Con-Red: Recourse Page 4

  It was towards the end of this era of turmoil that Brinek Stelle began his service to the Federation, following the path his parents had taken before him. The war changed him from a young troublemaker to a damn fine soldier. A soldier that excelled at every challenge thrown at him and one that used his experience as wisely as possible. Before the war’s end Brinek knew what his calling in life was and that new found path led him to an Army Special Operations Unit. Within this branch of the Army there was no shortage of battles to be fought. Even with the Entechs finally contained, new conflicts continued to arise both within the Federation and throughout the Independent worlds. Conflicts in need of more surgical interventions, something the Army was not equipped or trained for, but SOUs were.

  It was on one of these nonpublic interventions that Brinek received his major head lacerations and got his first major chance to command a company sized Special Operations Group. The Group was made up of three different SOUs for that particular mission with the overall objective being the dismantling of large pirate organization on a long forgotten world. It turned out to be an elaborate ruse, however, created by the pirates to draw in UPF military forces. They were ambushed the moment their assault shuttles dropped into the atmosphere. In the midst of this initial attack their commanding officer was perished and the rest of the company crash landed on the barren planet. Without a second thought Brinek took command of the remaining operators and organized a defense that withstood almost a constant assault for two days until an extraction team arrived. In the end, under his direction, the nineteen remaining members of the group killed or wounded a hundred and twenty-six of the enemy. That was also the mission that propelled the then captain to a major and to the command of his own company.

  It didn’t take long for Major Stelle’s experience and natural given talents to advance him all the way to Colonel and then finally Brigadier General. As a Brigadier, Brinek was reassigned to the 4th Rapid Reaction Combat Brigade, 325th Infantry Division. The 325th ID and 4th 2RCB, in particular, were exceptional warfighting elements of the UPF Army and had been around for centuries. Throughout his time as their commander they were involved in every major conflict having to do with the Federation, earning them all a distinctive reputation, a reputation that had started to be tarnished by the political appointment of the previous General in charge. His predecessor had been foremost a political officer with hardly any actual combat experience. Because of this the performance and readiness of the 2RCB declined steadily to the point where the actual battalion commanders petitioned for a replacement. Finally, after a dismal performance during a series of wargames, the Divisional Commander transferred General Stelle into the unit.

  Brinek accepted the position with much gusto, even though he didn’t take getting transferred out of Special Operations lightly. Nonetheless, he was determined to make the brigade as great as possible. He challenged his men as well as himself to turn the 4th into the first rate unit it had always been and win the next wargame scenario. The things he learned during his stay with the SOU helped to develop an intense training program that took the almost last place finishers to first in only five short months.

  It didn’t take long for the men and women of the 4th 2RCB to grow respect and admiration for their commander. His accomplishments over the years spent with the brigade did not go unnoticed and when the divisional commander confirmed his retirement, General Stelle was promoted to his vacant position. Major General Brinek Stelle found it a new, but welcome challenge to command an entire elite division. As with the 4th he helped to bring in enhancements that made the brigades more effective and deadly. The division became one of the finest units within the UPF Army through hard work and exceptional leadership. Its readiness came not a moment too late during the Odyssian Crisis as the entire Federation military geared up for a full out war. Brinek knew that his division would be thrown into the frontline of any conflict because that is what they all trained so hard for.

  The Crisis took hold not long after the destruction of the Hand-in-Friendship facility, when naval forces were dispatched to the region in order to hunt down those responsible or at least locate a planet from which the Odyssians, as they were now called, launched those unprovoked attacks. When none of those forces were heard from again a panic ensued through the civilian leadership and Federation population. In order to restore calm and confidence the government granted the military a temporary increase in powers to deal with the situation and granted all the funding they asked for.

  Frontiera, one of the Frontline Twins, as they were called, evolved out of this militarized era. It, along with the world of Kapricara, became the first planets to be taken in the Fringe Sector Expansion Phase. These were planets outside Federation territory and were meant to be a deliberate push into what was thought to be Odyssian territory, not only to test the enemy, but also to give the public a small victory. A delicate frontline was drawn across space at the very edge of the Fringe Sector with Frontiera at one end and Kapricara at the other. Other minor posts were also established across this line with monitoring stations and small bases, which could be reinforced from either of the Frontline Twins, which became the first garrison worlds in the United Planets Federation. These worlds were specifically developed for military purposes and run completely by the Federal Ministry of Defense. They were each settled by hundreds of thousands of military personnel and were guarded by Naval Fleets. In the event of war it was thought that these planets would act as buffer zones to draw the enemy in and fight them long enough to buy time for the rest of the Federation to gather its forces for a counterattack. Special facilities were also built to allow the worlds to function as jump off points for a planned full scale invasion of Odyssian space.

  The invasion never happened, however, as the civilian leadership slowly resumed more and more control over the military planning process. It was thought to be a better idea of leaving the Odyssians alone and preventing an escalation of war that could cause the deaths of many more Federation souls. While the government and military debated on the course of action, criminal elements within the UPF took the opportunity to expand their control and cause as many problems as they could. Pirate attacks against civilian and military targets increased, as did terrorist attacks. Some small colonies were even taken hostage before anything could be done.

  With the military busy preparing for a larger conflict, Brinek’s 325th ID was called on more than ever to response to these threats and attacks. The division deployed almost continuously and their years of intense training paid off many times over. Every brigade and battalion came out victorious even though they fought on foreign terrain in almost all engagements. The Major General could not have been more proud of his men and it was also because of their accomplishments that the military brass awarded Brinek his next promotion. Lieutenant General Stelle was finally given an entire Corp of his own.

  As General Stelle walked down the corridor he let out a small smile in remembrance of the years he had spent in command of XXV Corps. His military exploits helped to shape and define him as a soldier as well as a man. There had been a great many hardships over the years, but never a single shred of regret. Those tribulations had given him character and had taught him some very important lessons, which he could now pass on to the men and women under his command. Genernal Brinek Stelle was not about to make the same mistakes that the former commander of the Frontiera Garrison had made.

  His changes took some soldiers by surprise and spurred a sort of unvoiced disdain for the general. These men and women had become accustomed to simply going through the motions of being soldiers and enjoying long holidays in between. Because of this, they were getting soft and unit performance had dropped drastically over the years. Brinek was a fan of real-life training wargames and what he witnessed from the first one he conducted upon his arrival infuriated him, even if he kept the frustration in check. From that moment he instilled a complete retraining program on the entire planet. To help with the task he transferred elemen
ts of the 325th ID to Frontiera, along with his best instructors, so that they could lead by example.

  It took a good deal of time to get the units stationed on the planet back into fighting shape, but in so doing the attitude of the soldiers began to change. As they got better and more proficient at the various training operations, they began to appreciate what General Stelle was all about. If war descended on them now they knew that they were much better prepared and their confidence in facing any threat increased proportionally.

  The faces he saw in the hallway were different now. When he had first arrived to the garrison world they had been mere children playing war, now they were all men and women, having faced some of the toughest challenges he could throw at them. Everything about them was different now. They had a warrior swagger and you could see the maturity in their eyes. One of these soldiers, a young man in his early twenties, was kneeling beside the corridor wall, check some of his gear, when he noticed the General and quickly bolted up to stand at the ready with his arms behind his back.

  “Carry on soldier.” Brinek smiled and nodded in acknowledgement at the man as he passed by at his somewhat quickened pace.

  As they closed on the Tactical Command Center the number of visible personnel seemed to increase with each step. Of them were familiar faces that he had grown used to seeing over the years, while others were completely unknown to him. Simply thinking about the identity of these soldiers initiated a database search by his Neural Cognitive Implant. It seemed almost instant to General Stelle when the ID, along with a simplified profile, appeared within his visual field. He had been implanted with the NCI soon after his transfer to Frontiera, but he was still trying to get used to the idea that his thoughts were being constantly read, recorded, and in some cases acted upon. Brinek had to admit that the appeal and usefulness of such a technology was tremendous, but only the younger generation could really utilize it properly. To him it was simply an annoyance, probably because he had lived his whole life without it.

  Another use for the NCI quickly presented itself as General Stelle and his two protectors approached the end of the corridor, where a solid metallic wall existed, surrounded on either side by a pair of security stations dug into the solid bedrock of the mountain. At a preset distance from the obstruction the automated security system registered the presence of an NCI and issued an identification challenge. A red pulsing icon instantly appeared within Brinek’s vision before quickly changing to green as his neural implant automatically relayed his authorization code and an imprint of his neural pathways in response to the challenge. With each person having a different neural pathway pattern and the near impossibility of replicating one, it was one of the more secure methods of identifications. Along with all this information the NCI also transmitted its own distinctive serial number.

  It was a lot of information, but the Frontiera TACCOM was a highly secure facility for obvious reasons. The sophisticated Operational Data Analysis/Assistance system within the base was part of the recently upgraded Kalka Strategic Artificial Intelligence, a system that helped manage the entire facility as well as easy coordination between other bases throughout Frontiera. This new system went through information so quickly that General Stelle didn’t even have to slow down as his security clearance was confirmed and entrance to the nerve center of Fronteria’s military operations was granted. He continued to approach the bluish-gray barrier in full stride and saw a small seem appeared at the very center, which quickly expended vertically towards the ceiling and floor. This rupture grew wider by a couple centimeters before ceasing and with that function complete, the barrier quickly parted into the opposing walls to reveal a large semi-hexagonal room.

  “Good morning General,” a simulated female voice said as he entered TACCOM.

  “Hello Kasai, how is everything this morning?” General Stelle queried the artificial intelligence.

  “All internal systems operating at optimal levels sir,” Kasai replied in her ever pleasant tone, “however, all outside wireless data streams have been interrupted.”

  In contrast to the outside corridors, the room was bustling with activity and every row of monitoring stations was occupied. Along the outer perimeter wall of the room was a single large display screen that was actually painted on top of the wall surface. Brinek saw that at the moment the screen was split into five different views, each displaying different data. The center section contained the largest window, which showed an image of the entire planet and the vast network of satellites that surrounded it. He had seen that image hundreds of times before, but instantly noticed the single errant factor. At the top left corner a lone icon pulsed slowly in a red hue, “Failed Signal Attempt”.

  “Sir, sorry about getting you up this early,” came a familiar deep voice from Brinek’s left side.

  Brinek had known the imposing man for almost a decade now so there was no reason why he shouldn’t be accustomed to the voice after all that time of working together. They had first meet and served together in the 4th 2RCB before being promoted, almost at the same time. Brinek went on to command the 325th Infantry Division, while Lakler advanced to a company commander. General Stelle had witnessed a similarity to himself in the young officer and had taken it upon himself to become the others’ mentor. Through the years they moved up the command chain together and when Brinek took the position on Frontiera, he brought Colonel Lakler with him as his Executive Officer.

  He smiled a bit at the other man’s remark and slowly shook his head while lifting his hand up to silence him, “not a problem Colonel, give me a SitRep.”

  “Yes sir. Around 23:45 we lost contact with the Fredriksburg Battle Group. Five minutes after that we lost all comm transmissions and sensor feeds,” he pointed towards the large display board, “as you can see all signals are down, sensors on and off planet and all communications. The effect seems to be across all the frequency spectrums.”

  “Could it be a hardware issue? Are we the only facility affected?” General Stelle inquired, but his instincts were already starting to kick in and his slightly sedated state disappeared almost instantly.

  “We had Kasai run a complete series of diagnostics, General, and no irregularities were found in any of our communication systems. Just to make sure, however, I had the techs replace some of the most critical internals, but the problem still persists. We can’t reach anyone. It’s almost as if all our TacNet relays went offline at once,” the Colonel reported as he punched in commands at the glowing counsel before him.

  Part of the wall display changed and the General recognized it as a chart of all communication traffic to and from the planet. Being a military garrison all communications had to go through military hardware, whether it was armed service or civilian in origin, where they could be properly filtered in order to make sure that no unauthorized information was leaked from the planet. As such, all communications transmissions were logged.

  “As you can see, sir, everything was fine until a certain point in time.” The Colonel paused and looked at the General, who suddenly had a slight look of surprise on his war hardened face. “At that instant, all transmissions simply ceased. Every outgoing as well as incoming signal simply drops. We tried to run diagnostics on the satellites, but none of our commands are getting through. Physically they are still in orbit, just unresponsive.”

  “SpaceCom?” the General uttered in a one word command.

  The response was immediate as the display before them shifted to an image of space. The three dimensional image was a compilation of data from different sensors stationed in orbit around the planet. At the center appeared the rotating body of Frontiera, which was surrounded by various rings of satellites and a single space station in high orbit. Beside these relatively stationary objects were ships of different classes moving to and from the planet. Some were freighters bringing in needed goods, while others were shuttles transporting civilians and military personal.

  As the image zoomed out smoothly the other planetary bodies
making up the solar system appeared. Between the two furthest out planets materialized two naval taskforces opposite of each other. One of was moving towards the system’s core, while the other seemed to be arranged in a defensive formation trying to block its progression. At the head of the defensive formation was a large ship, the largest of all present on the battlefield, the FNV Fredriksburg.

  The sensor data was clear enough to show almost every movement made by each ship. Some were changing position in their formation, while others seemed to be drifting further apart. Without warning new contacts, much smaller than the rest started to appear, started to stream from the large cruiser leading the defensive line as well as its flanking destroyers before vectoring towards the opposing formation. These were quickly identified as Federation AF-103C DragonFire assault fighters, each one probably older than the pilots flying them, thought the General as he observed the data being projected for him. The DragonFires had at one time been the pinnacle of Federation engineering, being the combination of a frontline fighter and a light bomber. They were designed as a multirole platform in order to simplify deployment and procurement, replacing three older fighter and bomber craft with a single unit. Over many years the AF-103 had grown into the most widely used and produced fighter in the Federation arsenal, with multiple versions and updates added throughout its lifetime to keep it viable against newer threats. Their missions ranged from convey escort to planetary defense to space deployment. Even heavy cruisers used them in order to increase their firepower and give them much needed anti-fighter support. Frontiera itself had a compliment six reinforced DragonFire wings, allowing it to deploy over two hundred fighters for battle.

  Back on the display, the fighters formed into a delta formation and accelerated towards the head of the assaulting group. Just around the midway point of their flight, both groups instantly veered right and reformed into a single formation. At the same time both taskforces did the same, breaking their battle lines. The whole display went dark a second later.