Cold War
by Warringer
Chapter Three
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The office was filled with the music of Nirvana, while the inhabitant reached for the bottle of Scotch that stood on the desk.
Admiral Athema poured the Scotch into a small glass and downed it at once. Kurt Cobains music fit her depressed mood. It was a pity that Cobain had killed himself in Seattle, he had been a genius.
The source of her depression was floating as an holograpic projection in front of her. For years she had hoped the best, that the last parts of the Ancient Alliance had managed to leave the the galaxy and join the other First Ones beyond the Rim. But the picture in the hologram had destroyed these hopes.
A small NATO frigate, the NSS Discovery, had dived deep into Jump Space, using the natural Tachyon pulses of several Pulsars for navigation, to get to the staging area for the Great Escape, as some had called it. Just two days ago the Discovery had returned.
The staging area had been a large graveyard in space. Millions of ships were floating in the system in various stages of destruction. It was impossible to tell who had destroyed the ships, bit there were too many ships of the Vorlons, Shadows and their client races not to know that they had been responsible for all this.
Athema had seen many things in her now two thousand years of life and she knew that she would see much more during the rest of her life. She was still young for an Ancient after all and twenty thousand years of life were the norm. And still... She was the eldest of the Ancients that had been in the seven ships that had crashed on the moon after the Vorlon-Shadow ambush.
She closed her eyes and silently started to repeat Kurt Cobains lyrics of Lithium.
She had seen the worst of the Vorlons, the Shadows and their client races. She had seen how the Shadows had ignited fusion reactions that turned the atmosphere of Maahk worlds into suns. Seen how Death Clouds ate away Swoofon. And seen how her homeworld Altan had been cracked by a Vorlon Planet Destroyer.
The pictures of the destroyed Grand Fleet that should have left the Galaxy only fueled her hate for the other Two First One races.
For a moment she smiled evilly, thinking about the Omega Protocol of both NATO and the Soviets. She had done too much for the Omega Conference eight years ago in Geneva to succeed. Hopefully it would prevent both Shadows and Vorlons to discover the truth about the humans and their technology too fast and make it possible to defend against them.
But it would be years until the NATO OMEGA FLEET was finished in the depth of Jupiters atmosphere.
"Admiral," she heard after a while and looked up and towards the door of her office into the face of her human secretary.
"Yes," she answered and poured herself another Scotch.
"We have news from Destroyer Task Force 10. Four unknown contacts have left Jump Space near NATO Side 2."
"Soviets?"
"No, ma'am. Admiral Danniels thinks of a possible First Contact situation."
Athema narrowed her eyes.
"Get me a secure Gold Channel to Danniels."
Her secretary nodded and closed the door.
Athema downed her Scotch and decreased the volume of the music. The holograpic display with the space graveyard disappeared and made place for the face of Admiral Danniels.
"Admiral, we have to talk."
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It was normal for the comrades of the Soviet Union to be observed by hidden camera eyes of the countless optronic surveillance systems of the Ministry of Internal Peace. Stalin himself had ordered for such a system to be constructed and there weren't many places that were without the omniscient eyes of Internal Peace. The office of Grand Admiral Juri Andreyewich Kobalew was one of the few places without Internal Peace eyes. It was free of all surveillance devices the Ministry tended to use.
Admiral Kobalew was grateful for this little bit of absolute privacy his rank gave him. He had seen the last few raids of Stalin through the lines of his 'trusted' subordinants after the defeat on the moon. He knew how paranoid Josef could be. That had changed when he had seen the information about the 'Great Enemy', the Shadows and Vorlons, of the Ancient Alliance and knew that there was someone out there who was much more dangerous to him.
Kobalew had read Wells' 1984 and knew that the similarities between Oceania and the Soviet Union were striking. They were intended to be.
But Kobalew had other things to think about. Four unknown non-NATO ships had left Jump Space just outside of the Earth-Moon gravity well near NATO Site 2 and the Bremerhafen Space Docks.
It was to early for any First Contact with other Aliens aside from the survivors of the Ancient Alliance. OMEGA FLEET wasn't nearly finished. Only about two dozen ships had been finished and now Captain Ramius wanted to tell everyone about the existence of it by bringing Red October out into the open for a First Contact with a race that could as well be a client race of the Shadows or the Vorlons.
He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to Mozart and drinking tea.
The problem was that Red October was the only ship that could intercept the unknown ships before the NATO Destroyer Task Force 10 could do it.
He shook his head.
Maybe it would be the best if he talked to Josef first.