The Tactics of Revenge

by T. R. Harris

  The killing of Juireans was always a dicey affair, and there was the possibility that all traffic off the planet would be halted once the killings were reported. So the day before, Adam had had the small shuttle craft they’d acquired from General Angar placed on the back of a transport truck and driven to an open field not too far from Lann Hall. Adam couldn’t risk leaving the shuttle at the spaceport. Locating it in the nearby field, away from any formal flight restrictions, would give them an opportunity to get off the planet, even if all the spaceports were locked down.

  It was well into Day18 by the time they made their way to the field, but there was still plenty of light from the nearby streetlamps, as well as from the three moons of Hyben. The shuttle was sitting to the far left edge of the field, looking conspicuous and out of place, and as they sprinted across the field, Adam began to notice that the shuttle didn’t look quite right. As they drew closer, the reason soon became apparent.

  The main hatchway for the shuttle was missing, as were the rear chemical jet ports; even the electronic code box for the entry hatch was missing, with only bare wires dangling from the opening. The craft itself was sitting cock-eyed on the ground, with one landing gear unit missing. And to top it all off, there was even some graffiti sprayed on the surface of the shuttle.

  The craft had been stripped and tagged!

  The two Humans entered the shuttle to find even more disappointment inside. The entire pilothouse was one cavernous room of missing modules and orphan wires – even the pilot and co-pilot seats were gone.

  Adam and Sherri stood in silence, shoulders slumped, mouths agape. Here they were on a planet in Sector 16, two hundred light years from The Fringe, and their only ride off the planet was now an empty hulk of useless metal. And to add to that, they had just killed five Juireans, along with an untold number of their bodyguards, and soon the entire planet would be looking for them.

  Sherri looked over at Adam. “Here’s another fine mess you’ve got me into,” she said, half-mockingly.

  He returned her gaze and flashed a wide smile. “Look on the bright side: we still have our health!”

  “Yeah, but for how long?”

  Adam just shrugged, and then the two of them quickly moved to the aft section of the shuttle, to the ship’s sole berthing quarters. Fortunately, most of their clothing was still there; apparently, the shrimp-like Hybens had no need for Human-tailored clothing.

  After quickly changing out of their blood-soaked cloaks and tunics, Adam and Sherri searched the shuttle for any of their back-up weapons, but found none. The thieves had done a very thorough job. Adam was mentally kicking himself for letting this happen, although he knew he had locked the shuttle’s hatch when they departed for Lann Hall earlier that afternoon. Yet the economy on Hyben was tough these days, and the natives desperate. This desperation only added to their resolve.

  “What now, my Captain, my Captain?” Sherri asked, as she checked the power charge on her MK-17. She had two surplus power packs, and that was all – except for her lethal projection blade. Adam had a blade of his own, plus an MK with four packs, and the flash rifle with two extra power packs. None of their weapons would last long in any prolonged battle.

  “It’s obvious we have to find another ship to get back up to the JU-224. And the Hyben and Juireans will be watching for any ship trying to depart—”

  “And since you announced your name for all to hear, I think the J’s will be quite anxious to get their hands on you,” Sherri added.

  “Yeah, that probably wasn’t such a good idea.”

  The name of Adam Cain had circulated rapidly throughout this side of The Expansion, which was all part of the propaganda campaign the Humans had devised a couple of months back. Already, there were three other teams doing exactly what Sherri and Adam had done that evening: infiltrate Juirean recruiting meetings and strike fear in the hearts and minds of the potential recruits. During their strategy meetings back in The Fringe, it had been concluded that the Juireans would definitely have the resources to produce a sufficient number of warcraft to go up against the Human fleet, but if they couldn’t find recruits to man them, then their numerical superiority would be nullified.

  Already, Kroekus’s spies in the other parts of The Expansion were reporting that Adam’s strategy was having an effect. The Juireans were finding it extremely difficult to secure recruits from the more affluent Members of The Expansion, so recently they had begun to concentrate their efforts on the poorer worlds, ones where the risk of going up against the Humans was outweighed by the need for financial survival. Hyben was one such world.

  Yet with all the success of the propaganda campaign, it did require Adam and the other teams to travel deeper into Juirean territory, far away from any support or possibility of rescue should any unforeseen events take place – such as having your shuttle stripped by alien gang-bangers!

  Adam knew the Humans could never survive going up against a unified coalition of Expansion planets, so their only hope was to keep as many of the Members as neutral bystanders as possible. And even though the strategy was working, Adam also knew that his tactics would soon have to change. The Juireans were traveling with more and more bodyguards these days, and as his terrorism activities continued, the Juireans would continue to increase the security surrounding the meetings until infiltration would become impossible. Adam and his Raiders would then have to resort to more indiscriminate methods of disrupting the meetings, such as bombings. Yet that would surely cause civilian casualties, which would jeopardize the relations the Humans were trying to forge with other Members of The Expansion.

  Adam was walking a fine line between his role as a terrorist and as a soldier. His only salvation would come with quick and decisive Human victories against the Juirean fleets. If so, then the simple reality of the situation would go a long way to deterring any mass volunteer efforts to man the Juirean ships. The recruits would be simply too scared to volunteer – no matter how much the Juireans were willing to pay.

  It would be then that Captain Adam Cain, USN, could return to waging war the way he had been trained – straight up and in your face – and not with all this clandestine shit.

  Kroekus, the Silean crime lord, had proved to be a very valuable asset for Adam and his Raiders. He had contacts throughout this side of The Expansion, and he would relay the news of any mass recruiting meetings he found to General Angar and his Fringe Pirates. The pirates would then send word to Adam’s base on Viemon-2, after which the teams would be dispatched.

  Kroekus, for his part, had profited handsomely for this association with the Humans; most creatures like him usually did, able to capitalize on just about any situation.

  His current fortunes had changed when the value of Juireans credits began to plummet at the onset of the conflict. With the impending war – and the loss of the Juirean Fleet off the distant planet of Earth – all the trillions upon trillions of beings within the Expansion began to wonder what would happen to their currency if the Humans did manage to win the war. This caused the value of the credits to crash to nearly half their original level in some of the outer Sectors, those closest to the Far Arm. And the Fringe was the first to fall.

  Looking for a more stable asset to tie their economies to, the various planets in the Fringe – and elsewhere – began to resort back to their pre-Juirean currencies, which mainly revolved around precious metals of some sort. Seeing this early on, Kroekus began to buy up nearly all the gold supplies he could find. Once he controlled the market, the imaginative Silean began to issue his own gold certificates, which soon developed a thriving underground acceptance as legal tender across a hundred worlds.

  The further the Humans advanced, the more his certificates began to supplant Juirean credits. Soon, Kroekus of Silea was the richest being in half the galaxy. And if the Humans did manage to topple the Expansion…Kroekus only hoped he lived to see the day.

  Adam and Sherri had only been on Hyben for two days, which should have been just long
enough for them to drop down to the surface, disrupt the recruiting meeting, and bolt back off the planet. At least that had been the plan.

  The two Humans stepped outside of the shuttle and into the damp night air. Adam knew where the nearest spaceport was located, but he also knew that getting in and securing another spacecraft wouldn’t be easy. And then there would be the minutes-long transit from the surface and into space, which would leave them vulnerable to any number of assaults from either the Hyben or the Juireans.

  He sighed deeply, an expression not lost on Sherri.

  “Yeah, not lookin’ too good, is it?” she said.

  “Let’s just hope that the invasion is going according to plan. If not, then we’re really screwed!”

  Chapter 3

  Even though Nate Allen had been in space for over four months already, he had yet to see anything like the Barrier. He stood on the command bridge of the huge Klin flying saucer and stared dumbfounded at the kaleidoscope of colors before him – just as all the rest of the bridge crew was so enthralled.

  From his education and natural scientific curiosity, Nate was aware of the deadly turmoil that was taking place within the hot nebular gases of the Barrier, as stars were bursting into existence from forces of heat and gravity that defied imagination. But nonetheless, the scene before him was an awesome sight to behold.

  But now it was time to get down to business. Fleet Admiral Nate Allen knew that the Barrier was the line of demarcation between the Far Arm and the Fringe. This was where they would first enter enemy territory, and the conflict that had been four months in the making, would now begin.

  Allen’s fleet of Klin-built warships numbered one-thousand forty-three strong. Originally, the Klin fleet had consisted of well over eleven hundred, but then the Klin had inexplicably pulled seventy of them from the fleet, saying they were to return to the main Klin base for other assignments. The Klin refused – politely – to divulge the location of this base or say what these other assignments might entail, which only added to the suspicions most Humans now carried for the Klin and their surrogates, the so-called Saviors.

  Klin-Human relations had become a complicated political dance of late, with each party suspecting what the other was doing, but just not willing to discuss it openly. By now, the powers back on Earth were convinced that it was the Klin who were ultimately responsible for the Juirean attack on the planet, and they were equally convinced that the Klin knew of the Human’s suspicions. But in light of the reconstruction and military assistance the Klin were providing, the leaders couldn’t come right out and accuse the aliens of setting up the entire Human-Juirean conflict.

  And the Klin, for their part, were just as pragmatic. They needed the Humans to wage war against the Juireans, knowing full well that if they pulled their assistance, the Human race would be annihilated. If this occurred, then any hope the Klin had of ever exacting revenge against the Juireans for the destruction of their homeworld would be lost as well.

  This strange, unspoken dynamic was not lost on the population in general. In whispered conversations around the world, more and more people were beginning to question the timing – and convenience – of it all. Once the initial shock of the devastation had passed, Humanity began to look at the events surrounding the Juirean attack, and questions began to be asked.

  Nate’s reverie was interrupted by an ensign seated at the forward monitoring screen. “It’s Schwartz again, sir.”

  Nate looked at the screen and saw an out-of-place contact light creating a corkscrew pattern far away from the static line of contacts, which signified the location of the main Human fleet.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that Schwartz was one of the best pilots in the fleet – and his nephew – he would have long ago had the brash, young Navy Lieutenant-Commander thrown in the brig….

  A Klin Fleet Vessel Series-A (KFV-A) was much smaller than the massive Juirean Class-5 warships the Human fleet would soon be up against, but it made up for its diminutive stature with remarkable speed and maneuverability. LCDR Lee Schwartz had found his dream machine in the KFV-A, and once out of the atmosphere of Earth, he had found he could do things in the Klin ship that he could only dream about in his F-35 Lightning II. It was a remarkable craft, yet only one in a series which the Klin provided.

  The Klin ships were all divided into various grades, based upon their size and function. The KFV-A’s were the smallest with a crew of twenty-five. They were the fighters of the flight, outnumbering all other classes by a factor of ten. And even though the ‘A’ only referred to its size, the crews preferred to say it stood for ‘Attack,’ which more appropriately described its mission. It also tended to bring out the machismo in the crews. And whether the crewmember was male or female, it really didn’t matter. Fighters in this war came in every gender.

  Next up the ladder were the KFV-B’s; larger and fewer in number and carrying a crew of forty. Then came the C’s with a crew of ninety, followed finally by the behemoth D-Class ships. The D’s could carry forty KFV-A’s in their holds, however they did not serve as carriers. These ships were used primarily for the three R’s – repair, refit and relaxation. They were literal floating cities in space, with large ship’s stores, a movie theater and even a two-lane bowling alley – all improvements added by the Humans, by the way. With travel through space often covering months at a time, the warriors of the Fleet needed their down time, too.

  Lastly there were the supply and support vessels, the largest of which were the energy ships. These were flying nuclear power plants that supplied the power modules for all the other ships. Even though most KFV’s could cover hundreds of light years between rechargings, the vast distances required for interstellar travel made these ships critically important.

  Yes, the KFV was a remarkable craft, yet its only downside, in Lee’s opinion, was the fact that it required a crew to operate. With his F-35, it was just him and plane, with no one else to consider. Now he had a crew….

  Even though the internal gravity wells aboard the Klin ship fought continually to compensate for the inertia tied to his wild maneuvers, the computers always seemed to be a moment or so behind him. The maneuvers had very little effect on Lee, since he already knew where he was going. But for his crew, it was a different story.

  He chanced a glance back at Tim Carlson, the young Savior assigned to his ship, and saw him turning green. Carlson was the man who had trained Lee in the piloting of the KFV – although ‘trained’ was not quite the right word for it. When the time had come, Tim had more-or-less just showed Lee the controls, and the cocky, young fighter-pilot had taken it from there. The controls of the starship ended up being wickedly simply for the veteran pilot, and in no time, Lee – along with the hundreds of other pilots recruited for the Klin ships – was running circles around his instructor.

  At first, Lee had found this to be a dichotomy: that the trainees could so quickly surpass the trainers. But later, when his uncle, Admiral Allen, explained more of the situation to him, it all suddenly made sense.

  Looking at Tim Carlson now, Lee could see the pale hue to his skin and the concerned look in his eyes. Lee pulled the ship out of the spin and leveled out. He would return to the line and let his crew recover. After all, it wouldn’t help morale aboard the ship for his crew to have to clean up vomit from the decks – again!

  “Captain to crew,” Lee announced through the 1-MC. “Secure from battle stations. Drill complete. We’re returning to the line.”

  Lee heard Carlson babble something under his breath and he turned to face the younger man. “The Klin sure know how to build a spaceship; I’ll given them that.” he said with a smile. Carlson still wasn’t in any condition to speak.

  Lee felt sorry for his friend, watching him struggle mightily not to vomit in the direction of his captain. However, Lee just smiled a little wider, thinking about just how close he had come, only few months ago, to ripping the young man apart, limb by limb, with his bare hands….

  Tim Carl
son was what was commonly referred to as a Savior, a Human who had supposedly been taken from the Earth and taught to help Humanity recover from a potentially devastating attack by the Juireans. He had returned to the planet just after the attack and immediately set about doing what he had been trained to do. While most of the returning Saviors assisted with the reconstruction and recovery efforts from the destruction wrought by the Juireans, Carlson was to train the pilots and crew for the Klin starships, a force that would lead the revenge assault against the evil Juireans. As such, Carlson knew all the systems aboard the Klin ships like the back of hand, as well as attack and defense strategies that he would pass on to his fellow Humans.

  The life of a Savior on Earth at this time was one to be envied. After all, here were a group of adventurous and selfless young men who had volunteered to leave their homes and families and live among the aliens, all the while learning to help Humanity recover from an unimaginable tragedy. Everywhere they went, the Saviors were adored and honored.

  And the fact that all the Saviors appeared to be healthy and genetically perfect young studs did not go unnoticed by the female segment of the planet’s population, either. Women waited in line to meet – and to date – a Savior. After all, these were men who had been in space and who associated with aliens, for Christ’s sake. Now they were welcomed back as heroes.

  Yes, life was good for the Saviors. At least initially.