“We have no means of preventing them from detecting us or from advising their friends about our attack,” Henry reminded them all. “So, there isn’t much point in playing games here. All ships will set their course for Moti-Five.
“We’ll see how the Kenmiri respond to our approach quite quickly, I expect.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Henry was back on the flag deck by the time the orders were actually all passed, with Sylvia dropping into an observer’s seat near his but out of the way.
All three ships turned on a dime, jumping to their maximum acceleration of two KPS2 and pushing for the still-distant gas giant. Still over three light-minutes away, it would take them three hours to reach the gas giant’s orbitals.
“Turnover in ninety-two minutes,” Eowyn reported. “All scanners are live. We’re too far away to get anything useful with active scanners, but if they bring a ship online or something similar, we’ll see it.”
“Standard Kenmiri protocol for a facility like that is a mix of surface and orbital weapons emplacements,” Henry said calmly. “Minimum of four laser platforms in orbit and twenty missile launchers in each place.
“Depending on what they’re doing for concealment, they may have restricted themselves to concealed orbital weapons platforms. Automated systems on minimum standby wouldn’t show up at any serious distance.”
He eyed the display.
“They’ll start booting them up as soon as they’re sure we’re coming for them,” he concluded. “We won’t have any data on surface weapons until they fire at us or we’re very close, but we’ll detect the orbital platforms at a light-minute once they power them up.”
Eowyn was quiet for a moment.
“You’ve done this before,” she noted.
“As a battlecruiser Tactical officer, a destroyer XO, a destroyer captain and a battlecruiser commander,” Henry confirmed. “The Kenmiri’s eyes were always on our target list—and the difference between a surveillance outpost and a forward logistics base is negligible.”
He shook his head grimly.
“Chan. I want a conference with the GroundDiv Lieutenant Commanders in one hour,” he told the coms officer. “I assume they’ve done this before as well, but I want to be certain.
“We are not going to screw this up, people.”
The virtual conference with the three GroundDiv officers was much less formal than the meetings with Henry’s SpaceDiv officers. Each of his three GroundDiv Lieutenant Commanders was responsible for a destroyer’s company of GroundDiv troopers, three thirty-trooper platoons and a ten-trooper command squad.
In total, Henry had three hundred GroundDiv troopers, a short battalion equal to the force Commander Thompson had led aboard Raven. However, unlike the battlecruiser’s short battalion, DesRon Twenty-Seven didn’t have an O-4 Commander in charge of everything.
Lieutenant Commander Quang Nguyen, aboard Paladin, was the senior of the three officers, which put him in command of Lieutenant Commanders Omar Jian and Karina Vargas, of Cataphract and Maharatha, respectively, for combined operations.
The three officers represented the usual standard of third-millennium UPA ethnic mutts to Henry’s eyes. Quang Nguyen was a Beijing-born Vietnamese man, both less and more Chinese than Henry Wong himself, depending on your view. Omar Jiang, on the other hand, was a Chinese-Arab mix similar to Henry’s own Chinese-American—and Karina Vargas was a classic Euro-mutt from Sandoval in the Procyon System.
All three were already wearing their body armor with their hair tied back in nets ready for their helmets. While the conferencing software wasn’t giving Henry much of a background view, he had enough to tell that all three were standing on the edge of the shuttle bays where their people would be prepping.
“All right, people,” he greeted them. “According to my files, you’ve all made assault drops on Kenmiri facilities, but only as platoon commanders. Correct?”
“Yes, ser,” Nguyen confirmed. “Vargas dropped on La-Tar as one of Thompson’s platoon commanders as well, ser.”
Henry eyed the dark-skinned woman. He barely remembered her, but his network confirmed that part of her record. She was an old Raven hand, but she’d been a junior enough GroundDiv officer that he hadn’t interacted with her much.
“The Kenmiri will be a different story from the Kozun,” he warned Vargas. “Your troops are all equipped with energy weapons?”
“Yes, ser. All of the platoons were reequipped when they were assigned to DesRon Twenty-Seven, ser,” Nguyen said swiftly. The two junior Commanders were clearly content to let him take the lead. “Long arms were all manufactured in the UPSF facilities on Mars, ser, so no worries about Drifter tricks.”
The UPA wasn’t quite up to manufacturing energy sidearms yet, and Terran-made rifles were still inferior to Kenmiri weapons in several ways. Henry would almost have preferred if his platoons had the weapons they’d bought from the Drifters—but he understood why GroundDiv preferred Terran-made guns.
“What is your plan, Lieutenant Commanders?” he asked. “I don’t want to micromanage, but I have commanded these strikes before and, well, you haven’t. I may have useful suggestions.”
There was a long pause, and while Henry couldn’t quite tell in the conferencing software, he suspected his three officers were sharing a look.
“I’d appreciate your input, ser,” Nguyen finally admitted. “But as the GroundDiv CO, the plan remains my call.”
“Yes. It does,” Henry agreed firmly. “Believe me, Commander Nguyen, if I feel it’s necessary to overrule your attack plan, you will have far larger problems than SpaceDiv-GroundDiv interforce conflict. Understood?”
Henry was reasonably sure that both Vargas and Jiang had to stifle chuckles in response to that. Nguyen, for his part, took the implied rebuke with a calm nod and gestured an image of the crater and Kenmiri installation into view.
“We haven’t confirmed the entrances or the connecting tunnels between the structures,” Nguyen pointed out. “But if they’re following the standard layout, there will be six entrances at these locations.”
Six icons flashed red on the map.
“There will also be antipersonnel weaponry concealed around each entrance and likely at other points around the facility,” he noted. “Most likely, I suspect that the crater ridge here will either have bunker positions or automated ranged weaponry.
“I’d like to open with EMP bombardment to disable automated weaponry, but I am presuming we want to capture as much of the facility’s data stores as intact as possible,” he said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Henry agreed. He used his network to measure the distance between the crater ridge and the main installation. “On the other hand, that ridge is fifteen hundred meters away from the main target. Easy range for computer-controlled weaponry, you’re right—but far enough away that the destroyers can hit it with kinetics without risking damaging the primary target.
“If they’re dug in there, I can dig them out for you.”
“That would help,” Nguyen conceded. “I didn’t want to assume orbital fire support, so my plan called to neutralize those positions with fire from our assault shuttles as we came in.”
“I expect us to have neutralized spaceborne resistance by the time we reach orbit,” Henry told the GroundDiv officers. “Even if we have to pursue a runaway, I can plan to leave at least one destroyer in place to provide fire support.”
“Honestly, the ridge is the only place I’m worried about where we could use it,” the GroundDiv CO replied. “I’m hoping to identify any antiaircraft weaponry from a distance, but that is likely to be inside the facility and require precision attack from the shuttles.”
“There are targets that we will be taking out from a distance, regardless of the risk to everything else,” Henry warned. “We’re expecting ground-based missile launchers. The moon is atmosphereless, so there may even be lasers.
“All of those will be destroyed before you’re deployed.”
“Understood.” Nguyen paused for a moment, clearly recalculating. “We’ll have to adjust on the fly for that, but opening with a kinetic bombardment of the ridge clears the path.
“We’ll bring the shuttles in low from the north…this north.” An icon flashed on the crater ridge. Technically, every direction from the polar base was north or near enough. “We’ll use the crater as cover from their antiaircraft weaponry while the kinetics clear the ridge itself.
“We’ll deploy here, in the bombardment zone, and neutralize whatever is still intact while the shuttles sweep the compound and destroy any weapons they can detect. Once the shuttle pass is complete, we’ll make our assault down the crater, targeting all three of the entrances on that side of the compound.
“Once inside, we’re hoping that it’s a standard layout. If it’s not, we’ll improvise, but the goal is to get to and secure the power plant and the datacores. The power plant could be overloaded to destroy the entire facility and we want the datacores intact.”
Henry looked at the map and nodded.
“It sounds like a plan, Lieutenant Commanders,” he told them. “How long?”
“Assuming everything goes to plan, we’ll be in the facility within ten minutes of touchdown,” Nguyen confirmed. “After that…” He shook his head. “Without data on what the internal layout looks like, anything I’d say for securing the facility itself would be a guess and not even an educated one.
“A minimum of three hours. Potentially more. If the Kenmiri have set the tunnels up for defense and have significant numbers of Warriors…”
“Understood.” Henry appreciated that Nguyen wasn’t trying to claim a miracle strike that would overrun the facility with ease. The younger officer might be trying to cover his ass for later, but Henry would prefer honest uncertainty over overconfidence.
“You’ll deploy once we’ve secured the space about Moti-Five,” he told them. “I expect that to be relatively quick. Unless this base is far more heavily defended than others of its type, they have no chance against DesRon Twenty-Seven.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Subspace pulse,” Chan reported. “It looks like they’ve seen us and are letting everybody know they’re burnt.”
“Sucks to be them,” Henry said coldly. He might have nightmares about killing off the Kenmorad—but he also had nightmares about the people he’d pulled out of Kenmiri work camps. His sympathy for anyone on the Kenmiri side that wanted to restart the war was limited.
“Range will be one light-minute in ten minutes,” Eowyn reported. “I’m expecting to be able to start picking out orbital weapons soon.”
“Good,” Henry replied. “Weapons status on the squadron?”
He had access to all of the information, both in his internal network and on the displays around him, but the Book wanted double confirmation—and he agreed with the Book. The last thing he wanted was to discover he was missing a missile launcher at the wrong moment.
“All ships report green on both lasers and all twelve missile launchers,” Eowyn told him. “All magazines at hundred percent. The squadron is ready to engage the enemy.”
They were still a long way away from that. Their maneuvering would bring them to zero velocity in a high orbit of Moti-V-6 in roughly seventy minutes. They’d be decelerating into orbit the entire way now, but that was why the destroyers had the same lasers as Raven: spinal weapons that could fire forward or backward.
Henry suspected that they would find that the GMS didn’t need to be aligned with the structure of the ship in the long run, but for the moment, the gravity well had a fixed position. First, they needed the drive system to work. Later, they’d discover what extra tricks it made possible.
“Contact,” Eowyn suddenly reported. “Multiple contacts around Moti-Five-Six. I have active fusion cores; I have active scanners… Warbook is analyzing.”
Henry waited. He was reasonably certain he knew what he was looking at, but it was always possible he’d been wrong.
“Warbook and CIC cannot confirm the platform class,” Eowyn said quietly. The “warbook” was a database of all known ship classes combined with a smart pattern-matching algorithm. Paladin’s combat information center would be taking a human eye to the same process because the algorithms had problems making intuitive leaps.
“What do we know?” Henry asked calmly.
“CIC makes the likelihood that contacts are Kenmiri eighty-five percent, ser,” the Ops officer said. “Fusion-core emission patterns are correct, though power levels are different from expected. We may have a more solid idea as we get closer and they bring sensors online, but CIC believes we are looking at an entirely new platform design. Still almost certainly a Kenmiri prefab.”
“As expected,” he concluded. “Are we dialed in for weapons fire?”
“We are. Platforms are not in range yet, though.”
“I know,” Henry agreed. “Are they evading?”
There was a pause.
“Not as of a minute ago,” Eowyn confirmed.
Henry leaned back in his chair. Automated platforms, but the people issuing them orders weren’t used to only having computers. That made sense.
“All ships are to engage with extreme-range laser fire until they start maneuvering,” he ordered. “Let’s see if we can make them jump.”
Even if they connected, his lasers weren’t going to do much at a full light-minute. They were set with focal points of around a million kilometers. This was well beyond their useful range.
But if the platforms weren’t evading, he could hit them. It wouldn’t hurt as much as it would at a closer range, but they’d feel it.
“We could also engage with missiles in ballistic mode,” Eowyn suggested.
“Those will be seen coming, and whoever is responsible for those platforms will realize they need to tell them to evade,” Henry replied. “We’ll save those for when we’re in their active range.”
The lasers opened fire a moment later. At this range, it was almost two minutes from firing to getting the report of the impact.
“Six shots, five hits,” Eowyn reported. “All targets intact, but I’m seeing some fluctuation in the emissions. Second salvo…four hits, targets are now evading. Other shots will— Whoa!”
Henry had seen it too. One of the platforms had taken three of the nine hits—every shot from Cataphract, if he judged correctly—and even at this range, that was apparently too much. The fusion-core containment had failed and now the weapons platform was gone.
“How many left?” he asked.
“Eleven,” Eowyn told him. “They’re big, ser. As big as the staffed weapons platforms we’ve seen in Kenmiri space, but they were cold and dark before we started toward the base. They have to be automated.”
“I imagine the Kenmiri are working hard on upgrading their automation,” Henry pointed out. “Their Drone population is dropping precipitously with every year. Given another decade, the Warriors and Artisans will be all that’s left, and that means they’re going to be running short on hands.”
The short-lived Drones had a life expectancy of barely ten years—and made up ninety-five percent of the Kenmiri population. Most of the extant larvae would have died with their Kenmorad parents, but there might have been hatchings up to six months after the deaths of the breeding sects.
Henry sighed. The whole situation was a nightmare and there shouldn’t have been Kenmiri there. One way or another, the outpost had to cease to be a threat…but they probably owed the crew a chance of some kind.
“Chan, get a directional transmission set up, standard protocols for transmitting to the Kenmiri,” he ordered. That meant a lot of cyber-security, air-gapped computers and a transmission in clear.
“Ser?” they asked.
“We killed their entire species, though it may be taking a while to stick,” Henry pointed out. “Let’s see if we can manage to talk this lot into laying down their weapons.
“Do you really think that’ll work, ser
?” Chan asked.
“No,” Henry conceded. “But I feel like we have to try.”
“All right. You’re live on your command.”
He nodded and faced the recorder, activating it with a mental command.
“Kenmiri surveillance outpost,” he said in Kem. “I am Commodore Henry Wong of the United Planets Space Force. You are outgunned and outmatched. I can destroy your facility from here if I wish.
“If you surrender, I will see you repatriated to the Kenmiri Remnant. If you fight me, I will turn the survivors over to the local government to decide what to do with you.
“This is the best offer you will get. I suggest you consider it.”
Henry only really held out hope for a few minutes—and it was a tiny thing, flickering more out of a need for it to exist more than any realistic belief.
“No response,” Chan reported.
“Weapons range in less than five minutes, ser,” Eowyn reported. She hesitated, glancing at the coms officer. “Any change to the plan?”
“Negative,” Henry said swiftly. “We will proceed as previously ordered. No changes.”
He leaned back in his seat, watching as targeting carets appeared around the weapons platforms they’d picked out. Eleven stations, each big enough to have a crew of forty or more—except that they showed no signs of being inhabited.
And it wouldn’t have changed the plan if they were. If the Kenmiri were in the outer sectors, they’d violated the implicit agreement that had ended the war—their insistence on stealth and hidden bases showed they understood that.
“Targets assigned,” Eowyn said into her microphone. “Confirm assignments.”
The carets on the main display flashed green as each destroyer’s Tactical department confirmed they’d received their targets. They’d start one at a time, working their way through the list in a logical order—unless Henry Wong told them to do something differently.
Drifter's Folly (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 4) Page 13
