The Durian replied, “You do not intimidate me Human. Our resources and our fleets stretch across many sectors. We have been following your progress as you run from the Milgari. With this transgression, we will no doubt supply them with arms that are more powerful than you can imagine. Your precious Grid will be able to run no more.”
The Durian had already given up more information than I had expected. I turned the screws of our conversation further, I wondered if in his arrogance he would reveal more. “You saw how easily we took down a Durian destroyer with only a handful of small ships. And our assault force of roughly 120 Humans was able to take out a crew and garrison of more than 400 Durians.”
“I will admit those chemical lasers were a big surprise. But we were able to counter them effectively. The facts before us today show that an inferior number of ships was able to cripple and then destroy a Durian destroyer and let���s say, oh, 500 Milgari warships? I���m thinking it may be the Durians who are inferior, especially on this ship here and now.” My speech drew a scowl from the Durian.
Barber returned with Daniels jar of bugs and immediately began to wave it in front of the two Durians. “These little fellas are hungry��� and they like Durian!” The Durian looked at the jar and then at Barber. “You expect me to be intimidated by a jar of harmless bugs? Such crude interrogation tactics were dropped by the Durians more than a thousand years ago, before your kind came into these sectors. I would have expected more from a race that can travel at more than 1,000 SOL.
Barber frowned as he looked at Daniels, “Sorry Sarge, the bugs just aren���t what they used to be.” Barber looked at the glass jar as he walked away, “But they sure do creep me out.”
Frig then entered the bridge behind us. “Sir, I am willing to assist the Colonel���s men on getting this ship moving. I am here if I am needed.” I looked at Frig, “Absolutely, tell the Colonel���s men that I insist if they grumble. They won���t, but it is there just the same.”
Frig moved over to the ship���s consoles and began asking questions of the men who had been hard at work trying to figure them out. If we wanted the Durian ship, we were going to have to figure out how to fly it. We had interrogation drugs that we would use on the Durians later. But those needed to be administered under George���s care and they would take several days of trials before they became effective.
I continued to badger the Durian until he let out a phrase that then shut him up tight. He said, “The Carnelis will punish us.” After that moment the Colonel no longer spoke. We now had the mystery of whom or what were the Carnelis. I sent a recording of the phrase back to the Swift for further study.
Frig and the Colonel���s men were making little progress after more than three hours at the Durian consoles. An inadvertent attempt to access the environmental system on the destroyer led to an arming of the self-destruct. A blaring alarm went off followed by a dimming of lights that flashed to red. Every console and display on the ship was showing a countdown timer. A quick analysis of the timer told us that we had three minutes to evacuate and move our ships to a safe distance.
I barked out a command, “Evac now! Everyone, let���s move! This tub is going to blow and we don���t want to be on it!” I started waving Marines off the bridge. Frig continued his attempts at accessing the Durian consoles. Parker and Daniels took the Durian prisoners and headed for the Helix.
As the others stood and ran for the hallways I walked over to Frig who continued with his efforts. “OK, bud, we have to go, it���s not worth our lives today. We gave it our best shot and I am sure we will have other chances at one of these boats.”
Frig continued to type away at a console as the timer ticked down. When it hit 90 seconds I began to raise my voice. “OK, that���s enough! We need to get out of here!” Jarrod came on the comm, “Don, get yourself out of there, we are closing the door at 20 seconds and pulling away at 12. I can���t keep the door open any longer than that. We have 48 crewmen here that want to live!”
I again prodded Frig to which he momentarily held up one hand telling me to stop. As he typed away at the keyboard the timer continued to count down. At 60 seconds I became adamant, “We gotta leave! It���s going to take us 30 seconds to get down to our floor and to that breach door!” I moved over to the doorway, placing one foot out into the hall. “Frig!”
He yelled back in my direction, “Go Sir! I am almost done! I will catch up!” I hesitated and then turned and ran. I turned the corner into the stairwell and nearly fell as I leapt three stairs at a time. When I reached the second level below the bridge I stopped and looked up the steps. No Frig!
I then ran down the cross-hall and turned into the hallway that held the breach door. I reached the door of the breach tube with 32 seconds remaining. I turned and yelled back down the hall, “Frig! Come on!”
I then sprinted onto the Helix and onto the bridge with Jarrod. “Two seconds, just give him two extra seconds!” I ran back to the breach hall and looked down the hall as the crew prepared to close the hatch. At twenty four seconds Frig rounded the corner in a full run. His speed was such that I didn���t know he was capable of. But time was short and the hallway long.
The timer hit twenty and the crewmen beside me began to close the hatch. We needed seven more seconds! “Frig! Come on!” I began to struggle with the two Marines who were attempting to close the breach hatch. They had their orders, I was giving mine!
Frig slammed through the last of the open hatch with eight seconds left. The hatch closed and the Helix separated and began to pull away. Just as the timer hit two seconds the Slaughter fired her weapons into the after portion of the Durian ship where the ion well would normally be located. An immense explosion rocked the Durian destroyer moments before the self-destruct detonated.
The Helix was only moving past the forward part of the ship when it fully exploded. The Aquamarine outer skin fractured and sloughed off as the hyper velocity debris from the explosion began to impact our hull. The Tantric layers dropped down to only two��� but the armor had held.
As the explosion subsided the Slaughter pulled alongside the Helix and took her into her hold. We were safe. I walked a panting Frig onto the bridge, “What were you doing back there! Are you nuts?”
Frig took several more breaths before he spoke, “I���m sorry Sir, I was��� I was accessing the memory stores for their nav and weapons systems. I��� I believe I was able to download 68% of what they contained. Just 20 seconds more and I would have had it all Sir��� twenty seconds more.” Frig then sat in a chair and held up his hand as he continued to breathe heavily.
When he had his composure back he spoke, “I was able to break through their security using a technique the Milgari taught us back on Gambit. It is little used as it does not provide access to any active systems. But it does provide a path to access the memory stores. What I have here will take quite a bit of analysis and it will be very broken considering that we do not have access to the systems that it applies to, that and the fact that it is incomplete. With a little luck Sir, it could prove extremely valuable to our cause. It was worth the risk.”
We left the Helix and met up with the Colonel on the bridge of the Slaughter. The assault on Barithia was still in full swing. The Colonel was busy barking orders at his commanders. “Fowler! Get that transport on the ground! We are behind schedule and need to make up some time if we want to continue making progress. Those troops are supposed to meet up with the second at city center. That���s not going to happen if you are still flying them around!”
When I stepped up beside the Colonel he reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder, “Grange! Glad you made it out of there. Gibbons over there had the bright idea to take out their ion well just before that destruct went off. It saved your skin! But you can thank him later. What���s the status of the Swift and the Helix? Our boys down there need extra air cover. Can you provide?”
&n
bsp; “The Swift is ready. We can get her in the air in a few minutes. The Helix took that debris hard. She only has a couple layers of Tantric left on her port side. If there is no danger from the air she could provide cover from a cockeyed position. So long as she keeps her port side towards the stars. Just say the word and we will make it happen Colonel.”
I left the bridge and headed to the Slaughter���s cargo hold. We would have to taxi out of the Helix before making our way out and down to the planet below. When I arrived and stepped aboard the Swift Frig was already hard at work on analyzing the Durian data. We were soon on our way to the surface.
Command control on the Slaughter directed us to a hot zone of Milgari activity. Two of our transports had landed and the troops had hit the ground. We had 18,000 Ground Assault Marines heading for a nearby Milgari garrison of more than 40,000 troops. The Swift���s computer quickly identified several dozen command and control towers used by the Milgari forces. They were heavily protected by light duty ion cannons and we were given the task of taking them out.
“Frig, targets should be coming up in a few seconds. Take out the cannons first and we will swing back for the towers. We have about five minutes before our troops get here to send this area into chaos. First target is now online.”
I could feel the familiar rumble of our ion cannon as the first of the ground defenses were obliterated. The Swift���s hull easily absorbed the low power ion pulses of the Milgari ground cannons. That is, until we reached the last and tallest tower.
“OK, lining up for the final shot and we then sweep back to collect a few tower kills. Tower is targeted. What the���” The Swift was suddenly caught up in an electrical storm. Systems began to shut down as overpower parameter settings were passed. I felt a mild shock coming through the joystick which first caused me to squeeze hard and then to fully release.
Our ion engine then began to sputter as the control systems surrounding it shut down. I again grabbed the joystick and pulled back just hard enough for us to squeak over the top of a ridge behind the tower. I had to fight hard against a craft that was not the best at atmospheric flying to set it down hard in a grassy field just over the ridge.
There would be damage to the Swift’s armor, but nothing that Gy could not fix upon our return home. My bigger concern was the alert that now showed on our proximity screen. A vehicle loaded with Milgari was on its way out into the field. Our generators were not restarting.
“Frig, how long before they get here?” Frig replied, “In less than two minutes Sir. From the way the generators are reacting I do not believe they will restart before they arrive.” I flipped the rear optical sensors on and zoomed in on the wheeled transport. I counted six Milgari troopers with blaster rifles.
“I would not be concerned about those weapons Sir. They will do no damage to our hull. Of course, they do have one other option, but I don’t believe that would work in their favor either. That is, unless they use the vehicle to ram our probe, rendering our cannon useless.”
I rubbed my chin as I watched them coming closer. How about Yacabucci’s field generator? Do you think it would knock out their truck?” Frig thought for a moment, “That is an interesting suggestion Sir. Give it a try.”
I flipped on the field generator and took aim at the oncoming truck. With the press of a button the truck stalled and stopped in place. One of the riders was thrown out onto the ground. The others dismounted and charged at the Swift with their weapons.
At 100 meters distance the first of them pulled the trigger on their ion rifle, it did nothing. Then a second Milgari and a third failed at the same attempt. Yacabucci’s generator made the ion weapons inert. The troopers assembled at the back of the Swift by the cargo door, unsure of what to do.
One venturous soldier then stepped out to our port side. The power meter on his rifle quickly returned to normal and he began to fire pulse after pulse into our hull. “Wow, this is actually kind of entertaining. I think they could do more damage if they were picking up and throwing rocks. Hahahaha!”
The sound coming from the cargo door was different than the typical thud of a blaster. It was the clang of a large rock. Frig immediately spoke up, “I put the blame solely on you Sir for suggesting that they do just that.” I could see that Frig had a slight smirk on his face.
I then stood and walked back to my locker. I pulled out my AK-47 and checked the clip, it was full. I then walked back to my console as Frig looked on. “What do you have in mind Sir?” I pressed a button on my console and a negative ion bomb rolled out into the grass next to one of the Milgari. He looked at it suspiciously for only a moment before it triggered in a bright flash. The Milgari blasters went silent.
I triggered the rear cargo door and waited patiently as it rose up, revealing five of the Milgari standing 10 meters away. Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak! Ak-ak-ak! The six Milgari lay dead in the field. I walked back to my locker, reloaded my clip and then moved back to my console and sat down. “Problem solved. Now if you would be so kind as to get those generators online we can get back in this war. We still have towers that need to come down.”
Frig worked his console, checking systems until he found the breaker that had kicked out saving our internal electrical system. A quick reset from his console had the standard generators powering up. “Before we go Sir, I would like to analyze the data collected from that electrical blast. If that is a common ground weapon the Colonel and our captains will need to know. I don’t know that the Raiders electronics would have survived that. Perhaps we were lucky that it was the Swift.”
I gave Frig four minutes for his analysis before I lifted off. This time the electrical weapon was targeted and destroyed from a safe distance. It was followed quickly thereafter by the destruction of the large tower. Four minutes later the remainder of our targets had been annihilated. Frig completed his study and passed the information back to the fleet.
With the towers eliminated I took the liberty of targeting obvious Milgari garrison buildings and outposts. Within an hour we had destroyed 48 such buildings in the target area we had been assigned. The results were again passed along to fleet command.
Our ground troops, using the conventional weapons, again had an overwhelming advantage. The Milgari troopers were being slaughtered by the thousands. Frig then brought up an issue that we had overlooked. “Sir, what of the Barithians? I’ve counted more than five million on this planet. Do we leave them, once again at the mercy of the Milgari?”
I got the Colonel on the comm to discuss, “How many can we transport and house Colonel? Is this something we even attempt? If they are left alone, the Milgari will probably just put them back to work.”
The Colonel replied, “I discussed this with the team earlier, we do not have the ability to move five million Barithians or to house and care for them. The Maximum we could support would be in the 600,000 range. I don’t know that we do any good by taking only a few. The others would likely suffer more.”
The Colonel was right. And it would not be the first time we had left others behind. The last time we had done so the captives had disappeared, that time it was several hundred thousand, this was five million. I sighed as I replied, “I guess you are right. Until we have the ability to care for them we cannot do a partial rescue. It would only cost the others.”
Thirty-six hours after the hostilities on the planet’s surface had begun, the last of the Milgari were dead. I landed in the bay of the Slaughter as the troop transports filled with our Ground Assault Marines lifted off. Initial counts revealed more than 562,000 Milgari dead to our 680 killed and 3,340 wounded. Our warriors would be missed but not forgotten on this day. Our goals had been accomplished and the battle won.
When the last of the transports lifted off we set a course back towards home. It had been a battle well fought. The Colonel had taken possession of five new cruisers and we had the bonus of two Durian prisoners. The Milgari production and trade facilities in the system had been destroyed. The b
attle for Barithia had clearly gone our way.
Chapter 10
On route back to the Suppressor I had a sudden bad thought about the Durian prisoners. I no longer trusted taking them to our base of operations. I was in fear of them somehow being bugged where the Durians could follow us home. I had the Slaughter change course to a remote uninhabited planet where we would park.
A ship would be sent from the Suppressor carrying George and the truth drug that we would attempt to use on them. I would also ask Rita to bring out her best signal detection gear as an added precaution. The thought then occurred to me that a permanent base for the interrogation of captured soldiers might be a good thing to maintain. I thought of it as one more layer of defense.
The planet was a swampy mess. Large creatures moved about through the swamps during the day and mysterious ones swam in the waters depths at night. The creatures were savage and it was evident that Human life on the planet would be difficult to sustain. It would not be a welcome place for colonists, but it was perfect for our use.
We set the Slaughter down in a large lake and sank beneath the surface. The water was high in minerals, along with our own signal inhibitors we would be difficult to detect. Eight days later George and Rita arrived with their gear. The interrogation process was begun.
Five hours after administering the drug the first Durian committed suicide by cracking a poison capsule in his mouth. The commander that I had met with before was stopped and searched before he could the same. Six hours later his tongue began to loosen.
“You Humans are a foul and disgusting species. I shall be glad when you are done with. We are in discussions with the Torrians about making joint use of the Grid’s gravity drive. The Torrians are fools. They will be tossed aside after winning us our prize.”
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