Hurry Up and Wait
Posted on September 7th, 2011 by Ian Blackthorne

Admiral Blackthorne was staring at the tactical display in the Flag Office, on the wall next to the windows that looked out aft over the sleek lines of the Atlantis. Two dimensional Starfleet insignias represented the ships of Third Fleet orbiting Gencodia: Atlantis, Pioneer, Discovery, Endeavour, Soyuz, and Gemini. A Sovereign, an Intrepid, a Galaxy, a Prometheus, and two Akira-Class starships certainly formed a formidable flotilla. A second display zoomed in on the moon’s surface and indicated the positions of defensive ground troops, both Marines and Starfleet security forces, along with the aerial patrols of the Sharks and the Jets.

By all logic, Gencodia was well-defended – too well defended, Blackthorne thought. The pirates of the Free Fleets would be outright foolish to attack Gencodia with this level of firepower to oppose them, and Blackthorne did not take Ashexana for a fool. Even the highly advanced cloaking device aboard her ship would not grant a significant advantage against six capital ships expecting an attack. Either Venya Kashar misunderstood the pirate queen’s intentions and they were waiting for an attack that would not come, or Blackthorne had failed to account for some threat vector that the pirates were preparing to exploit.

Neither option sat well with him. Blackthorne tapped his commbadge and hailed Commander T’Kirr on the surface.