Wargames III (cont'd.)
Mansel nodded.  "Good," he said.  "Now let's contact Captain Vaughn and get to work.  By now Blackbird has already put the finishing touches to his usually well thought plans."  Everyone walked out of the meeting but Vaughn. "Vaughn, your still here.  Mind telling me what's on your mind man?"  Mansel, knowing Vaughn all to well, waited to hear some well thought answer.

"I could be wrong, Captain.  But I think this distribution of manpower will split the professional capability and effectiveness of both ships.  Won't the Admiral pick up on that sir?"

"Let's hope not." Mansel watching Vaughn turning to leave finally, "For both our sakes." Mansel finished.

                                                                       ***
USS Stealthlon-B
11:14 SET
2193

The Stealthlon's war room table was a mess of various charts and plotted routes.  The captains from the carriers, USS Foch-D and the escort carrier USS Black Sea, didn't make things any easier. Admiral Blackbird for the most part just sat back and watched with his captain, Kain, as the carrier captains continued their brainstorming and about hour later or so Blackbird got tired of it.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen such time wasting.  Lets review what your disorderly brains spilled out onto those graphs." Blackbird jumping into the fray to break it up mostly.

"Admiral, I'm not cleaning up after them."

"Quite right Kain. The price for using my war room and trashing it is you guys clean it."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

"Admiral, Captain Ramsey brought something to my attention.  We obviously know who mans the Explorers A & B, right?"  Captain John Styles, this being his first time with actually employing his offensive carrier warfare planning chance, caught something Blackbird missed.  Blackbird nodded and Styles continued, "Well, sir, who mans and commands the original Explorer?"

"Kain, are we allowed to view the other side's ship rosters?"

"This wargame is all new to me Admiral.  I imagine Admiral Story might have answers to your questions."

"Well Kain, its alittle damn hard at the time to get ahold of him."

"I see."

"I want that ship's roster, Kain."

"Alright. But this is gonna take some favors. But a lot of people here and there owe me anyways."

"That’s the Kain I know."

"I got the squadrons, Pukin Dogs, Sea Swords, & Party Bashers ready for Point Defense scrappin."

"Brave SOB's taking on any Explorer's point Defense systems and weapons." Blackbird grinning about slim chances any fighter pilot might going up against a cruisers point defense network.  Kain had left but suddenly came back holding a list of names.

"There.  That’s the crew of the original Explorer submitted not but only 5 minutes ago by Captain Mansel."

"The one and only." Blackbird muttered.  Blackbird grabbed the list and mumbled to himself as he
read it. "So Mansel has cut his professional effectiveness in half, that’s another plus in our favor Kain."

"We are the ones that are favored to win as well by most of the boys out of TASK FORCOM (Task Force Command) and EDFC (Earth Defense Force Command - or UNSF Army)."

"And they'll all start to support Mansel, should things start to go south for us while fighting him.  The true fans they turn out to be."

"Well I don't know Admiral.  But I do know that Mansel has the ear of a majority of the newer captains."

"Is that right?" Blackbird looked up from the list straight at Captain Styles, a new captain.  Styles gulped.

"I'm sure Captain Styles has left whatever biased opinions he has for Mansel out of this wargame, sir" Captain Ramsey coming to Styles defense.

"Right." Blackbird said then returned to reading the list to himself.  Then Blackbird looked up at the two carrier captains. "You know what fellas? I'm just going to go down to Nellis for some poorly scheduled cruiser/carrier warfare compatibility plan briefing.  Styles your two very good squadrons short and I'm going to remedy that problem.  So don't say I never did nothing for ya."
                                                                          ***
Nellis AFB, Nevada
13:45 SET

Meanwhile over the Nellis AFB Test Simulators & Flight Range in Nevada, a much different sort of war game was reaching some of its peak on the newly formed networked fighter simulators.  The Annual Red Flag competition had been going on and the two squadrons that had been dying to pair off against each other finally had, the Stealths versus the Skylords.