* * * * *
On board the survey ship, the evening meal was being cleared away. Captain M’Taso was concerned that some of her survey teams were out overnight. She knew the geologic teams would be out, but one of her xenobiology teams was still out and she had not heard from them. Her team leaders knew how she worried about them and always called to let her know their status.
She walked to the quarterdeck and stepped outside to see if she could spot any fires where the teams might be up in the mountains. She saw none. She couldn’t shake a feeling of danger, so she emphasized to the quarterdeck watch to keep the inner or outer airlock door closed if the other was open. They complained about how stale the air in the crew’s quarters was and having the doors open helped to air out the heavy smell of scores of K’Rang.
She sympathized with them, but ordered them to keep one of the two doors closed at all times and the steely look in her eyes convinced them to do as she said. She watched as they complied and noted she should talk to the engineer to increase the airflow in crew’s quarters. She took one last look at the stars and re-entered the ship, heading to the sensor section.
She had the sensor section send a message to all teams to report status and location. The three geology teams reported in that all were safe and sound. No one reported a distress call from the xenobiology team. She told herself it was just that they were out of range or behind a hill blocking their comms, but she didn’t believe it.
She instructed the sensor team to call the team’s communicator. They punched in the ident code and waited, as the signal came back that the communicator had received their call, but there was no answer.
The quarterdeck watch heard it though, “KTan,” said the junior watch stander to the senior, “do you hear that? It sounds like one of our communicators over there to the east.”
K’Tan arose from behind the desk and listened, but heard nothing. He looked at S’Tok and said, “It could be our xenobiology team out there lost.”
S’Tok shook his head and questioned, “If they were out there why didn’t they answer the call? I think we should call the captain.”
The both agreed, so K’Tan put in a call on the ship’s intercom, “Captain to the quarterdeck.”
Captain M’Taso arrived and S’Tok reported what he’d heard. She asked K’Tan if he had heard anything. He reported that he hadn’t, but believed S’Tok when he said he had. She got on the intercom and told sensors to call all the teams again and she listened. The three of them walked down the ramp to listen, momentarily forgetting to close the inner airlock hatch.
* * * * *
The queen had been standing practically on top of the communicator when it went off the first time. It startled her, but she recovered and gave the device to a fast worker and instructed him to carry it away as quickly as he could. By the time it went off the second time it was too far away from the ship to be heard. The queen was watching the ship and saw the three aliens come down the ramp about halfway and stop. She also saw both hatches open. Now was the time. She gave instructions to her runners and moved forward to have a clearer view.
The first team of soldiers would attack the top of the ramp where it met the ship, blocking the aliens’ path to escape into the ship. A second team of ten soldiers and ten workers would assault up the ramp and into the ship, securing any internal hatches that they could. A third team of 40 soldiers would conduct the actual capture of the ship. She would follow them into the ship and direct them to the bridge. There was something there that home world wanted.
* * * * *
Captain M’Taso heard the strangest noise like the wind blowing through the large paper-like leaves of an M’Taba tree, but there was no wind. It was still and calm. By the time she heard the first scrape on metal and turned around, the quarterdeck was blocked by a half-dozen or so black creatures, the likes of which she had ever seen, but recognized as insectoids. She saw the open hatches and knew what they were after, her ship. She heard the same rustling sound behind her and turned to face outward only to see a larger contingent of the creatures at the base of the ramp and advancing on her. She realized their intent, saw the open hatches, and knew her unaware crew was in dire peril, and pushed her two crewmembers off and leapt from the ramp. She knew that she and the two crewmen were too few to stop the creatures, but the crew must be warned. As she hit the ground, she rolled and pulled out her communicator to warn the crew. Her two crewmembers drew their side arms and flanked her as she moved into the trees and shadows.
She called into the sensor section and gave the order to shut and secure all hatches, but sensors didn’t respond. She called in on the bridge channel and was told that there were five crewmen on the bridge and had managed to secure the bridge hatch before the incredibly swift creatures got there. They had no reports from any other section. She ordered them to hold the bridge at all cost and told them she would get back to them as soon as she could. She ordered them to send an emergency message to home world telling them they were under attack, describe the attackers, and to inform them the ship was in imminent danger of capture.
Captain M’Taso headed up into the hills with the two crewmembers and hoped to put some distance between her and the creatures before they came looking for the three of them. She hoped to make it up into the mountains to join up with her three four-feline geology teams. Fifteen of them might stand a better chance of at least setting the ship’s self-destruct mechanism or, maybe, escaping.
* * * * *
The sentient queen followed the second team into the ship. She had three soldiers rush headlong up the main corridor to enter the bridge and kill every creature in there. She had other teams going compartment-by-compartment, killing any of the creatures they found. In less than thirty minutes, the ship was subdued, but she had failed to secure the bridge. A handful of creatures had sealed themselves on the bridge. The queen needed to find a way to gain access to the bridge. She set her workers exploring every conduit raceway, air duct, and maintenance access tube to find a path.
In less than an hour, a worker had found a maintenance tube below the bridge large enough for workers, but too small for soldiers. She sent a runner back to bring forty workers forward to the opening into the tube.
The workers arrived, she communicated her orders by touching antenna to theirs and the workers set off through the maintenance tube, giving them access to air ducts supplying the bridge. The bridge crew didn’t know of the danger until the first worker dropped from the ceiling vent, followed by more than enough to overwhelm the side arm-issued bridge crew. They couldn’t fire fast enough to kill the insectoids as they dropped from the ceiling and burst forth from the floor air return plenums. The final dying act of the communications officer was to send the imminent danger message to G’Durin.
* * * * *
Baron G’Rof had not given the tribunal an inch as he carried on with his spirited defense of his actions and decisions leading up to the battle of G’Durin. He also was familiar with the careers of the five Unified Force commanders and had interacted with them over the years as they and he had risen in rank. A voracious reader of after action reports, he used their own combat experiences to his advantage, reminding them of times in their own careers when they faced similar situations. He settled fourteen of the fifteen charges against him, then turned to the final and most serious: dereliction of duty at the battle of G’Durin.
“Warriors, the first specification says here that I was derelict in my duties by not maneuvering my forces at sub-light speed once I dropped out of FTL so as to hamper the enemy’s target acquisition capability. Might I remind the tribunal that I had a force of almost 500 ships spanning an area of one-half million kilometers on the x axis, a million kilometers on the y axis and a half million kilometers on the z axis while traveling at FTL. Warriors…that was a tight formation.”
Pacing back and forth before the video pick-up, he continued as if he were lecturing before an academy classroom. “Station-keeping, that is ships in
formation maintaining proper position and safe distance from each other during prolonged FTL travel, requires great distances between ships, because if an FTL bubble should fail and drop a ship to sub-light speed, the ship could cause a chain reaction collision with the following ships still traveling at FTL.
“When you drop out of FTL into a combat situation you need time for some parts of the formation to expand and other parts to contract. When I dropped out of FTL, I was within 700 million kilometers of one of the Human armadas. It was pure chance. I spoke to the commanding officer, Admiral Levi, at the peace negotiations, and he had just dropped back from his assigned position because he wanted to give himself more reaction time when I appeared. If he had not, I would have dropped out of FTL into the middle of his formation. As it was, I was in perfect position to launch my initial offensive strike as soon as the plasma discharge cloud cleared. I fired every offensive missile able to range on the Human formation and then conducted the rapid reload that we had drilled many times.”
“The Human fleet launched their defensive missiles and offensive counterstrike within seconds of ours. Our missiles passed within kilometers of each other. Their defensive missiles were good, though, better than we expected. They also had these new guns that vaporized our missiles in flight. We hit them hard, taking out just under half their ships, their escorts mainly. The protection for their carriers was too tight to penetrate. The Humans sacrificed their own ships like warriors to keep their carriers safe.”
Pausing, as if he were remembering the loss of his sons in the battle, he said, “The Human missiles were better than we expected. We lost a lot of good ships to that first barrage. It was not as effective as it could have been because the Humans fired so many missiles at each ship. They generally all arrived at the ship within minutes of each other and many a Human missile didn’t pick another target after the ship had been destroyed. Their missiles continued to home in on our burning dead hulks, but the missile strike was followed by almost a thousand of their fighters, attack craft, and those damnable heavy and medium attack ships that kept flying in from nowhere.
“Early in the battle I kept the formation arrayed as we had come out of FTL, because it kept our best ships facing the biggest threat. We were out of missile range of the other Human armada and the A’Ngarii force. It would be half an hour before those fighters could reach us and engage. I also had to consider how to move that many ships without collisions or fratricide. In my considered opinion, we would have lost as many, if not more ships by maneuvering and fighting in such close quarters to the enemy. I had maneuvered my remaining cruisers to an all-around defense by the time the other fleets’ fighters were in range, but at that point, with our losses, we were overwhelmed.
“Warriors, my sensors told me of the presence of the A’Ngarii fleet and I oriented my remaining ships on them and set a direct course, hoping to blow through them and spirit the remnants of my Armada to the outer worlds until I could refit and rearm for a future counterattack. The Humans had fixed the problem with the A’Ngarii missiles so that our jammers were ineffective. It was at that point, seeing no effective or honorable way out, that I called for a ceasefire and surrendered, saving what force I had left.”
Shadow Unified Force Commander M’Juna looked at his note pad and said, “Baron G’Rof, speak to me commander to commander. Is there anything that you left out of your preparations and execution of the Battle of G’Durin that would have ensured victory over the Human/A’Ngarii armada?”
Baron G’Rof sat down, wearily, and responded, “M’Juna, I had two sons on ships that were lost in that battle. If you had all of your progeny in a battle, wouldn’t you have done everything you could, checked and double checked to ensure victory?”
Shadow Unified Force Commander M’Juna did not answer. He just reviewed his notes and looked to the other tribunal members.
“Do any of you have any more questions of Baron G’Rof?”
The four other members indicated that they did not.
M’Juna spoke to the Baron, “Baron, we will deliberate now and will be back to you shortly.”
Baron G’Rof was taken back into a holding cell and the video pickup went dead.
Shadow Unified Force commander M’Juna rose from his chair, walked around the front of the tables and said, “Warriors, take a fifteen-minute break and be prepared to deliberate and vote your verdict when you return.”
Shadow Unified Force Commander B’Tan cleared his throat and said, “I think we should take the vote now and finish this tawdry business. I vote not guilty.”
The other three Unified Force commanders also voted not guilty.
M’Juna sighed, “I, too, vote not guilty. Now go take that fifteen-minute break and be prepared to justify that verdict for all charges and specifications when you return. We have an hour to get our results to the Chief of Staff.”
* * * * *
Kelly took Mr. Krallen’s arm and led him through the gate to the human embassy on G’Durin. When Klaus came out on the other side his eyes were big as saucers.
“Tell me you don’t go through that on a routine basis.”
“My parents invented it. I was one of the first to go through it, aside from their lab assistants.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced cold like that or seen a black so black.”
“You get used to it after a few times and it becomes routine.”
Kelly walked the contractor to the office set aside for him and realized it was dark outside. Kelly searched around for a clock to see what time it was, as G’Durin had no synchronized time signal to set his watch to local time. He finally found a Marine making his rounds and asked him. It was 0335 hours G’Durin time.
“Well, Klaus, we can go to sleep for three hours to help get us on G’Durin time or stay up and get breakfast when the cafeteria opens to feed the Marines.
“Let’s stay up and have breakfast. It will help us get over the space lag better.”
“Klaus, stay here until I come back. With the ring’s calibration problem, we are hours late from when we were scheduled to be here. I need to check and see if my wife waited up.”
Kelly walked out into the hallway and down to the stairwell. On the upper floor he turned right, went down three doors, and opened Candy’s office door. In the darkened office he heard a familiar snoring. He turned on a lamp and kissed his wife awake.
She smiled, stretched, and opened her eyes. “I waited up for you, but the transport tech said it might be hours. I finally gave up at one. What time is it?”
“It’s almost four. Klaus is in his office. We’re waiting for the cafeteria to open.”
She stretched again, pulled out a mirror, and screamed.
“God, I look horrible…and I’ve got drool on my chin. I’ll meet you in Klaus’ office. I have to freshen up first.”
She padded out of the office, not even putting on her shoes, and headed down the hallway.
Kelly watched her until she entered the women’s room and went back to Klaus’ office.
As he sat talking over the project with Klaus, Alistair stuck his head in and said, “Hi, it’s about time you got here. When you get a moment, come see me.”
Kelly introduced Klaus to Alistair, and said the new embassy would arrive in a few days for Klaus’ people to assemble.
Alistair beamed and said, “Great, anything I can do to help you do your job better, faster, cheaper, you just let me know. I’m a little cramped in this place and looking forward to my facility in the new building.”
Kelly asked what Alistair was doing up so early.
“Oh, like you, I came through out of time cycle and can’t sleep when my body thinks it is 1000 hours. So I’m in here making my night shift’s lives hell by asking weird questions. Do you mind if I join you for breakfast?”
“Of course you are welcome to join us. Candy is making herself prettier. She’ll be here in a moment and we can all go down together.”
* * * * *
&nb
sp; The next day, two other sentient queens that had spent the night with her in the colony pod learning what was required, joined the first sentient queen in the furry bipeds’ ship. The three used the claws on their forelegs to manipulate tools found onboard to undo mountings, disconnect cables, and, with the help of several workers, remove the ship’s navigation system. The workers carried the equipment to the pre-arranged pick up point, where a ship from the Civilization would arrive to take it back for extensive study. As the three queens left, they gave instructions on clearing out the alien bodies and sending them to the three nearest burrows for food. The three queens touched antennae together and shared a ghoulish joke at the K’Rang crew’s expense, essentially conveying the message, “Meat is meat.”
After the corpses had been cleared out, the insectoids evacuated the ship, having no further need of it until specialists arrived from the Civilization. She assigned a group of soldiers to maintain around the clock guard of the exterior.
The queen considered sending some soldiers down the furry bipeds’ trail while the scent was still lingering, but she had other things of higher importance to do, and what harm could three of the furry bipeds do?
* * * * *
Captain Jim made the rounds of his ship. He wasn’t technically a captain, nor was this his ship. His job was caretaker of the Galactic Republic Reserve Ship Behemoth, lead ship in its class of six ships designed and built too late for employment in the Capricorn War, but capable of transporting an entire heavy division in one movement, deliver them from space to the battlefield, support them with bombardment and precision fires and logistics, plus hold off any space counterattack with her and her escorts’ organic weapons. They were the largest class of ships ever built by man, more than half again as large as a fleet carrier. Too slow initially to traverse distances in a timely manner, they were up-engined after twenty years and now could keep up with the maximum speed of their light cruiser and frigate escorts. With the addition of the transport gates, they could be anywhere in GR space within a week.
All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) Page 4