“Wait till after the second package. Good work everyone.” Dave checked the time. It was 0243. “Gordon, SITREP.”
“We’re not going to make 0300. More like 0310. But we could go with those that will be ready. That’s probably 80% of them anyway.”
“No that will mean the stragglers go in unescorted.”
“I think we should” chipped in Aubrey “otherwise we won’t get a second lift before dawn.”
“Alright but I want a squadron of limas on loose CAP down at 30K” said Dave.
“We can do that” said Toyah.
“OK do it” said Dave.
“Second package away” announced Mandy a couple of minutes later as Dave was rubbing his tired eyes. 120 torads were now streaking down to the surfacer destined to deliver death and destruction to the enemy air bases. This time, their munitions would not be designed to bust hardened shelters but rather to destroy targets exposed on the surface.
The enemy managed to fire off a dozen or so missiles from its remaining launchers but these were not enough to prevent the second package from wiping out the enemy fighter force. Three flights of marauders worked over the remaining shelters just for good measure and another flight hunted down the remaining launchers.
“We’re a go” said Dave at 0300. Most of the ship’s light and heavy shuttles descended to the planet carrying 40% of the 1st Sleth Bde. A few more took off in dribs and drabs over the next ten minutes.
Satisfied that the lift had got off OK and that Whiskey 3 was indeed OK and now returning, Dave let the back of his chair recline, closed his eyes and managed to fall asleep, despite the ongoing conversations around him. He began snoring before the first lift landed at their DZ.
“How does he do that?” asked Mandy to Rihan.
Rihan smiled. “Because he knows things are in capable hands.”
“Years of practice” added Art with a grin and Gordon added his own chuckle having spent years catching sleep when he could.
“And he doesn’t know he snores” contributed Aubrey with a smile.
“Or he doesn’t care” said Chase.
“Too harsh Chase. He cares a lot” said Rihan.
“Must be ignorance then” said Chase with a cheeky grin.
“I heard that” said Dave without opening his eyes and everyone laughed.
Chapter 7. Whiskey 7 over Slenthsl 1640, 1 November
Dave had sent Art down to be his liaison officer with the Sleth force battling for Nenrit. It was a jubilant Art who hailed Dave an hour earlier with the words “she’s ours.” Now Dave was sitting in the back of Whiskey 7 as it banked and headed for the designated DZ.
Obri had a big grin on his face as he stepped out after Dave. He was welcomed with a hug from his old academy buddy Elinth. There was a fair bit of destruction around. The Audacity’s fighters had not held back in supporting the final assault into the ship building facility in the north of the city.
After brief introductions Elinth led the way. A collection of his staff officers tagged along and they made a bit of a procession as Elinth pointed out things of note, like the guard house at the main entrance. Elinth needed to point out the fact because all it looked like now was a crater in the ground. The javelin that destroyed it left only part of one wall. Smouldering smoke, pungent from a mix of burning plastics, wafted across their path. Dave’s nose objected and he sneezed. “Excuse me” he managed to get out before another sneeze.
“Not used to the fresh air” quipped Art.
“There’s nothing fresh about this air” countered Dave and he sneezed again. He was grateful when Elinth changed direction and they left the burning rubble behind. Dave was struggling to keep up with Elinth’s big strides. Elinth held his tall sleth body upright like he was on a parade ground and seemed intent to step out like he was on actual parade. Even Art, who was a couple of centimetres taller than Dave was having to skip a little to keep in touch.
“Slow down” said Obri to Elinth “our friends are struggling.”
“Of course, forgive me” said Elinth with a sincere smile as he turned back to Dave. Elinth deliberately shortened his pace.
Dave could see that Elinth was in a very buoyant mood. “This victory means a lot to you?” asked Dave.
“Oh yes. I was born on Slenthsl. I lost a lot of friends here to these rogan. I am glad it was at my hand that they paid for what they did.” Elinth once again gave Dave a big grin.
They entered the huge construction hangar. “This goes two kilometres that way” said Elinth. “See there, that’s a Winthra class frigate, faster than the rogan frigates, not as fast as your stealth frigates. It’s a miracle she wasn’t damaged.”
They kept walking along till they reached two sleth troopers who seemed to be escorting a rather nervous looking sleth civilian. He wasn’t restrained but Dave suspected that didn’t mean much. This chap didn’t look like he could run fast enough to get away from the mean looking fellows beside him.
“Pinnels” said Elinth to the civilian “tell the Admiral here what you told me.” Elinth turned to Dave and explained that Pinnels was the deputy chief engineer here.
Pinnels looked like someone who had only bad news to tell and who feared if he told it one more time it would kill him. “The rogan made us work here. We had to work…”
“Enough of your excuses” barked Elinth “just tell the Admiral about the ships.” Pinnels hesitated. Elinth nodded his head with a threatening expression on his face.
“This was the last of a batch of four frigates” said Pinnels. He turned and pointed down the line. “There were three others ahead of this one. A few days ago, before your ships arrived” said Pinnels to Dave and then he turned to Elinth “when your forces overran Qwela.” Elinth rolled his hand in an effort to hurry Pinnels along. “Well they forced many of our staff here to make the frigates ready, even though they needed more work. We tried to argue but it was useless.”
“Come on get to the point” admonished Elinth.
“They forced our engineers to man three of the frigates. This one couldn’t fly. And they warped away.”
“Tell him where.”
“Ebelet.”
“One of our home worlds” explained Obri “still in rogan hands.”
“Were there any other ships?” asked Dave.
“Aaa…yes” said Pinnels “a Chelit cruiser from the other yard” and he pointed to the west.
“Is that all?” asked Dave.
Pinnels nodded and got a wack for his troubles from Elinth who barked “And?”
Pinnels held his head where he had been hit. He was in some pain.
“That will be enough” said Dave to Elinth. Dave looked directly at Pinnels. “Just tell me what you know.”
Elinth didn’t look too pleased at being reprimanded in front of everyone nor at having his little bit of theatre cut short. But when he saw Obri shaking his head he knew better than to make a scene here. “They loaded all the surplus missiles from the magazine onto transports. These included nukes.”
“How many?”
This time Pinnels answered “there were 260 nuke warheads in the magazine.”
“Right...” said Dave. He knew straight away he would have to hunt them down. But he needed more information. “Were there any rogan crew?”
Pinnels nodded. “Ten per ship. Minimum crew is 29. The other 19 are sleth engineers.
An hour later aboard Whiskey 7 Art said to Dave “So are we going after them?” Dave nodded. He was still trying to decide how best to manage and allocate his force. Dave wanted to take the bulk of his force and hunt down this new threat before they became fully operational. The question his mind was now wrestling with was how much he would need to leave here.
They were still to take the capital city where the remnants of the rogan occupation force were holed up. All three of the sleth brigades were down on the deck now and two of these were already being ferried in captured vehicles to the capital.
When they captured the fighte
r bases the sleth recovered eleven intact fighters and were now using these to support their drive onto the capital. With no enemy ships or fighters the only thing the sleth really lacked was ground based fire support. Dave was of a mind to provide two droid support companies for this purpose. They would still need top cover and a commander who would know how to fight a battle against an enemy flotilla, should the enemy warp back in. The obvious choice was Ivan. The Resolute and two of his frigates along with the sleth ships would suffice.
That would leave him with the Audacity, Tenacity, Dominator and two frigates with which to hunt down this threat.
Dave turned to Art “Yes we’re going after them all right and we’re going to have to leave real soon.”
Chapter 8. Slidwon 0850, 3 November
The council of war was meeting for the second time in three days. Two days ago the shocking news that Slenthsl was under attack had set the cat among the pigeons. Hazon had demanded more time and more intel before he would act.
Today’s latest intel claimed the human stealth fleet had left Slenthsl. If Hazon was honest he would admit that this may or may not be the case. But right now his main focus was on Slidwon and the retaking of Cheklin. So wishful thinking more than rational analysis ruled his mind.
Vice Admiral Daeon Pugernon, as predicted, was the first to speak at the meeting after the intel update was given. He addressed Hazon directly. Hazon was expecting someone to say ‘I told you so.’ He was not surprised it was Daeon. But he was surprised by the tone of Daeon’s voice. It was not accusatory. It bore no malice. Rather it was a dispassionate statement.
“The flotilla alone has failed to secure the Sleth home worlds. With the aid of the humans the Sleth have managed to concentrate enough force. If we do not reinforce now we run the risk of losing the whole sector.” Daeon finished off with a nod of deference to Hazon. It was a pleasant surprise for Hazon but not so the next speaker.
Vice Admiral Simion Seglitus said with more passion “Well that’s an understatement.” He looked directly to Hazon. “You asked us to form this council of war. Will you please heed our advice? We must send a fleet, now!” Simion looked around and was rewarded with other nodding heads.
Hazon felt the pressure. He knew his original argument of giving Istridium number one priority was still valid, but he also knew that he had to do something or risk a revolt from his most senior staff. “A force of four caps and four lights should suffice to restore the situation.” he stated.
Simion shook his head but it was Daeon who responded first. “When we last met you said there would be no more piecemeal commitments. I would advise that it is better to commit a fleet and guarantee the outcome.”
“I concur” added Simion.
Hazon felt trapped by his own words. He knew that if the humans were still there he should send at least two fleets but that would set back his plans dramatically. Emotionally though he was not prepared to do it. “All right then but it will be the 15th –and only one brigade. It is the closest anyway.”
“We must commit at least a Division” insisted Simion.
“A division we have on Doros but transports are another matter.”
Hazon’s ops officer Captain Izba Helini managed to catch Hazon’s eye and he leant over to converse with her in a very quiet voice. After a minute he addressed the rest of the council. His expression was not a happy one. “All right, we will commit the division on Doros but this will delay our planned operations to Cheklin. Are you prepared to agree to that?”
“I am” said Simion quickly. Daeon nodded and then so did the rest. Hazon let out the breath he was holding. It was not the outcome he had hoped for.
“How long?” asked Daeon.
Izba frantically manipulated the controls on her terminal. She turned to Hazon and advised “Six days.”
Hazon scanned around and saw that all seemed content. “Right. I think we can move to the next item then…”
Chapter 9. Audacity to Slenthsl 1030, 7 November
Dave scanned the report one last time. It had taken them six days to track the enemy ships down. They were not found over Duros but they found the cap and three of the frigates in the Xlanthe system. It wasn’t a fair fight but Dave didn’t care about that. He did care that he probably killed around 60 sleth engineers in the process, but that couldn’t be avoided. What he really cared about was the fact that he was now getting low on missiles. He knew that a transport run from Q2 arrived over Slenthsl yesterday and he was keen to get back and replenish. The remaining frigate and transports would have to wait.
He gained an insight into the character of Capt Senna Briggs, the commander of the Dominator, when she had proposed a new method for coordinating strikes. Normally you do this via comms links but you can’t use those normally without uncloaking. In theory you could use a tightbeam microwave transmission and thereby reduce the chance of detection. But for this to work you needed a very precise fix of the receiver’s location. Trouble is that when warping into an area you never know exactly where the ships will end up, well not exact enough for a tightbeam link.
Before they warped from Duros, Senna had proposed that all ships be preassigned a location at the destination that the ships would manoeuvre to on coming out of warp. Then it would be possible for the ships to communicate via tightbeam. It wasn’t without risk but Dave had thought it a great idea and praised her for it. Senna though had immediately said that the credit really belonged to her CI officer. Her generosity impressed him even more than the comms idea.
He was also pleased with Jeb’s performance. He had shown excellent judgement during his sweep of the outer planets in the Xlanthe system. The Tenacity, accompanied by the Phantom, swept to the far side of the second gas giant and discovered the enemy ships dispersed over a wide area.
If it had been several months earlier Dave would have laid odds Jeb would have conducted an immediate attack. But instead Jeb assessed that there was a strong possibility that he and the Phantom would not be able to bag all the ships. So instead he sent the Phantom back around the gas giant to hail the Audacity and pass on their precise RV loc so Dave could communicate by tightbeam when he arrived. Jeb had then waited patiently, his ship cloaked and ready to strike.
When the main body arrived, they successfully used the tightbeam method to coordinate a group beam attack on the dispersed targets. It went off like clockwork with all ships getting a kill.
Satisfied with his report Dave hit send. He exited his office and poked his head into Rihan’s next door. “Coffee?”
“Now you’re talking” replied Rihan.
Chapter 10. Audacity over Slenthsl 1440, 8 November
Val and her team were flat out transferring missiles. She was also acting as the Group’s LOG officer, so she left Tracy in charge of the replenishment of the Audacity so she could keep track of the other ships. Sgt Tracy Gordon, super organised as ever, was overseeing her operators on 12 different MagGrab systems. She saw the alert before the operator hailed her.
“Sarg, you seeing this?” queried Cpl Tony Aurilio.
“Yes. You’ve tried to reset?”
“Affirmative, but she’s still stuck.”
“Try it again.”
“Done…but no good. Someone’s going to have to go out. There’s a missile on the arm.”
“Yeah. OK” said Tracy. If there had not been a missile already grabbed by the system she could have just shut it down. But there was no avoiding it. “Jake” she hailed.
“Yo” hailed back Cpl Jake Worthington.
“Suit up. Got a job for you.”
“And I thought this day was going to be boring” he quipped.
“As long as it doesn’t end up tragic Jake.”
“No chance. I’m on it.”
Jake was suited up at the SE5 hatch (starboard hull, level E, hatch number five), which was the closest one to the failed MagGrab system. The system descended out of the arched wing section that joined the hulls. It was some twenty metres from port sid
e wall of the starboard hull.
Jake checked the display next to the hatch and activated the outside camera. Using the control pad he scanned the camera around to get a picture of what was happening. The arm of the MagGrab was stuck about halfway between the transport’s extended conveyor and the missile magazine embedded into the bottom of the arched wing structure that bridged the central and starboard hulls.
“Sarg I can see it. She’s stuck halfway. I’m going up into the wing now.”
“Roger” said Tracy. “Let me know when you get there.”
“Wilco.”
Jake made his way to the magazine access panel. The light on the panel warned him that beyond this point there was no atmosphere. He sealed his suit, double checked the oxy flow and then sealed the access compartment he was in before opening the panel.
“I’m in now” he hailed. He received Tracy’s acknowledgement as he walked along the narrow gantry that would lead him to the rack of missiles. The lights activated as they detected his movement. As they did so, Jake could see the vast array of missile launching pods above him.
Immediately below the gantry was the autoloader which conveyed the new missile pods from the access hatch to the individual rack sections. It was essentially a platform moving along a set of rails. On the platform was a housing and a mechanism that raised and manoeuvred a missile pod onto the bottom of the rack section.
Below the autoloader was the cavernous area where empty missile pods were flushed. It was a dark empty space at the moment because all empties had already been processed. That involved collapsing the pods and then paletting them up and conveying them to the offload bay from where they would be offloaded back onto the transport after the new missiles had been loaded.
It was a fair way down and Jake was wise to be careful of his step.
The business end of the magazine was essentially a big metal container rack with ten sections, each containing two columns of 20 pods each. Each pod measured 1.5 x 1.5 x 5m and contained one torad missile. The pods were stored on their side and stacked one on top of the other to form a column. The pods were placed into the rack at the bottom of the left hand column and the whole stack rotated in a clockwise direction via the geared mechanism. So the pods would in effect move up to the top on the left hand column and then down on the right hand column of each section. Between the columns of the rack, the auto loading system manoeuvred the new missiles pod into their assigned section. There was only just enough room to squeeze a suited figure side-on between the sections.
Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) Page 42