[sachmo]

Breathing Room

Grand Admiral Urian pinned the rank insignia onto the uniform collar of the Remorhaz Navy’s newest Rear Admiral.
“Congratulations, Admiral Jager. This has been a long time coming, but very well deserved.”
He clasped her hand and shook it. Gina flushed a bit, but thru it all managed to smile.
“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
Urian relaxed his grip, and gave her a long look.
“You never have before. Why would I be worried you would start doing it now?”
Gina flushed again. The navy band began to play the Remorhaz anthem. Everyone turned and saluted the ensign flying over the parade ground.
With that, everyone was dismissed and the formal ceremony ended. Now the private parties would begin. For Gina, tonight night was going to be just as long as the day had been. The victory at the Battle of Correlia had given the Remorhaz forces a moment to breathe, and they intended to take full advantage of it. With the pace of the fighting over the past five years, there had not been enough time to award decorations and promotions, and so Grand Admiral Urian himself decided to bring the ceremonies to the fleet instead of waiting for everyone to rotate back to Remorhaz. This action gave a big boost to moral. The fighting men and women of Remorhaz took a few days to stand tall and be proud of their accomplishments. The ceremonies here on Highrock were the first of many to follow, and were being broadcast live throughout the society.
Now that Gina was the second-highest ranking officer in the system, she was expected to attend at least one official party in honor of her new promotion. All she really wanted to do for celebration was to take a very long bath and go to sleep for a week or two, but it would have been rude of her not to attend. At least she had a few hours to freshen up before the party was to begin, and since she was the guest of honor she was expected to be fashionably late.
Gina hopped into the rear of her staff speeder.
“Please take me to my apartment, Ensign” she muttered to her driver.
He turned around and flashed a huge smile.
“Anything you say, Cap…sorry, Admiral, ma’am.”
She gazed out of the window, look out at the granite landscape of Highrock.
“I suppose we will both have to get used to that.”
“Yes ma’am.”
They rode on in silence, and Gina allowed her mind to wander back to the beginning of the war. Back to when her biggest fear was if she could get enough training time in for her crew on board Eagle. Now, here she was in a far away system, at the tip of the spear. She had gotten used to being afraid out here at the front. There were so many ways to die, and any one of them could take you without warning. There weren’t many choices out here on the frontlines, and if you weren’t fighting, you were dead. Gina had to make sure the people under her command kept fighting, until the fight was done.

Rear Admiral Sakazawa continued the offensive against the Rage. After two weeks of rest and reorganization, he loaded what was left of the 2nd Space Marine brigade back into Badger and moved into the Sutran system. The brigade was still at less than half strength, but Sakazawa decided that it should be sufficient strength to take these less strongly defended Rage worlds. After a brief battle Sutran II fell, along with 135 million Rage colonists. Space Marine casualties were light with less than ten killed.
In Jethanis, Commodore Brennan was forced to abandon Peonei when a Rage fleet of nine frigates and destroyers jumped in from Aldan. He planned to fall back to Cetarus and defend the entire system from there, and hoped to lure the Rage fleet into attacking the planet. He communicated his plan to the governor on Cetarus, who immediately began building ground-based defenses to lend firepower to the outnumbered Remorhaz fleet. It was hoped that if this Rage fleet were to be destroyed, that would put an end to the Rage navy, but of course no one could be sure.

On the planet Shadow, two fast shuttles lifted off simultaneously from opposite sides of the planet. On board each were members of the first class of agents of the Remorhaz Security and Intelligence Bureau. The first shuttle laid out a course for Remorhaz, where the agents would begin counter-intelligence operation within the government. The second shuttle set a course for the Xillantha system. Once there, the agents were to board a captured Ukra-Tal spacecraft and infiltrate their frontier. If they succeeded, they were trained to carry out any number of missions, from intelligence gathering to asset destruction. A new front had opened up in the war, and on this front the battles were fought in the shadows.