“He was right.”
The Drugud’s golden eyes swiveled to Kelsoe. “It is my fault, I suppose, that she grew up to be a horrible young woman.” Simone chuckled.
There was silence for some time as the four ate, and finally Kelsoe pushed her plate aside, glancing around at the other empty plates. “That was a very good meal, Mia. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The pleasant contralto said from the air.
Kelsoe set her empty cup on the table and turned to look at the Admiral. “The time has come to speak of upcoming operations.” She announced in a soft voice. “I think that we can help you, in a number of ways.” A sly smile played across her face. “Mia, is there any way you could rig the explosion of the mine to appear to be much larger than it really is?”
“How much bigger?” Mia asked cautiously.
“As big as you can. The admiral can use the cover of the blast to spirit her Task Force to safety.”
“Would four times be enough, Admiral Bacheva?” Mia asked politely. Simona sat there with her mouth hanging open for a moment.
“Are you speaking of that godawful blast that nearly destroyed the Vonuborg flagship?”
Kelsoe smiled. “That’s the one.”
“Oh my yes.” Simona’s eyes shone. “That would be perfect.” The smile faded. “What are you thinking?”
Kelsoe shrugged. “I’d planned on planting a mine again, but I suddenly realize that I really need two.”
“I have another.” Mia interrupted.
Kelsoe blinked. “Say again?”
“I have another mine. While we were on Charybdis I was able to scoop up several hundred pounds of metallic lunar soil. While we were traveling here I fabricated another device.”
Kelsoe bit her lip. “Where is the Vonuborg Armada at this very moment?” She asked Simona, in a fearful voice. She saw G’Fleuf’s tentacles tremble in agitation. From his long association with her he knew that she was planning something outrageous.
The admiral looked disgusted. “They are currently refueling at the Empire’s refinery.”
“Is it a very big, or very well populated world?”
Admiral Bacheva laughed. “It actually qualifies as a rogue moon, and is only three thousand miles in diameter. There are, however, massive pockets of the trans-uranic elements that make it ideal for a fuel refinery. I’m surprised that the place doesn’t glow. Nothing could live on that world for long, and there is no air to speak of.”
A chill ran up Kelsoe’s spine. “What would happen if I were to plant both of those mines in refineries on the planet, and detonate them? Would that give you a sufficiently large explosion to confuse Fleet sensors and let your Task Force escape?”
Simona sat with wide stunned eyes. “That’s inconceivable!” She blurted at last. “You can’t do that! You will destroy twenty percent of the Empire’s fuel capacity.”
Kelsoe leaned forward. “Admiral Bacheva.” She began, her voice as cold as space. “The people who own this refinery are going to hunt you down and execute you, and in all likelihood, every single person in your Task Force. This refinery belongs to the enemy, but you haven’t realized it yet.”
“But…”
“No buts, Admiral.” Kelsoe let a grim smile slide across her face. “The wreckers on Charybdis had massive tanks hidden underground. Every time a ship would crash all of her fuel would be saved. Those tanks can top off every ship in your proposed Fleet, twice over.”
“This was a nice uncomplicated little battle before you came along.” Admiral Bacheva complained, her eyes haunted. “I never had to worry about blowing up planets or destroying a significant portion of the fuel capacity of the Empire I’ve served for twenty years. I’m going to be a traitor.”
Kelsoe gave the woman a hard look. “That really depends on what side of the coin you’re on. From my point of view you are a true patriot and hero of the Smith family. To the Empire you will be a traitor, but you will be a live traitor, and your crews will be alive, and your ships will be as whole as we can make them.”
Simona took a deep breath. “We aren’t going to be able to hide on Charybdis forever, Kelsoe.” Her voice was resigned.
“We cross that bridge when we come to it, Simona. All we can do right now is to ensure our own survival, and the survival of our families. Eventually we will find a world, a long way from here that we can settle on.” Kelsoe smiled. “Mia pointed out to me that in Fleet ships, the ratio of men to women is just about one to one. In the Marine detachment that ratio is three to one, men to women.” She smiled. “Of the Smith survivors there are five women to every man, and every single person left alive has been fighting for his or her life. We are going to have a moon full of pioneers.”
“You’ve thought this out pretty well.” Simona mused, staring at the young woman.
“This flight has been very long.” Kelsoe pointed out ruefully. “And the Wyvern is very small. There isn’t much else to do beside think and plan.” She glared at the ceiling. “And take classes and exercise.” She finished in an exasperated tone.
Simona chuckled knowingly. “You too?” Her smile faded. “The planetoid is incredibly rich in the uranic elements. Your blast is apt to result in incalculable results.” She stared at the wall for a moment. “We should decide how we are going to conduct the battle of Brone.”
Kelsoe frowned. “Brone? You actually have a name for the refinery world?”
“Not really. Calling it Brone within my planning staff is easier than calling it by its eight digit number that you can never remember.” She stared off into space for a moment. “Mia, can you access the data records from my computer, or do you need a decryption sequence?”
“I have access.” Mia replied flatly, not admitting that she had pilfered the data the moment they came aboard.
“Good. Please display the refinery and the location of the Vonuborg ships.”
A display popped up over the table, and Kelsoe shuddered at how many Vonuborg ships, highlighted in bright red, remained. “How many Vonuborg ships are there left?” She couldn’t help but ask.
“Two hundred and fifty. We’ve whittled their supply train down to almost nothing, and they are probably getting sick and tired of eating synthesized food.”
Kelsoe stared. “Well, they won’t be conducting any ground assaults thanks to you.”
“You heard about the troop ship?”
She gave the Admiral a small smile. “You mentioned it in a report you sent to Charybdis.” Her smile widened. “I have two destroyers hauling the cleaned out ship back to Charybdis as we speak. It will serve as a home for the Smith family until we can find a world to relocate to.”
Simona laughed. “You have been busy.”
Kelsoe sagged. “Everyone keeps turning to me to solve their problems. I’m fifteen years old. What do I know about running a battle or an Empire?”
“Your success seems to be your undoing, Kelsoe.” The admiral said softly.
Kelsoe pouted. “All I want to do is to have a little fun.”
Simona gave her a sympathetic look. “Are you saying you never have fun?”
The younger woman looked at the table. “The first time I went to Wecarro I died, or so they tell me. “ Her voice was flat and emotionless. “Dashtra was my Physical Therapist. I took her with me because I couldn’t stand the thought of another long space voyage alone, without another human to talk to. Don’t get me wrong.” She inserted quickly. “Uncle Horatio is a fine man, but he is still a man, and although G’Fleuf raised me, he isn’t my father, or my mother.” They sat for several long moments.
“As I said before,” Simona began again, “I plan to pull fifty warships from the main Fleet to swell my numbers. The plan I will tell the rest of the Fleet, is that my Task Force, which will contain half the warships of the entire combined Fleet, will make the initial contact with the Vonuborg.” A hologram appeared above the table indicating the refinery and the surrounding ships. A green arrow appeared, swooping toward
the red ships, “and draw them away from the refinery.” As the green arrow curved away the bulk of the red ships followed hotly on their heels. “When we are a parsec away, the bulk of the Fleet will fall on their rear, trapping them in a pincer movement as we come back around.” The arrows swooped, catching the approaching red ships in a classic pincer movement.
“That plan will decimate your forces, Simona.”
The Admiral gave her a wide and crafty smile. “I know. That’s why the admiral in charge of the main Fleet will offer no objection to my plan. It will eliminate his political opposition, me and my small Task Force in this case, through enemy action, and leave him to gather the laurels.”
“How long will it take you to get all your ships into position, Admiral?”
Simona smiled at Kelsoe’s use of her rank. “Ten days to get the ships from the main Fleet, and to get into position.”
Kelsoe nodded. “Are you ready for another adventure, Mia?”
There was a snort of laughter from the air. “Are you serious?” Mia asked. “Your adventures usually lead to one disaster or another. What do you think about all of this, G’Fleuf?”
It was the small grey alien’s turn to laugh. “I stopped thinking about the same time it was suggested using two devices to blow up the refinery. Are all humans insane?”
“Yes.” Mia commented dryly. “Although it’s not what I would prefer, I will follow wherever you lead Kelsoe.”
“Thank you. When will the mines be ready?”
“They are ready now, Captain. All we have to do is to set the timers.”
Kelsoe turned to Simona. “Your call.”
Admiral Bacheva unconsciously nibbled on one of her fingernails, and Kelsoe noted with satisfaction that the Admirals nails were in as bad a shape as hers. “Our jump off point will be here.” She pointed and a small green dot appeared, well away from the refinery. “Several light seconds from the refinery, this is well beyond Vonuborg sensors. Task Force Eight will be there in ten days exactly. Plant your mines. How quickly can you get out of harm’s way?”
“Give us five minutes to get clear, Admiral.” Mia replied slowly. “The blast will be quite large, after all.”
Simona nodded. “Very good. Nine days, twenty three hours and fifty five minutes from now set the mines for five minutes and leave.” She gave another dry laugh. “We are going to be just in front of the blast wave, so try not to get in our way. To the oncoming Fleet it will appear as if our entire Task Force was vaporized.”
“We won’t slow you down, Admiral.” Mia replied mildly. Kelsoe was frowning.
“What happened to Task Force Seven?” She asked the Admiral.
“New ships and new mission. That’s the way the Fleet works, Kelsoe.” The Admiral stood and gave Kelsoe a long look. “Be careful, and remember the first rule of military plans.”
“What’s that?”
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” She frowned at the young woman. “Understand?”
“Yes Admiral, I understand.” She suddenly felt like a little girl being given a lesson.
“See that you do.” She looked at the ceiling. “Ten days on my mark…mark!”
“Noted, Admiral.” Mia replied. “And counting.”
Chapter 11
THE REFINERY
Brone was a singularly unattractive world, and the perfect place for a fuel refinery. At one hundred and fifty million miles from its K class primary, the sunlight was pale and wan, and what air there was had a sickly greenish tinge and tended to corrode any metal it came in contact with. Deep pits marred the rocky surface where automated mining machines had dug huge strip mines out of the bones of the planet. During the long nights the glow from the uranium tailings and open pit mines could be seen from orbit. Hanging in space like a necklace, the great warships of the Vonuborg Armada were doing their best to suck the small planet dry of its precious resource. The Wyvern floated invisible, just beyond the furthest warship as Kelsoe stared at the view screen with something like dread.
“This plan looked much better on paper.” She said with a low grumble of discontent. It was slightly more than twenty four hours before they were due to plant the mines, and she wasn’t looking forward to the adventure.
“You should get some sleep.” Mia murmured in a soft voice. “Preferably, a full eight hours.”
“I’m about to crawl out of my skin, and you think I can sleep?”
“Trust me.” The AI said gently. “I pretty much rebuilt you, and I know your body better than you do. You will sleep.”
Kelsoe gave in to the inevitable. If she didn’t stretch out in her berth, Mia would put her to sleep in the command chair, and the last time that had happened she had been stiff for two days. She sighed, stood and made her way to her tiny sleeping berth, noting in passing that the rest of her small staff were already in their own berths. She was asleep within seconds of her head hitting her pillow.
“It’s time, Kelsoe. You have been asleep for four hours.” Mia said calmly.
“Four? I thought I could sleep for eight hours.” She groaned as she swung her feet to the deck.
“Something has come up.” Butterflies flapped their wings in Kelsoe’s stomach.
“Oh?” She said in as casual a voice as she could muster as she pulled on her shipsuit. “Do tell.”
“It appears that the background radiation on Brone is high enough to interfere with my automatic timing circuits in the mines.”
“And that means what to me… exactly??” Kelsoe growled as she headed for the galley, and a hot cup of klah.
“It means that both of the mines will have to be placed, set and armed manually.”
Kelsoe shut her eyes. Her morning hot drink suddenly tasted like ashes. “Damn. How high is the radiation?”
Mia hesitated, and that made Kelsoe’s butterflies flap all the harder. “You have two hours before the dosage becomes lethal. The mines are large enough and awkward enough for it to require two of you.”
“I knew things were going too smoothly.” The young woman complained. “You had better wake Dashtra and G’Fleuf.”
“I just did.”
“When do we have to go?”
“Five minutes ago would have been nice, but now will do.” Kelsoe thought to herself that Mia could, just this once, have shown a little nervousness in her voice. “We are in luck in one respect.”
Kelsoe thought about drinking down her klah, and then changed her mind as her butterflies churned. “Oh?” She said as her nearly full cup disappeared.
“Your old EVA suit and Dashtra’s Marine EVA suit, although older and heavier are more radiation resistant that my standard ship suits.”
“Peachy.” The thought of spending time in her old smelly EVA suit wasn’t the most inviting prospect, despite the radiation resistance. Dashtra stepped into the wardroom rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and Kelsoe gave her an apologetic look. “Suit up. We have work to do outside.” Dashtra opened her mouth, and then shut it after she noted Kelsoe’s grim pale face. “I’ll explain on the way.”
The limpet mine looked like a thick fat black coin, thirty inches in diameter by fifteen inches thick. The only break on its unmarked surface was a small port on the top designed to accept the plug from a seldom used keyboard that Kelsoe carried in a deep pocket of her EVA suit. The mine weighed significantly more than she did. Dashtra gave her a dark look.
“Where are we going?” The woman asked in a neutral voice.
Kelsoe looked up from the harness Mia had made for them to drag the mine laden sled and frowned, trying to remember what the AI had told her. “There.” She pointed at a low plastic block building, three quarters of a mile distant that was highlighted in green on her corneal HUD. “That’s the pumping station from the underground storage tanks. We need to put the mine in there, and in a similar building on the other side of the planet.” She sighed, and the faceplate of her helmet fogged. It was a cheap model EVA suit. The newer models had anti-fog circuits
in the face plate, along with a host of features her old suit lacked. “It appears that the uranium in the soil is causing a disruption to Mia’s remote programming, so we have to plant and program the devices by hand.” She gave Dashtra a long look. “We have to do it before the radiation kills us. Mia said that we have two hours.”
Dashtra gave her a long look before she began to pull the sled again, this time with slightly more enthusiasm. “I was bored as a Physical Therapist.” She muttered, more to herself than to Kelsoe. “I thought that a little adventure in my life would be nice. I thought it would spice things up.” She glared at the slowly approaching building. “I should have stayed an infantryman. It was safer. All I had to fight off was the enemy, and other Marines.”
Kelsoe snorted. “I was a pirate.” She quipped. “I plundered crashed starships and I was good at it. Look at me now, slogging through the dirt with the Marines, a zillion megaton bomb strapped to my back.” Beside her Second Lieutenant Dashtra Varoshi began to laugh.
The room seemed to be swimming around in circles as Kelsoe and Dashtra manhandled the mine off the sled and onto the floor. “Is this from exertion or from the radiation?” She asked Mai.
“Yes.” The static filled voice replied.
“That’s what I thought.” She glanced at the small digital display on her corneal HUD and wasn’t happy to see that they’d taken forty minutes to reach the pump house. She withdrew the small keyboard and plugged it into the waiting port and began inputting. Three minutes later a small green light lit, and she jerked the plug free.
“Let’s go!” She said to Dashtra as she headed for the door. The two women grabbed the harness now attached to the almost weightless sled, and began to run across the rocky uneven surface. They had been on the surface of Brone for exactly sixty five minutes when the ramp flowed back up and the Wyvern lifted off. The two women, still clad in their EVA suits lay on the floor of the airlock and panted. In another part of the ship small tractor beams loaded the remaining device aboard the sled.
“Is this the best you can do?” Kelsoe asked, looking across the bleak landscape a full mile to the next pump house. It was even further than the first had been.
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