Gathering Storm
Feburary 24th, 2212
New Corvus, Mun
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With news of the coming mission, the halls of the Atreus Aerospace Command’s Third Fleet Headquarters felt more populated than they ever did as far as Rear Admiral Elio Raniero was concerned. He thought that it might’ve just been all the salutes he had to return — despite being indoors — that had caused his perception to be changed as to the activity in the halls.
However, this section of the complex was comparatively empty, with the only sound that echoed through the hallways being the newly promoted flag officer’s shoes, as Raniero had only his dress uniform properly equipped to match his new rank. Unfortunately, his new rank came with responsibilities that matched those of his new, haphazardly assembled task force, dubbed Task Force 31.
Elio browsed through the various folders that had been given to him by Vice Admiral Vlachou, ignoring probably important labels such as “Secret” plastered on the majority of the documents held within them. Most of them held little regard to him at this point, not even taking the time to look at them after the header before moving to the next.
Despite approaching his destination quite rapidly, one of the files managed to catch his attention: Force Equipment Manifest. The Admiral started to read through it: Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, SGM-61As and Bs, more fighters than he could count. Reaching one subsection, he was completely taken off guard.
“Three Royal House Cavalry Mechanized Platoons, One Platoon of Royal House Cavalry Naval Infantry, Modular Cryogenic Arrays, M6A Enhanced Mobility Kits, QC-72 Exoatmospheric Transports.”
He took a moment to process the reasoning behind such extensive forces. What would require all this House Cavalry on a show-of-force mission to a friendly planet? Especially one owned mostly by the UIF?
Raniero’s moment of self-reflection was partially interrupted by him arriving at a wooden door almost identical to the one he entered two days ago. However, unlike then, this door’s purpose was made blatant to him before he even reached for the handle. With Task Force 31 written on a removable card at eye level for him, the Admiral was glad that the Fleet Administration decided to make something obvious to him. For once.
Reviewing the manifest again for any missed details, Elio opened the door to the room with his right hand, putting the meeting table to his rear as he closed it, completely oblivious to the entirety of his flag staff that had assumed the position of attention as he had entered.
Skirting around behind his officers as he approached the head of the table, he only began to notice the eerie silence in the room from the dull colors of the Navy’s battle dress uniform and notable lack of movement in his peripherals.
Being pulled from his self-assessment of the manifests, he cleared his throat. “As you were, everyone.”
Laying his folders closed on the desk, he sat down and studied those who sat at the table with him, who — quite awkwardly — did the same to him.
Raniero wasnt surprised by who he saw sitting around him; after all, he did serve with some of them and selected almost all of them by name. The only exceptions to this were his Chief of Staff, Commodore Charis Marcu, and his Force Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Commander Rossa Smolak. He knew of both of them, with Marcu being a fellow trainee in his basic officer training class as well as being one of the fellow Commodores during the war, and being introduced to the lieutenant commander only two days ago. Despite this, he knew about the same amount of information about both of them.
With enough of associating names-to-faces with assistance with his own memory and the neatly printed nameplate holders, Raniero figured that if he sat in silence for another two seconds, there was a non-zero chance that they would believe that he was an anti-social recluse that had no business leading such a formation.
Already taking a second to process this, he sprang to his feet and inserted a drive into the projector on the table in front of him. Returning to his chair, the Admiral tried his best to move out of the path of the light being shone on the wall behind him before beginning his briefing.
“The short notice for this gathering was not planned, at least not more than two days ago when I found out that I would be leading this formation, so I’ll keep this brief.”
Finally warming up, the projector displayed a computer-generated image of all three supercarriers, with basic information such as their name and hull codes being shown alongside the ships.
“These will be the ships that will make up the bulk of our tonnage and firepower in this task force. Each supercarrier is powered by a one-of-a-kind Afterburning Fusion Engine that is going to allow us to have unrivaled independence from supply lines.”
Just like the meeting with the Vice Admiral, the revelation caused hushed comments between the officers, alongside strange glances at each other; Elio presumed they were skeptical of the engines, rightfully so in his opinion. Despite this, he progressed the slideshow once more and displayed their target: Duna.
“Orders from Third Fleet have given us Duna as our target, as a show-of-force operation has been deemed necessary. The burn is estimated to take around four months to the planet, in which we have been directed to replenish on-site before receiving new orders as they are given.”
Saying it out loud to his staff made it sound like an even shadier and poorly-planned operation. Which, in his mind, it was. Unless he wasn’t being told everything, which was equally possible.
Trying his best to maintain an image of confidence, he spoke once more. “I understand your concerns about such a rapidly-planned operation on such short notice, but this staff, and the crews of our ships are hand-picked from some of the best in the fleet. Personally, I am all but certain that we will execute our orders to the best of our abilities, and we will make our nation proud. So mark your calendars; we start our burn March 28th.”
He never found himself to be much of an orator.
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July 18th, 2212
AASC Retribution (CVN-49), Duna
After thirty years of supposed development and refinement, Raniero never understood why the cryogenic technology in use on board even the most prestigious flagships had only become more unpleasurable to use. He rested his elbows on the medium-sized desk located in his stateroom. Despite being the most expensive ship in the fleet, the stateroom felt slightly smaller than a storage closet as his rack and desk took up the majority of the usable floor area.
Being uninterested in the thought of continuing the stack of paperwork, Elio flipped his chair around and gazed out of the virtual window, seeing the small armada of Starfleet ships loitering by a nearby station that his task force had been docked at just a few days before, specs of purple and grey floating against the stars and the red planet behind them.
The sound of magnetic boots thumping on the deck outside of his door brought Elio from his study of the ships. Followed shortly by the sound of the door opening, the admiral turned to face whoever presented themselves to him.
Having changed from the dark grey duty uniform from the last time Elio had seen him, Charis leaned on the open doorway in the bright orange of the AASC undersuit usually worn with the combat webbing used by navy personnel, but also — in the case of Charis — in cryo as well.
Leaning back in his chair, Elio broke the silence. “They just wake you up?”
Charis looked down at his undersuit, pulling at it as if he was inspecting the suit. “No, I just thought it looked nice. Obviously I just got up.”
“Yeah, I could tell, part of the joke I was making. Humor is subjective, you know.”
“My humor only has to be funny to me.”
Sighing, Raniero turned his chair again to look back out of the window, this time looking at his own corvettes. Only noticeably different from their Stafleet siblings by their dark grey paint and white stripes.
Noticing this, Charis spoke up once more while turning through a small packet in his hands. “They woke me up mainly to talk to you about the process of the resupply. Corvettes 37 and 38 are still resupplying, and 35 and 36 are on their way back. Other than that, we’re ready to roll ahead of schedule.”
Pleasantly surprised by the news, Elio faced Charis once more. “I have to give it to them, Starfleet knows how to do resupply.”
Ending in a period of brief silence, the humming of the supercarrier took over before being interrupted by the familiar sound of magnetic boots clashing against the deck alongside the sounds of surprised conversation and frantic apologies.
Skidding to a halt in front of the two officers, a seaman rendered a brief and hurried salute before giving the Commodore a single sheet of paper. Presumably a communications specialist, as an unplugged headset still clung to his head.
Elio watched Charis read the message, mumbling its contents to himself as he skimmed through. Pausing for a second, he went wide-eyed, not even looking at the admiral as he handed him a paper across the tightly packed compartment.
He didn't even have to read past the first few sentences to understand why the seaman was in such a hurry.
“FLASH FLASH FLASH
TO: COMMANDER, TASK FORCE 31
FROM: COMMANDER, THIRD FLEET
TF31 IS TO EXPEDITE REPLENISHMENT AND MAKE READY FOR IMMEDIATE BURN. NAV DATA TO FOLLOW.”