Hawkins leaned close to his screen and continued softly. “Shane, I know this is tough but there isn’t much to be done on Ulatar and I need you on this. Leave one ship at the house and move whatever you can to take up blocking positions. If the battle cruiser gets through now we will not get another shot. Do not engage the Goths if they send out ships from Rosstrappe. I will need all of Flot 1 when we hit them in force. We’re not going to attack piecemeal but, trust me; we will get back at them.”
Hawkins leaned back. “For Captain Mallory: we will shortly be arriving at your base at Gammatiga. Would appreciate weapons resupply if you can arrange it. I assume you saw how our missiles were expended. We are now actively engaged in the OrCon fight with you. My intel says the OrCons are five hours in trail of you now. I assume you will be arriving at your base about six hours behind me. It is obviously time-critical to evac the base and we don’t want to waste time arguing or fighting the base commander. I anticipate I will have three corvettes and a support ship there. Please advise. All ships acknowledge receipt of this message. Hawkins, Flag Captain, out.”
The formal sign off was to inform all ships Hawkins was calling Pirate Flotilla One together and taking command. If any ship were to decline the summons, it would risk expulsion from the flotilla. Hawkins rarely called the flotilla together but when he did, he meant it. Hawkins was confident all ships would respond due to the destruction of Charlie house. For Captain Mallory’s message, Hawkins attached the images of the Charlie house destruction so she could see the reason for the pirate moves against the OrCons and the Goths and, more importantly, understand the motive for the upcoming ruthless violence to be visited upon these two groups.
Captain Mallory sat in her command chair in CIC when the pirate message came in. Petty Officer Chou announced the arrival of the message on the same frequency used throughout the Potenka battle. With the sound of Chou’s voice, it suddenly occurred to Mallory that Chou was spending as much time in the CIC as she was. She would have to informally track this. She wanted to ensure nobody burned out due to too much duty time.
“That freq is pirate common now,” Mallory said to nobody in particular as she called up the message as Commander Cassidy came over and looked over Sky’s shoulder. They watched the message together and Cassidy looked at her Captain with a raised eyebrow. “What rank is Flag Captain?” she asked with a smile.
“I have no idea. We’ll have to ask,” Sky replied with an answering smile and then turned serious. “We’ll support them with supplies. They did expend their ordnance in support of us and we now have allies against the OrCons and their Goth escort. Besides there are more supplies at Gammatiga than we can carry and we may not have the time to load even that with the OrCons hot on our trail. I’m sure the pirates are very good at resupplying on the run. I will authorize full support. I’ll send the message.”
Cassidy nodded and moved away as Sky brought up her screen to send the messages.
“Captain Hawkins, thank you for your invaluable support at Potenka. We wouldn’t be here now without it. For Commander Snyder: You will support Captain Hawkins with munitions and all other supplies he requires. I expect to be there in thirty-three hours. The OrCons are probably a few hours in trail so we must be prepared to quickly evac the base once we arrive. Mallory, out.”
She sent the message to Captain Hawkins and Commander Snyder. Messages flowed back and forth between her ships and the supply base over the last several hours and she was well informed on the evacuation progress. Personnel, equipment, and supplies had been prioritized and prepared for loading. Their support ships would arrive there any minute and start loading. It should go quickly once the ship transportation arrived and the pirates joined in. Sky and Commander Cassidy went over the defense plan if they had to delay the oncoming OrCons to allow for complete evacuation of the base. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need it.
Chapter 22
Rafe reviewed the message from Sky Mallory with pleasure. This lone Zeke base undoubtedly had several months of support for its ships and they would want to get all of it off the planet and leave nothing for the OrCons. Problem would be time to load, but he knew everyone would work to get as much as possible on board ships in the time allowed.
He eyed Tactical and Baby Doll and motioned to the back of the bridge at the hatch of his day cabin. The three moved to the opening. “Arky, you have the bridge.” Rafe said over his shoulder as he passed through the hatch. Navigator Arky Smith replied, “Aye, Captain.”
The three entered the small office. Rafe stepped beyond his desk and stopped at his small cold storage unit, took out three beer bottles, and distributed them. He then sat in his chair, and as the two women took seats in front of the desk, he pushed two of his beloved books to the side and propped his feet on the desk, resting his elbows on the chair’s arms while cradling his beer bottle in his left hand. The two guests relaxed in their chairs and both propped their feet on the front edge of the desk, bottles in hand. The meeting had the informal air of old friends rather than a council of war. Hawkins considered his words and then began. “I thought this might be a one-battle campaign. We would fight at Potenka, resupply at Gammatiga, and then go our merry way while the Zekes figured out what they wanted to do with the OrCons and vice versa. The Charlie house attack changes everything. We can’t let the OrCons and their Goth escorts walk on this. I’ve got a message from Commissioner Putinsky for your listening pleasure.”
Hawkins played the Putinsky message for his two senior officers. After it concluded, he went into his formal briefing mode.
“Now I see this upcoming campaign as a series of battles in which we cut down the OrCon/Goth strength before smashing them in a final fight. The OrCons and their Goth escort have to prepare for a possible fight at Gammatiga. According to Commissioner Putinsky, the two OrCon support ships and their six-ship Goth escort joined them at Potenka two hours after the battle so the OrCons obviously dropped them off before the fight there. I suspect they will use the same tactic at Gammatiga and we need to be ready to take advantage of this. One of the OrCon’s weaknesses is their limited supply and we must hit this. We whack those supply ships and the OrCons will have to go to the Goths for support, and neither side will like that. Prepare a plan for an ambush on the two support ships. Assume they will have a Goth escort of two light cruisers and three destroyers since one of the Goth destroyers is escorting Senator to Rosstrappe. I want to hit the support ships and not the Goths. If we take out the support ships and the Goths survive without a scratch, it will look like they did nothing to protect those ships. For planning purposes use Alpha squadron for the ambush and the Zeke force for a stand at Gammatiga. I’ll send a P4 to Captain Mallory, advise her of my plan, and ask for coordination between our forces. I don’t see the Zekes fighting there but using their force as a lure to ensure the OrCons leave their support ships behind. If this works perfectly, we will hit the support ships from ambush before the OrCon main force gets close to the Zekes. Once we wax the support ships both us and the Zekes will run away before the OrCons can engage either of us. The OrCons will be left with no support vessels and having never got off a shot. Take a look at the terrain around Gammatiga and figure out where the OrCons will drop their ships before moving on Gammatiga. I’ll get back to you after I hear from Mallory.”
The war council continued with questions and ideas swirling around the room as the broad outlines of a plan began to take shape. This outline would be sent to the Zekes as a starting point for discussions and planning.
Hawkins nodded in satisfaction with their rough plan but then remarked, “Now on to a completely different topic. I think we have an opportunity here for future financial gains.” He turned to Baby Doll. “When we got the intel on the OrCon surprise attacks on the Empire we concentrated on the attacks themselves and their objectives, not where they originated. I want you to look at that now. The majority of their ships would have come from known major bases that the Zekes would continuously monitor. But a sig
nificant portion had to come from somewhere unknown to the Zekes to achieve the level of surprise the OrCons want. Let’s find out where that is. I remember the reports we got on convoys to nowhere in the OrCon Empire. Convoys dumping supplies and raw material in the middle of nowhere or something like that. Those reports were from Jordan as I recall. Those convoy loads had to be going somewhere. We need to know where. Have him tag one of the shipments. A single freq beacon with a narrow directional beam. Should be easy. I remember him reporting much of the raw materials being transported were in towed containers so he can attach the beacon to the outside of one of those containers and camouflage it as a safety light or something. ”
“You want it to respond to a wakeup call and then send the beam back to the call sender?” asked Baby Doll.
“Exactly. A one-time only deal. Once the ship receives the beam, it will know exactly where it came from and, hopefully, that will be the secret base’s location.”
“What ship do you want to do all this?” Tactical was asking the question for confirmation purposes only; she already knew the answer.
Rafe smiled at her, “You’re right. That is exactly the ship I want to do this. Send an alert order to Flicker. I want them to do the beam pick up and then do the recon of the base itself. What are they doing right now?”
Tactical responded after a moment’s thought, “They’re taking two of the Quasar Universal high ups to a secret meeting of some sort.”
Rafe nodded. Flicker did that type of mission on a routine basis. It brought in money and was fairly safe. “Send the beacon order to Jordan and the alert order to Flicker. We’ll get back to the spy ship on particulars after you go through the intel reports and get more details. Do the Gammatiga attack intel work up first; then there will be time later to cut up the intel input for details on the OrCon general attacks on the Aurora Empire. Once we learn where the OrCon forces came from we can get a general idea of where some of the forces seem to appear out of nowhere.”
Both women nodded, finished their beers, and moved to leave the day cabin. Tactical paused at the door and looked back at Rafe. “If we get a good intel package on an OrCon secret base, you are just going to sell it to the Zekes, right?”
“That would be the first choice but I’m not ruling anything out,” Rafe smiled at her.
Tactical frowned, “That is exactly what I was afraid of.” She turned and departed.
Chapter 23
Mackenzie’s CIC was calm. People went about their duties. Sensor operators hunched over their consoles. Comm flowed between ships. Repairs were done on the run. Sky just returned to the CIC after touring the ship. She now sat in her command chair drinking tea and reviewing.
Petty Officer Chou reported from her communications station. “Captain, a message from Captain Hawkins.” A pause and then, “It’s a P4, ma’am.”
Sky raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I’ll take it in my day cabin. Commander Cassidy, you have the CIC.”
She moved from her command chair to her day cabin. She sat at her desk and hit her computer keypad. Hawkins image appeared. “Captain Mallory, I hope you will forgive my presumption here. I have intel saying the OrCons brought forward two support ships and six Goth escort ships two hours after the fight at Potenka. The two OrCon support ships were kept out of harm’s way and the Goths stayed back because they didn’t want to be in the vicinity when your fight went down. I think they will do the same thing again as they approach Gammatiga. We are putting together a plan for ambushing the two support ships as the main OrCon force moves on Gammatiga. We will not engage the Goth escort so it will look like they did nothing to protect the OrCon support vessels. The OrCon commander will not like that conclusion so maybe we can create a little dissention between the two forces. I will use my squadron of one destroyer and three corvettes to pull this off. We are now trying to narrow down the areas most likely for dropping off the support ships and the Goth escorts. Does this plan interfere with anything you are planning for Gammatiga? If you are so inclined, we could work up a plan together to maximize our chances here. As a side note, my intel says the OrCons departed Potenka five hours behind you. I know you’re slightly faster so I assume you will gain a couple of hours during the transit to Gammatiga. Standing by.”
Sky hit her intercom to the bridge. “Lisa, turn over the CIC to the officer of the watch and come in, please.”
Seconds later, Cassidy knocked and entered the day cabin. Sky pivoted her computer screen toward her, “Take a look at this message. I think we got an opening here to do some more damage to the OrCons, but we have to plan quickly. I really want to take advantage of this opportunity. If we can deal a blow to their supply set up, they will have to push for a final showdown soon. We will choose the place for that shootout. Anything that helps set up the OrCons is good for me. ”
Encrypted messages flowed back and forth between Mackenzie and Predator as the operations people on both ships worked on a plan for an ambush at Gammatiga.
Chapter 24
Captain Hawkins turned in his command chair, “Where’s Dragon?”
“She will arrive at Gammatiga any minute. Rogue should be with her and Renegade and Rebel right behind,” Tactical was on top of the situation as always. “They’ve been told to be ready to load in a hurry. Priorities are munitions, food and water, and maintenance, in that order. We’ll be there in nine hours.”
Rafe nodded and turned to his comm unit for broadcast throughout the ship. “All hands, listen up. We’ll be at the Zeke base on Gammatiga in nine hours. The Zeke force is about six hours behind us and the OrCons about six or seven hours behind them. We will be loading supplies until the last moment. This is free stuff that should set us up for a long time, but we must move quickly. This loading will be an all hands effort. Out.”
He switched off the ship’s intercom and turned to Tactical and Baby Doll, “We ready? Do we have an engagement plan that will work?”
“Of course,” replied Tactical as if confirming the obvious.
“Zekes on board with it?”
“They are. You want a full brief?”
Hawkins pondered that for a moment. “No. Time is short and you know what to do without me getting in the way. After the fight is over, where are we running to, and are the Zekes going with us?”
“We’re thinking the Fort and taking the Zekes with us,” Baby Doll said.
Rafe considered it and then nodded, “It works. Figure out a suitable transit time for the flotilla and send out a rally message. I want the entire flotilla at the Fort. Don’t include the Zekes in that rally message but ensure they get another rally message for a point along the escape route so we can meet them there after the battle at the supply base and take them to the Fort with us. I assume they will be smart enough to ditch the OrCon pursuit before joining up with us.”
“Message from Nemesis,” Hyatt Renaldo called out from the communications station. “Images.”
The three people at the captain’s chair looked a bit surprised. Killian O’Hare rarely sent out images, preferring audio only.
“Play it,” Rafe commanded.
He knew O’Hare didn’t select images by chance and was sure this would be interesting. The image of Captain Killian O’Hare, master of the Nemesis, appeared in close up. She had blond hair cut short and blue eyes that shone brightly. Her high cheekbones and perfectly formed mouth would have completed the face of a beautiful woman, but nobody ever noticed these features. These attributes were overridden by an addition she added years ago.
O’Hare now stared evenly into her screen. The wolf tattooed covering the majority of the right side of her face also stared into the screen. Rafe had gotten used to the wolf tattoo. Well, almost used to it. The wolf was done as a hallucinate tattoo so seemed to shift with each change in O’Hare’s facial expression. The dimensions shouldn’t have worked but somehow they did. Hawkins had seen many hallies on every body part imaginable but this one was by far the best. An opinion shared by all who had see
n it. Rafe was one of the very few people who knew O’Hare before the tattoo so he always did a before and after comparison in his mind. “Hell,” thought Rafe, “I knew her back when she was still sane.” The tattoo had earned her one of her many nicknames: Hawkins’ wayward wolf. Of course, nobody ever would say that in her presence, and many thought she might not even know of it. But Hawkins figured she did know and took perverse pride in it. There was not much Killian O’Hare did not know when it came to gossip about her. She let most of it go as unworthy of her attention but if it was thrown in her face, retaliation was swift and deadly. Several people could attest to that if it weren’t for the fact they were dead. She had a wolf painted on her ship in the same place as the Cheetah on Hawkins’ ship and in the same chameleon paint to allow it to become shrouded as needed.
“Wolfpack is moving to intercept the two OrCons and their Goth babysitter.” O’Hare smiled now and her wolf hallie smiled also. She looked pure killer. “This is payback and will be handled as such. I will inform you all upon completion. O’Hare out.”
Hawkins smiled and turned to Tactical and Baby Doll. “She’s on full war footing. She’ll get the three ships, hopefully with no losses but regardless, she’ll get them. I wonder what the Zekes will think when they see her act.”
Allies of Convenience: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 1 Page 11