Chronicles of Athena Lee Read Free Page B

called Jacks. He had never told me how to not set them off! I programmed the drones to gather and place all of the explosives in an area to the rear of the asteroid base. I wanted them out of my way but also as a deterrent from a possible attack from that direction.
     
     
    It seems that when they had evacuated the AA ships, they had shut down or stripped out all of the computers. As far as I could see all of the reactors were stone cold. I guess they didn’t intend to return and were worried about information being compromised. However, engineers and the same everywhere. Hard copies still existed. Either they forgot or did not know about them. Some engineering ‘secrets’ are universal.
     
     
    I had gotten excited in one of the AA ships, the communication room had been intact. Someone had wiped the computers and set off fusion grenades on the broadcast equipment.
     
    Something else that I am not, a computer tech. Yes, I can hum a tune and dance to it, but singing is another matter. I can use them but not fix them. I can and did rewired a few things, without electrocuting myself, so that I had short ranged communications. I could not reach the fleet to tell them I was here and alive. But, if someone entered the system I could talk to them.
     
     

     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
     
     
     
     
    The Present
     
     
     
     
     
    A massive fireball erupted into space lighting up the station. The Redcoat was just gone, vaporized. No trace was left of either the crew or this ship.
     
    “BATTLE STATIONS, BATTLE STATIONS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL” echoed through the ship.
     
    Captain Carver stood looking at the screen in shock. He had never seen destruction like that before. “Sensors! What caused that explosion? Did the station just attack the Redcoat?”
     
    “Sir, the Redcoat attempted to flank the station the sailed right into the minefield. Either Captain Buckley disregarded your orders or it was an accident. We show no weapons trace from the station.”
     
    “Connect me with that ensign!” Carver was angry now.
     
    “That ship of yours just tried to attack this station! Hold your positions. If another ship enters my airspace I will open fire this time.”
     
    Captain Carver just stared at the now blank screen. He turned to his intelligence officer. “Do we have anything about that station or that Ensign?”
     
    “Sir, scans show that the station is based on a asteroid. A frigate, a former AA Anzac class frigate makes up the core of that station. The weapons are a mix of torpedoes and laser batteries.” The intelligence officer paused. “Our database shows that there was an Ensign Athena Lee in the PPL navy. She was born in 2267 on the planet Hong Kong, assigned to the PPL support ship Tesla. Nothing else except that she was listed as KIA in 2285 in the Battle of Diablo sector.”
     
     
    The Captain nodded his head. “The briefing that I received said that there were no survivors of that battle and that this station was not here at the time.”
     
    “Sir, that information is not entirely true.” Typical bureaucracy thought the intelligence officer. “At the end of the battle there was one AA ship not destroyed. The AAN Winston Churchill. That ship had only taken light damage. The crew of the Churchill searched the area for survivors. Intelligence records show that they scanned all surviving ships and any life pods they retrieved. Survivor count, from both fleets, was less than 100. SAR was not dispatched, from either fleet, due to survivors accounts of the Churchill’s efforts. The horror of the Churchill’s after action report is what shocked the delegates at the peace conference.”
     
    The Captain was not really surprised by this. Orders from HQ sometimes were lacking in their intellegence briefing portion of the orders. “The Churchill must have missed a survivor then. Send everything that we have back to fleet HQ. With any luck we will still be here when they