CHAPTER 01 - Orders

DATE POINT: DECEMBER 2ND, 6 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, ABOARD THE UTRN BULL RUN, JUPITER FLEET

CAPTAIN HENRY O’TOOLE

Captain Henry O’Toole stared at the orders on his screen, running his fingers through his crimson hair in disbelief. He was to report to Earth for imminent reassignment?! His executive officer would be arriving momentarily to take temporary command until a new captain could be assigned to his ship... What? Was he being punished? The world spiraled for a moment under his feet before he pulled himself back together and accepted the strange twist of fate. It couldn't be that, he had served with honor with an exemplary record, he hadn't made any enemies in his current posting, had he?

This wasn't how things were normally done. Thinking back, just the other day, Admiral Young had told him that he had taken notice of his talents and that he was destined for great things. Henry smelled conspiracy the more he thought about it. Recognizing he could do little to fight the orders from above, he resigned himself to his fate and packed his sparse belongings into a pair of duffel bags. Starting over, it is, dammit. He heard the door behind him slide open along with a gruff clearing of the throat by his XO.

“Sir, reporting as ordered, sir.” His executive officer Patrick said with a salute.

“At ease, though, based on these orders you're in command of the ship now. Maybe I should be saluting you.” Henry said with a smirk.

“This is hardly how I envisioned getting my first chance at commanding a ship, even if it is a temporary situation. It doesn’t sit right with me.” Patrick said, looking conflicted.

Henry waved it off, motioning for Patrick to follow him. A message popped up in his expanded vision, sent through FleetNet to his neural implant.

“A VISITOR HAS ARRIVED FOR YOU, ALONG WITH A RIDE BACK TO EARTH. REST EASY, ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU SHORTLY. YOUR NEW COMMAND AWAITS, GO WITH THE FLOW FOR NOW. TRUST ME, IT WILL BE WORTH IT. YOUR PCS ORDERS ARE ATTACHED. VR – ADMIRAL YOUNG”

“The admiral just messaged me, apparently my ride is here already. I guess it sounds like I have a new command awaiting me. One that will be 'worth the wait' he says. I've had last minute orders before, but never like this. I gotta say there's something really strange about all this.” Henry stated flatly.

“Cryptic. Better than a court martial and a dishonorable at least. I don’t know what we'll do back here without you to crack the whip, but I'm sure whatever the brass has planned for you will be an improvement.” Patrick replied, smirking, as he slung one of Henry’s overstuffed duffel bags over his shoulder. Henry grabbed the other with a grateful nod and motioned for Patrick to follow.

“Nah, they'll be fine, they have you to deal with now, heaven help them. I suppose I'll know soon enough what's in store for me.” Henry said as he moved with a purpose, heading for the quick lift and stopping right in front of the opening in the wall for the ascending quick lift cable.

Henry then reached out to grab onto a loop to catch a ride on one of the long, constantly running cables that allowed crew to quickly traverse the kilometer-long ship, even in micro gravity. He rode it up three levels to the gunship bay where the ship he was to board awaited. Along the way he motioned for a passing ensign to take his bag as he prepared to meet the visitor in the next room. Henry paused for a moment to center himself, and then he strode purposefully through the doorway.

Standing and speaking to a female warrant officer stood a man who stuck out like a sore thumb in his North American Union Defense Force dress blues. He had several medals on display and was pinned with Lieutenant’s bars. What is the NAUDF doing interfering in navy business? The man broke off the conversation he was having with the smiling warrant officer after the ensign following behind Henry yelled out. “Officer on deck!”

The lieutenant jumped up and saluted Henry just a bit too smartly and with a cocky grin plastered on his face. While Henry didn’t let it bother him, it was logged away as he began watching the Lieutenant’s behavior. He could tell already that he probably wasn't going to like him.

“At ease” Henry stated coolly, staring the interloper in the eyes, and returning the salute after a long moment of appraisal. “Why don’t you introduce yourself, and maybe tell me a little more about what's going on here.” Henry opened curtly.

To his credit, the man didn’t flinch or look away. He simply smiled before speaking. “You must be Captain O'Toole, I've heard quite a bit about you. My name is Lieutenant Paul Karst, and I'm to take you back to Earth for a special briefing before you assume your new command. We can talk more in the ship if you like, I have a timetable for us that is pretty exacting. I hope you can handle one and a half gees during waking hours on the way back.”

“Son, this is the navy, one and a half gees is nothing. Might as well be a Sunday morning breeze to us. A proper screamer ride is two and a half gees the whole way, though that requires a full crew complement with enough pilots to trade shifts. Your skiff looks too small to have the extra crew. One and a half will be no trouble at all.” He looked back at Patrick, who had mirth in his eyes. Paul simply examined him without blinking.

“Good. I've had my share of screamer rides, could be worse. Combat acceleration is when it gets real nasty, once it starts breaking five or six gees that's when I start to tap out."

Henry’s read of the man changed immensely in that moment and his spine tingled while he re-examined the lieutenant. A bronze star was pinned to his chest, meaning he had survived ground combat with alien forces with some meritorious act to his name. It had been more than 6 years since human had fought human and since the United Terran Republic had been born, and almost eight years since humankind had finally forced the alien expeditionary forces off the surface of Earth and into retreat to their staging bases in the asteroid belt. He looked too young to have fought in either of those conflicts, but looks could be deceiving. Since then, the only way to get an equivalent medal would have been to join the Navy and be good enough for assignment to either the inner or outer belt fleet, but he was NAUDF so clearly that was out.

The assorted armies of the Earth had slowly become akin to the national guard in the former USA after Earth unified under the banner of the United Terran Republic in the aftermath of the invasion. Just when had the Lieutenant seen combat? Suddenly, it all clicked. Clandestine work, he’s a spook. Gonna have to remember to be careful around that one.

“Well then, Let’s be on our way. Time's the one thing we must never waste, after all. Wouldn’t you agree?” Henry asked, testing the young Lieutenant, suddenly taking as keen an interest in ensuring his own precise wording as he was in seeing Paul’s reactions.

“Naturally, I couldn’t agree more. After all,” Paul said, with unflinching eye contact, “you never can know just when it is your time to die, especially in our line of work. Gotta get it all in while you can. Right?” The Lieutenant delivered his line with crackling mirth in his eyes.

Definitely a spook. Henry thought as he stepped toward the unfamiliar ovoid craft labeled as the UTRN Special Delivery which was parked on the cleared landing platform on the bottom level of the cavernous hangar bay within the belly of the behemoth warship. It was of an unfamiliar hull type, which was strange, as Henry thought he knew every type of spaceship yet produced by human hands. The size was substantially larger than that of the gunships that ferried his space marines about on their missions and took up a significant portion of the busy hangar bay floor.

“Well said, let’s be on with it then. Permission to come aboard?” The Captain asked, partly from bowing to formality, and partially due to the fact that Paul had planted himself in their way.

“Granted.” Paul said with a smile and moved up the gangplank into the belly of the craft. The ensign and the warrant officer followed behind, as Paul led Henry to a room on the bottom level full of lockers large enough for a standard issue duffel bag to fit.

"You can take these two lockers, Captain. Welcome aboard." Paul said with an arguably sarcastic tone.

Henry motioned to the ensign who brought up Henry's bags so they could be put away. Henry turned to his XO, Patrick.

"Well, the Bull Run is officially yours, for the time being at least. Take good care of her, she's a hell of a ship and she's got one hell of a crew." Henry said to Patrick, shaking his hand firmly.

"It's been an honor, sir. I still think something about all of this stinks to high heaven, but orders are orders. She'll be in good hands, don't worry, I will make damn sure of it." Patrick said, leaving with the ensign with one final long salute before they walked down the gangplank. Henry was alone, and could feel Paul's eyes on the back of his neck.

"All right, here I am, as ordered. Nice ship you got by the way, what can you tell me about her?" Henry said, admiring the incredibly space efficient design of the small craft.

“She’s got dual Archangel grade micro Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor cores, six stacked and twisted graphene capacitor tubes, life support’s over there along with some of the other essential systems. She also has twin Telekinetic drive generators and a cooling upgrade to her Null Barrier generator system.”

“Impressive, who built this ship? I'm not familiar with the hull type, and I work with every type mankind has put to space out here.” Henry asked, finding himself slightly concerned at the gap in knowledge.

“She is an experimental model assembled on Earth by a conglomerate of surviving North American Union aerospace companies for certain, rather discrete missions.” Paul said, taking his time to carefully word his answer.

"What kind of armaments does she carry?” Henry asked.

“Bog standard multi-spectrum laser arrays just like on one of your screening frigates, just one though instead of four. We also have a small suite of assorted missile types, primarily anti-fighter missiles. Thankfully we do have a few anti-ship missiles and a launch tube for them, no nukes though. Those are a bit too tightly controlled to acquire, even for us. Truth be told, she is made to sneak in and around the fighting rather be in the thick of it.” Paul said as he motioned to a pair of acceleration couches well away from the rest of the crew.

Henry whistled. "Not easy to get your hands on any of that kind of tech right now. So, when are you going to tell me just what the hell is going on here?” Henry asked in a low, serious tone.

“All in due time, Captain. First, I need to swear you to secrecy. The proper files are already in your display waiting once we get to your acceleration couch. All you have to do is take a seat and read and give your biometric signature. It’s all there, or at least enough that you should no longer be running completely in the dark.”

Henry followed Paul over to the small quick lift that separated the lower level from the upper level where the crew quarters likely were. He then grabbed a loop and took a ride up then followed Paul over to one of the empty seats. "This one is yours, Captain."

Henry sat down in the acceleration couch and a workstation screen lowered itself down for his use. He then strapped in and manipulated the hand controls so he could read over and sign the forms.

“Classified level Omega? Summary execution for breaking secrecy!?” Henry scoffed. “You've gotta be kidding me.” Henry stared over to Paul in his seat who simply stared at him without blinking before he nodded gravely. Henry went silently back to reading after that. He was interrupted by their pilot’s voice coming over the speakers embedded in his chair.

“Jupiter fleet STC says we are cleared for liftoff. Ready to depart on your orders, boss." Their pilot said.

“Thanks Jessie. Go ahead and ease us out of here then, will you? Captain’s in a rush to get underway.” Paul replied, winking at Henry.

“Aye sir, hovering us and waiting for the doors.” She replied.

Power was fed into the primary telekinetic drive generator and its associated focal field generator. Together, their overlapped fields distorted spacetime immediately surrounding the craft, creating an artificial gravity well centered above them just strong enough to counteract the inertial forces that had held them fast to the deck of the accelerating warship. The lower bay doors in front of them slid open from the middle, revealing the colorful swirling clouds of Jupiter’s majesty and the launch indicator ahead of them changed from red to green. More power was fed into their telekinetic drive, and the focal point was moved outward, pulling the craft along for the ride and straight out the bay doors into the black, accelerating them away.

Henry busied himself by returning to his reading. He needed to wrap his head around what this "Project Exodus" and this new ship, and he needed to organize his thoughts before questioning Paul about it all. He was in for a long flight, the spook had nowhere to hide, and he had a feeling pulling information from him would be aggravating. There would be plenty of time to grill the snake over it all once he had a firmer grasp of what kind of new future he was currently flying towards. Trust me, the admiral had said. No choice now, here we go.