CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

For eighty three miles they watched and listened, steadily identifying each and every
one of the UEO Raptor II‟s... and inevitably, their origin. The pursuing fighters were all-too
aware of the Battlecruiser that trailed them, but no message was transmitted. Once their
business was done, the twelve, shadowy craft simply melted in to the fog and disappeared...
leaving as silently as they had arrived.
Thirty minutes after this, an Alliance patrol en-route to the Macaw Bank about
seventy miles west of the UEO battlegroup inexplicably disappeared. Four SA-33
Broadswords of the Macronesian 4 th Fleet‟s 243 rd Fighter Squadron had only enough time to
broadcast their location before they were utterly eradicated, their attackers remaining
unknown.
...The alert reached the Commonwealth‟s CIC and bridge communications stations
minutes after the distress call had gone out, leaving both tactical and operations officers
scratching their heads in confusion. Whatever had happened, it had been enough to pull
almost every major Alliance warship out of position to respond for forty miles in every
direction. What this meant for Commonwealth remained unclear.
Ainsley walked in to the CIC moments later to receive the report, and he didn‟t even
need to ask as the CIC watch officer handed him a sheet of paper with the print out.
Roderick and Richards stepped in to the room behind him as he turned to lean against the
main plot. He read it quickly, and then passed it to Roderick without a sound.
Taking one look at it, Roderick pursed her lips and walked to the flight operations
station on the upper level. “Captain Banick, please report to the CIC,” Ainsley said as he
keyed the intercom to the bridge. A few seconds passed during which the Admiral took in the
battlegroup‟s disposition. Roberts‟ fighters still led them by a good fifty miles, and the report
on Macronesian fleet activity had everything moving well away from the battlecruiser‟s
projected course.
Banick entered the CIC a few seconds later and approached the tactical plot in
silence. “What do we have? He finally asked quietly as he stood next to the Admiral.
“Another happy coincidence,” muttered Ainsley, gesturing to the board that showed
the projected courses of the Alliance patrols away from the carrier group. “Report from a few
minutes ago had an Alliance patrol forty miles west sending a distress call. All they got off
was their position, and then they just... disappeared.”
“Just their position?” asked Banick with surprise. “That‟s a little... convenient, isn‟t it?”
Ainsley smiled. “...I thought so.”
Roderick and Richards watched the board, the location of the attack being
highlighted on the display and she traced the line of Commonwealth‟s advance to that of the
attack. She frowned as she saw a pattern, and then looked at the original courses of the
Alliance patrols around that radius. Within half an hour, Commonwealth would have had to
manoeuvre through at least four of them if it had any chance of getting to the Macaw Bank
without being detected, else she be forced to break across a vast stretch of basin north of
the Adolph Seamount. If she‟d planned it herself, a better diversion could not have been
orchestrated.
“Something wrong, Captain Roderick?” Banick asked her, catching her deep frown as
she ran through the numbers.
There was. The only approaches to the attack‟s location intersected the flight path of
their CAP. They could not possibly have hit it without having come within spitting distance of
Roberts‟ pilots, and their supporting SEWACS. Commonwealth‟s own sensors,
supplemented by her WSKRS and WSPRS probes were good to at least thirty miles in every
direction, and would have surely detected such an encroachment.
“I don‟t think this was coincidence,” she said.
“In that case we agree on something, Captain Roderick,” Ainsley nodded, bringing up
an enlarged version of the former-Wing Commander‟s working notes on the plot before him.
“The Rapiers would have had to have crossed them...”
“SEWACS reported nothing,” Banick said, narrowing his eyes. “We couldn‟t have
missed it.”
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