It was open season on humanity. Species once friendly to mankind had suddenly turned hostile. On colony worlds shared by multiple species, humans were being forced off-planet. Attacks were frequent. Ten thousand humans died on a far-flung colony when a formerly neutral species razed the planet. Thousands more died when civilian craft trying to flee the planet were shot down. On another colony, military robots wandered the streets of a city of millions, shooting anything that moved.
Acts of sabotage, outright attacks, even financial attacks were happening everywhere. The most obvious safe places for humans were the original nine Coalition planets and Earth. Knowing this, millions of people streamed to those planets, only to be turned away or captured.
There were other havens, though. I read that several planets in the Narrow Sector forming the loose alliance called the Range were holding up very well. Although Kambridge was almost 300 years old, most of the other planets were new. This meant they were taking refugees with open arms.
The Tillians, Fondishig, and Abbersham were sending military forces to help, where they could. Always allies to humanity, they were also under pressure from other species to back off, or suffer the same kinds of attacks. The shy and reclusive D’kims also sided with humans, though they didn’t have any resources or military might. I was relieved to hear that Dandem strongly favored mankind during these awful storms of violence and slaughter. The Irarians have gone as far as to provide escorts for human mass-evacuations.
The lower fleets were now holding their own. FFA was now at full strength, thanks to resources and personnel transferred from the Earth Defense Fleet. FFB and FFZ were also doing very well. Second fleet was still at bare-bones level. They spent most of the time patrolling areas of space most frequented by humans. And they were taking a toll of blood on those species doing humanity harm.
Third Fleet was in perfect form. They were exacting vengeance on those species that have done us harm. If it was not possible for the Fleets to be where they could protect humans, then Third struck back, exacting payment ten-fold.
The rest of the Ten Fleets, however, were in bad shape. 4th, under the command of Captain
Moody, was doing well. 5th Fleet exists only on paper. I’m 6th Fleet, with just my little Grinder and two people. Although 8th and 9th Fleet had several medium and large military craft, they were transferred to Mission Groups of First Fleet. Tenth Fleet was absorbed into FFA as a Task Group.
Rovsky told me about 7th Fleet. I was really surprised that Toasty Warren was the Fleet Commander of 7th. Toasty is well known by just about everyone in the Ten Fleets because he’s an instructor at the academy Argos in First Fleet. Just about every new recruit has taken his classes. Toasty specializes in Tucker vats, but also teaches trade, finance, and beginner classes on diplomacy and xenoculture. Toasty is physically huge, outspoken, and doesn’t hold back his opinion on anything. He’s well loved by many.
Once every five years, Toasty has to do a quick tour in another fleet like all instructors. This rule is supposed to keep desk-jockeys from becoming fat and complacent; they actually have to do real work in the fleets. Toasty’s story is much like mine in that he got the title of Fleet Commander because he was in the right (wrong) place at the time. His flagship is an Arnican shuttle. I wonder how old Toasty’s doing right now?
So, there you have it. I have given a general look at the universe for mankind. As a bonus, you have the state of the Ten Fleets of Earth. I just have a few questions, like: What the hell am I going to about this, with my pathetic fleet? And: How the hell am I supposed to grow this fleet when resources where so scarce that one of the Ten Fleets is a paper fleet, and another has a shuttle as the flagship?
Next Chapter >> 20-I: Gettin' Even
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