by D. J. Holmes
Without waiting for a reply, Johnston helped Clare to her feet. Brier turned around and knelt. Out of the back of his combat armor two hand holds and two stirrups appeared.
“I’m meant to get on the back of this thing?” Clare asked. She had caught glimpses of the metal monstrosity fighting just moments before and she thought Brier would tear her apart if he tried to move like he had done fighting the Indians.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Johnston said as he pushed her towards Brier. “I’m going to do it too.”
Reluctantly, she reached up and grabbed the handholds to pull herself up the back of Brier’s combat armor. When she got her feet into the stirrups, an elastic belt reached around her back and pulled her body tight against the cold armor.
“Don’t worry Ma’am. I’ll take good care of you,” Brier said.
Johnston strode over to where Harte was waiting. He jumped up into Harte’s stirrups and allowed the elastic belt to extend around his body.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said to the waiting marines.
The marines took off towards the path in the forest Samuels had been cutting. As soon as they reached it they formed up in a single file and accelerated to their full speed of eighty kilometers an hour. For twenty minutes they kept up their relentless sprint.
Initially, Johnston watched the forest whizz past them. Within minutes his attention switched to the explosions that rang out around the forest as the Indians tried to hit whoever had attacked their men. Almost all the explosions were well behind them and Johnston quickly dismissed them. No sooner had he done so, than he fell asleep. We made it, were the last words on his mind.
Asleep, he missed the squad of marines meeting up with Samuels at the end of the thirty kilometer path she had cut through the thick forest underbrush. At Moony’s direction, the team then made a forty-five degree turn into the forest and much more carefully and slowly, began to beat their way back towards the rebel base. Before they got there Clare had also fallen asleep, despite her initial terror at speeding through the forest on what felt like a mechanical robot, exhaustion had caught up to her too.
Chapter 19 – The Signal
It has always fascinated me how an entire fleet can waste weeks searching for a single ship which, if found, it would only take seconds to destroy. The game of cat and mouse is an old one that dates back to the water navies of Earth before the invention of the shift drive. It has hardly changed in the centuries since.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
30th April 2467 AD, Liberty.
Johnston awoke in a strange bed. His hands twitched towards his face as the burning sensation from the day before remained. He stopped them before they actually moved. Instead, his survival instincts kicked in. Cracking open his eyes he looked around him whilst pretending to be asleep. When he could see no one, he jumped to his feet. The unexpected feel of hard rock under his bare toes caused his groggy memories from the previous night to return.
He remembered being helped down from Harte’s combat armor and into the cave hideout. Someone had applied some sort of cream to his face. The searing pain had momentarily woken him fully. After that, all he remembered was someone else pressing a hypo injector into his neck.
I guess we made it, he thought.
“Good to see you on your feet Major,” Lieutenant Moony said as he walked into the room someone had carved out of the cave wall. “You slept like a baby all the way back from the ambush site. I’m not sure you are going to live that one down. Having to be carried out like a civilian.”
“I can see I’m not going to get any sympathy,” Johnston snorted as he reached for his combat suit which was lying nearby. “Let’s see how you feel after escorting an unaugmented through an occupied city and more than fifteen kilometers of dense forest all the while being chased by a platoon of soldiers in combat armor with incendiary shells falling all around you.”
“Oh I dunno Sir,” Moony chuckled. “I think we took out that Indian platoon pretty easily. They weren’t really that tough.”
“Just shut up Lieutenant,” Johnston said as he took a mock swing at his subordinate.
“That’s unlikely Sir,” Moony said. “But in all seriousness, it’s a relief to see you on your feet. What do you want to do now?”
“Right now I need some food, and then I need to see someone about my face. It still stings more than I would like. After that, I need to debrief you on your missions. We need to put together a report for Captain Somerville to take back to Earth.”
“The doc here says you have first and second degree burns all across your face. It will heal up in time, but until then it’s going to hurt like a bitch,” Moony said.
“Great,” Johnston said.
“Look on the bright side, at least you will still have your looks Major, if you think that’s something worth keeping mind you,” Moony said as he dodged out of the way of another punch.
“Just lead me to some food,” Johnston said gruffly.
*
An hour and a half later Johnston was once again in the back of the rebel’s cave sitting around Councilwoman Pennington’s desk. He had just heard his marines’ reports. They had been sent out in pairs to scout different Indian locations within Liberty and around the city. Thankfully, none of them had got tangled up with Indian soldiers. They had all made it back to the cave in time to come to his aid.
“I think it is clear that our two main targets are the headquarters based in the old Council Chambers and the supply depot on the outskirts of the city,” Johnston said after he heard the final report. “If the invasion force can take out the Indian command structure and deprive their forces the supplies they need, then the rest of the Indian soldiers will have to surrender sooner or later. I doubt the navy will be able to scrape up an invasion force large enough to take on the Indian forces toe to toe. But five to ten thousand marines should be able to retake the key sections of Liberty, then we can starve the rest of the Indians out. If they don’t have access to energy cells their power armor will quickly become useless. Once that happens, the populace of Haven will eat them alive unless they surrender.”
“So you think an invasion will prove successful?” Pennington asked.
“Yes,” Johnston said. “If the navy can gain control of the orbitals then the Indian army can be mopped up sooner or later. The military commanders of the invasion force will have to formulate their own plans based on the information we have gathered for them, but if they follow my recommendations they will be able to take away the Indian’s ability to fight a long drawn out battle.”
“Then you are leaving us,” Clare said from where she sat in the corner of the cave. So far she had been silent for the debriefing.
“No,” Johnston said to the surprise of his men. Clare gave him a small smile. “I don’t think we can. The Indians know marines are on Haven now. They will quickly put two and two together and guess that the ship they detected a few days ago dropped us here. They will be watching the orbitals very closely for any sign of us trying to leave. If we try to take off in our shuttle they could detect us and destroy us before we even got a signal off to Endeavour. Then Somerville will never get our info.
“I plan to use the shuttle’s long range COM gear to send our info to Endeavour, they can bug out and get back to Earth with what we have found. We,” Johnston said, looking around the room at his men, “will have to stay here until the cavalry comes.”
“So you are going to fight alongside us?” Pennington asked eagerly.
“I will,” Johnston answered. “But that was not a part of our mission brief. It could be at least a month or two before the fleet gets here, perhaps longer. So, no one else has to fight if they don’t want. You can find a place to lie low and wait until the real fight begins,” he said to his men.
“Ha,” Sergeant Brier said. “Fat chance of that. We are with you Major. We got a taste for kicking some Indian ass last night and I think the rest of the men are eager for the main course.�
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“Well, I guess that means we are in,” Johnston said to Pennington. “I will need to travel back to our shuttle to send the signal, but after that we are all yours. I’m sure there is a thing or two we can teach you about fighting a guerilla war against a superior force.”
“I’ll go send the message Sir,” Moony said. “You need to rest. I’ll take Samuels and Harte with me.”
“Very well,” Johnston said. “I didn’t fancy another long hike through the damn forest anyway. You can have the pleasure.”
*
1st May 2467 AD, HMS Endeavour.
James was sitting on the bridge, watching an Indian frigate run a patrol flight very close to the gas giant they were hiding in. Endeavour was too far down into the planet’s atmosphere to detect the frigate, which hopefully meant that it couldn’t detect Endeavour. James was watching the frigate’s movements via a stealth recon drone that they had orbiting the planet.
The recon drone was able to pick up another ten ships moving around on various patrol vectors further out into the system. From what James had been able to observe, after the first day of fruitless searching, the Indian ships had shifted their focus onto Haven itself. The Indian Admiral likely suspected that Endeavour was in the system to make contact with someone on the planet and they were now trying to make sure no further contact was made. That was alright with James; it meant most of the Indian ships were well away from where he was hiding.
However, either by chance or design, the flight path of the frigate he was watching brought it very close to the gas giant. Having not had much to do over the last week as they waited to hear back from Major Johnston other than the usual drills, the bridge was full as many of the Sub Lieutenants came to watch the frigate’s approach. Despite the risk being small, James couldn’t help feel his nerves growing as the frigate approached.
“Captain, I’m detecting a laser COM link, it’s coming from the planet,” Sub Lieutenant King said from the COM station.
“Download the message,” Mallory said eagerly. “It must be Major Johnston.”
“How powerful is the laser link?” James asked, a more pressing concern weighing on him.
“It’s twenty megawatts,” King answered.
“Did that Indian frigate detect the laser?” James followed up.
King paused for a few seconds as she ran a few calculations. “It’s possible Sir,” she replied, clearly concerned. “The frigate was right on the outer edge of the laser’s beam; they may have detected a faint trace of the COM link.”
James didn’t acknowledge King’s last report. He was too busy watching the Indian frigate, if they did detect the laser it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what it meant. “Lock all starboard missiles onto that frigate,” James ordered the tactical officer.
In his head he counted out five minutes. When the frigate didn’t alter its course, or show any sign that it had detected the laser link, he allowed himself to relax. If the Indians thought that there was a group on Haven still in contact with Endeavour they would double their patrols around the planet. It would make it next to impossible for Major Johnston to escape, stealth shuttle or no stealth shuttle.
“Mallory, you have the bridge,” James said. “I’m going to retire to my office to review the information Johnston just sent. Do everything you can to prepare the ship to get out of here short of taking us out of stealth mode. And keep an eye on that frigate. If it looks as if it is acting suspicious, you are to take it out.”
“Understood Sir,” Mallory said as James stood up and walked out.
*
ISF Rapjut, Haven System.
“Have you been able to decrypt that message yet?” Captain Sourav Ganguly asked his COM officer.
“No Sir,” she replied. “I don’t think we will be able to, not without a far more powerful computer. “
“What about the gas giant?” Ganguly said, turning to his sensor officer. “No sign of the British ship?”
“I’m not detecting anything untoward,” the officer said. “If there is a British ship there, it is well hidden.”
“We could maneuver closer Sir.” Ganguly’s First Lieutenant said. “Maybe we could launch some recon drones into the gas giant’s atmosphere. That way we could be sure if there is a ship there or not.”
“No!” Ganguly almost shouted. “I have already told you. The British ship is there; I am sure of it. We are not going to do anything to tip them off that we know about them. The stealth drone we have in place will be enough.”
“Understood Sir,” the First Lieutenant said, sounding thoroughly chastised.
“I want you to plot us a new course for when we complete this part of our patrol. I want to bring Rapjut past the gas giant again. Not so close that the British will suspect something, but close enough that we will be able to detect any ships that break out of the atmosphere. Understood?”
“Aye Sir,” the First Lieutenant responded, happy to have the chance to do something.
“COMs,” Ganguly said. “How many ships have received our message?”
“Four so far Sir,” the officer answered.
“Show me on the holo display,” Ganguly requested.
The COM officer altered the bridge’s main holo display. It showed the Haven System centered on Rapjut. A sphere expanded outward from the frigate, showing the progress of his COM message. So far four other Indian ships fell within the sphere. Two timers counted down to the side of the image. One showed when the COM message Ganguly had sent out would reach the next Indian ship, the other when the message would reach the flagship.
Good, Ganguly thought to himself. If that British Captain will just sit still long enough, we will make sure he never gets out of this system alive.
*
In his office James quickly scanned through Major Johnston’s report. When he was done he checked the sensor plot to make sure the Indian frigate wasn’t showing any signs that it had detected them. Happy that they were still safe he went back to the beginning of Johnston’s report and started reading again. He needed to fully understand the situation before he made any decisions. He didn’t want to leave Johnston behind if there was any way they could extract him and his men.
Twenty minutes later he set the report down and turned to view some of the visuals Johnston had sent. After he had finished watching them he understood Johnston’s decision. The Indians had devastated Liberty. It didn’t look like the city James remembered from his brief visit to meet Maximilian. Worse, it was clear that the Indians were exacting a harsh price from the Havenites, both in terms of their wealth and more importantly, their lives. The Havenites were fighting bravely, but they stood no chance against the superior technology of the Indian military. Maybe with Johnston’s help they could score some hits against the Indians, but even then, Haven faced months more of the brutal occupation.
James’ heart went out to his new wife. It would cut her deep when she saw these images of her homeworld. Thinking of his wife only made his decision to leave harder. Intellectually, he knew that it would be suicide to order Johnston to try and take off from Haven in the stealth shuttle with so many Indian ships on the lookout for them. It might even be suicide to try and take Endeavour close enough to the planet to retrieve them. Yet, he didn’t want to return to Earth having left someone behind. He also didn’t want to just leave with his wife’s planet in the grip of such an ordeal.
At Vestar and Kulpath he had been able to throw himself against the problems he had encountered head on. When he had seen injustice he had been able to confront it directly. Now, here in Haven, there was nothing he could do. What made it worse, was that he knew that once Endeavour jumped out of the system there probably wouldn’t be any British ships returning for at least a couple of months. Major Johnston, his men and the Havenites would be on their own once again.
There is nothing for it, James said to himself for the fifth time. We need to leave. Suzanna will understand.
Pushing his doubts down, James lef
t his office and strode back into the bridge. “Set us a course for the shift passage to Independence,” he ordered once he sat down in his command chair.
“We’re not going for Johnston?” Mallory asked.
“No, he and his men have decided to stay behind and join the fight against the Indians,” James answered. “You can all read a synopsis of the report later. For now, all you need to know is that Johnston got the information the invasion force is going to need. It’s our job to get it back to the Admiralty. I can promise you this though, we will return to Haven.”
“I didn’t doubt it,” Becket said from the tactical station. “We may be good at sneaking around. But it isn’t our style. I’m sure we’ll be back to show the Indians just what Endeavour can do.”
“Agreed,” James said. “Now get to work all of you.”
For another twenty minutes James watched the bridge crew get Endeavour ready to break out of orbit of the gas giant. Most of what they were doing could have been done as they travelled to the shift passage but James wanted to wait until the Indian frigate was well out of sensor range before he made his move.