by CJ Williams
*.*.*.*
Carrie was waiting for him at the access door. Her face was worried but not angry, which frankly, was what Luke expected. He said, “It looks like we avoided the critter’s dreadnought.”
Carrie nodded. “Grant assigned two Starfighters to surround it with chaff, but it’s already pulling away. Luke, are you sure about this? What if they just go back and kill Annie?” She put her face against Luke’s chest. “I’m terrified for her.”
“We have to focus,” Luke said harshly, pushing her away as he marched toward the bridge. She hurried to stay by his side as he explained. “Did you notice when I said it had three months to bring Annie back, it didn’t flinch? I thought it would complain that it wasn’t possible. Think about it. According to the treaty maps, the nearest Grey planets are almost three months away just to get there. I was going to back off the three-month period, but it didn’t argue about having enough time to get there and back.”
“You really think they’re staging in King Tetsu’s space?”
“They have to be,” Luke said. “What did you get from your mind-reading thing?”
“A lot, but nothing that gives me a destination or a location of where Annie might be.”
Luke took his observer’s seat and faced Grant. “Please tell me you got the tracker in place.”
“We did. In fact, we got four of them stuck on the dreadnought’s fuselage. Three during the battle and, I’m pretty sure, one more just as it was leaving.
“Good.” A look of relief crossed Luke’s face. “When will we get the first response?”
Grant shrugged. “Depends on too many variables to say exactly. Our priority was covert operation. It won’t do us any good if those buggers find them. But all things being equal, in a couple of hours. Every time it adjusts course, the tracker will drop a marker. Assuming the dreadnought stays at lightspeed, it can’t detect the marker’s signal.”
“Let’s regroup, then. And we need to pick up our ground army.”
“Aye, Commander,” Grant acknowledged.
An idea that had been forming in the back of Luke’s mind crystallized. He said, “In the survivor sweep, get some samples of the Greys’ bodies for analysis. I’ve been wondering why they look that way. Where would they live to develop that kind of thick grey hide? When I grabbed that thing by the neck, it’s skin felt tougher than saddle leather.” Luke shook his head trying to clear the last few minutes from his thoughts. “Anyway, head back when you finish your after-action tasks. I need to debrief with Carrie.”
“You got it, boss.”
“And George; tell Patrick to sound the klaxon. The army needs time to get loaded. And send word to all ship commanders. We depart from Haiyanas in one hour.”
“Acknowledged, Commander.”
*.*.*.*
Across the entirety of Haiyanas Seven, a low wail started to build from the tops of towers and from rooftops throughout the cities. The warbling siren grew in volume, shocking the population into immobility. The alarm had not been heard on the planet for centuries.
Back then, a truce with the neighboring Second Family was shattered by King Kkoli’s sneak attack. The result had been a long and devastating war. What other calamity could cause the sounding of the planetary alarm? Slowly for some, instantly for others, the realization dawned. King Lucas was going to attack the Greys.
General Julian Blackwell stormed out of his office and shouted at startled soldiers. “Move, you imbeciles! Get to your battle units!”
*.*.*.*
Luke escorted Carrie through George’s corridors to her stateroom and settled her on the sofa. She had little to add to her initial impressions but agreed the fleeing dreadnought was Luke’s best chance to find Annie. Luke fixed her a warm drink, and stayed for a few minutes that he could ill afford, but she was still visibly upset by the encounter with the aliens.
When he eventually rose to return to the bridge, she grabbed him in a tight embrace. “Forget what I said the other day,” Carrie said, suddenly tearful. “I do feel like you’re my big brother.”
Luke smiled and kissed the top of her head while enduring her emotional outburst. Finally, he pushed her away and took her face in his hands. “I know you do. I love you too.”
Carrie wiped her eyes. “Please don’t get yourself killed. We need you and for God’s sake, the Galaxy needs you.”
“Hey,” Luke smiled. “What’s wrong with you? This is not the first time I’ve gone off to war. I’ll be back in a jiffy and I’ll have Annie with me.”
“Just see that you do.”
“I will,” Luke said giving his sister another hug. “Now let go of me. I’ve got a million things to do.” He disentangled himself and headed toward the door.
“Excuse me,” Grant said, poking his head through the doorway. “We have a small problem. Got a minute?”
*.*.*.*
Luke stood next to Grant at the viewing window on the command bridge.
“You don’t see that every day,” Luke said prosaically. On the other side of the window, floating in deep space, a live Grey struggled frantically, trying to make headway toward Lulubelle.
Grant explained. “During survivor sweeps one of our ships came across some of the aliens. The captain brought them on board and the Greys attacked the crew. One crew member was hurt pretty badly. Our guys shot them and threw the carcasses overboard.”
“They survived longer than I thought they would,” Luke mused.
Grant nodded. “I guess being spaced makes them irritable. Our guys tried to calm them down, but it was useless.”
“How many survivors?”
“A few hundred,” Grant said. “We’re still getting updates. I told them to hold off bringing anymore aboard until I talked to you. I don’t like the idea of putting our guys at risk. Our ships are not equipped to hold prisoners. Not large numbers, anyway. But it doesn’t seem right to just leave them.”
It seemed okay to Luke, but he kept his opinion to himself. Instead he replied, “I guess we should follow the Geneva Convention. A lot of smart people put that document together so we won’t go wrong by adhering to it. But I agree with you, let’s not put our people in an impossible position. Bring an empty Phantom up here with no crew on board. Have it pull up to each one with an open cargo bay door and let them board.”
Grant nodded. “Where you want to hold them? I don’t think mixing them with the local prison population is a good idea.”
“There are a lot of deserted islands on Haiyanas,” Lieutenant Fitzgerald suggested.
Luke agreed. “Good point. Pick one far away from any continents and put some cameras up just in case they can swim. Any that try to escape, shoot on sight.”
“Got it.” Grant turned to his navigation officer. “Take us back to the planet.”
*.*.*.*
The sun was setting when Lulubelle landed next to the palace. Luke escorted Carrie to her apartments and the kids were happy to greet Uncle Luke. Eolin thought the space battle sounded cool.
Carrie’s demeanor changed to that of a mother. She had established an environment that suited her and helped her to forget about the bad times she had been through.
Luke said goodbye once more, assuring Eolin that he could ride on a spaceship when Luke returned. Being around the kids struck an unhappy chord in his heart. He had planned to raise a family with Annie in a similarly love-filled household. But the Greys had stolen that future. The thought put Luke in a dark mood as he returned to Lulubelle.
*.*.*.*
Grant was waiting with an update when Luke entered the bridge. “I got some numbers on our POWs. We picked up four-hundred and seventy-three survivors. But by the time we off-loaded them, there were only a hundred and thirty left.”
That surprised Luke. “They died in transit? What of?”
Grant replied with a look of distaste. “They ate each other. It was some kind of feeding frenzy like sharks going after their own wounded. The Phantom has internal video of what happened, but I wouldn’t recomm
end it for late night viewing. It was pretty gruesome.”
“Our POW problem might take care of itself,” Luke observed mercilessly.
“Perhaps,” Grant said. “We put them on a deserted island about five-hundred miles off the coast. The Phantom stationed itself on a volcanic peak to keep watch. The Greys don’t seem to like the water so I doubt any of them will make a swim for it. We’ll drop a food replicator in the morning so they won’t starve.”
“Good enough,” Luke said. “I don’t really care at this point. When do we lift off? I said one hour and I meant it.”
“Ten minutes. General Blackwell just sent an update. The army has finished loading and our space forces are in formation, ready to depart.”
“What about the tracker? Do we have a heading?”
“Not yet. We’ll take off on the same course as the dreadnought. It doesn’t matter which way it turns, we’ll be right behind it.”
Chapter Seven – The Farm
“Going sub-light at ten astronomical units,” Elaine announced.
“What system is this?” Luke asked.
“No known name in our Nobility navigation references,” Elaine replied. “But the Alliance coordinate grid would be N93.”
“Battle stations,” Grant ordered. “Launch recon missiles.”
An audible thumping noise vibrated through the ship as Lulubelle separated from the other interlocked Starfighters.
Luke had brought half of his existing force, over fifteen hundred ships. They were mostly Starfighters, but the total included over two hundred Phantoms, plus all of his troop carriers.
He wanted to bring more, but a Bakkui attack on Haiyanas was still a possibility. He had to leave Carrie with enough military to defend the planet should it be necessary. When will that war be over, he asked himself for the thousandth time?
The tactical display showed all units winking in as individual white ovals.
“Early reconnaissance coming in,” Elaine said.
Those would be the recon drones they had sent ahead, just barely in front of the advancing Nobility ships. When did I stop thinking of them as Alliance forces, Luke wondered? He shook himself mentally. It was time to focus on the task at hand. This was important information that he needed to review.
“Put it on the tactical screen,” Grant said.
The unnamed world, now designated as N93-4, fourth from the sun, was located near the midpoint of the Fifteenth Family’s northern border. It looked very Earth-like with two major oceans. The large land masses were a combination of green fertile valleys and rugged mountainous regions. The similarity to Earth did not extend to the continent on the planet’s night side. It was unlit by the sparkling nighttime lights of modern urbanization.
Luke wondered if the world was uninhabited or had the civilization not advanced to the point of electricity.
“Cities detected,” George said. “Zooming in.”
And there was the quandary. A reasonably modern metropolitan area filled the screen, but it looked unnaturally abandoned. “No signs of commerce,” Elaine concluded. “Switch to other locations.”
A series of urban areas flashed across the tactical display. Each scene was a dead city, devoid of normal human activity. No cars on the empty highways, no trailing white wakes behind ships near harbors. It was a depressing sight, one that Luke had seen many times on Bakkui devastated planets. The difference here was that the cities were still standing.
“Stop!” Elaine said. “Go back one.”
The display switched to the previous city. Here, ground vehicles were moving and pedestrians could be seen. The scene zoomed in and there it was. The entities walking around were Greys.
An infestation to be eradicated, Luke thought. “Any human life at all?” he asked.
“There!” one of the bridge officers said loudly. “Check out the lower left of the screen. That looks like a refugee camp.”
The display shifted to the indicated area. The officer’s description had been accurate. Instead of buildings, it was a tent city. The ground inside the camp was muddy brown and stood out starkly from the surrounding green valleys. Small clusters of tents and rickety shelters were lined up in irregular blocks of human misery. A wide clear boundary of flattened earth surrounded the encampment and along the outer edge was a high impenetrable wall with evenly spaced guard towers.
The northern side of the camp was bordered by more substantial structures; buildings that had a standardized appearance which indicated a military presence. Nearby, rigid zig-zagged enclosures led to an evil looking facility. Greys were forcing humans through the narrow gateways by wielding short prods. The operation looked like a cattle yard. Luke said as much to Grant.
“I agree,” Grant responded, his face contorted with revulsion. “Tactical, start a search for those types of facilities. Tell me when you have an idea how many we are talking about?”
“There’s got to be a military headquarters on this planet,” Luke said. “Anything in orbit?”
“No warships in orbit, Commander,” Elaine responded instantly. “There are a few satellites that appear to be for local communications. Intel is analyzing those now…they are not a known type. I suspect they belong to Greys, but we’ll know for sure when they complete their analysis.”
“Take it as a given,” Luke said. “Consider them to be Grey communication devices and mark them as priority targets in our assault.”
“Programmed,” Elaine replied, her fingers flying over her control console.
Lieutenant Sanford spoke from his reconnaissance console. “Sensors have identified at least four thousand refugee camps on the day side of the planet. Unknown on the night side. Infrared analysis is taking a bit longer.”
Grant shook his head and said, “We should have brought more ground forces.”
“We brought everything we could carry,” Luke replied.
“I know. But we need more.”
“We can do this,” Luke said positively. “I don’t think we’ll get much of a fight. They don’t seem that well-armed.”
“That’s a stretch.” Grant snorted. “They were armed enough to take over the place.”
Luke’s temper started to flare at Grant’s cynicism but then Elaine spoke up. “New reconnaissance data coming in. On screen.”
More pictures flashed by. George was handling the initial analysis and farming it out to other ship AIs. George’s priority was to identify targets and send coordinates for distribution to the various combat group leaders. In turn, they assigned specific targets to individual ships.
“We’ve got enough Starfighters,” Luke said.
“Just not enough ground troops,” Grant mumbled.
“We can make strafing runs,” Luke said. “We’ll have our Starfighters do a pass over each camp. That will take out most of the Grey contingents.”
“You might strafe human camps,” Grant said.
“I don’t think so,” Elaine said, examining the display on the tactical screen. “Look at the differences in the Grey facilities. Those are easy to identify. Each ship can hit three or four encampments to soften them up. That would stop the immediate slaughter and maybe give the humans a chance to escape. We can mop up with ground troops over time.”
Luke nodded. “That’s a reasonable approach. Run that by our ground commander. I’d suggest we have the troop carriers land one platoon each in about ten camps. If he agrees, use it as a model. Tell him to use his own discretion.”
“Got it,” Elaine said. She spoke quietly to George to arrange a conference with the army’s commanding general.
“Commander,” Lieutenant Sanford spoke up, catching Luke’s attention. “I think we’ve identified the Greys’ headquarters. I’m putting it on screen now.”
The tactical display showed an area similar to the refugee camps. The ground was browned out, but the lines of tents were even and considerably more durable. The scene zoomed out to show more of the area. It was a small city completely overrun with signs of Grey
inhabitation.
Elaine pointed to a nearby airport complex with multiple runways. “The local population does not have space flight, but that proves they reached the stage of commercial air travel. It looks like the Greys converted that airport into a spaceport. See the support equipment? That’s not compatible with regional aviation. I agree this is probably a headquarters base.”
Luke silently prayed that if there was any justice in the universe, this was where he would find Annie, or at least where she was being held. Please let it be on this planet, he thought. Luke’s pulse started to ramp up and he had to force his voice to remain calm.
“See if you can get some ELINT out of that location,” Luke ordered Elaine. “Find the HQ building. George, put me down in the center of that town with a platoon of my own.”
Grant overhead the comment and exploded. “Like hell! Belay that order, George.” He grabbed Luke’s arm. “There’s no way you’re doing something that idiotic. You staying right here.”
To have his order countermanded so abruptly shocked Luke. He barely avoided punching Grant out. Instead, he took a breath and spoke quietly. “Carry out my orders, George.”
“Acknowledged,” the AI replied. “Might I suggest a larger ground contingent as this appears to be a military headquarters?”
“Fine,” Luke agreed. He counted to ten and considered his next action. Grant was a friend and he was only looking out for Luke’s welfare. But this was, in fact, war. And it wasn’t like Grant hadn’t been warned more than once.
“Captain Jefferies.” Luke said in a neutral voice.
“I don’t like this idea at all! Carrie won’t either!”
“You’re relieved.”
“What?” Grant exclaimed. “I’m relieved? The hell you say!”
“Tactical Officer,” Luke said loudly.
Elaine stared at the two senior officers, her face reflecting shock at what was happening on the bridge. “Sir!” she shouted automatically.
“You are now in command of the Bold Tigers and the Lulubelle. Commence the attack.”
“Sir!” She stood frozen for the count of two and then moved to the captain’s chair. Grant was standing in front of it and she gently nudged him out of the way. When he stepped aside, she slid into the seat and began issuing orders to her bridge crew and to George.
