by James Edward
Carol Standborn smiled in satisfaction as the light cruiser fell into the trap and was knocked out. Olaf had predicted that they would fall for that divide-and-conquer ploy and had set Carol up for the kill. She appreciated that more than he knew. Now she was targeting the other light cruiser while Olaf duked it out with the damaged cruiser.
Fidelity knew her chance to win a slugfest with that heavy was pretty remote. She thought that with two light cruisers and her cruiser, they could subdue that heavy, but now that a cruiser had appeared and had taken out Zeke, she knew that a two-ship battle was hopeless. She dropped her shields and powered down her ship. In the back of her mind, she wondered what the victors would do with them. After all, they were going to space the Conrad inhabitants.
Ken decided that he wasn’t going to surrender; he was going to run. He bellowed to the helm to set a course for the gate at flank speed. He made it out of the range of the heavy cruiser before the mines stopped him cold. The light cruiser slowly drifted—no power, no environment controls, and no communications.
Alfred Noble was beside himself with fury. The plan was good: take out the platform. Surely a thousand missiles would suffice. Who was to know that they would have two of these platforms and that they were as tough as they were? He watched as eight of his ships were knocked out. All his big guns were silent now. It was just him slugging it out with that dammed platform P1. His other ships were engaging other targets as the plan fell apart. Man, they even had fighters—fighters! The fleet hadn’t used them in fifty years. “Obsolete relics,” they had scoffed. “Useless.” Well tell that to Charley and the Mortimer or the wreckage of the Mortimer.
“Something going on off our bow!” the sensor operator shouted over the din of the battle.
“Show me,” Noble snarled.
In front of him, a battleship was slowly appearing—all shiny and new, without a scratch on it. This was a battleship, but it was slightly larger, and the configuration was a little different.
“It’s another battleship!” the sensor operator cried out. “They have a battleship!”
“Shut up!” Noble roared. “I can bloody well see that they have a battleship. Helm, start backing us toward the gate.”
“Sir, communications have been restored. They aren’t jamming us anymore,” the coms operator said. “Incoming communications.”
“Put it on,” Noble said.
“Captain Noble, your forces are defeated. You have two ships left, one of which no longer has engine power, and one other destroyer is fit but will not make it to the gate. Then there is you. By my calculations, you are almost out of missiles and have enough damage that it is unlikely you will make hyperspace. Surrender your fleet and prepare for boarding by my marines. Your computers are to be left and are not to be wiped. If the computers are wiped, you will be in violation and will be spaced. You will be quartered, processed, and returned to the PRC, or you can chose to fight. Your choice,” Ray said over the speaker.
“Status report on weapons and ammo?” Noble asked.
“We are almost empty. All we have is anti-boarding rockets and a few ship-to-ship missiles. Not enough to kill a battleship,” his XO said.
“Do you think that we could ram that big bastard?” Alfred asked.
The XO pulled her blaster and pointed it at Noble’s head. “You have lost and now you just want to kill us all for your misbegotten bumbling and arrogance. Marines, take this piece of shit into custody. Coms, tell the battleship that we are complying with their requests. Engineering, power down and dump access codes. Announce to the Fleet that we are surrendering.”
Ray sat back in his chair. The battle had been brutal, and many had died. The wreckage was strewn throughout the gate area. Ray sent Olaf and Carol out to take control of the ships that could still move. Hammer and his best marines boarded the Iroquois and took control of all crew members. They would be herded onto the freighters and taken to the huge holding bay at the warehouse. Medical facilities were there, and they would be processed. Thanks to the files that Sinclair had sent to Conrad through Charles Redone and Weatherfew, they had a pretty good dossier on most of the fleet. They knew who the toadies were and who the followers were. These would be processed and sent back. It was the others that had been forced or coerced that Conrad would be interested in.
All medibays on all stations and planetoids were full of the injured. Ray only allowed his people into those bays with the medibots. The PRC people had their own medical in the warehouse and on the ships that were now docked at the warehouse. Ray’s people were going over everything, especially the computers. He wouldn’t allow anyone to discuss with the prisoners who was in the battle or the names of the ships. Every surviving captain and bridge office was isolated from the others to stop a flow of information. It had been interesting when Ray’s marines had boarded the Iroquois. Immediately the marines on the ship recognized Hammer and saluted him and stood down. Almost as one, they ripped off the PRC/AGW uniform tunic and stood in just their T-shirts. As they were only on the ship to repel boarders or be boarders, their particular loyalties were often overlooked by the Fleet and the PRC.
Three days after the Second Gate Battle, Bruce Duely and the cruiser Wolf Fang entered the system. Duely and the crew of the cruiser were taken back at the amount of ruble and debris, ships parts, spent missiles, and at the warehouse the damaged ships. The bridge switched on all its lights as a salute to Guard One and Two. Both had sustained damage, but Guard One was in massive disrepair. The crew was disappointed that they had missed the fight but were pleased at the people they had rescued from the pirate planets. Apparently a cruiser flashing into a system and firing on them was enough for even the most foolhardy to run. No one wanted to take on the marines, so almost all the brothels were raided, and those women that wanted to be, were removed. Bruce had recovered over a thousand women in his six-week sojourn, and he was proud of that. He would hand them over at Darcy to the medi-units.
CHAPTER 13
Recruiting nonmilitary citizens
IN A HOLDING AREA IN Darcy, Sinclair looked out at the thousand women that were seated in a large room. Most had facial tattoos, and all had scars. Some looked scared, some defiant, and some resigned. Sin sighed. This was going to be tough.
She walked in and stood at the edge of the stage. She looked out at the expectant faces.
“Ladies, I am Sinclair Hunter. I welcome you to Darcy. Darcy is a hollow planetoid in the Conrad system. Through raids and some clever computer decoding, we managed to find you women; many, many more have been lost. Now to get started.” She pushed a button, and a large screen lowered itself to the stage. Once there, she pushed another button, and a videotape of parts of her torture flashed onto the screen. They could see the ripped-up back and the torn legs. Sounds of the screams echoed through the room, and every woman there knew of the agony that that woman was experiencing. A quick cut to when Nester and the other two jailers were raping her and the lashing she was taking while that was happening. Many of the women groaned, and Sin could hear the hissing intake of breath as some of these women saw what they too had experienced.
“Nestor Copeland was a psychopathic killer who not only enjoyed an increasing level of depravity but also one of brutality. He relished in the helplessness of his victims and of, as you see, the recording of it for future playback when there was a lull in the real thing. Now, I know that you have all experienced something of the same, so I wanted to tell you that there is a world of hope out there. We have here at Darcy methods that will repair your scars and remove your tattoos. This will give you a chance at a fresh start.” She carried on.
A battered-looking woman with cuts and burn scars on her face and hands sneered. “You expect me to believe that you can make me look good again? You expect us to believe that you can erase the years of brothel life? Look at you; you’re fresh and young and well fed. You might be here to help, but I don’t believe that
you have any idea what we have gone through. How could you help us?”
“Well,” Sin said as she switched the screen, “I knew that there would be doubters. I want you to take a good look at the face of that woman hanging there.”
They all stared as the camera rotated to show her face as she screamed in agony. “That victim was me. I was of special interest to the chief interrogator of Agency Park. He told me that I wasn’t slated for a brothel as I was specially picked to reside in Agency Park as long as I lasted. You see, my ex-husband was a high official in the PRC, and I had become a liability to his ambitious plans for governorship. So he gave me to Nestor for his enjoyment, knowing full well that I would die there.” Sin heard the intake of breath as some remembered their ordeals in Agency Park. A few started to cry as they remembered Nestor’s special attention.
“You see the burns, scars welts, and cuts. I had them front to back. I was told that I was catatonic for two weeks, as I was badly hurt internally, thanks to Nestor. You will be satisfied to know that Nestor is dead, and Agency Park does not exist anymore. Now, as we are all ladies here …” she said as she rose, unbuttoning her blouse. Stripping it off, she removed her bra, and stripping her pants, she stood up and turned her back to the audience. They all gasped as they saw a smooth back and legs. “Yes, ladies, we have the technology to fix the scars and remove the tattoos. The mental scars are harder, but thanks to a very nice man who saw me at my worst, those have healed as well. Well, except for when I watch this.
“What I propose to you is that you get rested and have a good look around Darcy. It is a nice city with hardworking, honest people. These people will take you at face value, as most of them are refugees from the oppression of PRC and AGW. You could find a nice life here. Those that want will be given the opportunity to contact family if they can be found. Understand that for the most part you are listed as dead.
“There is a catch to this… yes, the other shoe. If you stay here, you can have the treatment to restore your bodies. If you decide that you want to go back to the planet you were taken from, we will do that, but you will not receive the treatment. The reason is the treatment is top secret, and that secret won’t fall into PRC hands until after those bastards are eradicated. Like I said, you can find a nice place here, and there are more refugees and immigrants coming in all the time. Most of you have spent months if not years in the brothels; to go home and pretend you’re the dutiful daughter or sister and that you have never had a dick in your mouth would be very hard to manage.
“There are people outside who will process you. Take your time and really think about what you want out of life. There will be a raft of possibilities, such as joining the fleet, marines, fighter wing, or we have agriculture, manufacturing, research and development, engineering, mining, and recovery to name a few things. This is a fledgling system that has its back against the wall but has in the last week crushed a PRC war fleet. That particular achievement has never been accomplished with the PRC before, as they are new, but with the AGW, it was over sixty years since they lost a fleet. There is no monetary system here, so there is no ruling class to look down on you. The only way that you will experience the wrath of the system is to be a traitor or if you refuse to work. Either one of those will guarantee you a hardship that is a lot tougher than the brothels.
“Ladies, that is all I have to say. Now unless you want to come up and inspect my back, I will dress and carry on with my own duties. I volunteered for this because I have walked in your shoes for a small bit. Please understand that I am not a counselor, but on my off hours, my door will be open for you. Thank you.” With a smile, she started dressing again.
Some of the women came up and touched her back. Most gathered in little clumps and started talking. Sinclair greeted as many as she could and then walked through the door, nodding at the people sitting at the processing desks. She went to her room and sat staring at the small picture of a meadow on the wall, not really seeing it. She sat there for a long time lost in that horror again until Ray found her and gathered her up, holding tightly. She smelled the clean smell of her new husband and felt the warm, strong embrace of someone that loved her, and she dissolved into racking sobs. Ray held her until she had cried herself out. Then she cuddled even closer, trying to get inside him, and fell asleep.
It was a short, healing sleep, and she woke in the warm embrace of Ray’s arms and feeling him whisper softly to her as he stroked her hair. The tension seeped out of her, and she finally felt like getting on.
“I’m sorry, hon. I didn’t think that talk was going to affect me so much,” she said softly. “I had seen and heard that video before, but this time with a thousand victims staring at me, it seemed even worse. No one should experience that brutality ever, and no human should make the sounds that I was making. Abject evil is an understatement to what they were doing, and I am relieved that those monsters are dead.”
Ray said nothing; he just held his wife and did his best to pour the strength of his love into her soul. He knew that Nestor lived in her head, owning a small patch of her memory that would fester there. The best he could do was to insert good memories and good feelings so that a strong, thick wall would surround that evil, never to let it out. He marveled at Sin’s strength to face that demon and those horrible days in the prison and show herself to these strange women. It had rocked her, but she was through it again, trapping Nestor and shoving him back behind that mental wall. This time weaker than before. Sin finally disengaged from Ray’s embrace and stood up. She bent over and kissed him, her eyes thanking him for the loving understanding.
“Time to get busy,” she said. “I have a ton of code breaking to do from those captured ships. I love you more than you know; thank you for your patience and understanding.”
Ray held a meeting with his senior officers. He needed the debriefing and after-battle report from all parties. The purpose of these meeting was to gather as much information as they could to prepare for the next attack. They started with the after-battle.
“Ladies and gentlemen. First I would like to congratulate everyone. This was a major battle, and we won it with no large ship losses. That being said, we took heavy casualties in G1, moderate on G2, and minor on our ships. We also lost twelve fighters with a few others damaged.
“G1 fought off an initial wave of a thousand killer missiles. Thanks to surprise by having G2 beside G1, they both had their countermeasures do a magnificent job in killing the first wave. With our ceramic armor, nano steel, and shielding, we came out of that first wave better than if we were a dreadnought. Olaf lured the cruisers in and crushed them in a spectacular trap. We managed to take on an overeager and overconfident strike force with a team that was better trained and better prepared. So let’s start to break it down so we can see our flaws.”
It took a week for them to finish the after-battle. In that time, Boxer One and Boxer Two were working on repairing the ships. Almost every available piece of construction manpower and equipment was on G1 and G2 making repairs. Tugs, shuttles, and miners were out between the gates pulling in all the lost ordinances, parts of ships, and pieces of wreckage.
As the meetings wound down and the reports were consolidated, Ray decided to do a raid at Doust to free the Fleet officers and families that were imprisoned there. This time they would take a battleship and a heavy along with freighters and a couple of Taipans to help protect the move and the inmates. They managed to work out a way to get rid of the prisoners from the battle by swapping them out with the AGW loyalists. They proposed that by the time the PRC realized there was a swap and went to pick up their Fleet people, the information they got would be old and obsolete. They managed to send news of the battle to people on Cappa Tauri and the other loyalist planets. It wasn’t long before the PRC was working hard to spin the defeat. The best spin was because of the inferior fuel produced by the breakaway system of Zn2091, eleven ships had engine failures and were lost with all hand
s in an ion storm. On the holdout worlds, they saw the use of the platforms, and some worlds started the building of mega space fortresses to protect their systems. Sadly, these would not be as effective as Conrad’s but would set back the conquest of the shattered empire for a while, maybe allowing a solid resistance.
Ray sat with his planning committee and hashed out what the next move of the PRC would be.
PRC
In the government house, the reigning government was stripping more and more power away from the planets and putting it in the power of the executive body. They were almost a dictatorship now, with power to use force on their citizens.
Fugs was sitting at the table with President Avis Garthman and the other leaders of the ruling body. The president held Fuggoret with an icy stare.
“Admiral, can you explain to me how an upstart system with minimal intersystem assets could annihilate your precious fleet? I am talking about one battleship, two heavy cruisers, three cruisers, two light cruisers, and what was it … oh yes, three destroyers. A powerful strike force that was designed to overrun the system with little trouble. Yet it appears that not only did they not overrun the system but they ended up been annihilated themselves. A loss I might add that was a major body blow to our government. Do you realize, Fuggoret, that that loss bolstered the moral of the systems in rebellion and that they have now decided to resist our overtures for peace?”
“It was pure incompetence on Alfred Noble’s part, Excellency,” Fuggoret snarled. “We in the Fleet worked out a viable attack plan with every scenario that we ran, and we got on average a 90 percent success rating. Noble must have changed the plan and was incompetent.”
“Perhaps, but Fleet has just suffered the worst defeat in sixty years. We also lost a battleship, and they are neither plentiful nor cheap. From what I have been able to gather, this Conrad Base has quietly developed a fighting force, and they have been able to man these ships that they are putting together. Maybe they are housing some defector units that the AGW released. Have they caused us any problems outside of their system or is it Great Ursa and you that have a bone to pick with them?” the president asked.