“Number 3 is roughly the size of Australia and is nearly triangular in shape, with the apex in the north and the base running east and west. A rocky outcrop along the western shore, probably as a result of tectonic plate movement, prevents the T’Kab from burrowing, so limits them to the central plain and the eastern and southern coastal plain. The Orion counted 587 burrows. One major river drains this continent. Smaller tributaries flow into a central sea, with the river carrying the overflow off to the southern ocean through a central valley.
“Now we move to the eastern hemisphere and its two continents. Number four is approximately the size of Europe and is roughly in the shape of an ancient stone arrowhead. It has a point at its northern extreme, bows out on its eastern and western shores, and flattens out along the southern end. There’s a mountainous region along the southern coast that is within the southern polar zone and devoid of T’Kab. The central plain is composed of rolling hills and over a thousand colonies. This will be our toughest nut to crack.”
He took a moment to explain “cracking nuts” to the K’Rang and Angaerry representatives, then carried on.
“The continent has five major rivers, two draining east, two draining west, and one flowing north.
“Number five is in the shape of a kidney bean and is almost exactly the size of Australia. It is one big plain and has no restrictions to the T’Kab except for the southern tip extending into the polar zone. There are over 1,500 colonies.”
“Except where I indicated mountain ranges, there are no restrictions to our mobility. Our hover ships should be able to traverse any and all obstacles with the exception of the mountains, as I said. Cover and concealment are sparse as most vegetation is grasses and a few trees in the more temperate zones. Key terrain is any that gives us extended views over the terrain. Observation is key as we can use high ground to find and designate targets from. Obstacles are minimal. Avenues of approach are, for the most part, broad and open. Travel is virtually unrestricted with the exception of continent two’s central ridgeline.
“Are there any questions?”
* * * * *
Captain Jim welcomed the Behemoth’s real captain of on board and escorted him to his quarters. Jim had emptied his things out and scrubbed down the quarters until it gleamed. He found the original furnishings and placed them in their original positions. One was a framed photo and listing of the original crew. On the thirtieth line in the third column was Logistics Specialist 3rd Class James Gibbons.
Captain George Harris looked around his new quarters and spoke to Jim. “Mr. Gibbons, do you mind me calling you Jim?”
Jim looked surprised. “No, sir, not at all.”
“Jim, how old are you?”
Jim got a suspicious look on his face. “I’m forty-eight sir, why?”
“Good! Jim, I want you to sign on as my consultant. You know more than any man ever will about this ship. I’d like to keep you around to help tell all these reservists, many not as old as this ship, why things are done the way they are. There is technology aboard not seen in the Fleet since this ship was built. If you accept I can offer you a special wartime commission as a reserve lieutenant commander for the duration of the conflict. What do you say?”
Jim looked down at the deck for a few minutes, looked back up at the captain, and said, “Is lieutenant commander the best you can do? I have a daughter in medical school I’m paying for. I won’t like seeing her tuition come up short.”
Captain Harris burst out with a hearty laugh and responded, “The Personnel Center instructed me to offer the lower rank first, but authorized me to offer full commander. What do you say, Commander Gibbons?”
“In that case, Captain, I accept. What is my job title?”
“You’ll be my executive officer’s deputy. He reports in tomorrow. I’ll make sure he understands your special knowledge and circumstances.”
“Thank you, sir, for this opportunity. I don’t know how I’d have reacted to this big girl sailing off without me. Oh, by the way, she’s ready to sail once you get crew on board. Log status is 100%. Engines are 100%. Armaments are 100%. Lighters are 100%. Stores are 100%. Passenger accommodations are stocked and ready to receive a full division and support. Vehicle decks are ready to receive and lock down a heavy division’s full complement plus support. We just need a full crew and some work ups to be combat ready, but that is just my opinion, sir. You, of course, will make your own assessment and draw your own conclusion.”
“Thank you, Commander Gibbons, I’ll take that under advisement. That is all.”
Commander Gibbons walked down the passage outside the captain’s cabin and patted the bulkhead again. “Looks like we both got an invite to the party, old girl.”
* * * * *
The Civilization’s supreme queen ordered the 1st Annihilation Fleet to make for the fifth planet. They were ordered to irradiate the planet, killing the furry bipeds and their ship on the ground, and claim its technology for the civilization. She knew the ship couldn’t leave the system without the nav computer.
She did not know what the furry bipeds would do this time, but over a century back it was a series of pitched battles until the furry bipeds gained the advantage with chemicals designed to kill the queens, leaving the colonies to die off over time. This time would be different. They would have an accurate representation of the furry bipeds’ space and would overwhelm them by saturating their worlds with multiple colony pods and the ability to hold queen larvae in reserve in the burrow until needed to replace a queen. This time the Civilization would be ascendant.
* * * * *
Rear Admiral Hasselrode called his squadron commanders in for a mission briefing. He had received orders from Fleet and the Republic Intelligence Agency to operate in the far fringes of K’Rang space. Scout Force had three missions to fulfill: Provide scout support to the battle fleet deploying forward on the intercept mission, support an all out assault on the five worlds discovered by the Orion and the K’Rang, and independently seek out and locate the T’Kab home world and learn all there was to know.
“Gentlemen and ladies, quickly take your seats. I have a lot of information to hand out and my time is short. Captain Bentine is passing out your mission orders. Do not open these until you are back on your ships. I have assigned the battle fleet support mission to 1st Squadron’s five scouts until mission end or change. Their mission is to provide a deep screen watching for colony pods, destroying those within capability, and inform the battle fleet of those getting through. Commander Shelton, you may deploy your scouts as soon as they are ready. Commander Blazov, 2nd Squadron will support a planetary assault fleet forming up to land the heavy corps on the T’Kab planet discovered by the K’Rang and root them out. Commander Young, 3rd squadron gets the deep scouting mission. The Orion will join you and come under 3rd squadron operational command. The Orion will have a K’Rang liaison team on board. They are not authorized on board your scouts, only on the Orion. I’m only so trusting.
“The battle fleet and assault landing fleets will have ring ships with them. At your discretion, squadron commanders, establish an internal rotation schedule, but keep at least four ships on station at a time. I will send my staff in to answer any questions you have.”
With only sixteen scout ships, Rear Admiral Hasselrode knew he was all in on this one. He had no reserve. His 1st Scout Force Division was long gone, swallowed up by losses during the K’Rang war and defense cuts after. He looked out his window at the memorial to the ships that never returned from patrol. The statue of a scout ship on a Mobius strip signified the eternal mission of the eleven ships lost to the K’Rang.
He picked up a report from Congressional Liaison. Now that Kelly’s uncle’s party numbers had shrunk in the Senate, it would not be so easy to get the fourth and fifth Orion-class scouts. The report relayed a Senate question on ship naming convention and whether those two ships could be named after retiring minority party leaders, to help convince them to support the defense bill.<
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Hasselrode seethed at the thought of naming ships after people that couldn’t care less about Fleet and Scout Force, just to get their ego massaged enough to encourage their party caucus to vote for the bill. He hated politicians, but realized they held the purse strings and had to be stroked to get what the Fleet needed.
* * * * *
Lieutenant General Ivor Tsien stood before the combined senior officers of the 5th Mobile Corps and waited while the few latecomers skulked into the briefing room and filled up the rear seats. He saw the flow stop and began his presentation.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be conducting a command post exercise over the next week to practice our combat, logistics, communications, and coordination techniques on a non-linear battlefield.
“This enemy is unlike any we have ever faced. It lands on a world and spreads out in all directions. We have analyzed the information provided by Fleet on the T’Kab and have discerned a pattern in their establishment of burrows. Each burrow occupies and controls an area approximately 60 kilometers in radius. Each queen births and swarms up to six queens out from her burrow that establish new colonies centered 90 kilometers out and ringing the original burrow. Those burrows push out swarms that establish colonies further out and so on until they control all the ground on the planet.
“Let me make something clear. The K’Rang call these insectoids T’Kab and that is what we will call them. You may call them bugs amongst yourselves, but they are T’Kab in any official communications. They are a very dangerous enemy and we will not lull ourselves into complacency towards them.
“Our challenge is to land on this planet, establish a bridgehead and move out in all directions until we clear the planet. This will challenge our reconnaissance, our coordination means, and our logistics. Let us discuss the bridgehead first.
“I know some of you noticed the different uniforms in the room. Allow me to introduce Major General Greg Allans, commanding general of the 3rd Assault Landing Division. His Marines will land first and secure a foothold for us. They will clear a 100-kilometer circle in the center of the fourth continent for us to drop into, to secure our logistics train. General Allans, please take over.”
General Allans stepped up onto the stage and hooked up a wireless microphone.
“Good morning. Let me start by introducing my senior commanders. Colonel Bradley commands 1st Brigade. Colonel Yamasato commands 2nd Brigade. Colonel Jaarens commands 3rd Brigade. Colonel al Bennari commands the Fires Brigade. Colonel Bailey commands my Logistics Brigade. Last, but not least, is Lieutenant Colonel Chen, commanding the 1st Special Operations Capable battalion.
“Chen’s battalion will lead the assault. We have found an area along the southern coast where the T’Kab haven’t established burrows, probably because of the cold and underlying rock. Her companies will clear out an area large enough for my brigades to land and organize, before moving out to clear a larger area of burrows so that we may establish a secure burrow-free area to bring in your divisions and supplies. While you expand outward from there, we will secure your supplies and lines of communications to make sure colonies don’t form behind you. We will also serve as your corps reserve. ”
Lieutenant General Tsien thanked Major General Allans and stepped back up on the stage.
“After the Marines clear a foothold for us, it is our job to expand outwards and clear the continent of the T’Kab queens. We will need to kill them all. Any we leave behind will just re-infest the planet.
“The 20th Armored Division will land and take up a position due north in the 100 kilometer base. 52nd Mechanized Division will land and assume a position due east. 16th Armored Division will land to the west. After the 16th Armored and 52nd Mech deploy outwards to the edge of the cleared circle and open some room, the 30th Armored Division will land and orient to the southwest. The 68th Mechanized Division will land and orient southeast. We will put all brigades on line and advance outward with all aviation brigades’ ships leading the way. All burrows will be prosecuted either by attack ships dropping plasma bombs or hand emplacing plasma bombs.
“After we have landed all our supplies, the assault landing ships will leave for Gagarin through the ring ship, leaving their escort behind to support us. They will return in a month with the 30th Mobile Corps and the 6th Marine Division to land on another continent and repeat what we did. When they have landed their supplies, the Behemoths will depart once more to load the 10th Mobile Corps (Reserve) and the 8th Marine Division. Once we start making progress against T’Kab, the five K’Rang corps will land on the remaining continents and start destroying burrows and queens.
“We will perfect our techniques for clearing planets of the T’Kab here and make ourselves more efficient for clearing other worlds. This will not be our only area of operation, so save your combat power when you can, but kill all the queens.
“General Allans has experimented with demolitions of a burrow and found it dangerous and not very efficient. So we are going to speed up the process, using heavy and medium attack craft. The attack ships will drop precision-guided plasma bombs. We will use our target designators on the burrows’ entrances to drop the bombs down the tube into the burrow. The bombs are set to detonate after a two-second interval with no movement. That should give us a good chance to get them as deep underground as possible before they go off, killing the queen, egg chambers and most of their soldiers and workers.
“The K’Rang have a queen killer chemical they used 100 years back, but have not tested it yet on a current queen. We are also developing a spray that should make the T’Kab think each other are dead. Earth’s ants emit a scent after they die. Other ants coming across a dead ant will carry a dead one away to the edge of the territory. If you spray them with the scent, they will be carried off, even if they are kicking the whole way. Researchers with our lead units will test their theory and gather samples to develop a chemical to use as an aerial spray against the T’Kab.
“When all corps, Human and K’Rang, are on the ground, we will methodically kill off every burrow we find. If we can kill the queens and eggs, we kill the colony. Are there any questions?”
There were none, so the room came to attention as Lieutenant General Tsien walked out, signaling for his Operations Officer, Colonel Jim Pierce, to follow him out. As they left the conference room, he asked, “Jim, what are the projections for losses?”
Colonel Pierce responded, “Sir, best case is 30 percent. Worst case is 50 percent.”
Tsien shook his head. “That’s too many letters to write. Let’s hope to hell they find that damn navigation console so we can call this thing off.”
Chapter Eleven
Captain M’Taso lifted ship again, as she was in danger of being overwhelmed by T’Kab soldiers moving up from the valley floor towards her. She had been lying out in the sun upwind of her ship, trying to escape the still clinging stench of rotting flesh on board. She and two other crewmembers had moved to a bushy, rocky outcropping overlooking the valley floor and were lying in the sun. One of the crew let out a startled snarl as a set of powerful, razor-sharp mandibles appeared above the cliff edge.
The captain drew her side arm and sent a plasma blast through the leading T’Kab scout’s head, causing it to lose its grip and tumble down 300 feet to the valley below. She looked down the cliff face to see two more T’Kab almost to the top and dozens more scaling the wall. She and the two crewmembers sprinted for the ship, occasionally stopping to let loose a barrage of plasma charges at the pursuing T’Kab. She made it to the ramp just in time, as the engineer was winding up the engines and about to retract the ramp.
As she pulled the ship up and around she had her bottom turret open up on those clinging to the cliff. The plasma rounds incinerated the assault force, leaving none to report back on sighting her ship. She noted once again the intensified effort to find her ship. The main effect they were having was keeping her reduced crew from getting proper rest. She considered a number of drastic actions: calling
down and transferring to the Human scout and destroying her ship, setting the ship on the bottom of one of the oceans, or reaching orbit, transferring the crew to the Human scout and sending the ship into the local star. None of these seemed the right course of action at this time, but she could not allow the annihilation fleet to get her ship by catching them unawares.
She decided to continue to seek out the spectral signature of her navigation and communications consoles. Surely her sensors were capable of isolating the alloys of her consoles from the background clutter. She decided to quarter and re-quarter the area where she had originally landed, in hopes of detecting their spectral signature.
She started at high altitude then corkscrewed down through the atmosphere, holding at each 3,000 meters of altitude for a complete pass over the target area. Normally this would be a risky move in the face of any enemy with aerospace defense capability, but as of yet the T’Kab had not displayed such a capability. When she was 6,000 meters above ground level, she broke off the survey and flew off to their next hide position.
Captain M’Taso and her entire crew analyzed the collected data for any evidence of the missing components. It was a half-asleep sensor operator that solved the puzzle. The T’Kab had hidden the consoles in a cave under a cliff. He only saw it when he dropped off to sleep and jerked back up in just time for their ship to have the right grazing angle to look under the granite roof of the cave and see the active sensor’s beam reflecting from the console alloy. He ran the file over and over to ensure he was not dreaming and called his supervisor over to confirm.
All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) Page 13