Second Scene

Upon reaching the fortified command center Cao is saluted by the blue suits comprising of the Thessalonica bridge staff. Cao could see range of emotions in each officer’s faces. The varying degree of stoic determination while others betray the tension in their chests. The crew members return to diligently carrying out duties with a mixture of hope and trepidation.

Cao takes his place at his usual spot over a unused command terminal as lieutenant commander Victoria Hap

“What are your orders captain?” Victoria said briskly, her maroon eyes sharp and alert. Both Cao and Victoria focus on the holographic display situated vertical level below them but dominates the command center by its enlarged scope of the sector and oceanic blue aura flowing with data thanks to the satellite probe droids he had Victoria pepper around the Thessalonica’s zone of control.

Well, the asteroid doesn’t have a gaping hole in it by now from artillery bombardment, Cao muses, stroking his brow. We’d be dead in a vacuum by now before I even reached the bridge. The weight of the crew’s collective gaze dissuade him from blurting out anything too carelessly no matter how noble it may appear. Cao studies the map more carefully. The array of virtual screens brimming with surveillance data, sensor readouts and most of all the crimson dot indicating their bogey.

If only I could stop time, here, right now, to stretch this moment into eternity. Cao’s mind races with thoughts vying for reason. Most of all, I wish now more than ever I had two... no, even one destroyer assigned to my sector. “Right then,” Cao begins, withholding his urge to avoid slamming on the console by running a hand through his jet-black hair. Commodore Huey, you bastard! Cao coolly readjusts his beret.

“Our little bogey friend, what’s his trajectory? Heading away? Hovering around our incusperious asteroid. Fears dance uncontrolled in Cao’s mind, did the asteroid not hide our magnetic signature? Maybe it was the size?

“No, sir!” A officer in one of the bridge’s trench compartments reported. “I can verify from our satelitte sensor are leaving our direct zone of control at a speed of thirty knots.”

Cao shifts one leg to use as a support as he brushes his chin. I cannot say for certain we’re out of the woods yet, Cao tells himself as a caution, I cannot afford to dash hopes let alone lives. “Can you determine if they have picked up our sensors?” He asks.

There’s a brief hesitation by the officer before responding, his fingers darting across the console screen as data is processed. The weight on this man’s shoulders must be biblical. A glimmer of a smile flashes across his face before suppressing it, presenting his findings to Cao. “No sir, they remain aware of our presence. It could be they are unaware of the satellite droids monitoring them.” He glances at his green-hued domed screen again. As he frowns, the overall luminance of the bridge shifts burgundy when a new smaller polygonal red blip appears on the tactical landscape. It was heading faster than the first bogey.

Cao pulls the Beret over his eyes for a moment, shoulders slump briefly. My hopes for avoiding needless bloodshed is slipping further away, Cao says, sitting upright with a meek smile. He does what he can to calm his nerves with the heavy anticipation of a firefight.

“It’s too early to declare battle stations,” Cao said, his voice steady despite the storm of thoughts swelling in his head. He sees for himself the soup of hope and concern fixated on him. “Have we identified the origin and capabilities of these two bogeys?”

“Sir!” a officer salutes, scouring the schematics before reporting. “Bogey A is an imperial Brussels-class heavy cruiser,” there’s a fleeting moment of hesistation as the officer frantically scours over his console. A few officers can’t refrain from hovering over his screen in hurried haste. Finally the officer jumps up from the crowd, “it’s an imperial sarissa fighter-bomber, captain Mengde, sir.”

Cao exchanges glances with a worried Victoria. But upon seeing the coolness of her superior officer she tries to hide it with a stoic mask. “What is the sarissa’s trajectory?” She inquires in Cao’s stead.

“When there’s a hunting dog there’s a hunter,” Cao murmured. But could it be attempting to sniff us out, or returning to base from a previous mission? Base. Cao glances up into the fog of war of nearby star sectors. Somewhere out there was point Zeta, Cao can only wonder with newfound excitement. **

“It appears to be joining trajectories with the heavy cruiser,” the officer reported. Cao hears Victoria sigh in relief from behind him. Victoria leans in as her silk golden hair spills over her shoulders. Her maroon eyes showing certain resolve.

“We’re sitting ducks in here, captain,” Victoria says sternly. “Should I give the order to deploy chasseurs as a defensive formation and withdrawal?”

Cao begun to rapidly piece together what this could entail with the hourglass of time slipping away each crucial second. He rubs his brow to soothe his mental anguish. “Retreat would be nice,” Cao says. “However, we’d be too vulnerable in retreating, let alone sending out a distress signal to allied sectors.” His gaze dances between the threads of what-ifs and how-abouts. If only the enemy commander could be kind enough to pause for a second and let me think, Cao thought. If I’m not careful enough I’ll have to answer to God why I extinguished the souls of eighty-nine good industrious men and women so needlessly.

“It doesn’t matter how we pursue it defensively” Cao continues, rubbing his nose ridge as he continues. “We have to take the initiative here while we can still get the drop on them.”

“You’re not suggesting we leave the asteroid belt for a skirmish, are you?” Victoria asks. Her maroon eyes shooing away curious eavesdroppers. She folds her arms. “There could be enemy ships or even additional sarissa outside our satellite reconnaissance system.”

“The enemy wouldn’t be so foolish to expose a heavy cruiser in the open so brazenly in no-man’s-land like this, even if it is for a sarissa,” Cao interjects. Cao fast dives into his deepest thoughts for any ounce of inspiration for this moment, recalling all his past experience and his time at the officer’s academy all those years ago. Reeling himself from the recess of his mind, Cao gets to his feet, finding himself towering over the intrigued crew members.

Cao jumps down from the terminal console and addressees Victoria. “I will not put the Thessalonica or her crew so needlessly in harm’s way, but we won’t retreat either,” for the first time Cao smiled genuinely. “I have a plan that will involve little or no bloodshed.” It’s more of a gamble, a well calculated one, Cao adds in casually in his thoughts. Nonetheless Cao maintains his masterful aloofness for the sake of his crew. “Keep reactor power at current levels, lieutenant commander Hap I need you to get this ship out of this asteroid and advance along the edges of the belt. We’ll deploy one squad of chasseur fighter bombers.”

“We’re not deploying both squads?” Victoria asks in surprise. Cao shakes his head.

“We’ll only deploy our two aces for now; lieutenants Pepin and Alexios. Tell them to gear up and have the hanger engineers prepare to catapult their chasseurs fighter bombers,” Cao said. For a few moments, Cao seems hesitant much to Victoria’s concern.

“The second squad with the two ensigns... the Rick-Dias duo?” Victoria urges him for clarity. She glances at the holographic map at the two crimson blips darting away on an unchanged trajectory. This situation could change any moment now, Victoria thought. The urge to relay her orders swell rapidly by the moment.

Cao comes back to his senses. “Yes, we’ll have them suited up on standby. Frankly,” Cao rubs his hair and readjusts the beret, “they’re a little too eager for me because they’re rookies. I know they’ll want me to authorize their launch too. But I can’t afford it just yet.”

“Sir?” Victoria inquired, trying to hold back her frustration.

“Numerical superiority is nice and all,” Cao says, harrowed by the grim truth that his discarded advice lay strewn across his office as balls of frustration and contempt, “but two aces on the board is better than deploying all our assets in force. Nothing makes me tremble more than the idea of losing even one, but I need their superb shooting for this surgical task I’m giving them.”

Cao paused for a few moments to lean over the console table and scrutinize data as a surge of adrenaline coursed through him. Cao recomposed himself and continued. “Pilots like Rick-Dias are unpredictable and that could be to my advantage somehow---but I need disciplined soldiers right now like Alexios and Pepin.” Mavericks for sure, Cao thought, but they’ll obey.

Victoria nodded in silence, rubbing her chin. “Losing the aces is one thing, but losing our budding pilots is equally disastrous, too.” It was more recent than Cao but Victoria vividly recalled during her accelerated academic years the confederacy suffered a crippling defeat in terms of pilots and manpower at the sixth and seventh battles of Azincourt some twenty years ago. Among the casualties were her late father and comatose uncle.

“Now you get it,” Cao remarked with another beaming smile of his. “I can’t afford to let rookie pilots taking matters into their own hands, thinking they can tackle a inexperienced sarissa pilot or lose their nerve against a sheet of point defense flak. Instead ensign Rick and ensign Dias pair will scramble immediately if additional sarissa or ships appear in the fray. If I let all four scramble there’s no telling what the two rookie ensigns will do when they’re let loose in the wild. It’s best to keep Rick and Dias sitting in the hanger on standby so I will not permit them launching just yet,” Cao paused in thought before he added, “just reserves.”

Victoria gives Cao a stern salute yet energetic smile.“Very well I will begin relaying orders to the crew. There’s no point in speculating any further until the situation demands, captain Cao, inaction won’t win us this hundreds year war.”

Cao gives a nod of approval as Victoria and the Thessalonica bridge became lively as orders are barked and carried out in a beautiful dance of coordination which leaves Cao all his efforts drilling them with simulations wasn’t in vain. “Victoria, for now, take temporary command of the bridge.”

“Captain?” She asks whirling around as she finished up relaying orders. “You’re not going to brief the pilots from the bridge? It’d be faster.”

“Radio silence,” Cao said, “I need to give these two a hands-on run-through of the operation,” before he departs he gives Victoria a reassuring smile. “It won’t be long. Tell all four pilots to rendezvous with me in operations room A.” Victoria felt the urge in her chest swelling as she resisted the urge to convince Cao that this is a waste of precious time but she knew it wouldn’t do.

“Aye, sir!” Victoria’s answer is brimming with confidence and saw Cao off with a salute. “I sure hope the captain knows what he’s doing,” Victoria murmurs, brushing aside some of her golden locks of hair and shifting back to her duties as executive officer.

Cao reached the tactical operations room before any others did, except for lieutenant Alexios Pontas who arrived early. When Cao came across the ace pilot he found him fidgeting on the sofa charged up with a aura of excitement and stress. Alexios jumps up, snapping at salute before Cao ordered him at ease.

“Lieutenant Pamplona isn’t here yet?” Cao asks. The door whisked open and Pepin Pamplona came in tow with the two junior officers. Speak of the devil, Cao thought provoking a smile at the cue.

“What’s this about you not giving us the go-ahead to launch?” It was the voice of ensign Joe Rick as he pushes his peers out of the way. “You’re giving them all the glory!”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason for it,” Alexios said in his baritone voice.

Ensign Dio Diaz interjected. “There better be a damn good reason to force us through so many damn simulations without the chance to hone our skills!” Cao can’t help but lightly chuckle at the liveness of his pilots and gesture for all four to take a seat around the operation room’s circular table.

“Ensign Diaz you will get your chance to shine---just not for the moment. In fact if either one of your senior colleague perish by god will you get more than you bargained more,” Cao paused for a side glance at Alexios and Pontas, “your experience paid for at these two expense.” Stern silence filled the room as each men grapple with the weight behind the captain’s words.

The projector flicked to life as data spew forth including a detailed analytics of the Bremen-class heavy cruiser and the sarissa fighter-bomber. Cao leaned in closer, his expression serious. “This isn’t about brute force. It’s about tactics and utilizing the best of my limited resources. The Thessalonica could be surrounded and this could be an ambush---but I don’t believe for a second it is, so that’s why I’m sending the best first. Cao looked at each pilot pointedly in turn. “You know what it means to lose even one pilot; the tides of battle can shift chaotically.”

I know that better than anyone here, Cao thought, for a brief moment the man relived the nightmare of Solomon’s Island twelve years ago, when he was still a ensign flight pilot. With the squeeze of his hands Cao seemingly ejected himself from the episode and slipped back presently. Cao cuts loose a long sigh.

“If you all understand, I will proceed with your mission. Alexios,” Cao said, “you will be point-man for this operation. I need you to keep an eye on that sarissa---if it’s not recovered by the mother ship, then you are free to fire.”

“If there are additional sarissa? There could be other mothership in the vicinity,” Alexios asked in his baritone voice.

“Good question, but that is up for you to decide yourself when that chance encounter ever materializes and for everyone’s sake I pray it doesn’t. The focus is not the sarissa---remember that sarissa fighter-bombers are reliant on mother ships for anything longer than your typical skirmish.”

“So it must be out of fuel by now,” Pepin said, “these rookies here won’t have to worry about a little thing. Our turret gunners will have no problem with their point defense game. Why I’d reckon it’d be like shooting mole-rats back home,” the two elite pilots couldn’t help but chuckle between themselves.

“When you’ve determined there are no sarissa,” Cao said, “the two of you will each target crucial components of the heavy cruiser...”

Alexios, who had previously folded his arms, let them fall to his sides to sit up and examine the cruiser closer. “...you’re not having us destroy it?”

Cao raised a balled-up fist, a smirk. “That’s right, you’re going to roughen up the bastard. Nothing more. If you can,” he glances at the awed Pepin, prioritize its communication antenna. You’ve both danced with Bremen-class heavy cruisers, right?”

Pepin lurched forward to point at a spot on the belly of the holographic cruiser. “There, the bottom right. You can’t miss it, its profile sticks out like a disc so you can’t miss its profile even with the naked eye.”

“Do you want us to destroy the engines?” Alexios asked, increasingly intrigued by the purpose of this mission.

“No,” Cao answered, surprising even himself, “I have an idea for what we may do with it, and if its too crippled it will be hard to justify the losses I hope I don’t have to account for.” He take a deep breath, strolling around the men and the digital projector.

“What use could a captured heavy cruiser have to us?” the question came from Joe, a flick of his curly brown hair.

Cao gauged the eager faces of the young pilots before him as he let the silence hang in the air. This will be the pivotal moment of their futures---young industrious men whose hopes and ambitions bubble with ferocity beneath the surface. This is the prime of their youth, Cao thought, and I will not dare diminish their flames in vain.

“A captured intact cruiser can provide us with a wealth of information that even my superiors couldn’t possibly ignore,” Cao said. “If we capture this vessel this war could shorten by half in our lifetime.” Or at least just long enough for me to retire to my studies on pension and die of old age, Cao’s jaded thoughts provoke him but the thoughts are brushed away after Cao readjusted his cap.

Cao admittedly didn’t think this far ahead with the cruiser’s ultimate fate, but it was better to speak to his pilots to let him know of his stratagem in this game of cosmic chess. “I see this cruiser as a express ticket into point Zeta,” Cao leans further onto the table, sliding it eastward until he firmly tapped the name of a certain corridor. “Cannae will be free. The road to the Ishtar corridor will be wide ajar... open sesame!”

It was going to be a lot for the pilots to take in. Cao carefully examines the faces of each man trying their best to keep composed. He could see plain as day the tension in the room shifted, the electrifying apprehension shared by ambition burned wildly in their eyes. This was the crusade the Confederacy cried for enlistment: not just to fight like bloodthirsty warriors, but to win through strategy, wit, and resilience.

Cao held up a clenched up fist. “Remember this. You’re not only pilots, you’re tactical assets,” his gaze swept the room, “you’re the arrow and Thassalonica is your bow. You are the front line troopers of the Confederacy.”

But it’s time to bring them down to earth, Cao thought. The room was too thick with burning anticipation as each pilot hung onto Cao’s words. Cao cleared his throat as he kept an eye on the red glimpses drifting further along the outer edges of the asteroid belt. Maybe the enemy is investigating our satellite droids? Cao thought before dismissing the concern. “Listen,” Cao addressed the pilots again, his voice a low steady tone that periced through the supercharged atmosphere. “This isn’t about playing hero today. Don’t do anything reckless,” Cao jabs the surface of the console.

“I want complete radio silence as much as you are capable of. This is perhaps the most crucial part. I need you to exercise utmost caution until you pull the trigger. Only after you two return will I permit you to activate comms.”

Cao attempts to suppress his shaking hands. He glances at Dio and Joe, who are coming to terms understanding the titanic impossibility imposed on their seniors. The unfairness he sees in their disappointed eyes for the lack of purpose they feel---the frustration of their root cause as rookie pilots. “Lieutenant Pamplona, Pontas, I’m confident in your skills for this task. I would not send you two out on a mission like this if I wasn’t certain of the success. But I am,” a glance at the younger pilots as he continued, “the most important thing when leading men into battle isn’t worrying about how they’ve entrusted their lives to you, it’s having faith you can trust them with your own.

“Ensign Joe, Diaz,” Cao began, making them sit attentively in their seats. “I need you to stay back and protect the Thessalonica---“

“But you won’t let us deploy, sir!” Diaz protests.

“That comes later,” Cao snaps. Diaz shrinks back into his seat, digging into his flightsuit leggings. “You are my utter last resort when things go south but I intend to avoid getting into that situation to begin with. Remember this all of you: no plan is ever concrete. If they did, this hundred years war would’ve been over a century ago. Trust your instincts and communicate only when its urgent. The silence of space is deceptive and our enemy is complacent; let them reap what they sow.”

Pepin nodded vigorously, injecting enthusiasm back into the room. “We’re rearing to go, Captain! Just give us the damn order already!”

Alexios jumped from his seat, the camaraderie bursting with youthful eagerness amidst his mature resolve. “Let’s show them what we’re made of,” the man said in his rumbling voice.

Cao let a grin creep onto his face, enjoying the collective spirits of the pilots---even the junior ones who stand hopeful with their peers. “Very well then, Alexios I trust you to carry out the plan and guide Pepin with your shots. Inform the bridge when you are ready with launching. We’ll move the battle cruiser slowly, enough wiggle space to leave this asteroid. The Thessanonilca will be shadowing you and the cruiser. All you need to focus on is what’s in front of you. Understood?”

The four men shout in affirmative cheers. “Very well,” Cao said, “dismissed. And hurry to your stations in ten... make it five.” As the four men file out, Cao felt a rush of pride for the young men who rallied under his command. He was proud of each one for they were all skilled and ambitious in their own right. Cao turned his attention back to the holographic tactical. Amidst this fleeting tranquility before the storm, Cao looked back on the ominious red glow blinking erratically on the tactical map. What was once a source of anxiety now seemed much more manageable. Cao smiled, and all it took was empowering his crew. Yet, his mind still raced, calculating all the unknown dangers that awaited not just this battle, but the future.

What would happen if this succeeded? Cao thought, what would happen if we took point Zeta? Cao couldn’t resist but panning the cosmic map eastward again. What would the Confederacy achieve with these victories? What if we took Ishtar Fortress?

All these thoughts swell like a balloon in Cao’s fragile state of mind. After dousing his face over a sink Cao made way back for the bridge, his heart ever pounding every step of the way. When he rejoins lieutenant commander Victoria, she looks up at him with concern and a no-nonsense intensity from her maroon eyes drawing him in. “Whatever nonsense you whipped into those chaps, they’re like wild hogs now,” Victoria said. Cao could only generate a smile.

“They’re prepped alright, and I have every confidence they’ll execute the plan flawlessly,” Cao replied, maintaining the cool demeanor even as adrenalin surged throughout him.