CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

Hitchcock shook his head, and held up a hand. “They forwarded it to me. Brass got a
look at it before they did, and they want to run an investigation on it. You really pissed
Intelligence off on this one, Corinn. I don‟t know why, but now it‟s out... they‟ve pulled every
report on it fleet-wide.”
“Why?”
“Well that‟s what I want to know,” Hitchcock countered with a laugh. “If I had to
guess, then it‟s probably got something to do with what the Australian resistance is doing,
but that still doesn‟t explain ONI‟s involvement. If you hear anything, try and keep it quiet, but
I‟d appreciate any updates.”
Roderick stared at Hitchcock for several long seconds and then paused. “...Gabriel,
there‟s something you‟re not telling me. I can understand why ONI would want to know, but
what‟s Fighter Command‟s interest in this? What‟s so important?”
Hitchcock smiled weakly. “I‟m sorry, Quinn. That‟s all I know.”
“I see.”
“Take care of yourself, Quinn. And watch your six.”
The image of the fighter commander winked out, to be replaced by the seal of the
UEO Subfighter Corps, and Roderick looked down. Gabriel Hitchcock had been one of her
closest friends for a decade. And he had just lied.
Seven hundred miles east of Fort Grace - the San Angeles Plains, Pacific
Ocean. April 9 th , 2043…
~
The ocean floor that separated the city of San Angeles from the Hawaiian Islands
was a single, immense mudflat. Over ten thousand square miles of endless, flat seabed
containing only a precious few colonies made the area one of the least geographically
interesting places on the entire planet. San Angeles itself lay at the very edge of these
plains, marking the only major population centre for nearly a thousand miles in every
direction. The colonies of New Reno, Monterey and Roosevelt were the only other harbours
between Hawaii and the Californian coast, and with populations that only came to about a
million when combined, it left San Angeles – a city-state of about five million – the most
obvious and lucrative port of trade in the Western Pacific.
For this reason, the flats were impossible to approach undetected, and traffic that
entered the region was under the most intense scrutiny at all times between ports. While
piracy and smuggling were non-existent in the northern Pacific since the UEO had been
formed, the presence of a major Alliance fleet base at Pearl Harbor had San Angeles, and
Fort Grace, at the highest possible levels of alert since the third world war.
It was no surprise then that the fleet warships that prowled this massive sea lane
formed in itself, one of the most massive military formations in the Pacific. The battlecruiser
Constellation sat at the middle of a battlegroup of over thirty submarines, mostly UEO, but
with a significant number of attending North Sea vessels.
The flagship of Fleet Admiral Jack Riley had prowled the border between the Alliance
front line and the UEO‟s San Angeles defences for almost sixth months, a forbidding
presence that stalked the eastern pacific as if searching for a fight, and daring the Alliance to
leave the safety of their moorings in Pearl Harbor.
It wasn‟t far from the truth as Fleet Admiral Riley seemed to mimic the movements of
his fleet, pacing back and forth over the command deck while gazing apprehensively up at
the main tactical plot. Alliance units were moving slowly along the border, lying in wait for a
UEO attack that would probably never come. This pattern of „stand-off and readdress‟ had
grown common in the eastern Pacific as both sides tried to move forces through to the west,
and in to the growing conflict in the Chaodai Confederation. The UEO had committed to an
offensive a year earlier in the fall of 2042, and the losses had been severe, with the carriers
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