CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

Almost Six Months Later. The Present Day...
Fort Grace Naval Command, 20 miles south-east of San Angeles. April 3 rd ,
2043…
The centre of Fort Grace was nothing more than a solid, obsidian-walled armoured
bunker complex on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. A remnant of the Third World War, the
facility had been progressively upgraded over the years that had passed since to include
rings of defensive emplacements, docking facilities and subfighter hangars. In contrast to the
surface facilities a couple of miles away, the only access to the command centre was by
submarine transport or the twenty-mile long sea floor Mag-Lev tube that ran from San
Angeles itself. For eighteen months, Fort Grace had served diligently and capably as the
headquarters of the UEO‟s Pacific Fleet: hundreds of war-subs and thousands of subfighters
called the base home in a theatre that was struggling to manage with overburdened logistics
and supply demands. Even eighteen months after the loss of Pearl Harbor and San Diego,
the UEO had struggled to bring their other bases to the level of capability needed to support
the ever-growing Pacific fleet. With Japan now once again in UEO hands, bases in
Yokohama and Kure had been rapidly brought back in to service, but Fort Grace had
remained at the very centre of fleet operations in the theatre.
One reason for this was the increasing presence of North Sea Confederation forces
throughout the Pacific. Nearly half of the UEO‟s Pacific-based forces were now drawn
directly from the North Sea Confederation, and with this increase in force had come
increased demands on the few fleet bases that existed across the Pacific.
At any one time, Fort Grace was host to at least half a dozen carrier taskforces,
sometimes being forced to deal with as many as ten, as it had done during the staging
preparations for Operation Clipper over a year before.
It was not just the new materiel demands that had been troubling Fleet Admiral Jack
Riley, but also the demands of those behind the forces themselves. When the North Sea
Confederation had committed to supporting the UEO‟s war against Macronesia, no one had
foreseen the political entanglements that would result. A move that was supposed to bring
about a swift end to the war had spiralled in to a drawn-out war of attrition with Macronesia:
the UEO/NSC coalition being unable to counter the massive defence battery which had held
the Pacific in an iron-grip for that same eighteen months.
A weapon named Atlas.
It was the same battery which had destroyed the Atlantis DSV, and now the Alliance
was making rapid progress on a second such system, located in the middle of the most
heavily fortified stronghold in the Pacific: Pearl Harbor.
A clock was ticking down to a deadline that had been set by Secretary General Sir
James Cathgate. Zero hour was midnight, August 1 st , 2043 - just four months away. It
coincided with the projected time that the Alliance would bring the massive weapons system
online.
This was the burden that weighed heavily on Fleet Admiral Jack Riley in the
headquarters complex of Fort Grace. It didn‟t help that it was compounded by the headache
being created by the twelve other Admirals who stood around a great oaken table arguing in
the middle of the war room. The question of Pearl Harbor was a point of great contention
amongst the General Staff of the Pacific Fleet, and it seemed to Riley that no one was
capable of agreeing on even the most simple of subjects. Rank only applied to a point – an
Admiral, regardless of the number of stars on their collar, was a powerful individual that was
afforded respect... most especially when they belonged to a separate chain of command.
“That‟s enough,” Riley snapped sharply, glaring at two UEO and NSC Admirals who
were seconds away from tearing each other apart from across the table. “You people need
to learn the actual definition of the words „war room‟. I am not having this command centre
turned in to a circus because you can‟t decide who has the biggest torpedo tubes.”
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