Chronicles of Sol: The Fall-Chapter 196 One Hundred Sixty-Three Contact Lost

Valoria, Council Chambers:

The Minara woman sighed, on the table was the current strategic master plot. Things were not looking that good, several fleets were virtually annihilated, others were bogged down in heavy fighting. They'd made a few gains, but the war was certainly not going as well as the news would have you believe. Today's meeting was another war council meeting.

Turning from the plot, she inquired, "Status on the Third Fleet? How much longer before they return to the core?"

The clan admiral sighed, "I'm afraid we lost all contact with the third fleet. Communication was somewhat sketchy before we lost contact, but from what I can gather the commander chose to disregard orders and headed deeper into the cluster."

Another breath left her, "Wonderful. An entire fleet missing action. Not what I needed today."

Especially not after the news she'd received this morning. The Toral were making a renewed push into the Yisk sector. While they'd managed to push back a previous assault, that wasn't without losses. Worse, the 32nd and 34th fleets had to withdraw from the sector late yesterday evening following their battle over Nivay IV, the location of a strategically important fuel refinery and depot for the sector. While they had managed to defend the critical installation, they'd taken heavy losses with many of their core vessels taking heavy damage. Both fleets would be unavailable for the rest of the month, while their vessels were repaired.

While the Third Fleet isn't at full strength, those were ships that would have helped reinforce such a critical battleground. If they lost Yisk, the Toral would be free to push into the core, opening up numerous important worlds to attack. Something they wouldn't be able to allow.

"Sadly yes, for now we will consider them missing. However, I'm not going to hold up much hope for them. What little I did hear regarding conditions in the cluster indicates the region is moving into a more active period. The storms it's known for are only going to get worse."

"Well that would preclude sending any ships after the fleet."

"Moot point anyway, we can't afford it."

"Agreed, I think it might be time to deploy the Yinta IIs, we have two thousand of them ready now, and a further four thousand are expected to complete over the next six months."

"What about the Bountiful Treasure? Is she ready to deploy..."

"I corresponded with Captain Reidia recently, she says she's ready for any mission."

"Excellent, the Voskar have been particularly annoying, their attacks on our trade routes are starting to hurt our supply lines."

"Agreed, I presume you have something in mind for her to do?"

"I do, we don't have many ships to spare to support her, but the biggest issue we've faced with the Voskar are their cloaking devices. Recent intelligence crossed my desk." The woman paused and brought up a projection. "May I present Rendos II, recent reports indicate the planet is home to a small Voskar shipyard. Notably they are building one of their War Phantoms here."

"Interesting, you want to take out the yard?"

She shook her head, "While destroying the shipyard would be to our benefit, I don't believe that to be worth deploying a ship as valuable as the Bountiful Treasure. I have something more valuable in mind, we are going to steal a cloaking device."

The woman shifted the projection to display a Voskar War Phantom, one of their largest ship classes, almost three thousand meters long, armed with massive spinal-mounted siege cannons and multiple kinetic turrets. The ship also carried high-yield particle projectors and had decent shields. They were potent warships, often used by the Voskar to destroy key facilities or turn the tide of a battle, basically the Voskar version of a battleship.

"Our intelligence operatives have determined this vessel is in the final stages of construction. With our recent victory at Iyedos and the Toral Ninth Fleet in retreat, all that stands between us and the target is the Fourth Shadow Squadron. More importantly, the ship in question should already have her cloaking device installed."

The Minara woman leaned forward, "I presume that fleet has a plan?"

"Yes, the BT will be responsible for attacking the shipyard and securing the cloaking device. Knocking out the shipyard will be a secondary objective. Now the Voskar will attempt to retrieve the device, so I've prepared several decoy convoys to serve as distractions. The BT will transfer the device to one of the convoys I've prepared and then move on to cause another distraction, to help maximize our chance of getting the cloak back to our labs for study. With any luck, we'll not only be able to replicate the technology to improve our own stealth systems, but we'll be able to find a weakness."

"Sounds good on paper, any plans for the escort?"

"Standard escort vehicles, but I'd like to keep a squadron of Yinta IIs near each convoy for rapid response. With any luck, at least three will be able to respond to any incursion against those transports."

The Minara woman smiled, "Wonderful, I'm liking the sound of this plan."

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IKS Teketh:

Tika sighed, as she watched the monitors. One thing she absolutely hated about patrols was how boring they could be. This one was shaping up to be the dullest she'd ever been on. They'd been out here for weeks without anything of note happening.

The most excitement she'd had in the last month, was a little over a month ago when they'd picked up a distress call. Sadly it wasn't anything interesting, just a poor freighter captain, whose warp drive had failed in the middle of nowhere.

The cause? Poor maintenance, the whole engine was in dire need of a complete overhaul, but the captain just couldn't afford the kind of overhaul his overworked engine needed. Sadly for him, the drive had finally had enough.

Good thing for him, she'd been in the area and been able to tow him to a starbase. The man and his crew had been rather grateful for the tow. Unlucky freight captains aside, not much else had happened on this patrol. Leaving her and the crew with more free time than they knew what to do with.

One thing about boredom was that it could be dangerous to a crew. Her battle leader had been organizing war games for the men. Something productive and for them to do, while they just sat here staring at empty space.

Part of her couldn't wait for her own shift to end, the crew had organized a gaming night, to while the off hours away. Honestly they were more exciting than shift hours, but there wasn't much else to do.

A young officer walked up to her, "Ma'am your sister is..."

"I'll take it in my office."

Tika smiled and walked off to her office. She hadn't seen much of her younger sister lately. Being out on various missions for much of the last four years had left her with little time for family, but she still found some time to at least keep in the loop with family developments.

Her sister, Taki, last she had heard had signed up for service in the fleet and gone to the academy. That had been a few months ago, just before she'd gone on this patrol. Stepping into her office, she booted up the monitor and was greeted with her young sister's face. She had lovely scales, and soft eye-catching features.

"Hey, sis. I had some free time, so I thought I'd call and see how you are doing. How's your patrol?"

"Boring, aside from rescuing a freighter captain with a bad warp drive, this has been the dullest patrol I've had."

"Sorry to hear that," said her sister, her face looking genuinely sorry.

"My boredom aside, how's the academy been treating you?"

"Well enough I suppose. I've been taking courses on hyperspace theory, they've been rather fascinating."

"Ah, I remember that class. Wasn't really my favorite, but there were a few interesting items that came up. Has your class covered Wikitar's thesis on multispatial navigation yet?"

"Not really, we only just got started on Wikitar and how she basically defined the modern understanding of hyperspace."

"Well have fun, learning about Wikitar was something I really enjoyed. Her theories on hyperspace and inversion matrices were particularly enlightening, and if you want to go into engineering, vital."

"I know sis, you've told me before. Is that position on your ship still open."

Tika giggled, "I'll see what I can do, but you need to graduate first."

"Yes, yes. I'll be out of here faster than you can blink."

"I doubt it." replied Tika before leaning forward a bit, "So make any friends?"

The other girl grinned, "Maybe a couple."

"OH? Interesting, so who's the lucky guy?"

She giggled, "I ain't talking!"

"Playing it that way are we? Come on, talk to me a little. I'm dying out here."

"I don't see any blood, and you look healthy to me!"

Tika gave her a look. "Ha, ha, very funny Taki."

"Hey it's a gift," said the girl, as something beeped in the background, "Anyway, nice chatting. Sorry you're bored, but I need to finish up here and get to class."

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She sighed, "Already? Well, have fun!"

Tika leaned back after her sister logged off. That had been the highlight of her day so far. For a moment she was given to relax when her comm officer poked her head in. "Sorry to disturb you ma'am, but we've received a blip from monitoring station eighty-two."

"Anything interesting?" she inquired as she followed the officer out to the bridge.

"They've picked something up. A transmission from the Velosa cluster, it took me a few minutes to clean it up."

She nodded, as the woman brought something up on visual. "...Repeat, we've taken heavy, damage warp drive inoperable, require.."

Tika blinked, "A distress call. How exciting, who is it from?"

"The Valorian Third Fleet, I've found seven hundred similar calls from the same area. As near as we can tell, they got caught in the middle of a class 12 plasma storm."

She winced, "those poor people. Then again they were chasing the Enterprise. Anything from them?"

"Nothing, but at this range we likely wouldn't see much of anything. They aren't easy to find if they don't want to be found."

"Agreed."

"So about the distress calls?"

"Forward them to fleet command, but I don't think there is much we can do. That many ships would require a small rescue fleet."

"Sad, but rather true. The monitor station crew said they'll keep an eye on the area."

Tika nodded and settled at her station, and once again was watching monitors. Yet some part of her couldn't help but worry about the Enterprise and her crew. They didn't deserve the misfortune they'd been dealt. Yet she felt powerless to help them. All she could do was wait and pray for their safety.