“We can get Jim to do that once he gets down” said Rihan.
“There’s little chance they will get through the rogan cordon on their own” said Chase.
“Use the droids as a diversion” said Ivan. “They are going to have to make contact with the rogan at some stage, why not mount an attack.”
“You’re not just a pretty face Ivan” said Rihan and then added a smile directed at Jasmin.
“No he’s not Maam” piped up Jasmin.
“Bully for you Jasmin” said Rihan and gave her a warm smile.
Dave lifted his head from his hands “all worked out then?”
“Of course dear” said Rihan “I’m in charge” and she gave Dave a peck as Julian walked in.
Like Jim, Julian was tucking his shirt into his trousers as he entered. He looked around and saw that Chase was the only person in uniform. He gave a big smile despite having been rudely woken only four minutes earlier. “Casual Friday?” he asked. That broke them all up. Finally, Dave said “pull up a pew Julian it’s show time.”
“Oh dear!”
Chapter 13. Niku 0330, 22 May
The decision had been made. They would stay put for now, as the truck was still outside and they desperately needed some rest. Art and Sue pulled rank and got to sleep on the big bed in the master bedroom. Buster, ever the gentleman, let Dakota and Dai kip in the other bedroom while he and the rest of the ‘blokes’ crashed on the lounge or on the floor in the living room. Reg had volunteered to stay on watch for the first two hours.
“I’m sorry Art” said Sue as they lay on their backs on the bed.
“About what?” asked Art.
“About losing it in Whisky 1.”
“Oh don’t worry about it.”
“I’ve never done that before, you know…panic.”
“You’ve been through a lot of stress, darling. Forgive yourself.”
“I could have got us all killed.”
“But here we are, still kicking.”
“Yeah I suppose.”
“Come on. Sleep” and he gave her a kiss on her forehead, then turned over all fully dressed, including his boots. He was so tired. He closed his eyes and was asleep within a couple of minutes.
Sue lay there, giving herself a hard time. ‘I was always the cool one’ she said to herself. ‘Am I losing it? Am I getting too old for this?’ She pondered and then remembered that her husband was six years older. ‘Don’t be silly Sue’ she admonished herself. She too rolled over and was soon snoring lightly.
Chapter 14. Resolute over Beta Phi 0345, 22 May
Chase was reviewing the plan so far. He had the tasks for the 30th Coy and the insertion team displayed on the holo. He created a copy of that plan and swapped the display. The spaceport was at the north east edge of the city. There were icons around it representing their best guess of what and where the rogan were.
He zoomed out to show the Resolute over the planet, called up the order of battle (OB) display and selected the 30th Coy. It’s icon appeared over the Resolute’s icon on the holo and a route extended from it to the planet above Niku.
He zoomed in till he could see it’s task icons. The first one was for its initial secure point of entry (POE) task. This was about 5km East of the city. There were also two sequential task icons, one for a Move to the Council Chambers precinct in the centre of the city and another to secure the area around it.
Also at this location was a Recon task for the insertion team, though they had no updates to confirm whether or not they had actually got there yet.
Chase selected the 30th Coy secure task over the Council chambers and adjusted its area of operations by dragging its northern boundary south. He looked at that quite satisfied.
“Why did you do that” asked Julian.
“So the droids will have enough room to deploy and manoeuvre.”
“OK.”
“How many of these droids do you want to commit Sir?” asked Chase.
“All but one company and one of those heavy fire support droids from the heavy weapons platoon” said Dave. “They and the remaining marine platoon will be my reserve.”
“Got it.” Chase turned to Julian and added “Let’s see what this AI can do?”
On the OB display he dragged C Coy from under the 1st Droid Bn and created a new branch in the OB. He then dragged the 3rd Hvy Detachment from the Hvy weapons platoon under the Bn HQ and dropped onto C Coy. It was now under its command.
“OK Julian we now have our forces organised. Let’s give them something to do.” He selected the 1st Droid Bn HQ icon and hit a control on his work station and placed a secure task on the holo south of the spaceport. He adjusted the frontage and depth to set the initial area of operations (AO). He then dragged the perimeter of this area till its southern edge was adjacent to the northern edge of 30th Coy’s AO and its northern edge was a little south of the rogan perimeter.
“Looks good” said Julian.
Chase hit the develop course of action (COA) control and the AI worked out three options. In doing this it analysed the situation, including its objective, the terrain, weather, other friendly forces, the enemy forces and their likely COA.
The icons for the different COA were each uniquely colour coded. In this case there was a light blue, dark blue and purple set of icons. The purple one was its recommended COA. It had a secure POE to the north west of the city, a move task whose route ran along the western distributor till it hit the light manufacturing district south of the spaceport. From there it branched into two sequential move tasks, one for each of its line companies, and one sequential defend task for the Bn HQ and support units. The two sequential move tasks had their own sequential defend tasks with the A Coy on the western side and B Coy on the eastern side.
The light blue COA did a similar thing but with a POE on the eastern side and the dark blue COA had split the force with the Bn HQ and A Coy arriving in the west and B Coy in the east.
“Not bad” said Julian. “Let’s see why it chose the purple one.” He bought up the wargaming analysis reports for the different COA. The dark blue one, with the split POE was the worst being deemed too risky during the move phase as each group would be more vulnerable to enemy interference and would be unable to assist the other group. The light blue one was second because it was slower. Hence the purple one was selected.
“Can’t fault that Julian” said Chase.
“Agreed, my friend.”
Chase used the control to confirm the purple COA and then another to save the plan so far as Phase 1.
“OK so we have them on the ground securing the perimeter. Let’s see what the AI will now do if we order it to attack.”
He created a new phase, Phase 2, selected the insertion team and gave it a secure hostage task at the spaceport.
“Ivan” said Chase “any more specifics about where Pious and the other being held?”
“Hold on” said Ivan. He went into a huddle with Jasmin. In the end Ivan pointed to something on his display and then tapped Jasmin lightly on the back.
She placed a ‘spot’ icon on the map towards the eastern edge of the spaceport and said “There you go Chase.”
“Thanks Jasmin” said Chase with a smile “and of course you too Ivan.”
Ivan rocked his head back a little and gave a half smile. He declined to respond verbally lest he reward Chase’s behaviour.
Chase adjusted the location of the secure hostage task. “Right now it’s time for the droids to step up to the plate.”
He selected the Bn HQ and created an attack task on the space port. He brought up the task parameters. He hit the checkbox confirming this as a diversion and the AI automatically set the aggression (aggro) and acceptable casualties (cas) thresholds to low. He dragged the secure hostage task into the box below the diversion checkbox on his work station to link the two tasks and specify to the AI that this is a diversion for it.
He specified the force percentage as 40% to ensure that it only committ
ed 40% of its force to this attack.
“We don’t want to go in there Chase” said Julian.
“Yeah OK so we’ll restrict the AO to the western sector.”
“Do we want to limit the duration. How long do you reckon they will need to free the hostages?”
“That’s going to be difficult to predict” chimed in Dave. “Just leave it unspecified.”
“Roger that” said Chase and he hit the generate COA control.
Everyone in the room was now staring at the holo as it refreshed with the COA for this Phase 2.
“Looks like each of the three COA is using the same sized force – two line platoons plus half the droids from the Heavy Weapons Platoon” said Chase. The main diff is the FUPs.” The light blue one was just west of the secure hostage task, the dark blue one was further west just forward of A Coy and the purple one was right over on the north western edge.
Chase was scratching his head. “Why has it preferred this one way off to the north west?”
“Because it will draw the enemy away the furthest distance from the hostages” said Rihan. Chase was still looking puzzled. “Don’t you see” continued Rihan. “The enemy will take longer to respond to the diversion thereby minimising risk to the diversionary forces and it will take those same forces longer to get back to the hostage loc, meaning our rescue team will face less enemy for longer.”
“Alright I’ll concede that” said Chase “but it’s going to take longer to mount.”
“Let’s see” said Rihan and she brought up the analysis. “Not so, young man” said Rihan.
“How can that be?”
“Look” said Julian “it’s using two platoons from the western company and transferring one from the eastern company to backstop the western one. Clever hey?” and he added a wink and a smile.
Chase nodded acceptance.
“Are we good to go?” asked Dave.
“Well we’ve prepared a good plan on the assumption that the rogan will just sit pat behind their cordon” said Rihan “but what if they don’t. What if they sally forth into the city while we’re deploying?”
“That’s why we have a reserve” said Dave. Rihan nodded. “So are we good to go?” asked Dave again.
They all nodded. “OK commit it. Thanks everyone good work.” Dave looked at them and could see that they were all weary. “We have just under an hour before launch. I need to get changed and check on the marines. I suggest you all take a break, get changed of course” he said with a smile “and be back in here at 0500.”
Chapter 15. Resolute over Beta Phi 0430, 22 May
After a quick shower, the Captain and XO entered G deck fully dressed and looking a little fresher. The light shuttle hangar was full of warthogs and marines with all their kit. Heavy weapons were being manhandled through the hatches. Bleary eyed troopers were huddled in teams. Their NCOs, fired up now with adrenalin and the need for speed, were briefing them and fielding questions under the bright flood lights of the hangar.
There was no sign of Jim Bucknell. One of his one pippers pointed through to the heavy shuttle hangar. They went through the bulkhead. Four big new Hippo class heavy shuttles were crammed in. The new Trojan III battlewagons were either in them already or waiting at the bottom of the ramp. There were some heated words emanating from inside one of the new Hippo heavy shuttles.
Dave gave Rihan a tilt of his head with an expression that said ‘I suppose we better go in’. She gave him a weak smile and together they walked up the rear ramp. A Trojan III battlewagon was occupying the hold space.
“Look” said Sgt Kayla Kowalski, the load master for 30th Coy “the fucking clamps are in the wrong spot.” She was a big woman and now with her hands on her hips she looked one mean woman. Her thick blond hair was damp with sweat, testimony to her recent exertions.
“There’s no way this is going to work Sir” said an exasperated Tammy Jahir, the 30th Coy XO, to her boss. By comparison she was a more slender person but not slight. She prided herself on her ability to “fix” things but this one was beyond her.
Jim Bucknell had his hands on his hips too and he looked perplexed. He knew they had to jerry rig something and do it right away but he just didn’t know what.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dave and they all turned around a little surprised to see their commanding officer.
“It’s these new shuttles and new battlewagons, Sir,” explained Tammy “these clamps here are supposed to lock the wheels of the battlewagons.” She pointed forward. “Now see those clamps around the front wheels?”
Dave nodded.
“Well they are all locked nice and secure. But look at the clamps for the next two pairs. They are too short.”
“Some bright spark, who should have known better” said Kayla, “decided these Trojans could benefit with a longer wheel base but didn’t tell the designers of these new shuttles. Idiots.”
Dave could see that she was one pissed off loadmaster. He knew that she had failed the ‘case of the seven Ps’ – ie prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance – in that she should have used the little time they had over the previous days to actually load one of these. If they had done that then this issue would have been highlighted and dealt with by now. But he also knew that they had no time now for blame.
“Right” said Dave. “Do these new shuttles have cargo tie rings on the floor?”
“Yes Sir” said Kayla. She pointed to the metal flooring. “Can you see one here?”
“Good. Then we do it the old fashioned way. Get some chain and loop it around each of the middle and rear axles and through those tie loops. You’re going to have to have someone release them on landing and remember the whole vehicle may shift and it may be difficult, so have some heavy duty laser cutters just in case.”
“Right Sir, that’ll work.”
“Good I’ll leave you to it. Jim can we talk?”
They stepped out and moved off to a corner out of the way of the battlewagon crews who had come in and were now lining up to board the shuttles.
“So apart from that hiccup” said Dave to Jim “Are there any other issues?”
“No show stoppers Sir” said Jim.
“Good. Make sure you update your mission data. It will now have the extra missions for the Droids. I’m committing two companies and their Bn HQ and support. They will be mounting a coy level diversionary attack on the spaceport. So don’t be surprised by the noise. This attack is to enable the insertion team to rescue the council head and other hostages including Commodore Pious. I need you to make contact with them and give them their new orders.”
“Right O Sir. We have a lot of competing tasks don’t we?”
“Are you worried we might be biting off too much Jim?”
“Maybe. All I know is that I have just two platoons of grunts and one of armour to put down a revolt. I may need backup if we find there are too many of them for us to handle.”
Dave nodded. “I appreciate that Jim. I have your third marine platoon and a company of droids as my reserve. You call if you need more troops and I’ll commit them.”
“Fair enough.”
“Just remember I won’t be able to acknowledge you – we can’t transmit and risk detection up here. But I will heed your call.”
Jim looked his commander straight in the eye and knew he meant it. That was reassuring. “Thank you Sir.”
“Now Jim I expect these rebels will pack it in with a show of force. They are probably only doing this to save themselves from the rogan. If we can show them that not only are we here to support them but that we are taking the fight to the rogan, then they will probably lay down their arms. The Droid attack should help convince them. Avoid a bloodbath with the rebels but if push comes to shove use hostile force and regain control of Niku.”
“Understood.”
“Good luck Jim.”
Dave and Rihan walked back through the light shuttle hangar. Marines were in the process of boarding. Hangar crew we
re pulling away cables from the shuttles. One lieutenant was having a last word to one of his team leaders.
When they cleared the other bulkhead and were in the corridor leading to the elevator Rihan said “Jim’s right, his force may be inadequate, especially if the rogan decide to intervene and push their force from the spaceport into the city to support the rebels.”
“Yeah but I reckon they will have their hands full with the droids. It’s a possibility and like I said we’ll commit the reserve if required.”
“And if you do, you’ll need a ground commander on the deck.”
“Yep we will.”
“That should be me.”
Dave winced at the thought of putting Rihan in harm’s way in such a direct fashion. It wasn’t logical it was purely emotional. “We’ll see. I’ll make the call at the time.”
“No Dave, you know it should be me. You’re a Captain of a capital ship not a commander of a frigate. This role belongs to your XO. That’s me. You asked me to perform that role and you have to let me do it.” She had that determined look in her eye.
Dave knew that she was right but he was finding it difficult to agree. The elevator arrived and they got in. Rihan was still giving him that look. “All right” he said “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Rihan relaxed her stare and was actually touched at Dave’s desire to protect her. No one said anything for a moment. Then Dave took her hands in his and said “I couldn’t bear to lose you Rihan.”
She leaned closer and kissed him lightly on the lips. Their eyes were locked to each other till the elevator opened on A deck.
Chapter 16. Niku 0445, 22 May
“Sir” said Dai, a little louder this time and with her finger prodding his shoulder “wake up.”
“Huh?” said Art. He had been deep asleep and he was battling to re-enter the conscious world.
“Sir more company in the street.”
Art nodded. “OK I’m coming.”
Sue rolled one eye open and uttered “What?”
Insurrection: Book 3 of Warner's World Page 16