19 Consorting with the Consortium by Stuart Grosse

Author:Stuart Grosse
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

(Flag Bridge, CNV Spear of Tagrun, Interstellar Space)

Admiral Gifol Warhelm was glad to be finally underway. Coldana was the primary naval base in the Grathdan Sector, so when Coldana went out of contact, gathering relief forces that could be sent was a problem. Sending individual ships was pointless, as it would just leave them to be destroyed individually. So, he had been forced to wait and concentrate the relief forces.

His Tenth Fleet had been stationed in the Helfan Sector, on the edge of the Ihm Imperium. The word of Coldana’s silence had spread rapidly through the Fleet, and orders were quickly cut for him to reinforce and relieve the fleet base, since relations between the Consortium and the Imperium were as good as they typically got for the time being. Getting from one side of the Consortium to another quickly was a minor logistical nightmare, but that is why all fleet commands trained for rapid redeployment, in the case of invasion. He had to leave much of his fleet train behind to make the best time, but he had arrived in the Grathdan Sector a mere three weeks after Coldana was first reported as going dark.

Fortunately, the Consortium was not so foolish as to place all their forces in a sector at a single fleet base, but Ekyinos was only a secondary base, little more than a supply depot, really. Originally intended as a base for forces tasked to antipiracy efforts, Warhelm knew it was completely unsuited to the task of being the launching point for his forces. Further, it was also on the other side of the Sector from Coldana. Which is why, when he brought his fleet through the Gateway at Dagon, he had the remaining sector forces rally with him at the Cadra System, along with every logistics freighter they could manage bringing supplies from Ekyinos. This would shave two weeks off the time necessary to rally the combined fleet, and an entire month off the time to relieve Coldana.

His only worry, when devising this plan of action, was the fact that stripping the Sector of every warship he could get his hands on would leave the trade fleets vulnerable to pirates who would try to take advantage of the situation. But a Fleet Base does not simply drop off the face of the universe for a lark. Something was desperately wrong at Coldana, and that meant he needed all the guns he could get, and he needed them sooner, rather than later.

The lack of information was disturbing, in more ways than one. He had the feeling of flying off into the void, without charts or instruments to guide him. Preparing for an adversary you did not know the capabilities of was a near impossibility. But if they were able to silence an entire system so completely, then they needed to be able to predict and prepare, so that he didn’t end up wasting his fleet, rather than saving Coldana.

The only good news in all of this was that the Sector Administrator had not been idle.

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