“I’ll take Jasmine.”
As soon as Elizabeth dropped out of hyper, Sabrina and Jasmine separated and stood off at a respectful distance. Peter and Elizabeth aligned so that each protected the other’s vulnerable propulsion systems and prepared for battle.
They did not have to wait long.
Moses had done the math and if intelligence was even close, he had two missiles for every armed spacecraft the local system could throw at him. Still, he saw no reason to waste them. He and Ambrosia had command of the missiles. The rest of the family operated laser control pods scattered around the ship. Each pod covered a single quadrant with enough overlap that no one faced an enemy alone. Reuben and Rashi had worked out a method of converging lasers that amplified the lasers’ power. Due to the speeds involved, the computing power this took was beyond Elizabeth’s central system’s capacity. They had programmed each pod to act independently reading the feedback from the weapons lasers for target distance, speed and direction.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Moses announced, “I do not want heroes. I want a team working together. Talk to each other. If one gets past you, let me know. I will take care of it. If you have too many targets for you to handle, sing out, your neighbors will help you. Be careful that nobody shoots Sabrina! Youngest to oldest, everyone check in!”
These children had been playing games and simulations in weapons suites like the ones they now operated from the time they were old enough to read. The only difference now was that there were more of them and there were real lasers slaved to the displays.
The first wave of interceptors arrived, and Elizabeth’s battle systems took them on, facing an enemy for the first time in twenty years. Moses had staffed as many of the laser pods as he could, but there were still some left empty. When one of the “empty” pods destroyed an inbound interceptor, Elizabeth whooped with joy at her victory. Moses scanned his displays. Elizabeth was operating all the empty weapons pods.
“Elizabeth, remind me to never make you angry with me.”
Elizabeth laughed, “Roger that.”
The battle continued unabated for three hours. Targeting data passed between the three ships revealed that the Swordsmen were taking huge losses and were inflicting little harm. Suddenly the skies around the three ship battle group cleared.
“That is either good news or bad news,” Moses said to Ambrosia.
“Probably bad news. We should let people take breaks.”
“Good idea.” Moses called on the comm. “Youngest to oldest, two at a time, ten minute breaks. The rest of you nap at your stations! Report when you leave your post and when you return.”
THIRD GENERATION - CHAPTER TWENTY
SITTING ON THE BOTTOM of the protected cove, Saul knew that if he had a periscope, he could see the power plant ahead. He raised the weapons pod with the ultraviolet communications laser and linked to the relay satellite. Moses and Saul briefed each other on what had happened since they had last talked. When they were done, Saul asked to be linked to J. T.
“Would my mother have stashed a little stolen hardware on your ship?” Saul asked.
“What specific type of hardware are you looking for?” J T asked.
“Marine Mobile Armed Remote Vehicles or maybe a couple of their airborne cousins perhaps?”
“Yes, we have a few MMARV. Would you like regular or super size?”
“Four of the regular will be fine. What about AARV’s?”
“We have a few of those as well.”
“Can you control them from a med ship?”
“Yes.”
“Here’s what I need. Moses, send me the med ship Sabrina brought back. Land it on this highway in front of me. Send the AARV’S in the med ship’s hold. We will deploy them from here. As soon as it’s dark, drop the MMARV’s into the bay near the space port.”
“Do you want a pilot on the med ship?” Moses asked.
“No, thanks,” Saul replied. “Buddy will pick it up on final approach and bring it in.”
Moses called when the AARV’s had been transferred to the med ship and then announced its departure. Moses and Saul both found the lack of enemy activity in their area disturbing, but persevered. Once the med ship was on its way, Saul ordered both Buddy and Daisy to roll up on to the hard sand near the end of the road. “Buddy, put a Disruptor in the middle of that power plant.”
The Disruptor arched perfectly into the center of the power plant and detonated. “The plant is shut down,” Buddy reported. Saul had chosen the Disruptor for its selectivity. Using high energy electrical pulses tuned to certain carefully chosen frequencies, it would destroy higher level electronics while leaving lower level electronics intact. This selective destruction would put the plant out of action only as long at it took for maintenance crews to replace or bypass its higher order electronics. The plant would not be permanently disabled, and its safety over ride equipment, which functioned on lower order electronics, would shut the plant down safely.
“How much of the city is out?” Saul asked.
“There are two more plants. They are shifting the load. The whole city should be powered again in a few minutes.”
“Can you hit the other two plants with Disruptor missiles?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do it without revealing our position?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Two Disruptor missiles sped away barely above the surface of the water. A few minutes later Buddy reported that except for emergency generators, the city had no power. The med ship landed, and all three ships taxied to the end of the road near the school.
Saul called to the three girls who had flown with him. “We are going into the school to take hostages. Grab your laser rifles. Follow me. Buddy, turn the med ship around and open the rear doors.”
The four flight suited teenagers carrying vicious looking laser rifles walked into the school’s front door. Even though they were at the equator, Saul was surprised with how cold it was. As the foursome approached the school, they could hear chaos within. Already frightened by the power failure and isolated from communication, the teachers tried in vain to calm the frightened students. The sight of four strangers in flight suits carrying laser rifles approaching the school brought many of the children to the edge of panic. Saul walked into the administrative office with his helmet still closed.
“Bring Mrs. Winthrop to me.”
When the woman behind the counter hesitated just a moment too long, Saul twitched as if he would shoot the woman with his rifle. A few minutes later, a woman that Saul recognized from the pictures entered the room.
“Mrs. Winthrop, I am Saul Cohen, the son of Rachel Solomon. Your husband is trying to kill my mother. In order to keep that from happening I am taking you and everyone at this school hostage. Do you understand me?”
The woman nodded, clearly terrified.
“No harm will come to you if no harm comes to my mother. Tell the children to bring whatever jackets, coats, gloves and hats they have with them. If they have medicine, they should bring that, too. You will start with the oldest, and march them out the front door and to the ship sitting in your parking lot. You will be taken to a space ship so your lives can be traded for the lives of my family.”
The woman nodded again trying to brave.
“Let’s begin. We don’t have all day.”
Saul called on his suit comm, “Ladies, open your helmets. Let them see that you are women. There are no women in the Swordsmen military.”
Two hundred and fifty women and children packed into the med ship. It was a tight fit and many of the little ones wound up in the laps of the older ones. A few cried, but most were quiet, although by their eyes, they were all afraid.
Mrs. Winthrop was the last to board.
“Mrs. Winthrop, may I have the keys to your car?” Saul held his hand out. She dug in her purse and handed them to him.
“Buddy, seal the ship and deliver it safely to Elizabeth.”
&nbs
p; “Roger that.”
Once the med ship was gone, Saul said, “Buddy and Daisy, if you are attacked or you lose contact with us for more than half an hour, get out of here and go to Elizabeth. If she or Peter are not there, go to Eretz. Understand?”
“We understand,” Buddy replied, “but that does not necessarily mean we will follow orders.”
Recognizing how little say he had in the matter, Saul unlocked Mrs. Winthrop’s car. “Everyone in. We’re going for a ride.”
The drive to the Winthrop house was aided by Buddy’s navigational assistance. They did not have to wait long. Taylor Winthrop was dirty and disheveled as he walked around the corner to the house. Saul strode up to him. “Mr. Winthrop you are being kidnapped so you can be held for ransom.”
The boy laughed. “He’ll pay you to take me!” He grinned. “I’ll play your silly little game.”
They bundled the boy into the back seat between the two girls who he tried to grope until they hit him hard enough that he stopped. They strapped their captive into Buddy’s rear seat and closed the shell around him. Saul sat in the pilot’s seat to have a chat with his brother about how they should proceed from here. When they finished and agreed to their next few steps, Saul stood up.
“Saul,” Buddy said, “am I to understand that you wish Daisy and me to abandon you here?”
“Yes, unless one of the girls wishes to return with you to Elizabeth.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“No, I’m not, but this place is going to be real hot real soon, and I can think of better places for you to be.”
“Saul, are you sure?” Buddy had taken the protective tone that had kept Saul out of trouble more often than he wished to admit.
“Please, Buddy go. Come back and get me here at dawn. I’ll be waiting.”
“What if you’re not?”
“Buddy, I can barely hang on to Plan A let alone think about Plans B and C. I’ve never done this before, but I know that if even one of those women dies and I live, I will never forgive myself.”
“But that does not mean you have to get yourself killed. You don’t do anyone any good dead.”
Saul closed his eyes to fight back the tears. “Please, Buddy, please leave me now. I have work to do. You know your job. Please do it, because I asked you.”
“I don’t like this and neither does Daisy. Oh, we have incoming.”
Saul hopped out the hatch and yelled to the three girls, “If anyone wants to go back with Daisy or Buddy, now is your last chance.”
Fiona stated flatly. “I’m staying.”
Rebecca said, “I am not leaving.”
Sylvia said, “Let’s go rescue my mother.”
Buddy and Daisy rolled down the road and took off headed back for the hole in the defense net where Elizabeth and Peter were parked.
Saul and the girls climbed into Mrs. Winthrop’s car and headed for the spaceport. Saul hoped that the windshield sticker he saw would grant him the ability to pass through the guard gate without being challenged. It was possible that the guard did not know the younger Winthrop and would mistake Saul for him. Saul had taken his wallet and ID just to be sure.
Driving as carefully as he knew how, Saul drove along a divided parkway as an army of emergency and military vehicles raced in the other direction under lights and sirens. Finding a cul-de-sac with houses under construction, they pulled off and sat in one of the unfinished driveways out of sight of the main road until dusk began to fall. They left the car and climbed a wooded hillside where they could see the spaceport. As Saul had guessed, the spaceport was operating on emergency generators as were many of the public buildings but the residential areas were all dark except for some battery operated lights and candles flickering in the windows. Saul felt bad about the discomfort he was causing these people, but he rationalized that it was much less than it would have been if they had merely blasted their way in the way his grandfather had originally planned.
Once dusk fell, the next step of the plan was executed. Elizabeth took control of all the planet’s communications satellites. In her haughty “Queen Elizabeth” voice she broadcast the feed from a hand held camera in the galley of one of the passenger modules. “Citizens of Stonebridge! I am the great Queen Elizabeth! I have captured two hundred and fifty of your daughters.”
The camera panned across the room. The children were in weightlessness. Some of the children were wrapped in blankets. Some obviously had been sick. Others had towels over their shoulders. Some of the littler ones were crying, and some of the older ones were trying to get younger ones to eat. They clearly were miserable. Many were frightened, but none of them appeared to have been harmed.
“Queen Elizabeth” spoke again. “One of your leaders has captured some of my citizens and is torturing them. You see how we treat our captives.”
The camera zoomed on a small girl eating a bar of dried fruit. The label clearly stated that the fruit came from Homestead. “Your commanders torture and murder yours. We demand that our citizens be returned to us alive and unharmed. You have until twenty-one hundred hours local time to deliver all the captives to the school from which these children were taken. We will send a ship to recover them. If they are unharmed, we will return your children to you fed and rested. If not, you will never see them again.”
The message repeated across all the broadcast channels as the camera picked out one child after another. Before the end of the broadcast the camera came to rest on Mrs. Winthrop and her three children sitting at a table attempting to get used to eating in weightlessness.
“So, do we go back to the school?” Sylvia asked.
“No,” Saul said, “there’s no way they will let any of them go. Buddy should have moved the AARV’s next to the school by then and he can monitor the area from the AARV’s sensors. I hope I can draw enough attention out there so we can hit the spaceport while they are looking for us.”
“That’s pretty slick,” Sylvia said. “I never would have thought of that.”
“Let’s hope Winthrop doesn’t figure it out. It’s just obvious enough that he might not get it, but there is no sense in merely hoping. We need to be prepared.”
They sat under a copse of trees and waited fearfully until it was time to move. They had seen convoys move down the road toward the school. Fifteen minutes before the deadline, they climbed back into the car and headed for the spaceport. At exactly 21 hundred hours, “Queen Elizabeth” announced.
“You have tried to deceive me! Those are not my people! You have been warned. Now you will pay the price.”
Sylvia turned to Saul anxiously, “How did you know those were not our parents?”
“No transponders. The AARV can sense a transponder a kilometer away. That’s why they are used for search and rescue.”
A pair of Disruptor missiles slid through the planet’s defenses and passed over the school destroying the ignition and firing systems in all the vehicles within a kilometer of the school. The missiles then passed out to sea and self destructed.
“Well, gang, we have two AARv’s airborne. The Disruptor missiles came from one of the P I ships so we know they’re in place. Now, if the MMARV’s arrived, we can move in.”
“How do you know the Disruptor came from a PI?” Sylvia asked as they drove toward the spaceport.
“AARV’s only carry cannon, explosive missiles and lasers,” Saul replied.
As they approached the unmanned gate, Saul said, “You know, there is something I didn’t think of. What if they programmed the gate’s card swipe to recognize that Taylor’s card is no good?”
“We shoot our way in,” Fiona said rolling down her window and pointing the laser rifle out of the car.
Saul pulled up to the gate and swiped the card. The gate opened and they drove through. As soon as the gate closed behind them alarms sounded all over the installation. “Everybody out! Shoot out the lights!” Saul shouted. Saul stopped the car long enough for them to roll out to the ground. “This is
going to be messy!” Saul said as he gunned the car and aimed it for the chain link fence ahead of him. He shifted the car into neutral and rolled out himself. He rolled over a few times after he hit the ground, but while his fight suit would never be space worthy again, he was not injured. The girls ran over to him taking out lights with their laser rifles as they ran.
“I’m all right!” Saul shouted as he regained his feet. “That way!” He pointed through the hole the car had made in the fence.
They heard helicopters winding up to take off, but in the darkness overhead they heard the distinctive whoosh of an AARV. Two helicopters fell back to the ground in flames.
“So much for the advantage of darkness,” Saul muttered.
The AARV’s marched down the flight line destroying everything in their path. The flight line was brilliantly illuminated by the burning fuel and by the exploding ordinance on the destroyed aircraft. Having destroyed the aircraft using only their lasers, the AARV’s went after the control tower. Other than small arms fire, nothing had offered them any resistance so to this point they had only used their lasers. For the assault on the tower, Buddy directed them to fire one missile each. The tower crumbled like a house of cards.
Running from the cover of one building to the next, Saul and the three girls worked their way toward the flight line. They knew that sooner or later they would run into ground troops and they hoped the MMARV’s arrived before that happened. Most of the soldiers they saw were fleeing the carnage on the flight line as fast as they could run.
Saul heard the sound of helicopters approaching from the diversion at the school. The AARV’s sped off to deal with them. The helicopters must have been outside the Disruptor missiles’ range or they would have been disabled. With the land vehicles disabled, even at a forced march, the ground troops had a couple of hours before they could return to the spaceport. In the light of the fires from the burning aircraft, Saul could see well staffed gun emplacements and armored vehicles around the building that they had identified as the prison where the Marines were being held.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 110