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THE BATTLE FOR CENTAURI PRIME, DAY 1

USS Alexander; Admiral’s Quarters
The Sol System, en route to Sol-Alpha Centauri jump point
AUG 22 2416/2416.234; 1830 Hours (FST)

Fleet Admiral Frederick Tolwyn rubbed the drowsiness out of his eyes as he studied the tactical data shown on his flat-screen desk display. For the last hour or so he had kept busy carving out a mental image of his fleet against the Confederate forces.

In his hands he had his own powerful Union-class battleship, two other sister ships, and three other Minotaur-class escort battle wagons. It was a fair enough force for dealing with Alpha Centauri’s weak joke of an armada.

The Terran Federation of the WEC had numbers, time, and resources. The Confederacy had valor, guile, and perhaps history. But that was all Frederick was prepared to give them. He was the spearhead figure dedicated to ending a war, invested with a fleet of the most threatening vessels the modern age had at its disposal and capable crews to perform his task. Most of all, above all else, he was ensuring and restoring peace. Good fate was on his side. When he won the war, he was looking forward to being marked down in the history texts as a legend, right beside his forefathers. However, he wasn’t in this whole thing to become an archetype.

This situation, a time of civil war, had drawn a bad image of the World Economic Consortium before its people. It told the people that problems were evident, that something was wrong in the way things were run and the status quo was broken. While the WEC spin-doctors, with the appropriate propaganda, turned the Confederacy into a disorganized division of renegades with dreams of absolute power before the public eye, the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Tolwyn himself, and a few others knew of the truth...

The enemies had a sound cause. They were opposing Martial Law. They wanted trials and due process, and they believed no single person had the right to become judge, jury, and executioner.

The Confederacy and free reign be damned, Tolwyn thought. A sound cause, maybe, but at this time it was a foolish one. Martial Law was needed on Earth colonies; otherwise chaos and disorder would root its way up toward the President himself. Any military official found to be abusing the rights Martial Law gave them would end up in prison. The system worked, and for those people who thought it didn’t... they could just join the Confederacy and place their respective ass on a platter.

The Confederacy was looking for a fight where there wasn’t one. Therefore, instead, they made up a fight. Now, Tolwyn thought to himself, they will pay all too dearly for their mistake.

USS Alexander; Tactical HQ
1903 Hours (FST)

The commanding officers of Tolwyn’s fleet were present, waiting for the meeting he called for to commence. The five were seated around a large, oval table with a smooth, brightly under-lit surface. Placed on the table were handheld display devices, reading figures and statistics about the Alpha Centauri System, Confederate forces and the like.

In the front of the ovoid room, the double doors rolled open, with Fleet Admiral Tolwyn entering while carrying a thin briefcase. "It is good to see you all here on time," he said, circling to the vacant end of the table and placing his briefcase on it. He clicked it open, pulling out a crystalline data-rod. "We can now begin." Tolwyn took a moment to glance at his subordinates in the room.

Admiral Edward Antamura served as commander of the USS Hiroshima. He was an extremely tall man; almost a full head higher than what Frederick himself stood as. He served a pivotal role in the Venus Engagement in the Terran-Yan War, and deserved every letter of his nickname: Blood-n-Guts. It was a nickname passed down through the centuries given only to those who truly, truly deserved it. Edward had a thick gray goatee, with a short and precise crew cut on the top of his head. The Fleet Admiral constantly wondered why Blood-n-Guts hadn’t been chosen to head this historical campaign, but then again, Tolwyn wasn’t one to question the President’s choices.

Seated across from Antamura was a well-built chap whom looked to have originally been in the Marine Corps. His name was Samuelsson, captain of the Saratoga, a man far too young to have eyes looking so bathed in violence. He possessed a consistent, quiet anger that he dared never to show through any actions to his superiors, but Tolwyn knew it trembled within him nonetheless, waiting to relieve itself at a moment’s notice. Once an idealistic, quiet child who had spent much of his youth trying to rebel against everything from schoolwork to his parents, Tolwyn could relate on a similar level.

John Samuelsson was as bald as a newborn infant was, his white scalp matching his pale skin. No uniform could hide the muscle tone John possessed. As he was threatening in appearance, his mind worked as fast as a cheetah on steroids. In the Fight for Europa, Samuelsson had destroyed three "Yan Cans" with his outclassed escort cruiser and a handful of fighters. His greatest allies were his determination, his guile, and his loyal crew that would undoubtedly follow him into fire, through hell, and back out again all while singing a I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General.

Surprisingly, two brothers had been assigned to this campaign. Far more surprisingly, these two brothers both had their own commands. The commanders Victor and Sean Riley commanded the Sterling and the Preeminent, respectively.

Victor was short with a crop of slick blonde hair. He wore a pair of black gloves on both hands, which made Frederick wonder a bit. To complement his blonde hair were his blue eyes that resembled ice picks in several respects. Along with the rest of Victor’s face was his long, sharply defined nose.

Sean and Victor looked enough like each other to be considered brothers without fully knowing it. Sean had black hair with the same eyes as his brother. His was taller and a bit thinner and less muscular.

Last and not least on his fleet roster, Jefferson "Jeff" Eisen sat at the other end of the table, crowning his fingers. Captain of the Exemption, he was an average man, with about the same height and build as Tolwyn himself, though he was some fifteen years Tolwyn’s senior. He possessed a stoic face, and didn’t say much. He only spoke when he had a point to make.

He balding with white hair, with his thick sideburns coming down his face surrounding his immediate mouth area, forming a heavy goatee. From what Tolwyn knew, Eisen had neither any glorious victories or a stupendous career at large. His name was mentioned a few times in the bulletins of the Terran-Yan War, but it was nothing to write home about, really.

Tolwyn popped the data-rod into the info-jack on the holographic emitter set in the middle of the table. It lit to life, showing a three dimensional diagram of the Alpha Centauri System. Centauri Prime and the entire Confederacy’s other conquests were marked in red. Several tiny red dots were scattered around the Sol-Alpha Centauri jump point, the fleet’s destination.

"In three hours we will be entering our target system. We expect heavy resistance. What they lack in power they make up for in size, so we are on par.

"Right as we make our entrance we can expect to have some trouble on our hands. Since they took Centauri Prime, we have every reason to suspect the Confederacy has placed some proximity mines at their porch." It was what Tolwyn would do were he in command of the Confederacy fleet. "However, due to the amount of time we have given them since they took the system, it would reason to say only a sparse field, if any, would be up by now. To counter this, we are sending all of our fighters in full throttle. They will disable the mines and any other resistance present, than await our arrival.

"From there our group shall split up. The Hiroshima and the Saratoga will be deployed with the Preeminent and the Sterling holding flank, respectively. Aike, led by the Hiroshima, shall deal with the outer defense perimeters, including planetary bodies and enemy installations. Bike, with the Saratoga, will deal with the inner defense perimeters. All of you will perform your missions while First Strike, the Alexander and the Exemption, blaze a trail right to Centauri Prime itself. By the time you four finish, join us at Centauri Prime and help us out halfway into the battle. Questions?"

Eisen spoke up, and Tolwyn listened with curiosity, "Swift and brutal justice, Admiral? A simple three-prong incursion on the system and to Earth we return with ticker-tape parades?

"Why don’t we release a few of the inner colonies from Martial Law, for a little while, just to see how it goes? If the civilizations start to crumble, Martial Law could be restored. It is a simple procedure, not as costly as military action, and definitely with fewer casualties.

"These people beckon for freedom, Admiral," Jeff pressed, clearly the only voice of opposition in the room by the blank stares he was getting. "They do not want bloodshed, nor vengeance... just freedom. Christ, they aren’t renegades or war-hungry vigilantes; they are our brothers and sisters with the same hopes and dreams that we have when we look up in the night sky. We haven’t even tried the option I just presented, and the brass wants to wipe out the Confederacy like... like some kind of plague? If the Confederacy is a plague, it’s our plague, one that sprung from promises and lies that came from our superiors during the Yan War. Don’t kick the horse in the ass before riding it, Admiral. Think, sir, really think... who is really wrong here, them... or us?"

Admiral slammed his briefcase shut, resting both his hands on the table and looming over it. "I suggest you bite your tongue, Eisen. There is treason to your words."

"No. There is truth to them, Admiral, sir, and you know it. You of all men should."

For a few seconds Admiral Tolwyn was quiet, regaining his composure as he considered the man’s words. "If we release even one world from Martial Law, the Confederacy will get word of it. After that, their petty war with us will transform itself into a crusade, with a message more powerful than force. Their newborn crusade has set itself up to bring our Federation to present itself as a joke to the rest of humanity, and in the end you can be sure chaos and anarchy will arise where there was once order.

"Oh, to their credit the Confederacy will try and take the reins, but the military regime will try to make itself into a legitimate government. During that, several key figures in that regime will vie for absolute power. In the end, they will become what they hate most. With that in mind, civilization will tear itself apart with the masses crying out one word. I tell you now, that word will not be ‘freedom.’"

Tolwyn paused, a curtain of silence dropping over the room.

"It will be ‘control.’ So in the end, Eisen, we won’t be allowing a few worlds freedom, we will be guaranteeing oblivion."

The Alpha Centauri System, near Alpha Centauri-Sol jump point
2207 Hours (FST)

"There it is, the last one," Python said with relief, letting out a long sigh. The grappling arm of his Komodo released with pinpoint precision and the dark metallic ball that was the last proximity mine was released into an appropriate position.

Lieutenant JG Dawn McKenzie, only fifty meters away in her Komodo, pulled up sensor data on her HUD. She allowed herself a smirk, not of pleasure, but of amazement. Every minute spent in the cockpit was a joyful for her, and every practiced movement she made flooded her with euphoria.

It wasn’t that she had never gone through any kind of flight school or Academy, or even that this was her first time in any airborne fighter outside of the bulky troop transports she occasionally flew in the Colonial Marines. It was something far deeper, far more profound.

Crimson Flight, which was comprised of Python, herself and a few others, had just completed one of the most dense proximity minefields since the Terran-Yan War. She had to maneuver slowly just to avoid setting one of the very lethal explosives off. Insanely, she was deep in the field, making sure along with Python and many others that not a single weak spot in the field could be detected.

"How’s it going, Dawn?" Python asked. "You holding up all right over there?"

Words could not express her peace of mind. "Yes. Thank you."

"You decide on a callsign yet?"

"Phoenix."

"Phoenix? Cool. Kinda suits you, I guess."

Of course it did.

The phoenix... rising reborn from the ashes of the dead and flying away.

A new blue dot picked up on her sensors, shown by the flat-screen HUD attached to a hastily installed low-grade tactical computer. Her Komodo, once a lowly atmospheric flyer, was now trying to be the Confederate scourge of space.

Only a few good points could be said about the F-40B Komodo light fighter. It was light and had reasonably good hull strength. The bad points, however, were that its speed, even for a formerly atmospheric craft, left much to be desired and its maneuverability was lacking. Its comparatively poor speed and agility could barely keep up with the modified engine performance needed for dogfighting. A few times, on sharp turns, Dawn swore she could hear the hull whining under pressure.

Not that Dawn was worried. She wasn’t. She was airborne. Flightstick in hand, her faith in herself and her abilities was unquestionable and absolute.

"Crimson One and Two have both checked in with objectives completed," a new voice piped over the channel. It was the voice of an adolescent coming to age. Pubescent 2nd Lieutenant Greg "Serpent" Royce, a young man who desperately wanted manhood, would go to a god-forsaken place such as war to get it. She’d seen his kind in the Marines. They never lasted long. "They are standing by," Serpent continued, his voice cracking to a higher pitch, "waiting for our return."

Either too young or too stupid, Python thought, giggling a little bit over the channel, but hushing himself quickly. Maybe both. "Crimson Three to Four and Five:" Python said, "form up and watch your position. We don’t want to set one of these puppies off. Stay out of the proximity zones, if you don’t know to do so already. We are moving out."

"Good riddance, Crimson Three," Serpent responded sharply.

Dawn pulled her fighter around slowly; powering her engines up to half-throttle. The engines behind her roared, and she could feel the push—

The push of force from an explosion so blinding in brightness it seemed her eyes melted inside her head. With the explosion, a deafening thunderclap threatened to make her ears bleed. Infantrymen ahead of her—the ones still in one piece—flew back from the force, screaming bloody terror.

In an act of blind retribution, Dawn fired several rounds toward the flight lights passing over.

"Hey, watch it, Crimson Four!" Lieutenant JG Harrison "Brute" Dawsen shouted in her ear over her headset. "You almost clipped me with that salvo!"

"Uh, what’re you shooting at over there, Dawn?" Python asked next. "Ghosts?"

"Ghosts?" Dawn blinked the intense flashback away, flushing it out of her mind. "Yes... ghosts. I apologize."

That chapter of her life was over, she was in space now, holding her own life in her hands, ducking and weaving throughout a sea of mines that could take out carriers. It hadn’t taken long for it to come naturally to her. She had learned that besides killing, she had another innate ability: piloting.

It was not a Komodo she was flying anymore. It was an extension of her will, an extension of the soul she had lost touch with so long ago.

Lieutenant JG McKenzie, after witnessing the best and worst of humankind and life altogether, was finally at peace with herself. I am finally the valiant phoenix in the sky, free forever, Dawn thought. Forever flying free.

She veered up on her port side, narrowly avoiding two proximity fields. She checked her HUD again, routinely. Python was in front of her on escape vector toward the opening of the dense minefield. He too, was having difficulty maneuvering through the proximity fields, but he was managing.

"Crimson Three to Five: what are you doing? Get back here!" Python ordered at the fighter hightailing out of formation.

"Long live the Federation, rebels!" a dark cry rang out over the channel.

"Serpent, what the hell are you—"

Lieutenant McKenzie interrupted, "Python, Serpent has turned sides." Dawn entered several calculations into her navcomputer, and noticed the new IFF signal headed toward a specific marker buoy. "He is on an approach vector toward the jump point."

"For fuck’s sakes, we can’t afford to be fighting the Federation and ourselves!" remarked Zombie of Gold Flight.

"Aw, great," Python responded sarcastically. "I’m too far away from him to catch up, especially with this damn field in place. Get him, and hurry. I’ll call in the rest of Crimson Flight but rush him while you can. We can’t let him leave!"

"I know. We will not." Dawn made the statement not hopefully, but with a strong note of assurance in her otherwise monotone voice. Again she swung her ship around, and reluctantly kicked her throttle to full. The engines roared gallantly, almost blocking out the sound through her headset.

Serpent, the double-tongued traitor, had an ETA of one minute and twenty seconds until jumping out. If that happened, he would most definitely warn the Federation forces about the minefield,—provided he hadn’t already—allowing them some way of avoiding it. Dawn would allow only one chance of surrender to the boy. "Serpent, disengage from your course now and you will not be executed for treason," she spoke, her voice low but authoritative. "This is your only chance."

Static was the only response given to Dawn. She powered up her lasgun banks, hearing a low whine. She cut through three triangular rings of proximity fields, bearing hard to port than to starboard as three other fields began to overlap, cutting off recently open routes. Two Gs pressed on her, then released, then three Gs pressed on her...

Dawn must have blacked out, because when she opened her head with her eyes on the HUD the sensor data was totally different. 2nd Lt. Royce was thirty seconds to his destination. She pulled the flightstick back toward her chest hard, gliding ever so closely above the rim of another proximity field. Luckily, this time she did not black out.

She veered over the spherical field, right where she wanted to be. Serpent, the traitor, was centered right in the crosshairs of her targeting reticule.

Two female voices came over her channel. "Crimson One and Two, right with you." Just as they said, "Huntress" and "Siren" were lined up with her in a V-formation.

"Acquire my target. Fire on my mark," Dawn said, taking temporary command of the situation.

Serpent had twenty seconds to go. Twenty seconds he would never ever have again in his short lifetime.

Six bolts of energized heat smacked and blazed through Serpent’s engine and maneuvering thrusters like so much tissue. It exploded brilliantly, in a short burst of spectacular white light, then faded into the bleak darkness of space from whence it came. The only remnant of Serpent’s individual existence was a loose, flaming cloud of scattered, dispersing debris that Dawn’s fighter soared through.

A traitor’s death and she had her baptism of fire. She was ready.

"Huntress to McKenzie: I’m reading an energy spike..."

Before a second could pass, Dawn was blinded by yet another bright light.

USS Alexander; Bridge
The Alpha Centauri System, exiting Alpha Centauri-Sol jump point
2220 Hours (FST)

"Jump point transit successful," Commodore Demuira, Fleet Admiral Tolwyn’s XO, reported.

Tolwyn was deeply troubled. His fighters had not reported back yet, but he couldn’t wait for delay. He had his flagship jump in-system first, with the others following suit in increments of four minutes. Privately, he stepped up from his station and looked out the viewport. He straightened his uniform, and gazed proudly out into the ocean of stars. Light years away, a tiny dusty, dark blue ball known as Centauri Prime sat before the mighty Alexander, open for the rightful reclamation.

Just you wait...

A young voice broke Frederick from his reverie. "Sir... Admiral! I am picking up—" The Chief Ops Officer broke from his report as the entire ship rocked vehemently. Every officer on the bridge was thrown to the deck. Tolwyn moved away from his view and looked over the young man’s shoulder, scrutinizing the sensor data before him.

After a few long seconds, Frederick announced the only logical answer, threateningly, "Yes... they are some resourceful bastards, indeed… just as I anticipated. We lost a whole wing of fighters to them… but I will have no more losses on our side." Accepting the deaths of those under his command was something he had yet to do. In time he suspected he would become like the older admirals, casualties becoming numbers and statistics in reports. Unfortunate numbers and statistics, but numbers and statistics just the same. Frederick Tolwyn was not that man yet. "No more, I say!"

Commodore Demuira was puzzled. "A minefield that thick?" The XO pointed to the display. "And this soon? It’s been but a little over a day!"

"Damn that Royce... Apparently I was under the mistaken impression we had an understanding he was to keep us updated." Tolwyn, in a determined response to measured surprise, turned away from the Ops Station and barked commands at the top of his lungs to the bridge crew, "All crew to battle stations! Charge forward laser batteries and target all proximity mines! I want three fighter wings hitting space in four minutes, neutralizing any offense. Give them no quarter and show no mercy.

"The proverbial shit has hit the fan, my friends. Now it gets interesting."

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