by Wilson Harp
“Gold Group, lock into spray position,” McKendree said. “Alpha Wing, engage enemy scouts. Keep them off Gold and away from the cruisers.”
“Spray position locked, fire control linked, ready sir,” Commander Gutfield announced as his Gold Group slipped into position.
“Fire,” McKendree ordered. “Give them everything.”
The main screen showed some high energy bursts from the fifteen Scooters of Gold Group. Kyle flipped over to the visual screen on his console and waited. At 18,000 kilometers, it would take a good twenty seconds for the massive projectiles to make contact.
The seconds stretched out and then he suddenly saw three small explosions.
“One of their groups flew in front of that shot!” someone on the bridge said.
The sheer mass of the projectile was enough that even after it had impacted three of their scout vessels, it barely changed its trajectory.
“Enemy vessels changing vectors, sir.”
Kyle couldn’t blink as he watched it unfold. Their ships had no chance to turn in time. He saw a flurry of energy weapons firing from the enemy cruisers, and then the rocks hit. He watched in a mix of horror and hope as the Iltia’cor cruisers were ripped to shreds as the giant projectiles found their mark.
Suddenly the visual screens went black.
“What happened to visual?” Kyle demanded
“Automatic override, the cruisers went nova,” a lieutenant near Kyle explained. “When the camera sensors pick up on a light image that will damage the system, it drops dark.”
Kyle looked at the main display. A halo of debris was slowly expanding outward as the remaining Iltia’cor scout vessels flew off in random directions.
Kyle heard the Commander of Alpha Wing call in. “We’re blind out here, sir. Major radiation pulse knocked out all sensors.”
“We lost visuals, Henson, but our other systems are good,” McKendree replied. “We will try to coordinate navigation from here.
“Wait, we are getting data back. Wow, nothing left, huh?”
“Looks that way,” McKendree smiled in relief.
“Should we pursue fleeing vessels, sir?”
McKendree looked at Kyle.
“I think we want word of this to get out, don’t you agree?” Kyle asked McKendree.
McKendree nodded then gave his fleet their orders. “Negative. Head to the planet and see what you can find. Gold Group, great job, made this day a lot easier for the rest of us. Return to the drop point and signal the sleds. Grab some R and R, you deserve it.”
“Berlin, Sun Tzu, we are setting course for Kortit. Engage ion engines on my Helms mark. It should take about 10 hours,” McKendree said into his console.
He looked at Kyle and smiled. Kyle smiled back. They had liberated the Hedali and dealt a stinging defeat to the Iltia’cor.
Chapter 14
30 April 2044
The window was facing Earth as Kyle stared out of it. Franklin Smith had been insistent that he speak with Kyle face to face today and if that meant they met on the Space Station Justice, then that is what he wanted to do.
Kyle was always wary when Smith called one of these impromptu meetings. He didn’t like surprises, especially when he was dealing with a supposedly neutral operative in a war. Today’s surprise was very welcome, though, Kyle had to admit.
“Could you repeat that, Mister Smith?” Kyle asked as he turned his chair away from the window and looked at Smith.
“An anonymous benefactor has purchased sixty warp engines for Earth to use as they wish,” Smith said as he smiled at Kyle. He was greatly enjoying the surprise and disbelief that played out across the face of the normally unshakable Marine General.
“No requirements or favors that we owe someone?” Kyle said still trying to process the information.
“None that I am aware of, General. It seems that there are others who appreciate what you are doing to the Iltia’cor.”
Kyle wondered about that. Who could it be? One of the recent liberated planets?
The Pelod homeworld, Terti, was one of the first planets liberated from the Iltia’cor. Its manufacturing facilities had immediately started producing defensive structures to prevent their newly found freedom from being taken again. As happy as they were, they didn’t seem the type to give away such an abundance of resources, especially when they could put them to good use themselves.
Fi’cala was a world of vast mineral resources, and while the Calarians were small in number, and widely dispersed through the galaxy, they were most happy to share some new ore processing methods with their liberators. However considerable their wealth was, it was not in the type of cash or trade that would buy engines this quickly, so they were unlikely to be the anonymous admirer.
The liberation of Cyrum was met with almost hostile disbelief. Earth negotiators are still actively working to help the people of Cyrum form their own statement of independence. No, they were not in the right frame of mind or level of wealth to provide sixty engines to Earth.
Kortit was the most joyous of the liberated planets. Their oppression was less than a year old, and they were quite happy to throw off the shackles that still chaffed and reminded them of their life before their captivity. But even they would not have gone so far as to have provided Earth with tools to fight the Iltia’cor. For one thing, they blamed Earth for their conquest, along with one of their own.
Kyle smiled a bit as he thought of Lon. Publically tortured almost daily since the Iltia’cor conquered his planet, Lon was still steadfast in his belief he had done the right thing. Kyle had persuaded him to come back to Earth for medical treatment and some rest. He was in a medical facility in Phoenix at the moment, and the latest report said he would fully recover from all of his injuries.
“General Martin?” Smith repeated.
Kyle refocused on the moment and looked at Smith. “I’m sorry, my mind drifted there.”
“I could tell. I had asked you where you would like the engines delivered.”
“Let’s put them at the Ellison Yards,” Kyle said looking at his tablet.
“Around Jupiter?” Smith confirmed.
“Yes. When will we get them?”
“The first order should be arriving in about ten days, General.”
Kyle stood and reached his hand across the desk. “Thank you Mister Smith”
Smith stood and shook Kyle’s hand with a smile “You are welcome, General Martin. Would you care to join me for lunch today? I found that your cafeteria on this station makes a respectable enchilada.”
“Thank you, Mister Smith, but I can’t today. I have another meeting to get to. But maybe the next time you are on the station.”
“That sounds good, General. Good day to you,” said Smith as he turned and left Kyle’s office.
Kyle allowed himself a big grin and a few moments of celebration before he carefully put on his calm exterior and headed to his next meeting. Sixty new engines was a great boost to the power and flexibility of the Earth forces. He had received early reports of Bisir and Airido being liberated just a half hour before. Six planets liberated and one in process. Within an hour they should hear what happened at Do’yar’on.
Kyle felt a little skip in his step. The first four planets had been liberated without the loss of a single human. The Iltia’cor were taken completely by surprise by the coordinated assaults and the strategy of using the modified scooters as giant railguns was so effective that three of the twelve Earth cruisers involved never fired their weapons during the operation.
The second wave of attacks had thus far been almost as successful. According to the preliminary reports from Bisir and Airido, the Iltia’cor had brought in much larger fleets to protect those systems. And yet, even with a fight on their hands, his commanders reported only having lost two scooters; one to a rogue asteroid and the other to enemy fire.
With the confirmed cruisers in the first wave, and the early reports from the second wave, Kyle had calculated that the Iltia’cor
had lost a total of twenty three cruisers from their fleet. The Iltia’cor seemed to be back on their heels and reeling from the Earth strategy, and todays losses would only add to that downward spiral.
Yes, this was turning out to be one of the best days since they met the Hedali.
The door to the conference room opened and Kyle stepped in. Immediately he sensed the dark mood in the room and the foreboding sense that something terrible had happened. The other nine members of the meeting met him with silent looks and a few had red-rimmed eyes.
“Sir,” Alex stood as Kyle came in. “We just received news from the Pentagon. Admiral Rider was found dead at his desk this morning.”
Kyle reached for a chair for support and slowly lowered himself until he was sitting.
“What happened?” Kyle asked.
“The EMTs told Kitch it was a stroke. She is pretty shaken up, sir,” Alex said.
That would be an understatement, thought Kyle. Admiral John Rider had picked her to be his attaché when he was promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Indian War. When her air wing commander complained and said she was the best warthog pilot he had, Admiral Rider had loudly and forcefully replied that she was the best logistics and resource officer the military had and he needed her for his office. He took her under his wing and was like a second father to her. He knew that she had stayed in close contact with him even after his retirement.
After Admiral Rider retired, she asked to be assigned to Special Operations under Kyle as a service pilot and logistics officer. Kyle felt honored that she wanted to work for his command, especially after Hyderabad had tarnished his name. But she had seen all of the evidence and had understood, like Admiral Rider had, that the right call was made. Kyle couldn’t think of Admiral Rider without thinking of Kitch, nor could he think of Kitch without thinking of Admiral Rider. He would call her later and offer his condolences and offer to help in any way he could.
“Are you ok, sir? Do we need to postpone the meeting?” Williams asked quietly while placing a cup of coffee in front of Kyle.
“No. Thanks Carl, I’ll be fine.” Kyle picked up the cup of coffee, just to do something more than sit there and stare.
“Sir, I don’t think everybody in this room knows that Admiral Rider pinned your wings on. Isn’t that true?” Alex asked.
Kyle cleared his throat and gave a tight smile to Alex.
“Yes, he was a Naval Captain and I was a lowly Marine Lieutenant when I finished flight school. He pinned my wings on. He also gave me my first Command, promoted me to Special Operations Command for the Marine Corps and then later Special Operations Command for the Indian Theater.”
Kyle swallowed a drink of coffee and pushed aside the sadness that was overtaking him. “He sent a plane to bring me back to the States when my wife died. He took my daughter into his home for two weeks after the funeral when I had to get back to the war and the arrangements for my parents to take care of her were delayed. The old man and I had a long history, and I will miss him greatly.”
Kyle took another sip of coffee and stood up. “Let’s focus on the task at hand, people. I will try to make it a short day if no one has any objections.”
Everyone nodded as Kyle walked to the head of the table. “I have just come from a meeting where Mister Smith has informed me that an unknown benefactor has donated sixty new warp engines to our supplies.”
The normally professional team erupted in a cacophony of questions and shocked sentiments. Kyle raised his hand and everyone started quieting down.
“The answer is: I don’t know,” Kyle said slowly. “There is no one that I can think of that would have the resources and the motive to give us this kind of gift. I suggest we take it and put it to good use.”
“Could the engines be booby-trapped or set to self-destruct or something like that?” asked Williams.
“Good questions, and why you need to get out to Ellison and inspect them next week,” Kyle responded. “It will take a little time to figure out what to do with the extra engines, but I know we will find good use for them.”
Kyle flipped on the main data screen. “We have received reports from the Grant and the Walesa that Bisir and Airido are being liberated. The Iltia’cor had placed eight cruisers in each system, so I can assure you that they are going to heavily reinforce the rest of their systems. We were able to hit four systems quickly, and now another three. This leaves them with four held planets and their home. We are still trying to get some good intelligence on how their defenses are set up in the Iltia system.”
Just then the door opened and Captain Anderson stuck his head in the room. “Sir, we are getting a transmission from Do’yar’on. Should be uploaded in just a few seconds,” he said.
“Thanks Anderson,” Williams responded as the young communications technician left and closed the door. “Let’s see what Jennings has to say.”
Kyle nodded and flipped on the main console. A few seconds later, Captain Burke’s image appeared on the screen.
Something was wrong, and Kyle felt the ripple of anxiety from the men and women sitting behind him. Jennings was the Fleet Captain and should have been making this report.
“Sir, reporting in from the Do’yar’on system. We regret to report that both the Belisarius and the DeGaul were destroyed in action. We also believe that we lost five scooters and two sleds in the engagement, sir.” Captain Burke’s face was tense as he spilled out the details of Earth’s losses. “Due to the circumstances, we believe all hands were lost. Colonel Jackson, the pilot of the Hemingway, has eyewitness details.”
The briefing room was dead silent as the screen flickered and Colonel “Cowboy” Jackson appeared on the screen.
“We had just entered the Do’yar’on system and initiated the undocking of the DeGaul when we picked up a signal of a ship about 100,000 kilometers out. No one recognized the other vessel, but it was already powering up… something. The readings were off the charts. Captain Jennings told us to detach and go get reinforcements as soon as possible. All three sleds hit their warp engines within a second or two of each other. My ride was the furthest out from the enemy vessel, and I believe that we survived only by a few kilometers.”
Cowboy took a drink of water before he continued. “Just as we went into warp, the gravitational fields around the Hemingway went crazy. Our warp field collapsed once, but Sheely got it back up and stable.”
Kyle stole a quick look around the room and saw the same looks of bewilderment as he was feeling.
“We estimate that the field was produced about 20,000 kilometers from the port side of the Belisarius and exerted a gravitational force of six times ten to the eighth meters per second squared.”
Williams whistled low at that.
“The energy lasted about five seconds from our readings. When we reached the rendezvous point, we discovered we had lost four engines and the superstructure of the Hemingway had been twisted. All of our systems were damaged, but operational.”
The screen flickered again and Captain Burke replaced Cowboy.
“We analyzed the data from the Hemingway and from what we can put together out here, the Iltia’cor have a gravitational weapon. They used it before we could react and it completely destroyed our ships. It was only chance that allowed the Hemingway to make it safely away. We are abandoning this operation and are returning to Earth for debrief as soon as possible. All technical data will be attached to this transmission. Burke out.”
The screen went black.
Kyle looked back at the men and women sitting around the conference table. No one spoke as they started skimming the data that Burke had sent.
“Williams, when he mentioned the gravitational force of the field, you understood what that meant. Explain what happened,” Kyle said.
“A singularity. They can create a singularity,” Williams said.
“No way, not a singularity, the gravitational forces were nowhere close to that,” countered Sergeant Ranke.
Kyle lo
oked at Ranke and then back at Williams. “Is he right?”
“Technically, but it is essentially what they did. The forces aren’t near what we would expect for a real black hole, but for our purposes, it’s close enough,” Williams said.
He stood up and walked over to the coffee machine and took a foam cup from the dispenser. “What I mean is this. If I were to get an elephant to step on this cup, it would be flat.” Williams put the cup on the floor and stepped on it. He held it up. “Now I’m not an elephant, but that doesn’t matter to the cup. It’s flat. What they made wasn’t to the scale of a black hole, but it was enough to rip our ships apart.”
“How is that possible?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea, sir. If you made me come up with an idea right now…” Williams just shrugged.
Kyle nodded and stood up.
“We will find out what happened. Specifically, how this occurred and what steps we will take to overcome this problem. We have the observational data available. I want us to be oriented to this new challenge in 48 hours. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” came the chorus of agreement. No strained voices, no weak responses. They had a job to do and it was going to get done.
“In the meantime, all operations are suspended. I want Jackson and the rest of the crew of the Hemingway brought in and thoroughly debriefed as soon as physically possible. We can’t miss anything, not a single clue. Dismissed.”
This turned out to be one of the worst days since they met the Hedali.
Chapter 15
14 May 2044
Kyle was in a very irritated mood when he walked into Williams’ office.
“Sir, thanks for meeting in here,” said Williams as he closed the door behind him.
“Just had a meeting with Mister Smith. Seems the Pelod are at as much a loss to explain the new toy of the Iltia’cor as anyone else,” Kyle said throwing himself on the small sofa.
