Twelve pilots and twelve torpedo men raced to their ships. They strapped themselves in, ran system checks, and reported their ships ready for take off. The squadron commander split the squadron into two sections, one he led, and the other by his XO. He gave three Scylla and three Charybdis to his XO’s section and kept the remainder under his control. He led the take off and ordered his XO to concentrate his initial attack by his section to the right and above the approaching target and he would concentrate on left and below. After the first shots were fired the two sections were free to engage as the situation warranted.
Kelly was seated back on the bridge as sensors reported a second laser burst transmission ahead of them. Kelly ordered gunnery to take out the early warning satellite, and then watched with pride as one of the turret gunners put his first burst into the center of the target. The satellite exploded into pieces that hurtled off into the depths of the star cluster.
Kelly was about to direct sensors to identify any further early warning satellites early enough to destroy them before they reported, when sensors informed them they had twelve hostile ships inbound port bow and starboard bow, high and low. Kelly authorized the gunners to engage all targets.
Chief Johnson reported twenty torpedoes inbound in the forward hemisphere. The gunners expertly destroyed all these targets as they presented themselves. More torpedoes appeared on the sensors.
Kelly noticed that three of the torpedo ships were bunched up and arrayed almost dead ahead of the Vigilant. He ordered gunnery to use the nose rail guns to take out these three ships.
The gunner sitting in the bridge gunnery position lined up the cross hairs and took out the closest ship. In quick succession, he shifted point of fire and took out the second ship. The third ship turned away, but not in time to avoid the next rail gun burst. That made three down and nine more to go.
There were still ten torpedoes inbound, although the gunners were doing well against them. Kelly was absorbed watching the battle unfold, occasionally redirecting fire or having the helm adjust the course and speed. At no time did he have the urge to grab the helm or take over the gunnery controls. His crew was doing their jobs extremely well; none of the ships or torpedoes got within his safety concern bubble.
Kelly was watching his monitor and counting the torpedoes being destroyed when it dawned on him that one of the torpedo ships had disappeared from his scope. He called to Sensors that one was lost and to find out where it went. Gunnery reported they didn’t shoot him. Sensors was slow to find him. On a hunch, Kelly looked at the rear view and saw the ship trying to fly up their exhaust.
Rather than hit one button and take over gunnery control for the rear firing guns, he ordered the bridge gunner to take it out. It only required a minute change in their course to line up the rear crosshairs on the target and there was one less bandit inbound. The top gunner and starboard gunner got one each and the port turret gunner got two, one cleanly and the second that flew into the debris of the first and took itself out.
Kelly was getting tired of this game, as occasional plasma charges rocked the ship when they hit the Vigilant’s shields, and he thought he saw a way to bring it to a speedier conclusion. A brown dwarf was ahead to port. Kelly knew his engines could keep them from being caught in the gravity well of the dwarf, but bet the torpedo ships weren’t so well off. He ordered the helm to head directly for the brown dwarf.
The torpedo ships, smelling blood in the water, followed, firing all their remaining torpedoes. There were now 31 torpedoes and eight torpedo ships in tail pursuit of the Vigilant. Kelly watched his gravimetric sensors, the gravity force numbers climbing higher as they neared the brown dwarf. This stillborn star with insufficient mass to ever erupt into a sun would be their masterstroke or their tomb.
Kelly kept his eye on the gravity gauges, as he waited for his gut to tell him when to sheer away. The gravity gauges climbed until Kelly finally gave the order for the helm to slingshot around the brown dwarf. The helm matched velocity with the centripetal pull of the brown dwarf’s gravity. The Vigilant swung around the double Jupiter-sized dwarf and came back pointing the way they came. The torpedoes, way ahead of the torpedo ships, had engines too weak to pull away from the brown dwarf’s gravity and spiraled into the dwarf. The eight remaining torpedo ships suddenly found themselves in a head-on collision course with a very angry Vigilant. Six of them broke right and left, only to be taken out by the turret gunners. Two held their course straight at the Vigilant, firing their secondary nose guns to little effect. The Vigilant’s shields easily absorbed the hits. The bridge gunner lined up his cross hairs twice and the torpedo ship threat was no more.
LTJG Cortez ordered all sections to report battle damage status. Negative reports came in from all sections, except engineering, which reported a minor temporary loss in shield strength. Kelly had just successfully prosecuted combat against a superior foe with no loss of life and no damage to his ship. He felt pretty good. He did feel bad about the torpedo ship crews, who were brave, but had picked the wrong occupation.
Kelly looked around at his bridge crew and realized everyone was hunched over like they were expecting an explosion. He realized he was hunched over his console and straightened up. As he did so, he bumped into Alistair Bennett, who had been leaning forward over him watching Kelly’s monitor.
Kelly smiled up at Alistair and asked him if he enjoyed the show.
He replied, “In my ship, I don’t get shot at. This was a novel experience for me.”
Kelly and the bridge crew laughed, breaking the tension. The crew sat up and stretched.
Alistair let the laughter subside and then said, “They came at you uncoordinated except for the first salvo. You may have killed their leadership when you took out those initial three ships with your nose guns. The attack lost cohesion at that point. They still could have killed you, but they were firing their torpedoes almost at random, except for the end, where they salvoed their remaining torpedoes. I think you rattled them when you came right at them, but they rallied when they thought they had you on the run. Remember, these people are only in it for the credits. Dead men don’t get paid.”
Kelly pondered Alistair’s analysis of the battle and admitted he agreed with him. He ordered the helm back to their position before the attack started and put them back on the base course. He thought about his order and lessons he had been taught back in the Academy. He remembered one of his instructors saying, “The easy path is always mined.”
Kelly ordered the helm and navigator to plot a course along the 3G gradient toward their first target planet. That should get them some maneuvering space that wasn’t so well protected and covered by sensors.
Steven Maynard arrived at Defense HQ to find the place in a state of chaos. No one knew what had happened. The torpedo squadron commander had made no contact report. All they knew was they had engaged a single ship and been destroyed in total. Maynard’s HQ staff had no idea who or what had destroyed the sixth squadron.
A number of close explosions had knocked out many early warning satellites and a recon patrol of four torpedo ships could find only wreckage floating in the vicinity of where the battle took place. They found only debris of Torpedo Squadron Six. No wreckage could be found suggesting that any hostile ship had even been here. Maynard was on the comms, demanding that they find the ship or ships that had destroyed the torpedo squadron. In response, they made a maximum power active sensor sweep all the way back to Barataria and found nothing.
Chief Johnson wanted to kiss the pirate in charge. He tracked the active sensor sweep all the way back to what had to be the pirate main base. He also tracked every identification friend or foe signal from the early warning satellites to the torpedo ships. He had a plot of all the satellites now. As long as they hadn’t seeded any out here in the higher gravity area, they should be able to sneak into the base’s back door. He went forward to brief his analysis to the captain.
Kelly and Chief Blankenship took Chief Johnson’s collected active sensor data, Alistair’s energy data, the day’s gravimetric data, and overlaid them on top of each other. The result was a series of additional gravity tubes of various G-forces. Numerous travel tubes of similar gravity existed throughout the area and the Vigilant was probably the only ship aware of them.
Chief Johnson’s weren’t the only set of eyes and ears out that day. Captain Ben Alden also intercepted and tracked the returning flight of torpedo ships. He filed this info away and thought about the best way to use this information. A sneak attack with massive firepower and shock action was his preferred mode of operation. If you could catch the other side asleep or off balance then half the battle was won. He retired his ship from the star cluster and prepared a message to all his fleet to rendezvous above Rigel’s southern pole in two days. He turned the conn over to his second in command and went to his cabin to plan his attack and rescue operation. He still laughed, because he got paid either way.
Ben knew that he wouldn’t have a breakout of the planetary defenses, but he could always come in on the side opposite where the main settlement was. He pulled up a scanned hand drawn map one of his crew had drafted from the rum-soaked blatherings of a pirate crewman in one of the seedier bars of Rigel Prime.
Captain Alden looked at the map and couldn’t figure out what significance the moon had for it to figure so prominently in the chart. Was it seeded with defensive weaponry or did it have another function? He pondered on this, but no revelation came to him. He’d just have to see if he could come at the planet from the side opposite the moon, if he could. He closed his terminal and lay down on his bunk, and within seconds was asleep, dreaming of what he would do with all the credits he would earn from this job.
Shadow Lead Analyst G’Lon and Master Tactician B’Gotil completed their video briefing to the High Elders and awaited questions. The three elders conferred amongst themselves, then the center Elder looked up at them.
“We thank you both for bringing this critical information to our attention. It is obvious that our show of force strategy along the frontier leaves us vulnerable if the Humans choose to use this avenue of approach into our space. We must move forces back into this sector immediately.”
The Elder to the left said, “Master Tactician B’Gotil, perhaps we should give some consideration to an armed reconnaissance in force, to see what is within the star cluster and to let the Humans know that this pathway goes both ways.”
B’Gotil answered, “Of course, Excellency, as soon as we recall sufficient forces to both conduct the reconnaissance in force and defend the sector, we will do so. We don’t want to alert the Humans until we can blunt any attack. We won’t know what forces are in the star cluster until we make contact. It would not do to have our recon force make contact with an approaching invasion force and not have our defenses ready to repel them.”
The center Elder looked down at something before him on his desk, and then spoke again. “You may reduce the force in all contiguous sectors by one-third. There are two Shadow Force destroyers just coming out of the yards here at G’Durin that are yours to deal with this situation. In addition, the Shadow Force Heavy Cruiser H’Kom was coming into the yards for a weapons upgrade, but will be redirected to this effort.”
The right side elder, which had been silent up to this point, spoke. “G’Lon and B’Gotil, we thank you for this briefing. You may have saved the Empire. We shall see to it that you are suitably rewarded. Long live the Empire!”
G’Lon and B’Gotil echoed, “Long live the Empire,” as the video image dissolved on the screen.
Fleet Commander J’Kalt, Fleet Operations Officer, who had been sitting to the side, allowing the two to conduct the briefing, said, “B’Gotil, prepare the orders to the adjacent sector commanders, to send us one-third of their forces. Look at the fleet rosters and select the ships we require. If we leave it up to the sector commanders we will only get their cast offs. This is too important to leave up to their good will. Don’t pick just their best. There is always the chance that the Humans may attack there instead of here.”
“If we are successful in forcing our way through this star cluster and coming out into human space, maybe we can turn the tables on them. Maybe we can threaten their worlds and force them to react to us. It could reduce the threat in many vulnerable frontier sectors. G’Lon, see what you can find out about Human forces on the other side of this star cluster.”
B’Gotil’s joint message from K’Rang Fleet HQ and Shadow Force, reducing forces in adjacent sectors, was met with much grumbling from commanders aware of how weak they were, considering this new Human ability to rapidly shift forces around. As they reviewed the list of ships to be chopped, they saw that at least HQ did not take all the first line ships. The fact that they would not be left with the weakest ships softened the blow some. The seal of the Elders on the message also forestalled any requests for reconsideration.
G’Lon’s message from the Imperial Analytical Cabal ordered two nondescript Human cargo ships to close on the sector opposite the Human side of the star cluster. With luck and hard effort, they should be able to provide a much better picture of Human forces available before the K’Rang Fleet conducted its recon in force.
Back on Barataria, Steven Maynard had calmed down and was trying to rationally assess the situation. The mystery ship that triggered the early warning satellites was nowhere to be found. It may have been destroyed and the debris sucked into the gravity well of the nearby brown dwarf. It may have been damaged or discouraged and turned around. It may have survived and was continuing forward to his world.
Steven knew the first option was wishful thinking and the second option was only slightly less so. No matter the likelihood of the first two options, the third was the most damaging and the one he had to plan for. He issued a general recall for all ships’ captains and crews and defensive squadron leaders. They would go out, find this mystery ship, and destroy it.
As his captains and squadron leaders gathered in his operations center, he put together a cordon and search plan to find and kill this mystery ship. This was his home ground. He had the advantage here.
The Vigilant sat in the sun shadow on the dark side of the pirate world. Kelly had watched a small armada of ships of various classes leave the planet and moon in the direction from which Kelly had just come. The Vigilant’s gravity sensors, and the fortuitous information on the early warning sensors provided by the pirates themselves, gave him what he needed to know to speed his arrival. This put him behind the pirates as they departed to conduct what Kelly suspected was a cordon and search operation.
Sensors watched for any further reaction from the pirates, but saw none. Kelly could not believe they had no sensors on the moon or planet’s surface. The Vigilant’s sensors mapped out the moon, detecting that it was artificial, then gazed through its outer shell with passive sensors to map out its interior. Kelly made out half the ships that had been captured in the last seven months. He could also sense ships under construction in various stages of completion.
Kelly was impressed with this artificial moon, and couldn’t imagine how the pirates could have constructed such a massive facility. It was huge, about one-fifth the size of Earth’s moon. He suspected it might have been left behind by some earlier and more advanced civilization. Nonetheless, it was an impressive facility.
The Vigilant cautiously moved into closer orbit around the planet. Just because they hadn’t detected any early warning or fire control sensors didn’t mean there weren’t any. Chief Johnson had the sensors recording at their fastest speed, mapping every house, warehouse, business, and government facility. They mapped the road system, mines, quarries, wells, and lumber mills. They searched for any defense facilities on the planet, but found only one headquarters facility near the spaceport and three ground unit barracks near the edge of the main city.
All this information would be needed by the 3rd ALG, when they conducted their assault on the planet. Kelly considered landing on the planet to conduct a more thorough reconnaissance (he had some time available), but settled for launching ground sensors onto the high ground north of the city. He launched one sensor to attach itself to the moon near the entrance hatch. They would provide information on the spaceport, military units’ barracks, and the comings and goings from the moon.
Having accomplished all he could reasonably do, he withdrew from the planet and conducted a high speed run out through a higher gravity tunnel in an area of brown dwarves with gravity no higher than 3G. The pirates’ cordon and search accomplished nothing and they eventually gave up.
The K’Rang sector outside the entrance into the star cluster had always been a backwater, never rating any units higher than a flotilla. Its current senior officer was the captain of the missile corvette J’New. Admiralty looked at the number of ships coming into the sector and decided they needed to assign a senior flag officer to command them. Fleet Commander J’Kalt was temporarily reassigned to command the task force being assembled.
He chose the Shadow Force Heavy Cruiser H’Kom as his flagship, even though he was not a member of Shadow Force. It was a Task Force commander’s prerogative. Shadow Force ships had extensive command suites, communications, and sensor packages. It would provide him the best picture of the battle and excellent command and control facilities. In addition, the increased armor of a heavy cruiser would give him the greatest survivability.
He analyzed the ships coming from the surrounding sectors and organized them into what would be his eyes and ears. He organized his forces into three task forces: The two scout ships would lead the way by a couple of days, finding the best path through the star cluster and identifying threats; his flagship, the three light cruisers, the six destroyers and the six missile frigates would follow the path cleared by the scout ships and destroy any forces along the avenue of approach; the two Shadow Force destroyers and the four gun frigates would follow and bombard any fixed or planetary bases along the path; the support ships would follow the ships they were loaded to support. The missile corvette J’New would maintain position at the entrance to the star cluster, to provide communications relay to the main worlds.
His was a simple plan: sweep the enemy from his path, destroy any enemy bases, reload, and prepare to hold at the enemy entrance to the star cluster. If he came across little resistance, he might advance further and see what he could accomplish. After all, the Human side of the star cluster may be a backwater for them too. He dreamed of avenging the defeat at G’Dranu.
Steven Maynard, uneasy with what had been reported to him from the sweep, ordered his operations section to have the torpedo squadrons maintain a 24 hour patrol of the star cluster approaches. If he couldn’t find this mystery ship, he could at least make it more difficult for it to sneak back in.
He called a meeting of his torpedo ship squadron commanders. It was time to reinforce the need for clear and concise reporting upon contact. He also thought about that shipment of space mines the Excelsior had captured. He ordered his operations staff to start having them placed in an all around defense surrounding Barataria. He wanted the path mined in both directions, in case the mystery ship came around behind them.
A torpedo ship could carry and deploy mines as easily as torpedoes. He ordered all the Charybdis models loaded with mines for the first three patrols. That should build them a good defensive shield quickly, and then they would fill in the gaps with later patrols.
Maynard felt better, now that he had a plan in effect.
Thorson spent Fourth Day with Julia Debran. There was little he could do until his ship was completed and launched. As usual, she dragged him into her bed and worked hard to wear him out. Afterwards, he pulled her over on top of him and told her that he wanted her for more than just sex. He didn’t say it, because it was foreign to him, but he undoubtedly loved her.
He told her that if she wanted, he would take her and her daughters with him when he had his ship. He could see to it that she never had to see her husband again.
She appreciated the thought, but knew that Steven Maynard would never let her go and lose out on the chance of 100 million credits. She kissed Thorson and told him he was crazy. She rubbed against him until this insane thought left his mind and other feelings took over.
When Thorson fell deeply asleep, Julia slid out of bed, walked across the room, and looked down at her two daughters sunning by the pool. She wished it was possible for them to leave with Thorson and free herself and her daughters, but Maynard and her husband would never let this happen. She walked back to her bed and looked down at the exhausted Thorson. She wouldn’t admit it to him, barely to herself, but she loved him, too.
Kelly called a meeting with his command group, Alistair Bennett, and Chief Johnson, while the Vigilant travelled to a rendezvous with the 3rd ALG. The goal of this meeting was to see if they could find a gravity tunnel, other than the sensor-seeded path they went down today, that would be large enough to bring the 3rd ALG secretly on top of the pirate base. Not all the ships of the 3rd ALG were built with the structural strength and integrity of the Vigilant. They would have to find a wide gravity tunnel of 2-G or less to bring the group through.
After two hours of twisting and turning the holographic representation this way and that, they had found no path large enough or with low enough gravity to bring them through. They would have to go through on the main path they traversed today.
Next he put his brain trust to finding a way to eliminate or blind the early warning sensors along the path. Chief Blankenship suggested seeing if they could infect the system with a virus. Kelly reminded her that they turned in the wartime virus kit after the New Alexandria campaign was completed. She suggested she might be able to make one. Kelly asked her what she might need to start constructing just such a virus. She leaned over to confer with Chief Johnson and said, “We might have all I need on the sensor data files from today.”
“How long do you think you’ll need, Chief?”
“Oh, about a day, I believe.”
Kelly excused her and Chief Johnson to get started. He told her to keep him informed of status.
At that, he released LTJG Cortez to turn in and get some rest. Kelly asked Alistair to stay behind.
“Alistair, did you notice that the EW sensors were all they had? They had no other early warning sensors, surveillance sensors, or fire control sensors on the planet, either. With the exception of those torpedo ships and a few cutters, they were virtually defenseless.”
Alistair responded, “Captain, they may have figured that the star cluster would provide them with all the protection they would ever need. Another hypothesis is that we came for them before they were ready. Did you notice the barracks on the north of the town?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you notice the cruciform building in the center of each barracks complex?”
“Um, no. Why?”
“That was a very specific building and is only native to one kind of unit. Those were transportable chapels belonging to Ascetic units of battalion size or larger. You have at least a brigade of Ascetics down there. Three thousand or more religious zealot mercenaries are probably providing security and ground defense for that planet.”
Kelly had heard of the Ascetics, or the Templar Corps, as they referred to themselves. They were fierce fighters with a reputation for tenacity and innovation in battle. They used to only fight on the side of good, but occasionally found their units on both sides of the battlefield.
“Alistair, will you prepare a briefing paper for me to hand Admiral Minacci and his staff when I attend the commander’s call once the 3rd ALG arrives?”
“Certainly. I’ll include a complete order of battle laydown, too.”
Another rendezvous was taking place in the Rigel-Aldebaran sector. Friedrich Debran’s hired fleet was assembling over Rigel Prime’s pole. Captain Alden counted ships as they pulled up to his ship. He seemed to be missing a gun corvette and two missile boats. He called up Captain McDougall, the other corvette captain, and asked where the missing corvette was. Corvettes carried three forward-firing heavy guns and up to 40 medium missiles on internal rotary launchers.
“Ben,” replied Captain Mac, “Captain Dobbs accidently argued with a Fleet frigate and thus won’t be fulfilling any more contracts. Sorry, I couldn’t find a replacement on such short notice.”
Alden called the senior missile boat captain to find out why he was short two missile boats. Missile boats carried thirty heavy missiles in internal and external mounts. They were a heavy punch in a small package. It was one ship that many hostile commanders underestimated.
Captain Argo reminded Captain Alden that missile boats were no longer in production and he had to cannibalize two of them to keep the other eight operational.
Captain Delong came up on the communicator and offered that, as long as Ben was concerned with shortages, he was missing thirty assault troops from one of his armed cargo ships, but he had more ammunition loaded in their place. Ben just shook his head.
The last ship to arrive was Captain Cho in her fighter carrier. Ben breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the sun glint off her hull. Her four fighters were the linchpins to his plan to either rescue the Debran women or decimate the planet. His plan was to infiltrate a few special operatives onto the planet on her fighters and have them sniff out the Debrans’ location. They were specialists in blending into the environment.
When all ships were in laser transmission range, he set up a laser ring and video conferenced with the captains. He laid out his plan and could sense general agreement. He entertained suggestions from the gathered captains, then accepted some and rejected a few. In the end, it made for a stronger plan and ensured the captains bought into the plan because their ideas were incorporated.
Ben closed out the videoconference by telling them all to disperse but to be at the mouth of the star cluster at a given time tomorrow. Ben took his gun corvette, Cecelia, to a geostationary parking position over Rigel Prime and rested his crew in preparation for tomorrow’s events.