Avi smiled, “Yes, sir.”
He turned to the girl. “And what is your name, young lady?”
She looked to her mother who nodded. “Rachel, sir.”
“How old are you? About fourteen, I would guess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know your mother was one of my best students at the Academy?”
“She did say you were one of her favorite instructors.”
“And is your father Greg Solomon?”
Rachel’s eyes got wide with shock and she looked at her mother. Avi nodded. “Yes, sir, he is.”
“I see your parents have taught you well. Please tell him I send my warmest regards.” He turned back to Avi. “I must say that was slick picking up your mother from Triton. How is she doing? The trip must have been hard on her.”
“She’s pretty tough. She did well considering her age.” Avi worked hard to hide her astonishment that the Admiral knew about her trip to pick up her mother.
“What would you have done if the picket ship had come within missile range?”
“Sir, I was leaving. I had no intention of engaging anyone. I would have outrun any missile he could have thrown at me. I would not have fired back.”
“Very good. I am pleased to see that you have mellowed. When you were at the Academy, you would have fired back. Good. Oh, please sit.” He motioned to some chairs.
Once they had taken their seats, he addressed Avi again, “You haven’t come to see me since before she was born. Am I safe in assuming you want something? Information perhaps?”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled. “Which is as it should be. What do you need?”
“We are concerned about rumors of Swordsman attacks and wanted to find out the truth. We also wanted to know what you know about us as a way to judge how much the Swordsmen know about us. I know you both have spies. I need to know what to expect if they decide to attack.”
“Let me bring in some assistance. You’ll get better answers.” He called his aide into the office. When the aide arrived, he said, “This is Captain Bardwell and her daughter Rachel. They are with Captain Solomon. Please tell the ladies what you know about recent Swordsman activities, their own settlement and the potential threats they face.” He turned back to face Avi, “I have promised him many times that I would send him to the Intelligence Service once I retired, but I haven’t made it yet.”
The aide smiled, “He assumes I want to go. The Swordsmen have taken over five planets we know of. Our intelligence seems to indicate that they will take over several more lightly defended planets before they move against anything as heavily defended as yours, although there is no way to know that for certain. On each planet they have eliminated all the original inhabitants and replaced them with faithful members of the church. Their tactics are brutal. This is not to say that Swordsman conquering armies are that much different from other conquering armies only that this one seems especially motivated to clear all the occupants rather than keeping them as slaves as other armies would have done.”
“I heard about a planet in sector 60,” Avi offered.
“Two small settlements of perhaps five hundred residents each. One of lesbians and one of male homosexuals on opposite sides of the planet. They were planning on building vacation resorts. No weapons, no passive defenses. The Swordsmen dropped incendiaries on their settlements in the middle of the night. No survivors.”
“Ugly, and you couldn’t do anything because the planet did not have a sovereign government recognized by the Federation.” Avi commented, “How big is the Swordsman fleet?”
“I knew you would ask that as soon as you walked in the door. Here is a data module with complete specs on every ship in their fleet.”
“Do you have one like this on our fleet?”
“No.”
“You mean you don’t have spies on our planet?” Avi sounded incredulous.
“Well, yes, sort of, we did get spies in but we haven’t been able to get reports out.”
“What about the agricultural inspector? Wasn’t she on your payroll?”
“No, much to my frustration. She kept your secrets. She claimed she saw nothing but the processing plants and farms. She was eloquent on those subjects. She was impressed with your operation.”
“That’s comforting.”
The aide smiled. “We know the real spies are alive because we see them in your videos. One looks like he gained weight. You must be feeding him well and one looks pregnant, so she’s probably doing well also, but we haven’t heard from them since they landed. We don’t know what you are doing, but they must be happy. Which brings me to another question. What are you doing that you need so many welding lasers? Now you wouldn’t be planning on using them for weapons would you?”
Avi addressed the Admiral. “You know as well as I do, sir, that weapons grade lasers are strictly regulated, and we would not be wanting to play with those would we? Someone could get hurt. Welding lasers are much safer.”
The Admiral smiled. “Thank you for not telling me what I thought I didn’t know.”
“You gentlemen are welcome to join us and find out first hand what we are doing, but once you do, you can’t leave. If you decide to forgo the Intelligence Service, you are welcome to come live with us. Oh, and sir, I hear your ex-wives are delightful ladies. They are welcome to come with you.”
He smiled, “Yes, they are, you have to meet them before you leave.”
“That would be a pleasure sir.” She pointed to the data module. “Before I go digging through this, how about hitting the highlights.”
“Two battleships, eight destroyers, two tenders, two Class Ten cargo ships and forty some odd scouts. No interdiction craft. 15,000 marines with landing craft. An unknown number of helicopters and surface craft. No fixed wing aircraft. They have never deployed the whole force at one time preferring to keep it in two battle groups each with a single battleship. If they learn you are as heavily armed as I think you are, they may throw the whole thing at you.”
“How heavily do you think we are armed?”
“No battleships, eight to ten destroyers, one small cargo ship, one Class 5 cargo ship, forty some odd scouts and three Pirate Interdiction craft. To the best of our knowledge that is the inventory of ships that has gone missing in your neighborhood. We assume you have captured them all. The real wild card is decoys. No one has any idea of how many decoys you have planted. The Swordsmen don’t think you have any. We know better.”
“But that’s only a guess.”
“A guess based on Greg’s and your records at the Academy. What concerns us is your ground defenses. We don’t think you have any. We know you have space borne defenses because of the number of ships gone missing in your area, but I have seen nothing in any of your shipping manifests that would indicate the presence of ground defenses. That worries us. We don’t think you can win the battle in space quickly enough to prevent a land assault. We know you can win the space war eventually, but at what cost and without ground defenses, will it be enough?”
“Thank you for the warning, sir.”
“Commodore Dankese is assembling a battle group with a new battleship to come to your rescue if you need it. None of us think you will.”
“I wish we felt so confident. Any idea when they might move?”
“Soon. That’s all we know.”
“Thanks, I meant what I said about you and your families coming to live with us.” Avi reached out and held her daughter’s hand.
“I appreciate that,” Admiral Davidson responded and then his expression changed. “There is something else you should know that may impact your thinking. The Animal Rescue League provided the initial funding that got your community started. There are dozens other communities they have established. The others have escaped notice by the Swordsmen which is good since none of them are as prepared to defend themselves as you are. No one has provoked Swordsmen anger the way you have. The Rescue League views your settlement as
the one that went bad. They cut off your finding as soon as you released Mark Stonebridge’s first book. You are officially on your own. The Rescue League opposes the Swordsmen, but never intended to draw them out to a fight the way you have. They are afraid of what will happen if the Swordsmen win. As soon as Commodore Dankese returns with her battle group I will send them to help defend you, but I fear it may be too late. In the interim, all I can do is provide you with intelligence information. The Federation has buried its head in the sand and will not act on your behalf. I will do what I can for you on my own.”
“What can we do for you to repay the favor?” Avi asked.
“Kick the shit out of them.”
“That is the plan, sir.”
HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WE HAVE MADE SERIOUS miscalculations,” Avi told Greg when she returned. “We assumed that the battles would all be in space. If the Marines get through to the planet’s surface, that will not be true. We did not consider the helicopters. We also did not consider aerial bombardment from spacecraft or the use of incendiaries. We have left ourselves vulnerable.”
“Let’s call a meeting of the council and discuss this with them. We need their input as to how to proceed.”
“Greg, there is something else. We are a mistake.”
“Explain that.”
“The Animal Rescue League never intended for us to fight the Swordsmen. They wanted us to live our lives in hiding under the Swordsmen radar and not provoke them. We are on our own. We cannot count on support from anyone.”
Greg paused for a moment before answering. He spoke thoughtfully, “I always knew that in the end we would stand alone. In the early days I thought I could leave all this and life would go back to normal, but I was wrong. Many times I prepared to flee and as many times I decided to stay. There was no turning back once we published Mark’s book and I agreed to that. We could either have rolled over and hid or drawn them out. I think those who try to escape Swordsmen attention will eventually fail and will need to face them. I think those people that feel they can bargain with the Swordsmen have as much chance of success as Quisling did with Hitler. I chose to be the aggressor from the outset. They would find us and kill us sooner or later. This way we will kill more of them than they kill of us. Someone has to draw the line in the sand and stop their advance. We drew the line when we published Mark’s book. That was the point of no return. We are too far along now to do anything but prepare for the coming battle. We will beat them because we have no choice.”
Representatives came to the assembly from all the inhabited areas of the planet. It took two days to bring them together. The planet’s population was about 5,000, and it was not practical to bring them together in one place. Avi quickly gave the assembly a report on what she had learned and handed out printed copies of the Intelligence reports which included internal Swordsman memos and documents with first hand accounts of their conquests. The “scorched earth” policy of Swordsman conquests was detailed with frightening clarity. When she finished her report, she asked for questions.
“How long before they attack?” one man asked from the back.
“There is no way to know. Intelligence’s best guess was at least six months,” Avi replied.
“Will we have warning?” another asked.
“Doubt it. The first we will know is when they show up on our satellite sensors,” Avi said.
“Won’t that be too late?”
“Not if we are already deployed in position,” Avi answered.
“What about the Marines? What is your plan?”
Greg stood up and took the floor. “We don’t have a plan. That is why we called this meeting. Tonight, here and now, we need to develop a plan to deal with up to 15,000 Marines, their helicopters and whatever incendiaries they might lob at us.”
“Or more likely at US since you and all the women will be flying around in space out of harm’s way!” one man groused.
Sebastian stood to be recognized. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I too, have chafed at the thought that we would be defended almost entirely by women. It is not that I don’t trust them or think they should be left at home to pine while their men fought and died, but I think we should fight side by side together to defend what we all love.” There was a round of applause.
Sebastian continued, “I am a former Army Ranger. Until right now I have not been proud of that fact. There are five other former Army Rangers on this planet. We may not know how to conduct warfare in space, but we damn sure know how to do it on the ground.” There was another round of applause.
“We have all learned a lot from Greg, Avi and Myra. I think it is time we took those lessons and applied them to the ground war we are about to fight.”
Several people sat in silent awe. This was the most Sebastian had said in public in years.
“One of the things we have learned from the games we played is how to use decoys. Rangers know all about camouflage and hiding what is there, but what Greg has shown us is how to draw the enemy to a place where there is nothing so we have the advantage and can do battle on our terms. I suggest we immediately begin building decoys and traps.”
Timmy stood. “You know that a herd of stampeding buffalo is a force to be reckoned with.”
“Exactly the kind of thinking we need,” Sebastian replied. “We know our planet and its resources better than anyone. We know what natural formations can be turned to our advantage. One thing we know about Marines is that they need something to attack. In order to concentrate them in small areas where our forces can do the most good we need to provide them with what appear to be hardened targets that conceal traps and defensive installations.”
Several of the men jumped up and started talking at the same time. They had ideas for defensive installations and locations with tactical advantages.
One of the women stood. “What about the babies? How will they be safe if we are fire bombed? None of our houses will withstand a deliberate fire.”
One of the other women stood. “Can we take all the children, pregnant women and non-combatants off planet somewhere?”
A man stood. “What about the depot at New St. Louis, isn’t that safe?”
Greg held up his hand. “The first question is how many people we will need to transport. The second is how long they will need to be gone. The third is how many ships we will have available to transport them and how many pilots we will need to fly those ships. Once we answer those questions we will know what we can and cannot do about the children.”
Sebastian held his hand up for recognition. “All of our settlements are in the Northern Hemisphere. The crops are planted. If the Intelligence Service is correct in their estimate, the Swordsmen will be attacking at the worst possible time to launch such an offensive. No sane military commander launches a land campaign in winter.”
“Sebastian, I’m not sure that’s true,” Greg contradicted.
Sebastian stared at him.
Greg continued. “The Swordsmen’s goal is to eliminate the existing population. In the summer even if the houses were bombed out, the population could survive in the forests for a long time. In the winter that is not necessarily true. We need to keep in mind that ethnic cleansing is part of their plan. They have little respect for human life, either ours or those of the hired guns they have working for them. A winter assault is entirely possible. Most of the other attacks have occurred in winter.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Sebastian agreed. “It is possible that they will try to establish a beachhead in the Southern Hemisphere, but then they would need surface craft to transport the troops here. I understand Greg’s point, but my guess is they will wait until spring. That gives us some time. I suggest that Greg take his crews now and spend the time we have left in training exercises. I will take all the men with me and develop a land war strategy. I would suggest that Justine Donnelly and Dr. Miller address the issues of our non-combatants.”
A chorus of agreement rose from the crowd.
>
Dr. Miller rose. “I concur. I will take Sebastian’s suggestion as a motion before the group. Do I have a second?”
Several voices offered seconds.
“All in favor?”
A chorus of “Aye” arose from the group.
“All opposed?”
Silence.
“Carried.”
Sebastian rose again. “One more thing. I would like to keep the two shuttles and the cargo tug for close air support. We can equip them with lasers so they can shoot down any helicopters we might face.”
There was a moment of silence before Greg said, “I think that decision should be made by their pilots.”
Katherine rose, “We’ll stay.”
Blondie rose, “We’ll stay.”
“That leaves Wendy and Rachel to fly the cargo ship with the children,” Avi said.
Colleen and Sean were sitting with Wendy and Rachel at the back of the room. Rachel shot to her feet and shouted out, “No way in Hell! We fly with you! We fight with you!” Rachel and Wendy stormed forward.
“You will do as you are told!” Greg shouted back.
“Uh, no, Dad,” Wendy said calmly, “this time it doesn’t work that way.”
Rose laughed quietly with a “Cheshire Cat” grin on her face.
The four teenagers instantly had the entire group’s attention as they advanced on the podium.
“Dad and Mom,” Wendy continued, “under the terms of Directive Eight, we had the cargo ship reprogram every ship in our fleet. None of them will fly without full combat ready crews effective right now.” She brought her hand-held communicator to her lips. “Activate combat readiness.”
“Combat readiness activated,” the computer responded in Greg’s voice.
The room exploded in laughter as Greg and Avi fumed.
“What’s so funny?” Wendy asked.
As soon as he could catch his breath, Dr. Miller answered, “You young ladies have out-smarted two of the smartest people on the planet! Right on!”
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 25
