POLITICS AND SOLDIERS SHOCK AND AWE

By Griffin Vengance

18th Aug 2005

The private shuttle sped through the cobweb of technology that was Farranet City, mostly supplying pie power supplies. It ducked, twirled and dodged, guided quite thankfully by the traffic computer. How anybody could know the way between this maze was a mystery.
The Admiral (they had insisted on his return to Admiral) took a moment to steal a glance at the primeminister's rather famous niece, a woman who had reputedly turned down half a thousand dates. One moment looking at her and any man could be thralled.
With an inward sigh, the Admiral turned back to his mission rep, which sounded more like a plea. Nearly half of the platforms had been destroyed in numerous raids against the worn-out defenders, and the fleet had taken enormous losses at the disastrous attack on the Antares moon, which was the alien's base of attack. Little intelligence had been gleaned from the enemy except that it called themslves Teranneans, and had curious religious incitings. Although from an organization that had billions of pie-tubs poured into it daily, this was an enormous disappointment.
The Admiral's eyes paused at his specific orders, and raised a solitary eyebrow (his other one had been burned off during the evacuation of the ship). He was told to assume full leadership of spaceborne manuevers, and mainly to stay out of Command's hair. They hadd enough trouble trying to repel small invasions and keep the public from panicking. He was told, almost on a sidenote to choose a suitable vessel and use it as a flagship.
Mentally he looked down the list, and there were plenty of cruisers that would do the job. He was going to have a hard job picking one.
No time for that now though; the shuttle had arrived. He followed the Primeminister and helped his niece out, wherein the process he found she was called Sarah. Well, never hurt to try did it?
The suttle hadn't provided any views of their destination from where he'd been sitting, and the Primeminister wasn't offering any hints. Afterwardsm he would look back on that and get his suspicions running.
They entered what seemed to be starship-size hanger, that had once upon a time handled the Saviour, when they had engaged a group of Chaos-led transports. The Admiral winced; remembering her was like a stab in his heart.
And as they stopped at a viewport, as they looked out at the mighty being that was being tended, the Admiral's heart seemed to go into his mouth. He could barely breath. He nearly fainted from the shock.
Because there, proud and battered after standing down death's jaws, was his battered, bruised Saviour.
That son of a ***** (self-censored). The Primeminister had done it all on purpose. Not that the Admiral blamed him.
"Remember that explosion we saw from the pod? Before we dropped into hell? That wasn't her going down. The enemy cruiser that you blew up had a secondary engine core. The Potemkin tugged her back for repairs. There you have it Admiral. We've given you your baby. Now you give us our birthday present."
With tears that shouldn't have been there, the Admiral declared there, and in the world-wide press conference afterwards, his small speech.
"Don't worry Admiral. Whatever their estimate of trouble was before, it is NOTHING compared to now. Shock and awe. Those aliens won't know what hit 'em."



TO BE CONTINUED.