Crucible: Records of the Argos

by Michael J. Farlow

  Sif reported that a Tye leader had arisen among the ranks of the trainees, one who could lead the Krona assault with Sif there to advise. That leader would get practice in the assault on Larona’s compound. It was the second caveat that was the problem. The leaders wanted the space battle and the assault on Krona to both occur on Founders Day. That was the day Tye was first colonized over five hundred years ago. The Arkon and later Gurko had suppressed the open celebration of the day, but it was not forgotten. It was a political decision on the part of the Resistance leaders, not a military one. If the engagement was a failure, the date wouldn’t matter. If it was a success, on the other hand, the promotion of the historic date would add to the magnitude of the moment and hopefully draw even skeptics into the Resistance fold and movement. It’s the way power is won and consolidated in every society, no matter how small. In addition, the Resistance leadership wanted Gurko alive, if possible, for trial. The main problem was that Founders Day was just six days away!

  If the shortened attack time was not so good news, Marza brought some information that helped. While she was on Tye, the enemy destroyer, along with several, armed cargo ships, made an appearance over Tye and attacked and destroyed several small cargo ships distributing supplies to the Resistance. Marza thought it was planned to show that Gurko’s forces were capable of enforcing their will again on the planet inhabitants. Now we knew that there would be nothing holding Gurko back if we could provide him with the opportunity he wanted. This still left us with the problem of creating the attack sequence Wizzy alluded to.

  Our original plan was to have the ground force flown to Larona’s location, attack, regroup, then be rearmed and ready to load into armed cargo ships when they became available. That, we estimated, would take at least six days — too long now. At the same time, Resistance members would plant intelligence, indicating where the Resistance space forces could be found and when. By then, the asteroid defenses would be prepared and tested, and our space force in readiness. We would fight Gurko (and hopefully win), then speed to Tye and collect the troops, then, to cover all bases or if Gurko didn’t show up in space, fly to Krona with the ground forces and commence the final assault there.

  The latter part of the plan would take as many as three days, possibly four. That made a total of nine days, from the preparations to attack Larona to the assault on Gurko’s moon operations. In this way, we would have sufficient space forces to protect the ground forces and overcome anything Gurko had left in space. Clearly, our timeline would have to be shortened. If we started right now with our current plan, we could not conduct the space fight and the Krona assault both on Founders Day. Crap!

  “Wizzy, we have a problem. The Resistance wants both the space fight and the attack on Krona to be on the same day — Founders Day, which is six days from now. That’s three days earlier than we planned. That means taking two of our armed cargo ships out of the line to be used in ferrying the troops to Krona. We are already down one after 06 was destroyed. Of the thirteen we had, we will be down to ten. They will also need escorts for the troopships. I could take two gunboats out of our planned force, but that probably won’t be enough protection. What is the state of the three gunboats that have been in final assembly? “

  “Well, the good news is that all three of those gunboats are here and undergoing upgrades now. They should be ready and tested in a few days. You could use two of those, and the other can replace 10 that was destroyed.

  That brightened my day a little. Now I only had to deprive Tiana of two gunboats. The question was, would two, armed cargo ships and four gunboats be enough to support the Krona assault. I expected some sort of small craft to be around the moon, but my nagging worry was the potential for a warship to be there that hadn’t been reported by intelligence. No intelligence is absolutely guaranteed to be correct, and we had a few surprises already. I had seen incidents like that in Iraq. But we had to go based on our best assessment.

  “I have a question, Captain Nick.”

  “Let’s hear it, Wizzy.”

  “You said the attacks had to start on the same day, this Founders Day thingy, right?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Was there any requirement for both attacks happening at the same time?”

  “No. What are you getting at?”

  “What would happen if the attack on Krona occurred say, eight to twelve hours after the fighting starts at Asteroid 3?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “Of course not, numbskull, not with your head full of mush. Must I explain everything? I guess I must. You have been thinking that both fights have to start at the same time, but they don’t. What if, for the sake of discussion, you could get the bad guys to launch their space attack early on the start of Founders Day? How long would such a fight last?”

  “We’ve never seen a battle last for more than a few hours, ten at the most.”

  “Uh, huh. Then what would happen? “

  “We could free some ships to go to Krona. I already thought of that. But it would take those ships too long to get there without leap capability.”

  “Oh, did I forget to tell you? I fixed it.”

  Being absentminded could be charming sometimes, but not often, especially now.

  “When did that happen?” My voice was filled with anger.

  “Ah, weeks ago?”

  I was tempted to vent my rage on the absentminded AI, but it wasn’t the right time, if there ever was a right time.

  When fighting with the Naskapi years ago, we learned that one Naskapi ship could transport or leap at least two other ships at one time to their final destination — assuming the leaping ship had sufficient power. My father had done it, and I had been on his ship when it happened. I had also received the multi-ship leap process training in the learning chair on the cruiser New Horizons before the end of the war. I was qualified, and it would make a difference in the coming fight if we could leap multiple ships when we headed for support of the Krona attack force.

  Another valuable day had passed while I thought of a way to make everything happen on the same day. I finally had an idea and chided myself for not seeing it immediately. The key to doing everything on Founders Day was to figure out how to get the bad guy’s space forces to be where we wanted them (away from Krona) when we wanted them. I asked Amini and Doc to meet me on the new bridge to tell them my plan.

  “This new requirement of the Resistance to have both our main attacks on Founders Day had me stumped. However, Wizzy pointed out the attacks don’t have to happen at the same time, and we have already decided that the Asteroid 3 fight should happen first, then the Krona assault.

  “It is all about timing. I believe that through some planted intelligence information suggesting we will be at Asteroid 3 very early in the day, we can draw Gurko out to a place and time where he thinks he can surprise and kill us, such as early on Founders Day. But we get there first and have the upper hand. The earlier, the better. After that, with Gurko’s forces away, or better yet, defeated, there will be less opposition to our follow-on Krona assault, which can happen later in the day. I think this is the only idea that will work. Now, as far as the assault force on Krona is concerned, we can spare two, armed cargo ships and four gunboats for escorts initially. I don’t want to draw down our forces at Asteroid 3 any more than that until after the space fight.”

  “What happens then?” asked Doc.

  “Thanks to our amazing, but absentminded, AI, we have our leap capability again.”

  “I heard that!” came Wizzy’s voice.

  I ignored him. “With sufficient time after the space fight, and assuming we win, we can leap as many ships as we have time for to back up Tiana.”

  “Do you think our attack on Larona will provoke Gurko to come out sooner or even later and spoil the timeline?” Amini asked.

  “I don’t think so. I hope it will pis
s him off and give him more motivation to finally meet us, but I don’t think he will want to spoil the plan we believe he will put in place to get to us. To him, Larona is small potatoes.”

  Doc looked up. “Small what?”

  “Sorry. It’s an Earth expression. ‘Small potatoes’ refers to something that doesn’t seem important when compared to something else.”

  “But nothing to do with food?”

  “It’s just an expression, Doc. I’ll get hold of Tiana and Marza and get the false intelligence moving right away. Get the ship ready to move out. I’ll be in the captain’s cabin.

  When I got there, Wizzy was floating in the center of the room.

  “I am always amazed at primitive brains coming up with plans that have alluded my more magnificent one. I’m going to have to run diagnostics on my core to see what’s wrong and fix it.”

  “What’s the matter, Wizzy, jealous?”

  “Absolutely not. There must be a flaw in my system, a logical reason for this.”

  “What, we can’t be smarter than you?”

  “No, it isn’t possible. However, you seem to stumble onto ideas that are not obvious to my system. Therefore, there is something that has to be fixed. I’ll look into that.”

  “Don’t waste your time, Wizzy. Humans just have a different way of approaching things.”

  “Sure, and I’m the Queen of England. I’ll find the problem.”

  “Go right ahead, Wizzy. Meantime, if you haven’t done so already, get those plasma cannons and lasers to Asteroid 3 right away. You know our timeline has been accelerated. Five days to Founders Day attack. Time is flying.”

  “I know, but I’m still surprised that something as innocuous as a particular day should dictate strategy and tactics and, by inference, risk the success of the greatest military operation seen here in over a hundred years. It’s not logical.”

  “It isn’t logical, but it’s part of the local politics and culture. We have to pay attention to all get along.”

  “I suppose so, but it is all so…ape-like.”

  Later the next day (day 4 in the countdown to Founders Day and the same day the Resistance ships departed for Asteroid 3), Larona sat in her bunker, laying out plans for increasing the revenue flow into her organization. It was getting tougher to devise new ways of squeezing script from the people of Tye. It was made even tougher by the growth and interventions of the Resistance space forces, which she knew was encouraged by the Argos and its captain.

  She stopped her work and thought about the Argos captain, Nick. He had saved her life when one of Toor’s stupid ship captains mistook her ship for one belonging to the Resistance. He took her into his confidence, and she wondered, at the time, if this man might not be the one for her. That dream was exploded when she was “encouraged” to take Toor’s job. Now he was an enemy, and a dangerous one. Her reverie and smile were shaken away by an intrusive knock at her door.

  “Enter.”

  It was her chief lieutenant, Torva, and he looked distressed.

  “What is it, Torva? You look like you have just seen a dead ancestor.”

  “No, boss. Something more important and real.”

  “You have my full attention. What is it?” Larona said as she eased back in her chair.

  “One of my men was stationed in a bar in Kiber. He overheard two ship captains talking in low tones about some Resistance activity.”

  “And?”

  “And they were saying that the Resistance space forces are becoming bolder. They even plan an exercise near Asteroid 3 soon.”

  Larona was irritated by the short bursts of information that she had to draw piecemeal from Torva. “Tell me what they heard and don’t stop until you are finished.”

  “They said that the whole Resistance fleet, or at least most of it, will be conducting training near the asteroid in the early hours four days from now.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “Yes. We know both captains, and they have strong Resistance ties. One, in fact, is a captain of one of the armed cargo ships.”

  “Why would they be talking about this in the open?”

  “They had been drinking for a while and were drunk. Plus, you know how undisciplined some of the captains are.”

  That was true. In her experience within the Resistance, she had seen and heard Resistance members say and do things when drunk that even she knew were stupid and dangerous. But that was the nature of cargo crews.

  “Have you heard this from any other source?’

  “Not in Kiber. But agents in Viron have heard rumors that training operations will occur soon.”

  This was not the detailed intelligence that she would like, but it was from more than one source. She decided to pass the details on to Gurko. Let him decide what to do with it. Little did she think her personal world would soon be affected.

  Chapter 26

  Day three in the countdown. Sif and his attack team were on the new schedule and disbursed in six large shuttles flying low and headed for the bunker used by Larona. Resistance observation teams on the ground confirmed that she was there, and they had planted infrared markers in two locations on opposite sides of the bunker for the shuttles to home in on. Sif planned to attack the bunker from those two different directions. When the shuttles were done disgorging their load, they would return to the training camp and pick up the remainder of his force and return. Not necessarily for the attack on the bunker, but to consolidate and prepare for pickup and transport for the assault on Krona.

  He was concerned that he would have no close air support for this raid. However, two gunboats would be available to assist in any way they could from orbit. Some had argued that it would be enough for the gunboats to just level the place and be done with it, but Sif resisted. He wanted the opportunity for his force to see some actual fighting before they hit Krona. Up to now, everything had been in a training environment. A good environment, but simulated. This attack would be the best practice for hitting the site on Krona.

  Sif and his Number 1, Altor, had spent many long hours assessing the bunker they would attack. Larona’s “bunker” was a high, fenced-in rectangular compound with observation and sentry towers in each corner. In the center was a long rectangular warehouse. The long sides were protected by dirt sloping from near the top to twenty feet away from the base of the building — incredible protection from side attacks. There were slit trenches cut into the earth on all four sides, connecting with each other to form an outer protective rectangle. It was suspected that the small doors on each end of the building allowed troops to exit the building and flow into the trenches. The only break in the trenches was at the western end of the building, where a road was cut to haul things in and out of the warehouse storage. The road leading into the compound entered the area through a heavily guarded, double-tiered, sliding gate. Only one section of the gate was ever opened at a time. Vehicles entering the compound entered through the first gate, which was closed behind the vehicle while it was inspected. Then the inner gate opened, allowing a vehicle into the compound to conduct business at the loading dock where there was a large cargo door next to the small one. Presumably, when an alert was sounded, guards would exit the central building and man the trenches. It looked like a prison designed to keep people out, not in.

  In addition, there was a cleared space extending twenty yards outside the fence. That made it easier for guards to see intruders before they got to the fence. Past the cleared space, dense foliage was allowed to grow, which was difficult to get through. All in all, a formidable compound to breach and enter. But Sif and his number 1 had a plan.

  A thousand yards from the compound were open areas suitable for shuttle landing areas, designated LZ 1 to the west and LZ 2 to the east. In this case, “suitable” was defined by Sif as growth no taller than the bottom of the shuttles, which was several feet. The terrain at
the base of the vegetation was rocky and gave the inhabitants of the compound confidence that any approach from there would be discovered long before the threat could reach the compound’s cleared area. That may have been a mistake.

  Just before dawn, three shuttles landed in each LZ. From two of the shuttles, troops rushed out and took up defensive positions around the LZ. From the remaining shuttles rolled out two strange-looking contraptions. They were armored, tracked vehicles with a gimbaled laser barrel at one end and a short battering ram at the other. The motors of the strange craft were heavily muffled against engine noise. The tracks and drive wheels were made of a rubber-like compound to also minimize noise. Each vehicle was maneuvered remotely to the head of the columned troops in each LZ. They were called crawlers by the soldiers. When all was ready, the signal was given to advance. Sif led the West force with Altor the East. The purpose of the crawlers quickly became apparent. The lasers opened continuous low power sweeps back and forth across the dense growth, leaving a clear path for the lines of advancing, armored troops.

  Progress was steady until the crawlers reached the edge of the cleared space, still a few feet into the surrounding green growth, at which point they spun on their treads until the ram faced the compound. On a signal from Altor, both crawlers broke cover and shifted into high speed as they sped toward the fence or the gate. As planned, the eastern crawler had no problems bursting through the fence and then using its laser to fire on the two guard towers.

  The western crawler had a more difficult time. It had to penetrate two gates before breaching the compound. The first was no problem. However, a portion of the first gate caught on the ram and slowed its progress. It rammed the inner gate once but did not knock it down. The controlling soldier backed the crawler up and rammed the inner gate a second time. This time the gate partially collapsed but still blocked passage and the crawler.

  The alarm went off as soon as the eastern crawler penetrated the fence line. The two guard towers were down, but defensive troops poured out from the rear exit into the trenches and opened fire on the crawler. On the western side, troops also poured out into the trenches as the mired crawler tried again to break into the compound. It began taking fire from the trenches and the two western guard towers.