Captain Hawkins (The Jamie Hawkins Saga Book 1)

by H. Alesso

  He dispatched one scout to travel below the ridge and another farther off to the other side. He had the dark shadow of the asteroid and the enemy’s distraction on their own front, to hide their movements.

  Hawkins was in the lead scouting the way while Gunny brought up the rear hurrying any stragglers along.

  A dark figure, bouncing slightly in the low gravity, appeared before Hawkins.

  “Everyone’s landed and moving, Captain,” reported Joshua.

  “OK,” he said, “I’ll go ahead with an advanced party. You tell Gunny to keep the main body together and moving. Everyman is to keep in sight of the man ahead of him.”

  “Will do, Captain.”

  “Don’t get distracted and lost in the dark. This is rough country.”

  It was a long climb from the shuttle landing strip to the top of the ridgeline that they had to follow to the fort. It was full of jagged and irregular shaped rocks and boulders. There were numerous cases of someone slipping and falling. Several had to be left behind on the trail. They would be attended to after the action. Until then, they could wait. Some let yells slip when they fell and that drew a sharp rebuke.

  Hawkins set off with an advanced party of four, disappearing ahead of the rest into the dark. He heard muffled reports over his communication channel and admonished, “No talking, or signaling, unless absolutely necessary. Only use secure short range channels.”

  Joshua and Gunny chide the men to keep together and keep moving.

  Only a few of Hawkins men were in armored suits, most were dressed only in pressure suits, and carried light weapons. The few mobile weapons were pulled along behind the column and moved with difficulty over the rugged ridge terrain. There brought only minimal supplies and food, just enough to last for half a day. They expected to get everything they needed after they relieved the fort. The foot journey over the gullies and small valleys was made more difficult by the dust and sand that made their footing less secure. The minimal brightness of the star background was barely enough to guide their way. They dared not use any lights of their own for fear of giving their position away.

  At one point, Joshua caught up with Hawkins, once more, and said, “The main party is closed up and a quarter kilometer behind you, Captain. Four men have been left behind due to injury or equipment malfunction.”

  “Very well,” said Hawkins. “Report back to Gunny. Tell him that we are within a kilometer of the fort and this will be our final jumping off line, at dawn. Tell him to come and fill in the line.”

  Hawkins left the advanced party at that point, to mark the way, and he went ahead, alone, to scout the ridge perimeter closer to the enemy outposts. He moved stealthily and observed the defenders and their breastworks, as well as several lookouts. They were focused on the fort, he noticed, and not paying attention to their rear.

  Since he was wearing a pressure suit with a Jaxon uniform insignia that he had salvaged from the Destiny’s previous owners, he decided to literally walk up to the Jaxon outpost and talk to the very soldiers, he’d been spying on.

  He switched his communicator to the local short range Jaxon frequency.

  At the edge of the mountain ridge, one soldier was looking down at the rebel fort through night goggles. From a spot one hundred meters behind him, Hawkins stood up in the dark and began walking calmly toward the man.

  He approached to within five meters and then barked, “Soldier! Is this how you stand your post?”

  Startled, the soldier turned around and raised his weapon.

  Hawkins threw his chest out and put his hands on his hips and said, “Fool, if I was the enemy, you’d be dead already.”

  Stunned, the soldier was unable to speak.

  Hawkins said, “Where is your teammate? There should be two of you standing this post.”

  Now the soldier blanched. He said, “Joe’s in the tent. I think he’s asleep.”

  “You have five seconds to get him up and out here, before I bring you both up on charges for dereliction of duty.”

  When Joe joined his buddy, standing before Hawkins, who to all appearances resembled a sergeant of the guard, they hemmed and hawed, and stammered and fumbled, their way through half a dozen excuses for their failure to maintain a proper guard.

  Hawkins let them sweat for several more minutes before he said, “You seem like good men. You’ve made a mistake, but I’ve found that good men learn from their mistakes. So, I’m not going to put you on report.”

  They were so relieved that they fawned over Hawkins in gratitude.

  He made a show of relaxing and asked if they had any refreshments. Looking guilty again, they produced a bottle of an alcoholic mixture which they shared. Soon, Hawkins was treating them like his own men. He chatted with them about soldiers’ common gripes, and then about the progress of the battle. Soon he was talking about position assignments and movement timetables. He learned a great deal about the vulnerabilities of the ridge position.

  Finally, he said, “I’ve got to move along and check the rest of the positions, but I expect you to remain alert from now on. If I come back don’t let me catch you asleep again.”

  “Yes, sergeant, absolutely, you can count on us.”

  When Hawkins returned to his own men, he deployed them to take advantage of the new information he had gathered.

  Joshua said, “You should not have taken such a risk, Captain.”

  Hawkins laughed, “I stuck my nose in and learned enough to make it worthwhile. They are planning an overland assault of the fort in mere hours. Our attack will not only forestall their plans, it will catch them off balance just when they are about to leave their trenches. It’ll all work out splendidly.”

  He gave the final orders as the men prepared for their assault on the ridge. They remained hidden from detection in a gully while the final minutes ticked away.

  He took a moment to appreciate how Joshua had matured and developed since their escape from Zeno.

  He’s become an energetic and resourceful aid.

  In the pre-dawn glimmer, the men settled into position for the assault on the ridge. They crouched out of sight in a deep gully, restless but poised and ready.

  As the first rays of light crested over the horizon with the asteroid’s rotation, Hawkins’s guttural command ran through the men:

  “Prepare to attack.”

  But some men were already stirring and advancing.

  Hawkins rose and running forward, he shouted, “Charge.”

  Together amass, the men emerged from the gully and started to storm the ridge redoubts. The unnerving dark was finally broken by a series of bright noisy explosions.

  Hawkins wanted the assault to strike the defense as a single wave, but it turned out to be a ragged disorganized line when it actually reached the outer perimeter. The men were out of breath and fumbling to break into the redoubts.

  The Jaxon soldiers in their entrenched siege positions did not raise the alarm until Hawkins and some men had already breached the first defensive trench.

  “All together now,” Hawkins bellowed over his communication channel.

  They pushed together, breaking through as the inner barrier cracked open under the explosive onslaught.

  Attacking a steep, narrow ridge defended by entrenched soldiers with heavy weapons may have seemed an impossible task, but defending that ridge from a surprise attack proved even more impossible. The attack opened with a stunning charge of the entire one hundred men launching themselves at the trenches. Several lead officers and men fell from the ragged defensive fire. The defenders fought stubbornly, but after suffering numerous casualties they began abandoning the ridge. Hawkins was in the thick of the action and was twice nicked by shrapnel. He was only saved by the suit’s self-sealing pressurization feature.

  The trenches extended underground, but the aboveground portion had several observation towers and three visible entrances. At each corner of the ridge they had a guard. Hawkins and several men moved between several of the small
er structures. He reached the entrance of one observation tower. Video and electronic surveillance could not easily see past his camouflage gear, but he was more concerned about his limited oxygen supply. As he entered the tower entrance, several guards spotted him. He grabbed the first one and threw him into the second. He ducked the swinging rifle butt of the third guard, and punched him in his midsection, doubling him over.

  The battle was now inside the underground trenches and the towers. Laser beams flashed by, but only a trickle of men had penetrated the position, so far. Hand to hand combat ensued. Some groups were not as successful as the men with Hawkins. They fought some soldiers at the central tower position.

  “Stand firm! Stand firm, you rabble,” an officer screamed at his disintegrating troops. At that, the Jaxon troops rallied and nearly turned the tide. Only a personal assault by Hawkins into the thick of battle restored the situation. Hawkins broke through the last Jaxon redoubt position almost singlehandedly.

  Seeing a soldier aiming directly at him, Hawkins ducked behind a boulder and crawled forward in a trench. He let loose a few shots at an exposed Jaxon, and then charged straight at a second group of soldiers. About sixty meters away, there were several enemy soldiers. When he reached the end of the ledge, he fired again. He crawled forward toward the sound of more firing. Throwing grenades every few meters, he crept forward, making for better cover behind a mound. The unnerving dark was finally broken by a series of bright noisy explosions.

  The flashes of plasma weapons shrieked past him, disintegrating a nearby rock.

  What’s happening?

  Breathlessly, he shrank behind a bolder. Dark swooping shadows wheeled toward him on the left. He didn’t wait for the onslaught but rose to meet it, firing as rapidly as he could. The clash of their meeting erupted in white fury and burning hot plasma.

  His breathing was now rapid and labored.

  When he reached the heavy weapons, he began firing at vague figures in the dark. They tossed a grenade, and the flash of light gave him a chance to get his bearings. Looking away, he stumbled in the treacherous footing, sprang up, and sprawled back down across the ground. Regaining his feet, he continued his retreat toward sanctuary. Blinding flashes of plasma weapons again streaked past him, leaving smoldering displays of fireworks as they ricocheted off the rocks.

  Gasping for air, Hawkins realized that his oxygen was running low. Amid all the confusion, the shouting, and the erratic motion, he couldn’t distinguish the shimmers in his flickering vision from the plasma flashes and grenade explosions. He drew a deep breath, trying to stabilize the oxygen flow, and his sight cleared.

  He blinked: he was surrounded!

  They were his men.

  As the rest of Hawkins’ men surged over the ridge, the Jaxon troops began to lose heart. Some scrambled past each other, pushing and shoving, to reach the safety of the lower siege positions, not caring at all for their own wounded.

  Soon positions were being secured.

  Hawkins set up guards on important points and gathered the prisoners.

  The Jaxon force, fearing that they would be bombarded from the ridge with their own heavy weapons, began a rapid retreat to their disembarkation point and exited the asteroid, just as Hawkins had predicted.

  Soon, the entire attack force beat a path back to Jaxon.

  Hawkins didn’t interfere with the Jaxon withdrawal and let them retreat at their own pace. When the fortress was uncovered, he entered and resupplied his men. His gaze shifted to the fugitives from the battle, the injured and weary men staggering past.

  Confronted by Hawkins, the local rebel base commander made the difficult decision to evacuate and moved his headquarters to a new location, but as they prepared to leave, Hawkins found himself embroiled in an internal power struggle over leadership.

  CHAPTER 14

  Special Forces

  On the same day he took command of Special Forces, General Anthony Rodríguez learned that Hawkins had forced the withdrawal of all Jaxon forces from the mining colony on an asteroid named Echo.

  With a flurry of initiative and energy, he led ten warships, half of the Special Forces Fleet, to Echo. Only after landing two thousand soldiers and seizing the fortress, did he discover that the entire mining colony and all its facilities had been abandoned. Hawkins and the rebels had vanished.

  He cursed.

  So close!

  He was disappointed, frustrated, and worried about President Victor’s “encouragement.” Failure was unacceptable.

  “We need to know where he’s going, not where he’s been. There’s too much space with too few ships to cover it,” Rodríguez ranted to his senior staff.

  However, he remained focused and ordered, “Admiral Samuels, dispatch scout ships and drones throughout this quadrant to look for the rebel forces.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  But over the next few days, they found no trace of Hawkins, his ship, or anyone willing to talk about him. That did not mean he could stop pursuing every lead, especially considering Victor’s last message.

  Rodríguez concentrated on what he did know—the remaining colonies that were of questionable loyalty in the area. He made a list of possibilities and began crossing them off as intelligence was acquired. After a week, he had eliminated quite a few locations, and while he had a shorter list, his problem remained just as unsolved as before. There were simply too many incomplete and fruitless paths to pursue. He reached a vague sense of futility.

  “He’ll make a mistake,” he said to himself, trying to muster his patience, “and I’ll be ready.”

  At Admiral Samuels’ suggestion, Rodríguez deployed a half dozen decoy ships, to pose as derelicts Q-ship that sat near important trade routes. Each Q-ship had a frigate nearby in quiet mode to swoop down if a rebel took the bait. However, the ‘derelict’ Q-ships were far from helpless. They had hastily constructed false hulls built to cover newly added rows of hidden weapons. When a rebel was snared, the Q-ship and its stealthy frigate would work together to destroy their victim.

  ***

  A week later, alongside a solitary asteroid, a drone floated with only passive sensors and minimal emissions. It was nearly impossible to detect. It was listening, watching, and probing the black vastness of the belt. For a long time, not the faintest rebel emission illuminated its scanner.

  Then it happened. A suspect signal popped up.

  Soon another drone joined it, to gather information on the rebel. Then the picket reported a problem, the rebel was on a divergent course that the nearest Jaxon ship could not intercept without going to high power and revealing its position. It was decision time.

  A frigate collected the drone’s information and moved closer. It detected distant energy sources betraying unknown ships farther way. A tap of the engine power sent the frigate to investigate the new comers. The watching frigate counted the enemy units. It adjusted the finicky sensor strength and sent a burst transmission to its flagship, a frigate with Rodríguez aboard. It wasn’t necessary to acknowledge the transmission, but it was necessary to update the drone’s orders and return it to waiting. They could continue to hover and wait like a spider, or leap at the prey like a tiger, and hope to catch the rebel ship before it escaped.

  Rodríguez decided to wait and draw more resources closer to the cluster of rebel cargo ships. The ambush was set. He was patient. His time would come. He didn’t intend to spring the trap until he had all he could inside, as well as enough strength to haul them in.

  When the optimal moment came, he pounced, however, the rebel cargo ships reacting more quickly than he had anticipated, scattered in all directions.

  Rodríguez pulled ahead of one quarry by anticipating their course. He fired several shots as his target twisted desperately trying to evade, but the initial shots were telling. The wounded ship belched debris wreckage.

  When the brief action was over, Rodríguez had managed to capture a single rebel freighter.

  Nevertheless, that was enough
for the trap to prove the concept of ‘watch, wait, and leap.’

  More traps would be set.

  CHAPTER 15

  Spindrift

  Like a scruffy unkempt scarecrow, Ichabod Merrick was tall and lanky with large floppy ears and a bulbous beaked nose. His poor posture and hang-dog drooping face helped to make him an object of some amusement. And despite Hawkins’ best efforts to be on good behavior, he couldn’t help chuckling whenever Merrick’s distracting singsong speech pattern emerged during the meeting.

  Hale chastised Hawkins with a stern forbidding stare before he turned to Merrick and said, “Base Commander, I want to congratulate you on successfully transferring your headquarters and personnel from Echo to this asteroid, you’ve named Spindrift.”

  In his lyrical voice, Merrick said, “Thank you, Mr. Hale.”

  Inside the temporary shelter they had erected on Spindrift, the rebel leaders meet to discuss their future. Merrick added, “Spindrift is remote with no mining colony within a million kilometers, so it’ll be hard for our enemies to find this uncharted hunk of granite and ice. Unfortunately, it will be equally difficult to construct living quarters and support facilities on such a far-flung desolate rock.”

  Hale said, “A base is not just, so many buildings, people, and things, it’s a pattern of higher organization, a blueprint for living in space. The asteroid field varies in density. Some clusters of asteroids will block radar signals to help keep us hidden.”

  Merrick said with unconcealed pride, “When we complete this colony, it will be powered by solar energy and we’ll use thin-walled pressure vessels with recycled atmospheres and hydroponics. Each sector of our space habitat will have its own atmosphere control system with sensors and regulators including activated carbon filters and air ionizers.”