Ivan Kal - Out of the Ashes

Now she was overseeing a live test of the new drones. They have already built one squadron, ten drones of the ‘light’ variant. And with the breakthrough in FTL comm, they could now control them from light hours or even light years away. The drones were a bit smaller than the light cruiser ships, being one hundred meters long compared to the one hundred and twenty meters that was the length of the light cruiser ships. The drones had around 30% increase in firepower, and 20% thicker hull. They had no need for many things that a manned ship needed to have. And their only purpose was for battle, they only had a few access tunnels, for the purpose of repairs. There was no life support, no atmosphere. For all those reasons they managed to make the drones much more durable. Their hull was thicker, their drives bigger and stronger, and their weapons more powerful than those of the light cruisers.

And Laura was very pleased with how they performed. Each drone was controlled by a drone team consisting of four people, one in charge of the drones maneuvering, two in charge of the weapons, and one managing the sensory data from the drone and reading the orders sent from the overall commander via command boards. Each drone squadron had ten drones, and all were commanded from a drone command room on board a command ship, a battleship or a dreadnought. Each drone squadron would be commanded by a Drone Leader, who will oversee the execution of the Fleet Commander’s orders.

Laura looked as a team of ten drones maneuvered into position to attack their designated targets. Almost as one they opened fire and within minutes the slabs of metal that served as target practice were destroyed.

“It looks like the test is a success.” Commander of Fleets Oswald Mein said. He was second in command of the Fleet, Laura’s second.

“Yes.” Laura agreed.

“Did you decide who will be given the command of the Home Fleet?” Oswald asked.

“I’m leaning towards Force Leader Bethany Jones.” Laura said. The Third Fleet or rather Home Fleet still didn’t have an overall commander. They were waiting to see if the drone program would work out, and now she needed to decide who would be in command. The decision was between the two dreadnought commanders. Bethany Jones of the Prideful and Nair Hakeem of the Salahuddin. But in the end Bethany Jones was a better fit. She had experience, she was the High Prime on the Athena under Adrian during their encounter with Concordis ships back in Sol. And her scores were at the top of the fleet. Nair Hakeem on the other hand was older, and had served as the commander of one of the first military vessels Olympus built.

“It will be Bethany.” Laura added, finally deciding.

“Good, I will take care of everything.”

“Contact the lead shipbuilders, I want to have a meeting with all of them here in two days.” Laura said.

“I’ll send out the invites. What will be the topic of the meeting?” Oswald asked.

“I want them to start full construction on the drones, another seven squadrons, so that we will have two for each ship in the Home fleet. And I want half of those to be heavy drones.” Laura said.

“Alright, I’ll let them know.” Oswald said.

“Any news from the Second Fleet?” Laura asked.

“Nothing since their last update. Even with the relays they are too far away now, it takes weeks for messages to go back and forth, especially when they didn’t drop a relay in the alien system, that adds another six days to the message travel time. But they should be close enough to contact the resistance on Earth.” Oswald answered.

Laura nodded, “I don’t remember asking you what you thought about Fleet Commander Stern’s actions in the alien system.” Laura said.

Oswald scratched his head, “Well, Tomas Klein already approved. But, I don’t know. I would like to think that I would have helped someone in need like she did. But giving them that data. I don’t know how I feel about it. I know that Klein approved primarily since the alien system is on the trans-lane route to Earth. We will be sending a lot more ships through once we get back Earth, and regularly too. It is good that we build some good will before then.”

“You don’t worry that our interference will harm them? Things that we gave them can change their entire society.” Laura asked

“No, it is their choice whether to use what we provided or not to. Sure it is tempting, but it is still a choice. And everything changes. We too advanced with the help of aliens, if we didn’t find that alien ship on the bottom of the ocean, we wouldn’t be here now.” Oswald responded.

“I guess you are right.”

Force Leader Bethany Jones sat in her ready room, looking at the small box in her palm. She knew what was inside, and her hand trembled as she reached out with her other hand and opened it. Inside was one silver star and three silver V shaped bars. Slowly, Bethany reached to her shoulder and took off her old insignia, a dark green star and two bars, then she took the new ones out and put them on. She felt right wearing them, all her hard work paid off. Using her implant she started the message that came with the box.

A video prompt appeared above her table and a video message started.

“ Congratulations Fleet Commander Jones. With this promotion you are to take command of the Home Fleet. Two dreadnought class and three battleship class warships, along with one squadron of light drones. The drones are being put into production, so over the next two years we plan on giving you the rest of drone squadrons. As for your first assignment as the Fleet Commander, you will return to Thanatos shipyards to take control of your drone squadron, it will be assigned to your flagship – Prideful. After that the Prideful, the Salahuddin, and your drone squadron are to make way to the Nuva trans-station and leave for Nuva. There you will place yourself and your ships under Fleet Commander Farkas’ command. The details of the mission you will be a part of will be given to you by Fleet Commander Farkas upon his return from Nelus. Once more Congratulations Fleet Commander. ”

Bethany grimaced at the words, she was happy about the promotion. But having to place her fleet under another’s command being the first act she did as the Fleet Commander made it bittersweet. Not to mention who it was that she would be answering too. She hadn’t spoken to Adrian since she introduced her fiancé – now husband Harry to their group. She and Adrian had become good friend following their graduation from the academy, after a bit of a rough start. They were together on the Athena when Concordis attacked Olympus. And Bethany served as his High Prime when they fought against the Concordis ships. Then after they came to Sanctuary they were split, Bethany gained her own command, and their relationship evolved. They became best friends, talking every day over the comms. At the time Beth thought that they could become something more, but Adrian made no move. And Beth met Harry, she fell in love, and moved on. She knew that she could’ve handled everything better, but when Adrian declared that he loved her, she snapped at him. And since then they had no contact. She heard from Paul that Adrian seemed fine after their ‘fight’, which only infuriated Beth. She married Harry and put Adrian behind her. And now they were going to be forced to work together. Well, she wasn’t going to let any history they have together influence her actions or interfere with her duty.

She opened a file that was attached with her promotion, it was mostly more data on the drones. Most of which she already knew, but also the files of the drone operators that would be coming aboard her ship from Thanatos station. She sat in to read them and familiarize herself with her soon to be crewmembers, then afterwards she will inform the fleet of her promotion and their assignments.