The Lost Fleet: Courageous

“How much of this stuff do we need?” Carabali asked. “To access the stockpiles of elements we require and get the rocks analyzed and loaded?”

Tyrosian made an angry gesture. “You need the mining subsystems. You have to have the main operating systems to issue commands to the mining subsystems. If the safety systems aren’t activated and monitoring activity on the main operating systems and the mining subsystems, then the safety interlocks won’t allow anything to happen.”

“Damn near everything, then,” Geary noted.

Tyrosian nodded.

“We can’t-” He paused as a high-priority message alert blinked, indicating someone wanted to join in his conference with Carabali and the engineer. He took a look at the message alert, seeing the communication was from Titan. Messages from Titan tended to be bad news. Frustrated by the delays, Geary almost slapped the Deny command. I don’t need anyone else complicating things. Hell, how much more complicated can they get? What I need is better options, and maybe whoever this is will have some ideas. Geary paused, counted to five, and tapped Accept instead.

Commander Lommand’s face appeared. Captain of the Titan. Young for his position, but Geary had already learned that Lommand tended to make up for lack of experience with initiative and enthusiasm. Now Lommand appeared slightly regretful. “My apologies for breaking in, Captain Geary, but I was told Captain Tyrosian was tied up in this meeting with you, and I thought she’d want to know immediately that the two Mobile Mining Units on Titan are loaded on heavy-lift shuttles and ready to launch.”

Geary glanced at Tyrosian, who was unsuccessfully trying to look as if she weren’t surprised to hear the news. “Mobile Mining Units?” Geary asked. “Can those help?”

“They can if the equipment at the Syndic mining facilities can’t be used,” Lommand stated innocently. “It seemed a good idea to have them ready in case that happened.”

“Yes,” Tyrosian interjected just as if she had ordered Lommand to do that. “There’s a risk in deploying them, because the two on Titan are all we have left in the fleet, but the MMUs can locate, analyze, and load the Syndic stockpiles of the trace elements we need.”

“What’s the flight time?” Geary demanded, scanning his controls for the right ones to give him the information.

Commander Lommand answered immediately. “Thirty-one minutes if we launch now.”

Colonel Carabali was checking something herself. “We can’t risk having critical equipment down here while the Syndic systems are still operating and capable of executing some Trojan horse action. Carrying out a safe shutdown of the Syndic gear will take approximately…twenty minutes.”

Geary nodded. “What about everything else needed to use the Syndic gear? Should we employ these, uh, MMUs instead?”

“Sir, it’d take at least a couple of hours to go through the Syndic systems and scrub them clean, then maybe another half a day or more to bring them up in a controlled fashion-”

“How quickly can the MMUs start operating once they’re on the surface?” Geary asked the engineers.

“Immediately, sir,” Commander Lommand responded. “Start-up is carried out on board the shuttles. Once the shuttles land, the Moo-Moos roll off the ramp and start grazing.”

Nice. One more little thing that Geary had to depend upon hearing about from his subordinates. Fortunately, one of those subordinates was Commander Lommand. Geary was about to order Lommand to launch his shuttles from Titan when he caught himself and faced Captain Tyrosian, Lommand’s immediate superior. Commander Lommand had jumped the chain of command again, but this time at least he’d done it in a way that looked legitimate by pretending he was updating Tyrosian. “Captain Tyrosian, have Titan launch those shuttles, and get them to that facility. I want them working when they hit the surface. Commander Lommand, thank you for the status update. Colonel Carabali, have your system geeks shut down everything the Syndics left working. I want it all off when Titan’s shuttles get there.”

“Yes, sir,” Carabali replied, smiling thinly. “Do you want us to proceed with scrubbing the systems for sabotage?”

“Not unless it’s needed for the safety of your troops. I don’t intend powering up those systems while we’re there, and as soon as we leave, we’re going to flatten every piece of equipment in the facility.”

Carabali’s smile widened. “Yes, sir.”

As the Marine’s image vanished, Captain Tyrosian gave Geary a confident look, as if this was a plan she’d developed. “I’ve ordered Titan to launch her shuttles, sir.”

“Thank you.” At least Tyrosian had thought on her feet and reacted properly when Lommand broke into the conference. “Good work. Let’s get those rocks and get out of here.”