“According to our records, there were eight hundred twenty firearms on the surface as of the last transport. But of course, they have 3D printers down there. We have to assume they’re making more as fast as the printers can churn them out. So our best estimate right now is about nine hundred to nine hundred fifty working firearms available to them on the surface when we drop.”
Beto stared across the table at Tatiana.
“You are vastly outnumbered and outgunned,” he said.
Tatiana winked at him.
“I’ve been outnumbered and outgunned in very battle I’ve fought,” she grinned. “If I let that stop me, I’d still be a slave on Deriko.”
A slight grin creased the face of Captain Taito as he looked at Beto.
“According to Beto here, I’m not supposed to help you in anything except transport,” Taito smiled. “However, it just so happens I have a dozen 3D printers onboard that are not too busy right now. If for some strange reason they went berserk and began printing rifles, I’m afraid it might take us hours to track down and correct the problem.”
Tatiana smiled at the captain. “Technology’s a bitch, ain’t it?” She turned to Misha and Gillian. “When can we launch?”
Misha stepped into the conversation.
“We have four shuttles. Each shuttle can carry eighty troops with their weapons and loadout. According to the battalion commanders, they’ve got 1,597 people ready to go. So we need a total of twenty shuttle trips to get all the troops and equipment to the surface. That’s five trips per shuttle.
“We’ll have to land at least twenty miles from the colony to be over the horizon from them and out of sight, and so they don’t hear the shuttles come in. So we’ll have a long march into Landing. But if we push hard, we can be there by dawn Wednesday.”
Tatiana thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“No. I don’t want to rush this. They have to know that we escaped to the transport, and they have to suspect we’ll put together an assault. I want to give them more time to get complacent, and us more time to organize. We’ll target getting everyone on the ground by Thursday night instead.”
Tatiana leaned back, gazing around the group.
“We’ll split our forces into two battalions. Battalion East and Battalion West. Misha, you’ll take Battalion East. You’ll insert twenty miles from Landing, to the northeast, right where the forest gives way to the foothills. I’ll take Battalion West. We’ll insert twenty miles to the southwest. Captain Taito has agreed to use remote sensing to find us decent landing zones.
“Each battalion will march half-way to the colony the first night, then hunker down and dig in, hide from them all day Friday. Friday night, we’ll march the rest of the way to Landing. Then we’ll assault Saturday morning at dawn. That way, our troops will be reasonably fresh, and theirs may be drunk or hungover from Friday night partying.”
Gillian pursed her lips.
“Why not early Sunday morning? Wouldn’t they be more drunk or hungover after Saturday night partying?”
“Yes,” smiled Tatiana. “Which is exactly why Turgenev would be expecting us then.”
“Ah,” nodded Gillian.
“What else?” asked Tatiana.
“Well…the attack plan you described. Are you sure about splitting our forces like that?” asked Misha.
Tatiana nodded in certainty.
“Absolutely. As Beto says, we’ll be out-numbered and out-gunned. Deception is the only way we can win this battle.”
Misha shrugged, but remained silent. Tatiana reached out and playfully touched his cheek.
“You know how much I need your input. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that these are thugs and gangsters. They have no military experience. We just assault them directly at dawn and they’ll fold up like a pack of cards.”
Tatiana smiled at her husband.
“And how much military experience do our troops have?”
There was a short silence as Misha digested her words. Then he continued his objection.
“But…we’ll still have the element of surprise. So we’ll still have the advantage.”
“No, we won’t,” said Tatiana. “They’ll almost certainly detect your battalion coming in from the east.”
Misha shook his head in disagreement. “But we’ll be careful. We’ll land twenty miles away. We’ll move in slowly through the forest. With any luck at all, they’ll never know we’re there.”
Tatiana looked at Misha in amusement.
“Misha, milaya. I don’t depend on luck to win my battles. I thought you had learned that by now. They will definitely detect you coming in from the east.”
“But how?” Misha continued to argue.
“Because I intend to make sure of it,” Tatiana told him.
Stree Prime
Great Cathedral of the Stree
At one AM, Rita and Rachel came to life in their tiny caterpillar bodies. They moved slowly from behind the toilet and across the floor to the door of the restroom. Carefully, they moved under the large crack at the bottom of the door and assessed their position.
To their left was the door back to the basilica. To their right was a short hallway that ended in another door. Scanning, they found a camera in the top right corner of the hallway.
Rachel transmitted.
Scuttling down the hallway at a speed that defied any biological insect, the one-inch-long Goblin caterpillars moved quickly to the next door and peeked under it.
said Rita.
And with that, they launched off into their reconnaissance of the building.
Stalingrad System
“You sure about this?” asked Woh.
Ostend shrugged. “That’s our mission. The last words I heard from Mark Rodgers and Tatiana Powell were for us to follow the orders of Goblin leadership. If we don’t follow these orders…well, then, what? Do we just go off on our own?”
Woh was pissed. He shook his head. “This sucks. I want to go kill some Stree.”
Ostend waved his hands in the air helplessly. “As do I. I thought we were signing up to fight. But…Tagi gave me my orders. And either we follow them as we agreed to do when we signed up, or we go rogue.”
Woh heaved a deep sigh. “No. I’ve never disobeyed a lawful order in my life. I don’t think I’ll start now.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
The two rose from their seats in Captain Ostend’s day cabin and stepped through the hatch onto the bridge of the Darkstar. Their ship was ready; their crew was ready. It was time for them to go.
Ostend sat in the Captain’s chair, and Woh moved to his XO position. When they were settled, Woh glanced at his Captain. Osten nodded and pointed toward the front of the ship.
“Out there,” he grinned.
Woh smiled in return. “Out there,” he answered, and turned to his bridge crew. “Take us out of the system, Helm. We’ve got a long way to go.”
Far away, just outside the Stalingrad system, the Stree approached. In another twenty-four hours, the Stree fleet of 1,500 ships would be surfacing at the mass limit, ready for their attack on the Goblin defenders.
But the Darkstar would not be here. The cruiser began to move, increasing speed rapidly. Thirty minutes later, the ship was 4.9 million miles away from the Dyson Ring, moving at 19,743,452 mph. Its vector pointed directly toward the core of the Milky Way galaxy.
Phoe
nix System
Battalion West
Corporal James Warren MacIntosh had the shakes. Bad. Really bad. It was all he could do to keep it from the others. He gripped the rifle as hard as he could, trying to hide his trembling hands.
It had seemed so simple when they voted. As they left Stalingrad, all the young able-bodied colonists had been organized into a militia. They were assigned to companies and platoons. From there, each platoon had elected a platoon leader, and been divided up into squads and fire teams. Mac had no prior military experience - but he had taken Junior ROTC in high school. So he was assigned a squad - twelve soldiers, plus himself. And given the rank of Corporal. At the time, it had seemed like a great game.
And when the company commander had called them together the other day and told them what was happening on the surface of Phoenix, like most of his company, Mac had voted to take back their government by an assault on Turgenev’s forces below.
But it was different now. He was sitting on a shuttle with 79 other people. They were packed in like sardines, holding their rifles between their knees, with packs of ammo around their waist, combat packs at their feet.
It was getting a bit too real.
Mac had been enamored of the military his entire life. One of his earliest memories was playing with toy soldiers as a child. Growing up, he read everything he could get his hands on about the military. Caesar. Grant. Churchill. Schwarzkopf. As soon as he could, he joined J-ROTC in high school. By junior year, he was already communicating with his local senator to get an appointment to West Point. As a senior, he was added to the list of candidates by his local congressman and felt his acceptance to West Point was assured.
Then the Stree came. He had been on a camping trip in the Cascades, far from the big cities, when the bombs came. The next few weeks were a blur - fighting for his life, trying to find food and water. Radiation sickness, day after day, puking his guts out, until he wanted to die, but couldn’t quite do it. Then recovering, and walking, always walking, looking for any other living Human. And finding none. Until he was rescued by the Goblins.
But this was different. This was really, really different from his imagined first trial by fire.
First of all, this was a transport ship, not a warship. It wasn’t designed to launch combat shuttles. They had to load through a normal cargo deck, shuffling along in single file, cramming themselves into jump seats along the sides of the shuttle while their platoon commander and platoon gunnery sergeant yelled at them, trying to bring some order to the chaos of inexperienced militia. Most of them had been on a shuttle only once in their entire life - when they were picked up from Earth, half-dead.
And after they were loaded, the platoon leaders roamed up and down the aisle, giving them last-minute instruction as the shuttle powered up and the engines began to whine. Then there were bumps and clanks as the shuttle translated from parking to the rotating launch bobbin and was locked on. A big lurch, and he felt the rotation as the launch bobbin turned. And suddenly he could see space outside the windows, and then another clunk, and they were floating free outside the transport.
In nothingness. There was no ground. Nothing to stand on. Just the Black, and stars.
His guts came up and he was puking. His platoon sergeant, Briggs, was yelling at him, and others, for he was not alone. Up and down the length of the shuttle, people were bringing up their breakfast.
Finally there was nothing left to bring up. He continued with the dry heaves for a bit longer, but finally, he managed to damp it down. Wiping his mouth, he raised his head and looked around. Others were in a similar state; but somehow, they were getting it together.
The shuttle’s engines fired, and they were off, performing a retrograde burn to drop out of orbit and land. Mac felt some relief now; at least they were moving. Moving was better than just floating around in the Black.
Mac shivered. His hands had stopped trembling while he puked. Now they started again.
This is it, he thought. In a half-hour, I’ll be on the ground. In enemy territory, more or less. Anything could happen.
Beside him, his friend Olivia nudged him.
“You scared?” she asked.
Mac nodded. He didn’t see any use in lying about it. He had just thrown up his guts in front of the entire platoon. Along with two dozen others.
“Me, too,” Olivia said. “I’m scared shitless.”
Mac managed a smile at that.
Not like I imagined it at all, he thought.
Stree Prime
Great Cathedral of the Stree
By two AM, Rita and Rachel had completed their reconnaissance of the Cathedral. They were ready for the next step in their plan.
They had determined the Cathedral proper contained the office suites and apartments of the high-ranking members of the Stree hierarchy - Great Prophet Videlli, Prophet Tarilli, and others. Those areas they avoided.
Behind the Cathedral proper they had discovered an administration building, separated from the main Cathedral by a small yard. At the extreme rear of that administration building was a parking lot. And a loading dock at the rear of the building was precisely what they needed.
They had also located the Security Control Room in the center of the administration building, three hallways from the rear. Inside that room were security screens covering an entire wall. Two Stree security guards sat at a counter in front of the screens, watching the monitors, checking alarms - and drinking the Stree equivalent of coffee to stay awake.
And next door to the Security Room was the main computer closet, containing a half-dozen racks of dumb computers controlling the entire complex - including the security systems and video feeds.
Quickly, Rita transmitted the details of the setup to Tika, waiting three blocks down the street in a cargo van with the rest of the crew. Then Rita and Rachel moved to the computer closet next door to the Security Office. Peeking under the door in their tiny caterpillar bodies, they ensured the room was empty. Crawling under the door, they ran hard across the room until they were behind the row of computer racks.
Rachel acknowledged as Rita made her way back down the rack of computers she had climbed, across the floor, and up the rack where Rachel waited. Arriving at Rachel’s position, she noted that Rachel had inserted a probe into a spare data port on a computer and was feeding data to Luda via radio. In two minutes, Luda reported he had access to the computer and began feeding data back across the radio link to Rachel, who injected it into the data port.
Rita sat impatiently as Luda worked on obtaining full access to the Cathedral’s computer systems. Five minutes and ten seconds later, she heard Luda speaking on her radio band.
he called.
Rachel and Rita left the room without being observed, scurried down the darkened hallways, and set up guard positions at each end of the rear hallway.
As Rita and Rachel switched from their tiny caterpillar bodies to their full-size Stree bodies lying passive in the back of the van, the other three departed into the building with their loads.
Activating their Stree bodies, Rita and Rachel jumped up and began unloading the bodybuilder from the van. Placing the heavy crate on a cart, they pushed it down the rear hallway, around the corner and up to the next hallway. Turning into that hallway, they went mid-way down the hall and through a door.
Inside was a large storage area, filled with miscellaneous crates, unused furniture, and boxes of paper. There was so much material in the room that the back wall couldn’t be seen. Luda and Ollie were busy re-arranging a spot to hide the bodybuilder behind the stack of materials.
Ollie spoke over the radio link.
Step One was complete. They were in.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Stree Prime
Great Cathedral of the Stree
By 2:45 AM, Rita, Rachel, Hajo, Liwa and Ollie had cleared a space behind the assorted materials in the storage room and completed unpacking the bodybuilder there. Only by threading through a narrow gap in the stacks of boxes could it be accessed.
In an empty office on one side of the storage area, Luda had cleared space and unpacked the remainder of his equipment. He sat now behind the desk, monitoring the network and the Security Room, ensuring no alarms had been given.
Remnants: Broken Galaxy Book Five Page 18
