"Yes, as soon as we hear from the Tigris, we'll know it's safe to proceed.
"Any other questions?"
Jenetta waited a few seconds before adding," Very well. Poll your crew and make sure everyone who remains behind is a volunteer. We'll leave for the new RP in two hours."
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Nine
~ March 24th, 2288 ~
"I thought you weren't going to tell them," Gavin said, following the teleconference.
"I had to. I couldn't keep that kind of information from them. They had a right to know."
"I knew you would tell them," Gavin said with a smile.
Jenetta looked at him for several long seconds before replying. "And I knew they would volunteer to a man, in spite of the danger."
"They trust you— implicitly. They know you wouldn't risk their lives unnecessarily. If you say it has to be done, it has to be done."
"Sending someone into harm's way is the toughest part of a commanding officer's job."
"If it ever gets easy, it's time to put in your papers."
Two hours later, the entire task force left to establish the new RP ten billion kilometers behind the mother ships' current location. The Mekong performed a flyby to verify the exact position of the Denubbewa ships, their course, and speed.
Within minutes of arriving at the new RP, the five teams that would attack the mother ships were in position and ready to begin their runs. The Nile sped to a position well ahead of the Denubbewa using a wide track that couldn't possibly show up on the DeTect screens of the mother ship or give them any impression that the ship hadn't simply been sitting there for some time.
The situation was tense as the mother ships bore down on the Nile's location. Every ship in the task force was projecting a view from the Nile's sensors and seeing exactly what the Nile's bridge crew saw as the mother ships closed the distance.
"They're not slowing," Commander Mojica's voice was heard saying over the open communication line.
When the mother ships were less than two seconds away, the Nile engaged their drive and disappeared from their previous location in a heartbeat.
"What do you make of that?" Gavin asked Jenetta on their direct line.
Gavin was on the command bridge of the Ares with a full bridge crew, while Jenetta was in her chair on the Admiral's Bridge with Cmdr. Ashraf on her left and a full complement of crewmembers at support consoles. Her bridge didn’t have a helm console and had no access to the weapons control systems, but it was almost identical to the command bridge in most other respects. The image of Captain Gavin was on the monitor by her left hand, and a tiny image of every other captain was on the monitor on her right.
Jenetta touched the image of Gavin and said, "I guess they felt that stopping to swat a fly wasn't worth the effort. We'll have to go with plan B. Send in the Ohio and Tigris."
The tac officer changed the image on the main monitor to reflect the forward image being sent from the Ohio. Seconds after first appearing, the mother ships began increasing in size dramatically as the Ohio, with the Tigris following a set distance and under the control of the Ohio's helmsman, came up behind the Denubbewa ships. The image suddenly contorted and disappeared briefly as the Ohio and Tigris entered the lead mother ship.
* * *
The entire room suddenly shook violently. It was the first such occurrence since Marine corporal Beth Rondara and PFC Vincent Kilburn had been awakened from stasis sleep.
"Corporal, did you feel that?"
"Feel it? I'm lying on my face with the bed on top of me. What do you think?"
"I'm on the deck too. The bed is on its side and I'm still strapped to it."
"What do think that was?"
"I think a Space Command vessel has attacked."
"What makes you think that?"
"There's a thing that kinda looks like a torpedo stuck in the deck between us. It has Space Command markings on it."
With much difficulty, Rondara twisted her head to look towards Kilburn, hoping she could see the object he was referring to. She could, and it did have Space Command markings on it. And it was buried in the deck. But it didn't seem to have crashed through the deck. It seemed more like it had been built there.
"I see it," Rondara said. "It's not a torpedo though. It might be some sort of probe or perhaps a sensor buoy."
"I don't care what it is or how it got buried in the deck. I only know that our suffering is finally about to end."
"Space Command can't put us back the way we were, Kilburn. These monsters have pared our torso down so much that we probably can't even use prosthetics. We're going to be flat on our backs forever."
"Not me. Once we're out of here, I'm going to find a way to end it all. I've got some buddies in the Corps who will help me. I can't live like this, Corporal. And God only knows what diseases they've been pumping into us. Before I joined the Corps, I was a beach bum— of sorts. I worked evenings in a tee shirt factory on the boardwalk so I practically lived at the beach. I rode my board when the waves were right, swam, and played volleyball. I'll never do any of those things again, and I don't want to live if I can't."
"Yeah, I understand. I was into kickboxing. I was about to go pro when the Milori attacked the GA. I've always believed I'd return to that when the war was over. I'm quite a ways along with this pregnancy now and Space Command will probably expect me to go to full term. But who knows what sort of monster will come out— if flipping me over and smashing me into the deck hasn't killed it already. God, I wish the fall had simply broken my neck."
* * *
"We're through," Commander Wilder of the Tigris reported as the first pair completed their bombing run. "Someone tell Space Command that the group of physicists who predicted our demise were totally wrong. Our envelopes are intact. Unfortunately, one of our bombs didn't detonate."
"Roger, Tigris," the Ares tac officer said. "We were expecting that might happen. Magdalena, Katanga, Congo and Ottawa, you're a go."
"Roger, Ares. Magdalena and Katanga are on the move."
"Congo and Ottawa are moving as well."
The tac officer waited three seconds and then released the St. Lawrence, Murray, Purus, and Rhine for their runs.
"The Magdalena is in the clear," the tac officer heard after the bombing team had completed its run. A second later he heard, "The Congo is clear."
A few seconds later the last two pairs of ships reported that they also were clear of the Denubbewa ships.
"Bombing teams, any difficulties encountered?" Captain Gavin asked.
"Number five started to veer off as we approached," the Ottawa said, "but we adjusted our course to compensate."
"Mekong," Gavin said, "perform a flyby so we can see what's going on out there."
"Roger, sir. Mekong is on the move."
Unlike the flybys performed while the ships were monitoring the presence of the mother ships where the scout-destroyer flew by at the edge of the Detect Range, the Mekong passed just a thousand kilometers from the center of the battle zone. Image resolution was naturally incredible. Broadcast on an encrypted SC channel, the image was displayed on the bridge of every ship and available throughout every vessel on closed-circuit systems. The cheering in each area lasted for a full minute.
Everyone saw the gaping holes in each of the mother ships but also knew the enemy wasn't out of the fight yet. In fact, they were far from it. As they watched, small ships began streaming out of every mother ship, and the mother ships were rolling back the domes that protected their enormous missile platforms.
"We've stung them," Jenetta said to Gavin, but they're still able to fight. Send in the bombers for another run."
Gavin relayed the order and the images changed to show the view from the targeting ships as they approached the battle zone. Now that they knew the envelopes would not cancel during their flythrough, the five bombing pairs went in three seconds apart. To the Denubbewa, they weren't even visible. The invaders only knew that parts of the
ir ships kept exploding. "Let's pull back," Jenetta said to Gavin. "Now that we've stopped them, we can establish an RP half a light-year away. Have the bombing groups continue to pound the Denubbewa until they run out of bombs, then join us."
"Aye, Admiral," Gavin said, then relayed the orders. Within minutes all of the ships not involved in the bombing effort were on their way to the new RP. One half light-year for the task force represented less than thirty minutes of travel, but it represented almost twelve days of travel for the Denubbewa. It was unlikely in the extreme that if the enemy spread out looking for Space Command vessels they would travel that far in the correct direction. If the Denubbewa were looking for enemies, they would exhaust themselves searching space nearby. At most they might travel a few trillion kilometers' distance. They would never find anything.
The images provided by the bombing groups after the last pass were startling. The mother ships could hardly be called 'ships' anymore. It appeared that at least half of the five hundred bombs dropped inside the ships had detonated. It was only their enormous size that accounted for the mother ships not having been blown out of existence. A hundred-twenty-six-kilometer-long spaceship has a lot of mass to destroy, even for WOLaR weapons. With huge holes everywhere in their bodies and enormous sections torn asunder, they would never be moving under their own power again. Like clouds of bees circling a hive, what seemed like thousands of warships, dwarfed by the size of the mother ships, filled the areas around the former mother ships. Despite their diminutive appearance, everyone in the task force knew they were full-sized warships, each with a deadly arsenal of missiles.
"Those mother ships will never move from this area under their own power," Gavin said as he and Jenetta examined the images.
"Anything can be made whole again, given time and the materials. We proved that after our first encounter with the Milori. What we have to do now is deny them the time and materials to accomplish repairs. Tomorrow we begin to work on those warships."
"Why not tonight?"
"If they're like us, they're on high alert right now. Let's give them a chance to stand down a little and begin picking up the pieces of their battle group. Then we'll hit them with everything we've got. Besides, we have to rearm the five ships that performed the bombing runs today."
"We still have the five bombing teams who didn't participate in today's runs."
"They'll be the first ships in when we begin operations again."
"There are thousands of those warships," Gavin said. "I hope that fifteen-meter bomb-drop radius holds. It's going to be a lot more critical now."
"We have fourteen thousand bombs in the Ferdinand. That should be enough, assuming we'll only need one bomb to destroy each ship."
"Assuming that half the bombs will land inside bulkheads and decks, and so won't denote, that means we can take out seven thousand of those ships. I hope that's enough."
"It'll have to be. That's all the bombs we have. I'm glad the AB increased my requisition. When I put it in, I sure wasn't thinking we'd have to fight five of those things. Hey, look at those small flashes in the images. They're everywhere."
"Yes, I didn't notice them at first."
"Do you think the Denubbewa are shooting at shadows?"
"That could be. We must have really spooked them with that attack. They never saw the ships that destroyed their mother ships. Ah, I think I know what they are. After the attack on the first mother ship, they all began opening up their missile platform domes. I bet those flashes are from missiles that got loose when platforms were blown apart. They're probably scattered all over the battle site."
"You might be right," Jenetta said as she increased the magnification of the image they were studying, then walked over to the monitor mounted on the bulkhead. "With luck, their own missiles will help us defeat them. And tomorrow our ships can cruise right through that area and place their bombs without worrying about the missiles." With a slight smile, she added, "If there are any ships left."
By first watch, the ordnance engineers responsible for rearming the SD Bombers had completed their tasks. Most of the bomb cradles of the ten ships were loaded with standard-load bombs, but each ship had just one WOLaR for this effort since the mother ships had been largely incapacitated. The SD's not part of the bombing effort had been performing flybys of the battle site every two hours to watch for significant changes. Little had seemed to change since the previous day's last images. Warships were still moving around the battle site, and pieces of the destroyed mother ships seemed to be everywhere.
"Today's mission," Gavin said as he addressed all senior officers in a teleconference, "is to destroy as many of the enemy's warships as possible. Our greatest danger is from contact with another of our own ships. As we begin today's mission, warships may begin to move to avoid our attacks, so we can't depend on having clear lanes for the runs. So each bombing pair will complete one pass, then wait until all ships have completed their run before starting the cycle over again. This is not a 'clean' zone, so it's possible that some previously destroyed warships may be retargeted. That's not a problem, but we'd naturally prefer to concentrate on the ones that still pose a risk if they can be clearly identified. All ships are carrying ninety-nine standard bombs, so you have a full day ahead of you. Good luck and good shooting."
The half light-year distance to the battle site meant it would be thirty minutes before the bombing groups arrived and began their work, so Gavin joined Jenetta in her office.
"I'm really anxious to see the first images from the battle site," Gavin said. "I want to see how many of the warships have been damaged or destroyed by their own missiles overnight."
"That will be interesting. I hadn't considered that possibility while working on the weapon plans. We knew the detonation process began when the warhead shattered and the nuclear detonation had to occur once that happened, but we never considered that so many missiles would be flung from their racks by the explosions in the mother ships."
"The same might happen when we begin destroying their warships. After the bombing groups complete their task, the area might be littered with additional missiles."
"True. This might be their Achilles heel."
"There's an issue we've avoided but which must be discussed," Gavin said.
"You're referring to the missing crewmembers?"
"Yes."
Jenetta took a deep breath, held it for a second, then released it slowly. "I've given it a lot of thought and come to the conclusion that there's virtually nothing we can do while the Denubbewa can still fight. Their military power must be completely neutralized before we can try to locate our people. To do otherwise would put even more of our people in danger."
"That might be a death sentence for many if the ship they're in is destroyed."
"Yes, it might come to that. But without any idea of where they're being held or even if they were still alive before we attacked the mother ships, a search and recover operation would have been pointless."
"Okay. I agree completely, but I had to mention it. As you say, there was nothing we could do."
* * *
"Where is everyone?" Kilburn said. "We've been lying on this deck in total darkness forever."
"Quit complaining," Rondara said. "At least you don't have a bed on your back."
"Yeah, sorry, Corporal. Hey, I wonder if all the aliens on this ship were killed."
"I don't want to think about that."
"Why not? After what these bastards have done to us."
"If everyone is dead, we'll starve to death. It's not a nice way to go."
"I'm still hoping that this thing in the deck between us is a torpedo and that it blows up."
"It's not a torpedo, Kilburn. I've seen enough torpedoes to know that."
"Maybe it's a new type. It appeared when those explosions began and we were knocked onto the deck. I was really hoping one of those explosions ended our misery here."
"No more than me. No such luck. Now that the explosions hav
e stopped, I guess the battle is over. I wonder who won."
Seconds later, the pain and suffering of Marine corporal Beth Rondara and PFC Vincent Kilburn was finally ended as a bomb destroyed the warship where the experiments on their bodies were being performed.
* * *
"Still up?" Gavin said as he entered Jenetta's office at 0136.
"I'm anxious to listen to the debriefings. It shouldn't be very much longer."
"One hundred bomb runs, probably averaging about ten minutes per run, means more than sixteen hours plus a half-hour out and a half-hour back. We may not see them until after 0300."
"I couldn't sleep anyway. What kind of commander could simply go to sleep while his or her people are involved in a known combat situation?"
"We've had periodic reports from the team leader. Everything was going well. The enemy hadn't been able to mount any kind of a defense. Our people should all be safe."
"In battle, the situation can change in a heartbeat."
"You have trouble letting go."
"Yes, I admit it. I've always had a problem with sending people into combat situations, especially where I can't be with them. I do my best to make sure they have the equipment and information they need to do the job, but I have this overwhelming desire to be there to help keep them safe if the situation changes."
Gavin chuckled. "That's one of the things I've always appreciated most. And the thing that inspires such loyalty in your people."
Jenetta smiled. "I once had an officer say that my crew would 'follow you down the cone of an active volcano on Io.'"
"I think that's true. And they'd know you wouldn't ask it of them, so they'd have to do it on their own."
"Perhaps it's related to an overinflated opinion of my ability to handle any situation. That's gotten me into trouble a couple of times."
"Perhaps," Gavin said with a smile, "but don't knock what works."
* * *
"Chairman Strauss has disappeared," former Lower Councilmember Erika Overgaard said to the council members assembled for the day's scheduled meeting. With Strauss's seat vacant, there were only seven members around the table. "Today's meeting is canceled, as are all meetings until a new Lower Council Chairman is selected. You'll be notified when that happens and meetings resume. I don't anticipate this taking longer than a week."
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