Assault on Cambriol: The Manhattan Trials

by Jerry Borrowman

  The way it accomplished that was rather ingenious. Cameras on one side of the hull projected the image of their view to a molded video display screen that surrounded the hull on the opposite side of the ship, which made the ship invisible to an observer. Carter smiled as he thought about it. Now that was a great invention. Who’d have thought of turning the entire hull of a ship into a video screen? It was the perfect camouflage, also extremely expensive, since the “screen” had to be able to stand the heat of acceleration in and out of the atmosphere, as well as take a direct hit from enemy beams. Out of the twenty-three fighters on the Allegro, only two were equipped with the invisibility-display hull and it was a compliment to Eaves and Carter to trust them with the most expensive fighter in the ship’s arsenal. On the other, it condemned them to reconnaissance, which frustrated Eaves, but thrilled Carter.

  Carter and Eaves peered anxiously into space, straining to identify the danger. Their bodies mobilized for action by diverting blood to vital organs and away from their outer skin. The environmental controls responded to the tense mood of the occupants by warming the cabin two degrees. The night was cold anyway and Carter had felt a tingling in his hands and feet, so the additional heat was welcome.

  After about an hour, though, he started to relax. It was nearly three A.M. and in an hour, the other invisibility-hull fighter would relieve them. Or, they’ll report to the assigned position and find we’re nowhere to be found! Just thinking about it perturbed him even more.

  At 3:23 a.m. Carter reached for an enviro-towel to wash his face and hands. He looked up just in time to see flashes of three, high-intensity, scarlet lasers flare into view, lighting up the night sky from the rebel camps. Two lasers illuminated the two Alturian invisibility-hull fighters, undoubtedly blinding their instrument array. The third beam shot directly through the area of space where Eaves and Carter had been. After a few moments, the laser beam began roving the sky, looking for them. The angle was such that no matter how wide an arc it followed, it could never hit them under their rock hiding place. Eaves has done it again.

  “How’d you know?” Carter asked in exasperation.

  “Don’t know, doesn’t really matter. Be ready to fast-start the battle-active targeting computer.”

  “Are you going to knock out the lasers?” In the distance they could see the Alturian fighters gyrating about drunkenly in an attempt to escape the blinding rays. Clearly the cannons weren’t strong enough to disable them, but without instrumentation, they were flying blind. Perhaps, the crew were now actually blind, since usual procedure was for the pilot to deactivate the anti-laser window coating to make better visual observations, making it likely that they had permanently lost their eyesight when the first beams hit. Even a reflected beam could cause temporary blindness, but the number of direct hits they’d taken almost assured it. Carter got a sick feeling in his stomach. After all, he and Eaves always had their coating down during nighttime reconnaissance. He could only imagine the result if Eaves hadn’t moved out of harm’s way.

  “I asked if you were going to help those poor guys and knock out the lasers?”

  Eaves turned to him. “The rebel ground troops wouldn’t use lasers unless something else was under way. Obviously they’ve known about us for a long time, even though they played dumb. We’ve got to wait a little longer to learn what’s going on. I want them to think we were taken off station early—because if they think we’re still up here they won’t launch the next phase of their attack!”

  Carter swallowed hard, “You’re right. But, I sure hate to think of what those Alturians are going through right now.”

  “Why don’t you program three mini-torpedoes to hit their laser cannons. If nothing happens in the next sixty seconds, we’ll blast our way out of here.”

  Carter made the calculations and programmed them into the computer. In their first real battle with live opponents, Eaves was showing himself to be a capable battlefield commander.

  At forty-five seconds Eaves was ready to initiate the flight pattern to launch three missiles within a seven second firing window to completely disable the ground-based cannons. At fifty seconds, however, the night sky burst into flame as a dozen rebel fighters screamed in from the west and launched a ferocious attack on the two Alturian fighters. With a precision rarely seen in even the finest academies back on Kalenden, their missiles found their way to their targets, setting the sky ablaze with the explosion of the two doomed fighters. Holding their position a few more moments, Eaves and Carter watched as another dozen or so missiles were launched into the darkness of the forest canopy, precisely where the Alliance ground troops had been mobilizing for a dawn raid. Acrid smoke filled the air.

  Even though the odds were twelve to one against them, Eaves programmed the targeting computer to launch all eight of their mini-missiles. It was far more important now to knock out the enemy fighters than to worry about the lasers. Without air cover, the Alliance troops were sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered. “Jason, it’s impossible for us to get even eight of the fighters, since the heat flumes alone will confuse some of our missiles. If we’re to stand any chance at all of getting out of here, you’ll need to be prepared to fire our laser cannons directly into the canopy of any remaining fighters. If we surprise them we ought to be able to break the battle up, particularly since we’re firing from their blind side. You ready?”

  Carter swallowed hard. He thought he’d been in battle in the previous few weeks, but now realized it was a phony battle where they encountered only token resistance. Now it meant life or death. Once the enemy detected their presence, they’d become the most important target of the evening. And after launching every weapon they had in the first attack, they’d be defenseless. “I’m ready,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.

  The force of the acceleration here in the thick Keswick atmosphere literally took his breath away. Eaves flew out in a loop-to-loop pattern that allowed them to gain altitude at the steepest possible angle. For hovering they used anti-gravity membranes. But, in battle they used forward thrusters to provide the overwhelming speed that would provide lift to the slender fins they used as wings. Theirs was the most maneuverable aircraft in the history of atmosphere-based fighters.

  Even though the invisibility shield made the aircraft itself invisible, their exhaust could be seen for at least twenty kilometers. It took the rebel fighter group just a few moments to discern the threat and as a unit they turned to engage them. Flying directly at the rebels, Eaves held his fire long past the standard launch protocol. As they approached the group at a combined airspeed of over 1200 kilometers per hour, Eaves waited until the outer aircraft in the group started to peel away so the lead aircraft would have an escape path if it needed to get out of Eaves’s way. Something like an ultra-high speed game of chicken. Just as they were about to crash head-on, the rebel fighter broke to starboard and Eaves shouted “launch all weapons.” The recoil of the missiles firing dropped their airspeed immediately, throwing Carter forward against his restraining belts. Of course all the missiles couldn’t be launched simultaneously, since they had only four tubes, but the automatic launch sequencer immediately reloaded the tube as soon as a missile had cleared the front of the ship. In all, it took just twelve seconds to launch all the weapons.

  The radar alarm had been sounding continuously since they initiated their solitary attack, but now it really became shrill. Eaves glanced down to see that there were twelve orange bogeys headed their way, indicating enemy missiles. Then blue lights started appearing on the screen, which meant Alliance fighters were joining the battle.

  “Hang on Jason, there’s a dozen hostile missiles headed directly for us.”

  Restraints or no, Eaves’s next move straight towards the ground created such force that it threw Carter against the overhead canopy. They jerked crazily to the starboard, then hard to port. Next thing he knew, Carter felt tree branches crashing against the ship’s hull as they tore through the forest canopy. I
n his aft monitor, he could see that at least four of the hostile missiles had collided with each other because of Eaves’ canopy maneuver, but eight were still hot on their trail.

  “What are you doing in the trees?” he screamed, “They’re gonna tear the ship apart!” Carter could sense the missiles getting closer.

  “Do you think they use impact missiles or magnetic?” queried Eaves into his microphone.

  “What?”

  “Impact or magnetic warheads – you’ve got about five seconds to decide?”

  “Both, damn it!”

  “Ah, that’s what I think too.”

  Carter saw one of the lights on his panel flash as two large grape canisters fired out of the rear torpedo tube. Four of the hostile missiles exploded as they neared the highly charged electro-magnets in the canisters.

  “Only four left!” Suddenly Eaves dove even farther into the trees. Where before they’d been tearing off light foliage at tree-top level, now they were slicing through branches four to six centimeters thick. The ship shuddered violently with each impact. At 600 kilometers per hour, they were like a razor blade cutting through wood paneling.

  “What are you doing?!”

  The night sky flared into a brilliant flash as first one, then another and finally all of the hostile missiles exploded, literally a few meters behind their aircraft. The impact warheads couldn’t tell the difference between an enemy ship and a heavy tree branch. Still, the concussions were close enough that the ship was thrown head-over-heels, bouncing from treetop to treetop. Eaves fought savagely to regain control. With just seconds to spare he caught sight of a relatively open meadow to starboard and managed to bank the ship in that direction. In what had to be the highest speed drive-by ever recorded, he brought the ship down, skipped it across the surface of the standing water until the water helped stabilize their forward motion to the point where he regained enough control to bring the nose back up into the air. Giving it full acceleration they shot up into the sky to rejoin the battle.

  “What a sight to make eyes sore,” cried Eaves exuberantly. “Just look at that.” At least six rebel fighters had been hit by their missiles and crashed into the forest below. The smoke from their fires gave the remaining enemy lasers an opaque appearance as they tried to sort out friendly from unfriendly aircraft. The Alliance fighters were clearly not as experienced as the rebel forces, but they now had a numerical advantage and were chasing the rebels in a furious aerial combat.

  “This should take about five more minutes,” Eaves exulted. Then the control console confirmed what he and Carter saw with their night vision goggles. “Ten, no make that eleven new bogeys coming in at 09:00,” Carter sighed.

  The ship banked into a steep dive to port as Eaves evaded a ground-based laser. They were out of offensive weapons except for their energy beams, but all the other fighters had shielding now, so the lasers weren’t much help. The best Eaves could hope to accomplish was to pass so close to enemy fighters that they’d lose their concentration while chasing down the Alliance craft.

  It worked pretty well. The sky was churning with fighters going in all directions, other ships launching missiles against ground troops to keep that part of the battle stirred up and occasional explosions when fighters blew up in mid-air or crash-landed.

  It started to look like the Alliance was going to come out ahead, when disaster struck. A Kalenden fighter launched a missile at a rebel fighter so that it would pass undetected under an Alturian aircraft until it was too late for the rebel to take evasive action. Unfortunately, the missile’s intelligence system failed and the missile smashed into the Alturian. The explosion lit up the entire sky. Misunderstanding what had happened, two Alturian fighters turned on the hapless Kalendener and blew him from the air. Chaos ensued and in seconds the sky was ablaze with Alliance missiles firing at each other, as well as the rebels. It was the kind of madness that comes from inexperience and the frenzy of battle. In short order, some eight Rebellion Fighters were destroyed, as well as seven Kalendens and ten Alturians. It was impossible to tell who had killed whom.

  It was also becoming apparent that it wasn’t going to end until every single aircraft had been destroyed.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Eaves shouted. “Hold on!”

  He headed directly for the heart of the melee. Immediately a rebel ship started chasing, followed by an Alturian and Kalenden ship. As he approached the center he started a gentle arc up and out. Soon other ships followed and before long he’d achieved his objective of creating a spiral pattern that involved all the ships in the battle. Lasers were firing, but the upward curve of the arc was such that it was difficult for them to gain a lock on each other. For a few moments, every fighter was preoccupied with maintaining their position, rather than firing missiles; the precise moment Eaves had hoped for. Just as he reached the apex of the spiral, he flipped the controls and dove straight down so that he brought himself into the center of the fighter group. That’s when he fired the only weapon he had left – a double-charged dazzle blast. Dazzles were hardly ever used in battle, since they did no real damage, but in this case it had the desired effect. In the most brilliant explosion of the night everything for at least twenty kilometers was illuminated. The dazzle blast had virtually no concussion, but it created an electromagnetic wave that was powerful enough to temporarily stun all electronics in the area. Ships fell from the sky like electrocuted flies. Including, of course, Eaves and Carter’s.

  “Brilliant,” shouted Carter, “It’s been good knowing you.”

  “Shut up and fire the parachute!”

  At least four fighters fell to their death because the crew was too stunned to remember their parachutes. The rest drifted lazily towards the ground while other crews ejected to safety. Eaves had the presence of mind to manually fire some small rockets that brought their ship down at least ten kilometers from their nearest enemy. There they hit the trees hard and were jerked into a nose position as they crashed into the forest floor.

  Carter imagined that his head had smashed into his instrument console. Of course that was impossible, since it would require all of his safety restrains to be torn from their mounting brackets. But it does feel wet on my face, he thought dreamily as his eyes closed and his body slumped out of his chair.

  4 – Magill, Loyalists, and rebels

  Before falling asleep, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sean Magill re-read his report of the land operations to date. While he didn’t know all the details of the various deployments, he had been given clearance by Captain Jesik to take notes at various planning meetings, and then to send them directly to the Allegro. Writing notes, as opposed to dictating them where they might be overheard, provided a potential increase in security. The land battle proved more complicated than the Alliance had been led to believe. The Royal Keswicks promised to field 40,000 soldiers against a rebel force estimated at 25,000-30,000. Plus, the government assured their allies that they could instantly activate a military draft, if required. That appeared more than adequate to meet the threat. Because of a lingering mistrust of outsiders, however, the Royal family was directed by the military to give instructions to the Alliance that the only assistance required was to protect the Keswick orbit from marauders and pirates and to provide military advisers on the ground. History demonstrated that on too many occasions, powerful allies turned conqueror.

  “So, our unit joined three hundred advisers from Kalenden to help protect the capitol city of Keston,” he wrote, “ while another three hundred from other planets in the Kalenden system were assigned to the orchidite mines. Alturus also placed twelve hundred of their specialists in nearby camps. Although these feeble numbers will not be decisive in battle, it put the rebels on notice that both neighboring star systems are on the side of the Loyalists. Both the Kalendens and Alturians do their best to avoid each other, resorting to strict military etiquette when our paths crossed.”

  He struggled with the next few lines, finally settling on, “At first, everyt
hing appeared to be going well for the Alliance. The rebels made several attacks on the Loyalist positions at the 178-kilometer corridor that enclosed the city and the mines, but were easily repulsed and pushed further back into the jungles. Desiring to end the threat once and for all, but against the advice of their Alliance advisers, the Keswick military command sent an ever-increasing number of squadrons to pursue the rebels. Before long, dangerous gaps opened in the Loyalist lines. When an Alliance general called attention to this, the Keswicks assured him that the rebels were nothing more than ill-mannered thugs who had no clue how to run a military campaign. So, ‘thanks for the advice, but we have everything under control.’”

  What Magill didn’t know is that on the same day that the Allegro came under attack in orbit the night battle erupted in the skies over Keswick. With more than seventy percent of their army deployed in the jungles, the military found it had just 6,000 troops to defend Keston. But, 6,000 seemed adequate since most of the rebel units were also in the jungle, starting their ground attack on the Loyalist units. But the military leadership had not counted on infiltrators and guerillas, who began harassing the Alliance troops from behind.

  As they learned later, the first step in the rebel campaign was to destroy the Keswick Air Force. That was accomplished in short order when 300 Keswick fighter aircraft exploded in flight shortly after take-off. Rebel sympathizers among the maintenance crews had managed to place small beads of altitude sensitive plastic explosives around the fuel caps of each fighter. As an aircraft reached an altitude of 3,000 meters the explosives detonated, igniting the ship’s fuel tanks. It was such a subtle tactic that at first no one figured out what was happening. So, wave after wave took to the air, looking for the external threat that was destroying the aircraft, only to be incinerated themselves. Finally, Air Command grounded all remaining fighters to figure out what was going on. That saved some aircraft, but took them out of the battle while bomb squads searched for and disabled the explosives.