When in Rome

Lieutenant Commander Victoria Yamada of the UNRV Dole didn’t like being out here, on the other side of the solar system away from the action.

There were operating under the current policy of the United Nations Space Fleet in such a situation was that if a big force was detected two squadrons would meet them. A third squadron would travel to the other side of the solar system to make sure another force was not coming in from a different direction. The two remaining squadrons would then be around protecting Earth as well as any space borne fighters and transport vessels that could be spared for the effort. If that didn’t hold, there was always Gamma Station and the various defense satellites that orbited the Earth. Alpha and Beta Stations couldn’t be much use, Alpha had no weapons and Beta orbits the moon.

This is the fifth incursion that United Nations Space Fleet had to deal with. The first one happened about a year after the formation of the fleet, which at that time included the research vessels Dillingham and Dole, the carrier Lahaina, and the survey vessel Einstein. At that time the Dole was orbiting Mars, the Lahaina was on Earth for maintenance, and the Einstein had yet to be launched. That left the Dillingham on Alpha station racing toward the incursion, taking a couple of fighters from the Lahaina with it. Luckily it was only one ship, smaller than the Dillingham and offered no hostile intent at first. They claimed to come from another star system seventy five light years from Earth and wanted Earth to surrender to them or be destroyed by superior forces. With the help from the Fodani, the Dole traveled to that star system, only to have it supernova in front of them, they managed to escape it and ran into the survivors of that system who didn’t look like at all from the first group. What it turned out to be was a group of KGB agents from the 1960’s, surgically alternated to look like aliens, who were cryogenic frozen, launched into space, during the flight there was failure in the spacecraft and it was forgotten about. When the agents were awoken they didn’t know it was 2005 and Earth had already made contact with two extra-terrestrial races the Fodani Collective and the Dicon Galactic Empire. The plot was exposed by various members of the UNSF and Earth gained a new friend when it turned out that the survivors of the supernova could actually live on Mars.

From the incident the UNSF built a network of outer markers that were placed just outside the path of Earths orbit and the fleet was increased to include three more RV’s, four more carriers and survey vessels. There were plans to add two new ship classes to the fleet, one a carrier escort and a strike cruiser. The stated goal was to have a fleet of 25 deep space ships capable of travel anywhere within the solar system. While the various governments of Earth debated the wisdom of doing this the second incursion occurred in 2006. One of the outer markers there detected two groups of unknown ships, one of them attempt to access the marker. What happened next was pure horror as both groups of ships launched nuclear devices at each other, destroying each other. A group of UNSF ships came to the scene later looking for survivors. They found some beings but none of them lived long enough to say much. As far as Earth was concerned, the only lost in the incident was the outer marker that detected those ships.

The third incursion came in 2007 from a race allied to the Dicon Galactic Empire known as the Watari. The Watari were a warrior race and want to test in battle the new comers from Earth. They had warned the Fodani and the rest of the Dicon Galactic Empire not to interfere. During the opening rounds of the battle a Watari ship managed to get real close to a Research Vessel. The Watari ship fired its weapon to the RV damaging one of the external tanks that contained water for its cold fusion reactor. While the RV lost some power in the exchange the water reacted badly on the Watari’s hull, which was made mostly of sodium. The RV managed to escape from that incident with a few minor injuries to its crew. From that encounter Earth created a new space borne weapon called the water hammer. It wasn’t much of an ultimate weapon but against the Watari it was quite effective and it did fit in with the UNSF policy of using non-nuclear weapons in space.

That policy didn’t falter later on a few months after the Watari when the fourth incursion occurred. That one another race called the Sidone used nuclear weapons to destroy the entire outer marker network, kidnap a UNSF squadron and forced them to break the defenses of another race called the Kacall. They used the threat of using nuclear weapons on Earth, which they did from time to time, but the remaining UNSF ships stopped the weapons from hitting Earth. They also managed to counter strike successfully against the Sidone vessels in Earth’s system, one they destroyed, and the other they captured which later became Gamma Station. They quickly managed to set up a tachyon pulse station to contact the Dicon Galactic Empire and the Fodani. A group went to the Kacall system to stop the Sidone, but it was too late by the time they got there, the UNSF squadron managed to neutralize the defense system. All of the Sidone vessels had landed on the planet claiming as it own. However the Kacall had the final say in the matter. They had hidden themselves under their ocean and launched all of their nuclear weapons at the landed Sidone vessels destroying them.

And Victoria wondered if Earth would do that too if this new incursion happen to defeat all what the UNSF had it’s disposal to stop them from invading Earth

“Anyone trying to sneak in?” asked Victoria

“Nothing detected so far, Captain.” said Lieutenant Danielle Jackson

“Any communications traffic?” asked Victoria

“All quiet here, Captain” replied Lieutenant Janet Carter “too quiet if you ask me.”

“ETA of contact between Cougar 1 and Zonar’s fleet?” asked Victoria

“Eight hours.” replied Danielle

“You said that two hours ago.” said Victoria “what happen the network is not working?”

“It is” replied Danielle “it’s just that Cougar 1 been decelerating for the last 3 hours and so has Zonar’s fleet. Not as quickly as Cougar 1 but they are doing their best to match it.”

“What the hell, what does she think she is doing over there?” asked Victoria

“Who?” asked Danielle

“Captain Karen Baxter of the Dillingham.” replied Victoria

“I thought you know her?” asked Danielle

“I do.” replied Victoria

“And?” asked Danielle

“She is the kind of person who pisses people off just by being there.” said Victoria.

“Really?, bad body odor?” asked Danielle

“No, just tends to over do the perfume from time to time but basically always opens her mouth, stands on soapboxes all the time, tries to solve problems, that kind of person.” replied Victoria

“And that is the kind of person we are going to send against Zonar’s fleet?” asked Danielle

“Yeah.” replied Victoria

“Sounds kind of pathetic if you ask me.” said Danielle

“It sure does.” said Victoria

Posted by Helen at November 11, 2002 7:14 PM