Incursion Vector

016

[▲] Volga Station, Sol System Terminus Shock

"You did what?"

Through his presence as a holographic projection comprised of blue and red light, Doctor Cooper Russell smiled almost childishly at the two people assembled for the emergency meeting of the High Command Special Engagement Council. Normally there were a dozen officers of various ranks and postings that would sit for one but nearly all had been called before Congress to testify that the alien forces which had nearly destroyed the Tycho Brahe and assaulted the Heinlein were, in fact, hostile. Following the announcement of the battles to the civilian populace there had been a groundswell of public opinion in recent weeks that suggested the aliens had been downright offended by the Navy's warships and were responding to the apparent threat in kind.

Word of the Tiaha Migrant Fleet ambush and near-massacre had not yet become public knowledge, but Cooper doubted that it would change anyone's mind when it did. As far as most of the public was concerned, the migrant fleets were free-ranging pirates whose ancestors had been rightfully driven out of the Sol System during the Jihadist Conflicts. No one knew or cared that most of the migrant fleets were comprised of the descendants of people who wanted nothing to do with the radical factions and left to preserve what they could of their history and culture from the systematic purge that followed. The extremists that had remained and continued a quarter-century of sadistic urban warfare until the last man literally blew himself up continued to taint public opinion centuries after he'd been pressure washed off the remaining walls of the Alliance Federal Courthouse.

Sometimes Cooper was glad he took his psychiatric discharge from service when he did. He could just grin and pretend he didn't give a damn about all of that bad blood—because he didn't, really, and he never had. All that mattered was humanity as a whole, not its divisive religions, pride and politics. He liked to believe they would be a lot farther as far as galactic expansion went if people hadn't insisted that Earth was the center of the universe for over a thousand years and persecuted anyone who thought otherwise.

Then again, they would have run across the aliens hundreds of years earlier, without the centuries of sporadic warfare and arms races which had fostered the development of the technologies that allowed them to stand a decent chance against them. It was a quandary, to be sure—but not one he was going to waste brainpower on.

Instead he decided to irritate the normally smug officer across from him. "What was that, Commodore? I don't think the Centauri colonies quite heard you."

"Knock it off, Russell—you deployed the most advanced fighter in our Navy to be carried on board the vanguard ship of a fleet we have tissue paper non-aggression treaties with,” said Command Admiral Wills, somewhat amused at the absurdity of the entire proposition but much more restrained about it than the council member who had nearly thrown his chair through the man's hologram in outrage. "Thought SEC wouldn't notice?"

“MSC Sirocco is currently under the overarching command of your granddaughter, Admiral." He flapped his had dismissively at the tall, thin man. "Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?" snapped Commodore Porter, his face flushing scarlet at the doctor's insolence. "We put five years and over fifty billion credits into that fighter and it's sitting in an enemy hangar!"

"Don't forget we also lost a very good man."

The assembled commanders hushed themselves as the tall, thin form of Captain Lyall MacNamara, the lowest ranking officer in the room, appeared within the circular projection field at the center of the ring-shaped boardroom table. Since she outranked none of the officers seated around the table itself no one saluted her, but they nodded in her direction in acknowledgment. The woman always did have a commanding presence even when projected from parsecs away.