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Sorry I’m late, everyone. Been briefing the marine and damcon teams on their respective duties in operations to come. I see Lieutenant Nhaima’s already covered a fair bit of the traffic intel we’ve come across in the Atlantis sector, thank you. Permit me to graphically augment our findings.
Wielding the conference room remote, Ironclad triggers an overlay on the Atlantis region, with highlighted paths showing a blur of ship paths crisscrossing the sector and converging on its gates. Some paths are densely colored.
The first and most obvious traffic nexus for our traffic of interest is Atlantis Command. Not particularly subtle or secretive, but would make sense as a refuel/refit stop for Azure Legion ops. I originally thought that it’s overt nature would preclude it as the holding area for our senior officers, but the our other leads seem to stockpile there, particularly the core world administrative transmissions. If Atlantis command turns out NOT to be the holding site, given the operational patterns we’ve been able to deduce, we may be able to track a suspect vessel from the command base to another Azure Legion asset… if we’re sneaky.
We aaaalsooooo get a fair bit of heat in Sector VII, running from Atlantis Command. Another candidate for a concealed facility, especially with the nebulae nearby. Note as well that a lot of the suspect traffic tends to linger in nebulae or areas made ideal for signal masking due to cosmic conditions, much like pirates. The same approach may behoove us if we’re able to tackle this operation prior to our cover being blown.
Two other installations of interest also emerge if we examine ISN controlled space in the Marches zooms out and highlights Krisenda. The R-56X research installation is highlighted in our data mining, which you’ll recall we recently defended from Hegemony incursion with the support of the Imperial Caltron-deploying prototypes. In retrospect, the involvement of such heavy firepower suggests further significance to that station. We also get some hits at DS-001, which is a very old and backwater station that’s otherwise unremarkable and unvisited… perfect candidate for a black ops outpost.
All together, lots of useful data; even if it’s not all relevant to the task at hand, these leads may be worth pursuing later to determine the scope of the caltron project. Given that we’re likely going into a more covert tempo, I’ve taken the liberty of having the Group’s Tag warheads modified to favor low-observability over duration. They’ll be difficult to detect in flight, and nearly impossible to find once attached, though they won’t take to a target that’s actively configured their shields for incoming fire. As long our ship is silent running, with minimal power settings, they may be able to bug a passing vessel beyond two klicks without being detected doing so, enabling us to eavesdrop on suspect Azure legion vessels without tipping our hand or raising alarm.
Alia nodded, glanced back down at her notes, and then continued.
“As far as SIGINT is concerned, it is highly probable that the Senior Officers are located on or around Atlantis Command. This is correlated by private communiques from both Earth Corp’s legal department and a senior JAG officer under Admiral Mundy’s command both making procedural motions….. if my experience is anything similar in military jurisprudence, then these are likely being made to slow down proceedings until something else can be brought to bear. Probably an influence campaign. That would indicate that while formal proceedings seem to be starting against the Senior Officers, it should not be a form of summary judgment which gives us some breathing room.
“There has also been a lot of comms traffic from INI affiliated vessels concerning R-56X, largely centering on the N’tani raid though it does date back a bit further. Not sure as to why exactly, but we might be able to learn with further investigation.
“Finally, there has been quite a bit of comms traffic throughout the fleet. Quite a few officers seem to be sore over what became of the Third Hunter Group. There’s been chatter about ‘justice’ and ‘vengeance’ as well as a replacement Hunter Group being assigned to our area of operation. As to whether they were intended to replace 3HG or 4HG…. that bit I’m unsure of.”
An idea occurs to me. How readily could we alter the IFF codes and hull codes of the Group? Perhaps rapidly?
If we need to make a stop at Atlantis Command to attempt extraction, being ostensibly part of a visiting Hunter Group that’s NOT under investigation by INI might improve our chances.
“If we knew which Hunter Group was being assigned, and what their ship complements and characteristics were it’s possible. Altering the engine signatures to match or approximate would be the most difficult part. The rest should just be a matter of a quick reprogramming and then spoofing our own ships’ emissions here to maintain the illusion they hadn’t left,” she answered with a shrug.
“As for the hard work, someone more familiar with warp drives would have to weigh in on it. More, as well, if we were going to try and modify the hull to present as the correct silhouettes.”
Alright then. It seems like the mission shaping up is to divert to Atlantis at the first chance we get, then change our IFF codes or otherwise find an excuse to dock at Atlantis Command. Once we’re there, we’ll use marine teams to extract the SOs or find out where they are if not there. That could be a long operation, trying to track them down on such a large station, so the fleet will probably need to run interference while they do. Once they’ve been recovered, we make way for someplace secluded to regroup, probably the whale preserve.
Thoughts? Recommendations?
Sir! Subkommandant Morlock’s access has been suspended. In fact, he has been suspended. scrolls frantically Charges have been filed. He’s been arrested for illegal duelling!
…continues working feverishly
Sir, I see a personnel transfer posted. Kommandant Matsiyan is removed from command of ISN Invictus. He will report to INI Group-Leader Corrin of Atlantis Command. He is assigned as the territory liaison officer with Promethean Command and Fourth Hunter Group.
Oh, hell, really! We’re running out of time… If the Azure Legion get a chance to disperse the Officers, we may not to be able to rescue all of them at once, and given ISN doctrine, a partial rescue likely means the other captives lives are forfeit.
…
Sir, we may need to be ready to conduct simultaneous operations at different parts of Atlantis. We may not have enough manpower to split our forces and breach prison security effectively. Any options for force multipliers?
We have a lot of up to date ship movement analysis. We could feed targets to the TSN, pirates and other external groups to cause chaos through multiple roughly simultaneous raids, assuming they’ll trust our intel.
“I disagree, it’s not likely. One doesn’t just execute prisoners and eliminate value and options without a point unless whoever is holding them is a petulant child. That said, if we escalate things openly then I expect anyone we don’t recover to be potentially subjected to harsher human intelligence methods and could well suffer from their prolonged detention. Expediency would still be preferred, but I think that Lieutenant-Junior Ironclad’s assessment is partly incorrect.
“That said, it seems that Commander Matsiyan seems to be operating with some level of independence or on his own recognizance, corroborating powerful benefactors with influence. If we can get word to him, he may be able to see himself out as it were and rendezvous with us rather than requiring his own extraction. This limits the needed engagement to Lt. Cdr. Morlock if he has been separated from the rest of the senior officers. If Cdr. Matsiyan has been released, then a potential complicating factor is the possible release of Lt. Cdr. Mundy. If she’s still in detention, things are simpler. If she’s been released, then she needs to be identified and either extracted or provided coordinates per the commander.”
Alia frowned suddenly, then twisted her neck with several audible pops to relieve tension in her shoulders.
“Either way, if we think we are eminently about to make an overt move then ships should be provisioned and cargo containers launched with drones and some maneuvering thrusters to stage supplies. If these cargo containers are pre-programmed to follow separate paths and follow a standard plan once they are clear of the immediate area of burning for a few seconds, rotating to a next known vector, burning again after several minutes, and so on, they can set themselves up in stable orbits in the local vicinity in a way that would be difficult to track since the drives would only be engaged for short periods of time but since we know when and where they were launched and what each maneuver was made afterwards, then we can always calculate where they would be located along their orbit for recovery as needed. These can include denabyte fuel reserves, ordnance stockpiles, spare parts, medical supplies, commerce goods for trade, any form of valuables or reserve currency we can stash…. anything of value, really. Indexed and made available to us as needed in a way that would be prohibitively expensive to try and find manually. We could even fire off dummy containers if we have more than supplies to fill them to try and reduce the likelihood that the ISN would be able to track an actually valuable target.”
Damn, we’ve got to move now.
Good thinking, Mr. Beaumont, send your analysis out to the TSN and to Mr. Rakaydos’ underworld contacts as soon as possible then pull all crews off the station and prepare to pull up roots within the hour.
Ironclad, you and Nhaima work together to identify the ships they might be transported on- any new movement since your last analysis will probably be them. If we have to, we’ll split our forces but hopefully we can reach them before the transfer begins. Advise all science officers of your findings so we don’t accidentally engage a ship with them on board.
Let’s move people, I want to be ready to go in one hour! Grab any supplies you can from the station and let’s get our people back.
On it. Rakayados, Ironclad, Nhaima, If you can transfer the details to me I’ll see what I can get done.
Nhaima, go ahead and attempt to make contact with Matsiyan. If you’re right about him having some autonomy then I want him in the loop. And if you can get your cargo drones up and ready in an hour then make it so.
“Beaumont, I’d appreciate some extra hands charting course profiles. After that, we can write a routine to generate them rather than hand writing each final orbit,” she said, looking across the table at Invictus’ pilot.
She glanced down at her console and began tapping out a quick message, congratulating Kommandant Matsiyan on his new post and wishing him well on his continuing career. Included is a personal encryption key should he wish to keep in contact in the future as a wish to keep in contact with a former, albeit junior, colleague.
“Message away. Beaumont, it might be less messy if we step into a side room to avoid cluttering the rest of the meeting? Jafar, if you wouldn’t mind following up on the rest of those profiles and call me if you need me?”
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