Admiral Dorg sat in the fleet command chair on the Stars Realm Megaship Rossville. He had just returned from the birth of the Gardner’s baby two days ago and he was introspective about what that child would mean to the Stars Realm. He could still remember the feeling he had when the baby was born. He glanced at the status display on one of his four consoles that gave a read out on the ships readiness for jump. The Commander of the ship, Tresk, sat just below his chair issuing orders to his crew for departure within three drags. Dorg shook his head and focused on the mission he was about to undertake. He would think about the child and the possible implication of what Tgon-Gee had said later.
He was impressed with his former adjutant’s knowledge of the ship’s systems. Tresk had come a long way from being a staff officer to a warship commander and the ship’s crew was excited about the mission. His communication console beeped and he looked over and saw the two human leaders of the Stars Realm Military, Admiral Kosiev and Prince Thomas Gardner. “Good day Mr. Gardner and Admiral,” he said into his com.
Kosiev smiled at him and said, “We just wanted to check on you to see if everything was on schedule for your departure.”
Dorg was a Cainth Warrior and in the aftermath of his species being defeated by the Humans during the Alliance conflict he had learned to respect and actually like his former enemies. The Cainth looked remarkably like a four armed earth kangaroo. The main differences, other than four arms, was that the Cainth had small ears on the side of their heads instead of the long ears of the earth kangaroo and their two legs were very thick and strong which made them walk somewhat stiffly. They had a light covering of brown fur and very narrow eyes that were totally black. His species was known in the past for being extremely aggressive and territorial usually shooting first and talking later. The defeat at the hands of the humans had forced his race to reevaluate their former viciousness and come to embrace the concept of working with other races to become friends and allies. Now his race and the humans had become Clan Brothers sworn to defend and protect each other. After the defeat of the Alliance by the Humans, Cainth, and Glod, his race attained a high status among the 832 races that now made up the membership of the Stars Realm. He had taken a life oath to make up for the deaths of the human colonists that he had ordered murdered during the attack on the human colony planet Ross. His ship was named for the city on that planet where 20 % of the colonists were executed. He still had nightmares of the humans that had been killed and he drove himself to make up for their deaths with what life he had remaining. Now he was going to try and save a world that was going to be destroyed by the plant creatures that literally destroyed planets and consumed all life.
“Everything is going fine and we’re scheduled to leave in three drags unless there’s something else you want done prior to my departure,” Dorg replied.
Tag, which was Thomas Gardner’s nickname, said, “As a matter of fact there is. We want to send you two more megaships. We think that you should be supported in your efforts to contact the Dremel and we think each of the original Star’s Realm members should have a representative there.”
Dorg looked at his two friends on the display and smiled, “Is is also because if things go bad quickly there’s a better chance of at least one of the ships escaping with information of what we encountered and I might not be so aggressive with the welfare of three ships in my trust?”
Tag and Kosiev looked at each other and Kosiev handed Tag a five credit, “You’re right,” Kosiev said, “He understood immediately.” Kosiev then looked at Dorg on the display and said, “You’re possibly going into a very hostile environment and we don’t know if the Algeans have already discovered the Dremel and have begun harvesting operations. We also don’t know much about the Dremel and you’re too important to risk losing. We also think with more ships involved in this operation you will have more options on possible courses of action; it also increases the chances of survival. I have ordered two of the recently completed megaships to join you and they should be jumping in to meet you within the drag. One of them is a human ship commanded by Captain Mikado and the other is a Glod ship commanded by Ren-Bir. You will have overall command of the squadron and the ships have already completed their pre-jump system evaluations so you should be able to leave on schedule.”
Dorg had patched the conversation to Tresk’s console as soon as he learned of the two new ships and he noticed that the Commander was listening in on the communication. Dorg looked at Tresk as he said to Tag and Kosiev, “We will probably delay our departure for an additional rotation so that we can meet with the two other ship commanders and iron out our plans for contact.” Tresk looked up from his console and nodded at Dorg indicating his understanding and began issuing new orders to his crew for the delay and to get a meeting space prepared for the upcoming strategy session. “I thought Mikado was a commodore,” Dorg said to Kosiev.
“He was in the Directorate Navy but he transferred to the Stars Realm Fleet and lost a rank,” Kosiev answered. “He should make up ground quickly.”
Tag smiled at the Cainth Warrior and said, “If you think of anything else you might need, com us and let us know. We will also have thirty of the old ultra ships on standby ready to jump in to support you if things go bad. Com Kosiev with the coordinates of the Dremels system as soon and you make contact and let us know what you discover.”
Dorg nodded, “Your orders will be followed. Let us hope the standby ships are not needed. Thank you and I’ll contact you upon our arrival in the Dremels system; and once again, congratulations on your new child Mr. Gardner.”
Tag smiled and nodded then Kosiev and Tag looked away from their screen and the connection was broken.
Dorg sat back in his chair and thought about possibly facing one of the Algean fleets that had more than a hundred thousand ships. Some of those ships were more than twenty miles long and were fully armed with beams and missiles. He noticed on his systems console that the weapons officer had reported that all systems were fully operational and armed. If the Plants had already started attacking the Dremel, then all he could probably do was just jump away. The upcoming conflict was frightening in the scale of the enemy they were going to face but the warrior part of him actually reveled in the opportunity to fight the good fight. He remembered the recordings of the Plant Fleet that attacked the Pydres Planet and totally defeated them then began eating the population as they started harvesting all organic life on the planet. They had to be stopped now before they grew too big for anything to slow them down. Dorg looked at Tresk again and wondered if his ship was going to be strong enough to survive in the upcoming conflict. “We’ll soon know,” he thought.