Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between

by Rodney Smith

  The inquisitive corvette entered the charged cloud of plasma, which made up the nebula, and the Verity pounced. All guns were aimed forward and nine disruptors set on wide beam made the ship literally disappear into a cloud of smoke and gas. Verity waited. Pretty soon a second ship entered, looking for the first. The Verity pulled back until they could circle around behind the dart and it, too, disappeared.

  The disruptor guns were exceeding expectations. Designed to break the molecular bond and disrupt the structure of solid objects, it literally made objects, like the corvettes, disappear into a cloud of disparate gases.

  Now the remaining two darts moved forward, within supporting distance of each other. Lieutenant Commander Volmer could hear them calling to their two lost ships. He moved Verity to the side of where they would enter the nebula. Both came in, and as the nebula blinded their sensors, trusted their glass ports to give them a sufficient view of their surroundings to navigate.

  They were wrong. They didn’t even see Verity closing in on them and making them disappear, as did their friends. Lieutenant Commander Volmer marked down four missile corvettes and moved to the next hide site on his patrol plan.

  * * * * *

  The scout ship Volatile, providing flank security for the 2nd Combined Fleet, spotted a concentration of K’Rang new ships moving not quite parallel to their track and 60,000,000km away, like they were trying to get by unnoticed. Two cruisers, two destroyers and three frigates made up the task force. Volatile called for attack ships.

  On Sirius, Tammy rushed to her ship and was spacebound in less than 20 minutes. She transported through the Sirius Ring and exited the 2nd Combined Fleet’s ring ship. She flew along the vector given by the Volatile until she saw the first indications of ships on her sensor screen. The task force was traveling in line formation in class order: cruisers in front, destroyers in the middle, and frigates in the rear.

  When Commander Tanaka called her, Tammy recommended attacking them from the rear. He agreed and she flew to her position in the formation. They divided the targets among the squadron and locked them in. On Tanaka’s command, 432 missiles left the attack craft and headed toward the task force. The missiles travelled 45 seconds of their 65-second flight time before the K’Rang task force detected them. Twenty seconds was not much time to react. They fired all their defensive missiles to no avail – the defensive missiles barely had enough time to orient on the incoming missiles before the missiles started destroying the task force. In 35 seconds, from first explosion to last, the task force ceased to exist.

  Commander Tanaka keyed his mike and said, “Head for the barn,” and the formation flew for the ring ship and home. Mission accomplished.

  * * * * *

  Shadow Leader K’Pol looked over his command. He commanded 100 pilotless ships and 30 female Shadow Warriors to fly them. Shadow Leader H’Tani ran the ship. K’Pol ran the drones and their pilots. He walked down the racks of drones ready to launch and ignored his pilots standing in formation for the moment. Each ship had three particle cannons, could carry a dozen missiles, and had an antimatter warhead capable of taking out a destroyer or below. Multiple strikes would take out a carrier. K’Pol ran his hand over the fuselage of the nearest drone before turning to his Shadow Warriors.

  “Shadow Warriors, I am Shadow Leader K’Pol. I am your Commander for this campaign. I do not care that you are female. I only care that you carry out your duty to the Empire. We have not yet been unleashed from our defense of the home world mission to help defeat the Human marauders invading the Empire. If we are, we should be exclusively devoted to attacks on their carriers. Our mission should be to reduce the numbers of carriers in the Human fleets to zero. That is the mission for which we will train. It is a mission worthy of us. Pilots, to your controllers!”

  Thirty pilots broke formation and ran to their controllers, small cabins designed to mimic the cockpit of a fighter and provide a sensor enhanced view of the space around the drone fighter. Thirty consoles powered up at once. Drones moved from the ready racks to the launch tubes. Upon K’Pol’s command, 30 drones left the Drone Carrier J’Fet.

  K’Pol moved to his command center, where screens provided all around views of the space surrounding the ship. Individual monitors provided views from selected drones. Other monitors provided pilot name, drone load out, and ship/weapons status.

  The pilots would be training against a T’Pok fighter squadron today. They had defeated every simulated threat thrown at them, but today they would take on living, breathing pilots.

  The drone pilots formed up in three 10-ship formations and moved out in the general direction of the threat. Suddenly, 36 T’Pok showed on their screens, coming in at max speed. K’Pol ordered the lead 10-ship flight to fire missiles. Simulated missiles left the lead ships’ rails, heading to the inbound fighters. Simulated strikes took out 12 T’Poks. Missiles from the T’Poks answered back. The drone pilots applied radical evasive maneuvers that no K’Rang could survive and only one drone was lost. The drones closed on the T’Pok and engaged guns. Another dozen T’Pok were designated killed by the simulation computer. Twelve T’Pok were all that remained of the original 36 fighters.

  The drones were now in range of the notional carrier and defensive missiles were launched against the drones. K’Pol ordered the 20 rear drones to launch their anti-ship missiles. 240 missiles notionally flew at the enemy carrier. More defensive missiles were launched to ward off the missiles. Barrage jammers in every fifth missile threw off the lock of the defensive missiles and 130 missiles reached through the cloud of defensive missiles to strike the notional carrier.

  The carrier was damaged but not destroyed. K’Pol gave the order to ram. 29 remaining drones launched at the notional carrier and bore in, jinking, twisting, and turning as no living pilot could. Fifteen drones were destroyed on the run in, but 14 made it into the target and their antimatter warheads tore the ship apart. The last image before the simulation shut down and the retrieval command was sent to the drones was the burning carrier pin wheeling through space.

  K’Pol ordered his pilots to fall in. As they rushed to form up in three rows of ten, he saw looks of triumph on some of their faces. He needed to build their warrior spirit, but he also didn’t want them too cocky. He had read the studies that showed among K’Rang prehistoric ancestors the females were the better hunters, hunting in cooperative prides. They needed to provide protein for their cubs on a regular basis, while males only needed to hunt for themselves every few days.

  This supposedly made females better at this mission than males. Test after test proved this to be true, but there was still resistance to deploying females in combat. This would be their first test as drone pilots in combat.

  As the formation settled down, he strode forward to the front of the formation, “I congratulate you on your victory. Remember that there are layers upon layers of defenses around a carrier and it will be much harder to attack than the simulation today. We will work tomorrow to peel back these layers and ensure you can accomplish your mission. Dismissed!”

  * * * * *

  Candy stepped out by her pool and looked up, wondering which star her husband was near. She liked the sound of that, her husband. Pushing the thought he might not come back way deep in her mind, she refused to contemplate that eventuality. Kelly had to come back. She wanted children and she wanted them to be hers and his.

  She thought of other things to clear the bad thoughts from her mind, like finding someplace to take all the gifts that violated ethics regulations. There was a certificate for a ground car, which they didn’t need and couldn’t accept. A jewel-encrusted saber from some planetary governor had to go, even if it didn’t push ethics rules. Two pulsar pistols from another governor may have been legal on his world, but were quite against the law here. One of the planet’s representatives hand carried them from his world, but already said he wouldn’t carry them back. A number of gifts from people with a contract interest had to be returned.

 
Candy wished she still had Carol the wedding planner, who could take care of these things while Candy was at work. She made a note to call Carol and find her price for a week’s help.

  She looked up at the stars again and wished her husband good luck and good hunting. Sleep came surprisingly quickly.

  * * * * *

  Kelly slowed down as he approached a major K’Rang fleet base, only thirty-two million kilometers from the K’Rang-A’Ngarii frontier. There were three space docks with major combatants on each docking arm. He could see other ships as far back as his short-range high-resolution sensors could range. He could make out transports jockeying from ship to ship. Supply ships ran through the massed formation, stopping seeming randomly at ships. Kelly counted at least 300 ships.

  He instructed his sensor team to glean as much as they could, then told Connie to use the ring to deliver the data file to the mini-ring at Scout Force HQ. Connie was gone and back in 30 minutes.

  “Sir,” she said coming up behind him, “Admiral Minacci has a message for you. He says thanks for the info, now go find the A’Ngarii.”

  Kelly turned away from the growing armada and crossed the A’Ngarii frontier. He ordered his operations section to turn on long-range sensors and find the A’Ngarii before they found him. Energy readings led them deeper into A’Ngarii space.

  * * * * *

  The Scout ship M’Ort shadowed the rear of the Human Taurus fleet, within 5,000,000km, and there was no reaction to its presence. The medium scout ship was the pinnacle of K’Rang stealth technology. Shadow Leader G’Dok, the captain, looked at the extensive data they were acquiring and saw an opportunity. There was a gap he could exploit between the assault landing group on the right side of the formation and the support ships. He ordered his gunner to program ten missiles to take out five of the support ships. He started his run into missile launch range and was just preparing to fire when two frigates ahead of him and two to the left turned their guns and fired. The M’Ort took a glancing blow, which destroyed his top turret, but he kept going. Missiles launched at him, but they would not arrive before he fired and turned away.

  He had only 50,000km to go to be in launch range. More missiles left the fleet headed in his direction. He crossed the range line and fired his ten-missile salvo, then turned away, watching the missiles reach for their targets. Enemy suppressive fire took out six missiles, and defensive missiles took out three more. One missile continued on toward its target. That missile was destroyed only 1,000 meters from its target by the ship’s close in defensive system.

  G’Dok considered a second run at the fleet after completing a large circle around the rear of the formation. Ships sent to hunt the M’Ort down never came close – its stealth coating saved them from destruction. Human ships appeared unable to resolve the M’Ort when more than 1,000,000km away.

  G’Dok looked for an opportunity on the fleet’s port side, calling up the 3D view of the human fleet, where he found a hole from the bottom of the fleet up to the support ships between two of the assault landing groups. He made a wide sweep and came up under the fleet, providing a clear shot at the support ship. He closed to firing range and let loose five missiles at this ship, then peeled away and ran head long into a squadron of Human fighters. He saw their missiles leave the rails and knew his ship was doomed. Diving away from the fleet, he tried every evasive maneuver he knew to break their missile lock. Nothing worked. Every time he caused a missile to lose lock, the fighters fired another two. Eventually G’Dok ran out of tricks and luck. Three missiles struck the M’Ort amidships and split her in half.

  Back at the fleet, two of the missiles made it through the defensive missile fire, but a flight of four F-53's came in from above and shot them apart a mere 500 meters from the support ship.

  * * * * *

  Admiral Levi loosened his grip on the table edge when the fighters shot the last two missiles. He sat down heavily. That support ship was his ring ship. Its loss would have been catastrophic to his mission. He ordered the three assault landing groups to adopt a triangle forward formation, stacking one group above the other two, and to tuck the support ships into the center of the triangle. His heart couldn’t take any more surprises like this.

  * * * * *

  K’Lott, governor of the K’Rang main world M’Rau, saw the human fleet approaching on his long-range sensors. It took up his entire screen at minimum scale. He had lost communications with home world two days prior, and suspected Human scouts had destroyed the FTL comms hub between M’Rau and home world. He did not know what he should do. Communications were always lost just before the Human fleet arrived at a world. Did this signify destruction, occupation, or worse?

  His citizens were rioting: half wanted to man the abandoned fleet ships in orbit, repair them and defend M’Rau to the death, the other half counseled surrender. Bloody fights had broken out in the assembly as the debate raged on.

  The argument became moot when the fight faction boarded the ships and found them stripped of many critical components. Despair fell over the populations when they saw they were powerless. The despair was so deep that even ground defense was not prepared.

  The Human fleet arrived and a message in K’Rang standard came in saying to evacuate all FTL shipyards, the space dock, spaceports, and any FTL ships on or above the planet by midday over the capital city. One minute after that time, three frigates destroyed the abandoned ships, the space dock, the planetary shipyard, all six ships being constructed, and the seven spaceports around the globe. All planet side FTL facilities had been reduced to smoldering rubble no higher than a K’Rang female.

  As they departed, they destroyed every satellite in orbit around the planet. M’Rau was blind, deaf, mute, and planet bound. K’Lott was stunned when he realized an invasion and occupation force was not coming. The Humans were not interested in his world. He called in his advisers and asked how long it would take to reconstruct the shipyard and satellite constellation. Estimates of four to six years floated around the table.

  * * * * *

  The Orion drove deeper into A’Ngarii space. The worlds closest to the frontier were uninhabited, even though they would support human life. That could be because of the threat from the K’Rang, or because the A’Ngarii need a different environment. Kelly had brought environment suits, but now wondered if they would be enough.

  He called in Connie, Thorson, and Alistair to discuss first contact procedures. It would be best if they were all on the same page if things blew up in their faces. First, Kelly was unsure how they were going to convince the A’Ngarii they weren’t the K’Rang. He was pretty sure the GR expected him to get this ship back, so he wanted a better than even chance that they wouldn’t get destroyed in a case of mistaken identity.

  He began with a synopsis of their situation, “Folks, we are proceeding into unexplored territory, literally and figuratively. We have no idea what we will encounter. We have no information on the A’Ngarii beyond the fact that they are listed as a hostile race by the K’Rang, themselves a hostile race.”

  “We’ve passed two habitable worlds with no indication of any type of civilization. This could be because they’re too close to the frontier or because the A’Ngarii require a different environment than we do. I brought environment suits, but they have their limitations.”

  “I am not saying this to frustrate or discourage you, but to provide a base for our discussions on first contact procedures. I searched out the record on the Moose and K’Rang first contacts. The Moose were easy. They had been monitoring us and knew we had no sinister intentions. They were ready for us when we were technically able to contact them. They had their negotiation strategy ready when we sat down with them. They wanted trade and secure borders, as did we. The negotiations were simple and quick.”

  “The K’Rang were the opposite. They wanted secure borders several light years inside GR space. They claimed several worlds that had already been settled and had up to 500 million in population. Naturally we said no and
the result was the Capricorn War, which we fought to a draw.”

  “Ambassador, that’s the history. How do you see us handling the present?”

  Ambassador Thorson shifted uneasily and said, “Until we have some sort of information on the A’Ngarii, we really won’t know how to proceed. The only language we probably share in common is K’Rang standard, not something I want to be broadcasting indiscriminately, for obvious reasons. I’m hoping that we come across an A’Ngarii inhabited world first and not one of their warships. Anything you could do to get us to the former versus the latter would be appreciated.”

  Alistair said, “Just because we found uninhabited worlds doesn’t mean much. We have uninhabited, but habitable worlds in our space, too. We need to keep pressing inward to see if we can find an inhabited planet and not run into a warship unless we have to. A politician will be more disposed to negotiating with us than a cruiser captain.”

  “Alistair is right about the uninhabited worlds,” Kelly said, “it really doesn’t indicate anything. We just have to keep pressing forward until we run into something. Ambassador, what is our negotiation strategy once we do run into the A’Ngarii?”

  The ambassador fiddled with his data tablet and said, “We first convince them we are not the K’Rang. There are a number of ways we can do that. If the A’Ngarii and we have compatible video technology, we could establish a feed and I could talk to them through my interpreters and they could see we are not K’Rang and hear Galactic Standard spoken and translated into K’Rang. My other translator will be attempting a translation of their language into Standard so we might be able to speak with them directly before negotiations are completed.”