“Why am I not surprised?” Rachel muttered.
“What is even more amazing is that he has chosen to take on military targets exclusively. He and his forces are taking horrendous losses, but they have defeated and destroyed every installation they have attacked.” The Commodore paused. “If his forces were not composed of retirees and old-timers I doubt that the huge losses his forces are sustaining would be acceptable. He is challenging the conventional wisdom of sending young men into battle. Even with the losses, the damage he is inflicting on the Swordsmen is many times greater than his cost. He is not content to defeat the installations he attacks. He is leveling them and killing everyone on the site. It is reminiscent of the Swordsman battle plans from when they first started their push out from the Central System.”
“Way to Go! Saul!” someone shouted from the back.
“Kill ‘em all!” another voice shouted.
The Commodore continued. “Even if the Third Force has twice the resources we think it has, it could not eliminate all of the military installations. Federation forces except for those currently involved in counterattacks have been pulled back to the Central System because our intelligence reports indicate that the Central System will be the next Swordsman target.”
“Bunch of cowards, the lot of them!”
“The Swordsmen have also suffered losses. Their force is estimated to be half what it was when they first attacked,” the Commodore defended himself.
“Which is still ten times what you intelligence guys thought.”
“Yes, it is. But they do have a weakness we can exploit. Previous encounters with the Swordsmen indicate that, except for a few rogues, the Swordsman military operates with a strictly controlled ‘top down’ structure. In order to defeat the Swordsmen, we need to deal them a decisive blow at the very top of their organization. We need to launch a direct strike against their headquarters.” He pointed to the display as it zoomed in on the planet in question. “Right Here.”
“Kind of like the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in World War II,” Rachel said.
“Exactly.”
“Except Doolittle targeted civilians. We need to assault only military targets,” Rachel said.
With your superbly programmed ships and motivated crews, you are the only force that can penetrate the defenses and strike at the command structure. Even the Third Force could not penetrate these defenses. The only remaining force sophisticated enough to attempt this mission is the Defense Force at Eretz and they refuse to leave the boundaries included in their mutual defense agreements.”
The Commodore devoted the next half hour to an analysis of the Swordsman home planet. Rachel was familiar with this planet having raided it once following the battle at Homestead. Even though she had last been there as a teenager and now she was a grandmother, she remembered the underground network of corridors and prison cells. It would be a tough nut to crack.
At the end of the presentation, Faye Anne collected a data module with all of the information the Intelligence people had gathered. The captains and first officers departed silently for the secure confines of Queen Elizabeth’s situation room.
GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWO
WITH KIM’S HAND HELD firmly in his, Wren raced for the station’s munitions manager’s office. The elderly gentleman looked up from his desk as Wren entered the office. The man’s wry smile told Wren that this visit was not a surprise.
“Wren, Kim, welcome to my little corner of the universe. I know you’re in a hurry so we’ll skip the meaningless pleasantries. What can I do for you?”
“Do you still have any glass drones in inventory?” Wren asked.
The old man thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think I might have about a hundred in an old warehouse on the moon’s surface. A dozen or so are recon drones and the rest are weapons. No one has asked about glass drones in fifty years.” He shook his head. “Stealth. There’s nothing as stealthy as one of Warren Senior’s glass drones. Your great-grandfather would be proud.”
“It’s Kim’s idea,” Wren said. “How many Disruptor missiles do you have?”
“A couple hundred at least. Nobody else uses those either.”
“Can the warhead and control systems from the Disruptor missiles be grafted to the glass drone?” Kim asked.
“Can the Disruptor control the drone?” Wren asked.
The old man jerked in his chair like he had been hit by lightning. Half a dozen emotions raced across his face before he answered. “I don’t know, but it’s brilliant. Let me call someone who will know. If it can be done, I have one engineer who can do it.”
A pale young woman with her black hair plaited into two long braids that reached her waist entered the room. Wren smiled when she arrived.
“Hello, my dear cousin Matilda,” Wren greeted her. “It’s good to see you. When did you get back from school?”
“Hey, cuz, Kim, how are you?” She punched him in the shoulder and they shadow boxed for a few seconds. “About four weeks before the attack. Not soon enough to be included in your battle group,” Matilda replied. “Although, I intend to fix that. You must want something really exotic or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Can you graft the brains of a Disruptor to the body of a glass drone?” Kim asked.
Matilda thought briefly and grinned. “That would be one seriously nasty piece of military hardware.” She giggled like a little girl plotting mischief. “How stealthy do you want it?”
“As stealthy as possible.”
Matilda stood silently as she mentally itemized the problems they could encounter in the project. “Yeah, I think it can be done. Could be fun. How soon do you need an answer?”
“In an hour.”
“How many do you need?”
“As many as possible.”
“I think it can be done. The technology in the Disruptor is much newer than the drone’s. I’ll send you a message as soon as I know for sure.”
“Can they be launched from a P I ship?” Wren asked.
“Man, those old Pirate Interdiction warships have been asked to do a little of everything,” Matilda replied. “Too bad they’re not making them anymore.”
“I had heard Saturn Industries was shutting down the last production line of the PI in favor of in-system interceptors,” Wren said.
“That, cargo ships and the convoy escort are all they make anymore,” Matilda said. “They used to be the best.”
“Management lost sight of what was important and that’s what happens,” Wren said.
“Yeah, well, the drones are too big to go in the PI’s internal tubes and I’m not sure giving up as much firepower as putting them in the external racks would cost is a good idea. Will you be entering an atmosphere with these things?”
“I doubt it,” Wren replied.
“An over-wing mount might work, but I wouldn’t want to carry them that way in hyper,” Matilda said. “That’s a tough one. I’ll send you a message when I have answers.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, Wren,” the munitions manager said after Matilda left. “There’s a convoy that came in from Eretz a couple of hours ago. It was in transit during the attack. There’s an item on the manifest that might be of interest to you and Kim. Visit the marshaling yard before you go anywhere else.”
“Thanks.”
A brand new Pirate Interdiction warship sat quietly off to the side of the marshaling area as heavy machinery wrestled the remainder of the giant freighter’s cargo containers to smaller ships for transfer to their final destinations. Even though Wren and Kim were both in space suits, Wren could feel Kim’s excitement as they held hands staring at the impossible sight before them. As a teen, Kim had built models of PI ships. She had developed her own combat color scheme and identifying markings. A full sized, fully armed, version of her “Huntress” model waited for her amidst the controlled chaos of the marshaling yard. The external racks were full of missiles.
“Oh, no you don’t,” a peeved voice called over t
he spacesuit’s comm. “Sign for it first. Nothing goes out without a signature.”
A yard shuttle emblazoned with the harbor-master’s logo carrying a lone occupant sitting astride it as if it were a terrestrial motorcycle pulled next to the identical shuttle Wren and Kim were riding. The harbor-master’s rep handed Kim a tablet with an envelope of documentation and pointed to the tablet. Kim signed the tablet, passed it back and the rep sped away.
“They must love you as much as I do,” Wren said after he had read the documentation the rep had left. “That’s some wedding present. She’s the last of her kind. Custom built for you.”
“Matches the one you got for your sixteenth birthday,” Kim said.
“I sure hope they get along,” Wren said.
“They will,” Kim replied.
GENERATIONS - CHAPTER THREE
Rachel called for order as soon as Faye Anne had loaded the data into the ship’s tactical systems displays.
“For the record,” Rachel said pointing to the star chart. “I’ve been there. I was sixteen at the time, but I remember that underground complex well enough to know that we’re not taking it without intense hand-to-hand combat. The contention that the main headquarters is in that unprotected dome is ludicrous. I’ll tell you what’s in that dome. The women and children live in that dome. I think we’re being set up. We crack the dome and the air leaks out and thousands of women and children die.”
Faye Anne said, “The only thing that Federation idiot got right is that the main command center is on that planet. Eretz and Stellar have known that for years. The command center could be anywhere on the planet, but my guess is it’s in the abandoned mining tunnels north of the old underground complex Rachel attacked after the battle at Homestead.”
Wren raised his hand for recognition. “There is strategic value to destroying the command center, but the cost of doing so has to be weighed against the impact of having that center continue to function. I agree that we are the only force capable of succeeding, and I believe that we will save many more lives than such an operation might ultimately cost. I would also hope that when Saul sees that the Swordsmen have been virtually defeated, he will stop his raids so a peace treaty might be signed. I will defer to more experienced minds, but I think we have no option but to go after them. Having said that, the assault the bonehead from Federation Intelligence recommended is a very bad idea.”
The commander of the station’s security service spoke from the back of the room, “Wren, I saw you and Kim leaving the munitions area. What’s the plan?”
“We don’t really have a plan,” Kim said. “Yet.”
“I know you better than that. Spill it,” the commander ordered.
Wren and Kim looked at each other. “Glass drones,” Kim replied.
“With Disruptor warheads,” Wren added.
The room fell silent.
“That’s as far as we got,” Wren said. “And we don’t even know if it can be done.”
“Glass drones with Disruptor warheads,” Rachel repeated. “What would their target be?”
“Communications satellites in the first round. Power plants on the surface in the second,” Wren replied. “It was Kim’s idea.”
Wren’s great-aunt Wendy, Rachel’s sister and the Queen Elizabeth’s first officer, picked up the thought. “Let’s assume that the Disruptor and the glass drone can be glommed together. How would you deliver them?”
“I don’t know yet. I thought a P I would be the best. We could short jump, launch and retreat, but Matilda is not sure the mount will withstand a long hyper jump let alone the greater stress of a short one,” Wren replied.
“Certainly an interesting opening salvo,” Faye Anne commented. Of the six friends who had been Rachel’s original battle group before and after attending the Space Force Academy, only Wendy and Faye Anne remained with Rachel. Reuben, Rashi and David had returned to Eretz and successful civilian careers. Faye Anne had recently requested that they abandon their comfortable retirement and return to the front lines to complete the battle group. She had not heard back from them.
Wren said, “We have more questions than answers at this point. Until we get those answers, I do not think we should proceed on the assumption that the plan will work.”
“I wish Rashi was here. He would know how to do it,” Faye Anne said.
“Is Matilda working on it?” one of the captains asked.
“Yes,” Kim replied.
“Consider it done,” the captain said. “Look, Rashi is good, and I trust him, but Matilda is as good if not better. I say we plan on having the devices and figure out alternate delivery options in case we can’t make the short hyper jump with the drones.”
“Did Matilda say how she intended to mount the drones to the P I?” Rachel asked.
“She mentioned an over-wing mount,” Wren replied.
“You have fifteen ships including Tracker…” Rachel said accounting for the two ships and crew lost in the recent battle.
“Sixteen,” Wren corrected. “Kim’s family sent her a PI ship for a wedding present.”
The room exploded in laughter. The fact that Rachel had given Wren an identical fully armed PI warship he had named “Tracker” for his sixteenth birthday was common knowledge. The fact that Tracker, the Queen Elizabeth and all the ships in Wren’s command except the tender were sentient was less well known.
When the laughter subsided, Rachel asked, “And does the new ship have a name yet?”
“Huntress,” Kim murmured.
“A match made in Heaven,” Wendy quipped. “Has she met Tracker yet?”
“Not yet,” Wren answered. “We haven’t even had time to start her reactors.”
“So, folks, we have the beginning of a plan,” Rachel said. “After the first volleys of Glass-ruptors, what do we follow with?”
The meeting lasted until the group had developed a plan they could agree to. Matilda’s message midway through the planning session confirmed that the Disruptor and the glass drone could be combined with the help of a custom made interface. One of her associates had been assigned to design the interface while she attacked the problem of delivering the thing.
After the meeting Rachel retired to her office to personally review the data Faye Anne had provided. Elizabeth had absorbed the data and had prepared an analysis of the kinds of factors Rachel usually considered when deciding which planets to colonize or which needed their help the most. The results of this analysis and further consultation with Faye Anne would generally determine their next mission.
Rachel drew a cup of coffee.
“Rachel,” Elizabeth said, “you should eat something.”
“I know, but I don’t feel like it,” Rachel replied.
“Rachel, your blood sugar level is low. I suspect you are developing hypoglycemia.”
“I’ll have a cinnamon roll and it will come right back up.”
“Not good enough. I am ordering a meal for you. You may be the captain of this ship, but it is my job to keep you healthy.”
Rachel sighed. “Yes, mother.”
By the time the meal arrived, Rachel was deep into the reports. She was especially interested in planets he had visited or helped colonize.
Stonebridge was the first planet Saul had attacked. It had been the site where, early in her career, Rachel had come the closest to dying in combat. He had finally exacted his revenge for the renegade officer who had tortured most of the then current officers assigned to the Queen Elizabeth. Even though Rachel had been the primary target of the renegade and had suffered the worst of the torture, what Saul had done was excessive. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and spacer assigned to the planet had been killed. He had used nuclear weapons on the spaceport and the off-planet military outposts. Every airport and most of the seaports except those that exclusively serviced the fishing fleet had been destroyed. The military academy and even the military boys’ schools had been leveled. Saul’s thoroughness and destructiveness were appalling. He
had killed over a third of the planet’s total population and rendered the rest defenseless.
Estimates varied, but the most reliable indicated that Saul had lost between a quarter and a third of the force he had attacked the planet with in the assault. No one knew the size of his total force. Rachel was stunned by the speed with which the pirates, slavers and organized crime moved in to fill the gap Saul had created in the planet’s defenses. The civilian population had abandoned the cities and was hiding. Pirates were hauling away everything of value. The slavers knew the value of submissive Swordsman women in Federation brothels especially in light of the recent attack and the desire of impotent and incompetent Federation officers to gain revenge any way they could. Organized crime set up a new base of operations from which to control the area’s shipping and slave trade.
Everest was part of the Eretz defense network and had worked closely with Eretz to repel the invaders. No Swordsman ground troops lived long enough to land on the surface of any planet in the Eretz defense network. The battle had been costly for both sides, but no civilians had been injured or taken in the conflict. Within days of the completion of the battle, Everest sent out a shipment of their wood that was so highly prized for office furniture.
Homestead, where Rachel had grown up, had fallen to the Swordsmen. Dealing with that would be her first priority.
Brainerd’s Folly had been a Swordsman planet when she left it. The Swordsmen had not restarted the chemical weapons plant which had been Rachel’s target when she attacked the planet to rescue her cousins taken by slave traders. They had expanded the adjacent plant that made pre-fabricated furniture into the chemical plant’s building and both plants had escaped unscathed from Federation retaliations. Even though much of their military was gone, enough of it remained to defend the planet against pirates and ensure that convoys of cargo could operate in safety. As the planets that had been attacked rebuilt, they needed lots of furniture and the plants operated at capacity.
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