Pike's Potential (Sandy Pike series Book 1) by John Spearman

Author:John Spearman [Spearman, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

8

The taxi that would take Sandy to the navy section of Edda Station arrived. He climbed aboard, the only passenger. Entering through the hatch into the navy section, Sandy felt conspicuous and out of place. Dressed in civilian clothing, with his hair at least 10cm longer than regulation and tied back in a queue, he looked decidedly un-navy. He went to a receptionist, identified himself and asked where he was expected for his meeting.

The receptionist did not even react to his civilian appearance. She took his thumbprint, handed him a keycard, pointed to a hallway behind her to the right and told him it was the third door on the left, marked Conference Room C. Sandy went and used the card to unlock the door. No one was present, but there was a console set up on the conference table. Sandy sat down and logged on.

At 16:00, the console alerted him to activate the conference software. He did, and the holographic images of Rear Admiral Ketyungyoenwong and a woman he didn’t know appeared at the conference table. Ketyungyoenwong opened the meeting.

“Commander, I’d like to congratulate you on completion of your assignment,” she stated. Sandy was unsurprised by her statement that the mission was completed, thanks to Ali’s warning.

“Your success with the uh, Ali Kat,” the admiral continued, betraying a slight amusement at the ship’s name, “proved that the concept works. We are going to turn the ship over to Agent Lynch and ONI now and let them run that operation. We need you and your crew elsewhere. Your crew will begin training their ONI replacements tomorrow. As far as explaining your absence, that’s why Agent Lynch accompanied you. She will take over and explain your absence is because of an unspecified accident. We planned on moving the ship to a different sector regardless since you eliminated many of the worst threats in this particular area. When Ali Kat does return to this sector, its focus will be more on rolling up the smuggling operations—a mission for which the ONI is better trained.”

“The office of Foreign Relations,” she said, nodding towards the other woman in the meeting, “recently fielded a request from the non-aligned planet Robur. Let me introduce you to Chloe Scott. She is the Deputy Secretary of Foreign Relations and will continue this briefing.”

“Commander,” Scott said with a nod of greeting. “Roughly 300 years ago, Robur began terraforming Ilex, a planet they claimed. The first colonists from Robur began settling Ilex 95 years ago. A couple of months ago, the colonists rebelled. Robur sent one of their ships, a heavy cruiser, the Esmerelda, to quell the rebellion. The Esmerelda traveled with three UHVs loaded with troops. After offloading the troops, somehow the rebels seized the shuttles, got aboard Esmerelda and then took over the ship.”

“The government of Robur is sending the Desdemona, their other heavy cruiser, to Ilex to recapture or neutralize the Esmerelda and re-establish control of the planet. They asked the Alliance for assistance and specifically asked for you.

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