She watched as first the gunships arrived and fired on the welcoming party of unrealistic Niseyen who could not believe what was happening. She winced as she saw civilians mown down but others running as they finally, almost too late, got the point: enemies attacking. As some of the Niseyen ran into the forest near her, people grabbed them, sorting out the mobile wounded and instructing the unhurt to help.
As the minutes passed, she looked down, gratified, as increasing numbers of Niseyen kept filtering steadily through the trees under her. She wondered where they had all been. Had they been in their homes? Surely not, but there were hundreds of them. She knew it did not matter now if any were spies, as all communication Niseyen used from the ground was blocked and they would have no way to pass on any tactical information. The Terrans had allowed for them to help, hopefully, and had jobs waiting. She wondered if they were anything like Terrans. If so, these ones could be angry and after revenge. They could be “focused”, as Dai put it.
Half an hour later troopships were landing as the gunships suddenly lifted up and took off. Sarah grinned. Reinforcements had been called for? She hoped the Keulfyd were yelling for help. Good. She looked up but could see nothing but flashes way off to her left. Too far away to see clearly. She looked down. The troops were disembarking. The now unprotected troops. Kasjeindid had predicted that just this was likely to happen. And some were not Keulfyd, they were mostly a Race Sarah thought she recognized as Bidifix with a smattering of other Races. Huh, she thought. Cannon fodder first. The leaders were Keulfyd, she noted. Primary targets.
Dai had told her that the usual demarcation was that anything in the air could be attacked only by aerial combatants while those on the ground were to be the targets of those on the ground. This was to reduce collateral damage. These ground troops were hers and she had maybe thirty minutes before the gunships returned with vengeance in mind. There were no Cats here organized to be the Communicators. There had been no time and she had prioritized the space war. Mopping them up on the ground was a particular talent of Terrans and she had full confidence of success. Who needed orders or communication? The enemy was blatantly obvious.
Sarah signalled using the sound of a loon. Katy’s idea. She smiled as she remembered the discussion a few days ago, before the Cat/Terran communication system had been so vastly expanded. “What about lasers?” Jesan had asked, citing convention.
“The Keulfyd would see them,” said Dai. “They would target the messenger. We need coded links but the Terrans have no data bracelets.” He stopped, perplexed.
“What about bird calls?” asked Katy.
“Torroxell doesn’t have any birds,” Dai said.
“Do the Keulfyd know that?”
“Ah, probably not.” Dai paused to think. “They will analyze the sound as organic and assume it is an animal. No one uses animal or bird cries as signalling.”
“Bird cries it is,” said Sarah and delegated Katy to organize teaching Terran bird cries.She saw the look on Dai’s face as he watched Katy go. She knew he had meant that no one would use animal or bird cries. It just wasn’t done. She wondered if he was thinking, “Are there any protocols these Terrans haven’t busted yet?’ She had been right on both counts. He was.
A large group of people sneaked quietly forward, many camouflaged. Several climbed up some trees. There were all Races on the ground now, including some Okme. There were children and elderly, males and females, military and civilian. Everyone who thought they could fight. Their weapons were varied in size, function, and firepower, many provided by the Okme. That had surprised her. The Okme were determined to keep this planet and she had not allowed for that. She not taken them into account militarily. Neither had Dai. Mathew had told her that in defender battles like this you just lead the way and others will follow.
She pulled her mind back onto the job. They had all trained hard. The angles of fire were carefully calculated. As ever, the shield and the spear kept their evolution balanced. The troops they were facing would have shields or armour of various capabilities and the ammunition was designed so it would get through some of it. Terran technology seemed to have accidentally kept pace on a parallel development. But Terran tactics today were head shots and prioritize the leaders and the Keulfyd.
Sarah watched as the Niseyen fired missiles from several angles attacking the twelve troopships, multiple hits targeting each ship to cause maximum damage to their shields. They were co-ordinating via their data bracelets, but Dai had told her that was a convenience with a risk. There had not been enough time to organize Cats to coordinate communication on the ground. It had not been a priority. They were virtually on their own. Data bracelets were risky. The Keulfyd had the technology to block them or use them to accurately target the wearer. Dai said it all depended on which, of the vast amount of available technology, they had brought with them, which they remembered to use, and if the makers of the technology had sabotaged it. Dai said that happened because the lowest tender was generally accepted and other Races often put in the lower tenders. Sarah remembered her history class at school and an old grainy interview with Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon. Asked what he had thought just before launch, he had said he was thinking that the millions of parts and components that made up his rocket had been contracted out to the lowest tender… That happened too in this galaxy, Dai had said, as the Keulfyd used multiple Races to manufacture their weaponry and the Keulfyd were not liked.
Sarah smiled as she remembered her grandfather telling her that she was only alive because the Yugoslavs, forced labour for the German military machine in the Second World War, had sabotaged so many bombs. “You are alive because of the bravery and the defiance of the Yugoslavs,” he used to tell his grandchildren. “Two bombs landed very near me and did not go off. Either would have killed me.”
She looked down as her people quietly armed themselves. The Niseyen were in command militarily. Hand-held surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles were very popular and she watched as they were lifted up, a loader either side of those with the launchers, and Niseyen and children running back and forth with them. They opened fire, and several hits got through the shields. This was followed by a heavy volley of missile fire from the ground and other groups up the trees. She hoped the tree-based launchers remembered their webbing and secured it properly: the recoil was stronger than with the Terran ones. As the smoke cleared, she saw seven ships burning. She assumed the Niseyen would be letting someone know, if they could.
She wondered how Dai and Jesan were and how the battle over the Flying Fortresses was going. If she had just had a data bracelet or a cell phone that functioned on this planet! If the Flying Fortresses were not all destroyed, this could be a very short battle. Just one of them could annihilate all her people here. Just one could annihilate the entire city and then move on to destroy other cities which were undefendable. The lights of the explosions that she could see before were gone, so they had either won or lost. It was disconcerting not to know which. Not to know if death was on its way in the form of a Keulfyd Flying Fortress, which could scan for them and kill every survivor.
Another thing Kasjeindid had counted on was that the troopships were not usually equipped with sophisticated scanners, because they normally dropped off their troops and left. A budget cut in equipment and operator. It was so helpful that there was someone who knew all these useful things. And so helpful that accountants got their priorities right: expenditure, not lives. She remembered all the times Mathew, the last military leader, had stressed the value of Intel.
Some of the troops were making a stand where they were, some were running for the city, some running for the ships that were burning and some running for the safety of the forest…
Sarah took aim as they got within range. She targeted the Keulfyd and those of other Races with raised shoulder colors indicating senior rank. She aimed for the head of one, fired, watched him fall in a bloody mess and aimed for another. She remembered her
training: target the face, which is not armoured. She continued a steady rate of fire, an effective tactic: the troops started to mill around, confused, as their leaders were all eliminated. Brilliant! Several times she needed to change her target as someone else got them first. Some shots came near her but none came close. She ignored them.
Some time later she stretched her tired arms as the troops ran back towards the burning ships, mostly out of range. Except for people like her with sniper rifles. She checked her ammunition: she had a fair bit left. She sighted up and continued to fire, now at greater range. She still had a fair amount of success, hitting most of her targets. She wondered how many were dead, how many injured. At least half of the soldiers seemed to be dead or injured.
She heard an alarm cry and instinctively ducked around the back of the tree as a withering fire suddenly erupted into the forest. She heard ominous grunts and cries from below, then gasped as something punched her in the back.
Dai, several hours after their rescue and still in the front of the Okme search and rescue ship, contacted the Loridsyl control center and asked, “What’s the situation?”
“The Keulfyd are still fighting in the capital and around it,” came the response. “The Okme battle fleet will be there soon. The space battle is over. It’s just a ground skirmish now. The Okme will assist the ground forces but your General has no communication with them so the Okme will take over when they arrive. They will scan for the enemy and should have all of them captured or killed within an hour or so. They will destroy or capture the Keulfyd troopships first. They are the only Keulfyd ships left. The Okme fleet includes a hospital ship.”
“Brilliant! Let them land. Let them all land. The Okme fleet, I mean. The General will tell them where.” There would be hospitals on board every Okme ship but the hospital ship itself could handle thousands of patients. “Ask them to co-ordinate with the Okme on the planet. Their military should probably take over. Ask the General.”
“The media and spectator fleet want to know if it’s safe to return.”
“Tell them no. There may be unexploded missiles and there is definitely dangerous debris.”
“The Okme Fleet Commander tells me they have been assigned here permanently. They understand Sarah threw the planet open for their Race to come. Is this correct?”
“Yes. Tell them that was correct even before they won the war for us! Tell them they are most welcome and to get settled. Contact Helkmid. He assigned someone to co-ordinate the Okme settlers but I forget who.” An Okme battle fleet! Sarah was right. The Okme were determined to keep this planet. Priorities.
“As soon as the Keulfyd ships are destroyed or captured,” Dai said, “let all Treaty Races land if they must. No one else. The smaller fighter planes first. Ask the Okme military if they can assist the ones that will have run low on fuel. Those, any damaged ships and the injured get priority landing. Bring them down. Are there any settler ships wanting to land?”
“Yes, several, and others who want to know if it’s safe to come back.”
“Tell them yes. They can land in about a week once we’ve cleared a path through the debris. We need to get those clean-up satellites up. Notify us if they need to land earlier than that. Ask Ali or Alia to contact Mathew and tell him to come here. How far away are the settler ships?”
“One could be here in three days. Others are close behind, orbiting at a safe distance.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-four are in range.”
“Keep them in a safe orbit until we are ready to handle them. Any who can sort themselves out can land, but stress that we can’t help them, that their shields need to be very good because of the debris. They’re on their own. They will probably be safer in space. Emphasize that!”
Dai next contacted Akira. “Are those clean-up satellites ready?”
“Some are, and we are flat out reprogramming the rest.”
“How many is ‘some’?”
“About thirty.”
“Good work. Launch the first ones tomorrow. Notify the Loridsyl before you do. This is a priority now. Clear some lanes and mark them, then low planet orbit, then move them further out where the resupply-ship battle was. What have you programmed them to do with ships?”
“Avoid anything under power. Scan wreckage for life signs and yell like hell if they find any. There was no time to program them for individual Race IDs and we don’t know many of them. They emit ID to help avoid collisions anyway because they are usually sent up while other clean-up is in progress and where there is no central control. We will mark ‘dump lanes’ where they can repel debris. It will take some chancey piloting up there until we clear lanes for safe passage and debris disposal. I set it up like shipping lanes because I couldn’t think what else to do.”
“Remember space is three-dimensional.”
“Yes, I have remembered that, thank you,” said Akira. “This ‘Identify ID’ was a problem, though. I couldn’t set that up properly. I just disabled it so they won’t alarm if there are any ships up there that shouldn’t be.’
“Yes, that’s a point. You wouldn’t know Race ship ID.” Another factor he had forgotten to include: he knew all the IDs but of course Akira wouldn’t.
Dai contacted the Loridsyl again and told them, “The first of the clean-up satellites will be launched tomorrow.”
“Do you want us to help with that? We have clean-up satellites.”
“Thank you but we have over five thousand Keulfyd ones left over from the pirate attack.” That will save us a huge bill from you, Dai thought.
Sarah carefully reached around to touch her back and her hand came back bloody. Slowly she stretched. It hurt but was bearable. She prayed Katy was all right. She wondered if that bullet or shrapnel had gone straight through the tree. Another prolonged burst of fire came again, aiming, it seemed, for a group on the ground. That was too accurate. They probably had scanners. Why hadn’t they used them before? She moved back around and spotted something that might be a field gun with several people milling around it. She identified those that appeared to be operating it and targeted those she could see, one by one.
Another such gun was being moved into position and she and several others fired at it, scattering or felling those around it. She ducked as the first gun blew up, her scope making it look as if it exploded right in front of her. How had that happened? She ducked again as the second gun blew up. That would probably be Niseyen who knew what they were doing. She wondered if those Niseyen weapons had had any technology that found their target like a heat-seeking missile. She ducked back behind the tree and looked down. There was an ominous silence on the ground and some people she could see were very still. She touched her back again. She was still bleeding but not profusely. It hurt fairly seriously now and she was stiffening up but she could still move. She couldn’t see Katy. Hopefully that meant she’d ducked behind the tree and was OK.
She heard a strident bird cry which meant “Attack”. She moved cautiously to the front of the tree after a quick look skyward. No ships in sight. She studied the situation on the ground. Another four of those bloody guns, which probably had scanners, were being set up. Grimly she targeted the operators. Only one gun got to fire this time, the others being abandoned due to the snipers making their operation rather suicidal. Martyrdom was not a personality characteristic of the Keulfyd. But they required several bullets each to fell them. Apart from head shots. Their insides appeared to take a lot of punishment. Or their armour was good. Or both.
Katy had brought a variety of ammunition by getting it into the “export” category rather than the highly restricted “personal”. She had a lovely smile… Although not expecting a war, she had brought some combat ammunition. These bullets shattered on impact and were designed to kill, not incapacitate. The Keulfyd were taking several shots to kill despite this. Except for head or neck shots. Not that they had much in the way of a neck.
Sarah glanced at her watch. This skirmish had so far lasted
only an hour but she was so tired, thirsty and hungry, and she desperately needed to pee. The male plumbing system had some advantages, she thought…
She closed her eyes for a second then snapped them open as she realized she had dozed. Thank God she had ordered everyone to harness themselves. Dozing and daydreaming in the middle of a fight! She checked and found she was still bleeding. Why hadn’t she attended to that? She felt numb and a wave of dizziness and panic washed over her, leaving her startlingly clear-headed. She realized she must be in shock and more badly injured than she had thought.
First things first. She peed as discreetly as one can when female, up a tree, harnessed, injured, and wearing trousers. She got out her mini first-aid kit, sprayed a cleaner on her hands, swallowed some hefty painkillers, painfully removed more clothing and awkwardly sprayed her back with the other spray. The combat spray momentarily stung and then anaesthetized. It was sticky, designed to first slow and then stop most bleeding by multiplying the natural clotting mechanism. Unless bleeding was arterial, which this wasn’t or she would be dead. She applied the dressing and flipped off the tags, sticking it in place.
She looked at her watch. Just over an hour had passed and the gunships hadn’t returned. Did that mean their arrival was imminent or did it mean they had won? With no data bracelet, she had no communication. Blast the late inclusion of the Cats, she thought. This part of the battle was not linked to any other. They were on their own. There had been no time left to organize Cats as communicators. A few hours more was all they had needed. She drank from the canteen, finding it was sweet and refreshing. Reconstituted Terran orange juice! Katy again, bless her. Finding she had just drunk a litre in one go, Sarah wondered how much blood she had lost but felt better and clear-headed. She munched on one of the Niseyen bars that Jesan loved and, in several flavors, were in constant supply in the kitchen.
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