IRN Anvil

Officers Briefing Room

Commodore Drande stared at the so called Lieutenant Birges in front of him. Every ship in his command had IntelDiv officers and Marines, but they were not real officers or Marines. "These are your orders Mr. Birges. You and your people will be confined to their quarters for the duration of this mission until we return you to Loki Base. I had no choice into taking you onto my ships, but I will be damned before I let any of you actually do anything. The so called Marine, at least understands and is not making matters worse. He knows he is a Merc, the IntelDiv might put him in that uniform he never earned, but in the end he is still a Merc."

"Colonel Monroe orders clearly state.." Birge began talking again, which once again he never finished.

A side arm powering up as the Master-at-Arms whispered something in Birges ear while the Merc, Cavanah, slowly backed away from the bickereing officers. "Mr. Birge, I know who you are. You never finished Officer School on Othelia Prime. You flunked out after 1 1/2 years, at which point your records become sealed. I assume IntelDiv recruited you at this point. You never earned any rank, and since you do not understand the chain of command I will enlighten you. Niether you, your 'Officers', or your 'Marines', have any authority on my ships. We had no choice in taking you all aboard, but once that happened you all came under my authority. Not IntelDiv!! All your so called Marines were disarmed and whatever arms and armor they had were locked away. All of you will be confined to quarters in the cargo bay you were given. You and yours will be monitered 24/7 until we return you to the insane man that put you here. If at any time you and yours endanger any of my ships and crews, I have left standing orders to vent those cargo areas. Is that understood Mr. Birge?" Commodore Drande asked the Intel Officer.

"Yes Commodore Drande I understand." Birge responded.

Commodore Drande smiled before he continued "Good, because I am sure that mad dog is sending us somewhere to do battle with someone who does not deserve to die. I am certain it will turn into a shit show. Either way, when we go into battle, I become your God, Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Mr Birge do you understand what I am saying? Mr Cavanah do you understand what I am saying?"

Both men nodded in understanding. With that they were escorted back to their crew quarters. 'Jaine, how are we doing with hacking into those Merc augments. I want to shut them down when this goes sideways.' Drande asked the ships AI.

'Yes Captain, I am in the process of accessing all their Augments and I will own them by the time we get to whereever we are going. How do you know that this will turn out bad Commodore?' Jaine asked the stressed out man.

Drande 'I knew Colonel Monroe back in Officer Trianing. Back then, he was a little crazy guy with some very out-of-the-box ideas, but everything he touched turned to shit. He should have failed out but he had some family on the Admirals Board that looked out for him and pushed him through. He ended up in IntelDiv, and the rest they say is history.'

'That seems nice, what happened to the family on the Board?' asked Jaine.

Drande grimaced and responded 'Like I said, everything he touches turns to shit. The Admiral, ate his gun about 20 years ago. He was less then a year from retirenment and no problems at home or work. Yet he killed himself....Like I said it will turn into a shit show, I am just hoping to keep the body count low. What is the ETA to point Alpha?'

Jaine did the math while she considered the Commodore's history 'It will be a little over 24 hours to get to point Alpha, then 2 weeks to the Target.' Drande just stared out at the stars as the Anvil picked up speed with the rest of the Task Force. He wondered and prayed for a maricle.

Warrior-Primary Recovery/Launch Deck

Atlantis System

John watched at the starfighters did combat landings on the Warrior. The crews scrambled to refuel and rearm the birds before they were dragged to the launch tubes to sent off again. "What is the turn around right now Chief?"

"Not to bad Captain. 1 to 1:30 minutes for the Arrows, 2-3 Minutes for the Corsairs, and 4-5 Minutes on the Dragons, those bastards take a lot of fuel and munitions SIr. It slows my boys down having to cart all those missiles around, but we are getting better." Chief Adler called out. He was new to all of this just like the deck hands. He had done 15 years in the navy but never anything on a Carrier, but war time demands and they needed an experienced navy guy to run things and he was next in line for the Chiefs slot. So he drew the short straw and got handed a green crew. At least he had some time to train them before running actual Ops.

"They look like they know what they are doing Chief. Good job. Pride how are those new decoy missiles working out?" John asked the Commodore of Starfighter Operations

Pride glared at John, he disliked having the title, but it was the job he did. "They are working out well in the SIMs and real life mock combat. They can be set to simulate either a Starfighter or they can simulate being an ASM. Both are valuable and we are experimenting to see the best loadout on Corsairs and Dragons."

'Captain, Natalie is requesting a meeting immediatly. Her words are 'Tell him to get his scrawny ass back her now.' I repeat those are her words Captain and not mine.' Jeeves called out over their private line. "I am sorry gentelmen, I am going to have to cut this short. Operative Natalie has called me home, she has a priority briefing." Pride cursed as John immediatly set off for the launch bay. If she called for a meeting, it was never good.

Command Deck-Briefing Room

Atlantis Base

"So Nat, what is the story that you call me back from inspection duty that I have been trying to get done all week and finally made time?" John asked while eyeballing the top operative of the Alliance.

Nat smiled before respinding "Seal room, activate ECM. Command code Omege-Alpha-Zulu-1-5."

"Command recognized, briefing room is now sealed and ECM is engaged. Operative Carmichael" Douglas responded over the comm line. Which kinda stunned John, they had never instituted security protocols on the station, they trusted everyone here...to a certain point apperently.

"We had two pieces of critical Intel come in today. Both are for your eyes/ears only. 1, we finally have the target that the IntelDiv is gunning for, it is the Thorin System and Black Rock station. We do not know why they are targeting the system though. If it is because they have aided us in the past or they know of the link between the Xaranx and the rebellion. A why at this point is just as important as the target. I already sent a message to our assets within IntelDiv, if they can find that out they will let us know. 2, one of our operatives was approached by a Captain Teagon Summers on Trygun Prime, thought you might recognize that name Captain. He warned our operative that some of the Intel we are getting might be false and a set up. We are looking into this guy and any knows associates. He hinted that he is part of another resistance group and we are looking at that angle as well." Natalie briefed him as he looked at the HALO display that brought up both the possible target of IntelDiv and the Captain.

"Two questions, what is the ETA on Raven and Riptide strike-groups getting back and when are they supposed to launch the attack on the Thorin System?" John asked Natalie while he studied the display.

Natalie looked at her tablet before responding "3 days for the strike groups to get back and right now our Intel suggests that attack will happen in the next 2 weeks. Transit time from Atlantis system to Thorin is 1 week. Besides the two squadrons of destroyers, we have no idea what assets IntelDiv will throw at their target."

'Jeeves how long until the refit on the Chicago has been completed?' John asked his AI, while the display brought up the Light Cruiser, showing as crew memeber and engineers swarmed all over it.

Jeeves immediatly responded 'The Chicago has tested her drive and it is ok, but the Chief has stated he wanted a week to get everything up and running.'

"Ok, send a priotity message to Chief Letts and Johnson. They have 4 days to have the Chicago ready for combat. Send a message to Pride, the Warriors Flight Group will be leaving in 4 days, finish up whatever training they can at which point they will be leaving as well. Get Stein, Smitt, and Jimmy here for some planning. Natalie, I want to know everything your operatives can dig up about every captain in those two squadrons of destroyers. Maybe we can turn those captains away before the shooting starts or maybe turn them to our cause." John snapped out as he continued to plan for the coming battle.