***
Captain Relachik listened in on the comm traffic from his units in the alien orbital. The first wave of retaliation from the incursion had been severe, but after that, the defenses behaved as if overwhelmed. A lot of men had died at the hands of enemies unseen. Slowly, the defensive equipment they faced had been identified and destroyed by sheer numbers. This was exactly the opposite of the way elite soldiers were meant to be used. Usually they enjoyed electronic superiority to the enemy, which allowed them to fight on their own terms.
“Sir,” the weapons officer interrupted Relachik’s train of thought. “Squad seventeen is requesting support from the ship’s weapons. Looks like they’re close to the outer hull.”
“Can we make the shot from this position?”
“There’s a lot of noise out there. We’d almost have to eyeball it,” responded his weapons officer.
“Can we be sure we won’t blow the whole damn base up?”
“No way to be sure—”
“Then no. Dispatch our last reserve shuttle to back them up. All our teams are either under extraction or turtling up. We’ll hold as is until we can get them out of these hot spots.”
Relachik cursed. If the Seeker were a UNSF battle cruiser, he’d have more powerful robotic forces at his command that were harder to destroy—although, since the robots were affected by enemy countermeasures like the rest of their equipment, their effectiveness would be greatly reduced.
“Captain, I think a vessel has detached and is maneuvering for an escape vector. It has a blocking screen up.”
“It’s probably only the smugglers.”
“I agree, sir. Given the countermeasures exhibited by this base, I’d have to say that it’s not the same technology.”
Captain Relachik furrowed his brows and let out a heavy sigh.
“Let them go. We have to stay and get our men out of there alive.”
“The alien—”
“Yes, the alien may be with them. Or now, even more than one. But we have men in there, and we can learn a lot about them from capturing this base.”
“I’ll launch a spread of shark’s teeth with tracker warheads,” suggested the lieutenant.
“No. Hold that,” the captain ordered. He hesitated. “Firing the latchers may be interpreted as firing on the alien base. It might retaliate.”
The lieutenant blinked. Captain Relachik knew what the lieutenant was thinking. Just a second ago, his commanding officer had been considering firing directly on the base to help squad seventeen. Now he was afraid to launch on another target just because it might be interpreted as an attack.
“Yes sir. I thought the analysis indicated the base’s external weaponry had been disabled in a previous battle, sir. You sure we shouldn’t try and tag ’em for later?”
“The aliens are still strong enough to disable this ship with electronic warfare. So far we haven’t threatened to destroy the base. For all we know, they could interfere with the flight computers, cause our gravity spinner to blow. The smugglers are not worth the risk.”
Relachik’s tone brooked no further discussion. He knew he’d have a hard time covering for this decision later. But for now, he was going to let his brat daughter escape harm.
The lieutenant at the console nodded. He closed his eyes, accessing a mental interface.
“Looks like the ship has fled the area, sir.”
“Maybe next time, lieutenant.”
The Trilisk Ruins Page 44