TCCA PERIMETER outpost, OSC-231
A dull klaxon sounded as a squad of technicians poured, jostled and slid over the extensive holographic readouts in front of them. On an airscreen various icons flashed in a monotonous strobe. 'OBJECT DECTECTED' and 'CHECK DISPLAY' pulsing as the cadre of technicians rushed to their seats.
"I've got a pretty big signal over Solinus, couple hundred klicks off Shintenchi -- is this an exercise?" The closest techicnian to the airscreen stretched his hands over a holographic prompt. Signal readers and radar apertures focusing in front of him to make a spectroscope of the area.
"There was nothing on the Warboard for the day -- it may just be an amphibous exercise by the Killer's." A Liuetenant, Junior grade, replied to the Technical Sergeant before raising a cup of coffee from his desk.
"Way too large, Killer's don't have training exercises for the whole Brigade. They train at the regiment." The technician continued on, parsing through the metadata and images produced by the millions of baseball-sized spy satellites orbiting Terra at all altiudes.
"Native training op, then? Shogunate or Shintenchi military exercise." The Junior Liuetenant seemed intent to write this off quickly as possible as a miscommunication or equipment glitch.
"We'd have gotten a headsup of a Terran exercise -- "
"Our contact's moving! Right up near the Shintenchi coastline now." Another Junior Liuetenant chimed from behind his display. Though at this distance the resolution barely displayed movement, various data was flooding to the observation center that stated otherwise.
"There's no way in hell this is an exercise." The Technical Sergeant was himself a Terran Conflict veteran. Many men like him had spent years, even decades, of their lives on the planet of Terra and the surrounding reaches of the Local Region.
"Calm down Sergeant, the Galactic War's over." The Junior Liuetenant remarked, a condescending tone typical of Apparatus officers who had joined but missed the 'Hay Day' of the Galactic War. "It's probably just an equipment failure -- the SPY drones are likely picking up a solar flare."
"Solar flares don't reflect back onto the ground son, if it was a flare our radio contractors would've filtered it out by now. We'd know it's a flare." The Technical Sergeant replied as he continued on at his station. Eveyone looked back to the skeptical Junior Liuetenant.
"Well ... is it a flare?"
"Have our radio filters said it is?" The Sergeant responded callously, and it was then realized that the OSC was plagued by the most dangerous problems nearly half of the Apparatus was afflicted with, incompetent officers.
"Nope, nothing in the filters yet. Whatever's out there, rest assured it's real." Another Sergeant offered coldly, as images coalesced into a holographic topography of the Shintenchi island and its nearby shelf.
"We'd better call a marine battalion up to standby just to be sure. They left half a regiment in the area in the aftermath of that LIC between the Volarians and some false flaggers." The other Sergeant said, taking a wireless phone from a receiver on the desk. "Authority Central -- this is OSC-231, we've found a large contact out over Solinus, on its way to landfall on Shintenchi. You're gonna' wanna' scramble a QRF."
"Interrogative, OSC-231, have you verified your contact yet?"
The inquiry back from Central, at the Tirandibek Center in Wing City, caused a quick shiver to race through the technicians in the OSC. Only when the brass doubted the validity of a 'glitch in the system' would they ask if the technicians had personally validated their contact.
"Not yet, but we're not getting anything from our double-checks either." The Sergeant responded calmly, parsing through bits and pieces of information as it arrived.
"Recieved OSC-231, keep your eye on it and we'll start a scramble. What's your station in relative to the contact?
OSC-231 was an island redoubt, formerly an Aviation Cavalry patrol base guarding trade lanes and the coastlines of Solinus in the years after the Terran Conflict. Now it was a lonely, career-ending post for career soldiers and those just paying for higher education. It had been years since anything even remotely similar to a combat situation had occured. Few expected that to change.
"Loud and clear Central, we'll have an FC on the scopes for whatever you can scramble -- hey you wouldn't be able to send out a Cricket with some of those new iZone players in it could you? Or some playing cards or something."
"Keep your eyes on your contact OSC-231, Central Authority out."
"They'll remember that when we ask for strippers for the Hallows party." A Corporal chimed in with a bit of a distasteful sigh, until he returned to his prompt. "Spectroanalysis is still coming in but we've got phantoms all over it."
"What kinds of phantoms?"
"Nuclear, nuclear for sure."
"Sonuvabitch ... " The Technical Sergeant drew a hand up and ran his palm across his forehead. His exasperated tone seemed to ring with several of the other veteran techs. "It's a ship."
"A ship? The thing just popped up, if it was a ship we'd have tagged it on entry." The other Sergeant responded, though something is his voice said it wasn't so far of a thought for him either.
"Because it didn't enter atmo, it came from underwater." The Tehnical Sergeant was leaning over his prompt now, the jumble of information finally seeming to piece together.
"The filters didn't call it because they knew it came from underwater."
"Why didn't we catch it with the Particle Tunnel?" The Corporal said back in question, only to catch himself just as the words left his mouth. On the screen, a phantom spectroscope of the ship loomed in front of them.
"Because the Tunnel wasn't looking for a submerged starship, shit, this could get out of hand quickly." The Sergeant rose from his chair, along with the technician-NCO in front of him.
"We aught to get a hold of the FBP and get them to send runners out. First things first we need to warn the Shintenchi defense forces if they haven't already spotted it ... outside of that, we need to get a much hard data on this thing as we can."