Revolutionary (The Athena Lee Chronicles Book 4)

by T S Paul

  “Lieutenant Lee! Nice of you to finally join us!”

  “Sir, I was on leave and the Captain wished to see me.”

  “From now on Lee, you will report to me first, per regulations, before doing Anything! Do I make myself CLEAR! Why the captain ever chose YOU, a lowly lieutenant, to run this ship boggles my mind. Now, what did the captain want from you!”

  “Sir, my conversation with Captain Gorshin is private sir. However he does wish for a complete tear down of the communication systems. He said that since we are in dry dock we should go ahead and have it cleaned and upgraded too.” Just what we need in engineering a tyrant.

  “He did, did he? I will have to check those orders myself. I can’t trust a lowly engineering Third to tell me the whole truth now can I?” He seemed to enjoy talking down to me.

  “I am aware that you have extra duties with the scientific division, but I am changing those orders as per regulations. You will complete every assignment that I give you before reporting ashore. Is that understood Lieutenant?”

  “Yes sir. I understand.”

  “Good. Now I see in the logs that you took it upon yourself to illegally modify MY ship. That will stop right now! You and these jumped up ‘midshipmen’ will start returning this ship to factory and navy specs today.”

  “But sir, the captain ordered us to alter the ship.”

  “Per regulations the Captain,” he paused and scowling, “cannot change the structure of a naval vessel without orders from HQ. I see no such orders. I looked over your supposed bulkhead improvements? Poppycock! Fix it right now. Dismissed.” He tuned away and entered the office slamming the door.

  I bowed my head. All that work. Frakk it! “Wilson? Do me a favor and send that conversation to the Captain.” I turned and looked at MY crew. “OK lets get moving. Regardless of what he thinks I need a team to go do a complete teardown of the communications system. Clean it out and upgrade when possible. Also, take your time doing it. Ellery, why don’t you and your group take care of that. Jacobs and I will start on the bulkheads.”

  We had barely begun when the orders changed. Commander Hadley had called the Captain and had his head handed to him. HQ had approved the upgrade, per regulations.

  ___

  Sector Governor Samuele Norton was not a happy man. These hicks needed to be taught a lesson. This bunch of farmers needed to be shown that he was the man in charge. That he made the rules now. Damn it! “Cole! Cole, where the hell is that man. COLE!”

  A short dumpy man came running into his office. “Yes Governor? Did you call me?”

  “Finally. What is the status? Did we get everything locked down?” Like a thundercloud the Governor loomed over his aide.

  His hands shaking slightly, Cole brought up his tablet. “The news agencies are now under our control. A couple of the reporters were shot as they tried to escape but everyone else is under house arrest or locked up. All communications except for official Navy ones are locked out and shut down. The navy is routed through us so we can monitor them. ESS has the rest of the station secured.”

  Nodding his head the governor smiled. “Who cares about the newsies, they should have followed orders. What about the Navy? How many ships do we have?”

  “There are three here at the moment. Two are in dry dock locked down and the third is on patrol in the sector. The Panay is under navy control but the XO is one of our people so just say the word. We have 3 squadrons of fighters on board the station. Only one is under direct Navy control. The others are mercenaries that we managed to hire under the reenforcement clause.”

  “Good, good. Those two ships in dry dock, can we use them? We may have to take out most of the planets civilian structure and start over. Kinetic strikes are easier with warships.”

  Cole jumped a bit at the words kinetic strike. He hoped it would not come to that, he had a lot of money tied up on the planet. “The EOM Laffey is a Sumner class destroyer it is getting a drive replaced. It will be a minimum of two weeks before it is able to fly. It’s captain is one of ours. The EOM James Cook is in port getting some exterior battle damage repaired. We have only been able to replace the Chief Engineer no one else on the command staff. It is a tight-nit ship.”

  “Find out everything you can about that ship. We need to get our people in there and in control.”

  Chapter 8

  The response to Governor Stoner’s recall of the Militia auxiliary was phenomenal. Many more citizens than expected showed up to fight. It demonstrated how unpopular the Empire was on the planet. Personal weapons were something that did not need to be supplied. The armored vehicles and tanks, from storage, only needed fuel and ammo to be useful. Most of the weapons were more than fifteen years old but could still function. An old weapon can still kill you. Two oldsters even showed up in an ancient tank that pre-dated the last war. The called up troops were put to use immediately. Based on training and equipment many were used to secure government buildings and vital areas such as power plants. Sabotage was always a threat. The younger troops were to be used for the assault on the manufacturing center and the space port.

  “Sir, reporting for duty.” In front of Colonel Lee was a burly older man in his mid to late 60’s. He was dressed in a rarely seen tiger stripe camo uniform signifying planetary special forces. Something ‘this’ planet had not had for over 30 years. The soldier was in good shape and his uniform was impeccable. He had a gleam in his eye as he smiled at the Colonel.

  Returning his salute Colonel Lee looked questioning at him. “What can I do for you Specialist?”

  “Sir, Sergeant Yannos Thoukudides reporting with a party of 25 sir.” The Colonel looked past the sergeant and say several dozen similarly dressed men and women lurking about.

  “Is this your whole unit Sergeant Thoukudides?”

  “Just call me Yannos, sir. It’s easier. Yes, sir. After the last war they retired the lot of us. We stayed together for the most part. We bought an island out on the lost archipelago and have a small community there. We saw the call up and here we are.” He looked over his shoulder and the others had reformed and were straightening out their lines.

  “Yannos, are you sure you and your people are up for this? You are getting a bit older.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir. I am the same age as you Colonel.”

  “Well OK then. What did your unit do during the last war? I am not familiar with Special forces. We don’t have them anymore.”

  “Dirty tricks and demolition, Colonel. We infiltrate and blow things up sir.”

  The Colonel got a big smile on his face. The day was looking up.

  ___

  Landing in an almost out of control troopship was not something that Captain Ridgeway ever wanted to do again. His pilot just barely got the computer-less craft on the ground in this valley. Only 6 of his other ships survived their encounter with the Militia fighters.

  “Damn them to Hell” he cursed. Those damn fighters wiped out half of his hand picked men. Only his quick thinking had saved anyone. His six other ships were heavily damaged. There had been seven to survive the attack but one exploded on landing. Communications was down, he was unable to tell the station his position. With luck, the special forces units at the Manufacturing plant had radios and some medical aid.

  It was a small hike up the road to the main gate. It was there that he found a detachment of EOM Special forces troops waiting for him.

  “Halt and identify yourself.” The Special troops were armed and did not appear to be welcoming.

  “I am Captain Gary Ridgeway of the ESS special branch. Sector Governor Norton placed me in command of all local forces. This planet is in rebellion, in case you had not heard, we were attacked by Militia fighters and had to land.”

  “We need to see some authorization please.” Not very trusting these troops.

  Slowly reaching into his tunic with two fingers Ridgeway pulled out a small packet of written orders and handed them to the speaker.

  The Special forces S
ergeant carefully read the orders and signaled his men to stand down. “Just following procedure Captain. I hope you understand.”

  Ridgeway nodded to him and took back his orders. He filled in the Sergeant as they opened the gate and entered the facility.

  “I’m sorry Captain. Our communications are down just like yours. I think only official Navy orders are getting through.”

  Shaking his head the was about to say something when the sonic boom of a star fighter echoed across the valley. The echo was followed by a very loud explosion.

  One of Captain Ridgeways ESS troops ran up to the group. “Sir, those fighters just took out the troopships. All thats left of them is bits and pieces.”

  “That’s it then. We are stuck here. Sergeant tell your men to start digging in. I suspect that we have not seen the last of the Militia today.”

  Sergeant Yannos was loving this. The area was nothing but rocks, hill, dark woods, and treacherous ravines. Basically fantasy land for Special Forces to play in. All they needed now was a few snakes and everything would be right with the world. When the war ended he and his unit had been cut loose. No place for spec-ops in the ‘New’ military they had been told. Too many years of working together had made all of them a close knit family. They took their discharge credits and by pooling it had enough to buy a small island out on the Lost Archipelago. The ocean currents and razor sharp reefs cut down on the number of visitors out there. It was nice and peaceful. A chance to put the uniform on and fight? Hell yeah! Now he and his group were creeping through the forest with evil intent. Awesomeness!

  Yannoss radio clicked twice. He froze. Up ahead was the outer perimeter of the manufacturing plant. His scouts had located some defensive or other point of interest. When the Colonel had suggested this mission Yannos had jumped at the chance. This was the proving ground that would get him and his group back in the war. He was not too old to fight. Signaling his group to get under cover, he slowly worked his way to his scouts position. The scout was perched in a tree overlooking the compound. She saw her sergeant and waved him over.

  “Boy these guys are dumb. They have their defense all wrong. I wish we had run into these ‘special forces’ in the war we would have won that one. They have left the rear almost undefended I guess they think that being next to a cliff they are safe from the rear. There is one lone sentry up on that tower,” She pointed to a water tower. “He’s not even really looking around. It looks to me like he’s reading or playing a vid.”

  Chuckling evilly to himself he thought “this should be fun.” Those troops down there have no frakking idea what was about to hit them.

  ___

  It had taken some coordination but Captain Ridgeway had finally gotten the defenses the way that both he and the Special forces wanted it. The only way they could be attacked was from the front. The ‘base’ already had anti-terrorism defensive measures like explosive barriers and blast shielding. His men had dug in some machine gun nests and put snipers up at key locations. The rear of the base was a sheer cliff with impassable ravines on all sides. There was no possible way for troops or vehicles to attack from that direction. His biggest worry was a frontal attack or an air assault.

  “Sir, our spotters on the road have detected a column of vehicles approaching. They should be within range of us in about an hour.” Thanking his troop the Captain went to the makeshift command center they had created. The map on the wall showed where the vehicles had been spotted. Thankfully the local militia only had small arms and fighter aircraft. Empire law forbid heavy weapons like artillery and tanks. He and his men should have no problems holding this spot until the station could send help.

  It was the explosion that changed that idea. A very large BOOM came from inside the compound. Rushing outside the Captain witnessed his two anti-aircraft batteries blowing up scattering flaming debris and live ammo everywhere.

  The Captain began yelling to his troops, “we are under attack! Get into position.” There must be advance troops out there that the spotters missed. His men came running out of the barracks and jumped into the defensive trenches they had dug. The trench on the left exploded into flame, several of his men staggered out of the inferno on fire. They tried to crawl to safety but the combination of diesel fuel and thermite melted their bodies as if they had been made of wax. Horrified by what had happened to his men he missed the fact that the fuel truck was out of position and close to the gate. When it blew, the gate was shredded and now burning fuel had turned his defenses into cinders. The rest of his men, too afraid to use the trenches were taking up position inside the barracks and other buildings.

  High above the ESS troops, up on the water tower, sat Sergeant Yannos. His group had infiltrated the compound and taken up position. All it had taken was a few pounds of explosive to freak those boys out. What pussies! Training standards have definitely slipped.

  Yannos silently watched Captain Ridgeway. He had special orders concerning that one. His boys had already dug the pit. One thing this forest had was lots of Demon ants. Those things could strip a large animal in a few hours. Should be fun to watch.

  ___

  Turning Sergeant Yannos loose with his team had so far turned out to be a great decision. Colonel Lee’s spotters had confirmed that the smok they had sighted was coming from inside the manufacturing compound. Once they regained control of their world that was one thing that would change.They need to move the manufacturing centers for the colony closer to the cities. He understood the reasoning for having it where it was. No one wanted to repeat the mistakes that Earth had made during the terror war. Those thoughts aside, it made too good a base for anti-government forces.

  The compound was now in sight. His tanks were taking up positon and the mortar teams were getting set. Using his scope, Colonel Lee could see that the external defenses were mostly destroyed. Smoke and ash was rising from inside the walls so something had taken place there. He would follow the plan. Yannos and his group was too great an asset to accidentally kill. Lee’s forces were the carrot. Yannos was the stick. Lee would let the special forces do their jobs.

  Now that all eyes inside the compound were on Colonel Lee’s assualt force it was time for the dirty tricks to start. All of the enemies snipers had been replaced with Yannos’s troops. A snatch team was getting into position. When Lee’s attack started that was the signal. Let the games begin!

  ___

  Where in the Hell did the Militia get tanks! His spotters said they were setting up mortar pits too. This rebellion must have been festering for a while. How could our intelligence operatives missed the importation of heavy weapons to this world? Captain Ridgeway made a promise to himself. If he got off this stupid Frakking planet he was going to kill those intel geeks. It was getting dark. Attacking at night with armored vehicles was always a bad idea so he could relax a little. The captain began his tour of the defenses. So far everything looked good. The troops were starting to get tired being on alert. Hopefully when it was dark he could stand some of them down so they could rest. He had just finished his tour when the first mortar shell landed in the courtyard.

  The anti-personnel shell hit dead center in the courtyard spraying shrapnel in every direction. Captain Ridgeway hurried to the command center. It was the most protected area and could withstand a direct hit. Several troops were already inside. A corpsmen was working on one man’s leg. Looking at the sheltering troops he yelled at them “get back out there! You can’t fight the enemy if you can’t see them.”

  The troops all looked up at him and at that moment he realized that he had been tricked. He had personally selected every person under his command and had never seen any of these people before! He was grabbed from behind as he tried to pull is revolver a hand covered his mouth and a knife was at his throat.

  “Not so fast sweetie the fun hasn’t started yet!” The man whispering into his ear was an older man, stocky with black hair and sharp features. “We have a party that you are late for. You really don’t want to miss i
t do you?” At his silence the older man continued “now be quiet and you get to live a bit longer. There are a couple of important people that wish to meet you.” A leather band was placed over his mouth and a gun thrust into his back.

  “Lets go and no funny stuff understand?” Captain Ridgeway nodded his understanding. Maybe he could be a witness against the Governor, that might sway any off world courts. It had to be off world influences. Where else did these troops and the armor come from?

  The Captain was led out into the courtyard and past his defenses. Mortar shells were still screaming in but were now only smoke shells. Firing from ‘his’ sniper positions enemy troops were killing his men from behind. He was tied up and carried down a rope ladder into the ravine and into the woods.