Controlled Chaos

Posted on Sunday November 25th, 2018 @ 12:22pm by Lieutenant Emily Quartermaine

1,284 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Season 2; Mission 2: It's Only Fun Until Someone Gets Hurt
Location: Emily's office

Emily was sitting in her office, checking on various things that was going through the operations center while Tinya was out in the field, helping to keep the entirety of the Trinity Operations space force elements flying but the several thousand year old woman was having trouble focusing.

The news had finally hit her that both Yuka and Aidan had moved on and that their “break” (as it had been put to her) had simply become a break up and Emily had buried herself just deep enough into her duties that she didn’t find out about the break up until two nights ago.

It was at that point that Emily had simply shrugged and went back to work as the situation with the Swarm wouldn’t stop long enough for her to settle her romantic entanglements.

When word came down that the MSA had a plan and had openly given joint control over it to Remi and her crew, Emily smiled as she quickly started moving the manpower around to help her fullfill her desire to clone the volunteers for the trap and to see what Trinity elements could be used to help bolster the space force elements for it.

Then an unexpected event happened.

The swarm launched an attack on Sumrie and her group and the apparent leader of the Swarm was brutally killed at which point all Swarm activities ceased...almost becoming lifeless but at the most motionless and that bought the universe some time to actually breathe, regroup, rearm, and hopefully survive.

But there was something in the back of Emily’s mind that was gnawing at her...something that years of taking biology at University had shown her;

Nature abhors a vacuum.

But at this time she had bigger fish to fry as she inputted a security code into her terminal and then waited a couple of minutes before the sigil of the Manticorian Systems Alliance appeared on the screen before a cool eyed woman of Russian-heritage appeared, her platinum hair was cut in a bob that obscured her left eye. “Commander Korolev.” Emily said in a warm and respectful tone towards the other woman.

“Lieutenant Quartermaine, it is agreeable to see you again...especially at a reasonable time of the day at that.” Lieutenant Commander Maria Korolev of the Manticorian Systems Alliance’s operations division said as she leaned forward in her chair, a slight ghost of a sly smile appearing on her face. “Come to ask me about how flexible young  Faris is at long last?” she mused in a lightly teasing manner.

Emily’s cheeks pinkened as she shook her head, “No, I’m afraid this is more of a matter of importance then my lack of a sex life, ma’am.”

Maria let out a “tsk” sound before nodding, “To business it is then. What can I do for you?” she asked.

Emily inputted a few commands and sent her the recent combat reports that were filed along with what little footage she could obtain. “Captain Rembrandt and her people recently dealt a blow to the Swarm which has apparently stopped them in their tracks, I was curious as if there was anything new data wise on your end?”

Maria’s right eye casually looked to the right to look over the data before the eye returned to look at her. “I can look and see what we have, Emily, but it’s bound not to be much though.” she said before waving her left hand to indicate something out of the viewscreen’s pickup. “I can search to see what we do have from some of our ships encounters but alliance forces have had a three to two victory loss margin against the Swarm until recently.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed somewhat. “Three to two for or against?” she asked honestly.

“Against, unfortunately.” Maria explained as she made another “tsk” sound. “In one engagement against some a chunk of the swarm that we believe hit Earth, we lost two carrier groups that were out on training exercises. Commodore Bateman was quite put out to say the least.”

Emily’s eyes tightened ever so slightly at the mention at the man who purportedly in charge of the Alliance Naval forces. “Maria, can you explain something to me but how can Bateman be in charge of the alliance fleet if he’s only a commodore?”

A wry smile slowly crept onto Maria’s face. “Bateman kept the rank of Commodore out of respect for his mentor and the person who was going to be in charge of the navy in Commodore Rina Shelby who was killed during an attempted attack of Kuat just prior to the Alliance breaking off and forming our own government.”

Emily nodded but wasn’t totally sure about the information but kept that nugget to herself and decided to change gears. “So tell me now with the sudden death of the Swarm leader, what is the alliance’s plan to deal with everything that was going to go into Bateman’s plan?”

Maria’s smile slipped from her face. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well with the swarm’s leader dead and all of them suddenly stopped, what’s the plan to do with what has already been put in place for Bateman’s plan?” Emily asked fully, leaning forward in her chair to fix her dark eyes on the other woman. “I have to give something to my boss for an answer you know?”

Maria shook her head slowly, “There is nothing in the works to stop the efforts being made on the Bateman plan, Emily. Just because an enemy has stopped moving does not mean that the enemy is defeated for good.” she explained. “That is one of the first lessons that you learn on my homeworld of Novigrad actually.”

Emily nodded, “So what can you give me to pass along to the admiral?” she asked then, a slight feeling of unease going through her.
Maria took a deep breath before rubbing her chin for a moment.

“Inform the admiral that we will have our people look over the combat data presented about the conflict with the swarm leader but we are going to continue with the construction of Bateman’s plan as planned until we hear otherwise from the president.”

Emily couldn’t help it as a slight smirk appeared on her face, “Refusing to give up the sword?” she inquired.

Maria shook her head, “Nyet, the president wanted the plan to be finished as in part to show your Federation that this Alliance will stand by it’s comrades through no matter what kind of storm may come.” she said firmly.

Emily’s smirk turned into a smile. “Alright then, I’ll pass that along to Yuka then instead… it sounds better and might make the pill go down a little easier.”

Maria nodded, “Glad to be of some help, Emily. I will try and see what our tactical analysts can see for you by the end of today.” she said before terminating the link.

At that moment the smile slipped completely from Emily’s face as she looked over at the small stack of PADDs that covered the other aspects of what had been going on and let out a minor sigh of frustration before diving back into it.

 

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