Commander McMarth was not having a good day, but that was usually the case when you are an officer in the Earth Naval Defense Force. Sure, the UN-sponsored messages and broadcasts said they were the pride of earth, thirty corvettes, equipped with state-of-the-art tech and weapons, made to defend earth's high orbit, ever vigilant. Earth's first line of defense in case of an extraorbital attack!
Though in truth… there was no real use for a fleet of space warships, in fact, the entire ENDF was in dire straits. It used to be the ENDF had what was basically a blank check to do whatever they wanted, access to the brightest minds and greatest R and D sectors of the world, and legions of mechanics and engineers all fighting tooth and nail to get into the illustrious ENDF, to work to protect all mankind. Now the ENDF was lucky to recruit one hundred non-combat personnel a year, and the less said about military personnel recruitment the better. In fact, of the 30 ships in the fleet, only eighteen were operational and not in dry dock, and even worse, they only had the crew and personnel to have FIVE in operation at one time. To say that the ENDF had fallen out of favor was putting it lightly.
McMarth ruminated on this all as he slowly filled the ancient coffee machine, pouring in the subpar imitation coffee.
"
Budget cuts everywhere." He thought, as he slowly looked at the cartoony logo of the
Zero-Gee Spacers Coffee, which he was pretty sure was banned by the National Bureau of Food Safety for "Hazardous chemical makeup" and being close to "paint thinner" than actual coffee, but low budget was low budget, and so what if the ENDF got the bulk of their coffee from the completely unrelated closing of
Zero-Gee Foods?
As his chemical abomination brewed in the positively ancient coffee machine, he heard a slowly but surely increasing volume of grumbling coming from down the corridor, approaching the officer's mess.
"Nothing like a hot cup of corrosive coffee before a shift of staring at a too-bright console, sitting in a too-short chair, in a too-empty bridge for too little pay." A female voice grumbled, approaching like a tornado.
"Good morning Engineer Sara," McMarth called, his voice filled with a hint of lethargy. "How are you?"
Engineer First Lieutenant Sara moved into the officer's mess like a hurricane entering a well-put neighborhood, messily, and filled with barely contained anger. Her long black hair tied into a tangled bun moved erratically, and her orange engineer coveralls were stained in grease. "Morning? What morning? She snorted, "We're in space, over six hundred thousand miles from anywhere with a sunrise or sunset! The only sign of 'sunrise' or 'sunset' is the automatic light brightening and dimming which only works on days that don't end in Y!"
"It's the thought, Engineer Sara." He tiredly replied, "Technically, it's currently 6:30 AM for the ship onboard schedule. Protocol must be followed after a…" He barely was able to finish his sentence before the engineer cut in.
"Protocol? Please! The only 'Protocol' high command wants the ENDF to follow is to stop
'being a drain on their precious budget! You know as well as I that the ENDF hasn't seen an actual deployment since its inception!" Engineer Sara angrily replied, "The ENDF can barely afford to keep half of its fleet flying! Every single position in this excuse for a military force is either unstaffed or staffed by someone overburdened and underpaid! I bet
ASTEROID MINERS IN SATURN'S RINGS GET PAID MORE THAN I DO!
It used to be, Commander McMarth thought, that such an outburst was liable to get an enlisted person put on plumbing duty, or even get a formal citation. Nowadays, the lack of competent personnel, and the need to keep the few ones they had, led to enlisted like Sara being able to toe the line of decorum.
"At least
try to act like a member of the ENDF Sara, I get that the ENDF is in… an unprecedented position, but that position will not change because someone decided to get on the podium and scream at the international council." McMarth replied, punctuating his light reprimand by sipping his coffee.
Sara scoffed. "Ah yes, the
international council, truly our saviors in these
dire times, may their red tape save us all..." She trailed off. "But I suppose I better 'cut the chatter'. so what's on the brocket today oh-mighty commodore?"
McMarth lifted his hands and slowly began massaging his temples, accepting the headache he knew would soon be coming. "Today's brocket, as you would say, would be a sit-in at the monthly Admiral Board meeting, and then a joint patrol with the
ENDF Tokyo around Mars." McMarth said as he left the lounge, heading for the ship's bridge.
Engineer Sara snorted as she swirled her cup of coffee taken from the machine. "Ah, off to see the arm-chair admirals and old fogeys?"
McMarth just nodded. What Sara had said was true. The Admiral Board, as a body, was mostly composed of younger officers with connections who got into the ENDF for a cushy and slow job, and older veterans who still thought the ENDF had a purpose to fulfill. Both sides of this status quo were managed by the legendary Fleet Admiral Asmo Laurilaan, a sixty-three year old man of Finnish descent. As Fleet Admiral, he was not known for and feared for his combat prowess, but as a shrewd politician and a man with deep and intimate knowledge of the political process of the UN. Some even said he held on to his position as Admiral because he knew enough secrets to sink the International Council.
McMarthy did not put much stock in rumors, and though he knew Admiral Asmo was an old hand at the political game that left few clean, he also knew the previous Fleet Admiral Carney had trusted him, and McMarthy trusted Carney. "Yes, the monthly meeting is today, and the Admiral trusts me as one of the ones who know how to do their job."
Sara sighed and moved towards the door. "Well off to the bridge for you, and off to maintenance for me. There's a charge error on gun three. One of the capacitors probably just shut down. It should be easy to fix, but being thorough is important when you're on an underfunded warship." Sara said this as she moved out the door, and as she left, she gave a messy salute.
McMarth sighed, and prayed against sloppy but competent engineers. Slowly he left the mess, and made his way down the halls of the ship, and following the paths he always walked, he came upon the bridge. Slowly he looked around, taking in the heart of the ship. Unlike the water warships of old, the bridge of the
ENDF Dublin was deep in the center of the ship, hidden under the layers of the hull, being able to navigate by electronic systems and cameras. After all, if you could see an object in space through a window, where combat distance was measured in tens of miles, you were already dead. McMarth slowly approached his seat and logged onto his console.
Checking the time, he saw the meeting was beginning in thirty minutes, so he began checking his Email, and started the beginning of the many reports he was expected to complete. When the meeting was five minutes out, he logged on. His screen changed to a video call, and on the center of the screen, surrounded by twenty-eight individual slots for the commanders of the vessels of the ENDF, was the visage of Fleet Admiral Asmo, leader of the Earth Naval Defense Force, the one responsible for the safeguarding of Earth and all of its holdings.
The admiral's gaze flitted around, his eyes falling on each individual Commander, and then back to the clock, waiting for the official meeting to start. When the clock finally hit that time, he began to speak.
"Hyvä. We are all here." His icy blue eyes looked around once more. "With that, I call to order the monthly meeting of the commanders and admirals of the ENDF. We will begin with the situation report on individual assignments. Commander Chsu of the ENDF
Hong Kong, you begin first."
And so it began, and McMarth sat back to survey the meeting, putting into words his report on the ENDF
Dublin's local security patrol of the moon. Slowly, the line of admirals gave their reports, even the ones whose ship was currently in dock for repairs indefinitely, or who did not have the men to effectively crew their ships, but as the meeting went on, and the ENDF
New York began its report, Admiral Asmo suddenly looked up from his console, and then his eyes whipped back faster than a darting snake. "Everyone remains on call."He snapped and with those quick instructions, he disconnected.
Confusion filled the meeting, as each commander and admiral looked at each other, but there was no panic. These were still soldiers, and even the commanders who got their positions due to connections knew better than to disobey a direct order from Asmo. So, they waited patiently, wondering what had happened to draw the Admiral's attention.
But just as the admiral's absence began to weigh heavily, the admiral reconnected, his eyes as hard and cold as the ice of his home nation. His words shot bolts of fear into the hearts of every person sitting in on the meeting.
"All Commanders are to prepare for immediate deployment. Ogedei Contingency is in full effect." His eyes roamed over every member of the ENDF present. "An FTL jump has been detected just outside of Saturn's rings."
<|||>
This is based in a setting were at a indeterminate time a heavy damaged alien battleship FTL jumped into our solar system, and humanity lost their shit over it and pseudo-united to investigate the ship and also defend Earth. The ship was empty, no survivors on board. now its been over sixty years, and no other ships have jumped in, and humanity never figured out how to make the alien FTL drive do any more than make travel between planetary masses take days instead of months. So Earths Navy has just sat around, and done nothing except be a drain on a already weak planetary government... until now.
