Ingrid’s attention was drawn to first platoon’s position two blocks away to the north. She could no longer see A-16’s tank, just a wall of black.
She yelled down to Captain Kopinsky, inside the transport, “Sir, I can’t see A-16.”
It was at that moment, when everyone on the ground turned to look north, that the communicator burst into life. The lieutenant’s voice carried a certain amount of emotion. “A-6, this is A-16, I seem to be surrounded. There must be 30 to 50 bugs around me. I have everyone inside and buttoned up. They haven’t done anything yet; they’re just standing looking at us. They don’t look happy.”
“A-16, this is A-6, did anything happen to get them riled up?”
“A-6, this is A-16, nothing that we did, sir.”
Captain Kopinsky told everyone to get inside and button up. He climbed up on the turret and told Ingrid to drop down to the gunner’s seat and asked what they had loaded.
She told him an AP charge and one in the rack. He told the charger to run up five more.
He called A-16 again and was told no change. He called the battalion commander and gave a situation report. Lieutenant Colonel Hrata said he was sending the quick reaction force and to hold until it arrived.
Captain Kopinsky looked through the sight and saw a crowd of T’Kab just standing there, looking at the roadblock. The roadblock consisted of the platoon leader’s tank, A-16, an armored hover transport with a squad of infantry, and a second tank.
Captain Kopinsky debated whether to stay put and see if whatever spun the T’Kab up would dissipate, or move down the street with A-5 and either disperse them or light the fuse. He got on the communicator and told all other company roadblocks to stay put unless he called for them. He was going to wait for the QRF, form into a flying wedge and advance down the street to disperse them. He asked the first platoon leader if there was any change and was told they were touching antennae a lot, but maintaining position around him.
Calling the QRF, he asked for an ETA and what they were bringing. The QRF leader responded with 20 minutes and he had five tanks and two armored hover transports with a squad in each. Captain Kopinsky thought that seven tanks and two transporters should be impressive enough coming down the street.
A-16 came up on the communicator. “Something’s happening, sir. They are making a noise by rubbing their forelegs together and swaying back and forth. Oh, my God, here they come!”
Captain Kopinsky looked down in the sight and saw T’Kab climbing on top of the 1st Platoon vehicles. They were climbing all over the first platoon’s vehicles but not doing any harm. The lieutenant remarked that these were the smaller worker bugs not the bigger soldier bugs. Captain Kopinsky called the QRF and told them to step on it. Things were close to getting ugly. Ingrid saw him wrestling with what to do. Should he stay back and let them get tired of doing no harm to the vehicles or move in and possibly light a fire?
Lieutenant Colonel Hrata called for a situation report and Captain Kopinsky told him the T’Kab were up on the vehicles with the crews buttoned up inside, but not doing any harm other than scratching the paint. He said he was waiting for the QRF to arrive in ten minutes, at which time he would form a flying wedge and attempt to disperse the T’Kab.
Lieutenant Colonel Hrata told him to wait for him to arrive and take no provocative actions unless lives were in danger. Captain Kopinsky acknowledged the order and waited.
“A-6, this is A-16, they are all over my vehicles, but not hurting anything. There’s not a whole lot they can do to me, boss.”
The QRF and the battalion commander showed up at the same time. Lieutenant Colonel Hrata’s tank pulled up next to Ingrid’s. Captain Kopinsky opened his hatch and climbed out and across to the battalion commander’s tank. The QRF leader walked across and climbed up for the conference. Ingrid popped up into the tank commander’s seat and started a 360-degree watch out the open hatch. While the officers talked, a buzzing sound was heard, and it got louder. She looked up just in time to shout out a warning to the officers. A queen or drone swooped out of the sky and grabbed at the company commander. Captain Kopinsky, warned by Ingrid’s shout, rolled off the turret and escaped, but the QRF leader was not so lucky.
The T’Kab grabbed him and dragged him, screaming, into the sky. Ingrid grabbed the control grip, spun the mini-turret, and lined the machine gun sights up between the wings and pulled the trigger. The charges hit the T’Kab right between the wing roots and it went down, dropping the officer about 8 meters as it fell. The armored hover transport rushed to get between the crowd down the street and the lieutenant. They pulled up before him and dropped the tail ramp. The medics ran out the back with the litter and checked the lieutenant’s condition. As quick as a medic could, he put a neck brace on him, lifted him gently onto the litter and ran him into the back of the transport and back to the A Company headquarters roadblock.
Once back in the relative security of the roadblock, the medic checked his vitals with his portable medical scanner, checked his pupillary response, and felt around for broken bones or wounds. He felt and scanned a broken right leg below the knee, a broken rib, and a broken collarbone. He called for a medevac ship to take the lieutenant away. Lieutenant Colonel Hrata had the QRF and A Company vehicles move into a circular perimeter with guns facing out. In minutes, a medevac ship landed just outside the perimeter and four soldiers rushed the litter over to the ship, then pulled back as the ship lifted in a cloud of dust and debris and flew the officer to the spaceport’s medical facility.
Lieutenant Colonel Hrata was in no mood to be tolerant and ordered Captain Kopinsky to mount up and form a flying wedge to get his platoon leader out from under the T’Kab. Captain Kopinsky first had the platoon leader power up and see if that would dislodge the T’Kab, but they hung on with their mandibles and could not be shaken off. The company HQ, battalion commander’s tank and the QRF lined up in a wedge pointing down the street at the T’Kab.
Lieutenant Colonel Hrata led at the point of the wedge and the dozen vehicles moved ominously toward the T’Kab mob. As they got closer, Captain Kopinsky told his platoon leader to move out quickly if the T’Kab dropped off his vehicles.
The machine guns all pointed forward at the crowd and they continued to advance down the narrow street. They opened up the wedge to pass around the body of the downed T’Kab and all hell broke loose.
The crowd backed away from the roadblock as the wedge approached and then flames burst out on the 1st platoon vehicles. Captain Kopinsky yelled in his communicator for the lieutenant platoon leader to get his vehicles out of there. A platoon of T’Kab soldier caste moved out of an alley behind them and fired a rocket at the battalion commander’s tank. He was warned and went into a high hover, pushing the suspensor generator to the max. It got the tank above the missile, but as the missile hit the suspensor field it was forced into the ground and exploded directly below the tank.
The explosion lifted the rear of the tank, which flipped it forward, destroying the main gun, and the engine behind the turret.
Captain Kopinsky yelled into his headset, “All vehicles, suppressive fire now! Let’s give the platoon leader an escape route.”
Machine guns opened up on the T’Kab and the lieutenant was able to slip his vehicles away to join the company commander. Kopinsky’s group of vehicles drove abreast as they moved the crowd up the road.
A medic rode forward with the transporter and hopped out to see to the battalion command tank. The charger had been slammed into the charge rack when the tank flipped and a support bracket split his head open, killing him instantly. Lieutenant Colonel Hrata had a broken arm. The gunner was unharmed. The driver was shaken, but unhurt. The gunner and driver moved the charger’s body into the transporter, while the medic saw to Lieutenant Colonel Hrata, and the transporter quickly moved back to the wedge.
The crowd of workers moved to the sides of the road and soldier T’Kab, on tracked vehicles in battalion strength, advanced on the group. Lieutenant Colon
el Hrata ordered them to bound back to his original position and Captain Kopinsky ordered Ingrid to select and engage targets at will. She told the charger to make up anti-tank charges, as many as he could. She fired the anti-personnel charge in the tube at the exposed soldiers riding on the T’Kab vehicles. She quickly fired all made up anti-personnel charges, killing over twenty T’Kab soldiers, and switched to antitank charges. The first charge pierced the hull of the lead vehicle and set off fuel or ammo, lighting up the street and slowing the follow-on tracks. Captain Kopinsky told the driver to get them moving back while the QRF tanks covered them. He called for urgent air support to allow them to disengage and get away.
Ingrid lined up her sights on the next tracked vehicle in line and let loose the charge. The vehicle came to a lifeless halt. She brought up the next charge and the next and the next, methodically working her way back in the line even as they moved away. The T’Kab vehicles fired, but their rounds went wide or they fired wildly.
A flight of AG-122s was directed to fly in support of the beleaguered party and roared down the street, raking everything strange looking with machine gun fire and missiles. The Yestepkin tank killer gun sliced and diced the formation from front to rear. Trapped in the narrow streets, the T’Kab armored unit succumbed to deadly accurate tank and attack ship fire. By nightfall, the roadblocks were reestablished, using the wreckage as barricades. A surreal calm descended over the roadways. The T’Kab had tested them and found them not wanting for courage or capability.
* * * * *
Brad’s AG-122 was not in Ingrid’s fight; he was still on the Behemoth, as his ship was one of the last to be made flight-ready. His and another AG-122 were ready and ordered to land at the spaceport. As they descended through the atmosphere, leaving two fiery contrails in the early morning sky, they were redirected to assist a mechanized company in trouble. Brad directed the mechanized company to turn on all Identification Friend or Foe transponders. These black boxes would identify the vehicles as friendly to the fire control computer and not let the guns fire on them.
Brad and his wingman lined up on the vector to the company and screamed in at Mach 1.3. They made a quick pass over the target and slowed as they turned back to engage. Armored gun vehicles besieged the company like the ones Ingrid engaged, but these could shoot. Brad saw the hulls in the wood line on his monitor and sent his wingman to hit the line from the other end while he worked his way from this side.
He waited for his wingman to get in position and opened fire. Missiles took out three vehicles and his gun accounted for five more. A burst of machine gun fires damaged the tail of the other AG-122 and it had to retire to the spaceport. Brad remained and methodically destroyed the remaining vehicles. He watched the surviving crews hobble off to the northeast, carrying their wounded. The mechanized company commander gave him a big thank you and told Brad and Sheila he owed them a drink or three.
As they were flying to the spaceport to join their unit, the radar warning light came on. Both heads went on a swivel as Brad jinked the ship hard to the left and Sheila fired countermeasures. One missile went after the decoys; the other came after Brad’s ship. He jinked hard left again and came face to face with a T’Kab fighter trying to line up for another shot at them. Sheila activated the tank killer gun and shot the large slow fighter out of the sky. It was time to head to the spaceport. It was getting dangerous out here, now that the T’Kab were getting organized.
* * * * *
At mid-day, Angie received a mission change to fly top cover over the advancing 30th Armored and 68th Mech. She pulled her squadrons back, landed them, and had them reloaded and checked for obvious wear and tear. She kept one F-53 squadron to provide CAP for the battle fleet and paired an F-53 squadron and an A-76 squadron to defend against air or ground threats over the 30th and 68th. Her attack craft fired their missiles against a T’Kab column moving towards the spaceport. Her fighters shot down a squadron of attack craft not destroyed during a medium attack ship strike to their airfield earlier in the morning.
* * * * *
S’Tera, the commodore in charge of the K’Rang flotilla, watching the left guard system, felt left out of the epic battle as the K’Rang and allies finally destroyed their age-old enemy. He felt the T’Kab on this world were too timid to come up and fight him like warriors. They were insects with the intellect and morals of an insect race.
He crept closer and closer to the inhabited world, violating his orders to not approach the planet until the five K’Rang unified forces landed. Then the carriers could be spared to support reduction of combat power on the two planets. S’Tera hated working for the Humans. They always hid behind their fighters and very rarely engaged in a straight up ship-to-ship fight, like true warriors.
He moved his flotilla in even closer, trying to get into sensor range of the planet. He suspected the Humans were hiding something about this planet. He didn’t know what, but he wanted to find out. Ever closer his flotilla advanced towards the world, until he was in orbit around it. He had all ships activate all sensors and gather data. If the Humans knew some secret about this place, he would know it, too.
Unfortunately for S’Tera, the T’Kab home fleet knew about him before he knew about them. The T’Kab home fleet commander saw them enter the system as the fleet returned from a training exercise in the far reaches of their star system. She had the fleet orbit around the next rocky planet outward and watched the K’Rang flotilla go into orbit around the occupied planet in this system. The ancient enemy had found them. She must destroy them.
The T’Kab commander waited until the flotilla was blinded on the far side of the planet and jumped her fleet to the night side of the occupied planet. When the K’Rang Flotilla came around from the sun side of the planet, they were hit by missiles, plasma bubbles, high energy lasers and pulse cannons. The armaments were obsolete, except when used at close range, but the cumulative effect made them pretty useful against modern shielding and armor.
Two frigates blew up before S’Tera even knew he was under attack. By the time he knew what was happening, he had lost one of his destroyers. He called a hasty contact report to Admiral Conover requesting assistance, but before the battle fleet could react, he ran for it. The T’Kab Home Fleet (with 23 combatants) was in hot pursuit and he was leading them right to the battle fleet.
* * * * *
Vice Admiral Conover couldn’t believe this idiot was bringing the T’Kab fleet directly to his fleet. He sent a message to S’Tera, telling him to bear off, but he was either too scared or too stupid to realize what he was doing. Conover sent an emergency sortie call to move his escorts between his carriers, landing ships, and support ships and the approaching T’Kab fleet. He got his senior fighter force representative working up a strike package. Now all he had to do was decide on which target to aim them, the T’Kab fleet or the fool leading them to him.
Chapter Seventeen
Vice Admiral Conover looked at the order of battle of the fleet coming at him. He counted out five battle cruisers, eight cruisers, five destroyers and five frigates. None of them were armed with anything considered a modern weapon. They all had that peculiar girder box construction, with no thought to esthetics or an outer pressure hull. Ugly or not, they had good engines and would be here in less than a day. He watched his ships move into Defend Fleet mode and away from supporting the troops on the ground. Conover hoped for a swift resolution, so they could return to supporting the troops. He kept one carrier on troop support and moved them and the ring ship behind the planet, to shield them from the coming battle.
* * * * *
Commander Gibbons heard the “Prepare to Defend Fleet” order come over the intercom system and hurried to the CIC. The Behemoth class ships were some of the most heavily armed ships in the Fleet, but it was mostly guns – guns used for ground support, not for attacking combatants. That was not a consideration in her design. If the Behemoth had to fire her guns in self-defense, things were generally going to hell in a ha
nd basket. Whatever, the Captain would need his expertise. He rushed to the CIC as General Quarters was called.
The Captain looked up as he entered the CIC and motioned him over to the main plot. Gibbons looked down as a red arrowhead of 23 combatants pointed at their fleet, moving at a good speed. He estimated they’d arrive in time for lunch. Gibbons had no formal combat training, but had sat in on every training cruise, exercise, and drill over the last 20 years, whenever the Behemoth was deployed for training or to test new equipment.
He sidled up to the Captain, looked at the blue (or friendly) situation, and saw a screen of eight frigates followed by a strong defensive line of ten destroyers and ten cruisers. They were all missile-heavy, so a good first line defense. The remainder of the escorts were arrayed around the behemoths and carriers. Gibbons looked over at the supply load out board and saw enough metric tons of beans, bullets, and black oil to require ten more days to offload onto the planet. He looked at the gunnery board and saw fire missions ongoing in support of the corps as the T’Kab became organized.
The Captain asked, “You’ve seen the situation. Do you have any recommendations, Commander?”
Gibbons asked, “Have the Angaerry reported any movement from the fleet at the other guard planet?”
All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) Page 22