by Danny Loomis
“Must be boot training if they’re doing P.T. at sunset,” Ian murmured. They both remembered the twice daily runs and body crunchers performed during their stint at boot camp. Once at dawn, and just before lights out.
They slid back from the scene. “Let’s follow,” Ian said. They paralleled the road, staying on max alert. Two kilometers later, their scanners warned them of electronic surveillance ahead. Both turned off their active camouflage, and withdrew to what they hoped was a safe distance.
“Infra red and noise sensors are the only things I spotted,” Pointy said.
“Yeah, and probably live guards here and there. You feel up to a recon probe of their defenses?”
“Sure, no sweat.”
“What’re you taking along?” Ian asked.
“My ghillies, which I’ll activate once past the sensors, and a thermal blanket to get me by ’em.” He shed his equipment. “I’ll take it slow, so don’t worry if I’m not back until tomorrow at this time, especially if it’s a big area.” He took his boots off, replaced them with soft foot covers.
Ian started digging a hole next to a large windfall, a tree blown over during a past storm. “Your gear will be in this hole. I’ll have to drop back a couple of klicks around noontime so I can call in our daily report. Other than that, I’ll be right here, buddy.”
Without another word, Pointy moved toward the encampment. In seconds Ian lost sight of him. He continued to dig the cache for Pointy’s gear. Next, he dug a shallow trench for himself, also against the windfall. Careful application of camouflage, and the area looked untouched. Finally, he placed two passive sensors. Didn’t give off electronic signatures. He slipped into his hidey-hole, and settled down to wait.
Daylight arrived, and Ian discovered his first mistake. He’d forgotten to refill his canteens at the last stream they’d crossed. He ignored his growing thirst, and tried to doze. In five hours he’d begin to move back to a safer place and call in his report.
The second mistake wasn’t really his fault. An hour before noon a security patrol passed by. One stepped behind the log long enough to urinate, right in his hidey-hole. Urine splashed through the camouflage and trickled off his helmet. Oh, man, he thought miserably, no one’s gonna believe this. Even though it seemed to take forever, the guard was soon finished and moving off.
No way was he going to stay in this piss-pot. He crawled out, scowling in distaste as he felt the moisture work its way through his ghillies and soak his fatigues.
He found water not quite two kilometers and two ridgelines from his cache. He furtively washed, and filled up his canteens. Now to business. He keyed in the Regimental secure net.
“Blue Two to Eagle, sitrep, over.” For once he was answered immediately.
“This is Eagle. Go with your sitrep.”
“Three more foraging parties sited at the following locations…” He gave latitude and longitude for each position noted. “Also have located what appears to be a large training encampment. Pointy has inserted, will have complete report on it during next sitrep.”
“Roger, Blue Two. For your information yours is the fourth training site located.” Ian was startled. That was a lot of troops being trained. Wasn’t this supposed to be a small band of guerrillas they’d come to stomp? Once they got trained he wasn’t sure who would be the stompee.
“Were those camps spotted beforehand from satellites, Eagle?”
“Negative. They must have a heavy dose of electronic camouflage. Be extra careful, Blue Two. They can probably pick up your electronics if you get too close.”
“That’s a roger, Eagle. I’ll call soon as there’s anything to report. Blue Two out.” Ian shook his head in disgust. All the neat gee whiz toys they had to make the job easier, and couldn’t even use them. He rinsed himself one more time, and began the trek back to the cache site.
The sky lightened into dawn before Pointy ghosted up to the windfall. Ian had moved back to the edge of the clearing for a better view of the area. He double-tapped a small rock on the receiver of his weapon to let Pointy know where he was, and padded over to help him dig up his gear. Once Pointy was back in harness, they began a cautious withdrawal from the vicinity.
At Pointy’s silent urging they continued to move away from the encampment. Two hours after first light they were five kilometers away, and settled in for a short break.
“Okay, what’d you see?” Ian queried.
Pointy’s face was pinched and gray, the first time Ian had seen him so close to exhaustion. “Must be at least two hundred troops. They’re bein’ trained in terrorist tactics, and basic fire and maneuver.” He leaned back tiredly. “I snuck inside the command tent, and got some information on their future plans. There’s gonna be a concerted effort to kill governmental types and terrorize people in settlements and towns, not just around here, but up and down the western seaboard. This’ll start within a month. I’d say the regiment’s gettin’ here just in time.”
“Any sign of Alliance soldiers?” Ian asked.
“There’s a squad of ’em under the command of a non-com. Lots of weaponry, includin’ enough explosives to make a serious dent in the ground. Which reminds me. we still might be a little too close, so it’d probably be a good thing to dig in a little deeper.”
Ian shook his head. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Okay,” Pointy said, “I won’t tell you about the ammo dump in the center of their camp, or the fact there was a couple tons of high explosives in it, along with weapons and ammo. I also won’t tell you about the wire I put across the entry, which seemed to be attached to a satchel of explosives in such a way that anyone trippin’ the wire would cause an explosion.”
Ian sighed in resignation. “In that case, we’d better move on. Security might get a little tight around here when the shit hits the fan.”
Pointy grunted to his feet. “Good idea. And before you say it, yes I look like shit. But I can still walk you into the ground.”
An hour before the noon sitrep was due, they found a small hanging valley on the backside of a ridge. While setting up camp, Ian garnered the rest of what Pointy had found during his scout. They had just finished when the ground shook and a thunderous blast came out of the west.
“Oops,” Pointy murmured. “Watch yer step, fella. It could be your last.”
“Oh, hell, I’d better call in early,” Ian groused. “Otherwise they’ll find some way to blame it on us.”
Seconds after contact with Eagle, Ian heard Lieutenant Kwan’s voice. “Irish, you two okay?”
“Yes, sir. Seems the training camp we were scouting kinda had an accident. Had their ammo dump in a really bad place. Right in the middle of their camp, and it just happened to blow up. And, well, sir, it really wasn’t our fault. One of their guys must’ve tripped over a wire or something…”
“Never mind, I don’t want to know. Anything else?”
“Yes, sir. Pointy got a look at some plans that seemed to set up raids in force on different settlements and towns, using terrorist tactics to stir up the pot. He said there were about a dozen sites laid on for this special treatment, including the suburbs around Richland.”
“Tell Pointy good work. From what I can see, your team has had a slow time of it. Try and pick up the pace for the next four days, and lay off the cutsey tricks. Kwan out.”
“Nice job, asshole,” Ian said. “Now we’ll have Brita on our case for sure.”
“Hey, don’t blame me, Superman,” Pointy said. “I was just tryin’ to keep up with your body count.”
“Don’t remind me. Let’s get some sleep while we can. We’ll have to move during daylight hours tomorrow to catch up with where we’re supposed to be on this scout.”
NEAR SPACE – STAR’S END (Day +21):
Commander Worthington of the Argyle lounged in her command chair, trying to convince her bridge crew she was not the least bit nervous. Scanning the two moons of Star’s End for a hidden Alliance supply base while they k
ept Argyle in full cloak mode was tedious, but this mission was top priority. They had narrowed it down to the closer moon, and probably in the northern quadrant on the dark side. Several supply shuttles had been tracked by the destroyer Marston up to four days prior to her ship’s arrival, but nothing since.
Lieutenant Commander Cartier alerted, a dog on a scent. “Heat source picked up on the surface, Ma’am.”
Worthington keyed her screen to Cartier’s, and stared at the small pin-point of light that appeared close to the north pole of the moon, on its dark side. “Hold her here. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
A small freighter lifted from the surface, careful to keep the bulk of the moon between itself and the planet. It headed outwards and picked up speed until it peaked at 4500 kilometers per minute. Pretty fast for a normal freighter.
“Mark its lift-off point and follow the hare, people,” she murmured. “We need to know which transit point it uses.”
There were three known transit points near Star’s End from which ships could enter extra-dimensional space, commonly called N space. Two were used by space traffic to the Orion Confederation. The other led towards Alliance space. As Captain Worthington suspected, the small freighter was headed towards the latter transit point.
“Ease off, helm. We’ll stay within scanner range, but no closer. We just need to identify which nexus they use.”
“Captain, we’re getting a call from Marston. Sounds urgent.”
Worthington sat up straighter. “Ahoy, Marston. Apparently you got our message.”
“That we did, Captain. We’ve also gotten an intelligence report which hints at something big coming our way in the near future. Think you could send a probe through the transit point behind that ship?”
“Wilco,” Worthington said. “Our quarry should be departing the premises shortly. She’s moving along pretty fast for a freighter.”
An hour after the freighter had slipped into N-space, Argyle sent a hyper-capable probe through. It would come out at the same location the freighter did, do a sweep of the immediate area and jump back to the Argyle.
It was thirteen hours before the probe materialized back at the transit point. “We’re extracting data from the probe now, sir,” Cartier said.
“Should only be a minute—Captain, look at this!”
Worthington was doing just that. “Looks as if we’re going to have a couple visitors from the Alliance in a few hours. Pass this on to Marston ASAP, and re-program that drone. We’ll need to send a message to the task force about our unwelcome visitors.”
Five hours later, Captains Fairing and Worthington were deep in discussion. Thank God for whisker laser communications. This was secure as a face-to-face conversation. They’d just hammered out their plans.
“Having your ship cloaked and within strike range of the transit point won’t be enough. If it’s larger than a light cruiser, whatever you throw at it will just piss them off. I’ve dispatched both of my Wasp fighters to you. Can you get them loaded in time?” Fairing asked.
“Yes. The problem will be in getting a fast launch. We’re not set up for that. I’ve got some ideas, though, so we should be okay.”
“I hope so,” Fairing said. “The firepower of those two Wasps may make all the difference.”
A Wasp fighter was built like a fat spear with wings, and only eighty meters in length. It had two rapid fire particle beams, and two Shrike missile launchers. This kind of firepower was enough to ruin a destroyer’s day, but would only make a light cruiser mad. That was why a Proton accelerator, better known as a blaster, had been added to its firepower. A well-placed shot with a blaster could cripple even a heavy cruiser.
The down side of it was its short range. The Wasp had to be within 40,000 kilometers. In space that was commonly called spitting distance, and wasn’t how close anyone wanted to be to a cruiser. Unless you were a fighter jock.
“Once you engage whatever comes through the transit point, I’ll take out the base on the moon, and come to assist you,” said Fairing. “If you don’t disable or kill them from ambush, do not try to go toe-to-toe with them. Even a damaged light cruiser would chew you up and spit you out.”
Light cruisers were the greyhounds of any space navy. With four drive nodes they had the speed of a destroyer, but were one hundred meters longer. Instead of carrying fighters such as the Wasp, Alliance light cruisers carried extra het lasers and more armor. Their usual job in space combat was to sweep in close and use their energy weapons after the heavies had pounded a ship to rubble.
“I’m concerned about there being two ships,” Fairing said. “If both are cruisers, we might be in for more than we bargained for.”
“If it is two warships, I’ll try to cripple their drives. That’ll keep them occupied until the task force gets here.” I hope, she thought. “We should be rendezvousing with the Wasps in the next hour. Once we’re on station, we’ll get back in touch.”
Worthington sat for several minutes, going over the plan in her mind. Finally, she keyed her intercom. “Lieutenant Kwan? Could you come to the bridge, please?”
Once he had arrived, she filled him in on what had occurred. “We don’t have time to set you down on the planet,” she said. “So if you want to touch base with Staff Sergeant Smith you might want to do so within the next few hours.”
“From the sound of it, Ma’am, things are going to get pretty hairy up here,” he said. “What’re our chances for survival?”
Worthington locked eyes with him; no fear there, just a calm acceptance. “Fifty-fifty that we survive, less than ten percent chance of no damage at all,” she said.
“Thanks, Captain,” he said, turning away. “I’d better contact him now.”
The Argyle had been in position twelve hours when there was a sudden energy surge from the transit point, and a drone appeared.
“Action stations if you please, Linda,” Captain Worthington drawled. Her apparent calmness helped ease the atmosphere on the bridge. Not her insides, though. A moment of nausea gripped her, as it always did just before action. And departed just as rapidly, a sharp-edged alertness in its place.
Within minutes a ship emerged. A light cruiser of the Agamemnon class, looking like a large shark. It moved ahead, and moments later a second ship came through.
“A freighter, by God,” Cartier said in relief. “Much better than two light cruisers.”
“Much better,” Worthington said. Now if only that was all…
The Argyle was five light-seconds away from the two ships. Any closer and her cloaking shield would have been penetrated. Still well within missile and laser range. “Locked on with Capital missiles, Ma’am,” Cartier said.
“Offload Wasps now,” Worthington ordered.
The cargo bay doors opened in the underbelly of the Argyle and both Wasps hovered on gravitics. The ship popped upwards and unloaded the Wasps as fast as if they had been shot out of a catapult.
“Drop cloaking,” she snapped. “Aim at the cruiser’s drive nodes. Fire!” Two missiles streaked away. The Wasps lit off their primary drives and whipped out from the shadow of the Argyle. Their main targets were the cruiser’s bridge and capital missile launchers.
At such close range, the missiles reached their targets before the cruiser’s point defense could react. Shields were activated just in time to avert complete disaster, but the slamming impact of the two missiles knocked all shields off-line. The brunt of the explosion was shunted aside before the shields fell, but the second and third drive nodes were twisted metal. Both Wasps fired their smaller Shrike missiles as they came into range, and one capital missile tube was wrecked. Air streamed from the ship’s aft end.
Worthington’s mind was tightly focused on the action, and she exulted as her missiles impacted, even as a part of her cringed, awaiting return fire.
She didn’t have to wait more than a second. The light cruiser spun like a top, and missiles spewed from its three remaining tubes. One of the Wasps died instantly, two m
issiles turning it into a fireball. The Argyle twisted and bucked in violent evasive maneuvers, felt even through the gravity dampers. Her point defense held. The remaining missile from the first salvo was detonated by defensive fire, even at this close range.
The Argyle’s primary laser speared out, and penetrated the cruiser’s shields like tissue paper. Two more missile tubes were destroyed, and three het lasers badly damaged.
“Get us out—NOW,” shouted Worthington. Space flamed when het laser fire from the cruiser found them. The Argyle shuddered and groaned like a wounded beast when two lasers penetrated her vitals. The primary laser gun crew was incinerated, along with half the starboard drive node engineering crew. Twenty dead in the blink of an eye.
Argyle answered her helm and streaked away from the cruiser, at least a third again faster than it could go. “Random evasive pattern,” rapped Worthington. “Damage report.”
Besides casualties to the laser gun crew and in engineering, the cargo bay doors were blown completely off. On the bright side, both capital missile tubes were unharmed. The graser was still operational, as were all point defenses, which even now spewed chaff and electronic missiles. The chaff cut down on the effectiveness of lasers, while the missiles carried the same electronic signature as the ship.
Argyle loosed two more missile salvos, and again ran. This time it was a little slower and seemed to waver.
“Keep it slow, Linda, do a little weaving. Let’s see if they’ll think we’re hurt more than we are. Also, start sowing mines behind us.”
The mines were nothing more than missiles that remained quiescent until a ship approached close enough to trigger them into flight. They would bore in upon the ship and fire a single focused laser burst when they came into contact with the ship’s force screens. Each laser gave out a five megajoule pulse. Not enough to penetrate a force screen by itself, but with several doing so at the same time, they could cause significant damage.
