Novu Sol Star System

Novu Sol

Genesis City

Genesis City was large.

That was probably a bit of an understatement. The man looking out the window at the city sprawling below him, high enough clouds would regularly pass below his window, and frowned. The view was pleasant, seeing the lights of aircars flowing through the traffic grid, the sun glinting off some buildings, while greenery draped over others like a veil, shuttles could be seen as distant dots rising into the sky like man-made birds. The city stretched well into the distance on all sides, only the ocean off the the right a barrier to the city in that one direction.

"Does the high office not suit you Mr. President?" The voice was that of a woman, humor coloring the words.

President Trevor Desar turned around and gave a small smile.

"Admiral Vales, its nice to see you again."

Admiral Julia Vales, military head of the Novu Sol Navy gave a smile back to him. They had been friends for a long time, but with him in politics and her in the military, they often just fell back on whatever their current title and rank were, even in private. He motioned to the seat across the desk and as she sat down, he took his own seat, waved away a myriad of holograms that waited for his attention. "What brings you here today Julia?"

"This is more an Admiral Vales thing than a Julia thing Mr. President." She looked a little apologetic, taking off her black-visored cap. "Have you received the latest naval intelligence reports?"

Desar frowned, deeper this time. "That depends," He brought up the mess of holograms again and began to flick away them one by one, dismissing them again, but scanned them quickly. "Is it going to be here or in my queue?"

Vales shook her head. "An hour ago we got some new reports in."

"An hour? Julia I know I like to think my informants are good, but they are not magic!" He said, obviously exasperated. "Surely whatever it was could wait until the intelligence people get it written in a nice formal report and drop it on a secure pad to be delivered up here by a runner."

Vales looked straight at him, all signs of former levity gone. "It was about her." Her tone was cool and calm, the fire in her eyes was not.

Desar felt like his stomach just knotted. He took a moment to calm himself. If it was truly something big, then the press probably would have beat down his door before the intelligence report was finished. "What is it?" He asked instead. "Bad? Good?"

"Both." Vales moved her hands in front of her, a hologram popping up in front of her, she put in a few commands and then pushed the hologram over the desk to him. As he studied it she spoke. "It was on the edge of the Confederacy, a convoy of merchants and their escort were headed home, stopping to pick up one last add-on to the convoy."

"Two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and four destroyers?" Desar questioned. "What was that much metal doing out there anyways for one convoy?"

"They were scheduled to come back in smaller groups, but a couple of the ships ran into problems that delayed them, which caused a cascade for the rest of the merchants, so they all just rolled into one under command of Captain Lamoe." Vales explained. "I don't blame them, it was a fairly juicy target and the big escort probably warded off some smaller pirates that would of gone at destroyers but,"

"But it wasn't enough to scare off her." Desar sighed, rubbing his temple in frustration as he read. "From what I've seen of our navy Admiral, that should have been heavy enough to ward even her off." He suddenly sat up straighter, eyes intent on the report and looked up at Vales. "She had help?"

"From what we can tell, she was accompanied by three other vessels about the size of a cruiser, and six smaller vessels, we are still working on refining the data, merchant ships never have the sort of clarity we need, but they may have been destroyers or they may be other cruisers. No positive ID on the nation, except of course the Ionosphere."

"I still cannot believe that...woman," He spat out the word with hatred, "stole one of our Atmosphere-class battlecruisers and continues to be able to use it! She should have run out of ammo, fuel, spares, everything by now!"

Vales looked frustrated. "She has allies Trevor, you know that."

"She shouldn't!" Desar got up to pace his office. "You would think a fucked up lunatic like that would be one no one would want to mess with, to immediately report on, drive off, turn away, kill!" He let out an angry breath, glaring at a painting on the wall of the Founding President of Stellar Democracy he helped run. "But no, all those governments have to be completely insane themselves, thinking they're so cute and innocent when we learn about what they are doing and deny her being there when we have reports, sensor readings..."

"I know what you are going to say, and I've said it a million times to everyone else, if we go on a crusade snuffing everyone else out, not only are we going to have to stretch our naval assets way too thin to cover the area needed, but trade will be ruined, people will hate us, the taxpayers will complain about increased war costs, other nations will get into arms races the second we 'raise the banners' so to speak, and it will be a giant clusterfuck that will probably vote you out of office." Vales sounded disgusted with her own logic. "We will get her one day Desar, but we cannot be swinging sledge hammers at fruit flies."

Desar came and sat back down, swiveling his chair around so he could stare moodily out the window at Genesis City. "So what part of this is good? None of your warships survived, and all but two merchants got away."

"It was the damage done. From what we have, we can see that the warships took a sizable chunk out of Ionosphere, and lamed her helpers, whoever they belong to. She'll need to retreat to repair, there might be a good chance if we send some, say, 'escorts' with merchants to Empire of Callisas, we might find her there, you know very well how deep she is in their pocket."

Desar didn't turn back around but nodded. "If you think it can work, I'm not going to overrule the naval officer here." His voice was still filled with anger, but a note of glumness had snuck in there too.

"What else is bothering you Trevor?" Vales voice softened, she walked around the desk to stand beside his chair and stare out the window. A white cloud momentarily overtaking the building, blocking the city out with a fine monotone white.

"Have we figured out why?" He asked softly. "Do we know and I haven't been told?"

"No." The answer was short, but Vales didn't look away from the window and the cloud currently blocking the view. "Until we capture the ship itself, until we capture her..." She paused, "We are doing the best we can Trevor but remember even with her crimes, we can't be everywhere, we can't do everything."

"3.5 billion. I still hear the screams from the Centurion IV recordings Julia." Trevor sunk a little lower in his chair, hands covering his face and muffling his words. "And the plea for help. I was just a low level bureaucrat then."

"And I was just a Rear Admiral, getting ready to go speak with my superiors about a posting here at Government Central." Vales said bitterly as the cloud finally passed and revealed the city again. "We all saw the news reports. By now everyone that can use the holonet has probably heard the screams too." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "We will find Desson, and we will bring her to trial, I swear it, but we cannot let blind revenge make us do things which could cause our downfall."

Desar sat back up, fixing his shirt and nodded. "I trust your judgement Admiral Vales." He gave a bitter smile. "I do Julia, I swear. I just wish that it could be so much easier to bring her in."

Vales just nodded and stared out at Genesis City.