The Invasion Begins

by Thomas DePrima

  “But when Jenetta offered to establish a formal diplomatic relationship, they refused.”

  “Yes,” Gavin said in agreement. “And we’ve had no contact until now. They had to be in a desperate position before they’d contact us.”

  “Now that they need help, they call us.”

  “It’s been my experience that it often works that way. But it’s an opportunity to strike a blow against the Denubbewa. Even if the Ruwalchu ask us to leave their space and not return when this is over, we have to do this because we’re doing it as much for ourselves as for the Ruwalchu people.” Standing up, Gavin said, “Okay, XO. Let’s go brief the ship captains and get this ‘turkey shoot’ underway.”

  ~ ~

  “There’s someone missing,” Commander Shawn Fischer, Captain of the Scout-Destroyer Yukon said. The small force of CPSs led by Fischer in the GSC-SDD056 Yukon had stopped just inside the four-billion-kilometer DeTect Range to check out the targets before moving in. The Scout-Destroyer and CPSs were all sheathed in Dakinium so the Denubbewa couldn’t see them, but they could clearly identify the unsheathed Denubbewa ships. The Yukon had established a conference linkup using laser communication rather than wide-band so the Denubbewa would never be able to intercept a word.

  “It appears to be one of the ships my crew was to take out,” Lieutenant George McIntosh of the CPS-16 Space Witch said, “unless they’ve shifted all their ship positions.”

  “No,” Fischer said. “The other ships all appear to be in the same orbit as when the recon was performed. Okay, Space Witch, you still have three other targets to destroy, and everyone else has their four. Any questions?”

  When no one spoke up, Fischer said, “Okay, the Yukon will lead off since we’re taking out the mothership. If this goes as planned, all twenty-three warships and the mothership will meet their end within a ten-second window. The attack will commence in— eighty-four seconds. Okay, let’s do this.”

  ~ ~

  “Do you ever wish you were in the thick of action again?” Captain Gavin asked as he and Eliza sat in his office awaiting the results of the attack.

  “You mean I’m not, sir?”

  Gavin chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

  Eliza smiled and said, “Yes, sir. I understand what you mean. There are times when I wish I was aboard one of the ships attacking the enemies of the G.A., but I know my role is important and contributes as much to the final outcome as that of the captains aboard each of those attacking ships.”

  “More so, Eliza. I rely on you and your advice a great deal. I know that one day you’ll receive your own command, and when that happens, I’ll miss you greatly.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ve learned a great deal from you. I hope that if I do get a command one day, I can perform in a way that will make you proud.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Gavin was about to add something when he received a page via his CT. He touched his ring to establish a carrier and said, “Gavin.”

  “Sir, the attack group is returning,” Lt. Commander Delgora, the watch officer, said, “All ships have signaled their return via laser signal. They report complete success with no damage to their ships or crew.”

  “Transmit the combat reports to my computer as soon as they’re received, Commander.”

  “Aye, sir. Delgora out.”

  “Gavin out.” Looking at Eliza, Gavin said, “The attack force is returning. All ships have reported mission complete with no damage to their ships and no injuries to crew.”

  “Wonderful. What’s our next move, sir?”

  “After we ensure that the Denubbewa ships are completely destroyed, we’ll try to evaluate the situation on the planet.”

  “I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the Denubbewa have established a solid foothold on the planet. It’s been almost three months since the Ruwalchu government sent that message requesting our intervention.”

  “I have to agree, but we’ll need to confirm that before we can proceed further.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a CT message to Gavin from the watch commander. After listening to the message and then canceling the carrier wave, Gavin said, “The combat vids have arrived from the ships sent to destroy the Denubbewa ships encircling the Ruwalch home planet. Let’s take a look.”

  The attacking ships had properly coordinated their attack and multiple WOLaR bombs were detonating inside the mothership at the same instant the individual bombs were detonating inside the warships encircling the planet. In the space of just ten seconds, all Denubbewa ships were reduced to scrap.

  After viewing the vids of the action on the large monitor in Gavin’s office, Eliza said, “A real turkey shoot. All enemy ships totally destroyed. It was like the action against the Denubbewa armada in Region Three, except much more limited.”

  “I like it when things are easy,” Gavin said, “but I start getting worried when they appear too easy. Every time we start to take the Denubbewa for granted, they do something that shows they had a devious plan behind the simplistic appearance of their actions. We’ve been lucky so far in that we also have more sophisticated planning behind our efforts, but I worry that we won’t always have the better plans.”

  Eliza took a deep breath and slowly released it as she stared at the monitor. The last of the vids was playing. “I understand, sir, and don’t disagree, but I can’t see any intelligent planning behind the way they left themselves wide open.”

  “I don’t see anything either, and it’s possible there’s nothing to see— but— I’ll worry anyway until we know for sure.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “There’s been no response to our messages, Captain,” the com chief said the next day after the entire squadron had moved to take up orbital positions around the planet Ruwalch.

  From the Command Chair on the bridge, Gavin said, “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Damn,” Gavin said. “The Denubbewa must have destroyed their communications systems so they couldn’t call for more help. At least they were able to get the one message out before it was destroyed.”

  “Were they, sir?” Eliza said from the first officer’s chair.

  “Of course. The message was received at Quesann and— ”

  Eliza said nothing when Gavin looked at her, then lapsed momentarily into silence.

  “You might be right,” Gavin said, continuing his thought. “Perhaps the Ruwalchu weren’t able to get a message off at all. It may have all been a ruse by the Denubbewa to get Space Command to send a taskforce out here. From what we know, the Denubbewa will sacrifice as many cyborgs and ships as necessary to achieve their goals. The mothership, warships, and cyborgs we’ve destroyed might have been bait to draw us in.”

  “Because they want to get their hands on someone who can tell them how our ships can slip in and out of phase?”

  “Exactly. That must be what they’re after. I knew this was too easy.”

  “So how do we respond, sir?”

  “First, we have to find out how far they’ve progressed with turning the Ruwalchu populace into cyborgs. It’s possible they’ve been here for some time, perhaps even before their armada showed up in Region Three.”

  “How do we find out, sir?”

  “We play our hole card.”

  “Our hole card?”

  “The hole card that allows us to make a hole without making a hole.”

  Eliza smiled. “You mean to send in one of our CPSs cocooned in a double envelope?”

  “Exactly. It can fly around near the planet’s surface, passing through buildings and even going underground without revealing its presence. In a message from Jenetta, she told me how they used that capability at Lorense-Four to track the progress of the Denubbewa cyborgs trying to reassemble destroyed warships within the scrap.”

  “I think it’s a wonderful plan, sir. It may not give us all the data we want— or need— but it’ll put us far ahead of where we ar
e right now by answering a number of questions.”

  “Select a ship for this task and have the captain report here to discuss the assignment.”

  “Just one ship, sir? It’s a big planet. I suggest we send at least six ships, assigning them to the large land masses and major cities where most of the citizens are reported to reside.”

  “Good idea, Eliza. See to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “I wish we knew what was happening in the Ruwalchu Confederacy,” Jenetta said during the closed session of the A.B. in her large office. “The battle group must have reached Ruwalch by now. Loretta, any progress on the wormhole communication system?”

  “So far all I can really announce is that our intense recruitment efforts have allowed us to establish a number of new teams and that they’re working really hard to come up to speed on the CJ Gate system communications. While we verified their security clearances, we had only told them that the project involved a new form of space communications. They know now they’re working on a system that will change space communications forever. I can also say that they’re all extremely excited and were astounded when they met the cyborg scientists.”

  “So no idea when we might have something to test?”

  “Not yet, but one of the new people has suggested a way that we can use the Denubbewa satellites already sprinkled throughout Regions Two and Three for our own communications.”

  “In a way that prevents the Denubbewa from intercepting and decoding the messages?”

  “Prevent interception? No. It will only prevent them from decoding the messages. That’s really all we do now with S-Band communications. We can’t prevent an enemy from intercepting the signals, but our complex encryption system, as far as we know, prevents anyone from ever decoding the signals.”

  “So what’s unique about this new system?”

  “Normally, the Denubbewa satellites accept messages from the Gate booths and send them to a location that we assume is a central system for recording booth-location data. But we’ve discovered that we can forward data anywhere using the system as long as the header and trailer have a valid Denubbewa ID and we have a booth address as the destination. The suggestion now is that we bury a hidden message in a transmission that merely appears to be a Personnel CJ Gate location report. It will have a legitimate Denubbewa header and trailer that conforms to Denubbewa encoding requirements, but it will be sent to a booth address of our choosing.”

  “But we’d only be able to send a single message twice a day,” Admiral Holt said.

  “Not at all, Brian. The booths only transmit their location twice a day, but we believe the Denubbewa have hundreds of thousands of booths sending update messages. We should be able to send dozens of messages each day without them ever catching on. I can’t guarantee that, but it doesn’t seem likely they would be tracking all update messages as long as the format was correct.”

  “And if the Denubbewa discover the hidden messages?” Admiral Hillaire asked.

  “They might be able to change the encoding requirements and block our messages, but they still wouldn’t be able to decode the previous or current messages. And the intermediate step would give us the next best thing to instantaneous communication while we’re working to establish our own satellite network and CJ Gates.”

  “I believe you said these new satellites are quite small,” Admiral Ressler said.

  “Yes, they’re very small. They're like the Dakinium-sheathed satellites we use for surveillance.”

  “Then once we have a few of the new satellites, we can start distributing them via the new CJ Gates using the Denubbewa Gate system?” Jenetta asked.

  “Uh, well, yes.”

  “And if we send the satellites to our new bases in the former Denubbewa motherships, they can then be distributed via our ships in Region Three?”

  “Yes. But that would really only save us the few weeks it would take to actually send a shipment via our Quartermaster vessels.”

  “A few weeks can sometimes be critical. I’m thinking that if we begin to use this new communication system and the Denubbewa learn of our use and block us, we could be left high and dry during a critical operation.”

  “The task of designing, programming, and constructing our own satellite system is underway with a top priority. I only raised this issue as a very temporary communications solution until we get our own system in place.”

  “I think it’s a splendid idea,” Jenetta said, “and worth the effort to implement.”

  “I agree,” Admiral Holt said. “Not having timely communications with my deployed ships is maddening at times, considering the dangers we’re facing with the Denubbewa.”

  “Let’s vote on the issue,” Jenetta said. “All in favor of Loretta’s people establishing a communication system via the Denubbewa satellites while our own satellite system is built, signify by saying ‘aye.’”

  A chorus of “ayes” was heard.

  “Opposed, signify with ‘nay,’” Jenetta said.

  There were no negative votes.

  “The ‘ayes’ are unanimous. If possible, Loretta’s people will create a new communications system capable of almost instantaneous contact anywhere in G.A. space using the Denubbewa CJ Gate system satellites, although purely as a temporary measure until our own system is available.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “We’re entering atmo above the planet, Captain,” Lt.(jg) Lori Jareski said. The helmsman was stating the obvious because everyone on the bridge could see the planet below as it appeared to be growing in size on the bow monitor, but it was protocol to announce the ship’s position when first entering the outer atmosphere of a planet because that was where Space Command’s authority technically ended.

  The CPS-16 Pursuit had been assigned to see if any sentient life still existed in the planet’s capital city and site of the Confederacy’s government.

  “Helm, take us through the city at one hundred meters above ground level,” Lieutenant Percy Citaglia ordered. “Tac, scan for any movement by cyborgs or heat signatures from biological bodies.”

  “Aye, Captain,” both junior officers replied.

  The CPS-16 was encased in a double envelope that kept it slightly out-of-phase with normal space so it passed through the city’s skyscrapers as if they weren’t there.

  After making numerous sweeps around the city, the captain ordered the ship down to fifty meters and retraced their former routes. When the results were again negative other than some slight movement of curtains and loose papers as the result of a light breeze, the captain ordered the ship to retrace the previous route at just three meters AGL.

  “Absolutely nothing observed that could be sentient or mechanical life,” Lt.(jg) Simon Emorosa, the tac officer, said as the Pursuit completed the third full search sweep. “Even stranger is that there’s no visible damage. The citizens must have evacuated so the Denubbewa didn’t bother to destroy the city.”

  “The Denubbewa would want the infrastructure intact, so they wouldn’t bomb the city unless there was no other alternative,” Citaglia said. “It appears likely that the Denubbewa have substantially increased the size of their cyborg army and taken them off-world already. Or the residents could have left the planet before occupation forces arrived.”

  “Should we begin to search the countryside, Captain?” Jareski asked.

  “Negative. Helm, let’s perform three sweeps below the surface at five meters, twenty meters, and fifty meters. Perhaps they’ve established underground bunkers.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Jareski said. “Dropping to five meters below the city’s ground-level elevation for the first sweep.”

  As the three below-ground sweeps were completed, the tac officer said, “No sign of sentient life, Captain.”

  “I didn’t really expect to find anyone,” Citaglia said, “but we had to try so we can declare that there doesn’t appear to be anyone alive and that the cyborgs haven’t taken up residence beneath the c
ity.”

  “There was one peculiar thing noted, Captain,” Emorosa said.

  “A possible lifeform?”

  “Negative. The computer noted the presence of an inordinate number of large vertical pipes.”

  “Sewer pipes? Or water-supply lines from underground reservoirs?”

  “I don’t know, but sewer seems unlikely because of the depth. I suppose water supply is a possibility.”

  “How deep do they go?”

  “They were present at the fifty-meter depth. We didn’t search lower.”

  “Helm, take us down to one hundred meters and perform the same search pattern.”

  “Aye, Captain. Descending to one hundred meters below ground level.”

  “I’m still seeing those same pipes, sir,” the tac officer said ten minutes later as the Pursuit traveled horizontally, following the established search pattern.

  “Helm, take us down to three hundred meters and continue the search pattern.”

  “Aye, Captain. Descending to three hundred meters.”

  As the Pursuit descended, Citaglia suddenly said, “Helm, hold at this depth.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The eyes of everyone on the bridge were fixed on the front monitor.

  After about twenty seconds, Citaglia said, “Helm, take us up to the Ares immediately.”

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  ~ June 23rd, 2292 ~

  “Another day of searching for Denubbewa,” Commander Lori Ashraf said to her XO as they sat in her office aboard the Scout-Destroyer Seeker. “Another day of nothing found but empty space.”

  “What happened to ‘no news is good news’?” her XO quipped with a grin.

  “It sort of lost its applicability when we learned we weren’t going to be immediately overrun by a million Dakinium-sheathed Denubbewa warships with new weapons that can destroy us even when we’re inside a double envelope. Now I just want to eradicate them as soon as possible— or at least send them permanently packing back to wherever they came from.”

  “Uh, have they developed new weapons that can destroy us while we’re in a double envelope?” the XO asked with concern in his voice.