Authors: Max Feinstein
It was a lot of information, but the Frontiera
TACCOM was a highly secure facility for obvious reasons. The sophisticated Operational Data Analysis/Assistance system within the base was part of the recently upgraded Kalka Strategic Artificial Intelligence, a system that helped manage the entire facility as well as easy coordination between other bases throughout Frontiera. This new system went through information so quickly that General Stelle didn’t even have to slow down as his security clearance was confirmed and entrance to the nerve center of Fronteria’s military operations was granted. He continued to approach the bluish-gray barrier in full stride and saw a small seem appeared at the very center, which quickly expended vertically towards the ceiling and floor. This rupture grew wider by a couple centimeters before ceasing and with that function complete, the barrier quickly parted into the opposing walls to reveal a large semi-hexagonal room.
“Good morning General,” a simulated female voice said as he entered TACCOM.
“Hello Kasai, how is everything this morning?” General Stelle queried the artificial intelligence.
“All
internal systems operating at optimal levels sir,” Kasai replied in her ever pleasant tone, “however, all outside wireless data streams have been interrupted.”
In contrast to the outside corridors, the room was bustling with activity and
every row of monitoring stations was occupied. Along the outer perimeter wall of the room was a single large display screen that was actually painted on top of the wall surface. Brinek saw that at the moment the screen was split into five different views, each displaying different data. The center section contained the largest window, which showed an image of the entire planet and the vast network of satellites that surrounded it. He had seen that image hundreds of times before, but instantly noticed the single errant factor. At the top left corner a lone icon pulsed slowly in a red hue, “Failed Signal Attempt”.
“Sir, sorry
about getting you up this early,” came a familiar deep voice from Brinek’s left side.
Brinek had known the imposing man for almost a decade now so there
was no reason why he shouldn’t be accustomed to the voice after all that time of working together. They had first meet and served together in the 4
th
2RCB before being promoted, almost at the same time. Brinek went on to command the 325
th
Infantry Division, while Lakler advanced to a company commander. General Stelle had witnessed a similarity to himself in the young officer and had taken it upon himself to become the others’ mentor. Through the years they moved up the command chain together and when Brinek took the position on Frontiera, he brought Colonel Lakler with him as his Executive Officer.
He smiled a
bit at the other man’s remark and slowly shook his head while lifting his hand up to silence him, “not a problem Colonel, give me a SitRep.”
“Yes sir
. Around 23:45 we lost contact with the
Fredriksburg
Battle Group. Five minutes after that we lost all comm transmissions and sensor feeds,” he pointed towards the large display board, “as you can see all signals are down, sensors on and off planet and all communications. The effect seems to be across all the frequency spectrums.”
“Could it be a hardware issue? Are we the only facility affected?” General Stelle inquired, but his instincts were already starting to kick in and his slightly sedated state disappeared almost instantly.
“We had Kasai run a complete series of diagnostics, General, and no irregularities were found in any of our communication systems. Just to make sure, however, I had the techs replace some of the most critical internals, but the problem still persists. We can’t reach anyone. It’s almost as if all our TacNet relays went offline at once,” the Colonel reported as he punched in commands at the glowing counsel before him.
Part of the wall display changed and the General recognized it as a chart of all communication traffic to and from the planet. Being a military garrison all communications had to go through military hardware
, whether it was armed service or civilian in origin, where they could be properly filtered in order to make sure that no unauthorized information was leaked from the planet. As such, all communications transmissions were logged.
“As you can see, sir, everything was fine until a certain point in time
.” The Colonel paused and looked at the General, who suddenly had a slight look of surprise on his war hardened face. “At that instant, all transmissions simply ceased. Every outgoing as well as incoming signal simply drops. We tried to run diagnostics on the satellites, but none of our commands are getting through. Physically they are still in orbit, just unresponsive.”
“Spa
ceCom?” the General uttered in a one word command.
The response was immediate as the display before them shifted to an image of space
. The three dimensional image was a compilation of data from different sensors stationed in orbit around the planet. At the center appeared the rotating body of Frontiera, which was surrounded by various rings of satellites and a single space station in high orbit. Beside these relatively stationary objects were ships of different classes moving to and from the planet. Some were freighters bringing in needed goods, while others were shuttles transporting civilians and military personal.
As the image zoomed out smoothly the other planetary bodies making up the solar system appeared. Between the two furthest
out planets materialized two naval taskforces opposite of each other. One of was moving towards the system’s core, while the other seemed to be arranged in a defensive formation trying to block its progression. At the head of the defensive formation was a large ship, the largest of all present on the battlefield, the FNV
Fredriksburg.
The sensor data was clear enough to show almost every movement made by each ship. Some were changing position in their format
ion, while others seemed to be drifting further apart. Without warning new contacts, much smaller than the rest started to appear, started to stream from the large cruiser leading the defensive line as well as its flanking destroyers before vectoring towards the opposing formation. These were quickly identified as Federation AF-103C DragonFire assault fighters, each one probably older than the pilots flying them, thought the General as he observed the data being projected for him. The DragonFires had at one time been the pinnacle of Federation engineering, being the combination of a frontline fighter and a light bomber. They were designed as a multirole platform in order to simplify deployment and procurement, replacing three older fighter and bomber craft with a single unit. Over many years the AF-103 had grown into the most widely used and produced fighter in the Federation arsenal, with multiple versions and updates added throughout its lifetime to keep it viable against newer threats. Their missions ranged from convey escort to planetary defense to space deployment. Even heavy cruisers used them in order to increase their firepower and give them much needed anti-fighter support. Frontiera itself had a compliment six reinforced DragonFire wings, allowing it to deploy over two hundred fighters for battle.
Back on the display, the fighters formed into a delta formation and accelerated towards the head of the assaulting group. Just
around the midway point of their flight, both groups instantly veered right and reformed into a single formation. At the same time both taskforces did the same, breaking their battle lines. The whole display went dark a second later.
“That’s when we lost all contact with the
Fredriksburg
and her escorts. As you can see, General, we lost all sensor feeds instantly. Our ships can still be out there, we just can’t see them…or anything else for that matter.”
General Stelle took a slow, long breath and stood up straight. He put his hands behind his back while staring at the display screen at the front of the command center. It had changed to show all the presently stationed military units and the locations on the planet from where they had last reported their positions. It was a guess as to whether they were still in the same position
s. With the communications and tracking systems offline, those soldiers could really be anywhere. They could even be engaging some enemy and calling for support, but there was no one to hear or acknowledge them.
Brinek’s
many years of experience and instincts told him that something like this could not happen by accident. Systems of one kind of another were bound to fail at certain points in their life cycle, but for all of them to go offline at the same time was unheard off and pretty much impossible. That was unless there was an external explanation for it and that inevitably led to only one of two conclusions, either high command took the systems offline for a drill or the system was under attack by unknown enemy forces with technology advanced enough to disable all his sensors and communications systems without any warning.
In his mind there was
only one course of action to take, “Colonel, put this base on Condition Red, get everyone ready for combat and deploy all defensive forces to their designated stations. I want our perimeter locked up tighter than a Galicar’s shell. Assume we are at war until told otherwise.”
There was a flash of genuine shock and surprised at those commands.
The Colonel and every other person within the command center dropped everything they were doing for number of seconds as the realization of what had just happened sunk in. Their training took over instantly, however, after the moment of surprise and as one they hurried to their specific wartime duties. At the same time an alarm called out through speakers around the room as well as those arrayed all over the underground facility. Along with the loud klaxon, red illuminators ignited all over the base informing the occupants of the situation even before the Colonel’s voice resounded through concealed speaker systems.
Every person on the base knew what Condition Red was. It was the thing they had all trained for and most hopped to never witness. A majority still assumed it as a drill, however, and as such joked with each other as they stumbled out of their bunks and donned their battle dress before rushing out towards the nearest armory to pick up their weapons. Some of those jokers actually sobered when they realized the weapons they were issued contained full charged power packs and set to full power. That had never happened before during drills for safety reasons.
General Stelle stood tall and proud as everyone went along with their duties. He had been with these soldiers for years and had pushed them harder than anyone ever had. Now they understood why he had been that mean old man during all those drills that they hated. Brinek had known that one day there would come a time when they would need those instilled skills and the confidence to complete their tasks without second guessing themselves. That confidence how filled the TACCOM in spades. Every person in the room knew their jobs from the moment Condition Red was declared and would do them to the letter until they were ordered otherwise or became incapacitated.
From behind the general heard a pounding of combat boots against the
hard floor of the hallway and a group of soldiers in full battle gear rushed into the room. They quickly formed a line and stood at attention, their BR-112 battle rifles firmly attached to the chest plate of each soldiers’ combat armor.
The General turned to face these young men and women, admiring them for a moment before speaking his first words to them. “You’re squads will receive the first missions of this conflict. As you might have al
ready noticed, all our wireless communication are out. Until the problem is alleviated we must reply the centuries old tradition of couriers. You will take your units to areas now designated on your TacLinks and try to link up with the units stationed in those areas. Once located you will inform them that we are under Condition Red and relay orders for them to regroup and head to their designated bases. Should said units not be at their locations proceed to secondary Recon objectives. All of your orders have already been relayed to you.”
He paused and let the mission sink in for a second before continuing
, “I know what you all are thinking and let me make it perfectly clear…this is not a drill. You follow your orders and trust your training.”
With that he took one last slow look at all of them, almost as if it would be the last time laying his eyes on them before turning away to look at the displays once more. He could hear Colonel
Gustauf Lakler shout for them to move out and conduct their missions as ordered, adding that they would finally be able to earn their keep in his army.
“We need to do something about our communications problem General
,” Lakler exclaimed as he stood behind the General, looking at the highly detailed map of the area surrounding the base. New indicators started to appear on the map as units started to take up their new positions and get reinforced with new personnel from the reserves based within the large mountain complex.
General Stelle nodded slowly and a map of the mountain range appeared on the screen in front of them.
The computer systems in this room were completely integrated with his neural implant and registered his thoughts instantly. He took a moment to scan the map before it quickly zoomed in on a curved, snow covered mountain ridge.