The Honour of the Knights, Stephen J. Sweeney [reading women .txt] 📗

of the room, Estelle began throwing Dodds' and Enrique's clothing at them, urging them to get a move on. Kelly and Chaz, already clothed, hovered close by, waiting for the two men to dress themselves. They did so as fast as they could and together the five hurried from the now empty dormitory, towards the building holding the main briefing hall.

* * *

The White Knights entered the packed hall to discover that all of the seating, except for that closest to the podium, had already been taken. Dodds wanted to remain at the back, out of sight, happy to join others sat down on the floor, against the wall, but Estelle was already herding them to the front. The group ended up sitting almost right in front of the podium, just where Dodds and Enrique did not wish to be. The platform was occupied already by Parks, standing against a large screen that covered half of the front wall.

Parks watched with an impatient scowl as people continued to stream into the briefing hall. “Find a seat or some place to stand and settle down!” his voice boomed over the speakers.

Hawke shoved his way past those standing, to get to the front, followed a lot less aggressively by Meyers. Dodds caught a glimpse of Hawke stuffing a handkerchief back into an inside jacket pocket and saw that it was once again stained with blood. He wondered in his hazy mind what was causing the man to receive so many nosebleeds. He could never remember him having done so much in the past.

Parks said, “We have a lot to get through and very little time to do it, so pay attention, all of you.” The voices died down and all that remained were the sounds of the shuffling of chairs and obligatory coughing. Now that he had everyone's full attention, Parks began in full.

“You should all know that several months ago the Confederation Stellar Navy flagship, CSN Dragon, was boarded and subsequently stolen by an unidentifiable, but strongly numbered and armed, hostile force. Following the take over, it dropped off of all galactic surveillance systems and vanished without a trace.”

Behind Parks, the screen showed images of the enormous battleship; not that anyone who had every set eyes on the behemoth needed reminding. At over four-and-a-half-kilometres in length, it dwarfed even the Confederation's own carriers, being several times bigger than its nearest rival. Griffin, the largest of the CSN's carriers, was a mere eleven hundred and thirty meters by comparison. As Parks continued to speak, the images on the screen behind him changed to show schematics of the battleship, along with size comparisons with other large vessels. Dodds rubbed his eyes, trying to focus and keep them open.

“Without going into specifics, we now believe the theft to have been the work of one of the major factions fighting in the Imperial civil war. After Dragon disappeared it was assumed it had either been destroyed or had been abandoned and left to drift somewhere between star systems. However, two days ago Dragon reappeared in the independent-declared regions of space and has begun making its way through some of the uninhabited systems there. We have been tracking its progress and believe that we are now in a position to intercept and retake the ship.”

Murmurs and mumbling began around the room.

“He's got to be kidding,” Dodds heard Kelly say under her breath. She was staring up at the screen, looking staggered by the news. Dodds recalled the first time he had met Kelly, back at flight school, and how one of the first things she had spoken to him about was Dragon. Kelly, out of all the cadets there, was the only one to have ever laid eyes on it.

She had told him of how she had been overwhelmed by Dragon's sheer size, in comparison with all the other battleships in the Confederation's fleet. Prior to her joining the Navy, her father had managed to pull a few strings and arranged for her to be given a tour of some of the CSN's bases and major battleships; Dragon included. The ship was in dry dock at the time, undergoing maintenance. Kelly had found the sight astounding and had gushed about it for days. At the time Kelly, had remarked that it looked quite menacing and that she was glad it was on “their side”.

The ship's body was like that of a knife blade, with only the merest stub of a hilt at the rear, housing three massive engines, complimented by four smaller ones on either side. The main body of the vessel drove forward to a point, two pairs of protrusions in the middle and at the rear following the overall outline of its form. There were no major vertical structures anywhere along its length - only a small number of elevations present to accommodate the bridge and incredible array of armaments that dotted the surface.

And though it was now just an image projected onto a screen, Dodds could see that the sheer magnitude of ship still staggered her today. The same sense of awe was not to be found in Dodds, however. Despite the enormity of the news, he found it difficult to be either impressed or interested as he looked up at the screen. He looked at Enrique, who was fighting to keep his eyes open. Clearly, like himself, the man was wishing he could be somewhere else.

You've really messed up this time, Simon, he thought to himself. You've come back to try and set things right, but when it comes to something bloody important you're almost incapacitated. Congratulations, idiot.

He slid down a little into his seat, to get more comfortable. Estelle nudged him to sit up. In future, he'd have to make a better effort not to sit next to her during things like this.

“Pipe down!”

The sound of Parks' irritated voice was quick to disperse the mumbling that had started.

“Based on the intelligence we have gathered, we anticipate that Dragon will very soon be entering the Aster system, within an uninhabited region of Independent space. Once there, it will be met by a large contingent of allied forces, who will immediately commence Operation Menelaus.”

The screen behind Parks changed once more, to show an overview of the operation he had just named, listing all involved parties and overall strategy.

“The reappearance of Dragon within the independent regions of space has raised many concerns within the Independent World Council. The Confederation has been working closely with the UNF over the past forty-eight hours and they are fully prepared to back our move to retake Dragon. They will be laying on support of two carriers and a number of starfighters, themselves. The main strike force will consist of Griffin, Ifrit and Leviathan, captained by myself, Commodore Hawke and Captain Meyers respectively.”

“This is getting pretty serious,” Estelle whispered in Dodds' ear. “They're throwing a lot of weight behind this, sending up Griffin, Ifrit and Leviathan.”

Dodds wished he could share her admiration. He also wished he had not helped to polish off the rest of that whiskey bottle. He pulled back away from Estelle, putting a hand on his forehead. It, like most of the rest of him, was feeling rather hot. He then found himself wishing his hand was a pack of ice. There, that was his three; and none of them had come true.

Dodds turned a lazy head around the briefing room to see that, in an almost exact repeat of the ATAF presentation the Knights had attended earlier that year, jaws were hanging down.

“Do not misunderstand,” Parks boomed over the returning mumblings.

Dodds winced.

“As I'm sure all of you can fully appreciate, Dragon by itself in a combat situation would prove a very formidable opponent; and on this occasion we believe it to also be accompanied by two Imperial frigates and several starfighter squadrons, all of which will have to be handled and dispatched in order to successfully complete the operation. For this purpose, we will be employing the use of several fighter squadrons of our own.”

The screen behind him changed once again, to display a representation of the fighters, grouped into squadrons. Numbers of participating types were listed next to the flat two-dimensional images. There were four classes there: TAFs, Rays, Rooks, and Hammerheads. It looked as though there were three digits next to the TAFs and two for the others, but Dodds could not focus on the exact numbers.

“Now listen carefully,” Parks' voice continued over the hall speakers. “There are two primary objectives in this mission: the first, as already stated, is the successful recovery and safe return of Dragon. The second is the apprehension of these two men...”

The screen behind Parks changed again, displaying the two men in question. Both wore full Imperial naval dress and faced the camera head-on. Neither man wore a cap in the pictures, though both were highly decorated.

“The first, and most important of these two, is Admiral Zackaria. He is the Fleet Admiral of the Imperial Naval Forces and is, without a shadow of a doubt, the one person whom we cannot afford to lose. I would even go as far as to say that the capture of this man actually outweighs the recapture of Dragon itself. We believe that he may have been instrumental in the theft of Dragon in the first instance and is likely to also be playing a key role in the on-going troubles throughout the Imperium. Should he be aboard Dragon then he must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to be killed. I say again: we need this man alive.”

“Enrique...” Dodds heard Estelle hiss. He looked around to see Enrique sitting back up from where he had been hunched over, hiccuping. Dodds couldn't be sure whether either of the three men stood on the stage were aware of the issues he was experiencing trying to focus – certainly Hawke would already have an idea – but he thought he'd better make the effort. He folded his arms and looked at the screen, finding the black thread, red trims and silver buttons of the Imperial uniforms a little easier on his eyes, than the bright white glare of the previous screens.

He looked first to Admiral Zackaria, a name that was a little more familiar to him than the other; he had heard it thrown around from time to time over the years, though not certain he would be able to pick the man out of a line-up. The man looked to be in his early-to-mid sixties, his hair more or less gone, leaving him with strands of grey. His eyes, too, were grey and possessed a hardened edge. His face was long and clean shaven, but his skin appeared rough, with wrinkles, tiny scars and marks scattered about. Easy enough, Dodds concluded. His age would make him quite distinctive amongst everyone else and he would be a lot easier to tackle than most. Not that Dodds wanted to get involved right now.

“The second is Commodore Rissard,” Parks went on. “To our knowledge, he is Zackaria's second-in-command and right-hand man. He does not hold as much sway as Zackaria himself, but it would be in our interest to bring this man in, too.”

Rissard did not appear as old as Zackaria, closer in age to Parks and Hawke. Like Zackaria, he was light-skinned, but with short, thick blonde spiky hair.

“Look at his eyes,” Estelle said.

Dodds did: they were unnaturally bright blue, almost as if they were some kind of implant; though maybe they were just contact lenses.

“I don't like the look of him,” Kelly murmured.

Though he held a neutral expression, Dodds did acknowledge that the man looked menacing; threatening; almost sadistic. Maybe it was those eyes. A slideshow of images began, displaying the two men in various other poses: some at formal gatherings, others within parades. In a few, Zackaria could be seen with a ceremonial sword at his hip, and sometimes holding it in a rather regal fashion.

His head began to ache once more. He eyed Chaz, seeing the big man looking up the screen. He looked both very attentive and as fresh as a daisy. How? He'd been drinking too, hadn't he? He'd also enjoyed his fair share of the whiskey, as far as Dodds could remember. He wondered how the other four were feeling this morning. He expected that McLeod's head was in a comparable state to his own.

“Remember these faces, people,” Parks said. “I want to be assured that even those not directly involved in the boarding of Dragon are familiar with all targets and objectives of this operation.”

He then moved on to describe how the operation was to progress. Dodds let his attention slip a little, but listened as best he could through his suffering. As far as he could tell it was to unfold this way: the