by P P Corcoran
“Very well then ladies and gentlemen.” Announced John. “Operation Maskirovka begins at zero nine hundred hours precisely. I suggest you return to your commands and complete your final preparations.”
The commanders of John’s amalgamated fleet departed and as the last of them exited the door slid silently shut behind them leaving John alone with a single black clad figure.
Subconsciously John steepled his fingers in the same manner as Ai Jing and regarded Vladimir with brooding eyes for a moment before speaking. “Do you really think you can pull this off?”
The man who had known John longer than probably any other in his command gave him a tired shrug. “If Geoll’s codes are still good. If the air defenses don’t blow our asses out of the sky. If you can keep the Saiph ships occupied. If Lura’s pet Saiph’s little box of tricks works as advertised. I give us a 10 percent chance of success.”
If John had not thought Vladimir Egnorov foolhardy before then the Russians answer left him in no doubt of that individual trait.
“I like the name though.” Joked Vladimir in an attempt to lighten the mood.
John doffed a fictional cap. “Deception seemed a fitting name for this operation.”
“You know my forefathers used it to great effect against the Germans during World War Two. At the Battle of Kursk, they misled the Germans into thinking that the Kursk salient was only weakly defended. Boy did they get a surprise when they ran into a fully manned, layered defense that tore them to pieces. Some say it was one of the key turning points of the war on the eastern front.”
“Hopefully our little deception will work out just as effectively.” Said John in a low voice.
#
MOSQUITO - TAIL CODE AE
“Energy weapon tower at your eleven o’clock. 200 kilometers.”
In Louise Bo’s Heads-Up-Display a red targeting icon began blinking above the fresh target her Wizzo or Weapons’ Systems’ Officer, Charlie Gregson, had called out to her.
Bo’s Mosquito space-fighter zipped across the surface of the Sphere at a stomach-churning rate along with the other eleven fighters of VFA-101, ‘The Mailed Fists’.
VFA -101 was only a small element of the swarm of Human and Benii fighters that were scouring the surface of the Sphere destroying every weapons tower, radar emplacement, missile launch facility or damn near anything else that the Benii Electronic Warfare birds hovering high above the surface thought likely to challenge the approaching Combined Fleet.
“Fox One!” Called Bo over the squadron frequency as a semi active radar guided missile dropped from its pylon and streaked away homing in on the electronic energy the of the weapons platforms own fire control radar.
Bo’s tracking of her missile was interrupted by the voice of Itus’s Commander Air Group, the Benii Captain Taw over the command link. “Alpha Strike, this is ITUS CAG. Abort your attack runs and return to the barn. Be prepared for a fast turn around and an anti-ship strike package.”
“Looks like the big boys are coming out to play.” Charlie said cheerfully.
Ah, to be so young and foolish again thought Bo as she pulled the fighter up into a hard corkscrew climb to throw off any Saiph looking to get a good bead on her as she raced away.
#
LEAD CRUISER - FIRST WING - SAIPH FLEET
“I don’t understand it, Supreme Leader, how could they half-breeds have guessed so accurately the exit gates of the dockyards?” Foral’s rhetorical question was ignored by the man who leaned forward as if he could make the cruiser accelerate all that much faster by sheer force of will.
After an interminable amount of time the cruiser cleared the dockyard gates and the Supreme Leader could see for himself the damage caused by the enemy’s small craft obvious to even the naked eye. The Spheres surface was pitted and torn where low yield nuclear weapons had impacted. For a brief moment he wondered if he had left his counterattack too late before shaking off his self-doubt and concentrating on the battle ahead.
“Energy shields active.” Called Tactical and, as if on cue, the vessel was rocked by a heavy graser striking the bow shields before being absorbed or redirected.
The Supreme Leader let his eyes linger on the holo display as he noted the latest update. There! Where the Commonwealth ships met the Turak. Two forces who would have preferred to have been at each other’s throats than attempting to coordinate a fight against him.’ The Turak had not yet displayed possession of antimatter missiles nor of the small craft that had proved so much of an annoyance they firmly believed in ‘the bigger the better’ and against his cruisers with their energy shielding and antimatter missiles they would be easy pickings. That is where they would be at their weakest and that is where he would slash through their lines and take them from the rear.
“First Wing is to form up on the flagship. Second and Third Wings are to fight a delaying action against the Commonwealth fleet and be prepared to move to the attack when First Wing swings around behind them.” Orders given, the Supreme Leader tried his best to look collected and confident as a hundred Saiph cruisers charged Turak ships, more than a thousand times their own number.
#
FLAG BRIDGE - TDF ITUS
John Radford allowed himself a small fist punch as the tactical display in the holo cube shifted to show over one-third of the Saiph cruisers that had emerged from the Sphere break away and arrow toward the massed ranks of the Turak who crept ever so slowly forwards gradually closing on a yellow dashed line superimposed on the display with the word ‘Marne’ displayed beside it.
“Tactical. Time to phase line Marne?”
The Tactical Officer checked his terminal before half turning to answer John. “Forty-five minutes on the clock, Admiral. The Turak have opened fire with their Directed Energy Weapons. It’s hard to tell at this distance but all indications are that their fire is inflicting minimal damage on the Saiph cruisers designated Force Alpha.”
“Status of Force Bravo and Force Charlie?”
“Force Bravo is advancing on the destroyer screen of First Fleet and will be in weapons range in twenty-eight minutes. Force Charlie is advancing on Third Fleet and will make contact with the Persai cruiser screen in thirty-four minutes.”
“Understood. Please remind, Admiral Chavez, and, Force Leader Tolas, that the battle plan calls for them to draw the enemy away from the Sphere so no do or die last stands if they please.”
The tactical officer gave John a wide-toothed grin and turned back to his terminal to comply with John’s orders, however, the admiral, had already shifted gears and considered the next phase of the battle plan. The one that War Chief Vek was in the dark about.
#
BUFFALO ASSAULT SHUTTLE - THUNDER FOUR
Phillipa Papadomas grimaced beneath the sealed helmet of her Wraith combat suit as the area of her left calf demanded for the thousandth time that she give it a good scratch. Which, of course, was impossible. Not unless she wanted to strip out of her armor in front of her team and the three principles that they had been warned by General Egnorov himself were to reach their destination inside the Sphere without a single scratch or Phillipa best pack her bags and grab some cold weather gear because apparently it was pretty cold on Uranus.
To get her mind off the interminable itch, Phillipa, called up a feed from the Buffalo’s cockpit repeater. Buffalo Four, her shuttle, lay in the middle of a loose formation of six other Buffalo’s that were emitting as little detectable electromagnetic radiation as possible while they flew on a ballistic trajectory toward an area on the surface of the Sphere that one of her charges, a Saiph named Geoll, had indicted was the closest external bay to a local access node for the Sphere’s artificial intelligence and it was that access node that was the troopers from Special Operations Unit ‘Thunder’ target. Sat between the troopers of Phillipa’s Team Nine were her other two charges. Captain Calan, Imperial Navy, and Commander Okal another Saiph, though Phillipa had been assured that Captain Calan would keep a wary eye on him. She in turn
would keep a wary eye on Calan.
“Seems quiet so far, Boss.” Trooper ‘Sven the Magnificent’ Rintoul said in a bored voice.
Before Phillipa could reply Staff Sergeant Semple was on the link. “You use that word one more time Sven and I’ll space you myself. Understood?”
“Sorry Staff.” Grumbled a suitably chastised Sven.
Phillipa had never been one to believe in Lady Luck before joining the Marines but after her first combat tour she had changed her mind and one of the things Lady Luck did not like to hear was the use of the word ‘quiet’ in any shape or form.
“Bogey coming over the radar horizon at our three o’clock!” Called Buffalo Fours pilot followed a couple of seconds later by, “Hulls being pinged by radar.” Phillipa promised herself that she was going to kick Sven’s ass up and down the running track if they made it out of here.
Any hope of the Saiph warship failing to detect their small group of shuttles was squashed a moment later by the copilots near screaming voice. “Radar lock! He’s got us! Break! Break! Break!”
Phillipa and the other members of Team Nine were pinned in their seats as their shock harnesses locked and Buffalo Four began a series of wild maneuvers to fling off whatever the Saiph ship had fired in their direction.
#
BRIDGE - CRUISER 167
Trakl could tell that his seething anger did not go unnoticed by the cruisers crew. The silence that permeated the bridge broken only by the most necessary of conversations may as well have screamed ‘what have we done wrong?’
The Supreme Leader had personally passed on his condolences for the loss of Caretaker Geoll to the crew of the ship that he had once commanded. The whole thing had of course been broadcast live to every household and place of work in the Sphere for 1.8 billion Saiph mourned the loss of the man who, up until recently, had guided their daily lives.
The Supreme Leader had expressed his deep and painful heartache before launching into a tirade against the half-breeds who were at the very gates of their homes. Who threatened to destroy everything that they had worked so long and so hard for. To place the Saiph at the center of the galaxy as the prime race.
Trakl had been awarded a promotion in recognition of his tireless support for Geoll and then, as interpreted by the crew and Trakl, banished to carry out patrols on the opposite side of the Sphere from where the enemy fleet were hanging in space presumably contemplating their next move since the Supreme Leader had refused to sally forth and engage them in battle.
Urgent whispers from the sensor section caused Trakl to sit more upright in his seat. The whispers became more animated with the rating at the radar terminal gesticulating wildly for a senior officer to join him. When she did so the conversation restarted.
Trakl could bear to watch the huddled group no longer. “Would someone like to inform me as to what is going on?” Trakl’s sarcastic tone was not lost on the junior officer who swallowed before she began speaking.
“Sir, we may have a sensor ghost. I have requested a technician from engineering make their way up here as quickly as possible to run a diagnostic on the equipment.”
Trakl let out a tired sigh. “How many times to I have to remind this crew that we are actively involved in a war. All contacts whether you believe them to be sensor ghosts or not are to be tracked and treated as hostile until such time as they are proved otherwise.” The officer’s face was quickly going increasingly deeper shades of scarlet.
“Put it up on the main display and lets see what you have.”
The officer spun away so fast Trakl thought they were going to screw themselves into the deck plating. On the main display the curved surface of the Sphere appeared as a solid block while above it and approaching at what would have been a crawl for a modern warship was a cluster of objects. Trakl counted seven in total.
“Enhance image and give me a thermal overlay.” Trakl ordered as he leaned forward in his seat and his hand went to his chin and began rubbing back and forth as he concentrated. Each of the objects was returning a near exact same thermal reading. If they were naturally occurring meteorites or other space body, then there should be at least a noticeable difference in thermal signature.
“Give me a lidar reading.”
On the bow of the cruiser a metal cover drew back revealing the business end of a small but powerful ultraviolet laser. The laser fired seven short burst of coherent light each targeted at a specific one of the speeding objects calculating an exact distance to each. The cruisers tactical computer interpreted the result at nearly the speed of light and projected the results onto the main display.
Trakl gawked at the updated display for a few crucial moments before his training took hold and he began firing out orders. “Those are no natural objects those are stealthy ships trying to reach the Sphere!” Trakl’s finger mashed down of the Action Stations alarm which began sounding throughout the ship including the bridge. Trakl had to shout to be heard over the wailing klaxon. “Weapons Officer. Lock bearings and fire all forward lasers on those ships then I want a missile salvo to knock down any survivors”
Seconds later the deck under Trakl’s feet vibrated as the cruisers forward laser mounts poured thousands of terrajoules into space which impacted on two of the objects with pinpoint accuracy piercing the composite battle armor that was designed to resist heavy weapons fire but not the main armament of a cruiser. The thermal bloom engulfed the crew compartment incinerating all aboard before the intense heat caused the fuel tanks to fail. The two ships exploded less than a second from the laser striking their outer hulls. Debris flew out in all directions peppering the remaining ships with pieces of battle armor, engine parts and surviving hull pieces all moving faster than a speeding bullet. The closest shuttle suffered catastrophic damage as it was shredded by the expanding debris cloud. Another shuttle had a large section of its stern ripped away, the impact leaving it to tumble through space as the pilots fought for control. That left three shuttles all of which immediately lit off their drives and began performing intricate evasive twists and turns as they dove for the Spheres surface and safety.
Hot on the heels of the initial laser strike arrived Trakl’s missile salvo. The Saiph missiles were equipped with proximity warheads which meant that there was no need for the missile to actually impact its target the tiny computer embedded in the missiles body used a millimetric radar mounted in the missiles nose cone to decide when it was close enough to its target to guarantee the maximum amount of damage.
The computers did their job as the salvo detonated their payloads in rapid succession sending a cloud of armor penetrating munitions in precise cones of death that engulfed two of the remaining shuttles. The specially designed penetrators punched through the shuttles armor like it was not there. Microscopic sensors bonded into the penetrators sensed that it had passed through a solid object and ignited the penetrators explosive charges. The effect was akin to exploding a hand grenade in a tin of tomatoes only the tomatoes were flesh and blood.
More by luck than design the seventh and final shuttle had been spared the effects of the missiles penetrators as it had been in the shadow of one unfortunate comrade when the missiles had exploded. This final shuttle dived at reckless speed for the surface.
On board the cruiser Trakl followed its course with his eyes. “Weapons Officer. Reengage that ship!”
The harried officer tapped furiously at his terminal before turning to face Trakl. “I’m sorry sir, the automatic safeties have locked me out. The ship is already too close to the surface for us to engage without a high possibility of striking the Sphere.”
“Then why has the Sphere’s surface defenses not blown that ship out of space?” Trakl demanded.
The cruisers helmsman faced Trakl but refused to make eye contact. “My apologies, Commander. In my haste to pursue the intruders I allowed us to wander into the inner discrimination zone. The surface batteries acknowledged our presence and deactivated.”
Trakl burst out of his s
eat and grabbed the helmsman by the scruff of the neck. “Am I surrounded by idiots?” Trakl flung the helpless sailor in the direction of the bridge doors. “You are relieved. Get off my bridge before I shoot you myself!” Spinning he pointed an index finger at the Communications Officer. “Signal Ground Command. Warn them that we lost contact with a shuttle sized craft and it may have made a soft landing in quadrant 3-9-Gamma.”
#
FLAG BRIDGE - TDF ITUS
“How much longer do you expect me to hold my position, Admiral Radford?” Demanded an enraged War Chief Vek.
John glanced hurriedly up to the clock which faithfully repeated the mission time. Thunder had gone communications dark the moment they had past the outer edge of the bubble John had ordered be put in place on the Combined Fleets initial arrival in the Sphere System. If everything had gone to plan, the Thunder teams should have entered the Sphere by now and be making their way toward the access node. Unfortunately, John had no way of knowing how the mission was progressing until it either reached a successful conclusion or…” John chose not to consider failure.
“Admiral! Do you read me?” The image of Vek shifted sideways before disappearing for a number of seconds before reappearing. Behind Vek, John could see growing clouds of toxic smoke.
“War Chief, have you sustained damage? Can you hold on a few minutes longer?”
Vek leaned in close to the cameras pick up and John could see blood trickling down the Turak’s forehead. “Listen closely Human -” Vek annunciated slowly so John would not misinterpret his words, “Many Turak have died here today and more will sacrifice their lives while your precious Commonwealth spar with the enemy. My clansmen will hold the Saiph until their last breath but count my words Human. There will be a reckoning one day, and you will repay every drop of Turak blood with a sea of your own blood.” Vek terminated the link and left John staring into an empty space. John shook off the feeling of foreboding that churned deep in his gut. He had bought Thunder as much time as he was willing to with the bodies of dead Turak.
