HGE - Episode 01 - Without Warning
The Holy Galactic Empire
Episode 01 - Without Warning
"Report," Lord Jason ordered Admiral Frey and the other admirals in the room. The four admirals wore dark navy uniforms with gold marks of rank on their shoulders. High Admiral Jacob Frey was the only one in the room with three golden star bursts. His shoulder patch was the golden falcon heraldry of the House of Falklor except instead of a sprig of wheat, the talons of the falcon grasped a missile in either talon. Three small starbursts made a line above the falcon's head. This marked him as commander of the duchy's naval forces.
"Three ships attacked and destroyed a small smelting factory in the Saint Paul Outer Asteroid Field," Admiral Frey reported, "Casualties are currently estimated in the low 40s. The ships launched a single volley of missiles from range and then immediately turned tail and burned for deep space. A squadron of cruisers attempted to intercept, but were too far away to start with to have much hope."
The screen in front of Jason showed the location of the attack and a simple diagram showing the cruiser squadron pursuit. It had indeed been optimistic. They would have needed one of raiders to have a sudden on sought engine failure to have any hope of intercepting before the raiders got away.
"Three ships? Not one like the previous attacks? More of these...frigates?"
"Two of them appeared to be of the same class as the previous raids, but the third was a larger vessel. I'd call it a destroyer, but not a particularly large one. Still relatively small for a modern warship," Admiral Hodges reported. She held the naval intelligence command within the duchy. She like the rest of the officers in the room wore their Twins Duchy naval uniforms. Admiral Betsy Hodges wore two golden starbursts on her shoulders.
"I'm assuming that the ships did not appear to have Guild Pilots on board?"
"Correct, the cruiser squadron which pursued them detected subspace splashes," Admiral Frey answered.
"And the smelting factory?"
"It was owned by a... Asteroid Technology Corporation," Admiral Hodges answered, after a brief scroll through her screen to find the name. "They've been a Mining Guild member in good standing for the last 14 years. They are a relatively small outfit. This facility was one of four others of similar size all in this system."
"Does this Asteroid Technology Corporation - a staggeringly uninspiring name if there ever was one - know of the attack?" Lord Jason absentmindedly zoomed out the map to see a larger area and see the locations of the other raids.
"Yes, we've asked them to keep it quiet for now, but..."
"But they need to tell the families and let's not forget the Guild," Jason completed.
"Exactly," Admiral Hodges agreed. "It's only a matter of days if not hours before this attack becomes public knowledge."
"This ATC, were they related to any of the mining ships that were attacked?"
"Not particularly," Admiral Hodges answered, "They have accepted shipments of ore from two of the ships in the past, but they weren't a common delivery location for any of them. Other than that there appears to be no relationship between them."
"Is this an attack against the Mining Guild?" Lord Jason suggested, "I'm starting to notice a theme in their target selection. Four mining ships and a smelting factory?"
"Unlikely, I suspect that they are merely targets of opportunity," Admiral Hodges answered, "The second ship attacked was actually an independent vessel."
"And they're obviously not pirates," Lord Jason continued, "They're not stealing anything. They're not slavers, they're taking no prisoners. And while I mourn the loss of life, there have been relatively few casualties in the other attacks and none of these targets are particularly important to the stability of the duchy. Am I missing something?"
"I think we can safely rule out pirates, slavers, and other criminally motivated raiders," Admiral Hodges agreed, "That leaves political or economical motivations."
"I just don't see how this benefits anyone," Jason mused, looking down at the screen before him. It showed an orbital map of where the five attacks had occurred. The first attack had been only 16 days ago. Each attack was separated from the next by roughly four days. There had been five days between the third and this most recent attack. The attack locations were spread out around the far side of the Saint Paul Asteroid Field. Jason enabled an overlay of to show the patrol patterns of the Deephaven fleet. While Deephaven Base was in orbit of Deephaven, half of the fleet was The second attack, the one against the independent ship, was far away from any patrol pattern. The other three attacks were all relatively near a normal patrol route. When an enemy has executed four raids in quick succession without meeting a patrol from Deephaven, that wasn't luck. The exact patrol routes varied frequently and were highly classified. The commanders of the individual patrols were often given a high degree of independence to alter their given route as they saw fit. The result was routes that were nearly impossible to predict in advance. So how had the raiders done it?
"I have to agree," Admiral Hodges said. She sounded frustrated. "I would like to move five more squadrons of cruisers to the Deephaven fleet to assist in increased patrols."
"Five more?" Lord Jason asked, "That's on top of the additional squadron we allocated because of orbital realities and the two additional squadrons we moved after the first two attacks. Won't that leave our cruisers a little thin around Minneapolis?"
"I know, but the majority of our battleships will remain in Minneapolis space," Admiral Hodges said, "They should provide enough cover."
"What does Admiral Skrede suggest?" Fleet Admiral Skrede was in command of the Deephaven fleet.
"He has requested additional cruisers squadrons," Admiral Winstead spoke up for the first time. He has a staff admiral under Admiral Freys command. "His exact words were, 'as many cruisers as you can give me.'"
"Very well," Jason said glancing down at his screen once more. "Reassign the five cruiser squadrons. Anything else?"
"Is there any news on your father?" Admiral Frey asked somewhat more quietly than usual.
"No," Jason said rather curtly, before rising. This caused everyone else in the room to stand up. Jason picked up the screen he had been using to view the map of the raids, turned, and walked towards the door. Sarah, the captain of his guard, had been standing beside it throughout the meeting. She hit the button which caused it to slide open and followed him out. The two other members of the Lord's guard were waiting for him on either side of the door.
"Where to?" the guard captain asked.
"Home," Jason answered.
The four of them walked through the hallways of the Rand Naval Building in silence. Sargent Johnson, the newest member of the Jason's guard walked ahead. Sarah, Captain Thomason, walked a half step behind Jason by his side. Lieutenant Tristing followed behind. The three guards were the only people in the entire building who wore the black and silver uniforms of the imperial marines instead of the navy blue and gold of the Twins Duchy. The House of Falklor was a distant member of the imperial family. Jason himself was technically in the line of succession, but there were around fifty people ahead of him in line. But in the line of succession was in the line of succession, as such, he warranted an imperial guard. As his family was so far down the line of succession, this meant that ducal marines were occasionally selected by the Duke to receive two years of imperial military training before returning home and becoming new members of the ducal guard. If the House of Falklor was higher in the line of succession, the Empress would be the one selecting the guards and they wouldn't have been Twins natives.
They walked out of the Rand Naval Building several minutes later into a beautiful summer day. The Rand Naval Building was on the outskirts of the city of Eden Prairie, the ducal capital on the planet of Bloomington. They were in a large walled courtyard with a large field of wheat swaying in the wind on one side and a large lawn of well trimmed grass on the other. Wheat fields were common sights in ducal buildings as they were ducal symbols. Between the lawn and the wheat field was a paved walking path. It looked like a game of 5 on 5 football was in progress in the small field.
Jason was still quietly studying the screen he still held from the briefing. He was still studying the patrol routes around the areas of the attacks. When something occurred to him, he suddenly stopped walking. That idea saved his life because that was when gunshot rang out. The bullet passed directly in front of the young lord, where he would have been if he had continued to walk. The next thing Jason knew, Sarah was tackling him to the ground and covering him with her own body.
"Where did that come from!?" the captain yelled. She and her two fellow guards had drawn their laser pistols and were scanning desperately for the shooter. The football players were all scattering.
Another shot rang out and Sargent Johnson's back exploded in a fountain of blood. The guard was dead before he hit the ground, his heart and spinal cord obliterated by the single shot. This time the direction of the shot was obvious. It had come from the one of the few buildings which overlooked the courtyard. Thomason saw a small glint of movement from its rooftop.
"Into the wheat field!" Thomason shouted as she stood up, keeping herself between the shooter and her charge. She practically threw Jason into the wheat field and followed after him. "Stay low," she ordered, keeping one hand on Jason's head forcing it to stay low as the three of them moved through the swaying fields.
"The guard house?" Jason suggested. They had been almost two thirds of the way to the guard house when the attack began.
"Agreed, Tristing, you're on point," Thomason ordered and the lieutenant moved ahead of them and lead the way towards the guard house. They heard more gunfire and laserfire. They moved quickly, crouched low to stay below the top of the wheat fields. They reached the wall to roughly 40 meters away from the guard post. The guard post was directly at the end of the path they had been walking down. They had cut further into the wheat field for what protection it could provide. They three of them hugged the wall as the followed it towards the guard house. Before they reached the door to the guard house, an explosion sounded in the direction of where the shooter had been.
They quickly reached the door to the guard house and Lieutenant Tristing banged his fist on the door, "Imperial Marines, open up!"
Thomason didn't bother waiting, she pulled a security card out of her pocket and held it up to the sensor. The light flashed green and she hurriedly punched in the 6 digit code. The door slide open and Tristing entered laser pistol raised, shouting, "Imperial marines, stand down!"
Thomason shoved Jason through the door and shut it behind her. There were two ducal marines who looked like they had just been running back down the stairs. They were both holding their but were aiming them at the floor by the time Thomason had shoved Jason into the guard house. The shout of uniform of an imperial marine only went so far in this situation. The laser pistols of both of Jason's remaining guards weren't technically aimed at the two ducal marines, but they wouldn't have to move them very far to bring them into their field of fire.
"Lieutenant," Lord Jason said, drawing the guard of superior rank's attention to himself, "my guard would appreciate it if you stood down a little further."
The two ducal marines immediately released their hold on their rifles upon seeing Jason.
Thomason and Tristing both relaxed a little.
"Lord Falklor, you're alive," said the Marine Lieutenant.
"Report," Jason said briskly, "We heard an explosion."
"Yes, my lord," the lieutenant agreed, "The shooter appeared to detonate a small explosive."
"There was a single shooter?" Thomason asked.
"We believe so. Captain Hasselburg is already coordinating a search of the building where the shooter fired from."
"What's your name Lieutenant?" Jason asked.
"Lieutenant James Lindau, my lord."
"James, grab anything you'll need in the next ten minutes and return to your position on the roof. I need this room for a little while."
The lieutenant hesitated only slightly before nodding and grabbing a few extra rounds of ammunition and walking back up the stairs.
Thomason waited until they heard the door at the top of the stairs close before asking quietly, "What is it?"
"I think I know what's going on. Or at least part of it."
The Holy Galactic Empire
Episode 01 - Without Warning
"Three ships attacked and destroyed a small smelting factory in the Saint Paul Outer Asteroid Field," Admiral Frey reported, "Casualties are currently estimated in the low 40s. The ships launched a single volley of missiles from range and then immediately turned tail and burned for deep space. A squadron of cruisers attempted to intercept, but were too far away to start with to have much hope."
The screen in front of Jason showed the location of the attack and a simple diagram showing the cruiser squadron pursuit. It had indeed been optimistic. They would have needed one of raiders to have a sudden on sought engine failure to have any hope of intercepting before the raiders got away.
"Three ships? Not one like the previous attacks? More of these...frigates?"
"Two of them appeared to be of the same class as the previous raids, but the third was a larger vessel. I'd call it a destroyer, but not a particularly large one. Still relatively small for a modern warship," Admiral Hodges reported. She held the naval intelligence command within the duchy. She like the rest of the officers in the room wore their Twins Duchy naval uniforms. Admiral Betsy Hodges wore two golden starbursts on her shoulders.
"I'm assuming that the ships did not appear to have Guild Pilots on board?"
"Correct, the cruiser squadron which pursued them detected subspace splashes," Admiral Frey answered.
"And the smelting factory?"
"It was owned by a... Asteroid Technology Corporation," Admiral Hodges answered, after a brief scroll through her screen to find the name. "They've been a Mining Guild member in good standing for the last 14 years. They are a relatively small outfit. This facility was one of four others of similar size all in this system."
"Does this Asteroid Technology Corporation - a staggeringly uninspiring name if there ever was one - know of the attack?" Lord Jason absentmindedly zoomed out the map to see a larger area and see the locations of the other raids.
"Yes, we've asked them to keep it quiet for now, but..."
"But they need to tell the families and let's not forget the Guild," Jason completed.
"Exactly," Admiral Hodges agreed. "It's only a matter of days if not hours before this attack becomes public knowledge."
"This ATC, were they related to any of the mining ships that were attacked?"
"Not particularly," Admiral Hodges answered, "They have accepted shipments of ore from two of the ships in the past, but they weren't a common delivery location for any of them. Other than that there appears to be no relationship between them."
"Is this an attack against the Mining Guild?" Lord Jason suggested, "I'm starting to notice a theme in their target selection. Four mining ships and a smelting factory?"
"Unlikely, I suspect that they are merely targets of opportunity," Admiral Hodges answered, "The second ship attacked was actually an independent vessel."
"And they're obviously not pirates," Lord Jason continued, "They're not stealing anything. They're not slavers, they're taking no prisoners. And while I mourn the loss of life, there have been relatively few casualties in the other attacks and none of these targets are particularly important to the stability of the duchy. Am I missing something?"
"I think we can safely rule out pirates, slavers, and other criminally motivated raiders," Admiral Hodges agreed, "That leaves political or economical motivations."
"I just don't see how this benefits anyone," Jason mused, looking down at the screen before him. It showed an orbital map of where the five attacks had occurred. The first attack had been only 16 days ago. Each attack was separated from the next by roughly four days. There had been five days between the third and this most recent attack. The attack locations were spread out around the far side of the Saint Paul Asteroid Field. Jason enabled an overlay of to show the patrol patterns of the Deephaven fleet. While Deephaven Base was in orbit of Deephaven, half of the fleet was The second attack, the one against the independent ship, was far away from any patrol pattern. The other three attacks were all relatively near a normal patrol route. When an enemy has executed four raids in quick succession without meeting a patrol from Deephaven, that wasn't luck. The exact patrol routes varied frequently and were highly classified. The commanders of the individual patrols were often given a high degree of independence to alter their given route as they saw fit. The result was routes that were nearly impossible to predict in advance. So how had the raiders done it?
"I have to agree," Admiral Hodges said. She sounded frustrated. "I would like to move five more squadrons of cruisers to the Deephaven fleet to assist in increased patrols."
"Five more?" Lord Jason asked, "That's on top of the additional squadron we allocated because of orbital realities and the two additional squadrons we moved after the first two attacks. Won't that leave our cruisers a little thin around Minneapolis?"
"I know, but the majority of our battleships will remain in Minneapolis space," Admiral Hodges said, "They should provide enough cover."
"What does Admiral Skrede suggest?" Fleet Admiral Skrede was in command of the Deephaven fleet.
"He has requested additional cruisers squadrons," Admiral Winstead spoke up for the first time. He has a staff admiral under Admiral Freys command. "His exact words were, 'as many cruisers as you can give me.'"
"Very well," Jason said glancing down at his screen once more. "Reassign the five cruiser squadrons. Anything else?"
"Is there any news on your father?" Admiral Frey asked somewhat more quietly than usual.
"No," Jason said rather curtly, before rising. This caused everyone else in the room to stand up. Jason picked up the screen he had been using to view the map of the raids, turned, and walked towards the door. Sarah, the captain of his guard, had been standing beside it throughout the meeting. She hit the button which caused it to slide open and followed him out. The two other members of the Lord's guard were waiting for him on either side of the door.
"Where to?" the guard captain asked.
"Home," Jason answered.
The four of them walked through the hallways of the Rand Naval Building in silence. Sargent Johnson, the newest member of the Jason's guard walked ahead. Sarah, Captain Thomason, walked a half step behind Jason by his side. Lieutenant Tristing followed behind. The three guards were the only people in the entire building who wore the black and silver uniforms of the imperial marines instead of the navy blue and gold of the Twins Duchy. The House of Falklor was a distant member of the imperial family. Jason himself was technically in the line of succession, but there were around fifty people ahead of him in line. But in the line of succession was in the line of succession, as such, he warranted an imperial guard. As his family was so far down the line of succession, this meant that ducal marines were occasionally selected by the Duke to receive two years of imperial military training before returning home and becoming new members of the ducal guard. If the House of Falklor was higher in the line of succession, the Empress would be the one selecting the guards and they wouldn't have been Twins natives.
They walked out of the Rand Naval Building several minutes later into a beautiful summer day. The Rand Naval Building was on the outskirts of the city of Eden Prairie, the ducal capital on the planet of Bloomington. They were in a large walled courtyard with a large field of wheat swaying in the wind on one side and a large lawn of well trimmed grass on the other. Wheat fields were common sights in ducal buildings as they were ducal symbols. Between the lawn and the wheat field was a paved walking path. It looked like a game of 5 on 5 football was in progress in the small field.
Jason was still quietly studying the screen he still held from the briefing. He was still studying the patrol routes around the areas of the attacks. When something occurred to him, he suddenly stopped walking. That idea saved his life because that was when gunshot rang out. The bullet passed directly in front of the young lord, where he would have been if he had continued to walk. The next thing Jason knew, Sarah was tackling him to the ground and covering him with her own body.
"Where did that come from!?" the captain yelled. She and her two fellow guards had drawn their laser pistols and were scanning desperately for the shooter. The football players were all scattering.
Another shot rang out and Sargent Johnson's back exploded in a fountain of blood. The guard was dead before he hit the ground, his heart and spinal cord obliterated by the single shot. This time the direction of the shot was obvious. It had come from the one of the few buildings which overlooked the courtyard. Thomason saw a small glint of movement from its rooftop.
"Into the wheat field!" Thomason shouted as she stood up, keeping herself between the shooter and her charge. She practically threw Jason into the wheat field and followed after him. "Stay low," she ordered, keeping one hand on Jason's head forcing it to stay low as the three of them moved through the swaying fields.
"The guard house?" Jason suggested. They had been almost two thirds of the way to the guard house when the attack began.
"Agreed, Tristing, you're on point," Thomason ordered and the lieutenant moved ahead of them and lead the way towards the guard house. They heard more gunfire and laserfire. They moved quickly, crouched low to stay below the top of the wheat fields. They reached the wall to roughly 40 meters away from the guard post. The guard post was directly at the end of the path they had been walking down. They had cut further into the wheat field for what protection it could provide. They three of them hugged the wall as the followed it towards the guard house. Before they reached the door to the guard house, an explosion sounded in the direction of where the shooter had been.
They quickly reached the door to the guard house and Lieutenant Tristing banged his fist on the door, "Imperial Marines, open up!"
Thomason didn't bother waiting, she pulled a security card out of her pocket and held it up to the sensor. The light flashed green and she hurriedly punched in the 6 digit code. The door slide open and Tristing entered laser pistol raised, shouting, "Imperial marines, stand down!"
Thomason shoved Jason through the door and shut it behind her. There were two ducal marines who looked like they had just been running back down the stairs. They were both holding their but were aiming them at the floor by the time Thomason had shoved Jason into the guard house. The shout of uniform of an imperial marine only went so far in this situation. The laser pistols of both of Jason's remaining guards weren't technically aimed at the two ducal marines, but they wouldn't have to move them very far to bring them into their field of fire.
"Lieutenant," Lord Jason said, drawing the guard of superior rank's attention to himself, "my guard would appreciate it if you stood down a little further."
The two ducal marines immediately released their hold on their rifles upon seeing Jason.
Thomason and Tristing both relaxed a little.
"Lord Falklor, you're alive," said the Marine Lieutenant.
"Report," Jason said briskly, "We heard an explosion."
"Yes, my lord," the lieutenant agreed, "The shooter appeared to detonate a small explosive."
"There was a single shooter?" Thomason asked.
"We believe so. Captain Hasselburg is already coordinating a search of the building where the shooter fired from."
"What's your name Lieutenant?" Jason asked.
"Lieutenant James Lindau, my lord."
"James, grab anything you'll need in the next ten minutes and return to your position on the roof. I need this room for a little while."
The lieutenant hesitated only slightly before nodding and grabbing a few extra rounds of ammunition and walking back up the stairs.
Thomason waited until they heard the door at the top of the stairs close before asking quietly, "What is it?"
"I think I know what's going on. Or at least part of it."
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