Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 208

(Briefing Room, Imperial Palace, INS Aurum Throni, Earth Orbit)

Admiral Han Moon-Hee strode into the meeting room, in her dress uniform, as all Naval officers were required to be when entering the Imperial Palace, except under specific conditions. It was a point of some pride to her that, even after having children, she was able to fit into her well-tailored dress uniform again. Of course, there were some additions to the uniform now, such as the increased rank, making her a full Admiral, and the new star hanging from the Naval Cross she earned during the Civil War, signifying her actions at Coldana.

There were several nods from the men and women around the table, each of them Admirals who had survived the brutal Civil War, and had been selected by the Empress to help rebuild the Navy into the institution it once was. The bloodletting in the Navy hadn’t stopped once Travis was dead. Members of his cult had been purged with ruthless efficiency, as had many senior officers that had followed him into rebellion, even if they hadn’t yet been brought into the cult. The months after the Civil War had been almost as brutal for the Navy as they were for the nobility.

High Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku sat to the right-hand side of the golden chair at the head of the table. The old admiral looked to have gotten even older since the end of the war, as the burdens of being the overall commander of the Imperial Navy were laid upon him. The work he’d put in to try and cleanse the rot from within the Navy was incredible, but it was easy to see that he was destined for retirement sooner rather than later.

She nodded respectfully to him, and to the other admirals sitting around the table, before making her way to the open chair left for her, at the left hand of the golden chair. It was an honor for an officer to be seated at the left hand of the Empress, especially when she was as young as she was, but few would deny that it was earned. She just had to prove that she remained worthy of the honor.

Once she was seated, the doors at the far end of the room opened, and a pair of Imperial Guards stepped through, flanking the doors. Moon-hee’s heart clenched momentarily at the sight of the uniform, remembering her husband who had died in the old Imperial Palace on Earth, before pushing those thoughts away. Her face had a professional smile on it once again as the Empress walked through the doors.

The Empress was now several months pregnant, and was quite visibly showing it. The news that the Empress was expecting not just an heir, but twins, had spread throughout the Empire faster than the speed of light. Rumors about who the father could be circulated wildly. Whether by design or by happenstance, most of the rumors centered around the fact that Admiral Mollen had come to the Imperial Palace during the proper time frame, and his own infamy seemed to rub off on the whole event.

Honestly, the only reason the matter of the Empress and who the father of her children was hadn’t become a bigger thing in the public eye was because of the Harvester showing up in Consortium space, and the Treaty of Helbizore being called on. All eyes turned immediately to Coldana, as the thought of something that literally ate planets to make more X’thari running loose in the galaxy made their blood run cold. When news came that the Harvester had not just been driven off, but destroyed utterly, and the X’thari forces routed, the response from the public had to be seen to be believed. The little matter of how the Empress had gotten knocked up was set aside as something unimportant, for the time being.

Settling into her golden chair with a relieved sigh, Empress Merida looked to the rest of the table with a smile. “All right, people, the ‘royal twins’ are apparently starting to take dance lessons, so I would appreciate it if we could skip past the flourishes and ceremonies, and get straight to business. Admiral Yamamoto, what do you have for us?”

The Admiral sighed, and said, “Well, the scars of the Civil War are beginning to heal. They are healing slowly, but they are healing. The logistics centers destroyed in the conflict have been rebuilt, which is greatly helping fleet supply lines, as well as civilian logistics. Some planets affected by the fighting will be decades healing from the damage.”

“From the perspective of Fleet Readiness, we are at approximately 58% readiness. If we had to, we could defend against any one of our neighbors attacking us, but if two came at us together, we would be in serious trouble. The purges made necessary by the Usurper and his cult have shaken the Navy to its core, and we’re having to do a lot to rebuild it.”

The Empress nodded tiredly. “What of the rebuilding efforts for the fleet? How long before new hulls are made ready?”

Yamamoto grinned at his Empress. “As you know, new hulls are only half the equation, though it is one we are more easily able to deal with. The overall industrial might of the Empire is unchanged, despite the damage of the Civil War, so we can replace the hulls, in time. The sheer number of hulls that needs replacing is a problem, but not one that time cannot solve.”

“The larger problem, and the one that will bottleneck fleet readiness faster than any other issues, is that of getting trained officers. While spacers can be replaced easily, with minimal training, officers are another story. The necessary character and skills required to be an officer are not something that just happens overnight. They need to be trained, educated, and molded into Naval Officers. The loss of the training base on Luna, along with the current Academy classes, hurt more deeply than we could have guessed at the time. With the purges that followed the war’s end, we are decidedly short on junior officers.”

Empress Merida nodded. “Indeed. The loss of the Luna training grounds was hard, but, having heard of the horrific experiments being run at the black sites underneath the Academy, I can’t say that I disagree with the decision of Black Star to eliminate the facility. Those experiments should never have been allowed to be started, much less brought through to completion.”

One of the admirals cleared his throat. “With apologies, Empress, but what experiments were going on there? Rumors have been going throughout the fleet, but there are no facts to be had, which makes the whole thing more enticing, especially given the ‘incident’ during the initial days of the Usurper’s campaign.”

Merida smiled. “You are talking about the ‘incident’ where a Nomad was found asleep atop the still cooling corpse of a Major attached to the black site, shortly after that Nomad lost his freighter in a card game? Right before that freighter, renamed the Starlight Raven, picked up my sister and blasted its way out of the port, before heading to Choson Ring, and starting a whole slew of other ‘incidents’?” She chuckled along with the rest of them.

“Well, I can say, and this does not go beyond this room without authorization, that there may be some truth to those rumors. The group at the Black Site was loyal to the Usurper’s faction, and had been working on research into Chimeras, and their offspring. Specifically, ones with shapeshifting capabilities. My sister was scheduled to tour the Academy, as well as a ‘research facility’, where the Usurper intended to switch a chimeric being under his control for her, providing the illusion of some kind of legitimacy to his rule by having a loyal heir.”

There were shocked gasps as people realized the full extent of what that meant. That kind of research was outlawed for a reason, after all. And using it to impersonate a member of the Imperial royal family? Unthinkable!

Merida continued, “It seems that, somehow, a Nomad wound up inhabiting the body of their prize experiment. Playing at being a simple-minded idiot, he managed to orchestrate his escape without the people at the black site realizing a thing until it was too late. The Major in question was one of his keepers, and he used his abilities to ‘win’ the ship. However, it was sheer luck that his path crossed with the woman who was intended to be his victim, and they escaped together.”

The admiral that spoke before whistled softly. “If that is true, then it explains a great deal about how the Black Star’s leader has pulled off some of his exploits, such as the surrender of Alpha Centauri during the war, or some of his activities in the Confederacy. Could any facility be really secured against him?”

Merida smirked. “I have it on good authority that the man in question does not care to use his abilities in that regard overly much. They are an ‘ace in the hole’, as he calls it. Something to use only if pressed. And, so long as we don’t make ourselves a mortal enemy of Black Star, it is unlikely he would be pressed enough to use them against us. From what I’ve been able to gather, he prefers to do things in a simpler way, as it is more enjoyable for everyone involved. And, apparently, the curse of never being able to slink off without bodyguards and not catch hell from those set to protect you is not limited to Empresses alone.”

When the good-natured laughing, and the ever-so-slightly-unprofessional nod from the Empress’s guards, was done, Admiral Han spoke up. “Actually, speaking of the Black Stars is a good way to transition to a point I would like to make. We’ve completed the in-depth after-action reviews of the experimental squadrons for the Black Star-designed ships used at Coldana and I am ready to make an initial report on their capabilities as part of the greater fleet. This could provide us with a way to temper the shortage of officers in the short term, while increasing our force flexibility overall.”

All eyes turned to her, so Moon-Hee continued. “As you are all aware, ships following the Black Star design tend to be designed to ‘punch above their weight class’, as their Admiral would say. This is only half-true. The Assassin-class, especially, is designed for stealth operations, and is only dangerous to larger forces if provided squadrons to base their tactics around. However, for the role corvettes typically play in defensive forces and regional patrols, they are perfect. They also have a crew size approximately half the number of one of our Tenhauser-class corvettes.”

“Because of this, I propose two primary uses of the Assassin-class, or similar designs. First, attaching a squadron of Assassins to all major fleet elements, to act primarily as scouts and stealth pickets when not engaged in active operations. Their secondary objective is to act as snipers, taking out enemy commanders or key assets, such as flagships or carriers. In fleet actions, they should be treated as the naval equivalent of ‘special forces’.”

“Secondly, their lighter crew complement (and therefore lighter officer contingent), lends itself to their replacing more traditional units as system patrol craft, pirate hunters, and other tasks traditionally assigned to corvettes and frigates not attached to a fleet proper. These roles are vital to keeping the Empire functioning efficiently, but they are not as ‘glorious’ as serving in a combat fleet. Because of this, we can use them as a way to season young officers away from the front lines, in roles that are not as critical as being in the midst of battle.”

“The Reaper-class cruisers and Knight-class destroyers are good at their jobs, and are well-designed for their roles in Black Star’s fleet, but it is our conclusion that the Reapers are best used as independent commands, either singly or in conjunction with other Reapers or Assassins to strike targets as we he have seen Black Star do time and again. The Knights, on the other hand, are not suitable for their designed role, as it fits current Imperial Navy tactics and capabilities.”

“Finally, the Wrath-class battleships are a force to be reckoned with. Even without the use of superluminal torpedoes, the INS Glory of Terra, proved capable of unleashing devastating strikes against the X’thari. The Wrath-class can be used to support and supplement existing superdreadnought formations. As each battleship has a crew complement 65% the size of a superdreadnought, the need for officers would decrease, as well. It would require a change in our order of battle, but by adding Black Star designs to our fleets, we would be able to move towards pre-war readiness without sacrificing crew training or morale.”

She paused, and then said, “However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that Admiral Mollen has a well-deserved reputation for well-founded paranoia. In the long run, it would be best if the ships for the Navy were made and designed in the Empire, for the Imperial Navy specifically. While I do not believe that he would do anything as crass as putting kill codes or back doors in systems sold to the Navy, We have already identified several parameters where Black Star ships used by the Navy, as well as those of the Confederate Navy, have proved to operate at lower specs than Black Star ships. This is likely due to certain aspects of the ‘retail’ version being one or more generations behind the ‘in-house’ version of those ships. Therefore, we should work on creating our own designs using inspiration from Black Star design techniques as soon as possible.”

The Empress nodded. “Have the design boards start working immediately. I want potential designs for all classes of ships based on Black Star design theories as soon as possible.”

Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter

Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X