Myra sputtered in anger a moment and asked, “Did you mess with my ship?”
Rachel said, “I believe she said something about every ship in the fleet. That would include yours and I think Jennifer Cartier would be heartbroken if you left her behind considering all you have been through.”
Myra caught Jennifer’s eye and softened. “I guess you’re right.”
“You see,” Wendy explained. “The three of you have the most incredible case of macho. In simulations, any pair of us,” she pointed to Colleen and Sean as well as Rachel, “can beat the daylights out of any one of you flying alone. When we fly as pairs, we are less vulnerable. We showed the computer the simulation results, and it concurred. It invoked Directive Eight at our request.”
Dr. Miller wiped the laughter tears from his eyes. “What else have you ladies planned?”
“Actually Sean and Colleen had a lot to do with it, too. They deserve some of the credit.”
“So noted,” Dr. Miller said.
“Sean and his Dad have been discussing how to defend the planet from the ground. We agree with Sean he should stay and keep his Dad from doing something stupid like forgetting to eat which he does when he gets involved with a project. Colleen and Helen have lots of hours in the cargo tug and we figured that was where they would wind up.”
Sebastian stood and said, “I would be proud to have my son fight by my side! Our family has a long and proud tradition of fathers and sons fighting shoulder to shoulder.” Sean beamed.
Helen said, “Okay, kid, you’re on!” Colleen stood by her side.
The group split into areas of responsibilities and worked out the plans for their self-defense.
Sebastian and his team began building decoys and defensible positions. The Swordsmen Marines would first look for command and control locations so they built several locations bristling with rotating radar dishes and antennas where the attacking helicopters would have to fly into a canyon to reach the decoy. Along both sides of the canyon they placed anti-aircraft positions capable of shooting down the helicopters flying in for the attack.
They built several armored divisions worth of decoys placed in strategic positions where they could trap the Marines and lob incendiaries into their midst. They moved as much of the real population as they could into caves out of harm’s way. They built decoy villages. Many of the empty cargo containers were filled with volatile liquids and armed with proximity fuses.
They strung razor wire across the mouths of as many rivers as they could. They built remote controlled lasers into hillsides and on the tops of mountains. They trained as many of their people as they could on hand-to-hand combat and the use of fire arms.
The work continued at a feverish pace through the summer.
HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
COMMODORE DANKESE did not wait for her ship to be completely finished before departing the shipyard. In spite of the violent objections of the shipyard station chief, once the propulsion, weapons, communications and life support systems had been certified, she lit the candle, and with her support craft arrayed around her, she left. She and her crew slept in sleeping bags commandeered from the Marine depot until they could assemble the parts for their bunks which were still in their shipping containers in the munitions holds. They ate combat rations while they built the galley and mess halls. She had less than half her normal compliment of missiles, but she had the latest most powerful and accurate models. Her hope was that she would reach her destination before the Swordsmen attacked and not after. She was short crew, but knew she could pick up “retread” retirees when she arrived at New St. Louis. Her courier missile to Commodore Davidson detailed her needs.
Myra and Jennifer were on patrol when the Space Force courier missile arrived addressed to Greg. It appeared to be official and they quickly brought it to him. He read the message after his data assistant decoded it. The harvest was in, and the weather in the Northern Hemisphere was turning cold. Battles fought in space are not dependent on the weather, and the Swordsmen were coming.
“Three weeks,” he told the assembled group as soon as everyone could be gathered. “The Space Force’s spy got a courier missile off to Admiral Davidson. Their best guess is an estimated time of arrival of three weeks from today.”
Sebastian said, “We’re almost ready.”
Three days later, Greg’s cargo ship left with about two hundred women and children. Monique and Angelina piloted the smaller cargo ship out of the system with its load of women and children a day later. Both ships set course for New St. Louis. Dormitories had been built out of old cargo containers and accommodations had been made for the safe transport of the sensitive cargo.
The day after Greg’s cargo ship left, the defenders took their stations and settled in to wait.
Commodore Dankese arrived at New St. Louis on the day Intelligence predicted that the Swordsmen would arrive at Homestead. She was greeted by a cryptic encoded message from Admiral Davidson. “The battle may already have started. Get loaded, and get out!” Commodore Dankese frantically prepared her battle group.
The same day as Commodore Dankese arrived at New St. Louis, exactly three weeks after the courier missile arrived at Homestead with its warning of the impending attack, the first of the Swordsmen ships appeared on Homestead’s most remote sensors. Arriving one at time over a period of several days, they assembled in three groups well out of range of anything that any system defender could throw at them.
Two days after Commodore Dankese’s group arrived at New St. Louis, Monique and Angelina arrived with the first load of non-combatants. Commodore Dankese called the two pilots to her ship so they could brief her on the situation at Homestead. She did not like what she heard. Within hours of the briefing, the battle group departed New St. Louis for Homestead.
As they assembled their force, the Swordsmen stayed out of range of the Homestead defense net probing it electronically for weaknesses. For a week they sat there, out of range of attack but not out of observation.
Greg understood the Swordsman strategy. It was a siege strategy as old as the Roman Empire. The attacker chooses the moment. Cut off from reinforcements, the defender waits in an energy draining continuous state of high alert for the attack to begin. The mental battle before the actual attack favors the attacker. By the time the attack finally happens, the defender’s forces are exhausted from the tension of standing high watches in anticipation while the attacker’s forces, rested after their journey, are primed for the attack. Additionally, the time sitting parked allows for the accumulation of intelligence information that would be important as the battle progressed. Greg’s entire fleet was deployed in the asteroid belt or on the surfaces of system’s many small moons. They were hidden by their hosts from the Swordsmen’ sensors, but not from communication with the planet.
What appeared to be a discarded cargo container slowly drifted in the direction of the Swordsmen’ fleet. One of a couple dozen deployed around the system, it assessed the fleet and sent its data home. Greg’s worst fears were realized. They had sent the entire fleet. They were taking no chances. They had deployed two battleships where Greg’s fleet had none. Each of these battleships carried more fire power than Greg’s entire fleet put together. The Swordsmen had eight destroyers so at least those were evenly matched. They had three times as many scouts as he did, but they had no pirate interdiction craft and Greg had three. The P I ships could account for more than their share of the lightly armed scouts. The Swordsman ships were arrayed in two battle groups. The third group, unattended by armed spacecraft, included thirty troop transports with two Class Ten cargo ships. Greg doubted that these transports were themselves unarmed, but he was surprised that there was no escort for them. Greg mulled the possible strategies of this arrangement.
Rachel and Greg shared the duties of watching the sensors and keeping guard while the rest of the crews in their small battle group slept as much as they could. Greg fretted over their defense plan and mentally reexamined
every detail. One of his gravest concerns was the P I ships’ missile inventory. The P I ships normally carried twelve programmable missiles mounted internally that fired through four tubes in the ship’s nose. They also carried twelve shorter range less expensive missiles mounted externally. These externally mounted missiles could only be carried in space since they would be ripped out of their mounts on atmospheric reentry. These were the missiles that made Greg’s reputation as a pirate killer. They were the ideal weapon to use immediately following a short hyper jump. The missiles were not particularly smart, but they were so heavy that they generally destroyed anything they hit. A single well-placed missile could destroy one of the flimsy pirate ships. Greg’s piloting ability was exemplary and more than compensated for his merely adequate marksmanship. It had not been unusual for Greg to rout a substantial pirate force using only his lasers and the externally mounted missiles returning to base with his full inventory of internally mounted missiles intact. Greg would have gladly accepted the limitations of these “dumb” missiles if he had been able to procure any. Of all the various types of missiles they needed to equip all the various types of ships in their diverse fleet, this was the only missile they had not been able to buy, beg, borrow or steal. Greg hoped that what they had would do the job.
“Dad, you know, I’ll bet the plan is to send the two battle groups in first and while we’re busy with them send the Marines wherever we aren’t.”
“Probably right,” Greg replied.
“Yup. Oh, look. Movement.”
“Really?”
Imitating a sports announcer, Rachel sang out, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have backfield in motion. It’s show time! Sound battle stations.”
“ETA?”
“Two hours.”
“Roger that! Alert the others.”
“They already know.”
Suddenly Greg heard a booming noise from behind his seat. It took him a few seconds to realize it was music. “What the hell is that?”
“Techno, late twentieth century, popular in America and Europe for dancing and exercising. Do you like it?”
“Not especially. I don’t usually play music when I go into battle. Somehow it just seems a little, shall we say, unprofessional.”
“So? I always use it in the simulators. It helps keep my attention on what I’m doing and gives me rhythm.”
“I never heard it before.”
“Yeah, ‘cause I always wore my phones in the simulators. I have it on the speakers now. I don’t want to risk anything else on my head that might snag and cause me to miss something. Besides, just having the music in my phones doesn’t give me the feel of the beat.”
“Do you have something a little less abusive?”
“Gee, Dad, I thought you of all people would understand. You always have music going.”
“Well, I don’t. We do not listen to heavy metal when we go into battle.”
“They do in the movies.”
“This is not the movies!”
“Okay Dad! Sheesh! How’s this?” A wave of strings supported by a full orchestra inundated the cabin.
“What’s that?”
“Yanni. Same time period. Or would you prefer this?” The theme from Star Wars blasted out of the speakers.
“Or this?” The 1812 overture cut in.
“I give up. Play what you want, just don’t play so loud we can’t talk to each other.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Greg mentally prepared himself for the battle ahead to the thumping beat of a piece of music designed to entertain drugged out dancers who partied through the night. He often wondered what Rachel was thinking, but listening to her singing softly with the music only made him worry more. They had done well together in training exercises and she had been successful in skirmishes with pirates, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned in a real battle. It is the ability to deal with that fact that is often the difference between victory and defeat.
Avi and Wendy sat calmly waiting a distance from where Greg and Rachel were. They each checked their instruments a dozen times. They reminisced about childhood memories. They told funny stories and tried to keep each other from panicking. Unlike Greg who enjoyed the strategic maneuvering, the tactics and the logic of the battles, Avi did not. For Greg, winning in combat was an affirmation of the rightness of everything he believed. For Avi, battles were personal. For Greg warfare was cold. For Avi it was hot and visceral. To Greg, ships were either friend or foe. To Avi the enemies had names and faces and she killed them with malice of forethought and a passion that frightened her. She enjoyed killing. There was an emotional reaction inside her that bothered her when she went into battle. It was as though another personality took over. This other personality did not fit with her image of herself. The calm, rational person she wanted to be was replaced by an angry belligerent Amazon who thought nothing of killing anything that blocked her path. Even more than thinking nothing of it, the Amazon in her enjoyed the power, the ability to decide who lived and who died. This was the woman who could walk onto a ship with lasers firing and single handed clear it of pirates. This was the woman who sought revenge for all the wrongs done to women for all of history. This was the woman who kept the other Avi alive in combat. Avi lived in fear that one day the Amazon would appear and never go away. Greg understood the fear. He had no idea what he would do if the Amazon became permanent, but he knew that he would probably be the only one who could do anything if it happened.
Wendy, too, understood the tension her mother tried to keep hidden, and that was one of the reasons she was with her mother and Rachel was with her father.
Sixteen Swordsman scouts lead the assault. They broke into groups and headed directly for the four decoy battleships. Accurately predicting the Swordsman battle strategy based on the combat simulations Greg had created specifically for this purpose, computer controlled lasers mounted on the decoys and on the surrounding asteroids quickly dispatched the entire first wave of scouts. Some missiles fired from the scouts did get through to the decoys, but exploded harmlessly on the surface of the rock.
The defenders’ piloted ships held their positions waiting to see if the decoys worked. It appeared that they had.
Sixteen of the Swordsmen’s lightest craft were gone, and the defenders had not fired a single missile. Rachel quietly sang to herself. Wendy drummed her fingers on her armrest. Avi scanned her displays for signs of something the sensors deployed around the system might have missed. Greg sat calmly, his brain in neutral and waited like a powerful machine with its engine idling. Myra and Jennifer talked through tactics and strategy as they waited. Jennifer had turned out to be an excellent weapons control officer. She and Myra had confidence in each other.
The Swordsman destroyers followed next. Intending to slide around to what they thought was the undefended back side of the four decoy battleships, they traveled exactly where Greg had hoped they would go. The Homestead destroyers, most captained by the original group of women rescued from the pirate supply depot that was now New St. Louis, fell in behind the advancing destroyers as they sailed by the defenders’ hiding places and gave chase. Attempting to dodge the lasers the women threw at them, the Swordsman destroyers weaved through the asteroid belt traveling further and further away from the decoys.
The dog fight that ensued was reminiscent of World War I biplanes. Each of the Homestead destroyers had its own radio frequency. These were combined by a repeater and rebroadcast. Greg was pleased to hear the women talking to each other as they worked together in teams of two ships against each of the invaders. He heard shouts of joy as two of the enemy destroyers slammed into asteroids attempting to avoid the missiles and lasers thrown at them. He heard cries of dismay as one of his own destroyers was hit and exploded. He was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they regrouped in response to the changes in strength levels. This was their first battle, and they were fighting against men who had seen battle before. There was something to be said for the advantage one had d
efending one’s home.
Greg’s attention to the destroyer battle was diverted by the entry of the battleships into the action. One of the battleships headed directly for the decoy nearest his position. It rolled so its mushroom top faced the decoy. Its sensitive propulsion equipment faced away into space. It pummeled the decoy with lasers, but did not fire any missiles. The decoy’s lasers had no apparent effect on the battleship.
Greg and Rachel moved through the asteroids to a position where they could toss some missiles into the battleship’s back side when suddenly the battleship ceased firing and rolled in their direction.
“Oh, shit,” Rachel said, “He’s figured it out. He’s coming after us.”
“Prepare to hyper,” Greg said.
“Fire the rock first!”
“We don’t have time!”
“Fire the god damn rock! Dad!”
Greg punched a button on his console. Solid fueled rocket motors carved out of the rock of the asteroid itself ignited and pushed the asteroid which had served as the decoy toward the Swordsman’s battleship. It quickly gained speed as the Swordsman battleship turned its attention to Greg and Rachel’s ship. Lasers sliced the asteroids all around them preventing their escape. Unable to fire back or to move from the hidden side of the asteroid because any movement would put them in the line of fire from the battleship, they waited for the rest of the advancing Swordsman scouts to jump in and assault their position.
Aware of the decoy’s movement, the Homestead ships from Greg’s squadron retreated and rejoined the battle in other places. They knew that if they were in the vicinity when the rock hit the battleship, the resulting explosion would kill them as well.
Stripped of the wood and fabric framework that made the asteroid look like a battleship, the asteroid looked no more threatening than a baked potato as it accelerated toward the Swordsman battleship. Had it only been a rocket propelled rock, it could not have done serious damage to the battleship, but it was not just a rock. In response to a proximity sensor, at a distance of less than a twenty kilometers, a nuclear warhead embedded in the core of the asteroid detonated. Huge chunks of rock hurled through space and ripped through the battleship’s armor.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 26
