Legacy Ch11

Legacy of the Guardians

AJ Marks

Chapter 11

Admiral Jack Cave sat in his office with his second in command Steve Terial, who was becoming a permanent guest in his office.

"You know Steve, you spend so much time in my office we should just move another desk in here." Jack said laughing a bit.

"That is almost true, but then you couldn't send me away." Steve said laughing also.

"I wonder what's happening down there?" Jack said referring to the mission that had now been underway for thirty minutes. He was always wondering about the missions and worrying about the personal involved. This mission was supposed to be a simple mission and there was not a whole lot to worry about, but Jack could not help it. There was always something that could go wrong, so unforeseen event. It was his concern about the personal that he commanded that won over the soldiers.

"We're not expecting any word for at least another twenty minutes." Steve said looking over some papers that he had.

"What have you got there?" Jack asked him, knowing that the papers were not that important.

"Its the report of the new battlecruiser Seydlitz." Steve replied knowing that that would get Jack's attention.

"Oh, really?" Jack replied. "How is she coming along?" Jack asked.

"The spaceport reports that she will be operational in a couple of days. She is to begin her shake down tomorrow." Steve said handing over the papers for Jack to look at.

"The most advanced ship in the fleet." Jack said with some pride. He had helped design the ship and it was his baby. He had put all of his war experience into the design. She was built with twice as many redundant systems as the next closest ship. That part of the design had received much criticism. The critics said that it was a waste of money and supplies on the redundant systems. Jack had stubbornly refused to be swayed from the design and the powers at be decided to construct two different battlecruisers, one with his design and the other the one they wanted. So far two of the other class of battlecruisers had been built, the Paris and the Austin. The Austin was already in service with the second battlecruiser fleet and the Paris would be complete sometime in the next couple of weeks. All three would be welcome additions to the fleet.

"Just for the record, I think that your design is far superior to the Austin class." Steve said. "Have you given any thought as to what fleet she will be assigned?"

"Actually yes." Jack replied realizing that he needed to let the commander know about the addition to the fleet. "I think I'll assign her to the fifth battlecruiser fleet, she'll be under the command of Vice Admiral Dinen, what do you think?"

"Hmm." Steve said leaning back in his chair to think about the decision. "Dinen is smart, cunning and has that sixth since like you do." Steve said listing Dinen's abilities. "In fact, he reminds me a bit of you when you were in command of a battlecruiser fleet. I think it would be a perfect match. The Paris can join the third fleet to even things out."

"I think that Dinen will probably make the Seydlitz his flag ship." Jack said with some pride in his voice.

"It would guarantee that you would visit him more often. Especially since you'll probably also make her the overall fleet flag ship." Steve said reading Jack's mind.

"Yeah, you're right." Jack said confirming what Steve said. "I think that its about time to retire the Ottawa to defense duties."

"Yeah, she served us well, but she is forty-five years old and combat has worn her quite a bit." Steve said knowing that the old ship still could fight very well. The Ottawa had been repaired and refitted so may times that most of her systems had backups for the backups, which was the main inspiration for the Seydlitz. The only problem was that in order to upgrade the Ottawa's weapon systems they would have to completely redesign the ship, which would have cost more than the Seydlitz did.

"Well, at least the old gal provided one last mission in helping me and my design team with the plans of the Seydlitz." Jack said.

"She was the first ship I served aboard, the old Kiev class battlecruisers sure served well for their time." Steve said. "They were easy to build and cheap."

"That's for sure, and they allow us to start building the Moscow class battlecruisers and the Lexington class carriers. Those two classes help us win the war." Jack said remembering the war and the several classes of ships that had been built. Some designs proved to be exceptionally battle worthy, such as the Moscow and Ottawa classes, whereas other designs proved to be huge failures, such as the Boston design. The Boston had a great weapon and shield system, but lacked an engine to power the systems, as a result neither system received enough power to be battle worthy and the class was demoted to defense only.

Greg walked into the office with his message.

"Sir!" Greg said saluting then continued with the message. "Captain Uliki, the mission went without almost any hitches."

"Is there a report yet?" Jack asked.

"Not yet, the captain had just got back to the base and notified the commander that the mission had been successful and that his report should be on your desk in about an hour." Greg replied, repeating what the captain had told him.

"Good, I look forward to reading his report." Jack said feeling much better. "Has there been any reports from our spies about the location of Bin Laden?"

"No, just one from Captain Ahmed, he has made contact with a Skartian in the higher levels of the terrorist organizations, but he wants to try and get closer to the higher levels to see if there are anymore." Greg replied. "Intelligence believes that this could be like the Germans in world war two when almost all of the high levels of the command structure was made up of Skartians."

"Hmm, hadn't thought of that." Steve replied. "If that's the case then there is more going on then what we first thought."

"That's true." Jack replied in deep thought. "Greg, go tell Vice Admiral Dinen that I wish to talk to him, and let's get a full staff meeting for seven tomorrow morning."

"Yes sir!" Greg said saluting and leaving the office to carry out his orders.

"This keeps getting worse and worse my friend." Jack said to Steve. "I wonder how organized they are."

"It looks like we must move slowly and cautiously if we are to capture as many as we can." Steve said. "I wish we could hear some good news coming from the Galactic Council though, Randall said that the Skartian ambassador still has not been seen."

"That also worries me." Jack said. "What are they up to?"

"Isn't Captain Uliki the one that has demonstrated some psyic abilities?" Steve asked Jack.

"I believe so Steve." Jack replied. "It is kind of strange that of all the races that we have encountered none of them have those abilities except the Skartians and ourselves."

"You know, I never thought of that but you're right." Steve said now giving it some serious thought. "Do you think that could be a reason we don't get along?"

"No I don't think so. I, personally, think that it goes beyond that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

Sam Uliki sat back in his bunk after he had finished his report to his commanding officer. A quick check in to intelligence had reported that there were no missions for the next couple of hours so Sam decided that now was the time to take a quick nap. He did not know when the next mission would be or when the next chance for sleep would be.

He told his superior that he was in his bunk and after a quick inspection of his weapons and equipment he stripped out of his clothes and got into bed.

Sam was not sure how it happened, but he found himself back on the street when he had been escorting the older couple out of the town. He saw the same stranger looking at him as before. No one else seemed to notice them. The stranger approached him like he had before. Sam did not feel threatened by the stranger so he decided to see what the stranger wanted.

Sam did not recall seeing the stranger walk, but rather float toward him. Sam could not see any part of the figure's face. The figure wore a long cloak and its hood obscured the face.

The time approaches. Sam heard the figure say. Sam could only stare at the strange figure as it turned to 'walk' away from him.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked a bit confused.

The time approaches. The figure spoke again. It again started to move away, this time Sam decided to follow the retreating figure. The figure was moving quite fast and Sam and to hurry just to keep the figure in sight. A couple of times he lost sight of the figure but he would round a corner and see the figure waiting for him before continuing on the journey.

Sam did not realize that the terrain was flying by much faster than it should have been and that he was no longer in Afghanistan ay more. 'Who are you?' Sam thought to himself as he ran along. He still had not seen any resemblance of legs on the figure ahead of him, in fact the figure seemed to be floating.

The figure then suddenly stopped and allowed Sam to catch up with him. Sam got to the figure and it was then Sam realized that he should have been out of breath, but he was not even breathing hard. Sam looked around as was shocked at what he saw in front of him.

The time approaches! The figure said as it disappeared right in front of him.

Sam woke up with a start. He could remember everything about the dream as it seemed so real. The mysterious figure had led him to Egypt and the Sphinx, but why, or was he just working to hard and he was seeing things. Then again nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Maybe the figure was trying to tell him that he needed a vacation.

Sam got up and rubbed his eyes then looked at the clock. He had only been asleep for five minutes, and it felt like he had been lying there for several hours, he decided that a vacation was in order and he would talk to his supervisor right away.

Jack Cave and Steve Terial waited for the final couple of members to arrive so they could start the staff meeting. Both men knew that the entire staff needed to be present for the news.

"Sorry I'm late sir!" The last man said as he entered the room.

"Have a seat Admiral." Steve said as they waited for him to sit down before starting the meeting.

"Sorry to get you all here on such short notice but I didn't want to jepadorize this information from landing in the wrong hands." Jack said and knew that the staff was wondering what was going on. Many wondered if this had to do with the terrorist attacks back home or the invasion force that the Skartians had sent during the attack.

"As many of you we are now on war conditions in the fleet. This is not to change, but new developments have occurred since the eleventh." Steve said getting up to go in front of the room. He pressed a button and a picture of a man appeared. "This is Osama bin Laden, who the evidence of the recent attacks points to is the man responsible for the terrorist attacks." Another picture replaced bin Laden. "This is Captain Ahmed, who is one of many spies we have in the area, we feel that he is our best hope to capturing Bin Laden. However there has been a new development." A picture of the Middle East came up on the screen. "We, at first, believed that bin Laden, or someone in control of him, was a Skartian. We now have a good reason to assume that most of the high levels of the terrorist groups are Skartian."

The room was a buzz with people talking. If the information was true then they were looking at a scenario that was frighteningly similar to world war two.

"Is there any evidence that supports this theory?" One man said.

A young woman stood up and went to the front of the room when Jack Cave nodded for her to. She was in charge of the intelligence for the Middle East area.

"So far we know that at least one Skartian is in the area right here." She said pointing to an area on the map in Afghanistan. "We have a confirmed sighting from Captain Ahmed yesterday. We've been monitoring his condition carefully and have not noticed anything in the past twelve hours, which was when they were going to kidnap his parents, a plot in which we foiled. But one of the men that was in contact with the captain was identified as Skartian, and we don't feel that this one is high enough up in the command structure to be in control."

"In short, we need more data to have a solid conclusion, but right now we seem to have a large highly organized group of Skartian on Earth." She said in conclusion.

"Thank you Major Kreistag." Steve said as she walked back to her seat. "I know I don't have to tell you the importance of the implications of these facts." Steve said looking around the room and seeing the eyes reflect what he was thinking. "What we need from all of you is to be on your guard, we expect another attack anytime now, either a terrorist attack to be followed closely by another invasion or just an invasion. Keep your fleets on a high alert, but don't wear your crews out." Steve said then allowed Jack to speak.

"There is one last thing that disturbs me greatly." Jack said as he walked around the room. "As many of you know, we have filed numerous protests, along with the Ilderians, against the Skartians. As of this morning nothing has been heard from the Skartian ambassador. No one has seen the ambassador since the day of the attack, it is possible that they have withdrawn from the council, if that's the case then we can throw out all of the rules, so be careful and report anything that seem unusual, anything at all." Jack said. "Now I'll listen to reports or complaints that any of you have."

An hour later they all left the meeting room having ironed out some strategies and some possible scenarios that could possible happen and how they would respond to them.

"George!" Jack called to Vice Admiral Dinen before he could get away.

"Yes sir?" George replied.

"I have something I need to talk to you about, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to see you yesterday, I know that you were busy."

"Sorry sir, it was Captain Uliki, he has requested some rest time." George replied and saw Jack raise his eyebrow. "Well it seems that he is seeing things and feel that he could jepadorize the next mission he is on, he has been a good soldier and hasn't had a break in over a year."

"Say no more, I understand." Jack replied. "You did the right thing, it was time for a break."

They reached Jack's office and Jack motioned the other two men inside then walked in himself. They each took a seat before Jack decided to bring up why there were there.

"Here." Jack said handing George some papers.

George read through the paper then looked up in a bit of disbelief. "Are you sure about this?" He asked Jack. "The Seydlitz is your pride and joy, I always thought that you would put it as part of the home fleet."

"I want her to be under the command of someone who will understand her design and use her to her fullest abilities. That man is you George." Jack said.

"I'll be proud to accept her into my fleet, but what about her being the fleet flagship?" George asked.

"I've been thinking about that, and I've decided to do some reorganizing, I'm going to promote you to full Admiral, and combine the Fifth Battlecruiser Fleet and the Saratoga Carrier Group into Fleet R." Jack said putting his idea into action.

"Are you sure?" George asked. "What about Vice Admiral Peterov."

"I've already talked to him and he thought it was a good idea, he thought it felt quite natural to follow orders form you during the battle, and he had a high regard for you." Jack said.

"Then I'll take it sir, and thank you sir." George said. "Just one question, why R?"

"That's for response, your fleet will be the first to respond to an invasion, we have most of the fleet either on patrol, or in defense of Earth, but you will be the only fleet based between the boarder and Earth." Jack said outlining the plan.

"So I'm in command of the flexible fleet that you were talking about in the meeting." George said as some of the strategies that they were talking about now made since to him.

"Yep, do you think you can handle it?" Steve asked, speaking up for the first time since they had entered the room.

"You can count on me." George said and left the room.

"Well that went pretty well." Steve said after George had left the room.

"Yes, I believe you're right about that." Jack said. "I'm glad that he decided to accept the promotion. I still can't shake the feeling that we are going to be needing men like him in the near future."

Steve remained quiet as Jack voiced his opinion like he did most often. Some days Jack was right in his opinions, while on other days he was wrong. But in those occasions when he was wrong he was the first to admit it.

"I personally hope that you are wrong on this one." Steve finally said after thinking about the comment. He himself had a vague uneasy feeling in his gut as well.

"So do I Steve." Jack said looking back to his reports.

End Chapter 11

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