Prodigal
© 2021 by Walter Reimer



Ever since the first raid against the primary Confed Fleet base at Centauri, the military had been steadily increasing the detection arrays around the system. That process accelerated after the combined Colonial/Imperial attack against the base and its infrastructure.

So, when a quintet of unidentified ships came into detection range, the base was already on alert. Patrol ships, led by a heavy cruiser, were already responding.

It is a measure of how anxious the base’s personnel were that the officer on duty called the admiral to the command center before the contact was confirmed.

Oddly, the sensor buoy hadn’t been destroyed yet.

“Status!” the red panda femme barked as she ran into the command center before the doors opened fully, paws buttoning up her uniform tunic. “What have we got?” she asked as the alarm klaxons died away.

“Five ships, one large and four small, power readings anomalous,” the captain replied crisply. “No ID transponders.”

“Challenge?”

“Sending now,” and the corsac nodded at one junior officer.

“Centauri to unknown ships, identify yourselves or be destroyed,” the Siamese feline said.

After a pause, a tired voice said in Basic, “TCS Menhit, four escorts. We’re home . . . “

“Not reading your transponders, Menhit,” the feline said. She muted her microphone and muttered, “If that’s who you really are.”

“Oh? Hang on; it’s probably been shot off . . . there. Can you read that?”

The admiral turned to look at the plot as the ships’ IDs began to appear near the sensor buoy, and she felt her banded tail twitch as the computers (a troika of them, acting as a check on the base AI) verified the identification. She reached for the communications console. “This is Admiral Schalke, base commander. Outphase for visual confirmation of your identity, and you will be escorted in. Who’s in command?” she asked as the captain relayed instructions to the sentinels.

The data in the plot changed color to indicate that the five ships had dropped out of hyperspace, and the patrol was catching up to them. An image appeared on one communications screen; a battleship’s bridge showing signs of damage.

Schalke’s eyes went wide. “Feranq?”

Admiral Gromov gave her a weary smile. “Rikki, hello. Been a long time,” the tiger said.

“What the fuck happened?” she half-demanded, a few subordinates suppressing chuckles at her language.

The weary smile sagged into a frown. “What the fuck happened, Rikki, is that Liang and those other cretins in the Admiralty on Terra thought it’d be a great idea to attack Gwath ka-shlal. We’ve been on the run ever since – in fact, you may want to be on alert. There might be a few Kashlanin ships still hunting us.”

“We’ve been on alert since Lalande fell and the Wolf was blown up,” Schalke said.

Gromov flicked his ears. “The Wolf was blown up?”

“I’ll tell you all about it after we get you and your ships into dock. Over drinks.” The red panda smiled as reassuringly as she could under the circumstances. “Welcome home, Feranq.”


***


The news that the remnants of Task Force 2 had arrived at Centauri triggered three responses.

The first was consternation within the Admiralty, who had become convinced that the crews who had surrendered to the Colonials were the only survivors of the expeditionary force. Admiral Gromov’s action report and the Menhit’s logs were eagerly anticipated.

The Ministry of Information planned on portraying the force’s odyssey as a gallant battle against overwhelming odds that resulted in a resounding Terran victory.

‘M’ ordered Admiral Gromov Feranq arrested.