CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

“...Captain Banick, Admiral Ainsley, please report to the bridge,” the 1MC echoed.
Ainsley ignored it a he continued his long walk to the bridge, and before long, had
become aware of a figure shadowing him, his paces steadily drawing him closer. He figured
by the gait it would be Banick, the slightly off-beat rhythm of his step having been a
noticeable quirk he‟d picked up since his femur had been shattered two years previously by
a Chaodai bullet. The bone had been replaced by a synthetic bionic, but he had never quite
had the same bounce to his step.
Ainsley‟s PAL chirped from his belt as he rounded the top of the staircase on C-Deck
and slapped the call button for the Mag-Lev carriage. He held the door for Banick just a few
steps behind him, and then answered the page. “Ainsley, speak.”
“Admiral, it‟s Callaghan. We‟re not exa-“
Static filled the channel rapidly, and the XO‟s voice dissolved in to a sea of noise.
“Callaghan?”
The static continued, and Banick regarded his former Captain nervously. “Jammed?”
Ainsley was incredulous. “On internal communications?”
Banick pulled out his own PDA and tried connecting to the ship‟s intranet. After a few
seconds, it gave him a curt time-out error.
“How the hell would does someone jam our internal communications?” Banick asked,
countering Ainsley‟s query.
The Admiral‟s face was dark. “I‟m less concerned about the how, and more worried
about the why at this point, Captain.”
At last, the Maglev doors hissed open and the two officers exited the carriage outside
the main bridge. The marines stationed outside the massive clam doors saluted as they
passed through the portal and walked across the command deck to the CIC.
“Admiral on-deck!” barked the Officer of the Watch.
“Captain Banick has the bridge. As you were,” Ainsley dismissed them, deferring
authority to the man immediately behind him. Both officers approached Callaghan at the side
of the CIC, noticing that the XO had put his headset down and had since picked up a
hardline next to the main navigation table. Neither Banick nor Ainsley interrupted whatever it
was he was engaged in, and continued to wait until Callaghan pursed his lips.
“Get them launched,” the XO ordered down the line. “Communications be damned, I
want them in the water. We‟ll use point-to-point relays if we have to. Bridge out.”
Callaghan put the phone back on its cradle and sighed. Neither the Captain nor the
Admiral needed to ask the obvious question and Callaghan wasted no time in offering his
explanation. “All wireless communications are down. We don‟t know how, or why. Hard lines
are down, and FOC is doing the best it can to get our birds launched. Still waiting on target
information.”
“You mean we have no idea who‟s attacked us?” Banick cut in.
“You‟re assuming we are being attacked, Captain,” Ainsley returned. “I imagine if
they were trying to board us, we would have known about it by now.”
“Captain!” called Lieutenant Phillips from the communications station. “I‟ve managed
to track the source of the jamming – it‟s internal, but it‟s not coming from us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Still confirming sir, but... I think it‟s Vengeance. She‟s flooded her uplink with a
packet storm, and its being replicated across every system.”
“...He‟s got our command codes.” Banick‟s face turned dark as he uttered it.
“Stiles?!” Ainsley spat. “Point-to-point on the WSKRS relay. Now. Get me that ship.”
“It‟ll take me a minute to set up, sir.”
In the darkness, Commonwealth continued to close the distance with the shadows –
blind, deaf and impotent. Vengeance remained off her port quarter, despite the narrowing
confines of the submarine trench ahead, but for the few subfighters that slowly began to
spew from the battlecruiser‟s open launch bays, it was a grim picture.
„Bouncer‟ checked his sensors as soon as he was clear of the battlecruiser‟s shadow,
and felt his stomach run cold. Commonwealth was surrounded. Ahead of her, a single,
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