"You did this. You caused this young man, this young officer to die. His death is on your hands, as will many others today. I have never done anything to endanger the people under my command unnecessarily. I will not fire first, but know that if you do, you will be finished. I will ensure your death or imprisonment. This fleet will go on, and it will survive, but not while people like you meddle with power."
"Sir, I have B squadron commander asking for orders. They are closing fast with Lo Yang fighters," said Vega.
Huber looked back to Huang for an answer, but he said nothing.
"Order the Commander to not fire unless fired upon."
He had not taken his eyes off of Huang.
"I am sorry we could not resolve this peacefully, Admiral."
"Sir, I'm getting a massive energy signature five klicks off the port side," said Capwell.
"What the hell is it?" Huber asked.
He looked back to Huang.
"What have you done?"
Huang looked confused. "We are reading the same signature, but it is not of our doing."
"What the hell is going on?" Huber shouted.
He rushed over Capwell's console. The man seemed fixated on it. Taylor snapped out of his daze and raced to the Admiral's side.
"What is that?" the Admiral asked.
They were looking at what appeared to be some form of ship. It had a sleek slim profile and engines self-contained within the structure. The skin of the vessel partly mimicked the space around it and blended in well enough they had to look hard to identify it as a ship at all. It reminded Taylor of some of the stealth technology used by Karadag's forces in the first war.
"Huang, are you seeing this?" Huber shouted.
"Yes, whatever it is."
"Alert all fighters, redeploy to form a wall between us and this vessel, but do not approach behind two klicks of it."
He heard Huang issue similar orders.
"Jafar, get your ass over here!" Taylor called out.
The alien quickly came to their side and looked at the screen with the same puzzling expression as they had.
"What is it? Where did it come from?"
"Admiral, I have no idea," replied Capwell.
"Sir," added Vega, "unknown vessel is powering up."
"Weapons?"
"No idea."
"Get a firing solution on whatever it is and await my orders. And get that thing displayed on the ops table so we can get a better look!"
As the screen projected before them, lights began to glow on the craft and encased it in two bands of blue light.
"I don't like this," Taylor said.
"Prepare to fire," Huber ordered.
A dazzling flashed erupted around the unknown ship, forcing them all to look away for a second, and then look back to see it was gone.
"Where the hell is it?"
"Sir, it looks like it created its own space gateway and jumped out."
Taylor shook his head. "We are not alone. This will not end well."
Chapter 5
"I want to know what that ship is, where it came from, and where it's gone!" yelled Huber.
"Sir, Squadron Commander Hunter is requesting orders."
"He turned around to see Huang was still displayed before him and waiting to see his response.
"Admiral, can we at least agree to cease all hostilities while potentially greater threats remain?"
"Agreed, but this is not over."
The transmission cut off.
"Call our fighters back, and get the civilian fleet back here under our protection."
He looked to all the officers and experts around him. Finally, he glared at Jafar.
"It's about time you came clean about all this. What the hell was that ship? Start talking!"
"I have never seen it before," he replied calmly.
"Never seen it before? Christ! You took us to this place, and you had no idea what it was and what was here?"
"It was the only place I knew there would not be a Krys colony or outpost."
"So what the hell was that ship we just saw?"
"Not Krys."
Huber shook his head. He wanted to carry on but knew he wasn't getting anywhere.
"Does anybody have any goddamn answers for me?"
"Sir, I'm getting an emergency distress signal from the Goeben."
"Put it through."
"It's an automated signal, Sir."
"Hail her Captain, and find out what the hell is going on."
"I'm trying, Sir, but they are not responding."
"What is their current location?"
A second later a live map projected onto Huber's operations table. The Goeben was moving at full speed towards the civilian fleet.
"What the hell are they doing?" Huber asked, "Try them again!"
Vega tried to hail them, and this time they could all hear the tension rise as his voice became louder and more concerned.
"Sir, they're not slowing down," said Capwell.
"Launch fighters and bring us within firing range."
Capwell looked surprised. "Sir, she's one of ours?"
"We don't know that for certain."
"Sir, I've got a signal coming through. It's faint and on a personal channel."
"Put it through."
"This is flight ...enant Chapman. We have been overrun by .... Goeben is compromised...peat...Goeben compromised..."
"This is Admiral Huber speaking. Who is in control of the Goeben?"
"The...troops, Mechs...ones...they're everywhere."
"Hold on, Lieutenant. We are coming for you."
"They're...find me...coming."
The bridge was silent as they heard Mech weapons fire, and the Lieutenant screamed in pain before he was finally silenced, and the comms channel ended.
"Lieutenant Chapman, come in? Lieutenant..." Capwell repeated.
"He's gone," said Huber solemnly, "Are we in weapons range yet?"
"No, Sir, at the rate she's moving, we won't catch her before she reaches the fleet."
"How long have we got?"
"She'll be on top of them in less than a minute."
"Give orders to our fighters. Take down the Goeben."
Vega relayed the commands quickly, and they could see on their displays as light flashed in the distance, and the fighters strafed the ship.
"Sir, Goeben weapon systems are going live," said Vega.
"Tell Hunter to do whatever he has to do destroy that ship!"
"They can barely scratch it," Taylor muttered.
The weapon batteries on the Goeben opened fire, and two of their fighters were blown apart in the opening salvo as the others banked hard to avoid the incoming fire.
"Washington, we cannot penetrate the armour. We haven't got anything that'll even scratch the surface."
"Take out her engines, anything you can do!" Vega replied.
Huber turned to Capwell.
"Order the civilian fleet to scatter. I want at least two klicks between every vessel!"
They knew it was all too late, but they had to try. Gunfire struck across the engines but seemed to do little. A moment later one of the fighters put soared towards one of the engines in a suicidal attempt to ram them. The ship ignited on impact and seemingly caused one of the engines to falter for just a moment, but it was soon firing bright once more.
A moment later their weapon systems turned on the fleet, and the crew of the Washington watched helplessly as one of the barges was bombarded with shot after shot.
"How long until we have a firing solution?" Huber asked.
"Two minutes, Sir."
"Is there no one closer?"
"Sir, the Lo Yang is closing on the Goeben and going weapons hot."
"Huang, you son of a bitch, you got there," said Huber.