by Danny Loomis
“Which brings me to our immediate need. Pointy, I need your platoon, I mean your Pets, to conduct a mission in the next couple of days. There are an unknown number of nerve gas canisters that’ve apparently been set up in the tunnels leading out of Vanport. They’re going to be used to exterminate anyone down-tunnel of them just before the Alliance launches its offensive. I need you to find and either disable or destroy them. Also, if you’re able to, we need you and Enforcer Aosi to lead a force into Vanport through the tunnels undetected, and attack their two division headquarters when we attack the outer perimeter.”
“Taken care of, Sir. I talked to Irish about this last night, and came up with a mission plan that we can kick off tomorrow morning concerning the nerve gas. That soon enough, Captain?”
After a moment of dumfounded silence, Captain Stanton snorted in laughter. “For the life of me I’ll never get used to working with you Scouts. Pointy, if you can get your crew together that quick, by all means go to it.”
“Thanks, Sir. I’ll need a ride in a shuttle to take us to our drop-off points. Irish and I’ve already identified ten places I can check on. With luck, we should be back here in 48 hours with news for you.”
“Good. Why don’t you go ahead and get your people ready? The rest of this discussion is about logistics.”
After Pointy had disappeared through the door, Louis cleared his throat. “Sir, I believe you should know the present status of how our work has progressed on the shuttles and Wasps that were damaged.” At Stanton’s nod, he continued.
“We’ll have four more attack shuttles ready at least the day before they are needed for the attack. We made them into missile launching platforms, placing twenty-four missile tubes on each. They will be loaded with the equivalent of your Shrike missile, and an identical electronics suite. Four Wasps will be ready to fly two days prior to the ground attack, which is when you said they would be needed to lift off. There have been one or two additional improvements that Warrant Throop and I came up with, so the pilots will need to spend at least twelve hours in the simulator to re-familiarize themselves with the changes.”
Ian perked up at this news. “What changes, Louie?”
“We’ve replaced the main weapon, the proton accelerator, with one that is twice the range and much more effective. It’s called a Stinger. A linear accelerator with a magnetic bottle attached is the basic weapon. The bottle is filled with anti-matter, and is squirted in small amounts at speeds approaching .4 the speed of light. These specks of antimatter will only travel about seventy thousand kilometers, but will penetrate up to ten meters of laminated steel armor, leaving a fist-sized hole. It has about 100 shots per bottle.
“Oh, and one more thing. When these specks come in contact with air, they explode violently. So don’t shoot them when you’re in atmosphere. If you have any questions, Warrant Throop and I’ll assist the pilots following this meeting.”
As dawn broke, Ian gently landed the shuttle and shut down all systems except for the cloaking generator. “Okay, Pointy. It’s ten klicks to the hidden entrances. I’ll see you back here before dawn tomorrow. Right?”
“Right. Unless something comes up, that is. If it does, I’ll give you a jingle on tac net four.” After shaking Ian’s hand, he led his troops out the rear hatch. They split up into ten pairs, and headed in different directions. Nothing to do now but wait. He leaned his chair back, planning to catch up on some sleep.
Hours later he woke up to the sounds of gentle scratching. Two squirrel-like rodents had entered the hatch, and were busily inspecting the shuttle’s interior. He rolled over and startled them into flight. Watching them tumble out of the shuttle brought a bark of laughter from him. The sound of a voice raised in question froze him for a split second, and he checked his passive sensor display. Two Alliance soldiers, less than fifty meters away but on the opposite side of a tall hedgerow, were casting suspicious looks towards his location.
Scrambling to his feet he managed to snatch up a needler pistol and his foreshortened staff. Within seconds he was outside the shuttle and alongside the hedge. If they came through, he’d have to kill them. No way they’d miss the shuttle. From less than one hundred meters it would be apparent what was here, cloaking device or not. What a dumb shit. Chew out his own guys for being sloppy, and pulls a bone-headed stunt like this!
Endless seconds later the quiet muttering of the two soldiers was joined by a larger group. He tensed, ready to spring at the first sign of alarm. The swish-swish of many feet, several lowered voices—it sounded like an entire platoon was on the other side of the hedge. Ian crept backwards until inside the shuttle. The passive sensor unit showed the backside of at least twenty-five Alliance soldiers as they sauntered by. Once the last one disappeared, Ian waited another five minutes before he relaxed. Then he was out of the shuttle at a near run, placing more sensors rapidly as he could.
Somehow he managed to survive the next eighteen dull, boring hours without forgetting anything else. Pointy’s whispered voice over the radio was a blessed relief.
“This is papa one, ready to come in.” Ian gave a double click of acknowledgement, and counted the number of pairs that entered. Pointy brought up the rear, his grin lighting up the shuttle.
“We got some bad news, and we got some good news. Which do you want first?”
“Bad,” Ian said. “I always love to end a mission on a positive note.”
“We couldn’t find any canisters. They’ve taken them back out within the last day or so. That probably means we’ll see ’em again in the near future somewhere we don’t want ’em.”
“And the good?”
“We found a hole through their underground security wide enough to drive a tank through and not be noticed,” chortled Pointy. “We can get our troops into position any time we need to.”
Ian shrugged. “What’s to stop them from plugging it up?”
“We put up a pretty good facsimile of sensors and booby traps that’ll convince ’em there’s no breach. But when we need to, we can disable ’em and use the tunnel we found any time.”
“Great!” Ian said, pleased at least one part of the mission had succeeded. “We got another two hours of darkness. Think I’ll take us back now instead of waiting another day.” He gave a careful sweep of the immediate area before starting up the shuttle. No more mistakes, can’t afford them now. He lifted out of the depression in which he’d kept the shuttle, and drifted towards the mesa.
That afternoon Pointy and Ian sat in Captain Stanton’s office, debriefing him. “Hopefully the Alliance won’t use the nerve gas before our attack,” Stanton said. “In their shoes, I’d use it to interdict or even make a breach in our defenses just as they stage their main attack. At this point that seems to be two days after we’re scheduled to go.”
“Can we put more troops underground?” Ian asked. “Or even some of the untrained volunteers?”
“We’re stretched thin as it is with our trained soldiers. You’re right, though, we could funnel several thousand volunteers in behind Pointy’s raiding party. They could follow up on your attack, maybe create a lot of confusion.”
Ian rose to go. “I’ve got to get over to the Wasps, sir. We’re leaving tomorrow, and I have to get familiarized on the new weaponry. In case I don’t see either of you before the attack, I want to wish you good hunting.”
“And the same to you, Irish,” Stanton said, shaking his hand.
“Where’s Lissa going to be during the offensive?” Ian asked, shaking Pointy’s hand.
“Right next to me, man. I gotta have somebody protect my ass, now that you’re too uppity to do it.”
“She’ll do a better job of it than I ever could,” Ian said with a grin.
* * *
“Alpha one, you’re a go at this time,” said the voice of Ensign Wilbert in Ian’s ear. “Good luck and good hunting.”
Without fanfare Ian spooled up to full power and raced down the short runway on the mesa, clawing for the sky once
he became airborne. It had been found there was a five minute window of opportunity for the four Wasps to take off, due to the placement of ships and satellites used by the Alliance. Once airborne, all four cloaked themselves. Moving at minimum speed they achieved space within two hours. From that point they drifted to the highest orbit they could achieve and stay within striking distance of Edo. Within nine hours they were 100,000 kilometers above the ecliptic plane, looking down on the planet.
“Button them up, guys. Time to hibernate.” It had been decided the best way to handle their enforced wait would be to put them to sleep until just before they were needed. Each pilot’s helmet emitted a signal that synchronized with their brain’s alpha waves, and put them to sleep. All but Ian, who would be busily tapping in to any and all electronic traffic he could reach.
With the aid of “Snowflake,” he found himself able to tie in with all message traffic sent or received by the Alliance fleet. A pleasantly warm feeling permeated his chest, penetrated his head and concentrated around his bio link. Without realizing it, his electronic reach became stronger with each hour of use. Time passed unknowingly while he poached information out of tactical computers, listened to logistical chatter from the planet, and even eavesdropped on the Confederation corvette twenty light-minutes out, still hidden in the thickest part of the asteroid belt.
* * *
“I don’t care if you’ve never done this kind of operation before,” Admiral Langer said. “Your bombardment scores are terrible, Captain. I want you to observe your two sister ships and take a lesson from them. Their scores were outstanding, and that’s why they’re standing down. You’ll continue to make practice runs until your computer shows your missiles are hitting within ten meters of where they are supposed to.”
“But Sir, we’ve never…”
“Captain, I grow weary of your whining. Continue your pinpoint bombardment practice until I’m satisfied with your scores, even if it takes the rest of the week. Don’t call me again until that happens.” He slashed the off key on his tac screen, cutting off the strained face of the commander of battlecruiser Volkstad.
“Lazy prick,” he muttered, placing a call to his operations officer.
“Lieutenant commander Dinesen here, sir,” came the immediate answer.
“Ops, give me a detailed layout of our up to date strategic deployment, will you? I might have to move another battlecruiser in for planetary bombardment. Captain Krisland seems to be having trouble learning this particular skill.”
His screen lit up with a map of the Edoan system. Pulsing circles depicted the two known nexus points. The green one that went back towards Alliance held space, and the red one which led to Confederation controlled space. A battleship and three battlecruisers were within two light minutes of the Confederation nexus, plus one thousand space mines directly in front of it. Twenty light-minutes from Edo ten battlecruisers formed a picket fence between the same nexus and the surface of the planet.
Three cruisers and one battlecruiser stood by near their own nexus, and the Admiral’s flagship remained in close orbit of Edo’s moon. Three battlecruisers in low orbit around Edo completed the task force—seventeen battlecruisers, two battleships and two cruisers. In their present configuration it would take at least double their force to cause him any concern.
“Any word yet from that convoy?” the Admiral asked.
“Not yet, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Dinesen said. “We only saw their emergence footprints half an hour ago. I don’t expect a signal for several more minutes.”
“Inform me when they report, will you?” He keyed off, still studying the map of the system. What could he improve on, he mused. A little less than two days until he had to support that insufferable asshole Lambert with his offensive. God, how he hated groundhogs. Especially when they were placed in command of him. He lifted his cup of now cold coffee, took a sip and grimaced. He had just turned to his aide when Lieutenant Commander Dinesen appeared once more on his screen, a drawn and anxious look on his face.
“Admiral, I think you’d better join us on the bridge. It seems that wasn’t our convoy after all.”
* * *
The three Confederation carriers neared their last check-point as they drifted in-system, something they’d done for two weeks. Their emergence wave had been over one light week out, to ensure it wasn’t detected. Once near the outermost limits of the Edoan system they had slowed and gone into cloaked mode, and shut down all power except for life support.
Just hours previously Commodore Sidney Jones had alerted his three ships to begin powering up. An hour ago he had sent a whisker laser message to the Confederation fleet which had just emerged from the Alliance nexus. Admiral Thurmond Butler had risked his entire task force by moving two nexus points into Alliance held space before locating the proper point from which to launch into the Edoan system through this particular one. Apparently they had been successful.
The Commodore keyed his command net and brought all three Captains on line. “Sound General Quarters, gentlemen. Launch eighty percent of your Wasps at my signal. Keep the rest for local security.”
Not much longer. They were less than five light-seconds from a line of battlecruisers, and closing. Once within two light seconds they’d be seen whether cloaked or not, so things had better start heating up soon. Ah! There.
All ten battlecruisers had begun to reconfigure their tactical positions in reaction to getting word a Confederation task force was on the way, and now presented their backsides to his cloaked carriers.
“Launch. I say again, all ships launch.” Three “Wilco” signals underlined the sudden appearance of 120 small pinpoints of light on the Commodore’s tactical display screen. They accelerated towards the Alliance line, dividing into strike teams of ten Wasps each. Amazingly the Alliance force ignored the oncoming swarm until they were in their attack runs, only seconds from firing. At that point chaos came over the ten battlecruisers as they tardily launched their small force of forty Vipers and turned to meet the new threat.
All Wasps were able to get in one shot with their particle accelerators, overloading the screens on four of the battlecruisers which deeply wounded two and left the other two floating wrecks. Because the Wasps had closed to a suicidally close range, the remaining battlecruisers exacted a toll of twelve Wasps mainly with their defensive laser fire. The blizzard of small missiles drove the remaining Wasps back and enabled the forty Vipers to gain enough time to counterattack.
A broiling mass of fighters, friend and foe intermingling in a dance of death, drifted away from the battlecruisers for a moment and gave them time to catch their breath. Three other battlecruisers had sustained light to moderate damage, which left only three unwounded. At an unseen signal the twelve surviving Vipers broke contact and sped back towards the protective umbrella of their larger brethren. Six additional Wasps had been damaged or destroyed while they brawled with the Vipers.
Commodore Jones had intently watched the exchange, and was surprised that only ten minutes had passed since the first blow had been struck. “Order all Wasps to draw back slowly. Try and get them to come out after us.”
As the Wasps began a slow withdrawal, six battlecruisers followed. Two remained stationary, so badly damaged they could no longer proceed under their own power. Four Vipers stayed with them while the rest followed the main group.
“Tell the Wasps to set up an inverted cone and wait for an opening. If the battlecruisers break ranks we’ll ripple fire the most vulnerable,” the Commodore said. “Ops, how long until the ships guarding the Confederation nexus reach our position?”
“Half hour, sir.”
“Good. That gives us twenty minutes to do some more damage. After that we’ll have to change to plan Beta.” Plan Beta meant an all-out attack by the Wasps on the closest battleship. Their own task force had two superdreadnoughts, and to get the edge it would be nice to have one of the enemy’s heavy ships damaged. A small mistake by the enemy would be nice. Or a small
miracle.
* * *
At the sudden appearance of a cloud of Wasps, Ian whooped in delight. No wonder they’d kept them waiting until now! “Jonesy, Michaels, Bradford: Fire ’em up. We’re goin’ for broke. Bradford, Jones, you take the lead battlecruiser in the lowest orbit. Michaels, the middle one. I’ll take tail end Charlie.” They swooped down like attacking hawks on the unsuspecting ships. Ignored for the moment was the battleship, which had turned towards the battle raging twenty light minutes away.
On their first pass each Wasp shot their Stingers twice, knocked out a drive node and main laser on each ship. The lead ship also lost an additional drive node and had its Captain killed as a hole was punched into and through the bridge. Swinging back, two more shots disabled the drives of all three ships, leaving them powerless to move. One more dash by the Wasps left their capitol missile tubes nothing but wrecks. On the last run Michaels’ ship exploded, leaving three of them for the second part of their mission.
They dove toward Vanport and fired everything they had at the aircraft still parked by the runway. Bradford’s Wasp became a fireball as he inadvertently triggered his Stinger, the anti-matter exploding as it came into contact with air. Jonesy and Ian made one more pass, and lifted out to pursue the battleship.
“Jonesy, check your Stinger system over really close,” Ian said. “Bradford just forgot about shooting it in air, but I think Michaels bought it because he had some kind of misfire.”
“I’ve got some minor warping on the front mount, but other than that my systems are green.”
“So far mine looks okay. If you feel anything different with your ship after shooting the Stinger, don’t use it again. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“I don’t want to lose me, either. Say, how many Wasps you think are up there? I thought we only had one other carrier in the Wing when we left Alamo.”
“Looks as if we got reinforcements from somewhere. Look sharp, we’re coming up on that big bastard. You take low, I’ll take high. Execute—now!”