Chapter Nine – The Last March
Black loved watching the kaleidoscope of light as his ship passed through the jumpgate. He sat in his command chair and just stared at it for a while. The journey was a brief one, and soon the ship popped out of the other end of the gate, in the Dresden system.
The system looked wild and untamed, and was surrounded by brownish clouds where Daumann Heavy Industries and Kruger Minerals supposedly harvested valuable commodities.
He called up his sensor system on one of the arms of his chair, and found that all of his ships were accounted for. He ordered the ships to take the trade lane to Pirna Border Station, where they were supposed to meet up with the Rheinland 5th Fleet.
The Liberty Task Force met up with the Rheinland Fleet moments later. Admiral Black stood up in the command desk of the Jefferson, waiting to receive a message from the Rheinland ships. There were many of them, two of the giant Rheinland battleships, three of their heavy cruisers, five gunboats, and about six squadrons of the mighty Rheinland Valkyere heavy fighters.
His communications officer called out, "An incoming hail from the Rheinland ships!"
"Patch it up to the main screen, Lieutenant."
The large screen in front of Black burst to life, revealing an impeccably groomed Rheinland Admiral, in a dark green dress uniform. He spoke in a think Rheinlander accent.
"Welcome to Dresden, Admiral. We are pleased to see that our comrades from Liberty have arrived safely. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Vice Admiral Hans Schwarkzkof."
"Thank you, Admiral, I am Rear Admiral William Black, commander of this Task Force. It is a pleasure being here."
"Good, Good. Pirna has surrendered its services to us, so I am making this our headquarters."
"Fine by me, bit allow me to ask, are you the overall commander of this operation, or is this a collaborative effort?"
"I was hoping to work together, if that was not a problem."
"No problem at all, I was just checking. If we plan to stay here, then let us go aboard the station with our captains to make plans on how we wish to deal with our situation."
"A fine idea, I can already tell that I will enjoy working with you."
"The pleasure is mine, Admiral Schwarzkof."
"Then let us meet again on the station."
The screen clicked off. Black put calls in to each of his ships, and then called newly promoted Commodore Fox to go to a transport to take to the station. Fox had gotten promoted after the last ceremony simply because the Navy had been forced to make some quick promotions to recoup for the loss of many of its men in recent battles. With West Point turning out students at the usual slow pace, the Navy needed to replace many deceased high brass officers, like Richardson, to keep the military running smoothly.
Black got on the transport with Fox, and they made the quick transit to the station. In the docking bay, they met up with the rest of the captains, Morrison and the other two from the cruisers, and a newer face, Captain Serena Fox, Commodore James Fox's sister. She was in command of the new destroyer, the Vengeance. She was merely eighteen, a fresh graduate of West Point. She had graduated at the top of her class, and was considered by man in Liberty to be a child prodigy when it came to commanding ships. She had been given command of the Vengeance, a brand-new destroyer, and had requested a place in the famous task force of Admiral Black, with her brother, and she was accepted to fill the gap. The Navy wanted James to watch over their most promising new captain, and that was part of the reason they promoted him.
Serena Fox was of the quiet type, and she
rarely talked to the other captains, except her brother. That was
broken when she was at the helm of her ship. When she led the ship
into battle, her fellow classmates had reported, "Her eyes had
turned to a fire hot enough to burn through a battleship's armor."
Black had never seen her perform in a combat scenario, but if half
the things he had heard about her were true, then she would make a
fine addition to his task force.
The younger Fox was very
beautiful. She had a thin, tall frame, long blond hair, which she hid
behind a cap whenever in the presence of a superior officer, because
it was longer than regulation length, and a beautiful face. Many of
the younger men in the task force had already fallen for her, but she
seemed to want nothing to do with them. The only person she ever
talked to privately was her brother, who was an obvious mentor for
her. The elder Fox was similar to her, with blond hair of the same
color, and had the same tall, thin frame. James was in his late
twenties, though, so he appeared older than his young sister.
As a group, the six officers walked to the briefing room where Schwarzkof had told them to gather. As they entered, Black saw that there was a long table in the dark room. Over a dozen Rheinland officers were seated around it, with Schwarzkof at the head of the table. He smiled as the Liberty officers came in.
"Sit, sit. Enjoy our fine refreshments, provided by the station. We will begin our meeting shortly."
Black looked at the table. Only now, at a close range, could he see all the food on it. Fresh fruit, meats, and appetizers sat before him. His stomach growled, since he had not yet eaten today. He knew that many of his officers were in similar situations, so he encouraged them to enjoy the Rheinlanders' hospitality.
The officers ate for ten minutes, and Schwarzkof opened the meeting.
"How do we propose protecting this system?" Black asked.
"Our scouts have found a jumphole to Omega-11 here. We are considering the fact that Bretonia might launch a simultaneous attack on both Dresden and Stuttgart. In that case, we would be lucky, since the Bretonians surely value Stuttgart more than Dresden. That would mean that their smaller force would be launched here."
"Not likely," said Serena Fox, "the Bretonians are no fools. While Stuttgart may have more bases, and have a valuable planet, Dresden is truly the economic backbone of Rheinland. There are vast amounts of metals and other minerals mined here, and those goods are what you use to make your battleships, and to power your factories. The Daumann and Kruger facilities here are very important to Rheinland, more than any government official knows or cares to admit. I think that they will send the bulk of their forces here."
Black was very surprised, obviously Serena knew her stuff.
"That is very logical," said Schwarzkof, "but it is obvious that you do not know Rheinland, which is my house, the one I was born in, and the one I still live in and protect. Dresden is a backwater system for Rheinland, and one that they do not care about. The metals here are not very important, since we rely on the Omegas for those. We considered abandoning this system because it was so worthless!"
"Don't you see? It was all a trick by Rheinland, and they just want the Bretonians to THINK that the systems is unimportant, when really…"
Black was forced to listen to the debate for over thirty minutes. Serena and Schwarzkof were getting very much into the argument, and were both fervently fighting for their opinions. Serena had obviously done a lot of study on the houses and their economies, probably because of the war.
Finally, they finished. They had come to a consensus, without asking anyone else, that they would simply evenly divide up the fleets, and one part would go to the gate, and the other would go to the Omega-11 hole. It was such a simple solution that Black could have told them that before they had even started the long debate.
So, Schwarzkof split up the Rheinland fleet, while Black split up his. Black would lead the force to the jumphole, with the Jefferson, The Vengeance with Serena Fox, the other Rheinland battleship under Captain Marc Schlieden, one of the heavy cruisers, and three of the gunboats, as well as about four sqadrons of fighters. Schwarzkof took the rest of his and Black's fleets, and the two forces parted ways, each headed for sentry duty at the two known ways into the system.
Black's group took up a position just outside the cloud that led to the jumphole. They would monitor the entire cloud with sensors and fighter scouts. Once the Bretonian ships came through, they'd be ready. Until then, it promised to be boring sentry duty.