“Too bad, we could have used him for information,” said Jat.
“Good!” Viris snapped, “That’s what he deserved!”
“No doubt he did,” said Karden, “but that doesn’t mean I like it. What purpose was served by mutilating his body? And Viris, he wasn’t the only one. They slaughtered the rest of the Embassy staff, even the unarmed ones, except for a few our soldiers managed to capture, and protect, first.”
“They had it coming too, considering what they planned to do to us!” replied Viris.
“Did they, Viris, all of them? Even the clerks and the young students in training? Were each and every one of them personally responsible for what their leaders planned to do? I understand that the ones who were armed made themselves combatants, but from the reports I’ve seen, the ones who were unarmed didn’t even try to fight, to surrender, or beg for their lives, they just stood there, hands folded behind their backs, awaiting their fate…”
“They’re aliens, what did you expect?” said Viris.
“Haral, this is war,” said Jat.
“I know,” said Karden. “That is what General Sellis said too. But, next time, we can do better.”
As he turned off his phone, Karden considered how easily all of this could spin out of control, the horrors that might follow, and what to do to prevent it from happening. He found it hard to focus, as his mind reeled at the combination of sense of duty and fatalism the Elders had demonstrated.
///
Varen was flying the MSSA, the Little Surprise, at immensely high speed toward the battle at the International Zone. He briefly surveyed the fire and destruction below. Jet assisted attack helicopters were circling, while transports landed as close as they could. Fighter jets were zooming in overhead.
“Slag. Too late!” he thought to himself. “Guess that’s what comes from having to cover triple the distance in the same amount of time.”
There were no signs of enemy hostiles in the air, but highly accurate fire was coming up from the Elder Embassy and wreaking havoc on the attackers. Then, his scanner detected a launch.
An Elder shuttle zoomed skyward, at speeds no craft on Ground could match.
Except the Little Surprise.
“Not too late after all,” he whispered.
He accelerated and pursued. Down below, the Elder antiaircraft fire came to a sudden halt.
“Looks like he sees me,” Varen thought as the Elder shuttle began to make small evasive moves. He noticed the faint shimmer of what he’d been briefed was an energy shield.
Varen peered into his head-up display, locked target, and fired a missile.
The shuttle banked suddenly, sharper than even the Little Surprise could have managed, and fired a thin beam of light from a hidden aperture. The missile exploded harmlessly.
He fired his autocannons. Right on target! The shuttle’s shields held.
The Elder shuttle fired its beam at him. It scattered against the EMF disruption and reflective surface of the MSSA. At the same moment, another hidden panel opened, a launcher appeared, and two small missiles came zooming back at Varen.
“Slag!” he muttered.
Varen fired his autocannons again, shot one right out of the air and disrupted the path of the other. He banked at the last moment, barely avoiding the surviving missile as it zoomed past him with eerie Elder silence, and started to turn round. He caught it in his exhaust trail and it exploded. Any other aircraft on Ground would have been destroyed by even that incidental blast.
“I won’t get that lucky again,” thought Varen. “That pilot is good.”
There was another worry. At this rate, they were going to run out of atmosphere soon. The MSSA could handle extreme high altitude, but not space.
“All right Little Surprise, let’s show ‘em why you’ve got your name.”
He activated his gatling rocket launchers, one of the spoils of the government plundering of Neem’s old lab. He unloaded everything.
Swarms of small missiles screamed toward the fleeing shuttle.
It moved with sharp banking dodges. Varen was amazed that anything could move like that, at that speed, and not fly apart or kill the occupants. The defensive beam fired again and again.
It wasn’t enough. Missiles struck home and the energy shield flickered, went out.
Around them, the sky was fading from deep blue to black.
“This is it, last chance,” thought Varen.
He had one more surprise for them. A center-mounted railgun. Neem had said it wasn’t combat effective, but all that seemed to mean was that it had only a single shot. A single shot faster than any gun, any missile, and with huge kinetic power behind it.
Varen locked on target, fired.
The Elder shuttle shattered, came apart like broken foil, amidst the pieces, bodies fell towards Ground, far below.
///
On the bridge of the Vigilant, Warden Ship Captain Fitzgerald sat in the command chair. Deputy Ambassador Hsien stood at his side. Bridge officers worked at their stations below.
He pushed a button, hailed the communications center. “Communications Officer, news from the embassy?”
“Captain Sir, no signal from the embassy since we discovered the Grounders were intercepting our communications. However reports from Grounder communication suggest the embassy has been overrun. A diplomatic shuttle was launched, but our satellites confirm it was destroyed.”
Fitzgerald turned to Hsien.
“Then we can presume Ambassador Margaux is killed or captured.”
In unison, the two Elders briefly bowed their heads.
Hsien spoke, “Warden Ship Captain Fitzgerald, I will prepare the situational alert with reinforcement request to the Diplomatic Directorate and Sector 104 command. In Ambassador Margaux’s absence, it will require your coded countersignature.”
“Of course. Let me know when you have it ready.”
Fitzgerald opened another hail.
“Flight Captain Smith, recall your rescue mission. The embassy is lost.”
“Yes Captain Sir,” replied the voice at the other end of the transmission.
Fitzgerald reviewed the screens around him and the data there.
“Deputy Ambassador Hsien, the attacks we are seeing tonight are too coordinated to be spontaneous. They are being directed from somewhere. Analysis?”
Hsien made only the briefest of pauses as he considered.
“Bacchara.”
Fitzgerald contacted Smith again.
“Flight Captain, revised orders. Proceed towards Ais, Republic of Bacchara. Coordinates to follow. I will issue more detailed instructions during the course of your flight, and am dispatching reserve craft under Flight Lieutenant Maersk with additional ground troops. The Vigilant will follow to clear ground targets.
“In addition,” he added, as Hsien gave a brief nod, “a Diplomatic Liquidation Team, previously en route to the Tadine Capital, is being rerouted to assist you.”
“Yes Captain Sir, altering course now.”
28
Karden sat at a long, bullet-scarred, marble table in a lofty, bright room on the top floor of Liberty Palace. It was in this room that President for Life Hadeb, firing a gold-plated submachine gun, and calling on the gods to strike down his foes with lightning, had met his end.
Around the table sat the revolutionary council of Bacchara, Tayyis, newly-promoted Colonel Deba, three senior officers of the Baccharan air force – recently returned to duty, and diplomats from several nearby countries. Nearly everyone had portable computers up and open. In a web-like array of wired and wireless equipment in the center of the table were recorders, loudspeakers, amplifiers, and various phones set on speaker. On a rolling table next to Karden was a big video monitor with a camera on live feed. It was possibly the largest and most ramshackle conference call in the history of Ground.
“Neem,” said Karden, “do you really need the video monitor?”
Neem’s image on the monitor smiled. “It’s
cooler!”
At the opposite end from Karden, Hesdi Abida stood up. “Thank you everyone for coming. Today was most amazing! We have struck a blow for liberty, for all the world!”
There were cheers and hummed applause, both in the room and from speakers and phones.
“But we can’t stop to enjoy now. There are alien fighter aircraft and armed shuttles flying to this very spot! The enemy space ship Vigilant is coming behind to help them! Time, it grows short.”
“So,” he concluded, “we must decide now what to do.”
Karden, his mind turning the situation over, was surprised to look up and see that many in the room were looking at him. He collected himself.
“Well… as we have seen, the Elder shuttle craft are surprisingly well armed, and are faster and more maneuverable than our fighters. We can presume their combat fighters are more dangerous than the shuttles. Though we don’t know the precise capabilities of the Vigilant, all estimates are that it is very formidable. That suggests we’ll need numbers on our side.”
“We have mobilized the entire Baccharan Air Force!” said Abida, as his officers smiled in agreement, “including the many craft the rest of the world was, until now, unaware we’d returned to operation. More than three hundred fighters and helicopters will defend this city to the last!
He continued, “We have many anti-aircraft guns and a few missile launchers left from Hadeb’s army, and several thousand brave men and women are gathering on rooftops and at improvised firing positions to defend their homeland!”
There were more cheers, especially from the Baccharans.
Karden looked at the foreign diplomats, “And you gentlemen?”
Some shrugged or made gestures of futility. Others said their governments were sending squadrons as fast as they could. Voices came from the collection of phones and speakers, some of them promising the same.
One, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Harrat, spoke in eloquent Tadine, “His Highness, Prince Edad, comes in his personal jet fighter, and leads our entire air force of twenty more fighters to help!”
As the cheers died down again, Karden turned to the pile of telecommunications equipment. “Air General Sellis?”
A voice answered. “We’re here, Professor Karden.”
“What is the word from Tadine?”
“We’ve got a lot of cleanup and rebuilding to do, unfortunately, and we’re a long way from Bacchara.”
He continued, “On the other hand, we’ve captured several Elder shuttles, including one of the big transports. The controls differ from ours, but we’re chancing we can learn fast enough. We’re on our way and carrying special forces units. We don’t have any conventional forces that can help in this fight, not yet, but the next round, if it comes, will be another matter.”
“I think it will come, Air General.”
“We have one other combat-effective element that can get there in time, if only just.”
“Colonel Varen?”
“Exactly Professor. He resupplied and on is his way in the MSSA right now.”
Neem cut in, “Too bad he doesn’t have time to stop by here. We’ve got some great stuff ready!”
“I wish there was time, Neem,” replied the General.
“That reminds me, everybody,” said Neem, “our first set of field-ready railguns is ready to go! We don’t have time to build them into larger weapons systems, but we might be able to rig something up.”
Abida smiled, “We are good at that kind of thing here, Mr. Neem! I’ll get you some helicopters to bring them here.”
There was a pause, then a voice spoke from somewhere among the piled speakers.
“This is Admiral Manejtan, of Jayesthir. We have a squadron in the area, it was conducting peacekeeping surveillance, pending the… now altered… demobilization plans of the Elders. This area was formerly under our protection, and…”
There was a visible tensing on the part of the Baccharans and some others. Someone barked out an old slogan of the wars of independence.
“My apologies, gentlemen,” added Manejtan, “the key point is that we have a guided missile cruiser, a helicopter carrier, and two frigates within what I believe will be effective range of the battle. The Prime Councilor has instructed me to note that he is happy to help.”
Cheers rose as the tension left the room. Another voice cut in from somewhere. A familiar one.
“Karden! This is Harker! Well I’ve got to say! I didn’t know you had politics in your blood after all!”
Politics? Thought Karden.
“Don’t let Sellis fool you. We’re going to be gearing back up fast in Tadine,” added Harker. “We’ve got a little group called the Association of Producers with a lot of good people in it, ready to ramp up for whatever comes. You just hold out there, and you’ll see!”
Karden smiled, thanked him, and spoke again.
“To everyone else who has captured Elder shuttles. If you can, find a pilot willing to learn in a hurry, get them airborne and load them up with the best soldiers you can spare. Everything, absolutely everything will help.”
There were a few voices of assent.
He concluded, “I know many of you listening today cannot help directly, but I ask you to mobilize your forces in any case, if the Elders succeed here, they will come for you sooner or later. And if we win, we will want to be prepared for the next step after this battle, because the Elders will be back.”
He considered their options, and the forces available to them.
They had, if everyone came through, about five hundred assorted aircraft of varying ages and quality, from a dozen different nations, they had thousands of civilian and paramilitary irregulars who were going to be firing wildly from the ground.
They had one fighter, the MSSA, that might, might be almost on par with an Elder fighter craft, albeit with a legendary pilot, they had Neem’s railguns, they had a handful of captured Elder shuttles and questionable grasp of how to fly them, they had a surface naval squadron… and they had the best wishes of everyone else.
Well, it would have to do.
“As most of you know, the Elders are monitoring our communications, and recent reports show they’re now aware we’re monitoring theirs…”
“Hi Hsien!” added Neem.
Karden continued, “Therefore, any discussion of tactics needs to be under more secure conditions. Those who are contributing forces and are either physical here or connected by land line, please stand by. To everyone else… good luck!”
As the others signed off, Abida looked thoughtful.
“Their ship, the Vigilant, it has missiles, yes?”
“In large numbers, and capable of hitting both air and ground targets,” replied Neem.
“I think they are likely to make a point of striking our larger antiaircraft batteries with them, from a safe distance, then send in their fighters to mop up,” said Abida.
“Given the same resources they possess, we would likely do something like that.” added Air General Sellis.
“And we too, if we had missiles like that!” replied Abida, “I am thinking that we should let them.”
There were murmurs around the room.
Abida continued, “When I was leading the military forces of the revolution against Hadeb, I tried to draw his army into situations it could not easily get out of. Most of our big antiaircraft guns are very old. We will have a large number of mobile forces on the ground, and a lot more planes than they expect.”
Karden’s mind began turning. “In other words, we let them waste their first strike on weaponry that wouldn’t be that effective in any case, while keeping most of our forces in reserve.”
“Yes,” said Abida.
“At what will likely be high cost to this city in damage, and in lives.”
“Those who cannot fight are already fleeing the city, those who can are willing to pay this price,” replied Abida, emotion rising in his voice, “We Baccharans will fight to the last rather than become slaves aga
in!”
“And,” he continued, “We must draw their fighter craft in, across the city and across what awaits them there. You foreign generals may wonder what we plan to shoot them with. But you see, we stockpiled a lot of illegal shoulder-fired antiaircraft rockets for the revolution, rockets we didn’t end up using.”
There were appreciative chuckles.
Karden interrupted, “There is the also the serious threat of the Vigilant. Unlike the fighters, we cannot let that ship get close to the city. It is specifically designed for the task of obliterating enemies from above. I suggest therefore that we make the decisive battle well away from the city – out at sea – where our friends from Jayesthir can best help.”
There was general agreement.
“And there is one more asset we could bring to bear. One they will certainly not be expecting. Neem, you said those railguns are waterproof?”
Neem grinned “They are sealed, self-contained, waterproof to four hundred steps depth, able to function in the vacuum of space, configured for remote operation, and pre-loaded with magazines of three thousand rounds of ammunition.”
“Admiral,” continued Karden, “do you have any amphibious troops aboard that squadron?”
“A commando team, yes,” answered Manejtan.
Abida joined in, “A barge, some boats, or a floating platform? As I said, we Baccharans are good at improvising. I can get you men who can rig those guns to almost anything.”
“Not exactly any of those,” replied Karden, “but I’ll tell you what I have in mind…”
///
On board the bridge of the Vigilant, Fitzgerald coolly reviewed his plans.
“Intelligence Officer. Updated situation report?”
“Captain Sir, the volume of communications is currently very large, and we are sorting through them as fast as we can. However, we have indication as many as two hundred combat aircraft of different kinds are moving from other Grounder nations toward the combat zone.”
Alien Empire Page 18
