“I am hesitant to divulge the location of the resistance with two high-level Sinclair family members present.” General Golov was alluding to the Stouts. To their credit, Ann and Greg requested to be left out at a rural maglev station where they could get a train into the capital. This was where they were supposed to meet Ann’s father. General Golov indicated a maglev station in a small town about three hundred kilometers from the capital. “We can land in an open area outside the town and you can get the maglev to the capital. Do you have any cash on you?”
“We have our credit chips, they will work since Sinclair now controls banking on Petrovia.”
General Golov nodded. Secretly she hoped Sinclair would soon have control of her banks and planet rested from them.
Alaya said, “Alisa, give Tavia the coordinates of that small town and where we should land.”
General Golov gave the information to Tavia who would make sure they reached the proper area after the long transit to the planet was over. The transit was uneventful and they were able to monitor the ship activity. Alaya thought it odd that the Mobile Fleet had spent just over four years orbiting Petrovia, but then realized Sinclair considered this part of Sinclair Corporation now, so it was proper for the fleet to protect the Spinward Marches of the expanded Sinclair Empire. Petrovia was the new base for the Mobile Fleet. Tavia looked for part of the atmosphere where there were no clouds. Even invisible ships caused atmospheric disturbances, and clouds would result in the worst form of disturbance and could even render the ship temporarily visible. To avoid this, it was imperative to penetrate the atmosphere where there were no clouds. Fortunately, Petrovia was a semi-arid world with little rain. Desalination of ocean water allows irrigation, but only the inhabited portions of the planet were irrigated. The bulk of the Petrov Corporation population lived on mining planets. They were in a part of space devoid of Earth-like planets. The Petrovians also never had enough money to terraform their world, due to military expenditures to protect themselves from the wealthier corporations. Tavia entered the atmosphere in a cloudless sky away from any areas of habitation. Since the serpent ships were winged vessels, they could glide and needed very little repulsor energy to keep the ship aloft. This also helped avoid vapor trails. Tavia flew the ship to the outskirts of a small town General Golov had directed her to. She landed in a clearing and the only indication of their presence was the sand kicked up by their landing jets. After landing, Alaya, who was co-piloting this time, shut down all engines to eliminate any noise, as they were near an area of habitation.
Alaya then went back to the common room, where Greg and Ann were preparing to leave. She gave her friends a hug and said, “Ann, I am going to trust you to use your best judgment about what you saw. I also understand that you are in a difficult spot, since your father is high in the Sinclair Corporation. Do what you think is best with the information you have. It is important to us that Sinclair Corp not know we captured their Q-Ship.” Alaya then reached into her pocket and gave Ann a tap node. “This tap node has the record of what happened to the Hayden and Purgatory. Show it to your father and take it from there. Just be safe and perhaps we will be able to meet again in the future.” Alaya gave Ann another hug and she led her and Greg to the bridge exit. They descended the ladder and walked in the direction General Golov told them to find the road to the town with the Maglev station. As she watched them walk away, she wondered if she would ever see them again.
The ladder was retracted and the hatch closed. They waited until the Stouts were far off and then Tavia lifted off to a large puff of sand and they were gone. “General Golov, where would you like me to take us?” Tavia asked.
The general gave Tavia the coordinates for the resistance base and the ship moved silently and invisibly through the atmosphere. Tavia made sure she avoided any clouds and soon reached the mountain range where the base lay. The coordinates were for the caldera of a dormant volcano, a perfect place for a base. She could see the low watch stations along the rim of the caldera and then, as the ship came over the caldera, she saw a bustling base with a lot of ground movement. There did not appear to be a landing area of any ships, but there were some flat areas near the edges of the caldera. They would suffice as a landing pad. “General, there are no ships and no landing areas. I can put us down near the edge on that flat area,” Tavia pointed out the spot she had picked.
“We have no ships. All of our attacks are ground attacks and consist only of sabotage. It has been over four years since I was here, but we have had occasional messages from them, which others have brought through. Any ships landing and taking off would immediately give away our location.”
“Then it is a good thing we are invisible,” Alaya interjected. “Tavia land us on the flat spot you sighted and we will discuss how to contact the resistance so they don’t shoot when we become visible.” Alaya then turned to Hatch, “Hatch, keep us invisible after we land.”
“Sss. Yes Captain Slone.”
Tavia brought the ship down to the landing area and gave a short blast of the landing rockets. This loosened a few stones and she could see some of the people in the camp look in her direction, but there was nothing to see. The sound was attributed to the frequent rockslides in the rim area. The camp was about a kilometer from the edge and covered two kilometers of the four-kilometer diameter caldera.
“Well Alisa, how would you like to proceed?” Alaya asked.
“I need to send a message to the resistance leader of this group. His name is Colonel Anton Ivanov.”
Alaya turned to Raul Cortega, “Put through a hail to the resistance camp using the Petrov resistance code. Put the response on the speakers.”
The message was sent and the response came back quickly, “Who is this and how did you get this frequency?”
Alaya turned to General Golov, “General, the line is yours.”
Alisa went over to the communications console and nodded to Raul who then opened the line. “This is General Alisa Golov, identification number R54Y6, put me through to Colonel Ivanov.”
They could hear some discussion in the background. After a short time, a new voice was heard. “How can I be certain that you are General Golov? Anyone could have gotten his identification number through torture.”
Alisa chuckled, “Anton, first of all you know ‘he’ is a ‘she’ and you also should know my voice. If you do not, then tell me if your daughter, Anastasia, still has that doll I gave her on her tenth birthday?”
After a short pause, the voice at the other end of the communicator said, “Alisa, I thought you were near the border with New Wales to look for your mysterious Romani for help. By the way, where are you? Signaling is very risky.”
“Not if I am in the same volcano you are.”
Colonel Ivanov picked up a communicator and ran out of his tent. He called the perimeter guard posts and asked who had let General Golov through without notifying the base commander. Every one of the perimeter guards swore they had no idea about what the Colonel was asking. “Alisa, no one has seen you within the volcano. What are we missing?”
“What you are missing my friend, is the fact that I found the Romani. Look to the northwest at the base of the rim.”
Colonel Ivanov looked in the direction and still saw nothing. “Ok Alisa, I am looking there but see nothing. Fine camouflage you have. How about waving.”
“I will do better than that, my friend.” General Golov nodded to Alaya and she told Hatch to make them visible.
As the colonel watched, the flat space at the base of the rim was filled with a ship having wings and a tail. The resistance personnel looking in that direction had trouble keeping their jaws from dropping. “Alisa, how is this possible?”
Rather than answering, the side of the ship above the wing opened and the General came out with Alaya and Tavia. The serpents were told to stay out of sight for now until they filled in the resistance that humans were not the only rulers of the galaxy. As the Romani and General Golov climbed down from
the wing, the Colonel came over and still had trouble even talking. He saluted the general and asked, “Alisa, how is this possible and what kind of a ship is this. Never in any corporation have I seen such a vessel.”
Alisa introduced the Romani to the Colonel and said, “Let’s move into your cabin and I will tell you what has transpired.” They moved into a comfortable cabin with nice furnishings. The appearance indicated they had been here a long time. The women warriors sat at the table with the resistance commander and Alisa filled him in on what transpired.
After digesting the news, Colonel Ivanov said, “That Q-Ship was a great danger to our remaining ships, but how two dreadnoughts, a cruiser and two destroyers could get close enough to a monster like that and board her without losing part of the fleet is beyond me.”
Since the serpents were no longer hidden, Alisa had been given permission to reveal them to her people, since they were now a protectorate of the Romani. However, how to tell someone we are not alone in the universe. She looked at Alaya for guidance and Alaya knew what the problem was.
“We have a very strong force that fights with us and they are very difficult to stop.” Alaya said.
The Colonel looked at her. “And what is the nature of this force?”
“That is a little hard to explain. You said you had never seen a ship like the one we came in. That is because no human hands built that ship.”
“Captain Slone, are you trying to tell me that some kind of alien built it?”
“That is exactly what I am telling you,” Alaya then proceeded to describe the serpents and what they had done for the Romani and whom the Romani protect. To say that Colonel Ivanov was in disbelief was an understatement.
“I think you have all had too much vodka, my friends. We need real troops not phantoms of the imagination.”
“I can assure you, Colonel Ivanov, they are not phantoms. Would you care to meet them?”
Now the Colonel’s mind was blown. “Are you telling me there are aliens in that ship you brought?”
Alaya nodded her head and stood up. She signaled everyone to come and follow her. She led them to the ship and radioed for Raul to bring a ladder for them to mount the wing. Normally they would have entered the bridge hatch that had an automatic retractable ladder, but Alaya did not want the Colonel to climb onto the bridge with the aliens there. She wanted him to meet them face to face in the common room. Raul came out with the manual ladder and hooked it over the wing to allow the humans to climb. Serpents would have just jumped up. Ivanov had been in many ships in his time, but this one was much different. The door openings were round and not the usual oblong with rounded corners. The lighting was subdued and the interior was of much higher quality workmanship than any corporate ship he had ever seen.
“Hatch, come into the common room,” Alaya ordered.
The door to the bridge opened and Colonel Ivanov was not quite prepared for what came through. He could feel his knees weaken and had to hold onto the table to keep from collapsing. The women were amused at his reaction, but Alaya and Tavia had seen it many times before. “Is this an animal?” the colonel asked.
“In the sense that humans are animals, yes. Hatch, this is Colonel Ivanov. He is an ally of ours now.”
Hatch’s lips undulated, indicating she was about to speak, “Sss. Hatch is pleased to meet Colonel Ivanov. Welcome aboard the Gladius.”
“They speak our language?” Colonel Ivanov was flummoxed.
“Yes they do. Have a seat please and let’s discuss what you know about the Sinclair military distributions.” Alaya said and they all sat at the desk with Hatch standing in the corner. “Do you have any idea how many ground troops Sinclair has on Petrovia?”
Colonel Ivanov could not take his eyes off of Hatch as he reported, “As far as we can tell from our resistance agents, there are twenty thousand occupation troops. However, I can tell you, they are second rate. We think most are mercenaries.”
“That would fit,” Alaya said. “They had mercenaries on the Q-Ship as well. That works in our favor, they surrender fast when the serpents attack them.”
Suddenly Blue Scale came out of the cockpit, much to the shock of Ivanov. Her lips undulated and she said, “Sss. Captain, sensors show a large group of humans climbing the outside of the mountain.”
Just then, an alarm sounded in the camp and Ivanov’s communicator chirped. Ivanov asked for a report and he was informed that mercenaries were moving up the mountain. Strength estimate was 150 to 200 and well armed. Ivanov told the Romani he had to see to the defense but they had no place to run, so they would have to win this fight.
“Colonel, we will go invisible and attack them as they climb.” Alaya then opened the side hatch and let the Colonel out. Alisa also left with Ivanov, since it was her people they were defending, she felt she should be there and Ivanov was glad for the help. Alaya gave General Golov a hand held viewer. “Take this and we will feed you visual of the enemy from the ship.” As they left the ship, they could see the resistance fighters grabbing their weapons and putting on their armor. Alaya ran back into the Gladius and closed the hatch. “Make us invisible and lift us above the rim of the volcano.”
Hatch made the ship invisible and Tavia lifted them up above the volcano. They could see the resistance fighters going into elevators placed in the walls of the rim and coming out near the top. The volcano was an old mining base that the resistance repurposed for their military base. They had repaired the elevators for quick deployment in just such a situation. When they were above the caldera they flew in the direction the sensors told them the enemy was located.
“Sss. There they are, Lady Tavia,” Blue Scale reported.
They all looked at the caldera wall and saw the enemy force half way up the side. The external slope of the volcano was gradual and thus allowed for an easy climb to the top. The enemy was making good progress and the Gladius was transmitting the image of the enemy to General Golov to help the resistance prepare to repel them. “Raul, open a tight beam to General Golov. When the line was open, Alaya said, “Alisa, are you seeing the enemy? We can fire the railguns without becoming visible. We cannot let any of them escape. You will have to abandon your base, but if none of them returns, it will take time for Sinclair to send more to investigate. Do you have a fallback position?”
“Yes, Colonel Ivanov tells me there is another base just over 100 kilometers away. Far enough they can’t find us but close enough to get there on foot. There are no vehicles or ships. Hit and run attacks are done over days and at distance.”
“If it is only that short a distance, we can pack you into our ship and just keep shuttling back and forth until the job is done.”
“That would be appreciated, Alaya, but first we have to deal with the present situation.”
Alaya turned to her weapons tech. “Deadeye, target the slopes in front of the enemy and see if we can start a land slide.”
“Sss. Yes Captain Slone.”
Deadeye fired the three railguns at the slope above the column of troops. They hit with a high kinetic force and dislodged a large portion of the loose overburden covering the underlying solid lava rock. Railguns were silent but the shots had tremendous kinetic energy. The rail slugs embedded into the loose rock and radiated their pressure outwards. When the slugs hit, there was a small amount of pulverized rock thrown into the air and this fell on the troops like a fine rain. After the delay of a few seconds, the slope above the enemy began to slide downwards. As it built up momentum, it carried more of the ground with it. An avalanche of rock barreled down the slope onto the enemy troops. It was too large for any but the troops on the fringes to escape. Half the troops were either buried or wounded. Their comrades helped those they could and they continued their climb. They had not looked to the sky as the source of the explosions that caused the landslide. Alaya assumed they must have thought the area was booby-trapped, since there was nothing to see above them. They proceeded more cautiously and their forward scouts were caref
ully looking for mines or explosive traps as they climbed. Alaya was pleased that they had slowed the enemy progress and taken out several dozen with the landslide. The railguns cycled rapidly and new shots were waiting to be fired.
“Tavia, back us off a little. Deadeye, will the cluster missiles work on troops as they do on ships?”
“Sss. Yes Captain Slone, we need only set them to open as soon as they are fired.”
“Good, load cluster missiles into the tubes and fire them at the enemy so we get the maximum spread.”
“Sss. Yes Captain Slone.” Deadeye loaded the tubes and set the proper variables. She then fired the missiles. If they had been in space, the missiles would have flown and the nose cones would have opened at a distance up to 10,000 meters from the ship. An explosive charge at the base of the nose cone would have propelled hundreds of small bombs in the direction of the enemy ships. Alaya had never seen them work on land, but she was about to. As soon as the missiles were launched, the nose cones opened and the cluster bombs were released. Both the bombs and the missiles impacted at the same time. Since the missile warheads had already detonated to expel the cluster bombs, what landed on the troops was a missile with almost all of its fuel aboard. This exploded and covered the area, and the troops in that area, with flames. The bombs had minimal dispersion due to the short distance to the ground, but it was enough for the combined missiles to cover eighty percent of the enemy force. They had tried to protect themselves from the flames of the missiles but could not avoid the cluster bombs. As the clusters detonated, a large cloud of dust, blood and body parts flew into the air. They finally realized that someone was firing heavy ordinance on them from a high platform and assumed it was coming from across the valley. They also realized they had no defense and they were trapped where they lay. As the Gladius was about to fire a new volley of rail shots at them, a white flag appeared on the side of the mountain.
Rising Star Page 18