Chapter 314: Conrad's Contacts - I

Conrad was aboard Triton One.

For the past several days, the Naval groups had continued pushing farther away from Saicine and ASR-003, patrolling the coast and surveying whatever remained beyond the waters they had already cleared.

They found plenty of marine life but most of it wanted to kill them.

Large biological contacts still appeared from deeper water every so often, sometimes alone and sometimes in loose groups. A few tried to approach the ships before being driven away or destroyed, while others disappeared into deeper water as soon as the Wraiths moved after them.

Anchorage was worse.

Every attempt to push toward the city's nearby waters brought more hostile contacts onto the sonar picture. Some were small enough to ignore. Others were large enough that Conrad had no intention of letting them anywhere near the surface ships.

He stopped trying to force the approach in one movement.

Instead, the Naval groups had been clearing their way toward Anchorage piece by piece, opening safer water behind them before pushing farther in again.

It was slower, but Conrad preferred slow over losing ships because he became impatient.

Today, however, Anchorage wasn't his main concern.

The cluster of gray markers north-northwest of his position was.

Conrad brought the shared surface picture closer.

The contacts had been there for days.

They didn't move like drifting vessels. The formation changed heading together, spread apart and tightened again, and occasionally shifted several kilometers before settling somewhere else.

But they never committed southward. They never approached Anchorage either.

More importantly, they hadn't attempted to close with any of Conrad's patrol groups even after Golden Eagle ships began moving closer to their general area.

They simply remained out there, waiting for something.

Conrad already had Hans's warning about them.

There was a good chance the vessels were Albian.

Albia was far beyond the waters Golden Eagle currently controlled, but before the Event it had been one of the AWN's major maritime powers. If some part of its fleet had crossed all the way into northern Ashington waters, there was probably a reason.

Conrad studied their movement again.

He couldn't tell how strong they were from Radar markers alone. What he could tell was that they weren't behaving like a force looking for a fight.

An aggressive formation could have probed his patrols by now. It could have moved toward Saicine, tested Anchorage, or at least closed enough to identify who was operating along the Ashington coast.

Instead, the unknown ships kept their distance.

Maybe they were damaged. Maybe they were short on fuel, ammunition or supplies.

Maybe they were escorting civilians or other vessels Conrad couldn't distinguish yet.

Or perhaps whatever they had encountered before reaching Ashington had made them unwilling to approach another unknown fleet without knowing exactly who was waiting for them.

None of those possibilities were particularly reassuring.

If those really were Albian ships, then something had driven a foreign naval formation hundreds or thousands of kilometers from home only for it to spend several days circling outside an Ashington port without daring to come closer.

Conrad leaned toward the display.

"Let's find out who they are."

Conrad didn't move Triton One toward the contacts immediately.

The order spread through the ships first.

Combat stations were manned across the Northern Maritime Task Force while its forward groups tightened around the more vulnerable support vessels. Weapons remained ready, but nobody started painting the gray ships with fire-control systems.

There was no reason to announce hostile intent before they even knew who they were looking at.

The two Monarch carriers were farther behind Conrad's forward groups.

One of them had finally filled all sixty standard airframe-equivalent slots after repeated transfers from Saicine. The second was still building toward the same state, although it already carried enough aircraft to support the northern operations.

Jasper Lee, one of the additional Air Commanders trained after the first Command Center became operational, had been assigned to coordinate the aviation operating from both carriers.

Conrad opened the Air channel.

"This is Conrad Halestar of the Northern Maritime Task Force. Commander Jasper Lee, are you there?"

"I can hear you, Conrad. Is it time to meet our guests?"

"Long due. I need eyes on them. One Raptor element."

"Got ya. One Raptor element on the way."

The Air Commander handled the rest. Two Raptors were selected from the first Monarch.

Both were veteran aircraft that had already reached their third and final promotion after fighting across Grefort and Saicine. Sending anyone less experienced didn't make much sense for the first approach toward an unknown foreign fleet.

Within minutes, the carrier deck was already moving. The two fighters taxied into position while deck personnel cleared the launch path ahead of them.

One disappeared down the first launch track.

The second followed shortly afterward.

They climbed away from the carrier and turned north-northwest.

"Angel One-One, reporting in, Task Force Command."

"Good to hear from you, Angel One-One. Approach the group. Don't make it look hostile."

"We won't."

Conrad watched their markers separate from the fleet.

The unknown ships reacted as soon as they approached. Their gray formation tightened.

Several vessels changed heading at the same time, while others moved closer toward the center.

One contact that had been sitting farther outside the formation turned directly toward the approaching Raptors.

"They're aware. Their Radar is working."

The Raptors didn't approach head-on.

They shifted several kilometers east of the formation first, staying high and fast while their optics began resolving the contacts from the side.

The first images reached Triton One shortly afterward.

Conrad leaned closer.

They were warships, at least most of them.

The largest vessel sat near the middle of the formation, surrounded by several smaller escorts. Another large ship traveled farther behind it, although its speed appeared lower than the others.

There were civilian hulls mixed among them as well.

Their silhouettes looked more like transport and passenger vessels than combat ships, and several stayed deep inside the formation where the warships surrounded them on nearly every side.

"They're protecting those civilian ships." Conrad furrowed his brows. "Evacuation convoy?"

"Shall we move closer, Task Force Command?"

"Do it, but be careful. They might fire unannounced."

"Roger that."

The image sharpened as the Raptors continued their pass.

Damage appeared almost everywhere.

One escort had a large section of its upper structure covered by temporary plating. Another carried obvious discoloration and deformation along one side of the hull.

The slower ship near the rear sat lower in the water than Conrad liked.

Several vessels had sections that looked repaired with whatever material had been available rather than anything meant to return a warship to proper condition.

The formation wasn't intact, but it had survived.

The lead Raptor continued along the edge of the group.

"Markings coming through."

Another image appeared.

Conrad saw the emblem first, then the flag painted against one section of the superstructure.

Another image consisting of a flag appeared.

A deep ocean-blue field covered most of it. A broad white diagonal cross stretched from corner to corner, while a silver eight-pointed compass star sat where the two bands met.

"They're Albian." Conrad studied the damaged ships again. "And from the looks of it, they've been through something bad."

Hans had been right.

One of the strongest maritime powers in the AWN had somehow ended up wandering off Ashington's northern coast with damaged warships and civilian vessels gathered inside its screen.

Conrad studied the formation again.

Their hesitation now made more sense. They weren't circling because they lacked somewhere to go.

They were circling because they didn't know whether the ports ahead were safe.

And whoever commanded those ships had enough people depending on them that gambling the entire formation on an unknown harbor was probably unacceptable.

The outer Albian escort continued turning toward the Raptors.

No weapons were fired and no missiles were launched, but Conrad wasn't going to let the silence continue much longer.

The Raptors maintained their distance and completed the first pass.

"Angel One-One, stay outside their weapons range. No need to scare them more than we already have."

"On it, Command."

The aircraft banked away from the formation.

Conrad looked back toward the shared surface picture.

The Albian ships remained gray, but now he knew what those markers represented.

He switched to the external communications channel.

"Prepare a wide-band transmission."

Triton One's communications section opened the frequencies.

Conrad waited until the Raptors were already moving away.

"Albian naval formation, this is the Northern Maritime Task Force Command of the Golden Eagle Army, operating off the Ashington coast."

He paused. "We have identified your vessels. We are not hostile, and we are not engaging your ships."

The message went out across the water. Silence ensued for several seconds.

Conrad watched the Albian formation remain tightly packed.

A reply finally came through. The transmission was distorted badly enough that the first words were difficult to understand.

Then the signal cleared.

"Northern Maritime Task Force Command of..."

The speaker stopped for a moment.

"This is the Albian Third Fleet, commandeered by Admiral Zachary Smith."

Conrad sat straighter as the voice continued.

"We request confirmation."

A pause followed.

"Is Anchorage still under Ashington control?"