Feburary 22nd, 2212
New Corvus, Mun
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Glimpses of light shone through the windows on the city transport as it passed through the small tunnel section that allowed viewing of the sparsely populated surface of the mun above the city of New Corvus. For a few brief moments, Commodore Elio Raniero saw the few white buildings that stood out on the surface of the grey and black. Figures of power stations, surface access points, dry-cargo warehouses, and the above-ground facilities of the space-port were all that he could see.
As the outside faded back into the dark tunnel and the lights of the tram car took back over, Raniero thought about the city itself, how many of the veiidic citizens and immigrants had a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea of breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water, and living under tens of meters of munar regolith for years at a time. It didn’t affect him as much when he arrived for AASC basic officer training in 2193, as life in the mountains of eastern Atreus was shockingly similar, only that he couldn’t breathe the air without a full EVA Suit, and the sky was black and cloudless.
Much to his dismay, the city transport did not give him much time to be alone in his thoughts, as the nearly empty line arrived at one of the final stations in its line. As he stepped out, he glanced at the sign he had seen many times before, as if it would’ve magically changed from the last time he had seen it. Unsurprisingly, it still read Atreus Aerospace Command Third Fleet Headquarters. Climbing the short flight of stairs that led up to the entrance of the facility itself, Elio came face to face with the two MAs that stood watch. Still a few paces from the two men, they saluted the Commodore before he returned a hasty salute himself before showing them his access card. With a quick acknowledgement, he passed between the two of them and entered the headquarters building.
Before he could say anything, the aide at the front desk stood up and motioned to follow him as they walked deeper into the facility amongst various uniformed members from the Royal House Cavalry, Third Fleet, and even some of Navy Special Warfare Command. Which somewhat surprised Raniero.
After what felt like a mile of walking, the pair of the commodore and aide arrived at a wooden door under armed guard, much like the entrance to the headquarters itself. Motioning once more to enter the room, the Commodore knocked before being prompted to enter by an unknown voice behind the door. Entering, he found the room to be warmly lit with the floors lined with carpet, and a large wooden meeting table that took up most of the space placed in the center of the room, the furniture being a complete oddity amongst the dull grey, the staple color of New Corvus.
While still being pleasantly surprised by the furnishings of the meeting room, the voice of a member of the meeting interrupted his awkward admiration.
“Commodore?” The voice asked.
Being brought back to the situation at hand, he met eyes with the head of the table. He recognized the Vice Admiral, but her name slipped his mind at first, before the name tag on her uniform reminded him.
Giving a short nod before taking his seat on her left, he took a moment to familiarize himself with those around him. Three captains and the same number of commanders, all sitting to the left of their superiors. Elio presumed them to be the Executive Officers, if the recipients list on the meeting notification was to be believed.
His eyes rounded the table as he came to the person sitting directly to his left. An oddity among the rest of the attendants, the mysterious officer was a lieutenant commander whose uniform devices indicated she was a member of Navy Special Warfare Command, an intelligence analyst, even. Almost simultaneously, she slipped him a folder and leaned over to him as the admiral adjusted the projector.
“Lieutenant Commander Smolak, sir. I’m your assigned Force Intelligence Officer.”
Once more, he nodded before the Vice Admiral backed away from the projector and cleared her throat.
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the short notice for this meeting, but not even the Admiralty was expecting something like this anytime soon.”
She advanced the slideshow, showing three ships covered in scaffolding in an enclosed shipyard.
“These are your new ships, the not-so-brand-new Retribution-Class Supercarriers. They’ve been laid down since the early 2200s, but recently they were cancelled and planned to be scrapped.”
Advancing the slides once more, the view now showed the stern view of each of the ships, being mostly covered by construction equipment and other obscurations. What stuck out to Elio was the single drives that could just be barely made out from the shockingly poor quality images.
“From left to right, each ship is: CVN-49 AASC Retribution, and the elegantly named CVN-50 PCU-177 and CVN-51 PCU-178. That reminds me, Bouvier and Nikolaidis. Her Majesty and the Lord Admiral both approved the names for your new vessels, so I stand corrected. CVN-50 AASC Gathering Storm and CVN-51 AASC Til Death Do Us Part will be joining us. Fitting names, I’d say."
The comment from the Vice Admiral caused a slight amount of commotion from the attendees, mostly from the new supercarrier captains who looked at each other with smirks before returning to face the projector and the admiral, who seemed to wait for their interaction to finish.
“Alright, now to answer the question you’ve all been asking.”
She moved the slideshow one last time, revealing a much cleaner image of the sterns of one of the supercarriers. The specific one could not be made out, but for the majority of those in the room, that was the last of their concerns.
The revealing of the image caused some mumblings and quiet gasps from those in the room who were privy to some more sensitive information than the others.
“It seems to me some of us know what those drive cones mean, but for those who don’t know, I’ve already got the Admiralty to grant you the required security clearance, so we don’t have to worry about that part.”
Despite saying this, she still sighed before continuing.
“For those asking, those are our gifts from our friends over at Starfleet for our success during the war: Three brand new ISX-53 Afterburning Fusion Engines straight off the line, hence the whole ‘CVN’ business.”
Quiet celebrations followed the conclusion of her statement. In the minds of the captains, they probably thought the days of worry about their fuel reserves were behind them, Elio thought.
“However, this is not what this meeting is about. As you all probably know, we live in a very turbulent time, so under orders from our benevolent leadership: ‘Carrier Division 2 will burn for Duna at earliest convenience and receive new orders upon their arrival and given replenishment period.’ This will be carried out shortly after the commissioning and work-up of all carriers in the division, and a short-duration exercise arranged by yours truly. Times and your pre-deployment tasks have been allocated to you already, so I expect you to finish these promptly. Dismissed.”
Following a quick mutual acknowledgement between him and his newly-assigned intelligence officer, Raniero stood up and straightened his uniform, turning to leave before a voice interrupted him once more.
“Oh, and Commodore, stay behind, I got stuff I have to discuss with you. Unless you have somewhere to be.”
Having not spoken in hours, he cleared his throat before answering her as he walked to catch her at the half-opened door.
“Um, no ma’am, I have nowhere else I have to be.”
She nodded shortly with a flat smile as he caught up, holding her hands together behind her, with her service cap being held in one of her hands, as the Admiral stayed a pace or two in front of the Commodore.
“I don’t think I really have to tell you why you’re here, do I?”
Slightly confused, he gave a slight tilt to his head before answering. “I don’t believe you do… ma’am.”
The admiral stopped, turning to face him as she took a moment to fix her hair. “Good, but if you’re telling me that just to make me happy, I’ll tell you the real reason. You’re leading this mess until reinforcements arrive.”
Even more confused, he tried to catch up as she continued to walk. “Until… reinforcements arrive? I thought we were just planning on remaining as a stabilizing force until things mellow out in the inner system.”
Without even seeming to acknowledge his question, she asked one of her own. “We served together on CVB-06, correct?”
“I believe we did, some time around 2197?”
“So you remember some of the missions we trained for? Fleet Actions, launching and recovering craft under fire and the like?”
With his confusion still lingering, he decided to buy into whatever game she was playing with him. “I do. How does that play into this operation?”
“So as the former communications officer aboard one of the AASC’s first fleet carriers, you know we wouldn't send a Task Force of the three biggest combat ships ever built by the AASC to a planet where we don’t have a presence, correct?”
“Yes, unless we —”
“Have another objective, correct again, Commodore.”
After what felt like an eternity, the Vice Admiral finally arrived at her destination, an almost identical-looking wooden door to that of the meeting room, this time with a nameplate towards the top of it that read VADM. Lorenza L. Vlachou.
Assuming this signalled the end of their conversation, Raniero turned to leave, only taking a step before he was once again interrupted by the Admiral.
“One last thing and I’ll let you go. While I was meeting with the Lord Admiral and Queen Morgase, they made it clear that they thought a Commodore was too low a flag officer to lead such an important formation.”
After turning to face her once more, he noticed that he held out a small wooden box in her left hand. Almost instinctively, he grabbed it with his same hand, taking it and putting it at his side before saluting her. Returning the salute briefly, she unlocked her office door, holding it half open; she said one last thing to him before entering and closing it behind her.
“Congratulations, Rear Admiral. You will be meeting the rest of your Flag Staff on Monday. Good luck.”
