Back Home – The Dual War
by Warringer
Chapter 51
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Pluto looked at the display of the Time Gate with dread. She had just gotten the news that Usagi was now definitively pregnant. Even Washuu had confirmed it. So Pluto's hopes that the pink pest never came into existence where challenged.
The feeling of dread became stronger as the Time Gate began to show a scene that had a possibility of 37 percent. A very high possibility, even Crystal Tokyo had only a possibility of about 30 percent at best.
Pluto could see a strange red colored blurring space, with a graceful light gray colored ship hovering in the center of the image, surrounded by a number of other ships, some where GDI, others Ferron or Dilgar. The Gate zoomed towards the long hull of the ship in the center, showing her the crest of the GDI, accompanied by a pair of other crests, one looking eerily like that of the United Federation of Planets, a registry number, BC-76, and the name ICS Serenity.
The image changed, showing the inside of a ship, more exactly the command center. A sign on a bulkhead proclaimed that it was the bridge of Serenity. At the moment it showed the frontal part of the command center and a holografic image of several Vree saucers and Doranian transports.
"Course vector 121/112 at 10.5 PSL and neg 5 grav acel," the voice of one technician said." One saucer is leaking light amounts of antimatter."
A man, alien looking stepped into the viewpoint of the Gate. Pluto identified his species as being Wau, but there were several things off on him, like the shorter muzzle and a less dense fur. It could well be that he was a hybrid of some kind. He was clothed in a service uniform that was close to that of the US Navy, but light green in color. On his shoulders he had the three stripes of a Commander.
"Looks like they are gunning for the Debris field, ma'am," he said, his English having a Japanese AND a German accent at the same time.
There was a chuckle off screen, coming from a woman and Pluto felt her dread coming out more. It was just like the chuckle she had heard from 'Dark Lady' during the Wiseman Crisis.
"The proud Vree," the woman said with the chuckle," reduced to little more than scavengers."
The woman stepped into view and Plutos mouth nearly met the floor. It was 'Dark Lady', the same drop dead gorgeous woman Chibi-Usa had become while under Wisemans power. This one however was dressed in the same Service Uniform as the Commander, with the four stripes and the eagle of a Captain on her uniform.
"Frack me," Pluto muttered and continued to watch.
"Not really surprising," the Commander noted," They lost the Trade War and their trade routes went to the Hansa for the most part. I doubt they have much more left than the scavenging business."
"That and helping the 'Free Doranians' it seems," 'Chibi-Usa' said.
"Both don't like us..."
Usa nodded.
"We are dropping by and cause some trouble," she said." Orders to the Task Force. Serenity is dropping to normal space, they are to keep their jump drives ready to drop by."
"Aye, ma'am."
For a moment the view screen of Serenity showed the funnel of a jump point before showing deep space.
"Guns, give them a warning shot and prepare fire solutions on that Doranian Dreadnought."
"Aye, ma'am."
The screen briefly showed four beams of energy flashing into existence.
"The freighters are increasing power to their drives, warships are powering up their weapons."
Usa nodded into another direction.
"Outgoing transmission ready."
She breathed in deep.
"This is Captain Usagi Chiba, Interstellar Commonwealth Ship Serenity, commander of Patrol Task Force 10.5. To unidentified fleet. You are trespassing the Doranian Containment Zone without authorization. Stand down all systems safe for life support and prepare to be boarded."
"Energy peak," the voice of the sensory technician said as the Dreadnought and the Vree battle saucers fired, causing the ship to shake.
Usa made a gesture and while more jump points opened, she continued to speak without betraying a hint of emotion.
"I repeat, stand down all systems safe for life support and prepare to be boarded."
Again the opposing ships fired and Usa nodded.
"Get that Dreadnought out of my sight."
The image of the Time Gate stopped and Pluto swallowed. Sure, this version of 'Chibi-Usa' was a little better than the other, but not by much...
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"Good work people," Tenchi said with a slight smile." Through the mine coverage could have been a little looser at Quadrant Seven."
Most of the commanders of the other ships smiled a little, while Lady Seto glared at Tenchi.
"Why did you leave Kotok," she asked before Tenchi could say more.
Tenchi's eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at Seto.
"Because we wouldn't have been able to hold the planet. Besides all objectives of the operation were fulfilled and there was no need to hang behind further."
Battle Leader Hak'ey raised an eyebrow. While he had, sadly, worked with Jha'dur, and knew some 'unusual tactics', he knew pretty well that something like the 'Operation Postal', as the humans had called it, hadn't happened before.
"You could have held Kotok," he noted." The Narn would have been able to supply the fleet to hold Kotok."
Tenchi smiled wryly.
"But at what cost?" he asked." By supplying a fleet capable of holding Kotok, the Narn would have had drawn ships from fleets all along the front line. The attacks from the Doranians would have destroyed ships, which would have lead to more ships drawn from the front line."
He stopped for a moment. He had talked long and intensely with General G'Kot and the leaders of the Narn Regime and hadn't been all that surprised to know that the Narn had used similar tactics during the Centauri Occupations and knew what Tenchi meant to do, rather than most of the rest of the galaxy.
"Ba holding Kotok," he continued," we would have exposed the front lines. Besides taking and holding Kotok was never an objective of 'Operation Postal'."
Hirata narrowed his eyes. He was known as brilliant tactician, but he hadn't been able to tell the objectives of this 'Operation' during the battle.
"And what would those objectives be?"
Tenchi smiled a little. He knew that he shouldn't tell the Jurians, it may come back to haunt Earth should it ever come to a war between Earth and Jurai, but he was only human and wanted to see the face of his 'dear family' about this one. Especially since it was a breach of the unwritten 'Rules of Engagement' in the galaxy.
"There were three objectives," he explained and with a short nod, Dark Knight activated a hologram.
The hologram appeared above the table, showing two arrows pointing at a pair of star close to Kotok, but far enough away for long response times.
"The First Objective was to draw Doranian forces away from Kotok, by attacking these two systems. This was obtained by attacking them with two Narn fleets that were large enough to bind the fleets without exposing the front lines at other places."
He nodded towards G'Kot.
"That Objective was a full success. We were able to attack Kotok and obtain the other two objectives.
"Objective Two was causing a major problem with logistics support of the Doranian Front lines. Without the logistics that were sorely based around Kotok, the Doranian support is going to be hindered, not to mention the loss of supplies on and around Kotok. Dark Knight estimates the loss of about five hundred million tons of supplies for about one hundred Jurian Tera-Credits."
For a moment Tenchi made an estimation how many money that would be on Earth. If one Jurian Credit was roughly one dollar and a Tera-Credit about a trillion Jurian Credits. Yes that was much money.
He ignored the gasps of the Jurians and Hak'ey and continued.
"The Third Objective, directly coupled to the Second Directive was to damage the Doranian morals. And the loss of the supplies, combined with the fact that it will get harder to get supplies and the continued lossed to the minefields at Kotok, will reduce the Doranians morals. And an enemy that has low morals will fight less effective than one with high morals."
He smirked.
"In fact, the damage to the Doranian moral will be enough to get to the next stage of the battle to get the Doranians out of Narn space. Mostly because it will allow us to get the initiative and bind the Doranians to the systems they have now, buying us time for the real counter attack."
Still ignoring the Jurians he looked towards G'Kot.
"Have you gotten word of Fleet Command."
The Narn General nodded. To Tenchi, the man had much of the stereotypical large russian general and he wouldn't have been surprised to head a 'Da' from him.
"Yes," G'Kot nodded," They are very interested in this. They are currently drawing together two Task Forces of the ships we would need."
Than G'Kot grinned evilly.
"And now for that force multiplier you talked about."
Tenchi chuckled a little.
"The ground crews are preparing two squadrons of Thunderbolts for Wild Weasel operations and I have requested a pair of AWACS Monsoons from Earth. That would be two squadrons of Thunderbolts and one Monsoon for each Task Force. I'd say that both Task Forces are going to be twice as strong as they would be normally."
The human commanders grinned even of the commander of HMS Fearless sighed at loosing all his Thunderbolts to the two Narn Task Forces.
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"This is CNN."
Azusa couldn't help but chuckle a little at the deep English speaking voice coming from the speaker fields of the holographic screen in front of him. It was fun to watch these Earth news, especially now that they were broadcasting them outside of their little planet.
Of course Azusa took all news from CNN Galactic or BBC Stellar with a ton of salt, like he took any news from any news network in the galaxy, since all of them were heavily influenced by their governments and very useful tools of propaganda. He did it himself too after all.
Through the Earth approach of presenting the news was very different to the things he was used to.
For a moment he rolled his eyes. It wasn't just the news that had 'hit' the galaxy, but also two channels that showed Earth movies and series. And of course they were adding to the large number of daily soaps and the like. Misaki for example had begun to watch this one soap... What was it called?
Oh yes... Dallas...
"This is CNN Live Today. Its March 1st 2004. I'm Ellyn Togan."
Azusa leaned back as the woman began to tell him news from Earth and relaxed, taking a sip of sake. However, he did a spit take rather quickly as the off showed the image of a Doranian Cruiser being holed by a rather powerful particle beam.
"... has attacked an hour ago and was being engaged by Home Guard and the Global Defense Network. GDI Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, has released the first casualty reports, stating that twenty five sailors and ten fighter pilots lost their lives during the engagement, with three hundred being injured to various degrees.
"The US Lupo USS Farragut, the Indian Pegasus INS Tabar and the Australian Vigilante HMAS Anzak, have been heavily damaged and require extensive repairs at one of the Shipyards at L5."
Azusa blinked a few times before adding three times the casualties in his mind. He knew that most news networks tended to reduces any losses by these numbers. Likewise he was pretty sure that more ships had been damaged.
"The Doranian Invasion fleet has been the third fleet to fail to Earth's defenses.
"GDI informed us that while Home Guard has played a great part of the defense, the Global Defense Network took the most part of the battle, destroying two thirds of the Doranian ships. GDI further informed that they are going to increase the production of G.O.D. Satellites as well as purchasing another hundred P.D.N. Satellites from a Ferron Defense Contractor, Molusevel Gravitic Industries."
For a moment Azusa was deep in thought. He didn't remember any Ferrons on the head. Nor did he remember any race that would trade with Earth this fast. He was very sure that the Vree were steering free from Earth at the moment, something about 'old grunges' his spies had informed him.
"In other news, the Peoples Republic of China, one of the tree Chinese nations has spoken to the United Nations, requesting a meeting of the security council regarding the continued occupation of North Korea by South Korean forces. However the meeting won't be held before May 2006."
Azusa shook his head for a moment, having followed the entire thing about the localized war between the two Korean nations. He was surprised that that meeting of the 'UN Security Council' would be held so soon.