Ivan Kal - Olympus

“Power down your drives, surrender and prepare to be boarded, you have—” Adrian looked at the estimated time it will take for the Concordis ships to intercept it. It showed 13 minutes.”-five minutes to acknowledge this message, or we will open fire.” Estevez sent the message.

“I have the tracks, Ship Master.” Bethany said. Rather than sending it to his screen she turned on the holo-desk. Image of Athena was shown in the middle, with its current course represented in a white line, the other ships were shown also, with their trajectories shown also but with a blue line, a red orb signified where Cloud station used to be, other information was shown, distances between the ships, and their speed were shown on a board that floated above the hologram constantly updated. Adrian was amazed at the amount of the information showed there, much more than his screen could show, he knew that Bethany was playing around with the holo-desk since it arrived but wasn’t aware that she was this proficient with it. He looked at the fleeing ship, it was going a lot slower than Athena’s top speed, but they had slowed down in order to not over shoot the station, Concordis ships were closer, and even though they moved slower they would reach the fleeing ship around the same time as Athena did.

“Did the Concordis ships respond?” Adrian asked.

“No Ship Master.” Estevez said.

Adrian turned to Bethany. “Are there any signs that are going to comply with our demands?”

“None sir, they are still moving on an intercept course towards the fleeing vessel.” She said.

“Weapons, you have targeting solutions on both ships?” Adrian asked Noah.

“Yes Ship Master.” He responded.

“Arm two missiles, fire one at each of Concordis ships, and set them to detonate five hundred meters before impact.” Adrian said.

“Yes Ship Master.” Noah said.

A moment later, two new tracks appeared on the holo-desk, moving on an intercept course towards the two ships. Adrian hoped that they get the message.

“Power down your drives, surrender and prepare to be boarded, you have… Five minutes to acknowledge this message, or we will open fire.” The voice boomed out of the bridge speakers.

Captain Reginald Smith of Bismarck, looked helplessly on his screen. Olympus ship was gaining on them, and he knew that it will catch them, that it will arrive after their sister ships did not matter. This mission was a failure, they will not be able to surrender into Concordis custody with an Olympus warship there, it will not allow it, not after the station blew up, and if they open fire on them, well, then one of them will be destroyed. Which will start a war one way or another, if one didn’t start already. The Marine Major confessed that he had orders to place an explosive device and to destroy the station after they accomplished their mission. He looked at his screen trying to find a way for them to accomplish the rest of the mission without starting a fight with the Olympus ship and couldn’t find it. The Olympus ship didn’t seem concerned with the other two Concordis ships, which suggested that they knew they could take them in a fight. And Smith hoped that Captain Dowson was competent enough to back off. This just proved that they knew nothing about Olympus, who know how much more ships they had.

Captain Smith opened a channel to the Viking, a moment later it was accepted.

“Captain Smith.” Captain Dowson said, his face held a terrible expression a cross between hate and eagerness.

“Captain Dowson, you should retreat. The mission is a failure, turn around. We will surrender to Olympus, the government back home can disavow us, and try to salvage this.”

“No, you will follow the plan Captain Smith. Turn your ship toward us, we will block the Olympus vessel.” Captain Dowson said.

“Dear god man, we are in their territory, we have already broken the international law, let’s not burry ourselves any more than we already have.” Captain Smith said.

“You will follow your orders Captain!” Captain Dowson yelled at him. There was something profoundly wrong with the Captain of the Viking. Smith looked at his crew, he owed it to them, to see to it that they get out of this alive.

“No, Captain Dowson, my ship will surrender to Olympus.” Captain Smith said, and closed off the channel. Just as he was to order a message sent to Olympus ship, his sensor officer yelled out.

“Weapons fire form Olympus ship!”

Before Smith had a chance to ask who was the target his sensor officer added.

“Two missiles, one on course towards the Viking and one at Dauntless.”

Only two? They were warning shots Smith realized.

“Comms, send the message to Olympus ship, we are surrendering.”

Captain Dowson looked on the screen watching as two missiles speed towards his ships, and exploded before hitting his ship, they were faster than his missiles, yet again Olympus technology was superior, but his sensors officer told him that they were smaller, with a smaller payload. He knew that this were warning shots, no Captain would order only one missiles fired on a hostile ship, unless it was a warning. Dowson had no intention of heeding that warning.

“Captain, Bismarck just sent a message, they are surrendering.” Viking’s comm officer said.

“They are shutting down their drives.” His sensor officer said.

That fool Smith was going to ruin everything, not only will Olympus have proof that this was Concordis mission, they will also know that they were after their technology. He couldn’t allow that.

“Captain, we are receiving a communication from the Fleet.”

“Ignore them.” Dowson said. He had no time for bureaucrats and politicians.

“Captain! Dauntless is breaking off, they are going back!” His sensor officer said.

Dowson looked at the screen, one ship, just one Olympus ship had destroyed their entire plan. He couldn’t let Olympus have this, he just couldn’t. All the anger inside him came to the surface in one big wave.

“Target the Bismarck.” Captain Dowson ordered.

“Captain?” His first officer asked.

“Target the Bismarck!” He yelled. “They have disobeyed orders, they are deserters!”

“Yes Captain.” His first officer said shakily.

“The Viking is ignoring our comms Mr. President.” Admiral Weiss said.

“What the hell is going on? I thought that we agreed that there will be no casualties!” President Von Holt said. He looked around the room they all looked at him with the same confused look that he wore as well, except for one. When he met his eyes he knew.

“Victor, it was you?” The Minister of Defense Victor Ross remained silent. “Why Victor?”

The rest of the room turned to look at him, their faces unbelieving of the situation.

“Because it needed to be done. And all of you are too cowardly to have done it.” He said hatefully. No one had ever heard him talk like this, so they were all too shocked to say anything. “If we took the data and left the station, they would have known that we took it, hell, no matter what we did they would have known, when we started catching up to them in technology. And say whatever you will about Tomas Klein, but he would have remembered, and he wouldn’t have stayed silent.” He chuckled. “Hah! You thought that you could stay his hand with the press? With public opinion? He isn’t part of Earth! He doesn’t care about public opinion. His people are indoctrinated to follow him! They wouldn’t have cared either. So we needed to make a statement, to make him remember what happens when he tries to control us. And that station was the perfect target. He built it to remind us that they were better. He all but told us “Look, here we are above you, we are better than you.” So we made a statement of our own, that no matter how high he thinks he is, we can always shoot him down. And Captain Dowson will make sure off that.”