Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Two
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"All this just because of a freaking software bug?"
General Aden Kors slammed his fists onto the heavy oak desk of his Pentagon Office. His eyes were narrowed as he started at the head of Internal Naval Investigations, Preston Mayers. INI had literally taken apart the Von Braun over the last two month, desperately trying to find out why the ship just had fired on the Minbari all by itself and started the war.
Now INI had found out why it had happened and it didn't make Kors a bit happy.
"A code fragment from one of the first AEGIS systems used in space, General," Modern software is so complex that not even an AI can clean up the source code completely. It was just forgotten."
"Damnit," Kors cursed.
The fleet had engaged the Minbari four times now and it had ended with heavy causalities on Terran side because the Minbari had come in force and just punched through the unprepared defenders. And in all cases it happened to be a newly build up colony with only a few ships defending them.
Kors closed his eyes for a moment and his fingers went through his hair.
"Thank you, Preston," he finally said," I'm going to tell the President."
Mayers nodded and the holographic projection showing the head of the INI disappeared.
Kors breathed in deep and tried to calm down.
"McArthur," he called out and another holographic projection appeared in the room, showing the avatar of the Pentagons AI, a copy of McArthur.
"What can I do for you, General?"
"I want the status of our Battle Plates."
McArthur raised an eyebrow for a moment.
"Scapa Flow is currently operating in Alaca near Abbai space to prevent the League to get the wrong ideas about the Dilgar now that we are at war with the Minbari. The same is true for Wilhelmshafen which is operating in Trembas."
Kors silently cursed. Two of five the five Terran Battle Plates were operating in former Dilgar space. Now with the war with the Minbari, the Senate had justified doubts that the League wouldn't attack the remaining Dilgar.
"Vladivostok is operating in the Eridani systems. It's sensory systems are the best we have and the ONI are interested in the strange emissions coming from one of the planets. Norfolk operats near the Centauri Border because of repeated Raider attacks on Terran mercenaries the CIA believe have contacts to the house Refa of the Centauri. Pearl Harbor is currently in the Trogok system because the League has requested help with a rather large incident that ripped apart several orbital habitats."
Kors eyes narrowed. Three of the mightiest battle ships ever build by the Union, who happened to be in Earth space, were tied down in two intelligence operations, while the third was giving humanitarian aid.
He grit his teeth. The emissions of that planet in Eridani wouldn't get away and the Raiders could be held of by a few cruisers. But the habitats had to be repaired and the Union had to give the League and the rest a nice show by doing so.
"I want Vladivostok and Norfolk removed from their current operations and send towards Jericho."
"The ONI And the CIA won't be very pleased."
"We are at war," Kor stated," And those Battle Plates are needed."
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BattlePlates were large objects, larger than anything else build by mankind. And she was the oldest Battle Plate. The first, Norfolk, had been build more than a hundred years ago and had been projected at one of a kind, but later the Pentagon had decided to build a few more. But just because she was old, didn't mean that she wasn't one of the most technological advanced vessels of the Terran Fleet.
They resembled giant plates with eight kilometers diameter and a hight of one and a half kilometers. They weren't dedicated battle ships, even if they carried more firepower than an entire Task Force. They were also carriers, able to hold several squadrons worth of long range bombers and interceptors with String Drives, depots capable of supplying a battle fleet over six month and complete dry docks able to service two Task Forces at once.
Battle Plates like Norfolk were normally operating in Interstellar space between the stars or in the outer reaches of a system, not taking part in the battle on their own, rather letting their bombers and interceptors do long range precision strikes against military targets or enemy ships.
Of cause this was only possible with the use of the String Drive. It had been developed just a few years after the First Contact with the Centauri. It was based on a part sollution of the GUT, the String Theory. Combined with the Force Field technology mankind had found a way to use cosmic strings to move at FTL speeds.
But the String Drive wasn't very fast, they were only capable of reaching speed up to fifty times the speed of light, while Jump Space allowed much higher speeds. Another thing was that the speed was inverse dependent to the mass of the vessel using the Drive. The more massive the ships, the less fast it could move along a string. While fighters and bombers reached speed of up to 50c, larger ships were slower and a Battle Plate only moved with up to 5c along a string.
The good parts were that they could build into just about every ship or fighter, allowing tactical use to move fast into battle and out of battle. So they were in use.