Agamemnon

The Voyage of the USNSF Agamemnon

15 October 2107

Denton Ripley watched the docking clamps release over a remote video feed, and he flinched when Hyperion's port-side reaction control jets began firing to the beat of an elaborate dance all their own. As he watched the live feed, Ripley noted the huge ship -- his last command -- was slowly beginning to pull away from her moorings at the Lunar Gateway, then he saw two tugs moving in to help keep her on station. Ripley's arms crossed protectively over his chest as he watched the evolution, knowing his wife now had the chair on Hyperion's conn -- and that, for now, all eyes were on her.

"Mixed emotions, Denton?" Admiral Stanton said as walked into the orbiting basestation's huge, multi-storied control tower.

"I should be out there with her, you know?" Ripley said -- almost under his breath, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the computers in the complex -- let alone the blast of the air conditioners needed to keep them alive.

"Oh? You don't think she's ready for this?"

"I have more combat experience, Admiral. Not to mention Hyperion was mine for two years."

Stanton smiled. "If I had a buck for every time I've heard that one...well, I guess I'd be a rich man by now."

Ripley nodded. "Goes with the territory, I suppose."

"Very few skippers last six months, Denton. Operational needs dictate the ebb and flow of assignments and postings, but if you decide to stick around you'll start to see the big picture."

"Stick around?"

"You don't have to retire, Denton. You can always move to administration or operations when you get back."

"I wasn't aware that was an option, Admiral."

"Well, I just made you aware, didn't I? And I don't need an answer now. Just give it some thought -- while you're out there."

"Yessir."

"The yard boss tells me Agamemnon will be ready for her initial test run in a few days. I want you to take her out to Mercury..."

"And then return?"

Stanton shook his head. "Only if absolutely necessary."

"Sir?"

"Look, I know this is not exactly doing things by the book, but you're going to head out with an unrated crew, but you'll also be heading out with a group of Israeli technicians onboard. They'll tune the reactor and iron out any bugs in that weapon of theirs while they get your fire control team up to speed -- and we'll get 'em back to base on one of the tankers."

"You mean...?"

"Yes, the Council and the administration have assigned your mission highest priority. We want you to make the jump to Alpha Geminorum Ca as soon as possible, and we want you to find that installation."

"Installation? Sir, Thomas refers to it as a university."

"And who knows, Denton...maybe it is. But do you really think we can afford to take that chance?"

Ripley suddenly felt ill, like he had been betrayed -- because he knew what had to come next. "Sir, what are the mission objectives?"

"Retrieve our midshipman and ascertain what threat level these 'Tall Whites' pose."

"And?"

"If they're hostile, then Agamemnon and her battle group will engage when and if you determine you have the tactical advantage."

"And if they aren't a threat?"

"You'll have dozens of academic sorts onboard your flagship, as well as on the Enterprise; the Science Ministry recommends you convene a working council after contact and work out the best way to proceed diplomatically. You'll also have the five remaining middies from your original mission, and they're to stay with you onboard Agamemnon -- unless, that is, you have to abandon ship."

"So, any thoughts about how we enter the system?"

Stanton shook his head. "No, not really. I assume you'll jump with both Constellation and Stavridis, but I'd keep Connie out at the jump point -- to secure the return to Earth. Maybe Stavridis could hide out in the asteroid belt, kind of like an ace up your sleeve for when, or if, things hit the fan. If it turns bad out there, Constellation would be in a good position to send a longboat through the Alderson point. Within six weeks we hope to have the Enterprise Battle Group assembled and ready to make the jump to provide a secondary attack force should this new race prove hostile."

"A battle group, Admiral? Can we spare that many ships if we get into a shooting war with the Russian and the Chinese at Mintaka?"

"I don't know, Denton. Why don't you think it through and see what you come up with." An exasperated Stanton looked him over again -- then he too crossed his arms over his chest before he turned and walked out of the control tower -- and Denton realized he'd asked a question worthy of any midshipman still wet behind the ears.

Yet that question had been in the plan all along. In fact, everything he and Stanton had just said had been for the benefit of the prying eyes and ears scattered all over Gateway Alpha. Because of the nature of the Gateway, that of providing access to the lunar surface, operational security up here was a constant battle.

Hyperion was now about a hundred meters away from the Gateway and Ripley could now take her all in. With her Langston Field down she looked like an interconnected jumble of mismatched white rectangles covered with hundreds of small metallic sensor arrays and antennas -- and he had to admit she looked nothing at all like most modern warships -- yet in an offhand way that's exactly what she was. And she was headed in harm's way, too -- only now Hyperion was skippered by a woman who also just happened to be his wife.

+++++

Yet the Agamemnon was anything but a rectangle.

As he looked her over the word 'rakish' came to mind, because she looked somewhat like one of the ocean greyhounds that used to roam the Earth's southern capes -- the Clipper Ships. Even made fast to her moorings here at the Gateway, she looked like she'd been built for sheer speed, like a bird dog straining at the leash and ready to join the chase. And while she was technically an emissary ship, Agamemnon too was a warship, only a warship built with very different objectives in mind.

Agamemnon's mission wasn't confrontation; no, she was -- in her way -- an olive branch. A very fast olive branch. This new ship had been built with the implicit knowledge that the most enduring peace is based on understanding and respect -- respect grounded in an explicit ability to lay waste to any enemy the ship came across.

This was an old concept, of course. The policy of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, had been employed during the First Cold War and had remained in place through the Resource Wars. After a wild series of tectonic shifts and volcanic eruptions had sent the Northern Hemisphere into perpetual winter, the unions of the north had simply moved south, pushing aside native populations as these unions asserted control over vast new territories. Yet once all the resources necessary for explosive industrialization were discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, terrestrial conflict came to a sudden, convulsive end. As all modern economies were built on the shaky foundations of military industrialization, it soon became apparent that all such conflict would have to take place in space. And in a sad irony not lost on Ripley, there was not now one country that maintained a real sea-going navy anymore; in an era of rapidly changing climates, the cost, let alone the danger, was simply no longer justifiable.

Yet Agamemnon truly represented something new, and as such she her design was radically different from the first generation of interstellar warships. Of course the ship had an Alderson Drive so of course she had a protective Langston Field, yet despite being a warship she had been designed to deploy only one weapon. Agamemnon would be the first ship to deploy a working X-ray MASER, and this offensive weapon had been developed specifically for this ship. Rumors had been floated that this Maser was quite probably the deadliest weapon ever created by man. In tests, Maser-X had cut through all known armor plate in nanoseconds, yet the weapon concurrently delivered a kinetic impact equivalent to five megatons of force. The real horror of this weapon was that even a ship's Langston Field could not absorb this kinetic impact; instead, all this colossal energy was transmitted inward, directly onto the ship within the Field. Developed in Israel, in proof of concept tests the Maser had been deployed against steel structures in the Negev, and the results had been terrifying. Huge iron beams bent under the force of the impact, but then the metal began to disintegrate as the Maser ruptured molecular bonds within the metal. Now, the thinking was that a ship targeted by the Maser would be instantly crippled by the kinetic impact, then the targeted ship's Langston Field generator would fail, allowing the full power of the Maser to strike the underlying structure, in effect slicing through the ship and exposing the habitation modules to space. The most unusual, and horrifying aspect of this new Maser was that the beam could be narrowly focused and wielded like a scythe, or with greater distance its beam could be widened to hit like a huge sledge hammer. When deployed from a 200 mile orbit and used on 'terrestrial' targets, the target area broadened to a half mile square, meaning that an area the size of the old Central Park on Manhattan Island could be annihilated, simply turned into molten slag -- in nanoseconds.

Yet Ripley had been more than a little surprised to learn that Agamemnon's keel had been laid down a full six months before he'd first left Earth -- on Hyperion. So, the ship had been re-tasked -- from an unknown original purpose, one possibly related to the old Cold War MAD doctrine -- to a vessel designed for First Contact. So then, what was the term that the old Strategic Air Command had operated under? Flexible Response? Have the necessary ships -- and crew -- available to meet both current and any anticipated needs -- and those unanticipated adversaries that always came along. And because new technologies always came along, some more unexpectedly than others, platforms needed to be designed with the unexpected in mind. So, months before he'd ever commanded the first Hyperion mission, the Navy had started work on Agamemnon. But...why? How had they known? There was simply no need for a ship like this without First Contact in mind...

'What changed?' he wondered. 'Where was the new threat? The Company? But -- what if The Company struck an alliance with China or Russia? Even though that would be against The Company's long-term interests?'

But all this meant Admiral Stanton had considered him the best person for the task at hand, to take Agamemnon out to face an unknown adversary. And Judith was now considered more than capable enough to sail Hyperion into battle on Orion's belt. Or? Was she simply more expendable than he?

'And am I flexible enough for this mission?' he asked himself -- as he watched Hyperion's main drive come online and flare to life. 'What do they think is going to happen out there? Meet these 'Tall Whites' again and sing Kumbaya around a campfire on the beach? But -- why had The Company been out there in the first place? Simply to find out what happened to Covenant? Or had they known about the Tall Whites? And if they did, how the hell did they find out?'

A personal Comms came through from Hyperion and Ripley took the call.

Judith's image came onscreen and he thought she looked calm enough, almost serene -- given the circumstances. "Everything good, Judy? How does she feel?"

A simple nod. "Crew is still tight, but right now everyone is on edge. Things got dark after the Marines boarded."

"How many?"

"Two companies, so they're crowded down there. What about Agamemnon? When do you put out for builder's trials?"

He looked at her and shrugged at the continuing subterfuge. "No word yet. Yard crew is still onboard, still working on Reactor Two, something wrong with the original interlink. I think we'll be out of here within a few weeks."

This was the agreed upon coverup Stanton wanted going out over the Command Net, in case unauthorized ears were listening...and of course Judith was in on this last minute deception.

"That figures," she said, smiling. "Hell, this thing out in the Belt will be over by the time you leave. Wait for us and we'll go on trials with you."

"I'll mention it to the Admiral. Let's hope this is just a tempest in a teapot."

"Well, whatever it turns out to be, we're ready for an extended engagement."

Ripley nodded. Until the full nature of any alliance between Weyland and the Chinese and the Russians was fully understood, the scope of the conflict would remain unknown -- at least until hostilities commenced. But what was there to worry about? Just because Hyperion was being sent in first -- to test the waters, as Admiral Stanton put it -- didn't mean Judy was in imminent peril. "Perhaps they'll find a diplomatic solution," Denton said, his voice a little too forced. "When will you make the jump?" he asked.

"Looks like 1.5Gs to Mercury, so call it two weeks and change." There was a flurry of activity in the background and Judy turned to deal with it; a moment later she turned back to him and said "Gotta go. Talk to you later," and her image disappeared.

After less than a half hour Hyperion was now almost five hundred miles away from the station, so he switched to a telescopically enhanced view -- just in time to note the main drives flare as Hyperion went to maximum power. Hyperion was setting sail at almost 3Gs, and her exhausted crew would make it to Mercury in less than a week...and if all went according to plan he'd be following her in just a few hours.

He quietly slipped out of the station's Command Center and walked slowly through the station out to Agamemnon, but once onboard he dashed to the conn-tower and strapped into his acceleration couch. Once his screens were positioned exactly where he wanted them he spoke over the closed command circuit.

"X-O," he said to Commander Brennan, "let's take her out, then get everyone to acceleration stations. Reactor Control, are you ready to go down there?"

"Brooks here, Admiral. Reactors One and Two are online with full power available, Three and Four are on standby. All engineering personnel ready for acceleration."

"Rusty? How are your troops?"

"In their couches, ready to go. All hardware secure."

"WEPPs? What's the status of that Maser?"

"Yardmaster says Dr. Balin has about two plus days work to finish up, Admiral."

"Okay. Tell 'em we'll have about 24 hours in a low-G orbit at Venus and possibly a little longer at Mercury. Get those people strapped in; we're going to heavy acceleration in five minutes."

Brennan turned her couch to face Ripley: "Reactors one and two now at full rated power, Admiral. Ready when you are, sir."

"Alright, Commander. Captain of the Yard, visual signals only and maintain radio silence, you notify tugs to assume standby stations, and let's make ready for departure."

Ripley's ears popped as pressure bulkheads and entries were closed throughout the ship, and as pressurization went to internal; air pressure equalized throughout the ship as the massive air generators and CO2 scrubbers came online.

"Admiral," Brennan said, "greens across the board; all departments report ready for departure."

"Very well, XO, take her out."

+++++

Admiral Stanton watched Agamemnon as her reaction control jets pushed the huge ship away from the Gateway, and he couldn't help but smile with pride. Her architects had taken a page from the old Soviet playbook when they designed her, because Agamemnon was the exact opposite of Hyperion. Hyperion was a battleship, meant to fight from inside the cocoon of her Langston Field, while Agamemnon had been designed to visually impress anyone unlucky enough to see her, to engender a sense of awe -- and in that one regard her designers had succeeded brilliantly. She looked more like a super-yacht than a naval vessel, as if the way her lines had been drawn had been shaped by a desire to exude a sense of urgent purpose. If Hyperion was a heavyweight boxer, Agamemnon was a long-distance runner.

Stanton watched as Stavridis and Constellation moved into echelon formation as they joined Agamemnon, just before they accelerated away from the station. They made quite a sight just then, the three of them in formation passing in front of Earth with their drives flaring, the Enterprise Battle Group now five miles behind the formation, still moored at the Gateway while they took on hydrogen and their final provisions. Yet even now the Charles de Gaulle and the QE2 were still just in view, trailing Hyperion as they steamed towards the sun, completing their own last preparations before making the jump to Mintaka.

As Stanton watched he realized he was witnessing history, that everything was hitting all at once. Two fleets heading out into harm's way.

Was this by design, or simply coincidence?

Why had the Russians attack the Japanese colony on Mintaka 4 now? Why had the Chinese resumed their tattered alliance with Moscow? Obviously the Japanese had discovered something of extraordinary significance on the planet, and so the Russians had made their play to take the planet -- yet why had the Chinese rejoined their uneasy alliance with Russia? And if the Chinese were willing to let bygones be bygones, then the discovery on Mintaka simply had to be of priceless value.

And the Weyland-Yutani Group was already there. Already in the game. How did the Company's presence play into this metastasizing conflict?

But why had they gone after Covenant? Did it have something to do with that organism?

If so, what was the connection?

Stanton's gut told him there was one. There had to be.

That's why three commercial freighters still under construction had just been 'acquired' and were rapidly being repurposed into troop transports. Mintaka 4 was the prize, yet Stanton knew deep down that the key to the prize was going to be found on, or in the vicinity of, Alpha Geminorum Ca-4. So Denton Ripley had to find the key -- and then somehow get it to his wife at Mintaka.

Then maybe they could retire and raise their daughter.

Funny, he thought, how these things work out.

Chapter 2

Ripley watched live feeds from all over the ship, even monitoring the main reactor control panels from his seat on the bridge. A small contingent of Marines was exercising on the hangar deck, agronomists in hydroponics were tending their crops, even the recycling plant turning todays excrement into tomorrow's bioplast and yeast steaks -- it was all visible with the flip of a switch, and he could literally zoom in on any shipboard activity he wanted to observe, and as this was technically a warship there were no privacy rights to contend with. Still, Ripley saw no point violating spaces where privacy was presumed. The ships AI would do that automatically; sifting through conversations for subversive content or plans of sabotage.

But right now he switched over and looked at factory technicians still hard at work calibrating the new X-ray Maser. Agamemnon was the first ship not just in the Navy but the first ship period to be so armed, and Agamemnon had been, technically speaking, built to house this one weapon. And the Maser had proven to be so devastating, and yet so reliable, that it had been boxed up and launched on a shuttle directly from the Haifa Spaceport -- even as Agamemnon was hastily readied to accommodate the weapon. As a result of the Maser's power requirements, the ship had five fusion reactors, not the four originally specified. The fifth reactor was needed to power the Maser, though power from all five reactors could be channeled to the weapon if the situation warranted. And now, ever since he'd boarded and his command status had been transferred to the new ship, all he'd done was study this Maser -- and its daunting power requirements.