by Chris Hechtl
"I see," she murmured. She straightened and patted his arms. "We're with you, son."
He nodded at the show of support. His eyes wanted to mist but he fought the urge down.
-~~~///^\~~~-
"Just the carrier task force?" the emperor demanded. He was fuming over the fresh setback. He had privately agreed with his wife that he couldn't do anything about Zhen or his senior officers. Zhen was as solid as they came, and his family was in his corner. Pissing them off wouldn't be politically wise. He had already made a great deal of enemies with the Retribution debacle.
"Yes, sir. We've double-checked the data," Countess Newberry stated. She glanced around the room and then back to the emperor. "We don't know if it is a trick though. We now have no means to monitor the situation."
The emperor grunted.
Catherine frowned thoughtfully. Zhen should have left a ship or ships behind to picket the outer star system. But he'd brought everything back with him.
"What I want to know is what the hell happened to Sito and his courier?" Malwin asked. "According to Admiral Zhen, he sent the courier back four days before his own departure from the star system. But the courier never showed up."
"Lost in hyper?" Lewis asked. "Or had an engineering issue and was forced to drop down to a lower octave?" he suggested, cocking his head.
"Anything is possible I suppose," Malwin said. "I still don't like it."
"It doesn't matter. The enemy has broken up their fleet and we have a golden opportunity to defeat them in detail. At the least drive them back," the emperor stated. "Launch the Vengeance Fleet," he said, looking directly at Malwin. "Do it now."
Catherine wanted to squirm but sat on the urge hard. It didn't feel right, not at all. The strategist in her told her something was off. White wouldn't be so foolish. Why had he held back his screen and his capital ship force? It didn't make sense.
"It will take another day for them to complete their resupply and get their personnel on board, sire," Lewis warned. He wanted to play for time to give Zhen's people time to get sorted out. Not that he was sure it would matter.
The emperor turned a glower on him but nodded slightly. "Just get it done."
"Aye aye, sir." Theo stated. He glanced at the others around the table. "I'm ordering Admiral Zhen to be attached to the Vengeance Fleet as a rear guard. Minus any ship that needs a refit of course. We need to squeeze as much knowledge out of their crews as we can and distribute it to the rest of the fleet."
The emperor grunted. "I guess that is one way to show that coward how to get the job done," he grumbled.
More than one officer stiffened or winced. None said anything in the admiral's defense however.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Countess Newberry read the admiral's report again and then set it down. The number of prowlers, if that was even what they'd seen, was odd and disturbing. Her people were speculating that the Feds wanted detailed data on a star system fast and were going for redundant platforms, but she didn't buy it, not totally at any rate.
No, something else was afoot. Had they really diverted that many slips to the small elusive ships? She envied them. She didn't have a prowler let alone a flotilla of them!
It could very well have been something else. Shino had mentioned a possibility of cruisers attempting to get in ahead of him and cut him off. That was certainly possible.
But, something didn't feel right. She couldn't put her finger on it though and that bothered her the most.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Vice Admiral Thomas Knowles posed for another image in front of the ship's crest. Nemesis had quite an imposing ship's plaque and crest and he loved it. That was one reason he'd taken the ship as his flagship years ago.
He jutted his chin out as the photographer instructed and tucked one hand into his vest. He had to reflect about how he'd managed to hang onto Zhen's force and command structure. That was a minor coup for him. He'd lost out on naming his fleet though. The Nemesis Fleet, named after his beloved flagship, was far better than Vengeance. But it wasn't his call, and he'd bowed to his emperor.
He would have liked a bit more time to do photo ops. He hated them in some ways but the family wanted them. But it was not to be.
He checked the status through his implants. He had the latest package and liked the Wi-Fi ability. All ships including Executioner were reporting full readiness status.
"All right, we're done here. Play with the shots and let me see them by the end of shift," he said, dismissing the photographer. He turned and made the rounds on the bridge, aware of the eyes on him before he exited the compartment and headed to his own flag bridge nearby.
He had two squadrons of capital ships. They were made up of battleships, dreadnoughts, and super dreadnoughts including two of the newly-minted Imperial class.
Acting as his slashing force was a single squadron of battle cruisers, including an Emperor's Blade class thrown into the mix. He had two squadrons of cruisers as a screen and a single oversized squadron of carriers. Behind them was a fleet train and then bringing up the rear was Admiral Zhen's force.
The carriers and Zhen's force were the two crimps in his battle line and plans. He knew he didn't have enough carriers, and he wasn't a natural carrier commander. He was a battle line commander, built to stand on the bridge of a flagship like Nemisis and issue a pounding to any enemy who dared to come within her reach. He was going to have to play things cautiously until he knew how the new weapons and tech fared against the enemy.
He was uncomfortably aware that half of the carriers were not proper carriers at all but CEVs. Most of the wings were fitted out purely for the defensive role.
He wasn't looking forward to any anti-shipping strikes, especially any containing antimatter torpedoes. Hopefully, the recently overhauled point defense systems would help there. Hopefully.
Zhen's force was another headache though. He really would have liked for the flotilla to be out on point but they didn't have the speed. They also had been given very little time in port to resupply and run critical maintenance. Barely two days, hardly what he was comfortable with. No doubt Shino wasn't happy either.
Then again Shino was probably counting his blessings he had survived the emperor's wrath. "Let's move out," he said simply, giving the auspicious beginning to his grand journey of reconquest and yes, vengeance.
Chapter 49
Garth
Commodore I'r'll had her hands full but she still had to deal with the arrival of the fresh twenty-three prize ships from New Horizon. That and deal with the griping from the ships in New Horizon.
The original plan had been for the crews of the prize ships to be gathered and sent back to New Horizon to move the next lot. That had changed when Admiral White had tapped fourteen of the ships to carry loads to H001 to supplement the convoys.
All twenty ships had been run through the repair yard for a minor refit and resupply before they'd departed. She'd organized them into job lots, cycling similar ships back to back to make it easier on the crew and yard dogs. But several of the ships, like the Ghasg science ship were destined for Antigua and a full overhaul and rebuild.
Six ships had departed for Dead Drop and eventually the Antigua yards. Now she had to contend with a fresh twenty-three, and Admiral White had informed her that any of the large freighters were to be used locally to run cargo to H001 as well as to Finagle.
Which meant she had a BUPERS problem. She decided it was not something she was supposed to handle anyway so she had her A.I. send some emails to BUPERS to get on it.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Four days after the convoy of prize ships arrived, the Soujourner courier UFDV-010S arrived at the H002 jump point. A transmission of her IFF got her past the security around the jump point and then on a course to the inner star system.
UFN-008P jumped into the star system behind them two days later. "You beat us," Captain McArren grumbled in a direct signal to the courier.
"Yeah, that much is obvious. Th
e best cream rises to the top and all that," a familiar voice replied. "We tend to do that to slow pokes," Captain Dulley deadpanned. "Beer's on you though." He wasn't sure how they were going to arrange that though. Most likely a bar in space or on a lunar colony. He'd spent the past several days catching up on local and interstellar news, and the ground news wasn't good.
"Cute," Captain McArren grumpily replied. "Well, I'm looking forward to some R&R on the planet."
"Um, given what we've been hearing about the planet, you might want to rethink that idea," the courier captain drawled.
"Eh?"
"Check out the news. The Marines have their hands full."
"Oh joy."
-~~~///^\~~~-
Amadeus cocked his head at Admiral Irons. He'd argued over and over that he could and should move more of his fleet forward. So far Admiral Irons had only authorized the swap of TF 2.2 for TF 2.4. "Admiral, don't count on the enemy falling for the plan. No plan survives contact with the enemy. There is a reason we say that. Never fall in love with a plan to the point where it has to win no matter what."
"Of course not, that's why we have contingency plans."
"Oh, I know. I'm just wondering what's behind them."
"A lot. Don't worry, right now we're hoping Plan A succeeds. If it doesn't it will at least give us fresh intel and shake them up. Don't discount those two points. Meanwhile we're working on sending you the real Sunday punch."
"I can't wait," the Neochimp admiral growled.
"Unfortunately, you're going to have to for a bit longer. As I said, it takes time."
"Understood."
-~~~///^\~~~-
General Kissinger knew his people were having mixed feelings about the entire offensive. He was aware that the enemy had a second division, appropriately named Second Division on planet. So far, they were not engaged.
What most of his people didn't know, what he'd just found out, was that there was another division, First Division, with them. That meant he had to hit hard. He wasn't quite in his GOTH plan but close enough to “use ‘em or lose ‘em.” He hated it.
He knew his people like Agent N'gumo was wondering about why the division hadn't deployed immediately. He hadn't needed to wonder; he knew. They were getting set just like General Kodiak was. They were ramping up for a new offense, logging targets and getting ready to hit hard and fast. They were going to blitz and do it in such a way that he'd get hurt. His attempt to get them to commit early and throw them off didn't seem to be working though.
He'd had setbacks; he freely admitted that to himself. One was the cave-ins from drone strikes on the tunnels. He'd forgotten what an FAE could do in a tunnel. That had sucked a great deal, especially when he needed those weapons now when they were getting closer to the end game.
Based on the observations from N'gumo's agents, he was pretty sure the Marines were about ready.
Which was why he began pulling back a third of his force and distributing them, going to ground while more expendable units were kept on the line to give them time to hide. He ordered shuffling and dummy units and positions to be set up or made to go active as well.
-~~~///^\~~~-
John Smith had no idea how he was still alive. He was though, despite acting as a spotter to a sniper team, observer, and pack mule. He'd even given blood the odd time or two.
Perhaps it was his missing hand? It did prevent him from being on the frontlines. Too many of the people he had gotten to know had been hurt or killed as of late. He was starting to have mixed feelings about it all. He knew from his training that it was natural but also a sign he might be going too deep.
Perhaps it was time for him to bug out. He still held in there though; he had yet to find the elusive command center and General K.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Captain Ozman coughed despite the breather. She knew better than to take her facemask off. Her team was working to dig out one of the deep mines where they'd had a base, really a cache base. She'd thought it was a good hide. Apparently not though, either the radiation of the material she'd stuck in there had given it away or a distant drone had watched a group moving in or out of it.
She needed the contents of that base. The general wanted it and wanted it badly enough to have sent her in with a platoon to try to dig it out. Scuttlebutt said they were really in for it soon; the enemy had landed two divisions not one recently. That meant the weapons would be needed for tactical purposes.
Which meant digging them out and then rebuilding them if necessary. She still had no idea if they were even viable.
Unfortunately, they had to do most of the work by hand to avoid detection. Rocks had to be moved, then the area surveyed, parts of the tunnel shored up, and then more excavating. It was taking a long time but they had to do it carefully and right.
She wasn't sure how deep they could penetrate though. Apparently, they were going to find out as they went.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Agent N'gumo watched the teams go in only to be shredded. Screams could be heard over the radios, but there was precious little they could do. Nothing at all except give the poor sods a final act of mercy.
Who would have thought that the Fed Marines would be so clever at laying out their own traps? Or that they would be ruthless? He shook his head. He was afraid they truly were on the losing end of the battle. Losses were piling up. They were hitting back, but it didn't seem like enough.
They needed a win. They needed to hit the bastards and really make it hurt. Now would be a nice time for a tactical nuke or the cavalry, but he knew better than to think one was coming.
-~~~///^\~~~-
General Kodiak might appear stoic to others but to those who knew him he could be read. Not easily mind you, but he could if you knew the wily old bear. Like now, General Archie Pendeckle thought as his Second Division prepared to deploy. They'd had some downtime and he'd agreed to Valenko's desire to hold back and prepare for a general offensive. Colonel Abernly had also agreed to the downtime; it had given them plenty of time to form a series of target lists for their blitz offensive.
Now was the time though. He was in command, and it was time to get back into the game and kick some Horathian ass.
-~~~///^\~~~-
In space a series of satellites took on data feeds from command central and then began to scan the heavens as they oriented on their prey. They were like falcons, looking down and getting ready to strike on a hapless mouse or bird.
An orbital drone drop began as one by one the satellites deployed a package. Unlike a KEW drop, the drone was released but not fired into the ground by a rail gun. The start was as a conventional drop with an ablative outer shell.
Once the drone had entered the atmosphere, the shell protecting it from the heat of reentry fell away. The drone within then deployed panels in the stern along a mast to act as propellers and a drogue shoot to slow its headlong speed. Once it reached a certain altitude, the inner shell of the pod would open again deploying one or more drones.
The larger drones were solar powered. They were normally set as surveillance craft, able to loiter over distant inaccessible areas for days or weather permitting weeks at a time. Others were weaponized, able to target and take out an enemy from an angle. Some had specialized packages to penetrate a hardened target. Four drones that were deployed had sensitive listening devices while another quartet had lasers able to blind unprotected infantry on the ground.
The drones served another purpose, one unexpected on the battlefield. The Horathians had hoarded their anti-air right up until the true Marine landings had commenced. Now they were a bit freer about using their SAMS to counter the Marines’ abilities to control the skies.
A drone soaking up a SAM might be unfortunate and costly, but not nearly as costly and painful as losing a manned attack bird or a shuttle.
Thunder began to roll across mountains, hills, and valleys as the next Marine offensive began.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Rear Admir
al Montgomery stepped off the shuttle and looked off to the distant rising clouds of smoke. There were more than one around the field; he counted six. From space the continent looked like it was on fire. The Horathians had lit forest fires all over the place.
He turned to a familiar figure dressed in a conservative white business suit. Well, not quite, Captain Briggs had his jacket over one shoulder and hooked by three fingers of his right hand. He leaned on his trademark cane and even waggled his mustache at his boss.
"Damn good to see you, Admiral; your timing is as usual good."
"Good but not great," Monty said, looking around. "Getting there?"
"That's what I'm wondering myself. They are a stubborn bunch," the captain said.
Monty made a puttering sound then smiled slightly as he turned around. He looked at the distant fires, shielding his eyes with one hand before he nodded once and dropped his hand. "Well, we'll just have to help the jarheads show them the error of their ways, shall we?"
The captain smiled. The two men extended their hands as one then chuckled softly and shook hands.
-~~~///^\~~~-
Dead Drop
A small specially-built Dora class ship jumped into the star system, flashed her IFF, and then set up a series of tachyon conversations with the ansible and distant inhabited planet. Once they were cleared to proceed, Roy Boehm and the cadre moved on to the distant Garth jump point.
-~~~///^\~~~-
H002
Dwight was of two minds as TF 2.4 arrived. In a way he was grateful his vigil was up, but then again, he didn't want to give it up. Not until he was sure Trajin was going to be okay.
But he had to return his force to Garth for rest and resupply. And it was time someone else stood guard in the lonely star system for a time.
-~~~///^\~~~-
H001
Trajan smiled at the timely arrival of the ansible transport. He knew the ship's crew was justifiably nervous about their mission but got straight to it. They immediately headed to deep space. It would take another day or so before they found a place to set up the platform.
