* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The last Squilla ship surrendered. It was a light battlecruiser that had lost its engines and was severely damaged. Admiral Timerton was surprised it could even send out a signal. Out of the entire Squilla task force, only three ships held any type of atmosphere. There were escape pods everywhere, but they were not all Squilla.
Of the ten ships that had defended the system, three ships were still moving under power. The medium battlecruiser Brunner, the fleet’s flagship Tretra’s Pride, and Salvage Title. There were ships with no power that still had living crew members, too.
“Get the shuttles moving; we have a lot of people to rescue,” Admiral Timerton told Jr. Captain Opawn. She would handle the fleet rescue operations while her commander handled the repairs of Tretra’s Pride.
“With Aganon out of commission, I’ll have to land the fighters that are left wherever we can. Too bad these newer models can’t operate in atmosphere. We could fuel them up and send them to Tretra,” Jr. Captain Opawn replied.
“Sir, the Squilla troop carrier is just hours from Tretra’s orbit,” the tactical officer told Admiral Timerton.
“Hell, get me Tomeral,” he responded.
* * *
“Cease fire, Bev. They’re done,” Harmon said.
“Yes, sir. Powering down the main guns,” she answered, exhausted.
“Lena, move us away from the wreckage so we can get our fighters back. Someone give me the ship’s status,” he said. The pilot eased the ship out of the debris from the Squilla warship they’d just destroyed.
“We have sealed off decks five through seven. We lost two pulse cannons on the starboard side, and we are down to three fusion plants. Engines are at three quarters output. We have lost all shields on the starboard side. Rear shields are at twenty-two percent. Port shields are at fifty percent. Forward shields…are at only five percent,” the bridge engineer finished reading, looking up with fear in her young eyes.
Harmon shook his head. Salvage Title had taken a beating. The forward shields were the strongest on the ship, and one more missile strike would have penetrated it. Possibly into the bridge itself.
“Thank you, Warrant Officer Saratileentrop,” Harmon said. He knew she was still scared, but she had never left her post. She had the makings of a fine officer, he thought.
“Bridge to medical. Status?” Harmon called.
“Captain, we have eighteen killed in action. I have another four in critical condition and scores with minor wounds. Four are unaccounted for. The flight officer has informed me that two pilots perished, as well,” the ship’s doctor answered. She sounded as if she was in a hurry.
“Thanks, doc,” Harmon said. Twenty-four. Frost! He wondered who the pilots were. Hopefully, not the brothers.
“Zerith, what does it look like down there?” he asked, calling down to engineering.
“It looks like a messs,” Zerith said. “We had to sshut down the troublessome plant. There iss ssome damage to one of the enginess, and Vera and her crew are working on it, but they do not have the sspare partss they need. Kyla went to ssee if sshe could help.”
“How are your folks?” Harmon asked him.
“They are tired, but they are determined,” Zerith answered. “Minor injuriess, no losssess.”
“Alright, do what you can,” Harmon said.
“Call from Tretra’s Pride, sir,” the communications officer said.
“Put it on, please?” Harmon asked.
“Captain Tomeral, the Squilla troop carrier is just hours from Tretra. How soon can you be underway? Can you take it out before it starts releasing its dropships?” Admiral Timerton asked.
“We’re at three quarters engine output. We can try, sir, but I can’t guarantee it,” Harmon said. “We’ll get our fighters on board and redline it all the way in.”
“You do that. We’ll be following as fast as the Pride can go,” Admiral Timerton told him, and he signed off.
“Zerith, clean us up as best as you can…we’re going to have to redline it to the planet,” Harmon called over the comms.
“Perhapss you sshould be the one to tell the little oness,” Zerith said hesitantly.
“That’s all you, friend…all you,” Harmon replied.
“Clip, talk to me,” Harmon voiced over the comms to the defensive bridge.
“Clip!” Harmon said, a little louder.
“He is trying to save the lieutenant commander,” a translated voice said.
Harmon bolted from the commander’s chair for the lift, hoping it would work. No! Not Jayneen, he thought. He began running to the DB.
When Harmon arrived at the DB, he saw Clip at a smoking console. There was a chemical extinguisher lying beside him. He had Jayneen’s cube out on the console. One corner was blackened, and he was frantically trying to attach his music box, slate, and a power cell to it.
“Squat!” Clip kept shouting over and over as he worked. His fingers were a blur, and after about five minutes, he sat back, clearly exhausted.
“Is she…” Harmon asked quietly.
“I don’t know, man…I just don’t know,” Clip said, running his hand through his hair.
“My music box has the largest hard drive I have available. Frost! It was the only one I had available,” he said. “I couldn’t move her to the ship because of the power surges. Everything that makes Jayneen…Jayneen, is her core program. The only way to know is to transfer what I have to another one of those.” He gestured toward the alien computer.
“Where do we get one of those? Is there another on the ship?” Harmon asked.
“No, it was the only one we had. The only place to get another would be their home system,” Clip said.
“How in the frost do we get there? That’s one of the gate locations that isn’t on the net. Only Jayneen had those,” Harmon said, staring at the music box.
“She gave it to us,” Clip said, pointing back to his console.
Harmon looked at the screen at Clip’s station. A set of coordinates was centered on it. She had sent the coordinates as the console was burning. The screen was flickering.
“Did you record the number? It looks like that station is about to burn up,” Harmon said. The fifty-digit number disappeared, then came back on.
“I got it…here,” Clip said, pointing at his head. “I’ll never forget it.”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Salvage Title came within missile range of the heavy troop carrier Endless Krill hours after it had launched all its dropships. The Squilla had been able to make several trips back and forth, and the only Squilla occupying the transport was a skeleton crew. The young officer that had been left in charge was no fool. He started sending the surrender signal long before the ship could be engaged. Harmon had him place the ship in high altitude, and he sent Big Jon with a team to ensure there was no foul play. There were only eight of the six-foot-tall Squilla on board. They were locked in a room with a heavily-armed team to guard them. Clip was able to use his program to lock out the carrier’s controls, and a team was also sent to occupy the bridge of the giant ship.
When Staff Sergeant Jontilictick came back into the shuttle and the bay door was closed again, Harmon held a meeting near the Hauler. The Squilla had taken the capitol and its surrounding area. There were two thousand claw soldiers and one hundred of the shell tanks on the surface. There were also the eight dropships that had brought them there, which could be used as air support in a limited fashion.
“Are we sure the Squilla that talked wasn’t lying about their numbers?” Clip asked.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Big Jon said. His repair team had lost three members during the fight to seal the breached decks. He was looking for some payback.
“Good enough for me,” Clip said.
“Ok, here’s the plan,” Harmon said. “Zerith, you stay here on Salvage Title. Clip, you pilot Hauler with Big Jon and twenty of his crew. When we get down, we�
��ll meet up with Wilton and his Marines. I’m coming down in the Zax to see what I can do. The Tretrayon ground defense has a few aircraft, but not many. It looks like the Squilla did a number on the airfield in Tretra City where the aircraft were. They also wreaked havoc on the motor pool. Lieutenant General Wilton tells me they only have twelve serviceable tanks, some light artillery, and a total of three hundred mechs with pilots after the bombing runs those dropships made.”
“What happened to the fleet’s dropships?” Clip asked.
“When the carrier made orbit, it hit the planet with space-to-surface missiles. The ships have been destroyed, and there are just remnants of the ground defense forces left,” Harmon answered. “Maybe if the system government hadn’t limited it to a division-sized force, we wouldn’t be trying to figure out how to dig the Squilla out of the capitol.”
* * *
Harmon roared into the planet’s atmosphere in the Zax. He wasn’t sure what type of defenses the Squilla dropships might have, and he figured speed would help. He flew past what remained of the System Capitol Building and saw where the Squilla had parked the dropships. They were on the back lawn of the capitol. Some of the shell tanks started firing at him as he flew past.
He circled back around and angled for a strafing run. The lasers on the fighter fired, and two of the tanks exploded. He circled back around to make a pass over the dropships.
One of the crews in the dropships was alert, and it started firing its top-mounted turret at Harmon. He jinked back and forth randomly, and, as he flew back over the dropships, he hit the switch on the makeshift bomb bay that Hank and Stan had added to the Zax, and seventy-two thermite grenades came tumbling out. Some grenades landed near the dropships, some landed on them, and many rolled under them.
They started going off, and from what Harmon could see as he circled, they were not as good as thermite—they were much better. They packed an explosive that dispersed a gel compound out in a twenty-foot radius. Wherever the gel landed, it stuck and started burning like the tip of a welder. Wish I had more of those, Harmon thought.
“What was in those?” Clip asked over the comms.
“I don’t know, but we need more of it,” Harmon answered. “How did you see it?”
“I hacked a satellite. I could read a slate in someone’s hands sitting in the park. If anyone was out on the streets, that is. It’s a government satellite,” Clip said. “Not many people know they’re up there.”
“That’s crazy. Are there any over Joth?” Harmon asked.
“Sure, but they always seem to malfunction. Must be the magnetic poles. The system government quit sending them over about six years ago. Go figure,” Clip said.
More of the top turrets fire at the Zax, and the ship jumped suddenly as a number of warning lights illuminated on Harmon’s instrument panel. “Frost! I’m hit!” he said, struggling with the fighter’s controls. “One engine is out, and the fuel level is dropping! I’ve got to put it down. Come get me.”
Harmon landed the Zax about twenty miles away in the huge parking lot of a rundown shopping center. The port engine was still smoking, even after he had hit the emergency extinguishers, but it was no longer on fire.
He climbed down and locked the hatch, hoping nobody would fool around with it. From his time at the academy, Harmon knew the neighborhood he’d landed in was known for gangs and crime. Tretra may have looked beautiful from orbit, but that was only because the government controlled the majority of the land and didn’t allow most citizens access to it. In the cities, where the majority of the population was located, it was a different story.
The cities tended to be block after block of government-controlled housing. The rent was free, utilities were free, and for the most part, safety was free; however, there were parts of the capitol city where law enforcement refused to go. It was a little better in election years, as more of the budget was spent on social centers and subsidy raises, but some places remained in the hands of the gangs.
The party in power also controlled the system government. Both planets voted, but with a population of almost five hundred million across Tretra, the system president was always the head of the party that controlled Tretra.
The Hauler landed just as a group of people were gathering on the other side of the street, and Big Jon came out to make sure Harmon was alright and to see if he needed anything brought over from the Zax. The crowd edged closer.
“You think you’re just going to leave that there?” a large bald man asked. One side of his face was tattooed with lightning bolts. The tattoo seemed to shimmer with a life of its own. “Shouldn’t you be stopping them crabs?” he asked with contempt.
Harmon looked over and didn’t say a word. When he had attended the academy, he had been briefed the first day to stay out of the housing centers. It was best to just move on and keep the peace.
“Hey! I’m talking to you…and that freak with you,” the man said, stepping out into the abandoned street.
Staff Sergeant Jontilictick looked over at the man and then back to Harmon. Harmon shook his head slightly. They started walking toward the Hauler.
“That’s right. Walk away. This whole area belongs to the Bolts! You leave that here and it’s ours. We’ll scrap it. We’ll scrap all of it. You hear me?” he shouted. Several of his tattooed companions encouraged him.
Harmon stopped and turned around. He started to step toward the group when Big Jon put a hand out to stop him. Big Jon took his knife out of its sheath and handed it to Harmon, handle first. He unsnapped his holster, slid his pistol out, and handed it to him as well. Harmon noticed that it was one of Zerith’s modified pistols.
The man realized what the Leethog was doing, stepped away from his friends, started rolling his neck and shrugging his shoulders. He appeared ready to teach the alien a lesson. It was obvious he hadn’t become the gang’s leader by a vote.
Big Jon stepped up to the man who towered over him by more than a foot. The man swung with a hard-right cross…that met air, and then Big Jon beat the man like he had stolen something from him.
Harmon watched the fight in awe. He knew his own fighting abilities, but he had to admit to himself that even he might not want to tangle with that Leethog. It was a fighting style that Harmon was not familiar with. Raw and violent, yet fluid in its movements. Several of the gang members waded in when they realized the direction the fight was going. It was their mistake.
One of the other members who was over to the side slid a projectile pistol out from under his jacket. Harmon fired a laser round between the man’s feet, and he dropped the weapon, raised his hands, and eased away from it.
The fight was over, and four men were face down in the street. The gang leader was sitting up, holding the side of his face—it looked like his jaw was fractured. The crowd on the other side of the street had dispersed.
“They will think twice about insulting a Leethog next time,” Big Jon said, sliding his knife back into its sheath.
The gang members couldn’t understand him without translators. Harmon looked over at the gang and said, “He said if anyone so much as touches that fighter, he will hunt you down and skin the tattoos off of your faces. He has your scent and can track you to the ends of this planet.”
At hearing this, Big Jon started laughing. A Leethog hissing with all its teeth exposed wasn’t something anyone unfamiliar with the race would ever want to see. There was a look of genuine fear in the gang leader’s eyes.
“What the frost was that all about?” Clip asked them when they sat down in the operations center of the Hauler.
“Just a little workout before the big fight,” Big Jon said nonchalantly.
“Workout? Looks like you beat the squat out of them to me,” Clip said, lifting off. “Did you kill anyone?”
“No, I gave the captain my knife,” he said, grinning.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Heard you had a little problem with your fighter,” Lieutenant
General Wilton said.
He was in the temporary headquarters three miles from the capitol. The remainder of the ground defense forces and the Marines from the fleet were holed up in defensive positions on the edge of a huge park, with the trees between them and the Squilla.
“Just a bit, sir,” Harmon answered.
“I also heard the reports of the battle with the Squilla task force. Without you and your ship, we wouldn’t even be here planning this. The entire system owes a debt to you and your crew that can never be paid,” he said.
“Sir, it’s my system, too,” Harmon said. “We just did what had to be done. Sometimes things work out in your favor. All of us have lost a lot these last few weeks.”
“That we did,” Wilton said. “None of it would have happened if first fleet hadn’t been sent out like mercenaries. It’s one thing to do that for a living; there are some good companies out there. But when you go out representing an entire system…trouble is going to follow you home.
“The Squilla had them two-to-one from the beginning,” he continued. “It was a slaughter. Speaking of which, the scouts have reported back in on the slaughter here, and will be back in an hour for debriefing. The short story is that our system president, the planetary president, and a majority of the members of all three houses are dead. The Squilla dropped missiles on them when they were in an emergency meeting.”
“Wait, that means that President Benter is now the system president,” Harmon said, remembering his meeting with the president.
“He is. He is the first system president from Joth. A Prithmar named Chazzig is now president of Joth,” the General said.
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