The 18th Race: Book 02 - In All Directions

by David Sherman

  Thirty minutes after Bauer called for the meeting, Brigadier General Porter, 1MCF’s Chief of Staff, standing in the doorway for lack of space inside the office, turned on the screen. All twelve remote attendees expectantly looked out of their windows.

  “Gentlemen,” Bauer began, “thank you for appearing so promptly, I’m sure you’ve all come from important duties. Many of you are going to have to change your planning as result of what I have to tell you.

  “The day we’ve all been expecting is upon us. Two hours ago, TF 8 detected a large fleet approaching Troy from a direction that disallows it being from Earth. At its current estimated velocity, it will arrive in ninety-four hours.” He looked at the admiral and captain for confirmation. They nodded. “At this time we don’t know the composition of the fleet, except it’s likely a mix of warships, transports, and support vessels. We have to be prepared for a hostile assault within days. Possibly simultaneous on TF 8 and a landing.

  “Task Force 8 is down to nine warships, one of which is severely damaged. The Navy will need as much help as we can provide. Marine artillery and aircraft will be essentially worthless in the space battle. General Noll, Colonel Ames, what about your artillery?”

  Major General Conrad Noll, commanding general of the 9th Infantry Division, said, “Colonel Ames, kindly take the question.”

  Colonel Adelbert Ames, commander of the 104th Artillery Regiment cleared his throat before answering. “General, sir, my regiment is fortunate enough to have all four of its battalions on Troy, none were lost in the attack on Amphibious Ready Group 17.”

  Bauer made an impatient get to it gesture.

  “Ah, yes, sir. Each battalion has a laser battery, consisting of four companies of twelve lasers that are capable of striking orbital targets.”

  “Are they currently deployed for planetary defense?”

  “Ah, no, sir.”

  “Well, get them so deployed. You have less than four days to have your lasers positioned to support TF 8 in its battle. Deploy the other batteries to do maximum damage to a landing force, and then support infantry and armor once the hostiles make planetfall.

  “General Purvis, have your artillery regiment do the same once the enemy commences planetfall.

  “Admiral Avery, can you put TF 8 in geosync so that we can concentrate our fire to assist you?”

  “Yes, sir. Most of TF 8 is already in geosync over the locations held by NAU forces. I can quickly have the rest of the task force join up. It’s better for the Navy anyway to be together, so we can concentrate our fire on the enemy.”

  “General Purvis, General Noll, I want you to locate your forces where they can support each other, I doubt that when the Dusters make planetfall that they will ever attack in numbers small enough for a company to defeat. General Bearss, liaise with the ground commanders to provide air support. Colonel Reid, have your Force Recon company ready to conduct recon missions, and to fill gaps in our defenses.

  “Brigadier General Porter is your primary point of contact.

  “If there are no questions, gentlemen, you have your orders.”

  None of the generals or admirals had any questions, they all understood the commander’s intent. One by one over a few seconds, all the windows closed until Bauer was alone in his office with Porter.

  “This may be what we expected to find when we first made planetfall,” Porter said.

  “Except then we expected to have an entire Army corps at our back, not a reinforced division.”

  Chapter 22

  Combat Action Center, NAUS Durango, Flagship of Task Force 8, in geosync orbit around Troy

  The dimly lit quiet of the CAC was barely disturbed by Radarman 3 John F. Bickford’s murmured, “Chief, they’re decelerating.”

  Chief Petty Officer James W. Verney took the two steps from his station to Bickford’s and looked over the junior man’s shoulder at his display.

  “So they are,” he affirmed. “I wonder what kind of couches they have.” That was a reasonable query; the apparent deceleration of the alien spacecraft was greater than human ships ever achieved—fast enough to injure human passengers. “They aren’t going to fly past us after all,” he murmured as he turned toward Lieutenant Thomas J. Hudner, the radar division head. “Mr. Hudner, they’re slowng down—fast.”

  Hudner glanced at Varney to see which station he was at, and dialed his monitor to display Bickford’s view, examined it for a few seconds, made a couple of mental calculations, and whistled under his breath at the result of his calculations. He toggled his comm and signaled the bridge.

  “Bridge, CAC.”

  “CAC, Bridge. Go,” Lieutenant Commander Allen Buchanan answered.

  “It looks like they’re slamming on the brakes. Here’s the data.” Hudner sent the data from Bickford’s display.

  “Is that accurate?” Buchanan asked after studying it briefly.

  “Yes, sir. I make it twelve Gs.” At twelve gravities of deceleration, it wouldn’t take long at all for a human to be rendered unconscious. And not much longer to burst enough blood vessels in the brain to bring about death.

  “I will notify the captain,” Buchanan said. He switched his comm to buzz Captain Huse, Durango’s captain.

  Huse had been napping, but woke and sat erect immediately on hearing the beep of his comm. “Huse.”

  “Sir, the bogeys are making their move,” Buchanan reported. “They should reach high orbit within fifteen hours.”

  “Not flying past,” Huse said. It was merely an observation, so Buchanan didn’t reply. “Notify the Admiral. I will be on the bridge in a moment.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Huse was in his combat quarters, a small cabin directly adjacent to the bridge. He slipped his feet into shoes, tugged his uniform straight, and was through the door to the bridge before Buchanan finished notifying Rear Admiral James Avery of the development.

  Task Force 8, deployment around Troy

  The fast attack carrier Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd was still limping in when Rear Admiral Avery began issuing orders for the screening formation. In total, Avery had one carrier, an injured fast attack carrier, three destroyers, three frigates, and one battleship to combat twenty or more enemy warships of unknown capability, and impede the planetfall of a similar number of transports—if their guess about the enemy fleet was right.

  The situation might not be that dire; some of the approaching spacecraft could be support ships rather than combatants or transports. Still, there were forty-plus enemy vessels to the nine of TF 8.

  The frigates were the fastest warships in Avery’s task force. He placed them high to the port of the oncoming fleet’s vector, ready to strike at its flank. The three destroyers made a thin screen ahead of the Durango and the carrier Rear Admiral Norman Scott—and the Kidd, if she arrived in time. The Scott prepared to launch her four space-combat squadrons; her atmospheric combat squadrons, which wouldn’t be of use in the coming fight, were already planetside.

  As soon as Avery issued his preliminary orders, he had Lieutenant Julias Townsend, his aide, contact the planetside headquarters of the 1st Marine Combat Force—he needed to talk with the planetside commander.

  Camp Puller, Headquarters of NAU Forces, Troy

  “Sir,” Captain William P. Upshur said, standing at attention in the doorway of Lieuteant General Bauer’s tiny office.

  “Yes, Bill?” Bauer, looking up from the map display he was studying, waved Upshur in.

  The captain took a step inside and stood relaxed. “A message from geosync, sir. ‘Rear Admiral Avery would like to speak to the General at his earliest pleasure.’“ He restrained the smile he felt coming.

  “That was Townsend?”

  “His words verbatim.”

  Bauer nodded. “Tell him it’s my pleasure now,” and went back to his map display.

  “Aye aye, sir.” Upshur left, and was back a moment later. “Sir, the admiral is on.” He handed Bauer a surface-orbit comm unit.

  Ba
uer waited for Upshur to leave and close the door before he picked up the handset of the comm.

  “Jim, Harry here. Good to hear from you. How’s orbit treating you?”

  “Not as well as one might like, Harry. We’re about to get very busy.”

  Bauer straightened, this was the report he’d been waiting for. “Tell me.”

  “The alien fleet is decelerating, very rapidly. We anticipate their arrival in high orbit in less than fifteen hours.”

  “Any change in their composition?”

  “Not that we can tell. Forty-plus spacecraft, probably half and half combatants and transports, perhaps a few support ships in the mix.”

  “How much damage will TF 8 be able to do to them?”

  “We’ll try to stop their transports, but my main effort will be killing their combatants.”

  “Understood. How much damage can you do to them?”

  Bauer could hear Avery swallow; the man hadn’t been quite the same since he’d lost a significant part of TF 8 and an even larger part of ARG 17, when Bauer had needed to talk him out of relinquishing command of the Navy forces.

  “Sir, we still have no idea of the strength of the combatant vessels. All we know of their weaponry is the leviathan that attacked Troy to begin with had a laser.”

  “So do you, Jim. And your gunners are better. I know my Marines and soldiers are better shots than the Duster infantry.” Bauer had deliberately used Avery’s first name, to draw him back from the formality of calling him “sir.” As the higher ranking officer, Bauer was in overall command of the operation, but he needed Avery to be in top form when he fought the alien spacecraft. “You know where the Army’s laser batteries are. Their primary targets will be the transports once they start to make planetfall, but you know I’ll give you as much support as I can against the warships before then. Between us, we can handle them.”

  Avery audibly took a deep breath. “You’re right, Harry,” he said, sounding more confident. “We can do this.”

  “You know it. Now, let me get my troops ready to do some serious ass kicking. Bauer out.”

  He’d considered asking Avery to copy him on the orders to his fleet, but decided against it out of concern that Avery might misinterpret the request, might think it indicated that Bauer lacked confidence in his abilities. Anyway, he knew that Captain Edwin Anderson, TF 8’s operations officer, would keep him appraised.

  “Bill,” Avery said loudly enough for his voice to carry into the outer office, “get my staff and component commanders on the horn.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Ten days earlier, The War Room, Supreme Military Headquarters, Bellevue, Sarpy County, Federal Zone, North American Union

  “Admiral Stickney,” Secretary of War Richmond Hobson growled, “how soon can Task Force 7 launch for Troy?” His tone suggested the only acceptable answer was immediately.

  “Sir,” Rear Admiral Herman Osman Stickney answered, “we will finish provisioning tomorrow morning, Omaha time, and TF 7 can launch immediately thereafter.” A thin smile cracked his face. “Or I can begin sending my ships piecemeal to the wormhole now.”

  “Begin moving them.” Hobson turned his attention to Rear Admiral William A. Moffett. “How soon can Amphibious Ready Group 28 launch?”

  “Sir, ARG 28’s ships are already positioned at the elevators. We can leave as soon as the Marines board.”

  It was Lieutenant General Edward A. Ostermann’s turn. “How soon can Third Marine Combat Force board the ARG?”

  “Sir, the elements of 3 MCF are prepositioned at Jarvis Island, waiting for the order to embark.” His mouth curved slightly in a grim smile. “I’ve already given orders for them to begin staging at the elevator lobby.”

  “Sir.” Moffett raised his hand.

  “Yes, Admiral?”

  “Sir, I request that ARG 28 begin launching as soon as the first two starships are loaded.”

  “No, I can’t authorize unarmed transports leaving before the entire TF 7 has launched.”

  Moffett grinned. “But, sir, the first two transports I want to launch are the Enterprise and the Tripoli.” Seeing a lack of understanding on the faces of a couple of the Army generals, Moffett explained, “The Enterprise and Tripoli are amphibious battle cruisers—troopships with combat capability equivalent to a light cruiser. Between them they can carry an entire Marine division.”

  Hobson stared at Moffett for a moment, then looked at Osterman. “Can do, General?”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  “Outstanding. Get those Marines aboard immediately. Now all of you, you have your orders. Go.”

  The three component commanders rose and left the War Room, on their way to fight a war.

  Briefing room, Headquarters 1st Marine Combat Force, Camp Puller, Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  “Attention on deck!” Brigadier General David Porter, the 1st MCF chief of staff, boomed out. The sudden silence in the largest interior space in the 1st MCF HQ as conversation abruptly stopped was punctuated by the scraping of chair legs on the floor, and the clicking of buttons on commanders’ comps as the assembled staff and commanders rose to their feet.

  “Seats, gentlemen,” Lieutenant General Bauer said as he strode into the room. The assembled senior officers took their seats, facing the small stage set at the front of the room. Bauer stepped onto the stage and turned to face his staff and major subordinate commanders—the Marine commanders on Eastern Shapland attended by conference vid.

  “You all know Major General Noll of the 9th Infantry Division, but you may not know the man with the oversized stars on his collars. He is Brigadier General Rufus Saxon. He runs the Army’s 10th Brigade, and is a welcome addition to our force. His soldiers, as you know, have already taken on the Dusters many times—and just as often defeated them.”

  Heads turned to look at the Army general. Many of the Marines nodded at him. A few said, “Welcome aboard.” None followed up on Bauer’s remark about the size of Saxon’s rank insignia, they simply accepted that Army officer rank insignia, for unknown reasons, was larger than the insignia worn by Marine and Navy officers.

  “More survivors of the attack on ARG 17 are on their way and will be joining us in defense of Troy,” Bauer said. “And they can’t get here too soon. The Duster fleet approaching Troy’s orbit is decelerating. It has been coming at speed, and declerating more rapidly than human spacecraft can. The fleet should be overhead engaging TF 8 in little more than twelve hours. Navy’s best estimate at this time remains the same, the alien fleet is half combatants, half transports. If they operate anything like we do, we can anticipate that they will bombard the surface prior to making planetfall with their ground troops. But, they’re alien, so we can’t safely make that assumption. We must be prepared to be in a fight by this time tomorrow. In the meanwhile we won’t be sitting on our thumbs playing switch. We will work on improving our defensive positions. The Cee Bees are busy on that, right?” He looked at Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, commander of the 44th Construction Regiment.

  “Yes, Sir,” Bennion answered. “My engineers are working with army engineers at ten different locations, mostly on Shapland. A couple of the platoons are working with Marine combat engineers on Eastern Shapland.”

  “Outstanding. We all know what excellent work your people do.” Bauer looked around the room. “Revise your plans, and be prepared to revise them again as we get more intelligence about enemy action. Lieutenant Colonel Neville—” the 1st MCF intelligence chief—”will keep you updated with developments. I want all of you to keep Brigadier General Shoup appraised of all changes in your plans.

  “We have an invasion to defeat. Let’s do it.”

  With that, he stepped off the stage and marched out of the room to Porter’s shouted, “A-ten-hut!”

  Chapter 23

  Firebase Gasson, near Millerton, Shapland, Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  Captain Patricia H. Pentzer, the commanding officer of fourth platoon, H Battery, 1045 Artillery
Battalion (Laser), stood on the mount of laser 2 and looked around with disapproval. Firebase Gasson is just too damn small, she thought. It won’t take much at all for a counter-laser attack from orbit to take out all three of my guns. Even one gunboat can do the dirty deed in minutes.

  Such an attack would wipe out that leg platoon that was there to protect her guns as well. As if a leg platoon could defend a position from an orbital attack. She shook her head and made a face. And assigning a Mobile Intelligence platoon to Gasson made as much sense as tits on a bull. What were they thinking?

  It was that Jarhead three-star who did this, no Army general could be dumb enough to order a cock-up like this. Hell, she needed a base the size of Gasson for each of her lasers—and they should be separated by a minimum of a klick, better yet three klicks. One gunboat would have a hell of a time taking them all out before it got killed itself. Even a lone destroyer couldn’t survive trying to get all three if they were properly spread.

  Damn dumb Jarhead. Has to be his fault.

  She craned her neck, looking at the sky overhead. A futile motion, she knew. But, damn, she had to take a look after the sitrep that sent her climbing the laser’s mount. A presumably hostile fleet rapidly approaching Troy. She had to have her battery ready to aid TF 8 in combating the enemy warships, or to blast landing craft if they attempted to make planetfall.

  Now, where was that leg lieutenant—what was his name, Cragg or something—in command of her security? She looked around until she saw him walking the perimeter.

  “Hey you, leg LT!” Her shout was loud enough to be heard all through the small base, even if not understood at its farthest reaches.

  Lieutenant Greig didn’t even turn his head.

  She glared at his back and filled her lungs to shout again.