recruits. Most of the unskilled grunts being brought in were undergoing gene and nanomachine therapy, turning them into killing machines with almost no independent thought. These soldiers were being armed with a new generation of weaponry, many based on designs that were stolen from the American originators. The new Mech suits, plasma cannons, magnetic rifles, and fission explosives were already in mass production, and the first units of mindless troops and high-tech equipment were beginning to stand up in sheltered sections of the universe. Finally, and most frightening of all, was the political undertone to the UNA's most recent actions. The departure of the American people from Earth had actually been an American idea, as more and more of her people fled from the oppressive "liberation laws" the United Nations Alliance had been passing for the last fifty odd years. The laws chipped the civil liberties of people away a little more each time they were enacted, and eventually the American people had had enough. The US with drew from the UNA, which had caused the UNA to enact more legislation, and finally, five long years ago, the UNA demanded that the United States leave the planet for the good of mankind.
The Americans were only too happy to go. Every business in the country had been starved as resources and markets were chopped off. Terrorist incidents on the extra-Earth settlements were mysteriously never solved once the perpetrators made it to UNA territories. Americans were regarded by foreigners as a kind of museum experiment into personal liberties, interesting to see, but best kept under glass, or a particularly frightening animal, better destroyed and buried before it could cause damage.
So the American President, with the support of Congress and the guidance of the military chiefs, the Supreme Court, and space scientists, decided that the safest option for the American people was to move the entire nation to a more secure location. With the discovery made by the Intrepid fleet, the evacuation began. With Admiral Hull's fleet now clear of the McGruder system, it was almost complete . . . . .
They were the thirteenth and last of the fleets to put to sea, a term that had stuck despite the fact that they were heading off into space. Somehow, the phrase of "putting to space" sounded too corny, and "Blasting off" was even worse, seeing that the largest ships had been built entirely in orbit.
It was fitting somehow that there were thirteen fleets, despite the fact that the number was traditionally considered unlucky. The namesake of this fleet's flagship, George Washington, would probably approve, as it had been the original number of colonies, hadn't it? Those thoughts, and many others, flitted through Rear Admiral, Upper-half, Sean Hull's mind. As he sat in his command chair, he looked out of the panoramic wrap-around windows of the Admiral's Bridge. Despite her use as a ship of war, the bridge was large, especially when mostly empty. The Ship's Bridge, one level below and nearly identical in size, but differing in layout, was actually running the ship. Sean was meant to fight the fleet from here, and needed a view to do so. Of course, they actually weren't windows, but flat screen displays that could display what ever he wished. Right now, they flawlessly displayed what was actually outside. The bridge really could be anywhere on the ship and give the same view, but it was on one of the upper levels of the massive central island of the aircraft carrier. Supposedly the newer UNA ships were smooth cigar shapes, with the bridge buried inside. It was outrageous. Commanders needed to be on top of the vessels they commanded, not hidden away from danger. He broke his gaze away from the Frontier class ship USS New Mexico and brought his mind back to his duties.
"Tac, what's the update?" The Admiral turned his comfortable leather chair to his Tactical Officer, who was monitoring the UNA's tracking and pursuit efforts, despite the fact that the fleet's own sensors weren't transmitting. The sensitive electronics were plotting the emissions of the UNA's own, smaller fleet that was trailing them.
"Still just two of the Unity class cruisers and their escorts, sir. Standard small-ship formation, about 10K clicks behind the Kansas and the Ohio, and a little below their attitude, as well. Also, one of the tecs on the Ohio thinks the lead cruiser is the UNAS Community. Says the nuclear engines glow with a little too much Einsteinium residue." The Tac set down his clipboard computer. "That's all sir."
"Alright, keep me posted. They're only supposed to dog us for another two and a half hours or so." At least, that's what the treaty said, he didn't add. Then again, like every thing else, the UNA had probably tried to screw us their too, Sean thought. Fuckers. The admiral picked up his coffee cup and looked out the windows again.
He looked aft, past the glowing atomic fire of his engines, past the "escorting" UNA ships he could not physically see, and nearly ten light- years towards Earth, towards the home that he, and many others, had been exiled from, in the name of humanity and peace.
Like the UNA actually cared about peace.
It was just a convenient excuse to get rid of the only people that had stood up to their imperialist ambitions. Sean looked at one his council's display screens that he had set up to show the Earth News hyper- light channels. There were massive parades in the streets of Chicago on Earth, New Phoenix on Mars, and everywhere else that, up until the time that the 13th Fleet had left the inner solar system a week before, was American soil. They were even covering the destruction of the original Lunar landing sites on the Moon. Sean brought that one up on the main display, which replaced center of the five flat screens that looked forward, and the image brought a smile to his face. The dumb shits watching this thought that they were actually destroying that historic spot, but he knew better. One of the last things done prior to the 1st Fleet's departure was to visit all the old landing sites and carefully remove everything. An expert team of historians and archaeologists along with military special operations forces and transport vessels had trained for months just to get every thing removed with out damaging it. Somehow, they had just cut huge blocks of both the Moon's and Mars' surfaces and pulled them up into waiting cargo pods.
The UNA had to know they had done it - Sean had commanded one of the battle groups. He had protected the Apollo 11 site, screening the specialists while they worked. His fighters had splashed a number of attack craft that had tried to interfere with the operation. The aging space farer shook his head while someone began stamping all over the supposed first-steps made by man on the moon. The UNA must have set the demonstration up just to score a few more points with the anti-American crowd, which was pretty much everyone behind his fleet. Sean flipped the picture off when they started to burn the flag. It was too much. He resumed his cup of coffee, pondering.
The American ships pushed through space, until they were well clear of the McGruder system, the end of "Unified Space" as the UNA called the ten inhabited systems nearest the Sol System. From here on out, the American fleets were technically free from the UNA's administration, but, in actuality, were still in areas heavily patrolled by the UNA's naval fleets. It would only be when they reached "The Line", an indefinite point in space where the UNAs navy was too far from its support bases to operate effectively, that they were truly free. And beyond that point, beyond where any UNA explorer ship had ever reached, past the range of its biggest fleets and largest missiles, was the US fleet's destination.
It was a solar system of twenty three planets. The American explorers who had found it had named it the Intrepid System, after the name of the aircraft carrier that had been the flag ship of the exploration group. The five planets closest to the system's Red Giant sun were inhospitable, deadly rock spheres, but were rich in resources of all types necessary for colonization and space travel. The three largest and outer most of the inner ring of "resource" planets were easily accessible to modern mining technology, and underground habitations could be constructed for use by miners and technicians. The two closer planets were smaller, and conditions prohibited placing even semi-permanent colonies. However, robotic miners and transport ships would be able to reach the much needed materials.
The next six planets were all in the star's "Habitable zone", able to support human life. It was on those planets that the United States had decided to colonize the nearly three and a half billion refugees. The planets were to become the "New" United States, living under the frame work of government laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, with all the traditions and refinements of the United States of America that dated back almost 350 years. Already, the First and Second fleets had arrived, securing the system and the immediate space around it with an impenetrable curtain of sensors, fighter and bomber patrols, starship battle lines, and more plasma and nuclear missiles than any non-American fleet in existence.
The official numbered fleets were massive affairs, with the 4th, 8th, 9th, and 11th fleets numbering well over 2,000 vessels. The majority of those weren't warships, but a wide variety of civilian vessels, ranging from private star cruisers to the entire fleet of a number of major shipping companies. Hanging off docking ports and jammed into cargo bays were literally millions of other ships, from short range orbital-hop ships, to shuttles, inter-system transports and taxis, old military fighters, small military patrol ships, even a few old chemical engine ships. Towed behind a number of the larger ships were vessels that had various mechanical difficulties. Any thing that was believed to be able to handle the trip was moving, even if sub systems, engines, even life support weren't working. About a third of the immobile ships were little more than hulks of dead weight, but the thought was that they could be cannibalized for parts or rebuilt on the trip. A few of the ships that were classified useless for either task were earmarked to serve as the initial habitats for the first settlers to land. They would serve as a basis for the new cities and military bases that were already being planed by architects, builders, government officials and military leaders.
They needed to build up their forces, secure the remote system and become prosperous, because intelligence was developing a chilling picture. The CIA had penetrated a number of UNA facilities and, though a full picture was no where near developed, the smaller puzzle pieces were falling into place.
First, on nearly a dozen moons orbiting secluded planets, the UNA was constructing massive battle cruisers, aircraft carriers, and transport that rivaled the American ships in size and complexity. The first of these ships were due out of their yards in two years, and they had the range and fire power to make themselves a serious threat to the US. Secondly, to go along with the ships, the UNA had begun a massive military recruitment program, swelling their ranks of soldiers and Marines with millions of new recruits. Most of the unskilled grunts being brought in were undergoing gene and nanomachine therapy, turning them into killing machines with almost no independent thought. These soldiers were being armed with a new generation of weaponry, many based on designs that were stolen from the American originators. The new Mech suits, plasma cannons, magnetic rifles, and fission explosives were already in mass production, and the first units of mindless troops and high-tech equipment were beginning to stand up in sheltered sections of the universe. Finally, and most frightening of all, was the political undertone to the UNA's most recent actions. The departure of the American people from Earth had actually been an American idea, as more and more of her people fled from the oppressive "liberation laws" the United Nations Alliance had been passing for the last fifty odd years. The laws chipped the civil liberties of people away a little more each time they were enacted, and eventually the American people had had enough. The US with drew from the UNA, which had caused the UNA to enact more legislation, and finally, five long years ago, the UNA demanded that the United States leave the planet for the good of mankind.
The Americans were only too happy to go. Every business in the country had been starved as resources and markets were chopped off. Terrorist incidents on the extra-Earth settlements were mysteriously never solved once the perpetrators made it to UNA territories. Americans were regarded by foreigners as a kind of museum experiment into personal liberties, interesting to see, but best kept under glass, or a particularly frightening animal, better destroyed and buried before it could cause damage.
So the American President, with the support of Congress and the guidance of the military chiefs, the Supreme Court, and space scientists, decided that the safest option for the American people was to move the entire nation to a more secure location. With the discovery made by the Intrepid fleet, the evacuation began. With Admiral Hull's fleet now clear of the McGruder system, it was almost complete . . . . .