There was an alarm sounding. Felix grumbled in his sleep and rolled over. It kept sounding. He sat up and rubbed at his head, groaning. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He couldn't even hear the rasping of his stubble over that damned racket. Now that he is semi-conscious, he figures out that it is the high priority door chime.
The Rear Admiral stands up on his prosthetic leg and his real left one and hobbles over to violently jam down the rather iffy blue intercom button with his thumb and bellow, "WHAT IS IT?"
He recognizes the voice from the other side. Karten. He recognizes that voice from anywhere… her voice flows smoothly like any normal young woman’s, but there is a definite hint of a computerized speech processor under it all. She squawks, "Sir! Station Commander requests your presence in Briefing Room Three, on the double!"
It is hard even for a Rear Admiral like him, with his slumber interrupted, to stay angry at a little robotic raven with such comical ways of speaking. He chuckles and shook his head as he turns back to the small, Spartan cabin with metal walls and a tiny porthole. Most of this place is like this. All of the bare internal supports are visible, and he feels like this should be a fuel tank and not a bedroom… it works, well enough. Karten enters in a small dog-door like portal at the top of the main gateway at his invitation. The raven is a little larger than most organic members of her species but she is still hardly a burden as she settles upon his shoulder.
Karten is made of metal feathers and other parts, all of them intricately put together like a mechanical watch from the most skilled of watchmakers. Her body is in a shadowy finish with two eyes that glow like a nuclear reactor core. She also has a strangely cute little satellite dish protruding from between her eyes. It looks like a thimble mounted on a thin gooseneck stalk with a flagpole up the center. She uses this device tractor beam his toothbrush to his hand with an invisible beam. His hand tingles as he put it in the invisible beam, but he already knows there is no harm in interrupting the beam with flesh.
The Admiral grooms himself, as much as he cares to. He still looks like a teenager who just dragged himself out of his bed. There is a reason his hair is buzzed down to a blonde fuzz, and it is not regulations. Karten plays a part by beaming an instrument to him each time he holds his hand out, or by beaming one back to the metal counter. He rubs over his stubble and decides that does not need attention. Felix splashes some cool water on his face, much to his bird’s chagrin.
She even helps him dress from a perch across the room. The bird’s electronic eyes scanned and scientifically observed every imperfection in his uniform, and he does his best to correct them. Once he is done she flies over and uses her beak and tractor beam to smooth out any wrinkles that may bother her, and is rewarded with a little stroke on her head and a treat.
Now looking about as clean as he can manage with his less than stellar motivation levels, Felix sets out through the cramped corridors of Macedonia. What a weird thing this station is… it's a bastardized gothic look with metal in place of stone and transparent steel in place of the windows. The organic lights give off a sterile white glow that exterminates all shadows and makes his eyes hurt even after his long stay here. This place was supposed to be just a temporary staging post for fleets during the last big war, but it was kept in orbit, reinforced, and sloppily made into a refueling station. The hastily welded pipes splattered across the walls testifies to that.
Felix is here for literally no reason at all. He doesn’t know why he is stuck out in the ass end of nowhere or how long he will be out here. He returns the salutes given to him by the spectrally colored station crew as he squeezes past them with Karten ducking and squawking and flapping her wings as she does her best to stay on his shoulder. Thankfully the corridors clear as the fire alarm wakes itself up and begins that damned dinging noise. Even now he flinches every time he passes one of the hexagonal red devices which are mounted way too low and with their trombone shaped projectors conveniently at his ear level.
Aside from the occasional flinch as the ringing of a bell is rammed into his ear canal he stays stoic. Some sorry bastard would have to get his ship repainted is all that will probably happen. If it gets really bad, there might be a burial in space. This station might be a firetrap but it is tough and Felix has learned to ignore the many fire alarms over his week here.
He dodges the dashing ratings and eventually finds his way through the maze of decks, portals, and corridors to the big blast doors leading into Meeting Room 3. Felix stops as Karten flaps off, pecks the door chime a couple times, and then flaps back to his shoulder. The doors open with a strained, almost annoyed, electric whine.
He and Karten share a glance before stepping inside. The interior of the room is just as barren and Spartan as the rest of New Macedonia. It has the strange metal church style architecture. The same lack of shadows. It has the same smell, of processed and filtered air that was sterile yet full of chemical scents that would make an unaccustomed man gag. It sounds the same, with a faint electrical buzz of the always overburdened system, plus the sloshing and burbling of various caustic and carcinogenic liquids through the pipes like an ever-flowing brook. The normal meeting table is set up with a gaggle of strangers sitting around, save for a couple of faces Felix would rather have avoided seeing.
The Commander of the Fourth Eosian Fleet, Admiral Nernburg, sits smiling at Felix, like a predator knowing he is in control. He is an old man, at sixty one years old, and was starting to creep up on standard retirement age. He just... refuses to go, for some reason. He has no hair left. His eyebrows are thin and gray. Beneath those, both of his eyes are prosthetic copies. The way they glowed, like hot metal, gave it away. That, and the visible electronic circuitry in his irises. Otherwise, he is a tall, weather-beaten man, with many lines, winkles, and scars visible on what little skin is showing. Kind of like the stereotypical sailing captains of old.
Next to him is the Station CO herself, Commodore Nascha. She is a forty six year old Native American and often speaks in Apache just to screw with junior enlistees. He has fallen prey to that himself... she is skinny and built like a runner, with short black hair and powerful black eyes and skin tanned a golden brown. There are four others he does not know.
Jules Nernburg does not grant permission for Felix to sit or stand down from attention. He instead salutes lazily and asks in his thick Austrian accent, "Is it necessary to bring that damnable toy with you everywhere you go?"
Karten rawwked in protest. Felix scratches at her head and stands down from attention anyways as he shoots back, "She's a better assistant than the unweaned kits you send to me!"
The Admiral sighs and gestures to a chair. The four strangers are ignored, for now. RAd Nevermor slips elegantly into the chair and kicks back, with the raven perching on his shoulder hopping down and standing on the table. The Commodore does not say much and seems to be simply observing. The Commandant of the Fleet scratches at his bald head and then asks Nevermor, “Have you heard of the whole ordeal with the Nemesis, Rear Admiral?”
Felix says, "Yep. Somehow you lot lost a giant battleship with your most famous man on her.
The Admiral continues unperturbed, “She’s been sniffed out by a stealth frigate some light years away.” The Commodore chimes in now.
“That’s why you have been held out here for this time. This outpost is near the Vorqhul neutral zone.”
Felix frowns a little and tells them, “Well, that's great and all, I guess you guys finally did something, but I don’t have a ship. I like to think I am pretty strong but its not like I can swim out there and punch her.”
Jules speaks now. “We are aware, Rear Admiral. Hence why that unusually large ship parked here this morning.”
Felix blinks. “You want me to take a damned fuel barge out there? I thought ordered kamikaze attacks aren’t allowed?”
Jules set his jaw firmly, “Do you never look out a window? That is not the Shiak. That vessel is, in fact, the Ark Royal.”
Felix’s mouth drops open a little. His witty comment about the windows constantly being shuttered because of general alarms is forgotten. Karten pecks his temple and he blinks before babbling, “W-wait, the Royal? I. thought…”
The Commodore smirks as the grinning Jules says, “She’s been patched up and she is now under your command. And these four will be Captaining your escorts. Commander Dobrosława Sokoloff, or Debra…”
A young blonde woman is the one he points to. She is very young, with bright eyes bursting with energy and long blonde hair tightly woven and draped down her back. She sits rigidly in the chair with her harshly bordered but graceful and youthful round face displaying a happy and eager grin.”...Commander of the destroyer Fornax.” Debra nodded to Felix with a determined look upon her face.
Felix returns her nod, as Jules continues, “Commander Natalie Abel…”
Now he points to the young woman sitting next to Dobroslawa. She looks like a cat, with how her eye is always sizing up whatever she is looking at. It actually disturbs Felix a little. She has buzzed dark brown hair and one green eye with the other covered by an eye patch. She salutes Felix, and he again returns a nod. She has a more elongated head structure, and from what he could see, is much more lean and athletic looking than the stocky Debra. A cat versus a dog, he supposes.
Jules keeps talking, “...the Commander of the Ursa Major. Then we have the Commander of the Taurus, Jonathan Rack.”
This kid looks like he has come straight from a highschool football team, where he was the hotshot quarterback that got all the hot chicks. He does dip his head respectfully, but he looks so young… he even still has faint traces of acne on his angular face, which held his green eyes and closely-shaved ginger hair.
“...and finally, Captain Isaac Einfield, commanding the Orion.” There are a couple of odd things here. First, the Orion should be in a museum, and second, Isaac is a damned robot. His eyes glow an ember-like red, his skin is a gleaming metal like a battleship, and he looks like some kind of deer out of a cartoon. An elk, with the horns and all. Standing on two legs. An anthropomorphic robot elk would be captaining one of the oldest ships in active service. Isaac dipped his head, with his gleaming horns dipping and glinting in the light.
Felix likes to think of himself as progressive but he immediately bursts, “Wait a damned minute! Why are you letting some Disney animatronic pilot a floating rust bucket in my battle group?”
Isaac looks rather crestfallen. His head dipped further, but this was in a sorry way with his chin drooping and his eyes diverting downwards. The Commodore steps in now, “Rear Admiral Nevermor! You will observe the rules of nondiscrimination set forth in your command guidelines or you will be court-martialed and removed of command and rank pending investigation! Isaac is the latest in tech and he is just as, if not more capable, than any of us, and Orion has been inspected and cleared for a last flight. I know you’re one of those admirals who believes in old flesh and new metal but you will have to discard those damned old traditions if you want the chair next to me!” She sits down, muttering something in Apache that makes Debra and Isaac snigger like school children. Felix blushes and crosses his arms, accepting that humiliating defeat with a bite of his lip and cutting his losses by not saying anything further.
Jules’ face never changes. He just nods once and clears his throat, “Hm. Yes. Now that we have settled that matter, your ships are three of the Centauri class destroyers, and the last of the Bootis class cruiser. The Centauris are very capable and very modern vessels, Rear Admiral, and you should be proud to have them. They are good torpedo boats, and their guns can sting if they have to use them. And that Orion… she’s well into her twilight but she is still a mighty fine and proud ship, Rear Admiral. I have seen what happens to anything caught in her broadside, and it is an awe-inspiring sight. Let her go out in a way she deserves. And I do think you know your own ship so… your mission. I will let you have control on this one. Go out and find the Nemesis. Make sure that ship is destroyed… I would prefer it if you brought the traitor in charge back alive but as long as Iosif Vranas is neutralized, I and higher command will be satisfied.” He pauses, “Unless you have questions then you have free reign to hunt him down. We will provide any resources you request, to the best of our abilities.”
Felix just stands up, put on a crisp goose step, and salutes sharp-like. Jules and the Commodore do the same. He files out, and the other four Captains follow.
He sees his ship for the first time a few moments later, near the loading bays.
She is even bigger and badder than he thought. Especially comparing her to her escorts.
Now just to see if this would be his promotion or his fall from grace.