Kedlijercylix had noticed the jammer that went on at same time the shield snapped on, because it blocked all the messages he had frantically tried to send off-world. He could contact only his own fleet below. “The cascade effect,” said the gunner softly. On the Holo. The count was ninety-six of their ships, small consolation now there were only three of his remaining and he had seconds to live, with his shield redlined and at 4%. The combined power of the battle fleet and the shield was too much and he remembered his military training where he learned that the cascade effect occurs as ship after ship in the wedge explodes, thus weakening the ship’s wedge, and stressing the remaining combined Shields until they all fail. Which they were about to do. Anger and sadness fought inside him for dominance as he saw the end coming. Three ships left, his shield redlined. He lived long enough to hear the concussion that started at one side of his ship but he didn’t hear the end.
He would never know that Sarah had paid for the most expensive jammer available so the Loridsyl could conceal the tactics used and the Keulfyd High Command would not know what was happening. She wanted no witnesses and no information getting back. No information about or descriptions of the Cats. She had stipulated no survivors, or at least none reporting back. She didn’t know the battle fleet was coming either: due to the jammer, the Okme couldn’t notify her until just before they engaged. With the Declaration of War, the spectator fleet had moved well back, knowing how far missiles could go and that many failed to reach their intended target and went wandering, looking for another.
In the Keulfyd troopship at the capital city their Communication Officer said in shock, “The jamming on our communications has been lifted. The rest of the fleet have been destroyed and we are all that remain.”
“What happened?” asked the Commander in horror.
“I don’t know. Our communication was still scrambled but the IDs are all gone and the Battle Holo shows us as the only ones left.”
There were murmurs behind him, “Get them all!” “Make them pay for this!” “They can’t all be gone. It’s not possible, it must be a mistake!”
“Call the gunships back. Full speed!” The Commander moved over to the Communication Officer. “Check all communication bands.”
“I have. Nothing but jamming on communications. Then it cleared but I still get nothing.”
“Contact the observers.”
Fighting panic, the Communication Officer checked. “They say there is no communication except with us. They saw an Okme battle fleet heading for the battle. They tried to warn us but were blocked hours ago. The media say we are defeated. They say we are all destroyed and the spectator fleet can move back soon. Torroxell Air Traffic Control is open and prioritizing ships for landing. They have told the settler ships that the Keulfyd have been defeated, the planet has reopened and to come back but to set a far orbit until space debris is cleared.”
The Commander said, “So we are not to be counted? I didn’t know I was defeated. Or do they expect us to surrender?”
There was a brief silence. “We’re being hailed, Commander.”
“Open,” she ordered, figuring all her fleet should listen to this.
“Calling the remnants of the Keulfyd fleet. This is the Commander of the Torroxell forces. The Okme battle fleet is now going to the capital. Call your troops back and cease firing. The Okme will accept your surrender.”
The Commander saw anger, shock, and disbelief on her crew’s faces. “Anybody want to surrender?” she asked. She winced at the volume of the negative replies. “Any one else want to surrender?” she asked the Communication Officer, who quickly checked the other ships.
“No,” he said, “they want to continue to fight.”
“Then we make them pay. And we go and join the troops.” She moved over to the Tactician, thinking fast. She was now the Battle Fleet Commander with a crew and a fleet focused on revenge, and she had a Tactician whose brother had just been killed on the flagship.
The Tactician locked gazes with her. “I can think of a number of tactics we could use but we all need to move fast and get out of the ships which will be their first targets. The battle fleet will need to reform before coming here and might first deal with their casualties and damage. That should give us an hour or so.” She turned and checked the scanners. “The ones within reach of us are in the trees. Some are up the trees. They must have built platforms.”
The Commander said, “So we use their tactics. Split up into small groups and go cause carnage. I like that. A good way to die. I could not stomach surrender. I can’t think of when our military last had to surrender. Hundreds of years ago, probably thousands. I should not like to be remembered for that. And,” she spat out, “I should not like to be remembered for surrendering to puny Okme!”
“We could use the ship’s guns,” suggested the gunner.
“We could. But then they will say of us that we fired on civilians,” she said, conveniently forgetting what they had done to the waiting and welcoming Niseyen. “I can’t stand Niseyen. Weak, stupid, denying reality, infiltrated to their core and doing nothing about it because they are afraid to fight.” She ignored the fact that her fleet had been mostly destroyed by Niseyen and Okme, who were regarded as pacifists. Twenty minutes later they were armed, suited up and leaving the ship.
As the plane shuddered to a halt Dai flipped his restraints off and yelled “Follow me!” as he leapt for the exit. Jesan was just behind him as he opened the door and they both looked out in horror at the water. Mykad and Dylam pushed past them and jumped out, landing in the water with a splash. They started to swim for the shore. They had been warned to get well away from Niseyen in the water because they panicked.
“Now what?” asked Jesan in despair as the water reached his feet and continued rising faster now the door was open. Then he yelled in horror as his father grabbed him and threw him into the ocean, jumping in after him.
As Jesan floundered on the surface, two Priskya rose up on each side of him, under his arms, supporting him. He slowly downshifted from sheer panic to just badly frightened, then remembered his father and looked around. Dai was quietly near him, holding on to another Priskya’s fin. The Priskya started to swim slowly towards the shore. “Where are we going?” Jesan said, his voice shaky.
“Relax,” Dai said. “They’ll know where to land us, although I am thinking we’ll have to move fast and scramble up those rocks.” He nodded towards the rocky shoreline Mykad and Dylam seemed to be heading for.
“We can’t get up there! Where’s a beach?”
“We couldn’t see one from the air so I think we scramble up those rocks or swim for miles.”
“Stop grinning! This isn’t funny. I don’t see how you can be so calm. I’m wet through. My clothes will be ruined. And my data.”
“All data bracelets are waterproof. It’s good to be alive. I wasn’t hopeful there for a while. I was surprised the Priskya got here so fast. Thank God we had the Cats to call them. They must have been watching my controlled landing,” said Dai, very pleased with himself.
“We crashed! It was uncontrolled and bumpy. Very bumpy. I thought I was going to throw up.”
“Quit complaining. Sarah told me the Terrans have a saying, ‘Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.’”
“We’re not walking.”
“Pessimist,” said Dai, thinking his son sounded like a petulant child. He was chuffed to have survived a crash landing. At last he felt like a military pilot. This would score him a campaign medal and a combat medal, even though he had lost the ship. Then he remembered the message he had sent to all Niseyen. Oops. No medals. Damn. First combat ones he’d ever earned and now they wouldn’t count. Court-martialled Commanders don’t get medals, nor do ones who send their crew off on unauthorized journeys. He sighed. Life is so unfair some times. Now he started to worry about Sarah and Katy. And what had happened to Pumpkin? He hoped he wasn’t still in the apartment. In the distance he saw Dylam and Mykad reach
the shore and scramble up the rocks. They looked back at them and then left.
Several minutes later they reached the rocky shore. When he had caught his breath, Dai said, “My grateful thanks for saving our lives. I am Dai Ineffid. This is my son Jesan.”
“We were keeping a listening watch,” said one Priskya, “As we promised. The Flying Fortresses have all been destroyed. We are winning.”
Dai had forgotten the significance of such a good communication system. “Jesan! We won! The Flying Fortresses have all been destroyed!”
The Priskya continued, “We’ve won the space war but there’s still the land war. There is heavy fighting near the capital. Ground troops.”
Jesan was wet through, cold, scared, one arm was painful and wouldn’t work, and he was dirty from scrambling up the rocks. He was deeply disappointed that they hadn’t shot down any enemy ships, and was also mentally exhausted from an effort of concentration he had never needed before. He shook his head and refocused with an effort. Ground troops, his father had said. Then he thought of Katy fighting, and his stomach knotted up. “Can we get anywhere near the capital to help Katy and Sarah?” he asked.
“We’re miles away. Maybe hundreds of miles. I don’t know where we are.” Dai realized there was still a lot of mopping up to be done. He mentally kicked himself.
He heard a chirp behind him and the Priskya said, “We asked a ship to come for you.”
Just over two hours later, an Okme search and rescue ship picked them up. “Welcome aboard,” said a crew member to Dai. “Sorry about the delay, but we prioritize the injured and the Priskya said you were wet and bedraggled and your son was in shock but there were no other obvious injuries.”
Jesan blushed furiously while his unsympathetic father laughed. Even the Okme looked amused as Jesan dripped painfully aboard, setting his wet, shivering ass in a seat. A narrow Okme seat. Just as well he was slim. Dai was escorted up front to communicate with officials, generals, war leaders and various other important people who seemed very excited about something. Jesan sat alone — wet, cold, exhausted, noticing bruises and one now very painful left arm. He gently cradled his arm against his chest. He was hungry and thirsty but no one offered him food or drink. His disgusting father had drunk some sea water but he had decided to die of thirst before he would drink water. He didn’t care if it was supposed to be drinkable. Wherever he arrived he was going to be so embarrassed. He hoped there would be none of his own people to see him before he found a change of clothes and a Cleaner.
Dai returned and sat beside him. “There is heavy fighting in the capital but it will be nearly over before we get there, hopefully. Our losses haven’t been as serious as I feared. An Okme battle fleet arrived in time to finish off the Flying Fortresses. Just as well — we were getting short of ammunition and most of our ships were damaged.”
“I didn’t know they had any battle fleets.”
“They do, but they seldom leave the planet.”
“I thought they had one of the best shields available.”
“They do, but they have several fleets as well.”
Jesan thought back to some conversations he had overheard while reading. “They need this planet, don’t they?”
“Yes. And their contribution will not be overlooked. Sarah has thrown the planet open to Treaty Holders.”
“What does that mean?”
“Open immigration to Okme, Niseyen, and Terrans. Until we reach just over two hundred million. Then it may have to be curtailed in the cities as the infrastructure will be at capacity until we can increase it. Terrans will still be able to come, as they can live outside the cities.”
“Dad, how civilized are the Terrans?”
“They vary from ‘not much’ to ‘high tech.’”
“I’ve seen a fair variety. How come? Something’s wrong on Terra, isn’t it?”
“Terra is a water world. Less than ten percent of the planet is liveable, partly because they have no climate control and partly because they lack the engineering knowledge to increase the living area. The planet is nearly eighty per cent water or ice and they have rocky mountains and deserts. They have over ten billion living there, many with not enough food, and the land area is shrinking because the ocean area is expanding as the planet is in a warming-up phase.”
“Like Petislay?”
“Yes, except on Petislay it’s a good thing. On Terra it’s a disaster because many of their biggest cities were built by the seas. Sarah said something about the increase in temperature causing huge storms, flooding, and natural disasters. I’m not sure why. They have huge tides and tidal surges because although they only have one moon, it’s a monster. Their cities are flooding. If you lose your home due to floods, Sarah says there’s no insurance. You could lose your job, too. The worst-hit cities are losing the very land they are on and sometimes there is nowhere for the dispossessed to go.”
“And these are what they call refugees?”
“Yes.”
“So they really are desperate,” Jesan said slowly. “And so are the Okme because they can’t expand and their laws prohibit multiple rejuvenation and procreation beyond one child each unless they can justify it, such as no longer living on their planet.”
“Correct. And here, there is unrestricted breeding.” Dai looked sharply at Jesan. “Remind me to book you in for some treatment.”
Jesan blushed as he realized his father would know his reproductive status. They had never talked about it. He wasn’t starting now.
Dai now noticed the way Jesan was holding his left arm. “Are you injured?”
“Yes. You broke my arm when you threw me out of the ship.”
“Next time jump when I tell you to and don’t hang on to the door.” Dai moved away and came back with a medic and a scanner.
The medic passed the scanner over Jesan, wrote something on his forehead, and said, “Broken left arm, multiple bruising.” She turned to Dai and ran the scanner over him. She grunted,“In alignment,” and wrote on Dai’s forehead, ‘1 ##’.
“What did she write on me?” asked Jesan.
“1#.”
“So my arm is broken and multiple bruising doesn’t rate a mention. You have ‘1##.’
Dai was puzzled. “Two fractures? Where? My right arm and leg hurt but I didn’t think they were broken. Could be one leg bone broken and the other not. There are two leg bones below the knee. My chest hurts — maybe it’s a rib. I don’t know and I don’t want to bother her again.”
As the battle in space finished, Lilkajik and Eldsalk carefully and reverently assisted the exhausted elder out of the bridge. They took him via the toilet to a bag and laid him down, then called the Medical Officer. Shaken, the two went to the mess and got a drink and a meal. Other exhausted crew members straggled in, some getting supplies and returning to their posts but most slumping down, off-shift or now not required. Seeing the Captain come in, Eldsalk waited until she sat down and then walked up to her and asked,
She sighed and acquiesced.
Quietly Lilkajik joined his friend, aching to hear first hand.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Several hours earlier, back near the capital and forty feet up a tree, Sarah, Kate and many other snipers waited. All Terrans, all camouflaged, all harnessed onto the trees they were in. It seemed no one else liked climbing trees. The Cats would climb up if they really had to, but not this high. They preferred the ground.
Sarah remembered with amusement conversations she had had with Dai and other Niseyen where the racial differences between them were so diverse. While the Niseyen were confident in space, assuming they could defeat the Keulfyd as in “it was possible,” they seemed to think that on the ground the Keulfyd would be unbeatable. With a strong flavor of invincible.
In contrast, the Terrans were by no means confident in space, well aware of their total lack of experience and any but the most basic of training. However on the ground, they were supremely confident. Asymmetrical warfare was so common on Earth that it was regarded as normal. Sarah too had no problems with the concept of rifle, load, fire, dead Keulfyd.
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