"You have our thanks," Mousse stated…
…before the wardroom was suddenly filled with the wailing sound of the ship's internal alarm, which made everyone in the room freeze for a second before Misako bolted out of her chair and raced out of the room. "Action stations! Action stations! All ship's company, man your battle stations!" the voice of the boatswain's mate of the watch — the junior seaman that normally assisted the officer of the watch and her subordinates with monitoring the ship's operations — called out over the public address system. "All docking personnel, prepare to unlock ship from jetty dock for space manoeuvres! All civilian personnel, muster at Gymnasium Flats for instructions! Action stations! Action stations! All ship's company, man your battle stations!"
Ranma sighed as the young woman repeated her call. "Something's come up, Mousse! Gotta go!"
Mousse nodded. "Hope it's not too bad!"
Ranma laughed. "Hope so, too! Yui, Sakurako, keep an eye on 'em, okay?"
"We will!" Yui and Sakurako chimed…
H.M.C.S. Fort Erie, outside the ship's gymnasium (local time: 11:09 AM)…
"There you are, Ranma-kun!" Shinohara Izumi called out as Ranma came running up to her from forward. "Okay, Sarah, do we have all the children here?!"
Sarah Mitchell took a moment to scan the people now standing behind her as she counted them off, and then she nodded before gazing up at the RPO. "All dependants present and accounted for, Petty Officer Shinohara," she said with a smart salute.
"Visiting aliens also present and accounted for, Izumi-san," a voice then called out.
She turned as Lum came up to them, followed by Benten and Oyuki. The Fukunokami and the Neptunian were still in their normal-pattern clothing, which made the RPO frown, though she really couldn't complain as neither of the two women — even if they did enjoy some hot sex with two of the engineering officers a couple days before when the Urusians first came to Earth — were seen as "dependants." The same couldn't be said of the young man — dressed properly in NCDs with no rank insignia on his shoulders — who was walking smartly aft to join them. "You okay, David?" Izumi asked.
David Perry, who had been invited aboard by Ranma's wife and put under the charge of Kurokawa Satomi and Kurihara Ayaka, nodded as he moved to stand beside Ranma, Lum, Benten and Oyuki. "I'm fine, Shinohara-heisō," he said in accented Japanese; both the coxswain and the CERA had been more than pleased to teach the Texan psychokinetic how to speak their "native" language thanks to some deep mind-melding. "What's going on?"
Izumi sighed. "Alright, we just got flash traffic from NORAD. The sensor net in our sector of the Ceres orbit line just went wild about fifteen minutes ago. All duty ships — including us — are to muster immediately at the Moon's orbit line and then warp out to investigate. We'll be under the command of CANCOMSPACECENT, who will raise her flag aboard this ship as soon as she beams over from Bytown. Once we're out there, we'll rendezvous with attack boats Ontario and Québec, who were the ones closes to the contact zone and respond to the sensor net alert."
"What about the kids?" Ranma said as he thumbed the group of children standing there. "How soon do we get them off? If we take them into a potential battle zone…"
His voice got cut off as several loud CA-CHUNKS! echoed through the ship's hull. "Well, that just botched that," Benten noted. "We just pulled away from the jetty."
"Izumi-san, I can take the kids aboard my scout and get them clear," Lum volunteered.
Izumi shook her head. "No, we need you up on the bridge since we're not sure if this whatever-it-is is something local," she stated. "Benten-san, can you fly that ship?"
The Fukunokami nodded. "Easy as pie."
"Lum-chan and I'll go to the bridge to help in case this is a first contact situation," Oyuki then offered.
The RPO nodded. Sarah then turned to face the other children. "Okay, everyone. Let's follow Aunt Benten to Aunt Lum's ship and stay there until they say it's safe."
Benten jolted. "'Aunt Benten'…?! Jeez, Sarah, I ain't THAT old!"
Lum and Oyuki both laughed at their friend's show of discomfort. "What about Ranma and I?" David then asked as he pointed to Ranma and then himself. "I know he won't want to go if his wife's going to be in a potential fight, but what about me?"
Izumi sighed. Navy regulations were one thing. Personal experience from her previous life living as a slave serving the Niphentaxians told her something else. "Do you want to stay, Dave?" she asked. "You won't be forced, but your powers could come in handy."
He nodded. "I'll stay."
"Alright, then…"
Halfway between the Mars and Ceres orbit lines (bearing from the Sun: 94 degrees, mark 53) (Welland time: 12:14 PM)…
Now approaching the projected intercept point at the bubble formed by the Ceres orbit line from the Sun were a squadron of seven ships, composed of two destroyers, two frigates and three corvettes. On the flanks of this force were H.M.C. Ships Nootka and Cayuga, both Tribal-class destroyers that were manned by Regular Force personnel (they were based respectively at Stadacona over Halifax and Naden over Esquimalt). The two Prestonian-class frigates — sisterships of Saint Catharines; the 650-metre long craft were essentially up-gunned Sackville-class corvettes — were H.M.C.S. Poundmaker and N.C.S.M. Grou, reserve ships who were supported, respectively, by H.M.C.S. Unicorn in Saskatoon and N.C.S.M. Donnaconna in Montréal. The corvettes, outside Fort Erie, were H.M.C.S. Beacon Hill (supported by H.M.C.S. Malahat in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia) and H.M.C.S. Inch Arran (supported by H.M.C.S. Brunswicker in Saint John, New Brunswick's largest city).
Currently, the commander of this force, Commodore Nanase Yū, was monitoring things from Fort Erie's operations room; she was currently seated at the central plotting table right in the middle of the room, watching the computer plot update the tactical situation as the seven-ship formation closed in on target. Shinobu said beside the crimson-haired woman who was — despite her being Avalonian and even younger physically than Brigadier General Masaki Natsuko — seen as the flag officer in nominal operational charge of all Naval personnel, Regular and Reserve, in Ontario. Also present were Lum, Benten, Ranma and David, though they were keeping out of everyone's way as they continued to take in reports from various scanners and other devices, not to mention the other ships in the formation and the two anti-ship slipstream missile craft — in essence, the outer space navy's version of the attack submarine; ships like Ontario and Québec could approach any target by literally warping warp space itself into a near-transwarp "slipstream" space to strike virtually with impunity thanks to the inhumanly fast speed such ships could move — that were now closing in on the alien contact that had been detected by NORAD.
"Estimate time of interception of Ontario on the target area?" Yū asked.
"Five minutes, twelve seconds…mark," Naruse Kaori replied.
"ETA Québec's arrival at target area?"
"Six minutes, forty-one seconds…mark!"
"Hiromi-san, did you get a reply from my cousin concerning any of our forces detecting this unknown contact before they passed over the Ceres Line?" Oyuki asked.
A shake of the head. "Negative, Your Highness," Tamachi Hiromi said as she looked over from her station near the forward end of the operations room. "I…" She then perked. "Wait! Incoming signal from Defence Central Command in Kōri City."
"Main view screen," Yū ordered.
The yeoman of signals tapped controls. The main screen, which was at the front end of the room and positioned to allow the officers guiding the corvette in battle a quick chance to view anything that was also being watched from the bridge, flicked on, revealing a smiling field marshal, now in her proper duty uniform as commander of all of Neptune's military forces. Ranma tried not to smirk on noting that Pukaze's current dress was quite similar to what samurai in the classical period normally wore before they donned their defensive armour and helmets before plunging into battle. "Good afternoon, Commodore Nanase," Pukaze stated. "I hear we have something exciting happening that just crossed into your space not too long ago."
"About ninety minutes ago our time, Your Highness," Yū replied. "We're not so crazy when it comes to monitoring our side of the line that we have a battle fleet ready to pounce the instant something comes through and heads towards Earth, but the considerable slow speed of this particular target seems to indicate that they're either totally oblivious concerning our defensive capabilities…"
"Or they mean no harm," Pukaze finished. "I've already ordered a scouting group centred on the cruiser Exodus out towards your location to monitor the situation. The captains have been informed that they are not to cross the line unless you give them clearance to cross that line. After all, this may be a feint."
"Towards yourselves. Again, another possibility," Yū acknowledged with a nod.
"Commodore!"
She looked over. "Yes, Hiromi?"
"Incoming signal from Contre-amiral Tréville aboard Jean Bart," the yeoman of signals announced. "Her compliments to you. She reports that her space action group has come together with Béarn's carrier group at quadrant 40-52-404; the French commanders at la Royale have been informed of what is happening directly from NORAD and they are moving to have other forces readied if required. The contre-amiral offers her assistance in case this first contact may prove too troublesome for us."
Yū nodded. "My compliments in return to the contre-amiral, Hiromi. Thank her very much for her willingness to help. Ask her to standby; we'll send a flash message to her if we feel a greater show of force is required." She then smiled. "Please also inform her that when this is all over and we're back on Earth, I'll be more than happy to pass on ten whole cases of Château des Charmes Vidal Icewine for her to use as soon as I can get them released from the wardroom stores at 'Bytown.'"
Everyone laughed as Hiromi sent out the message. She then grinned on hearing the reply before turning to look back at the commodore, winking at the other woman, "To directly quote Admiral Tréville, ma'am: 'I'm holding you to that, Yū.'"
More laughter. Yū then sighed. "Flag to all ships. Status of civilians?"
Replies came in from all the reserve vessels through the monitor screens hanging down from the deckhead over the plotting table; like Fort Erie, the other ships also had crewmembers who were mothers and had brought their children aboard their ships when they were ordered up as reserve ready duty ship for their particular regions of the country. "If Commander Miyake won't object, I'd like to get my civilians aboard Fort Erie before we initiate contact," the commander of Inch Arran, Lieutenant Commander Helen Beck, then stated. "Given that they have a spare small craft in Miss Lum's scout ship now stowed in the aft missile well, we can get them off to Béarn or Jean Bart and put them behind very heavy defences in case this all goes south."
Yū looked over. "Shinobu?"
"I agree," Shinobu stated.
"How many are we talking about?" Lum then asked. "My ship can carry about forty in a pinch for short trips, but if we're dealing with civilians from five ships…"
"That's forty adults, Lum-chan," Oyuki objected. "Most of the dependants would be very young children, all Ten-chan's age. Certainly, there would be room."
The Oni hummed, and then she nodded. Hiromi then looked over, "Flash from Ontario!"
"Go!" Yū ordered.
"They've made contact; maintaining a static slipstream bubble to keep themselves invisible from potential counter-detection," the yeoman of signals reported.
"And…?"
What has Ontario run across?
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(Posted Thu, 03 Feb 2011 04:34)
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