Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  Albert and the pirates who had joined him in his fortress had apparently accounted well for themselves. A hundred bodies and four armored mobile artillery vehicles surrounded his property. The fortress had been burned to the ground, however, meaning that in spite of inflicting horrendous losses on the enemy, they had eventually been overrun. Flames still burned through the remains of the roof. From space there was no way to know if they had survived long enough to reach the escape tunnel.

  The Marines continued to advance. They had overrun every position they had attacked. They suffered heavy losses, but were still on the offensive. At least a hundred helicopters remained to cruise the sky unchallenged. As the dawn approached, they took to the air again. Many of them returned to drop incendiaries on what had been defensive positions. In spite of horrendous losses on both sides, it appeared as if the Marines could take the planet.

  “Think you can hit a helicopter from here?” Greg asked.

  “It’s worth a try.” Rachel said as she dialed in the lasers.

  Even on maximum sensitivity, hitting the helicopters was difficult from that distance. Rachel quickly found that if she arrayed her lasers in a circle roughly fifty meters in diameter either one of the lasers would hit the helicopter hard enough to make it crash or the helicopter would fly into one of the laser beams and crash. All that stood between victory and defeat in the ground war was fewer than a dozen spacecraft, many of which had severe battle damage and all of which had exhausted crews. The battle in space had been won. The battle on the ground was far from over.

  Greg hailed the remaining ships and once they verified that their space going opponents had been vanquished, they joined the effort to turn the course of the ground battle. One at a time the ships shot down the helicopters from the distance and safety of a low orbit. The helicopter battle took the whole day during which time the Marines continued to advance on ground positions. The space ships finally downed the last of the helicopters and turned their attention to the ground based mechanized armor.

  The armored personnel carriers and motorized artillery were more difficult to destroy than the helicopters. For two more days, they pounded the equipment from orbit with their lasers as the Marines continued to advance taking one position after another. After almost four days of living on stimulants and concentrated grain bars, the flight crews were able to turn their attention to the swarms of Marines fanning out across the surface.

  Clusters of lasers from space swept across the massed troops pushing across the landscape. Wave after wave of Marines fell to the lasers until they realized that the simple expedient of taking cover in the forest hid them from danger. The Marines no longer fought as a controlled massive force, they had broken up into smaller squads. Some of them had retreated into the forests and would take months if not years to find. Perhaps four or five hundred Marines remained out of the 10,000 who had landed when the campaign began. Even in defeat, they promised to be trouble for a long time to come.

  Greg and Rachel landed in the field next to what had once been their original settlement. Curls of smoke still rose from the ruins. They had spotted the wreckage of their home from space and knew that there was no home to go back to. It had been leveled. Avi and Wendy followed shortly thereafter. Wendy and Rachel ran to each other hugging and crying.

  Greg held his wife for a long time before she tilted her head in the direction of the girls and asked, “Do you think they’ll be all right?”

  “Are we all right?”

  “No, I guess not. We did this to them.”

  “Did we have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “Just like us, they’re killers. Once they were innocent girls. Now they have killed and will likely kill again. Just like us. The fruit falls not far from the tree.” Avi sighed. “Sucks doesn’t it.”

  The ships that were undamaged enough to land did so. No ship escaped completely unscathed. Scorch marks showed on the bodies and wings of every ship in the fleet where lasers had hit them.

  Sebastian and Sean rode on horseback out of the woods, Helen and Colleen followed behind. Helen and Colleen both wore large bandages covering their injuries incurred in the crash. They stood in silence in the charred remains of what had once been home for a thousand people.

  Rose, wearing a muddy EVA suit and carrying her helmet, eased down the hill toward them. She wore two pistols in holsters around her waist and had two rifles slung over her shoulder. Avi and the girls ran over to her bubbling and crying demanded to know what had happened.

  Rose said simply, “I will explain later.” She handed Rachel a Swordsman Marine’s wallet with his ID card and said, “Someday you may need this. Keep it with you.” Pressed for more details, she put them off promising that she would explain later.

  Greg briefed Sebastian on their battles and the status of the survivors. When he was done, Sebastian gave his report. “We have 1,500 known dead or critically wounded we do not expect to live, 3,000 known survivors, some of whom are wounded and 500 missing. There is not a habitable structure left on the planet. Many of the forests are gone. They found and destroyed most of the crops we harvested that were not in underground bunkers. We do not have enough food for the remainder of the winter. We are defeated. We have not accounted for all the Marines. We think there are perhaps five hundred still at large.”

  “We will find them,” Greg said, “If we have to walk the woods ourselves for the rest of our lives, we will find them.”

  HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  COMMODORE DANKESE’S BATTLE GROUP dropped out of hyper drive a safe distance outside the asteroid belt. She read the sensor reports on her displays and said despondently, “I think we’re too late. Whatever happened here is over. Let’s find out who’s left standing.”

  The battle group’s sensors detected a couple dozen pirate vessels swarming around the planet preparing to pick over the remnants for booty. The battleship’s crew watched in amazement as one of Greg’s “Q” containers attacked and destroyed a pirate ship that had ventured too close. Commodore Dankese wavered between the need to reach the planet quickly and the fact that approaching it would involve passing through an intelligent, aggressive mine field.

  Commodore Dankese deployed the battle group’s interceptors and P I ships to clear the pirates. That task was complicated by the presence of the “Q” containers which presented as much of a threat to the Space Force as they did to the pirates. Once the pirates were dispatched, Commodore Dankese returned her attention to reaching the planet. After consulting with her munitions and tactical staffs, Commodore Dankese elected to clear the containers before going in herself. The interceptors and P I ships turned their attention to the containers. These turned out to be difficult targets, but they were eventually destroyed. The Federation ships suffered some damage in the container campaign, but none were lost.

  Commodore Dankese left the battleship that served as her flagship standing off away from the debris that littered the system. Four destroyers, eight scout ships and four Pirate Interdiction ships accompanied her personal launch. The small task force carefully wended its way between the clusters of debris that littered the system. Even the veterans who had fought in skirmishes against pirates could not recall a battle involving this many ships and this many casualties. The sensor arrays detected an astounding variety of debris. Debris ranged from individual shards of metal and other diverse materials to a destroyer almost intact except that its hull had been breached. They saw a battleship’s complete reactor housing spinning through space minus the rest of the battleship it had once serviced. A stunned silence filled the ships. Battle hardened crews inured to dealing with the remnants of an enemy force whispered instead of shouting their commands and acknowledgments. As they progressed through the detritus that littered their path a new sense of respect grew for the people who had defended themselves in this battle.

  The task force hailed the defense system on several open frequencies for permission to land. No human responded. That d
id not bode well. The few remaining defensive craft left in orbit around the planet appeared to have been abandoned. All of them appeared to have suffered serious battle damage, and there was some question as to whether they could be salvaged. Eventually the battle group received an automated acknowledgment, permission to land and directions to a landing location. Sensors reported that the few remaining space craft that appeared to be functional were clustered in a field on the surface adjacent to the landing site to which they had been directed. The Space Force armed craft settled into orbits around the planet and established a defensive perimeter alert for the potential threat of more of those diabolical containers. Alone and without escort, the unarmed personnel launch landed in the field near the remains of the fleet that had defended the planet against the Swordsmen. No craft rose to greet them. No signal other than the automated voice acknowledged their presence.

  The Space Force launch parked on the side of the field toward the lake. Snow had been falling for several hours. It covered the horrors of the battle scene although here and there a frozen body part could be seen grotesquely protruding through the pristine whiteness of the fresh fluff. Commodore Dankese descended the gangway from the ship to the ground resplendent in her Space Force dress whites. The officers with her looked as if they were attending a diplomatic luncheon or a parade and not paying a visit to a battle site. At the bottom of the gangway she looked around at the devastation. She turned back to her first officer, “Captain?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Call the ship. Send every medic in our group down here. We need flight engineers. Send all our Marines for burial detail.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He returned inside the launch.

  Greg and Avi descended the hill to the field where so long ago Greg had battled Pierre LaMarche. They walked slowly toward the arriving contingent of Space Force personnel. Rose, Rachel and Wendy followed a respectful distance behind them. From the other side of the field, Sebastian, Helen, Sean and Colleen advanced slowly. Other survivors followed tentatively. Mark Stonebridge limped in pain, the bandages on the left side of his body were streaked with blood. The stump of his left arm bore mute testimony to the horrors he had seen. He left a trail of small red spots in the fresh snow as he walked. Those surviving settlers who could walk assembled slowly in the cold around the Space Force personnel.

  In all her years in the Space Force, Commodore Dankese had never seen a ground battle. Her battles had been in the sterile and hostile environment of space. There were no wounded. There were only the living and the dead. The dead, if their bodies could be found at all amid the debris, exploded in the vacuum of space. Wounded combatants were a new phenomenon for her. Neither side talked as battle weary survivors, many still in a state of shock, continued to assemble at the base of the valley, a valley that someone would soon name the “Valley of Death” because a thousand Swordsman Marines and two hundred settlers had died there. The wreckage of one of the shuttles lay smoldering over the hill. The stench from unburied bodies was overpowering in spite of the snow that had fallen since the battle had ended.

  Commodore Dankese broke the silence. “You probably don’t think of this as a victory. You are probably angry that we did not come to your rescue. You would be right on both counts, and you would be wrong on both counts. You look around you and you see not the people who are here, but the people who are missing. You see the destruction of your farms and your lifestyle. You feel the pain of your wounds and the wounds of your families and friends. All that is true. What you do not see is the fact that you have destroyed a force more than ten times your size. Not only have you done it for yourselves, but you have shown others how to do it. Your sacrifice here will make it tougher for aggressors to conquer a planet by force. Your contribution to the strategies of warfare will be studied for generations to come. For your bravery and courage, I salute you.”

  She took off her hat and as she did so, she bowed her head. The remainder of her entourage followed suit. She looked up again. “What about the Space Force? Where were we? Too slow to respond. I can offer you no explanation beyond my sincerest apology. I wish I could say it will never happen again to any other planet, but I would be lying to you. Even when we know of a real threat, we cannot always respond as quickly as we would like. By way of compensation, I have ordered deployment of all of my available personnel to help recover as much as we can. Whatever of my fleet’s stores can be used will also be transferred for your use. I wish there was more I could do for you.”

  Avi stepped forward. “There is one thing. How about sending a courier missile back to New St. Louis and have the two cargo ships with the babies come home?”

  Commodore Dankese looked confused. “Two cargo ships? There was only one ship from here at our station. Monique mentioned a second ship, but I was more concerned with hearing what was happening here. When did it leave?”

  “The day before Monique’s ship left,” Avi replied.

  “Then it should have been there before I left.” Commodore Dankese was puzzled and worried.

  The Captain who had been attending the Commodore stepped forward. “Captain Solomon, was this cargo ship the one that you allegedly went missing on almost twenty years ago?”

  “Yes,” Greg replied.

  The Captain closed his eyes in pain and replied with a defeated tone in his voice. “You have been gone a long time. Military technology has advanced significantly in that time. We now have monitors that can track a vessel in hyper drive. As we arrived, I spotted what seemed like an unusual reading from one of our monitoring satellites. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now. I think your ship was redirected to the Swordsman base.”

  A wave of horror rippled through the crowd. Many of the people cried out for an attack on the Swordsman base to seek the return of the babies.

  Greg held his hand up for silence. “We will assemble as many craft as are safe for the journey and leave immediately. Flight crews! To your ships!”

  Mark Stonebridge staggered forward. “Take me with you.”

  “You won’t survive the trip,” Avi challenged.

  “I know many of the Swordsman leaders. You will need to know the personality of the station’s commander and only I can give you that. I will ride on one of the crew bunks. The doctor can hook me up with fluids to keep me alive, and I can change my own damn IV bag!”

  “That won’t be necessary, you can ride with us.” One of the original fifty women rescued from the pirate base stepped forward. She was the eldest and the de-facto leader since Justine had been killed when her destroyer was hit by a Swordsman missile. “We will change your IV and keep you alive for the trip.”

  Rose, still in her flight suit and EVA gear, strode forward and said, “I am riding with them.” She pointed to Mark. She turned to Avi and said, “You are not leaving me behind this time.”

  Greg looked around. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we will form up by the original decoy site and prepare to jump from there.”

  Commodore Dankese shouted to the departing flight crews, “You know that officially we can’t do anything to support you, but we will sell you enough missiles to replenish your supplies.”

  Six ships were in condition to make the trip. Greg’s ship, Avi’s ship, two 86’s and two destroyers were all that remained of their fleet. Nothing else was safe to travel. They rearmed with missiles from the Space Force’s stores. Greg and Rachel sat in their ship. Avi and Wendy were in their ship. Two 86’s and two destroyers joined them one at a time as their crews prepared for the jump. Greg was about to issue the flight order when he was hailed over an open frequency. Their ships were addressed by their call signs and ordered to stand down for pre-flight inspection. Greg’s sensors showed four Space Force interdiction craft headed toward them.

  “Captain Solomon, this is Lt. George Washington Jackson and Spec five Anthony Federico La Manna Federation Space Force Interdiction specialists reporting for duty sir!”

  “Lieutenant, what is your status?”<
br />
  “AWOL, sir!”

  “Welcome aboard!”

  “Aye, Aye sir.”

  Three more interdiction crews reported for duty.

  Lt. Washington called again. “Sir, we no longer have to jump in hyper as individuals. We have developed a formation that allows us to travel as a group. I will take the lead. My three friends will take positions behind me. You should shortly notice a blinking light on the end of a fiber optic cable. Our ships will be connected to each of the other ships via this cable. It is programmed to find the service data port and plug itself in. Once communication is established over this link we will be able to transfer data as easily if we were sitting still. This link is necessary to keep us in formation so we do not collide while traveling in hyper drive.”

  When the formation whisked out of sight, Commodore Dankese asked her first officer, “How many of our ships went with them?”

  “Four ships, ma’am. All interdiction specialists.”

  “Good. Log those ships and crews as being on authorized administrative leave pending repairs to their ships from damage incurred by collisions with battle debris.”

  “Aye, Aye, ma’am.” The first officer smiled his agreement with her decision.

  HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  LONNIE BELL SAT AT HER DESK in the infirmary and cried. The lone medic on board the ship with the women and the babies, she knew it had been diverted and by whom, but that was all she knew. Would that she had stayed with her husband and sons on the planet’s surface. She would have been better off there. At least if they died, they would die together. If she had stayed and things went badly she knew they could hide out in the forests for years without being found. Where they were going and what would happen once they got there were unknowns that frightened her. She was at her wits end trying to figure out how to deal with this disaster that had befallen her when she cried out in desperation, “Is there anyone that can help me? Is there anyone I can trust?”