by Chris Hechtl
:::{)(}:::
Trembling Timmy tried to fight the enemy off from a distance. She made a last minute random course change that threw the bombers off once more. She flat-out refused to surrender when they spread out and began to overhaul her.
Captain Brown had visions of going down fighting but then his navigator kicked the hyperdrive into its final charge phase. He blinked as the weapons went down. The TAO snarled but then sat back helplessly as he realized what was going on.
They watched anxiously as their ship rocked with hits. The field around the ship was distorting space and gravity around it. Some of the blasts were hitting the ship, but some were being bent and twisted around it. But the damage still tore at the interior, throwing personnel around and shrapnel everywhere.
To their surprise they did manage to jump out. The ship was in hyperspace a bumpy ten and a half excruciating seconds, long enough to jump several million kilometers out of the system. The ship came out a dead stick, tumbling end over end.
But to their horror as they did a damage control assessment, the battle damage the ship had sustained in their last moments was telling. It would leave them well short of getting to their next destination.
“So, that's it?”
“Without another ship, we're screwed, Skipper. We have no drive. We're leaking plasma and venting atmo. The hull is a sieve. The frame is torn up. We're lucky the inertial dampeners held. We've got enough canned life support for a week for the survivors, but then that's it.”
“And no one is around to save us,” the XO said with a shake of his head.
Captain Brown closed his eyes as a medic sealed a wound on his face. He still wasn't certain how he'd gotten it in the confines of his helmet. The blood dripping in his face had been annoying. He realized they might have been better off surrendering, rather than sitting in the dark depths of space waiting for the air to run out.
“Do what you can,” he croaked. He took a sip of water from the tube attached to the front of his visor and then cleared his throat. “Start with power and life support. Can we call out?”
“We got about three light days out. Based on the engineer's assessment, if we called now we might get a response from the Feds. But will they come?” a PO asked.
The captain frowned at him, puzzled as to why he was sitting in before his fuzzy memory reminded him that most of the communications section was dead.
“We don't have any comms left anyway. The antennas are gone too.”
“I can cobble something together,” the engineer said. “Give me a couple hours.”
“Focus on life support and power first Chief. Get DCC working on finding the survivors,” Captain Brown growled.
“Well, this is a revolting development,” the XO said, grimacing as he clutched at his broken wrist as the medic turned to tape it up.
:::{)(}:::
Admiral V'r'z'll was incensed about the escaped ships. Her vision of marching on Garth and cutting off the Retribution Fleet was not in jeopardy. And she could do nothing about it; her orders were to remain in place until Admiral Irons returned from Bek.
Well, there was one thing she could do. She had sat on it long enough; she decided to act on the one bit Admiral Irons had allowed her. She ordered her CEVs to move on New Horizon. She sent a division of cruisers to act as escort for the ships. The prowler was due back in another month if it made it back all the way to Finagle. She couldn't wait that long.
With what she'd found out about White and the enemy getting behind him, she needed a rear guard to cover her supply lines. Also, the capture of some of the enemy ships had told her their slower speed could be used as an advantage. There was no telling how many ships were in hyperspace bumbling along. A cruiser or even a task force could pop out in her rear at any time. No, she had to do something about it, soon.
Now, if she could get the Shredder detachment back, she might send it to B-87R to cover her rear …
:::{)(}:::
OTBP
“Here we go,” Lieutenant Commander Z'r'll crowed as his fighter queued up for the next launch sequence. He wasn't certain how they'd done it, but they'd done it. Captain Galvin had nerves of steel and a set of her own human male reproductive organs to be able to broadcast their entry into the star system as they had done. The enemy had thought they were a pair of fat helpless freighters with no place to go. They'd come out salivating right into their waiting arms.
They had done it; they'd pulled it off. While the Nelson class destroyer Dunatis and Squadron Blue covered the two ships, he followed Green and Red Squadrons in as they took on the small picket force that they had detected coming at them.
The enemy ships had finally noticed their approach. “This is Lieutenant Commander Z'r'll,” he said as his fighter A.I. opened a broadcast channel to the enemy ships. “I am flight leader of the Federation Naval Warship Shredder. You are outgunned and outclassed. I order you to heave to and surrender or we'll show you what our carrier's name really means. You have five minutes to comply.”
As he cut the channel, he saw the ships try to come about in a vain effort to avoid his force. He instinctively tried to signal first-degree amusement but the confines of the cockpit prevented the motions. Still, it was the thought that counted.
:::{)(}:::
“Who the frack are they??!” the captain demanded. “They can't be the Federation! They just can't be!”
“It doesn't matter, Captain! We're outgunned! We have to surrender!” the XO said desperately as the ship rocked. She tried to reason with the captain, but she ran out of time as a pair of torpedoes were rammed home and their ship was torn apart around them.
:::{)(}:::
The single Cutlass class destroyer encountered was quickly overwhelmed and destroyed by Shredder's wing. The courier refused to surrender and was pummeled by a strafing run by the Cobras. She came apart on the second run.
The single freighter transport tried to run as well. When she failed to answer orders to heave to, she too was struck over and over again until her drives died. Internal explosions lit the freighter before her spine broke. The pieces drifted apart in the darkness.
The Veraxin commander signaled a stop to the operation once the last ship was broken. He thought he should feel something but he didn't feel the sense of completion or elation as he had in simulations. There was something akin to pity for the unarmed ship crews. But then he remembered they too were in the war, playing their part for the enemy. He shivered slightly and then put a call in to the carrier to make his report.
:::{)(}:::
“It’s done, Skipper,” the XO reported as he looked up from the comm section. “The CAG has reported the enemy ships are dead.”
“Not quite over,” the captain said.
“Ma'am?”
“Away the SAR and boarding parties. Let's see what we can find,” she said. The XO nodded and passed on the orders.
Two shuttles spread out to do a quick search of the battle space. There was no need; only a few bodies were found. They were still picked up and checked over before being consigned back into the depths of space. Boarding parties led by the thirty-four Marines from the two ships checked each wreck over. There were no survivors.
Sailors followed the Marines over once each ship was secure to secure anything of intelligence value that they could. While they did that, Commander Lessa Galvin, captain of Shredder, settled her eyes on the distant planet.
Recon drones and craft were dispatched to probe the planet and the star system. She knew she wouldn't like what they'd find but needed to get the information gathering process going as quickly as possible.
:::{)(}:::
Captain Galvin allowed her small raiding force to settle into orbit of the agro world. Calls for the Horathian occupiers to surrender were ignored. She took glum note of the planet and listened with half an ear as her staff laid out the specs on the planet the following morning. There were thankfully only a few small cities, mostly towns. But they had found something far
more ominous. They had found internment camps and military bases.
Two of the bases were boot camps. Kids, all humans, were hustled in and then run through the Horathian's idea of boot camp. There were re-educational camps near those.
There were industrial centers near some of the internment camps, and a few of the camps had tall ominous brick smokestacks. Smoke spewed from them day and night, partially obscuring the vision of the people in corals, some winding their way through cattle chutes into a cement building, never to return.
Most damning was a side entrance where they could see some workers sorting through personal affects like clothing. Another group had the gruesome task of moving the bodies to the nearby crematorium. A few even worked at teeth, pulling them. She turned away from the sight of a female holding up something glittering.
“You have a list?” she asked coldly. Heads nodded around the table. “All right then. No warning. They refuse to surrender, fine. We strike the Horathian military bases from orbit. Only the bases, not the internment camps or population centers.”
“I'll set up the shot,” the Veraxin CAG said grimly. She looked over to him and then nodded once.
“What about the prisoners? Can we do anything about them?” the XO asked.
Captain Galvin just shook her head. Eyes were lowered at that.
“Yeah, I thought not. It doesn't hurt to ask,” the XO murmured.
:::{)(}:::
Brigadier General Huerst grunted when he heard the calls outside. When they didn't desist, his eyes flew open. He threw the covers aside and put his feet on the cold wooden floor. He grimaced; he'd missed the slippers. They were nice slippers too, tanned Neobear, but in his haste, he touched the ice-cold floor. He winced, fully awake as he padded to the window. He looked out to see people out there talking and pointing to the night sky. “What the …?”
He snarled and threw the sash up. Heads turned to look at him. “What the devil is going on here?” he demanded.
A lieutenant turned to him, then turned back to point to the midnight sky. The general scowled and looked up. There was some light pollution from the base but not a lot. He saw a meteor storm and scowled deeper.
“What …?” Suddenly the radio calls came back to him. He'd thought they'd been a prank, that the picket had been screwing with him, pulling an exercise.
“Frack me … find cover! Evac …”
He never finished the sentence as an orbital munitions package called a Damocles IV round came down on his concrete headquarters building next door. The ensuing blast wave shattered his brick and wood home and incinerated him and everyone within a one-kilometer range. Anyone who survived that blast was deaf, dumb, and blinded.
In one orbital strike, the raiders had gutted the Horathian chain of command.
:::{)(}:::
“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?” Captain Galvin asked mildly as the Marine came into her office.
“Yes, ma'am,” the Marine said quietly as she came to attention before the desk.
She rather liked the Marine leader. First Lieutenant Harley Quinn was reputed to be something of a practical joker in her off time, but she must have mellowed since her time in F Platoon as a grunt. She had all of the Marines including the hard cases eating out of her hand in next to no time. A fiercesome reputation and a sterling combat record tended to do that, the captain reminded herself.
“I'd like the captain to reconsider her options, ma'am,” the Neohyena said simply.
The captain stared at her and then snorted as she ran a hand through her hair. “I have to admit, I was expecting this.”
“I've been going over what's left. I think we can do more, ma'am. I think we can make a positive impact, even more so than we have. If you'll let us.”
“What would you have me do? Our orders are clear. We can't get bogged down in an invasion Lieutenant, however much I'd like to do so.”
Harely shook her head. “I'm asking you to let me take some forces down and do a raid, ma'am. Hit them hard and fast. I'm not talking a campaign. Raid. If the flyboys want to fly cover and perform air strikes, all the better—in and out.”
The captain blinked at the Neohyena in shock. “Are you serious?” she finally asked. “Do you have any idea what that entails?” she asked carefully. “The risks involved, not only for your people, but for those on the ground? You'll be leaving the natives in a lurch once we're gone.”
The lieutenant nodded. “I think we can pull it off. With the carrier at our back, I know we can, and I know we can do even better than what Captain Lewis did at Hidoshi's World. It'll be tight, but we've got the resources to do it, ma'am,” she implored.
The captain cocked her head thoughtfully as the Neo handed over a chip. She took it silently and put it in her reader. She didn't even look at it, just continued to stare at the lieutenant.
“They've got the manpower we need gathered at their disposal camps. We hit them; free the prisoners, give them food and weapons, and then hit any resistance. Help the natives get on their feet like Hidoshi's World. We'll tell them we can't stay straight up. We'll pass on any equipment we can and then pull out. I'll take the heat for the TOE. We can replace them anyway,” she replied with a shrug.
“Damn it ….” The captain ran a frustrated hand over her head through her locks before she let the hand drop to stare at the hyena. “Those aren't our orders, Lieutenant.”
“To hell with our orders, ma'am! People are dying down there! Women and children are being lined up and getting hung or tortured or worse!” the Marine growled.
“Don't you think I don't know that?” the captain demanded as the XO silently brought up an image of an internment camp. The smoke stakes sometimes mercifully blocked out the all too clear images of the pens where people were housed. “Frack.”
“I don't know about you, ma'am, but I don't want to look myself in the mirror knowing we could have done more. My people will take the risk.”
“Get me a plan. Limited action. In and out. A series of raids,” the captain said. “The casualties …”
“We know the risk,” the Marine said quietly.
“You do. I get that. But there are risks and rewards. Volunteers only.”
“Understood.”
:::{)(}:::
Lieutenant Quinn put the word out for volunteers. Every Marine on each of the ships immediately volunteered as did sailors who were in the area and heard the various calls for action. Lieutenant Quinn worked with her personnel to perform a series of hit and raids all at once.
“The idea is to hit them hard and fast. The people in the prison camps; they've got nothing left to lose. But the guards there will fire on them the moment they know we're coming, so, hard and fast. Take them out. The same goes for the armories. We're not going to get bogged down. If you hit stiff resistance, call in air support and pull back to a safe distance. Let the squids drop a rock on them.”
:::{)(}:::
“Lock and load people,” the sergeant bellowed. “Lock and load,” he repeated as the Marines finished their preparations for the drop. They didn't have any heavy armor, no power suits, but they were doing it anyway. Some might think they were mad, but he privately realized it was a Marine tradition to go in with the minimum resources and pull off a miracle.
Sergeant Dimitrios Papistranos was still surprised the old woman had gotten the skipper to sign off on the mission, not that he was complaining any. Far from it, he'd seen the images of the internment camps. They'd been enough to turn his stomach.
“Pile them up like cord wood, jarhead,” a squid said as they left Marine country. He was surprised to see squids giving them the thumbs-up all the way to the hangar. By the time they were there, he knew his Marines would be walking on air. “Ooh rah,” a Marine murmured.
“Stow it. Keep your head out of the clouds and on the mission!” the sergeant barked as he did a final check. “This is a raid. We get in, kill anything holding a gun, secure the perimeter while the flyboys boom and zoom around us, then mo
ve on to the next step.”
He turned to see the lieutenant coming in. She was fully outfitted and looked scary as hell. He nodded once to her. “Once we've got the camp secure, we're going to release the prisoners, give them what we can, then haul ass to the shuttles and the next objective. Don't get bogged down. Do not get cocky!” he snarled, looking around and then locking eyes with a couple of his more ambitious children. “I mean it, Kowalski!”
He got a burp for his trouble. His upper lip curled in disdain. If he'd had the time, he'd get into the man's face. Fortunately for Kowalski no one dared snicker with the LT coming up behind him.
“Get on board and get secure. Move Marines,” the sergeant barked, stepping aside to let them aboard the shuttle.
He turned and leaned in to the LT. She flicked her ears and then leaned closer to him. “Limited air support over the internment camps, release the prisoners, give them what we've got …?”
“And they can pick up whatever the enemy drops. Yes, Sergeant,” she replied with a nod. “It's the best we can do.”
“We've got twenty-four Marines. Thirty-four if you include the Marines off of the tin can, ma'am. That's nothing.”
“It'll work. Captain Lewis took a hundred volunteers with no training and little equipment into Hidoshi's World. If he can do that, we can do a hell of a lot more.”
“It's not enough, ma'am. We can't just help them and then walk away leaving the job half-finished. It's not right.”
“No. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. We've given them a fighting chance. They are starving sure, but they know what to expect now, and they've got tools to fight back. And we've kicked the shit out of the bastards to give them that chance. Hopefully, it is enough.”
“Hopefully,” he replied dubiously.
“We make it work with what we've got. The rest is up to them; we're just giving them a fighting chance. They now know what they are up against and what they have to lose.”