A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

IBSI Data Analysis Center, Suldanor
January 3, 5610, 1:30am

There was a knock at the door.  Captain Kenneth Zearing, was reading the executive summaries from the report from various desks.  Captain Zearing's job was to select the most important pieces to include in the Daily Executive Briefing that would be delivered to Her Imperial Majesty in just over 6 hours.  Luckily, he did not have to dig too deep: he merely needed to reference the relevant information.  His job was basically proforma, but it was a decision making position, and required a pretty sharp mind, to ensure that details which would be important, even if small, were left in the final report.  Additionally, during the overnight, he was the highest ranking Regular officer in G-2 on duty, so he was also billeted as acting Station Chief.

"It opens," said Captain Zering.  In walked  Lt. Amanda Boudreau and Cpl Oscar Cardona.  These two analysts were part of the Artania Desk, which had recently taken on the new role of analyzing photos from the new GeoSat surveillance satellites which are stationed over central and eastern Artania and were constantly looking at Endralon, Kundrati and Ikradon, as well as the Artanian and Unholy Seas.  Their main target of observation was, obviously, Kundrati and immediately adjacent waters.

The Lieutenant and Corporal stepped in front of the desk and laid several photos of various coastlines.  The photos showed obvious naval installations, and adjacent cities.  The trained analysts can tell with just a glance the difference between civilian constructions and military constructions:  It's obvious.  Civilian facilities are not as ruthlessly efficient in their designs as military installations.  In a civilian harbor, for example, boats of fifty different sizes are tied up to their berths haphazardly, with no regard for any thing except who owns what.  Even with experienced harbormasters, nothing beats a military installation for design, ease of access, and ease of regress.

The Captain looked at the pictures.  Each set appeared to be a series of five photos.  In the first four, from what the Captain could tell by the high resolution shots, some times through holes in the clouds, sometimes out in clear blue skies, there was a lot of activity around various naval installations.  Lots of ships, represented by easily identifiable dark lines, lots of vehicles, lots of things you would expect on fully staffed military based.  But on the last photo in each set, several of the ships had apparently disappeared.  And thankfully, the Lieutenant had drawn circles around where the missing ships are, so the eye could be easily drawn to that section.

"Ships are gone, Lieutennant." said the Captain, stating the obvious.

"Specifically the Submarines," said Lt. Boudreau.

"Have you heard any chatter from the Artanians or the Likatonians about exercises?"

"Nothing, Sir.  I don't believe they are aware."

"What do you think has happened to them," asked the Captain.  "Could it be some unannounced exercise?"

"Sir, the Kundratis don't usually do exercises," said Corporal Cardona.  "They don't tend to like anyone knowing what they have or what they plan to do with it."

The Captain looked at the photos under a magnifying lens that allowed him to focus on the granular details of the photos.  "Well, it does seem that it is just the submarines.  Those pens are empty.  How old are these photos?"

Lt. Boureau said, "This is about 10 days ago, this one here is 8 days, this is seven days, this one it three days and this last one is about 6 hours old."

"So, sometime in the last 72 hours, the entire Kundrati submarine fleet shipped out,"  said the Captain.  "But just the subs?  None of the surface ships have moved...  That's doesn't seem like an attack to me..."  The Captain thought for a moment.  "Do you have any idea where they are going?"

"Sir, we didn't see them leave.  We only noticed they were gone after they had already left, so I imagine that they left sometime one of the nights between series 4 and 5, plus cloud cover in Eastern Artania in January is problematic.  The reason we have the gap is because weather in the region is not cooperating."

"Goddamn it...  I wish the Luthorians were a little better with their surveillance." said the Captain. "Why they aren't sitting just outside those bases watching everything they do is just beyond me...  Why is it that the only one watching that country is half way around the world..."  He breathed in and exhaled loudly, mildly annoyed.

"Captain, we need to let the Chiefs know about this."

"Alright.  Go ahead and call Admiral Robb, also call up Admiral Miller.  Advise alert, and suggest that the search assets from the 4th Fleet start looking for those subs.  If they are coming east, we need as much time as we can get to prepare.  They won't be out of the Artanian Sea yet, so we have time to get into place in case they come into the Mad Dog.  Prepare a briefing for 0630 in case we need to touch up the Daily.  Dismissed..."  The two analysts snapped to attention, did an about face and walked smartly out of the office.  Meanwhile Captain Zearing got on the phone, punched some buttons into the unit, and waited for the ringer.

"What's going on Zearing?" said the half awake voice on the other end of the phone call.  "Sir, we have a situation.  Not sure how big it is, but..."  Zearing proceeded to tell the information and discuss what conclusions the three had come to.  "Sir, I'd like to call the Luthori liaison and put them on alert.  I'm also going to call Lodamun...  They will definitely appreciate the heads up."

"Alright Captain.  Go ahead and make the calls.  I'll be down there in an hour..."  The phone went dead on the other side, and the Captain hung up.  The next call he made was to his contact in Lodamese Intel.