Free Storm' Fury: The Shenkar War by Seth Libby Page A

Captain Dvares turned to the tactical display and studied it for a moment.
                  “Well at least one third of the fleet has captains that don’t have their heads firmly stuck up their own arses. We need to get in touch with someone at fleet headquarters, something isn’t right here. I don’t believe the Shenkar would waste their time with that outpost when they need all the ships they have to attack Earth again.”
                  The captain stood there and pondered this over in his head in silence. The silence was broken by the young communications officer.
                  “Captain, the fleet has just folded.”
    Kimino looked to the captain at this news but he just stood there in silence with a grim look on his face.
                  “This isn’t going to turn out well,” was all he said.
     
                                       
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    December 22 nd , 2013 6:59 am
                                                          Olympus
                                      Earth Defense Force training facility, Texas
     
    “HE DID WHAT?!?” yelled Admiral Kelvin.
    Frank Kelvin fumed at what he had just heard. A transmission had come in from Outpost 238 calling for assistance because they were under a Shenkar attack. The President of France, who had apparently been onboard the Phoenix for her shakedown cruise, had invoked a priority one directive. A directive that is only supposed to be used under the most dire of circumstances. The directive that can only be invoked by a member of the Council of Earth . It was designed in case most of the council was killed that any survivors could assume the leadership. This was to prevent any military squabbles for assuming control of the fleet. For that pompous ass to take control of most of the fleet, infuriated Frank. What made it even the situation worse was nearly two thirds of the fleet captains had listened to that pompous ass’s threats. Luckily some of the captains had some sense and had refused the orders without contacting someone of real authority. Kelvin looked to the bank of monitors that was now showing all of the remaining members of the Council of Earth as they listened. Besides Admiral Kelvin, Fleet Admiral Saunders was also listening to Captain Dvares explanation of what had taken place.
    “He folded out just under three hours ago sir. Like I have already said, I tried to reason with the man but he refused to listen,” explained Captain Dvares.
    “That fool, does he not realize he just took a bulk of our defenses with him? If the Shenkar were to attack in force like the one they had last year then we would be hard pressed to defeat them,” said the Prime Minister of England, Colin Denshire.
    “We will have to deal with Mr. Lecroix when and if he returns. As for our current situation, if the Shenkar were to attack then where does this leave us?” asked Adam Sheehan, President of the United States.
    “Well Mr. President, when President Lecroix left he took two thirds of the fleet with him. Luckily the ships that remained are all run by captains who fought last year. My own ship, the Ronald Reagan , I am happy to say was one of the ships to remain behind. Totals remaining; six battlecruisers, seventeen heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers and ten destroyers. We also have fifteen of our new fast attack support ships available but they are all untested in combat and currently docked at the shipyards,” explained Fleet Admiral Saunders.
    “What is the status of our pilots? How many do we have available if the Shenkar attack?” asked President Sheehan.
    “We only have around five hundred as most of the veterans were aboard the ships that left. We have another thousand pilots in various stages of training. Latest reports only puts about two hundred of those as