He voted for the former option.
He had already received a few ships from Drakon and had sent a few back; with the additional reinforcements, he had six battleships, 17 battlecruisers and 15 cruisers, in addition to his dreadnought. He had lots of battlecruisers and cruisers...so many, in fact, that a large percentage of them would be expendable in the upcoming fight, especially if that was required to spare Bullig’s life. If only he didn’t have to be on the first ship into the system, the assault would be easy. Since he did, though...hmmm...there must be a way that he could use them to his advantage...
* * * * *
Chapter Eighteen
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Stargate to Gliese 876, 54 Piscium, February 14, 2021
“Dead slow ahead,” ordered Captain Sheppard.
“Dead slow ahead, aye,” repeated the helmsman. The ship moved forward at its slowest speed.
The Terrans had noticed that the size of the ship and the speed with which it entered the stargate were directly proportional to the electromagnetic pulse, or signature, the stargate made when the ship exited. Calvin hoped a relatively small ship, going extremely slowly, would make so minimal a signature on stargate exit that no one would notice. He asked Steropes, who confirmed that it was possible. No one did that, he was told, because it didn’t make tactical sense. If your forces controlled the stargate, there was no need to worry about the pulse; if they didn’t, you wanted to have a good amount of speed available in case there was a minefield or enemy ships waiting at the exit. Going slowly through a stargate made little tactical sense in most normal situations.
Being behind enemy lines during a war wasn’t a normal situation, though; there was no reason for them not to try to suppress their signature. They didn’t want anyone to know they were coming or going and didn’t think there would be a minefield on the Gliese 876 side of the stargate. At least they hoped there wouldn’t be a minefield, anyway. What would be the purpose? No race mined the interior systems they held because no sane commanding officer wanted to navigate his ship through a minefield. It didn’t matter whether it was an enemy minefield or a friendly one. Only bad things could happen in close proximity to that much high explosive.
But no one really knew how the Drakuls thought. They might have mined the exit side ‘just in case.’ In case of what, no one knew. But everyone worried about it, just the same.
The Vella Gulf was at General Quarters in case there were ships or mines. If there were, the odds were they wouldn’t be able to escape back to the 54 Piscium system. If they were discovered, they were going to try to make a run for Earth, even though they didn’t know where the stargates were in the systems they were going to have to pass through. The potential for things to get ugly was ‘high,’ to say the least.
“3...2...1...star—,” the helmsman started to say but then everything stretched to infinity and they were gone.
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Gliese 876, February 14, 2021
“gate,” finished the helmsman.
“Mine check!” ordered Captain Sheppard. “Stealth as soon as it’s available.”
“Checking for mines, aye,” chorused Steropes and the DSO. “Stealth when it’s available, aye,” added the DSO.
“What do you think, Steropes?” asked the CO. “Do you think anyone will see our signature?”
“It is unlikely,” replied Steropes. “Our transit signature was minimal, and there are no ships close to the stargate.”
“We are stealthed,” said the DSO.
“All ahead full,” said Captain Sheppard. “Let’s get away from the gate and see if we can go find this asteroid the Archons are so worried about.”
* * * * *
Chapter Nineteen
CO’s Conference Room, TSS Vella Gulf, Gliese 876, February 15, 2021
“The star in this system is Gliese 876,” reported Steropes. “It is a red dwarf star that is about 15 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. Gliese 876 is only about 1/3 the size of the Sun and is significantly cooler, resulting in a luminosity that is only about 1.25% of the Sun’s.”
“The star has four planets,” he continued. “The first two are a super-Earth planet about six times Earth’s size and a gas giant. Both are too close to the star to be hospitable. The third planet is another gas giant almost twice the size of Jupiter, which orbits in the habitable zone. For Gliese 876, this is about the same distance as the Sun to Mercury. The final planet is a super-Earth that has about 14 times the mass of Earth, or similar to the planet Uranus. The system has two stargates, the one we came in through, and the other that goes on to Lalande 21185.”
“Captain Sheppard, I’ve got stargate emergence,” commed the DSO, interrupting the brief. “I’ve got multiple ships entering the system from the 54 Piscium stargate. At least one of them is a battleship.”
“Roger, DSO, I’ll be right there,” replied Captain Sheppard. He looked at Steropes. “Please continue. I believe you were going to tell us whether you had found the phantom asteroid that we were looking for? That was the military objective for coming here, right?”
“Yes,” replied Steropes, “I was just coming to that. I did find the asteroid, and I am sorry to say it is already moving. They must have finished the battle station; it is headed toward the stargate from the position of the fourth planet. At the moment, the fourth planet is on the other side of the star from the stargate. We have a little bit of time to see what the ships that just entered the system are going to do before we have to decide what to do about the asteroid.”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Gliese 876, February 16, 2021
“I’ve got an update on the Drakul ships,” Steropes said. “They appear to just be transiting the system to the Lalande 21185 stargate. The group consists of two battleships, four battlecruisers, seven cruisers and a few smaller vessels.”
“You’re sure that they aren’t headed toward us or the asteroid?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“No,” Steropes confirmed, “they are definitely headed toward the stargate.”
“Refresh my memory,” said the CO, “what lies in that direction?”
“There are two stargates in the Lalande 21185 system,” answered Steropes. “One of them leads to the COROT-7 system, which we believe is the home world of the Drakuls. The other leads through one more system to Terra.”
“So they are either going to their home or to ours?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“It would seem so,” replied Steropes.
“We’ve got to hurry,” said Captain Sheppard. “I find it unlikely they’d be needed at their home world when the Drakuls are at war in at least two places. They must be headed to Earth.”
“Yeah,” said Calvin. “We need to destroy the asteroid and get back to the Archons. Like yesterday.”
“That may be a little more difficult than we first thought,” Steropes advised. “The asteroid has a battlecruiser flying alongside it.” He pushed a button, and a picture of a small asteroid appeared on the front view screen. He zoomed in, and the Terrans could see just how large the asteroid was. The 2,200’ battlecruiser flying alongside the asteroid was dwarfed by it.
“Damn,” said Night, “that thing’s huge.”
“No kidding,” Calvin agreed.
“The asteroid is a cylinder that is about two miles long and one mile in diameter,” said Steropes. “It has missile and laser emplacements spaced fairly evenly across its surface.”
Night looked at Calvin. “Trying to find the control room on that thing is going to be a bitch,” he said. “A two mile long cylinder is a lot of volume for one platoon to search, especially if things start getting hot.”
Before Calvin could reply, Steropes interjected, “Yes, the asteroid is large, but I believe the inhabited spaces are going to be more confined.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“My guess is based on the orientation of the fighter and shuttle bays,” said Steropes. He changed to another picture of the asteroid.
Four large dark spots could be seen in a vertical arrangement at the front of the asteroid. “These four holes appear to be hangars for smaller spacecraft. They are about 400 feet high and 1,000 feet wide. As you can see, they are all on the opposite side of the asteroid from where the engines are mounted.” He pointed to the top one. “If you look at this bay, you can see what looks like the nose of a shuttle.”
Steropes flipped to another picture that showed the other side of the asteroid. Although it was an oblique angle, the back ends of four engines could be seen sticking out of the asteroid. “As you can see, they have mounted four super dreadnought-sized engines on the back of the asteroid. It is interesting there are no missile or laser batteries within half a mile of the engines.”
“What do you think that means?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“It is possible the engines are not clean,” replied Steropes. “They may be producing something that is either radioactive or toxic in nature because there doesn’t appear to be anything near them. I believe all of the inhabited spaces are located on the other side of the asteroid. If that’s true, the volume that would have to be searched is much smaller.”
“If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts,” Night said, “we’d all have a Merry Christmas.”
“I agree with Night,” said Calvin. “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘it’s possibles.’”
“True,” said Steropes, “but I believe that if we go in through the fighter bays, I think we’ll find the living spaces close by. Would you want to have fighter pilots travel two miles after they get back from a mission, or would it make more sense to have everything they need close by?”
“It would make sense to do that,” allowed Calvin, “assuming the layout was put together by an aviator. Who knows what was important to the station’s designers?”
“That is a good point,” said Steropes; “however, I believe that if we enter through these bays, we will find the living areas close by, and then the operations spaces somewhere not much deeper from there.”
“Well, we need to find the operations center,” said Calvin, “or at least make sure we’re close. If we can get inside and drop off a nuke close to the ops center, we’ll make this thing unusable.” He looked at Night. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Can you bring up the image of the front of the asteroid again?” Night asked. Steropes switched back to the requested picture. Night moved closer to the 3D screen and studied it for a minute, pursing his lips. Calvin walked up to join him.
“With the shuttle in the top bay, it’s obvious that one is being used,” Night said. “That’s probably a good place to start. The problem is going to be spreading out enough to look for the ops center, while still staying close enough together to provide mutual support, especially against Drakuls. I’m thinking that we should send in one squad into the top bay, and the other squad into the bay underneath it. If the ops center is further down or deep inside, we’ll just have to adapt on the fly.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” agreed Calvin. “Why don’t you take the Ground Force into the top bay, and I’ll take the Space Force into the bay right below it?”
“That would work, sir, if we can get there,” Night agreed.
Calvin looked at the picture again, and a strange look came over his face. “What’s holding in the air?” he finally asked.
“It is being held in by a force shield,” said Steropes.
“Can we pass through the shield?” asked Calvin.
“Yes, you should be able to pass through the shield,” Steropes said; “however, it might disable the stealth features of your suits. The Drakuls will also probably get some sort of indication you have entered the bays.”
“What do you suppose the battlecruiser will do once they set off the alarm?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“It will probably go to battle stations and try to find the ship that brought the troops,” replied Steropes. “Obviously, our troops didn’t just spring up from the asteroid; something stealthed must have brought them.”
“They are going to know something is in the area,” Calvin said, “so we need to build something into the planning to take out the battlecruiser before the troops land.”
“Well, yes,” Steropes agreed, “but then we have to worry about what the defenders on the asteroid are going to do when they see the ship is under attack. There are probably blast doors that they can shut on the bays that will keep us out. It is a battle station after all, and is built to resist intruders. Once they go to general quarters, we probably won’t be able to penetrate it.”
“OK,” Calvin said, “so if I understand this correctly, we can either surprise the battlecruiser and alert the asteroid’s defenders, or we can surprise the asteroid’s defenders and alert the battlecruiser.”
“That is correct,” Steropes agreed.
“No matter which we attack first, the Vella Gulf is likely to be destroyed by the other,” said Captain Sheppard. “Neither of those options is very good from my point of view.”
“I’d say they both pretty much suck,” said Master Chief in a stage whisper.
“Regardless,” Steropes said, “those are the facts. You can probably attack either the asteroid or the battlecruiser and achieve surprise. If you try to do both, it is likely that you won’t surprise either.”
“My money’s on surprising the battlecruiser,” Captain Sheppard said. “That’s the thing that can come after us.”
“The asteroid, however, is more heavily armed,” Steropes noted.
“We could go round and round on this all day,” Calvin said; “the bottom line is that we can probably only surprise one of them. The asteroid is our main target; we’ve got to destroy it.” He looked back at the picture. “We need to get onto the asteroid without anyone knowing or being alerted to the fact that the Vella Gulf is nearby.” He looked back at Steropes. “Is the battlecruiser far enough away that we could get a stealthed shuttle up to the asteroid without it being noticed?”
“Yes, probably,” Steropes replied. “However, they’re going to know that you’re there, regardless of whether you pull into the bay or walk into it.”
“Without a doubt,” Calvin replied. “We’ll just have to not walk into the bay until our cover is blown. If we could get close to the bays, though, or maybe even inside the asteroid prior to them knowing we were there...”
“...we might just have a chance,” finished Night. “Do you have a plan, sir?”
“I have the beginning of one,” replied Calvin. “It will maximize our chances for accomplishing all of the things we want to do, but it’s going to be risky. And there’s also still the matter of the bomb.”
Calvin looked at Lieutenant Finn, who had been sitting at the table listening to the discussion. “Is there anything in your database for blowing up a two mile long asteroid?” he asked. “Something that will break it up or at least render it unusable?”
“I’ll go look and see,” said Lieutenant Finn.
“Make two of them,” said Night. Calvin raised an eyebrow. “We need a backup,” Night explained. “If we have two, each of the cyborgs can carry one. Whichever squad finds the ops center first blows it up; that way, we don’t have to worry about linking back up to accomplish the mission. We can both exfiltrate as soon as the bomb is planted.”
“Sounds good,” replied Calvin. “In that case, here’s what I think we should do...”
Platoon Briefing Room, TSS Vella Gulf, Gliese 876, February 18, 2021
“Then we set the bomb in the ops center and egress from the asteroid,” concluded Night. “Are there any questions?
“What are our rules of engagement?” asked the Ground Force Leader, Master Gunnery Sergeant Joan Kinkead. A former Marine Corps drill sergeant, she believed there was only one way of doing things, the right way. There were three loves in her life: her kids, her country, and her Corps. But not necessarily in that order.
“The rules of engagement?” asked Calvin. “Besides ‘k
ill every giant frog that we see?’”
“No,” said Kinkead, “I was wondering if we were trying to do this quietly, without firing our rifles, or are we supposed to blast everything that we see? Also, are we supposed to shoot anything that moves, or are there noncombatants that we need to worry about?”
“While I would like to go in as quietly as we can,” said Calvin, “doing things quietly means getting close to the Drakuls, where they have a pretty considerable reach and toughness advantage over us.”
“Reach, yes,” said Kinkead. “As far as toughness goes, they may be tougher than some of these troops, but not me. I’ve always liked frog legs.”
“What I meant is that they can take a lot more damage than we can,” said Calvin. Seeing Kinkead about to speak again, he added, “Well, they can take more damage than most of us anyway. Regardless, we want to kill them as far away from us as we can because they have a propensity to pull off peoples’ arms and legs.”
“A propensity?” asked Bob, one of the kuji from the planet Domus. “What’s that?”
“It means they like to tear you apart and eat you while they’re still fighting you,” said Night. “Kill them on sight, from as far away as you can.”
“Got it,” said Bob, showing his teeth in the kuji version of a smile. Seeing a six feet tall tyrannosaurus rex smile was...uncomfortable...to say the least. “Shoot them from long range.”
“With regard to noncombatants,” continued Calvin, “the Drakuls don’t have friends. If you see creatures from a different race, they are probably neutrals, at worst, and might be friendlies. Exercise restraint on anything other than Drakuls; Drakuls you can terminate with extreme prejudice.” He looked up and saw Lieutenant Finn walking into the room. “Do you have something for us?” he asked.
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