15 Mar 2075, TAS Vengeance (CV-3), on station in Earth geosynchronous orbit
Rear Admiral Russ Amano sat awake in his quarters. It was well into mid watch, but he was unable to sleep. UniCom was in a bad way. Hell, the whole Alliance was in a bad way. Two and a half months ago, as the Alliance was busy congratulating itself on its 50th anniversary, the terraforming ship Astraeus had discovered a Bastani squatter colony on Fort Yoshioka. That was Alliance territory, and in flagrant breach of the Sterley-B'salqi Treaty of 2069. Granted, the rock wouldn't be habitable to humans for at least another 10 years, but that was beside the point. It was in the Third Ring. Inside the Core. This was always the way with the Bastani. They just kept expanding, kept pushing, never asked for permission. Over the last ten years, they had thrown up jumpgates across half the Ursa-Draconis sector. While it made planning and commercial traffic a lot easier, it also made Earth a lot more vulnerable. The Bastani never seemed to understand that. When the diplomats complained, they just gave that same blank, blue-lipped stare.
But just as big a problem was UniCom itself. The "old man", Admiral Alphonse Corino, was really the old man now. He had just turned 89, and he was well past his prime as a commander. Several strokes over the last few years had left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. If he had any dignity, or UniCom still operated like an efficient military organization, Corino would have been forced out a decade ago. But as one of the architects of the Alliance and a hero of the Great War, Corino was sancrosanct. No one dared move against the great peacemaker. When Amano had first been briefed on the squatter colony, he had gathered with two of the other rear admirals, Lin Pagani and Jesse McColl. As commanding officers of the three Alliance battle squadrons (after Squadron 2 was lost in Voyna four years ago), they were the most prominent flag officers in the fleet. Technically they were outranked by Vice Admirals Delvalle and Hegde, but they were both Survey Command officers. They'd spent their entire careers picking through soil samples, not commanding ships. And they were nearly as old as Corino himself. Amano, Pagani and McColl were young, ambitious and restless. It seemed as though once the Wraiths had been pushed out of the 3rd Ring in 2069, the old man had gotten soft. He stopped sending combat missions after the Wraith, and whenever a Wraith enclave was discovered, it was just interdicted and written off. But the one thing that Amano could never get over was the way Squadron 2 had been abandoned.
The Invincible and her missile boats had just completed a "friendship" tour to Bastan Prime. UniCom had chosen to turn it into a reconaissance-in-force mission by having them check out some of the unexplored jumproutes in the area. They discovered a backdoor into Groombridge 1830, or Voyna as it was called now. The Alliance had lost an Explorer here over a decade ago, and the system had been interdicted. But since there was an entire battle squadron this time around, UniCom dispatched them to Xanadu, an Earthlike planet in the system and the area where the Zheng He had been lost in 2056. No one ever quite figured out what happened after that. There was a garbled distress signal from the Concord three days later. By the time Squadrons 1 and 3 had gotten there, 12 days after the distress call....there was nothing to find. Wreckage everywhere, but no lifepods. Not even dead lifepods. Even though they now had two fully armed squadrons, UniCom ordered all ships to depart the system without further reconnaissance and interdicted the system. Amano had a lot of friends in that unit, and he still occasionally had nightmares of his friends being experimented on by the Wraiths, screaming and asking why they were abandoned. He had intended to ask the same question of Admiral Corino when he got back to Earth, but by then the Admiral had just had his 2nd stroke and doctors barred all visitors for months. Amano wondered if the Admiral really did have a stroke, or just used it to avoid having to face up to what he'd done.
The vidcom tone sounded.
"Amano here."
The voice of his communications officer came across the speaker. "Sir, I know it's late but..."
"Don't worry about it. I was up anyways. What's up?"
"Sir, it's the skipper of the Cousteau. They just got into port from a survey mish, and he says he shuttled over here right after that."
"He shuttled? Why no comms?"
Lt. Allen, the comms officer, sounded hesitant. "Sir, he....he said this has to go strictly in-person. I don't know what it is he needs to talk to you about, but sir, if I might say so he looks like he just saw a Wraith in the head, if you know what I mean, sir."
Amano chuckled. "All right, Allen. Let's not keep our pioneer friend waiting. Send him up to my quarters."
A few minutes later, a distinctly nervous officer sat across the desk from Amano.
"Captain....Treadaway is it? You look familiar. Were we in academy together?"
"Class of '56."
"Ahh, I was '58. Probably saw you at some of the intraclass tactical competitions."
"I....I doubt it, sir. I was never very good at tactics. My training was mostly in geophysics and crystallography. The Cousteau is my first command, and I've only had her two years." Amano winced slightly, though he tried to hide it. Great, another rockhound playing skipper. Just what UniCom needs more of.
"Ah. Well then, Captain. What brings you to my ship at two bells?"
"Sorry, didn't know. We use a different watch system on the Pathfinders."
"Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to know how things are done in the real Navy. Like I said, why are you here?"
"Well sir, I tried to bring this to Admiral Corino, but the doctors--"
"Yeah, I know all about the doctors. The Admiral is....let me be diplomatic here and just say that the Admiral is rather preoccupied with personal survival of late."
Treadaway paused, as if trying to parse Amano's meaning. "Okay. So, anyway, the watch officer at Canfield told me that you were senior ranking officer in-system, so I came here."
"Fine. So tell me whatever you were going to try and wake Corino out of his daily coma for."
"Well, we were returning from a survey mission in the Ursa-Draconis sector, in the Alsafi arm. We had gone as far as Mu Cassiopeiae and were returning for a refit, and--"
"Captain, I don't need your travel itinerary. Let me make this abundantly clear to you. I am a combat officer in command of one of the three remaining hammers this Navy has. If you found some Wraiths, you needn't bother me. Congratulations on surviving, and I'm sure the Admiral will interdict whatver godforsaken piece of space they're in. Unless you found me something to shoot at, you're probably better off telling Survey Comm--"
Treadaway's frustration boiled over and he blurted out, "It's the Bastani!"
Amano caught himself in mid-rant. "What about them?"
"They were in Vorota, sir."
Amano's eyes widened. "Merchant ships?"
"No! Well, yes. Several, actually. That was what got our attention. We wondered what the heck a convoy of Bastani merchants was doing so far from home. So we backtraced their trajectory and it went right to the first planet."
"And??"
"Sir...they've got a colony there. Not a little squatter outpost, either. I couldn't tell you the population but the EM and thermal readings were significant. Maybe a couple hundred thousand, or else they've got a PDC down there."
Amano's blood ran cold. Vorota was in the First Ring, practically next door. He could give the order to weigh anchor and be in Vorota in less than a week. This wasn't just a breach of treaty, this was tantamount to invasion. His thoughts raced.
"Who else knows about this?"
"No one so far, other than you, me and my crew."
Amano punched the vidcom's transmit button. "Allen!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Command directive to be issued to the Wartsila yard: Under command authority 146-delta, the crew of the TAS Cousteau is to be confined to ship until further notice. Marines to be posted to the airlocks."
"Yes, sir."
Treadaway jumped up. "Sir, with all due respect! You can't just--"
"I can, and I just did. Captain, do you know what could happen if your crew heads down for shore leave, and word gets out that the Bastani are on our goddamn doorstep?? The squatter colony on Fort Yoshioka is already a huge diplomatic incident. This....this is....Captain, the Alliance is on shaky ground these days, you realize that, right?"
"Well, I know there's a lot of the civvies that want to see Admiral Corino step down, talk about him being a tinpot dictator and all, but..."
"It's not just the civvies. There's a lot of people in UniCom that think he needs to go too. Senior officers included."
Treadaway hesitated, trying to gauge what Amano meant by that last part. "But sir, he's a war hero and--"
"He's an old man in a near-coma who's afraid to do anything. If we don't stop the Bastani, they'll be putting up colonies on Luna next. Then what?"
Treadway was silent for several seconds. "I suppose this means I'm confined to quarters as well?"
"You're confined to this ship. I'll get you a stateroom and put in your transfer papers, at least until this is all sorted out." Amano's tone softened slightly. "Look...I'm sorry it has to go down this way. But think of yourself as a modern-day Paul Revere."
"Forgive me, Admiral, but I don't remember Revere being locked in someone else's house after his ride."
