"You and I both know that isn't going to happen, Admiral." Murray watched the man across from him twitch almost imperceptibly, his gaunt expression dropping into a low frown as Murray drew a breath. Admiral Nathaniel Davies, architect of the Navy's raid on Leeds. The man that had consigned two full battlegroups to their deaths in aid of a dying planet, and had done so with all the traditional pomp and circumstance that came with such a callous miscalculation. For all their effort, the Navy had received little more than a ceremonial kick out the door as Gallia re-took their cordon with ease. He had figured the man retired for good, taking that War College job just after handling Gallia victory on a silver platter.

And yet here he was, soliciting at the door of the Security Force.

He let the breath out, a drawn-out sigh as he tried to carefully explain the obvious to the Navy's second-highest ranked officer. Their face-to-face meeting, facilitated by a direct infrared link between Chesapeake and Cheyenne surface-side, was the last thing that Murray wanted to deal with right about now. "We don't have anything to spare. Anywhere. We've detached sixty-percent of the LSF's heavy assets, excluding the mobile operations center, to the Leeds front. Any more and we may as well toss the Bering operation in the bin. If anything, we should be asking for help from you. The Mississippi-"

Davies suddenly rocked forward and let out a grumbling interruption. "The Mississippi and her attendant craft are all that stands between Texas and anarchy. Moving them anywhere is out of the question. And, before you suggest it," the Admiral cautioned, raising a single, calloused finger, "We cannot move anything else, either. The Alma was our backup for LIBCOMEAST, but now she stands as our only rear-guard left on the west. Rio Grande heads up what remains of NORTH, and the Missouri is stretched thin trying to keep CENTCOM intact. You should know as well as anyone that the threats of Liberty aren't just coming from one side."

Murray pinched the bridge of his nose. The man was as Navy as they came, which meant that if the books told you that it had to be done that way, then that was the way. He couldn't - or wouldn't - realize that whatever temporary damage might be caused by increased unlawful activity could be offset drastically by a victory in the east. "Holding those sectors means nothing if the incidents in Bering continue. If, heaven forbid, a Unioner-Separatist push actually materializes into Texas, then forget New London, and forget Leeds!" Murray nearly slammed the table with his fist, stopping just short of a violent outburst of frustration with the man. "If we only move your precious battlegroups when the Mississippi is under fire, it'll be Too. Damn. Late!"

Davies growled out in reply. "And if Bretonia falls, there'll be nothing left to save. If a combined effort couldn't hold back the Gallic invasion, what makes you so sure that we could do it on our own? As it stands, we're looking at Gallic troops planet-side on New London in weeks if we don't reinforce our line." The Admiral's expression had morphed from its usual cold to downright frigid, as he seemed to launch utter contempt up through the infrared beam to Murray's office. "I'm not asking for miracles here, Director. I'm asking for a few more ships, for long enough to push the Gallic forces back into Leeds."

The man's ignorance was astounding. "Because you ran out of miracles with the Whitefield and Fairmont. Your missteps are not a blank check to pilfer our operations for replacements." He watched as the words rung home, but not in the way Murray was necessarily expecting. Davies' face contorted at once into outright fury, and were it not for the hundreds of thousands of kilometers separating them, he'd expect the next move to be the launching off point into a no-holds-barred brawl on the command deck. "That is an absolutely childish assessment of our operations, Director. To even speak of the men and women aboard those vessels in such a way is tantamount to an insult upon their service to the Republic." Murray raised his eyebrows in response. He'd finally gotten a reaction out of the man besides general contempt.

"I didn't mean to suggest anything about those lost, Admiral. I have the highest respect for their service. Rather, I believe that their fates are much the same as the Third and Seventh four years ago. Lost in service to a Navy that hedges its bets on Hail Mary operations that inevitably go awry at the first sign of contact. What does that make it now, Admiral? Four battlegroups? Shall we append that to your service record?" Murray could've had R&A weaponize the daggers Davies stared back at him. "Tread lightly, Director. I had hoped you would be a temperate and . . . loyal replacement for Eva Adenauer, although it appears I may now be mistaken on both counts."

The two of them kept up a metaphorical standoff, as if locked in a war where the only method of surrender was intimidation via expression. After a short eternity, Davies grumbled off another response. "Director, you speak so terribly of these 'hail mary' maneuvers, as you call them, and yet it seems quite clear to me that your operation in Bering is more of the same. The Alster Union and the Separatists, if they present a united front against you, could sweep you off the map without so much as a second thought. Tell me this isn't your own Royal Flush in the making."

Murray furrowed his brow. The circumstances were different. The reasons, the equipment, the planning. "The difference, Admiral, is that we're not doing this for the nightly news. We're doing this because we have to. If we don't strike here and now, we're talking about the Legion all over again. We're talking about organized Xenos with military tech. There is no war effort if the home fires are snuffed out. You should know this, Admiral." Davies just sighed and shook his head. He looked as frustrated as Murray felt. "The Whitefield, the Fairmont, and Royal Flush. We were forced into all of it. Your arguments for Bering are the same ones I made to SECDEF and Bretonia's Admiralty Board. At the time it was sound. Given the same opportunity, I'd do it again. Rolling with the punches is leadership, Director. Operating with the resources you have is leadership. Fighting like this and arguing for resources to pull off miracles? This will get us nowhere."

They both paused for what felt like an hour. Chesapeake shuddered lightly as the Rickenbacker, a newly refit LSF siege cruiser, discharged from the docking bay and headed out to join the Bering offensive. Davies and Murray stared into each others' souls, realizing somewhat at once that they had spent precious time on nothing. "I think that will be all, Admiral. I wish you the best of luck in New London." He waited long enough for the Admiral to give his half-baked response and closed the connection, leaning back in his chair as he felt the weight of the Republic closing down on him. Murray brought a hand to his forehead, rubbing out the wrinkles on his brow as he struggled to find a solution to all this, a way out of the darkness.

A buzz from the door broke the silent turmoil of the Director. "Visitor request. Identity verified: CALLAGHAN, BRIAN. Department of Research and Analysis." Murray grumbled and tapped the controls on his desk, sending the door open. Perhaps someone would have good news for him today.

Dr. Brian Callaghan practically flew down the hallway, boots clacking on hard steel with the speed and purpose of an infantryman on assault, despite the lab-coat and glasses saying otherwise. Passing about a half-dozen agents, a senior engineer from the IRG, and two heavily-armed Internal Affairs guardsmen, he finally arrived at the door of his boss's boss with about twenty seconds to spare. He jabbed his finger into the side-panel, releasing a keypad and ID scanner which allowed him to authenticate himself as one of the 'chief egg-heads' of the Security Force, as he had been so named by numerous of his non-Research colleagues, and notify the Director that he was here and ready to talk. What could've passed for an auditory needle within the walls of Chesapeake's haystack sounded on the opposite side of the door, before it slowly slid open to reveal the SCIF that was Director Murray's office.

The Director was always a bit more rugged than Callaghan expected, despite the fact that he'd spoken with him - between comms-links and in person meetings - about three dozen times since the start of the year alone. The man looked as if he could pass for a veteran Siege Cruiser commander going through a permanent mid-life crisis, not the Director of the Security Force. Callaghan managed to push the thought of his head as he entered the room, noting quite astutely that he was one of the last people to judge anyone on their appearance.

"Doctor Callaghan," Murray spoke out suddenly, with a voice coarse enough to put the Tanner Belt to shame. "I'm glad you could make it. Please, come in, have a seat." The Director gestured toward a pair of chairs flanking his desk. Callaghan had always wondered which one you were meant to sit in, if there was even an etiquette for that. He didn't imagine there was, but then again, people seemed to come up with the weirdest things to make rules out of and then shame you for not understanding intrinsically. Callaghan simply shrugged off the idea and returned the Director's pleasantries, taking a seat and laying out his tablet on the desk, ready to get down to business. "Well, sir, I understand you wanted to talk about ECHELON, is that right?"

Murray leaned back in his chair slightly, nodding. "Quite right. Now, I understand that R&A has been doing some great work in that regard. Your reports so far have been more than promising, which is good, since I finally have progress to report back to SECDEF." Well, that's good so far, Callaghan thought. "But." There it is. "We need to pick up the pace. The Peleliu's been in dock for about two weeks now, and between that and the other project, we're stuck twiddling our thumbs in terms of repair and re-fit capacity. I've had to stack our ships onto waiting queues for Juneau because their time-to-completion would be faster than waiting for this project to end right now. I understand it, but it's not acceptable." Callaghan gestured to start speaking, but the Director waved him off. "I know you're giving it your all, but we need to ensure we're going about this the right way. SENTRY's going to sit in our docks for the next year at this rate, and that's assuming we can get ECHELON off the ground in the next two months."

Callaghan sighed and stewed for a moment as the Director leaned forward again, evidently keen to hear the man's take on the situation. "Well, sir, I do very much agree. It frustrates me that SENTRY has been on the back-burner for so long, and it was my hope that in a speedy completion of ECHELON, we could get what we needed to finally put that to completion, and get Chesapeake back to full operational status." The Director didn't look suitably impressed with a simple agreement, so the young yet senior researcher rubbed his head back and forth, attempting to coax the words out of his brain that the Director needed to hear. "We've got good dialogues with the Ingenuus group - I mean, you've seen them walking around - and as far as I've been made aware, Ageira's working on our replacement sensor array. It's all coming about as quick as I could've hoped, but it's a shame it didn't start doing so six months ago."

The Director sighed and leaned down onto his desk, staring into Callaghan. The doctor leaned back, raising his brow slightly as he felt the man's piercing gaze introspect his very soul, or at least his honesty. "Doctor, I appreciate that. Unfortunately, it's not clear that the government does." He reached down to grab at his own tablet, squinting slightly as he read in the low-light. "In the budgetary session this week, the House Committee on Armed Services is going to hold a straight up-or-down vote on the project continuing. I hope to testify before-hand as to its necessity, but the Navy's always had better lobbying power than us, and my meeting with the second-from-the-top just now doesn't look like it's going to change things." Callaghan's head spun as he heard the man talk, thinking about the better part of a year's worth of research and development that would be thrown out the window by paper-pushers. "Well, th-they can't do that. We're maybe a month or two, tops, from completion. Killing the project now would just leave us with a half-busted hull and a bunch of expensive prototypes lying around."

Murray just sighed and leaned back again, craning his neck slightly as he rubbed the back of it. "And I hope to convince them otherwise. But we need to operate like the funding stream is going to be cut off any day now. Put out the request-for-materials while we still have a budget to work with. Get as much work as you can done on stripping the hull off, and hopefully the rest can be eaten by discretionary if and when Armed Services decides we're too big for our britches. Failing that, we might very well need to scrap the thing, bureaucrats be damned." Callaghan shook his head, gesturing forward to the Director. "Well, Director, it just wouldn't be sensible to do such a thing. I know we're not operating in the original text of ECHELON anymore, but at least the spirit is intact, and I believe we can deliver-"

The Director waved him off again. "Democracy isn't sensible. The people only see the Navy losing and winning fights - mostly the former - and they think that it's the government's fault for not giving them what they need. Armchair admirals argue that if they only had another Overlord here, or an Archer wolfpack there, it'd be a cinch. And so the Congress gets put in a bind, having to look for somewhere to cut from. You're not gonna pull from the Police when crime rates are as high as they are, that's political suicide. But we've always been unpopular. We're the watchers, agents in darkness, and if our popular opinion grows higher than single-digits, I suspect a foreign misinformation campaign. That's the reality we need to work with."

Callaghan raised a finger to start once more, but cut himself off before the Director could. "So, as I said, get the request-for-materials out. Do as much as you can on their dime before you spend a cent of ours. If you want to do your duty, Doctor, and I very much suspect that you do, pull off a miracle for us." He simply nodded to dismiss the man, a scientist now chartered with saving the war effort through sheer force of will. The doctor sheepishly nodded in return and picked up his things, slowly stepping toward the door in a half-defeated slouch. The Director didn't seem to pay him much mind. "MARVA. Page for Veritas, Senior Agent-in-Command, Internal Affairs." As Callaghan shuffled his way to the door, the room buzzed a robotic voice in response. "Identity found: VERITAS. Senior Agent-in-Command, Department of Internal Affairs. Paging to Murray SCIF."

The "conversation" barely registered in Callaghan's mind, a brain already at full spin attempting to calculate the improbable path out of this impossible problem. In so doing, he nearly collided with an agent outside Murray's door, clad in a full flight-suit. He bid his half-hearted apology to the man as he went to slump down at the nearest bench running along the wall, not even stopping to recognize the agent popping off his flight-suit helmet, reaching to speak to the Doctor, and then giving up upon recognition of the man's frustration and simply heading inside. The doctor realized the missed opportunity a second too late, simply sighing and returning to his thoughts.

Murray craned his head back as his desk monitor fizzled back into view, showing a holographic display of the Bering front. Allied force compositions laid themselves out in a smattering of task groups and forces across the sector, and suspected hostile movements - both of the Alster Union and the Battlegroup Harmony - paralleled the Libertonian line. It wasn't a full-on, shooting war offensive like Leeds, but it looked damn close.

Murray swept the screen from his view as the door slid open again, revealing the visage of a seemingly confused Agent 'Veritas' Stuart. He slowly stepped into the office, still cradling his flight-suit helmet in his right arm. "Reporting as ordered, sir." He snapped off a quick salute to the Director, standing at-attention in front of the chairs provided for him. Murray appreciated the gesture with a warm smile and his own gesture toward a seat, while privately attempting to keep himself from letting out a dry sigh. Despite the looseness of the Security Force, they'd never quite been able to work the strict regimen of the marines out of the man.

"Take a seat, Agent." Murray rubbed the back of his receding hair as the marine-turned-intelligence-agent slowly lumbered his way into one of the office's luxury chairs. "I'll be flat honest with you, Agent, I've had people coming into my office and calling me all day. They've given me nothing but bad and worse. You've got good news for me, right?" Murray tipped his eyebrows a little for sarcastic effect, knowing that the by-the-book Agent would give it to him straight, even if he didn't necessarily want to hear it. Stuart simply shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's...complicated, sir." Murray sighed. Of course it was. "Please, go on."

"Well, we've achieved moderate tactical success in our first strikes against the Alster Union. As you probably know already, sir, it seems that Auxesia group - first Battlegroup, and now Covenant - have seen fit to make enemies of the Union, and hit their base hard with some form of tactical nuclear ordinance." Murray nodded slowly, letting the agent simply continue his debrief. "We tried to take advantage of that strike, as best as possible. I re-deployed a good majority of SENTINEL's initial tasking to strike against Union targets, sometimes in cooperation and coordination with Covenant forces. They're relatively well-trained, all things considered. A bit too full of themselves." Murray broke professionalism for a brief moment, offering the man a chuckle in reply. Stuart cracked a brief smile but quickly stepped back into line.

"A majority of the tactical engagements were outright successes, either in disabling enemy craft or forcing them to rout. We managed, alongside the Covenant, to keep their primary base of operations out of action for about a week's worth of time. In return, we suffered relatively few losses, outside of an early engagement taking the Freedom out of action, thanks to the quick reaction force of the Harmony battlegroup." Stuart took a moment to collect his thoughts and breathe, getting up to pace for a moment. "That engagement, I think, sir, was the great lesson I took out of everything so far. We did relatively well alongside the Covenant, or engaging their forces on a level playing field. But we aren't operating on one, sir. When their forces were able to cooperate, they brought more heavy assets to bear than we could hope to muster, even if the Ole Miss was right alongside us." Murray watched as the man paused again, his eyes darting around as if looking for answers on the SCIF's reinforced flooring.

"It's Harmony I'm most worried about. With the Union, we have the clear experience advantage, even if we're outnumbered on the field. Most of them are former dockyard workers and miners, and their combat experience can be measured on a stopwatch. Harmony," he sighed, "It's like fighting the damned First Fleet. And hell, when jamming kicks in, friendly-fire goes through the roof. When two flights of Guardians slam into each other and all the IFFs slam off mid-run, god knows who's who. It's a damned mess out there, sir." Stuart looked directly into the Director's eyes and paused again, seemingly withdrawing a little. "I, uh, apologize if I've been too blunt, sir, but that's how I've seen it out there. We can puff our chests on the victories, but... I can see the red on the horizon. I'm hoping you can too."

Murray sighed and rose from his chair, slowly pacing around the desk himself. "I do see it, Agent. It's what people have been telling me all day. It's what I've known for weeks, but seemingly nobody outside our brass can figure out that Liberty's sitting on a powderkeg at home and they've given the firefighters some wet spit to put it out. We've what, two line-ships and a half dozen cruisers to put up against a rogue Naval battlegroup and half the disaffected lower class of Rheinland. I don't envy your position, Agent, and I sure hope you don't envy mine." Stuart offered only a wince of sympathy. "As for our aces in the hole, they've all come up jokers. ECHELON's going to have the rug pulled out from under it any day now, and SENTRY's been on hold for longer than I've been LSF brass. FREEDOM's still undergoing emergency retrofit and FORTITUDE's still on shakedown."

Murray put a hand on Stuart's shoulder. "You've been a good agent. A damned fine one, really. And that's exactly who I need right now, my damned fine men to pull off some damned fine miracles." The Director took a pause, gesturing toward the door as he pulled his hand away from Stuart. "I'm sure you bumped into Dr. Callaghan. He's our senior researcher on ECHELON." Stuart nodded slowly in response. "Er, yes. Nearly literally, in fact." Murray chuckled in response. "Good, good. I'd like you to liaise with him, as effective immediately I'm putting you in command of the ECHELON." He raised a hand to cull the man's protestations before they could happen. "I know what you're going to say. There are better men for the position, you don't have enough tactical command experience, et cetera, et cetera. Your job is connections. Your job is understanding everyone in this branch, making them work together, and fixing the problems before they come up. That's what I need right now. We need connections to finish this project and the next one, and save this operation - and this Republic - before it all falls to pieces because of a few bureaucrats back home. I believe you out of anyone can get us over the finish line."

Stuart simply stared in wide-eyed disbelief, perhaps the first that Murray had seen the man like that in a long time, perhaps ever. "So then. You have your new command, Agent. It's your job to make sure it clears port before the war ends." Murray simply clapped the man on the shoulder and began to saunter back to his desk. "Dismissed." Stuart attempted to speak, but he simply cut himself off and swung around, marching back out the door from whence he came, head twirling like a ballerina in a hurricane. As the door rapidly slid open to let him leave, he found himself face to face with the egghead he'd nearly run over getting here. The man had an arm outstretched toward him, and rattled off a greeting that he'd no-doubt been preparing for the better part of ten minutes. "Agent Veritas? I'm Dr. Callaghan, senior researcher with Project ECHELON. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Callaghan winced slightly as the Agent's iron grip returned the handshake. If the gait and attitude didn't give away Stuart's Marine heritage, his build certainly did. "And pleased to make yours, Doctor. Director Murray deemed it prudent for me to do a bit of catching-up with you, what with my...new post." Callaghan simply raised an eyebrow in response. He didn't seem particularly thrilled. "New assignment?" A brief pause. "Ah. He's placed you in charge of ECHELON, then." Stuart simply nodded in response. "Well, if that is the case, then we do indeed have quite a bit of 'catching up' to do, as you say." Callaghan gestured down the hall, back toward the less-restricted side of Chesapeake. "Walk with me."

The marine and the egg-head trundled down the hall, passing by all sorts of research and operations from the mundane to the extravagant. "In terms of ECHELON, there are essentially three critical areas." Stuart simply nodded, following along at Callaghan's surprisingly quick pace. "The first is the ship's hull and armor plating - it took a beating doing god-knows-what out in the Omicrons, and it's quite a slow process to do without any engineering specifications to-hand. Thankfully, IRG's team is proceeding apace on providing lightweight armor compounds, so we should end up alright in that department. It's just a time roadblock at this point, really. A lot of the internal systems need replacing, too, so we can't replace the armor in some sections until internal repairs are completed."

The pair rounded the corner, taking one of the turbo-lifts down to the arrival docks. Their quick pace was stopped only by Stuart, who saw fit to salute the various high-level officials he passed on the way out. Callaghan found it more amusing than annoying. "Ahem. So, that leads us to the second concern - sensors and power generation. Being a reconnaissance, C3, and electronic warfare platform like the FIDELITY project means accounting for that level of electronic prowess, both in terms of design and power to back it up. Ageira is currently heading up sensors development, and IRG's advanced power technology should more than suffice for whatever Ageira manages to throw at it. If we can match even two-thirds of the original specs on the OSIRIS white-paper, then I think we'll have a very fine warship indeed."

They came to a stop in front of the airlock to Docking Port 7-A, which just so happened to house Stuart's craft. Callaghan sat down on the less-than-comfortable waiting bench overlooking the port, and offered Stuart the seat to his right. It took him a few moments to break enough mental protocol to accept. As the pair of them overlooked Stuart's docked Guardian, Callaghan continued. "The final area of concern is weaponry, although we've never struggled much in that aspect. I suspect our own Chesapeake Yards combined with the interesting data from Tracer's project should yield us with all the weapon choices we need..."

Stuart simply sighed in response. "Well, so far, Doctor, it sounds to me like everything is under control. I'm not entirely sure where I fit in here." Callaghan slowly nodded. "Yes, yes. By all accounts, this is about as well put-together as any Naval R&D op. But the funding, well...listen, we could have the finest experts from across Sirius working on this thing, and by all accounts, we do - but it won't matter if their paychecks bounce. I'm not one to get, ehm, uppity at the bureaucrats, but the Director has it right...we're not gonna be able to put a Defiant into service with the budget that Congress is proposing."

Stuart shifted in his chair and sighed. "So that's my job, then." Callaghan tilted his head to the side, watching the man's vacant expression. If he had any tells as to what he was thinking, Callaghan wasn't trained enough to see them. "You know, field work on Los Angeles might cover many eventualities, but being the neighborhood tax-man isn't one of them. I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to will credits and materiel into being." Callaghan rubbed the back of his head, nervously. "Well, it might not be so bad. Maybe the Director can convince the committee otherwise, maybe the Navy will pull off a victory, maybe..." Stuart cut him off. "Yes, and maybe I'll win the scratch-off lotto tonight. This committee wants to pinch pennies and only give money to what's suffering. I'm no political expert, but if that's the case the Navy is a helluva lot more likely to get funding than us. They haven't racked up anything more consequential than a draw in the past month. And we've been running it up golden. Obviously, we can do with less and still hold our ground, right?", he added with an eye-roll dripping in sarcasm.

Callaghan waited for the agent's rant to continue, but it didn't. He simply stood up and stared at the steel tile beneath him, mentally pacing. Callaghan knew not to disturb a man in thought - he'd been plenty annoyed at those who'd do the same to him. "A win. That's what the Navy needs right now. If they can rack up a symbolic victory, and we take a blow, the Director can walk in with some extra ammunition and they'll be paralyzed into indifference. The Senate loves the status quo." Callaghan shook his head. "So, you want to engineer a victory for the Navy and a loss for us? How exactly do you intend that? Won't that just leave us in a worse place than we already are?" Stuart simply cracked a smile.

"Misinformation. It's what we're best at. We feed the Navy intel boys some story about how there's a new Gallic supply depot in an extended position, give them the real latest honest-to-goodness patrol maps, and let them take a swing at it. Engineer some reports that supplies are crippled to some second-line ships, and that the Gauls are down a few percentage points in readiness, and the Naval brass can chalk it up as a big, theatre-defining win." Stuart paces over toward the airlock, as if eager to hop in his Guardian and do this all himself. "Meanwhile, we re-pressurize one of the old Rheinland War wrecks, like an Archer or something, and slap some designation on it. Send it off to Bering, have it get discovered and blown up by Unioners or whoever else finds it first. Big tragedy, of course, LSF will inform the families, all that sort of thing, except there are never any families to tell because we never put anyone on it in the first place. Suddenly our capital strength is diminished, Murray has a real argument for the ECHELON project, and we've lost nothing but a bit of time and a drone controller." Stuart threw his arms up in a shrug, suggesting Callaghan tear a hole in his canvas argument.

"I...this all seems just...I mean, I can see how this could play out...but I don't feel right feeding our own navy misinformation. That could get real, good, honest-to-god Navy sailors killed." Stuart simply sighs, typing in the code to begin cycling the airlock to the interior. "Yeah. It could. But the alternative is letting our own forces dwindle to help their failure of a campaign, and real, good, honest-to-god civilians die here in the crossfire." He juts his thumb out the false window into the Virginia System, as if metaphorically singling out a family on Houston light-years away. "Difference between them and the Navy boys, is that only one of them signed a contract to die for Uncle Sam. That's the calculus I'm making, Doctor. If we need budget for your ship in less than a week, that's the only chance we've got. It'll be razor-thin as it stands."

The airlock chimed and slid open. Stuart stared into - nay, through Callaghan, holding his flight-suit helmet in both hands. Callaghan's mind raced, knowing that it was his go-or-no-go that kept Navy sailors from dying in a week's time. Or civilians on Houston in a month. He gulped down the metaphorical rock in his throat and slowly nodded at the Agent, who nodded once in return. In the blink of an eye, his flight-suit was sealed and the airlock slammed shut behind him, followed shortly by the gentle nudge of his Guardian detaching from Chesapeake. Callaghan took the moment to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing it'd probably be the last time he'd feel that way for the foreseeable future.

"And with us now, Lawrence O'David, chief military analyst with the Cheyenne Institute to discuss the recent successes of the Liberty Navy."

"Thank you. The Navy has long been criticized ever since the blunder over Leeds with Operation Royal Flush, but today I think I can speak of the first steps in a real Allied Victory on the Gallic Front." The man adjusted his glasses and leaned in slightly. "Just last night, Navy vessels took advantage of key intelligence and successfully destroyed a Gallic refueling and rearmament facility in northern New London. This will severely cripple their ability to resupply and rearm ships already in the field, allowing the combined navies to more readily encircle and finish off the Gallic forces over New London proper. If successful, I don't believe this war will go on for much longer."

"Wow. That's really quite the turnaround in such a short time. What can you attribute their success to, if anything in particular?"

"Well, as you know, Navy commanders have long since criticized the budget and support that the government has offered them. In particular, they've been critical of SecDef McKay's handling of the distribution of assets within the Armed Forces. Others, however, have argued that the Navy is simply mishandling the resources they have, and that the money would be better spent on overstretched and underfunded elements keeping the home-fires alight, such as the Security Force. Many strategists and sources within Navy high command have suggested that the Navy has simply gotten better at using the resources available to them."

"And -- you mention the Security Force. How have they been doing in light of their recent setback in Bering?"

"It's hard to say, exactly. Their operation was always a game above numbers from the beginning, and while they've remained tight-lipped about their counter-insurgency operations, some sources have suggested that they're simply undermanned and undersupplied. The loss of the Rickenbacker has solidified a sentiment that overworked crews and undersupplied ships are creating a dangerous combination for the LSF on our eastern border."

"Well, that's unfortunately all the time we have for today, but thank you very much for joining us on LNN Nightly News. Next up -- the inside scoop on Sugarland's Own Ice Cream. What LPI doesn't want you to know..."

The holofeed cut off with a sudden snap. Stuart sighed and got up from the crash couch, rolling his shoulders after an intense week of field work. In a relatively short amount of time, he'd managed to convince the Admiralty of a genuine supply depot that was rushed together the night before, plant a damaged Gallic tanker nearby, arrange for an emergency repair and retrofit of the Madison, now Rickenbacker (and antimatter-filled wreck), and send off convincing pressers to all the major news agencies before the budget hearing.

And it had barely worked.

Only one senator jumped party lines to stop the budget motion from moving forward, leaving the budget in the status quo for the upcoming year. ECHELON would get the funding it needed, the Navy would continue to make do, and Liberty might just live to see another day. He'd won this battle.

It sure didn't feel like he had, though.

Two Navy gunboats were put out of action just because of the shift in forces needed to pursue such a strike in New London, and that wouldn't even be the tip of the iceberg once the navies slammed into each other over New London. Gallia would have all the supplies they'd need, because the LSF didn't have the time or resources to find their real supply base. There was a genuine chance -- if a small one -- that Stuart had just cost Liberty the war in Gallia.

He just hoped it was worth saving the war back home.