One thousand one hundred and thirty men, all stood before the podium. Today, they would flee. Tomorrow, they would remember, and years later they will return.
Arthur Levesque approached the podium and clasped his hands on the edges, leaning forwards he began to speak.
"Men and women of the Republique. I fear that this day would come, and it has. Our southern fleet has continued to take heavy losses, as well as our other fleets. The people of Gallia have seen horrors we've all have seen, yet they do not budge from their chairs or take action against their government. Those that were once our allies, and have pledged to never harm innocents, turned against us and killed three human beings blaming it on an accident, then refusing to comment. My friends, comrades in arms, we have no friends here in Gallia, and no friends in Sirius."
He paused taking a deep breath and looked out upon the thousands of men and women that all shuffled nervously, or stood bravely listening to his speech.
"Today marks the fall of our movement. Tomorrow we shall remember, and I promise you this. We will never forget. We shall return, and we shall defeat the crown. The times before us will be hard, but we have all committed to this. That is all for now. Dismissed."
Arthur shook his head as he pushed away from the podium. He turned to his left and nodded to a man, Austin Goodman, who in return nodded back. The Bretonian exile had connections, connections they would need in the future. It was good to have him around.
The Bridge of the Le Freeman de Gaule, former Republique flagship, Two hours after the announcement of disbandment.
"Sir, painting of the vessel has been completed." "Good."
Levesque shook his head and sighed heavily as he started away from the bridge of the vessel. One thousand one hundred and thirty men were aboard, including himself and that Bretonian exile, who was doing who knows what.
Levesque grabbed a piece of paper from the hands of a technician, he looked over it and sighed once more. Four bombers, and a small wing of about six fighters. Supplies were low on board the ship itself, meaning they would need to intercept royalist food transports, or ration the supplies they did have currently. Water would be easily recycled, though fresh water would be necessary at some point.
His first objective would be to get the de Gaule out from Gallic space and into Sirius itself. However a huge bulky Redemption class vessel would be a bit impossible to hide from Sirians, and other council vessels would notice the de Gaule leaving through the mines if they went into Languedoc. Their best option would to head through the Lorraine system and hit the jumphole to Omicron-80, and then attempt to sneak a gallic ship past Outcast space. A risk that he wasn't willing to take either.
"Where is Commander Goodman?" Arthur said to the nearest man, who shook his head. Someone else spoke up shortly after, "Sir. Commander Goodman is in the hanger working on his ship. The..eh...Templar."
"Time for this old man to walk." He chuckled slightly to himself and shouted for someone to take control of the bridge as he started his way down to the hanger bay.
"If A is success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is X, Y is play, and Z is keeping your mouth shut." -- Albert Einstein.
Two men were walking side-by-side down the hall way. One, who was wearing what looked to be a slightly worn Bretonian uniform flanked an older gentleman who was wearing civilian clothing and a patch indicating his former rank of Admiral on the shoulder.
"You do realize that effective fighter pilots are require to know more then what you've been doing to them." The Bretonian said, looking at a couple of Gallic Officers who saluted him and the Admiral as they walked past. Things are different here then they were back home. He thought, but then shook his head to distract the thoughts and returned to the conversation at hand.
"You keep forgetting, Monsieur Goodman, we've been fighting this war for centuries. Our pilots are trained in the thick of combat, while most of them have fled from the Royal Navy and Royal Police to join in our fight for freedom. Our pilots need to learn to adapt to changing situations, as I know your former wing had to do the same. We don't have the technology to simulate space combat. Station, ship, or planet side. Our resources have been strained from the start of this civil war, even from the start of the first civil war some hundred years ago." Arthur sighed heavily as they rounded the corner, "I'm just glad the pilots we have on hand are some of the best the Republique has trained. The moment we get out of Gallia, and somewhere we can actually set up a permanent establishment, or safe haven, or whatever, we'll try to gain support from the other houses in Sirius to help us with training and maybe get simulators installed."
"Getting support from the Sirian houses is going to be harder to do then you think. Liberty could careless about anyone but themselves. Kusari is to caught up in their God Emperor and blowing the crap out of Bretonian ships. Rheinland...they're busy stopping the Liberty incursion. Bretonia would probably help, if they weren't in the middle of a two-way war with the Corsairs and the Kusari Empire. But with me around I doubt they would help anyways. Given my past with them."
"As dire as these times are, we can't give up hope in everything, Monsieur Goodman." "Hmph, you're telling me."
Arthur stopped in his tracks, and Austin continued on for a couple more steps before stopping and looking at the Admiral. "Something wrong?"
"I never considered what I would do in case an event such as this happened, or if we did happen to win the war. I went from having everything as a noble son, to serving the crown as a soldier in the Royal Army, to fighting for the very rebellion I tried to quell. Now I'm on the flag ship of the Republique, taking a handful of refugees, soldiers, and pilots running into the unknown." He looked from the wall directly at the Bretonian. "With a Bretonian Exile onboard who is having similar thoughts, am I not correct?"
"Aye, I've always asked myself what I was going to do when the war ended with Kusari. I knew I was going to retire from the Armed Forces, and attempt my hand at politics. But that day never came, nor will. Hell, half the time I went into combat thinking it was going to be my last fight, even when I was sitting in the Kusari prisons." He said smiling, rather reassuringly, before letting out a light chuckle. "I guess currently, I go where ever I feel I'm needed. Right now thats here helping you and your people against a corrupt crown. Though, my presence with your refugees in Sirian space will most likely raise a lot of questions, and Bretonia would most likely be wary of this vessel with me on board."
Arthur nodded and started walking away, clasping his hands behind his back. Austin shortly followed.
The short Hispanic man stood impatiently by the hatch, waiting for the Storm Class gunboat to make a soft seal, and establish atmosphere in the tube. He coughed, glancing at the crewman working the utilitarian controls, as the hatch finally slid open.
'Hey Cuate,' he said into the comm.-link.
Commander Brook's reply was as brisk as ever, 'What?'
'You stay close, comprende? I go pendejear with the Frenchmen, and when I return you had better be close by, ese, or there's gonna be hell to pay!'
'Yes, yes,' Brooks sounded bored.
Once through the hatch, Captain Ricardo Alvarez knew he was in a completely different world.
Here and there were the signs of a prolonged struggle, battle damage in the corridors, people who had fashioned make shift berths and bunks between ammunition crates looking at him from unwashed faces, and war shattered eyes. Here he was amongst the damned, the forgotten and the wayward.
He'd seen those faces before, crammed into the Havana on the fateful day that Costello had ordered the ship to defect and leave the lies and hypocrisy of Crete behind. His wife and his two young boys being crammed in, along with hundreds of others, while the ship fought its way to the Coalition, and the promise of a new home under Comrade Ares.
Things had changed so much since then.
He was skipper of the Havana, and the Coalition was no longer desperate terrorists hiding in a rock in the middle of nowhere following a madman. His wife lived on JiangXi in a sunny little part of Santiago de Omega, a small island on a beautiful crystal blue sea. His two boys served the Coalition, Alejandro in the Civil Service, and Enrico in the Fighter Corps. So much had changed.
That was what he was there for, he glanced at the Gallic Officer who had been sent to greet him. The poor boy looked scared out of his wits, gangling and obviously too young to be wearing a uniform. But war knew no generation and would claim the lives of the young just as readily as the old.
'Si, mi hermano,' Alvarez stated saluting. 'Permission to Come Aboard?'
'Oui,' the young inclined his head. 'The Amiral is on the hangar deck, he is not expecting you so early'¦'
Alvarez nodded, 'Take me to him, please.'
Alvarez shrugged his shoulders deeper into the heavy leather jacket he was wearing, the Havana patch opposite to the Cog and Hammer offering him some small comfort that the poor people he saw about him would be offered some respite soon, a haven away from everything that had dragged them down to huddling for shelter aboard a lost warship.
Quote:'Hey Cuate,' he said into the comm.-link.
Commander Brook's reply was as brisk as ever, 'What?'
'You stay close, comprende? I go pendejear with the Frenchmen, and when I return you had better be close by, ese, or there's gonna be hell to pay!'
'Yes, yes,' Brooks sounded bored.
Jayce stood for a moment beside the hatch of the Storm gunboat, before delving into the rucksack he had brought with him. Inside, he found the same set of nail-clippers, batteries, and the same silver rod he had brought to recruitment, when he first joined the Coalition. He also pulled a small, plastic-wrapped foam cup encased in a thin metal cup from another pocket in the small rucksack. Along with these he pulled a water bottle and a foil packet containing some sort of purple powder.
"God, I'm starving..." Jayce said, as he brought himself to a seated position beside the airlock. "Let's fire this thing up..."
Jayce separated the metal can from the foam one, and set them next to each other. Next, he opened up the silver rod with the nailclippers, whereupon it formed a double "Y" shape. Jayce slotted the small batteries into the device, and a whirring noise was heard...
The Coalition guards brought their assault rifles to bear on Jayce's forehead. "Woah woah woah, chill out, I'm trying to make lunch!" With this, the guards lowered their weapons, and Jayce let out a chuckle.
Jayce poured roughly half of his water into the small metal cup, then he set that on the water heater. The other half of the water was combined with the purple powder to create "Drink-Grape, Ration-Field, Coalition, Mark 1."
Minutes later, Jayce sat with a slouch, the tantalizing scent of noodles wafting around the room, awaiting the Premiers return.
Gaia, a paradise world, home of creatures not found anywhere else naturally, beautiful beaches, tropical jungles, It was one of the most Earth-like planets in the whole of Sirius...Ben Warner with his 'catch' from his fishing trip strode into the clearing where his camp was set up, a small camo-tent, not far from it a small camp-fire, to any person he would just seem like a regular guy on a camping trip.
Despite it being illegal to set foot on Gaia unless you had a Visa, still he managed to infiltrate the planet and was taking his holiday on it's surface, he was almost ready to leave Gaia unfortunately, he was expected back in Omega-52 within a day or two, as he set the fish on a line and started to gut them, removing entrails and scaling the fish so no bacteria clung to them as he cooked them. Most Sirians would be appalled at the notion of camping, being to focused on their comfortable ships, their comfortable homes...Their comfortable lives. Yet Ben enjoyed such trips, it allowed him to know that he was still alive and that sometimes going 'lower tech' is not such a bad thing.
As he used his combat knife to scale the fish he sighed, he would miss this, there was something about being with nature and without the advanced technologies of medicine, scanners and energy weapons that made him feel somehow at peace, as if there wasn't wars going on all around Sirius, just him, these fish and the wildlife of Gaia.
Sure the Gaians wouldn't appreciate him being there, but that's why the Coalition issued the TT-33 Combat Pistol for it's Coalition personnel.
As he finished filleting the fish and put them over the fire on a long stick to cook he sat back on the ground and sighed, the Personal Merit would arrive soon to return him to the Coalition...A shame but he had a job to do, this holiday wouldn't last forever.
So he just sat back and enjoyed what little time he had left before he was immersed in the war once more...
Early afternoon Auguste Moreau landed in New London. He walked about ten miles before he carefully chose his position. Peace, quiet and bright reddish sky. Birds that he has yet never seen were circulating high above him. Their screechy tones rang out the scenery. Auguste turned on his back so that he could have a better look at them. Half feathered creatures were flying around each other with suprising ease. At one point the closest two grabbed their claws and free-fall began. The squeeze eased to a moment before it was too late and here they are high again.
The arrival of an encrypted transmission raised Auguste from reverie.
Confirmation.
With a rapid movement he set up his suit thermostat to automatic because the spring twilight's freshness penetrated his body. Few seconds later he felt the heat wave as the blood coursed. With trained movement of the thumb he removed the sight's protection of the AK-147 Coalition impulse rifle, deeply exhaled and aimed.
The dull sound of a gunshot and a body that falls, slowly.
Music and movement.
Older comrades told him about that capitalistic miracle called the moving pictures.
"I have to see it with my own eyes" he said as he contemplated, leisurely walking towards the ship.
Ben sighed as he boarded the Personal Merit, he had already covered his tracks and made sure that there was little to no sign he was ever camped there...Settling into a seat he nodded to a crewman as he headed towards the cockpit.
Several minutes later the same crewman came back with a small data pad which he handed to the tired Commandante who let out a deep sigh, not more than ten minutes off his holiday and he already was put back to work...Shaking his head he accepted the data pad and cussed under his breath, the paperwork has been piling since he left, as he went through the data he got the urge to kill whomsoever invented status reports and Sortie schedules. As the Personal Merit began to cruise out of Gaia's atmosphere and into orbit he began to go through the paperwork, signing digitally where it was required and cussing all along the way...
Somehow he suspected that Karl Marx didn't have to put up with this crap....
Ben gave a long deep sigh as he was handed Datapad after Datapad, signing reports, reading Intelligence Reports, however this was countered by two rather...Interesting reports.
The one that caught his eye the most was from one of their scouts within the relatively new house of 'Gallia', detailing gathered intelligence on the battle that lead up to the 'Reunion proclaimation'. Ben rubbed his jaw with his left hand as his right hand held up the Datapad to his eyes.
As he read about the battle his attention was drawn to the Cassard, a Valor Class Battleship that was damaged during the fighting near the Minefield, it's hull was surprisingly intact, it's engines, life-support and other various sub-systems however were disabled...Still it gave Ben an idea, it would require much time, effort and bloodshed to bring it to fruition, but the rewards were worth it...
Looking to a Sub-Lt as he entered the rear cabin he nodded.
"Get me the Premier on the line...Tell him Commandante Warner needs his skills." he calmly spoke as he gazed through the reports on the Cassard, gleaning as much information about the ship and the damage upon it as he could...
Katz looked up from his desk, as the priority communication came over the line. He tapped the monitor, sitting back into the old high backed chair as he looked at his old friend Ben.
"What can I do for you?" The aging statesman asked, smiling warmly.