Fleet Commander J’Kalt watched the debris of the carrier being slowly sucked into the brown dwarves’ gravity. That would make the humans more cautious and not so cavalier. It was time to recon by fire. He instructed all his ships to open fire with energy weapons on any suspicious location that could be used as a hide spot for Human ships. He also ordered an increase in speed.
J’Kalt watched how his ships reacted to their new orders. Every dust cloud, brown dwarf, and asteroid was grazed by energy weapons fire. That would keep the Humans’ heads down.
There was one threat J’Kalt had not experienced, and his lead destroyer was about to run into it. Just around the next bend was a threat with no fear and no head to keep down.
Chapter Seventeen
The autonomous missile pod had been constructed in the armaments factories on Schirra, otherwise known as Centauri B-7, the Energy World, Inc. planet. The pod and the others like it had been on their way to Algol Station, to be delivered to the Algolian fleet, when the Baratarians captured them. It had originally been programed to activate when Aldebaran ships came into its sensor field, but were easily reprogrammed to react to K’Rang engine signatures. This pod and the other five around it were waiting to accomplish their purpose.
It was another pod that first detected the engine signatures of multiple K’Rang ships approaching at 0.2 c. That pod sent a burst transmission to the other five, dividing the targets among the six of them. The pods stood behind their cover, unflinching, as energy bursts flew by or were absorbed by what they hid behind. When the ships were almost within minimum range, they rose up as one and let loose their missiles against the most valuable targets.
Sixty medium missiles launched against the K’Rang fleet. The missiles so close there was very little the K’Rang could do. The missiles were inside the minimum launch range for defensive missiles. All they could do was fire all guns in the incoming missiles’ direction and hope to hit something. The close in defensive guns took out some missiles, but a disproportionate number made it through to their targets. Two missile/gun destroyers were lost in antimatter explosions as bright as a sun. A damaged light cruiser went out in a similar way. Two support ships trying to evade the fire turned into the path of missiles aiming for the destroyers and disappeared in a number of blinding antimatter explosions.
Fleet Commander J’Kalt looked on his diminishing command and had them increase speed to 0.3 c. He must get through to this base that was reading stronger and stronger on his sensors. If he could reach their base, he could threaten it, causing the humans to have to come to its defense. There he could engage them in open battle and defeat them. He had his two newest defensive frigates reload missiles at their support ship. He pulled out the Shadow destroyer, his Shadow heavy cruiser, the remaining light cruiser and the two reloading frigates to ram through the remaining human defenses at 0.5 c. The remaining fleet would be under the command of the senior destroyer captain. J’Kalt’s heavy force would go to port and the light destroyer-led force would go starboard. The heavy force would push through quickly and assault their base. The light force would continue to feel its way through the defenses. When the Humans pulled back to defend their base, the light force would close with the heavy force, come in behind the Human fleet and destroy it in detail.
When the frigates were reloaded, J’Kalt gave the order to move out. He wished good luck to Captain H’Rak, the light force commander, and watched on his sensors as they went wide around a brown dwarf, firing the whole time. He ordered his heavy force to make half light speed and for the Shadow destroyer to find them the best route to this base.
Admiral Minacci watched the two groupings diverge on his tactical plot. As he watched the sensors resolve the ship types, it was obvious the force moving to port was the bigger threat. He revised his attack plans slightly, but both groups were still within the cone reconnoitered by LCDR Blake. He looked for how he could defeat this K’Rang in detail. He looked at the next trap for the group heading left and assigned two A-76 squadrons to cover the minefield they were about to blunder into at half light speed. The other group was heading toward another missile pod obstacle and he assigned two torpedo squadrons and an F-48 squadron against them. He sent a message to the Leviathan to start laying mines closer to Barataria, just in case.
Kelly watched the destroyer group and thought he saw an opportunity. The group was heading right through the gravity tunnel he’d found before. It had two opposing 90-degree turns and would reduce the task force’s ability for mutual support. He lined up and waited. When all but the support ships entered the bend he launched at FTL Power 1.1. He shot across the intervening space and stopped just aft of the four unguarded support ships. His gunners opened fire as soon as they came to a halt, and took out the engines on all four support ships. He jumped back out to his previous overwatch position as two of the support ships were wracked with explosions. Now the fleet had no reloads or spares. Kelly reported his kills to 3rd ALG operations. The news cheered up the Admiral.
Kelly had Connie go back to engineering and check on the status of the stabilizers. He knew he was putting a lot of stress on them and didn’t want a failure at a critical time.
Steven Maynard was inspecting the plans in effect for safeguarding the population and defending them. The senior Marine Brigade Commander and the Bishop-Commander, who was overall in command, escorted him. They first inspected the facilities being built for the evacuated civilian population. The Marines were in charge of this and, at first glance, it was a marvel of efficiency. The citizens were brought in an AS-500 load at a time. They were identified, given an ID/rations tag and assigned to a bunker. Each bunker could hold 500 citizens or up to 2000 in an emergency.
The heavy Marine brigade’s engineer battalion commander briefed that they could build three bunkers a day, using plasteel forms and metal flaked structural foam. Once they were covered with 4 feet of dirt and hydro seeded with colored shredded straw they blended into the forest and were impervious to sensor probes. The engineer battalions in the other two brigades could build 2 per day each, and the Templar Corps engineer battalion one a day. He stressed that volunteers were joining in and they expected to double those numbers tomorrow, when civilian construction equipment arrived. In the interim, trenches were being dug that would provide cover under the tree canopy for thousands more.
Maynard did the math quickly in his head and remarked that in only a month they would have shelter for the entire population.
The battalion commander, a long time dirt digging engineer, asked, “Would you rather we did nothing, sir?”
Steven realizing his attempt at gallows humor went awry, said, “Certainly not, Colonel, and I meant no insult to you and your men’s efforts. I just hope the K’Rang give us enough time to complete these preparations. On behalf of our government and the population you will save, you have our undying gratitude.”
Steven moved on, spoke to some former captives and members of the brotherhood. He assured them the K’Rang fleet was being whittled down by the hour and that Barataria had some pretty formidable defenses in the form of the Templar Brigade and the Marine allies. He pointed out that Baratarian forces in conjunction with the Fleet had already destroyed over half the K’Rang fleet.
He moved on to a clearing with a hover ship waiting, and climbed on board. They moved to the three planetary defense system installations and were briefed on them in turn. He saw the sector each site monitored and the sensor picture provided by the fleet sensor grid. He asked if it might be wise to place the three sites equidistant around the planet. The site commander explained that the K’Rang had no assault landing ships or forces, so they would be concentrating their fire on the civil or defense centers if they reached orbit. The goal was to knock out as many ships as possible before K’Rang destroyed the installations.
Steven thanked them for defending the planet and boarded the hover ship to take him to his Defense HQ.
Sally Halstead evacuated early. The Ruin View custom
er base dried up when all the captains flew off to battle and the senior Brotherhood members deployed to their wartime jobs. She found a scene of relative efficiency as groups of evacuees were brought in 100 at a time and stood in line for inprocessing. She was determined to do no such thing.
She pointed her nose in the direction of the dining facility and volunteered her services. When they figured out that this short, slightly pear-shaped woman was THE Sally Halstead, they put her immediately to work. In two days, she had increased evacuee and camp personnel morale. She was able to ramp up her production to feed thousands by training and supervising all the military cooks. Items that would never make it into a military recipe guide were served daily. Even though her meals were high quality, they were not high cost or unavailable to those with special dietary needs.
Sally had a habit of making suggestions to the head engineer colonel whenever he passed through her line. She helped them in making more shelters faster, by suggesting they link them together, rather than making them all free standing. This increased their production by one-third because they built three for every two they constructed. They even got an assembly line going once they had the use of the civilian construction equipment and personnel.
The best news was when they finally had a top end total on the number of evacuees. The number was less than 90,000. The Brotherhood members preferred to self evacuate to lodges or vacation homes they had scattered throughout the outlying areas. This left only the former captives to be sheltered.
Sally suggested they could fit more into each bunker if they used stacked bunk beds. When the Colonel said they didn’t happen to have 45,000 bunk beds, she suggested they build them. Barataria had portable sawmills and the Marines were cutting down trees. There was all this unemployed labor sitting around. The Colonel saw there was no evading her or faulting her logic. He put a captain on it to get it started and turned it over to the evacuees. Trees were dragged into place and fed through the portable saw mills, cut to length, drilled for bolt holes and rope holes, assembled, roped to hold up the mattress and moved into place. Another line assembled the mattresses. Pretty soon almost all 100 shelters had bunk beds and 90,000 former captives had safe, clean shelters. Overhead reconnaissance showed they were even fairly well blended into the forest. The engineers switched from shelters to living conditions and started building sanitation facilities to replace the more primitive early facilities. Hot and cold running water and showers replaced buckets and soapy rags.
The heavy K’Rang task force was pressing hard to find the path to Barataria. At half FTL speed, they blew through autonomous minefields designed for vessels traveling at much slower speeds. Even the F-48s had trouble getting into firing positions on them. Two Undefeated class cutters managed to take out a fighter defense frigate that got too far out on the flank of the formation, but the ships kept leaking through. Finally the two A-76 squadrons got in front of the formation and let loose all 288 missiles. That slowed down the task force as the Shadow Force destroyer’s defensive capability was overloaded and it ran out of defensive missiles before the A-76’s ran out of offensive missiles. The formation lost all cohesion as the following ships swerved in all directions to avoid the burning hulk of the destroyer, suddenly slowing to a stop from the multiple missile strikes. They quickly reformed though and pressed on.
Fleet Commander J’Kalt still had the sensors of the Shadow Force heavy cruiser. He pushed his small force to move ever forward to the source of the electronic signature of a Human world that was growing stronger as they moved forward.
Admiral Minacci had an idea. He had standard dumb mines in his supply ship. These were proximity mines and didn’t care what speed you were going. They just stood in your way and blew up when you hit them. He called Captain Chang and gave him some interesting orders. In two hours, he had accomplished his mission.
The light task force was moving slower, but having the same bad luck. The mines were causing them problems, but they had some luck blasting through them. The torpedoes were more of a problem. Their defensive missiles were running out, but the torpedo ships kept coming. The two fighter defense frigates had only enough missiles for one more salvo of torpedoes. After that, they had only guns to ward off the torpedoes. Captain H’Rak pushed forward as best he could.
At the next junction in the gravity maze, he saw something new. A different type of mine he’d not seen before was arrayed in large numbers across their path. H’Rak knew it was a trap, but had yet to decide how to proceed when the remaining gun frigate called, frantically saying that a torpedo squadron just appeared behind them and was advancing rapidly. H’Rak turned the task force to the right down the clear path. H’Rak knew he was being herded, but had no other option.
J’Kalt saw a similar sight in his path. Large mines, as yet unseen in this battle, appeared in their path, closing off the path going straight ahead. A-76’s appeared behind them and unleashed 144 missiles. J’Kalt increased speed and took the path to the left. The fighter defense frigate took down all the missiles with guns and defensive missiles, but he was now down to one half of one missile pod, not enough for another massed attack. J’Kalt did not have long to wait.
A squadron of the torpedo ships appeared on his port quarter. He had seen this attack profile before and turned his guns to face the threat. The torpedo ships flew into max range for their torpedoes, fired off a salvo, and turned away before they came into missile range. He looked over the sensor operator’s shoulder and saw the torpedo ships release their torpedoes, the same as every other time. The only anomaly was that there were fewer torpedoes this time. They must be running low. Good!
Squadron Commander Leon George led his four Scylla straight at the heavy cruiser. They flew in and amongst the 48 torpedoes launched by the eight Charybdis. The defensive fire from the K’Rang ships had not started yet. They must be running low on missiles.
As they approached, the cruiser opened fire. Plasma bursts and particle beams reached out and attempted to hit the torpedoes. Every third shot, it seemed, hit one of the torpedoes and set them off. Leon calmed his three other pilots and had them fall back slightly. He saw defensive missiles leave the pods on the defensive frigate. As the missiles homed in on the torpedoes ahead of them, Leon called out, “Let’s go,” and pushed his throttle to the stop. The four Scylla formed up into two-ship formations as they dropped down below the cloud of remaining torpedoes, and surged forward toward the heavy cruiser. The defensive missiles flew over them after the torpedoes. They were now in between the defensive missiles and the cruiser. All he had to do was to survive for half the remaining distance to the cruiser.
Leon’s sensors saw guns on the cruiser start to move to point in his direction. He called to his flight to go evasive. The four ships executed a complicated set of dives, climbs, and rolls, complicating the gun director’s job to the point of impossibility. Unable to fire directly on the torpedo ships, the K’Rang switched to area bombardment. This was only slightly more effective.
Almost to the release point, Leon gave a five second countdown and ordered his ships to fire, after which they were released to get back to base as best they could. Sixteen torpedoes streaked toward the cruiser. These were souped-up torpedoes, faster than normal torpedoes by a factor of four. The torpedo ships broke in all directions and increased speed to clear the area before the K’Rang got their range. Leon looped back to the way he had come, to watch the effect of the torpedoes.
The torpedoes sped toward the cruiser. The cruiser’s close in defense system took out eight, but the other four sped on. Two torpedoes hit the heavy cruiser behind the bridge and took out the rear facing guns and rear missile bay. Two torpedoes went high and missed the heavy cruiser, but hit the light cruiser just below the bridge and in the bow. The light cruiser split into several pieces and tumbled through space. The remaining three torpedoes from the initial salvo plowed into the burning hulk of the light cruiser.
J’Kalt picked himself up off the deck. He took over the ne
arest sensor monitor and scanned for any further attacks. He saw only the retreating torpedo ships. So, the Humans still have tricks to play. So did he.
J’Kalt called the captain to get a damage report. The aft gun turret was destroyed, as was the aft missile pod. There were no missiles, so that was no loss. Ten crewmen in the aft turret control center lost their lives in the explosion. Considering it could have been worse, those were acceptable losses.
Now J’Kalt had to determine what trap the Humans were up to, directing their path as they were. He knew it would not be in their best interests, and he needed to figure it out sooner rather than later.
Captain Alden had some difficulty reforming his fleet. Many of the captains felt their mission was over when Fleet rescued Mrs. Debran. He reminded them they hadn’t yet been paid and they still were under contract to Mr. Debran. 26 ships rendezvoused with him at the entrance to the star cluster and followed him in. He thought to himself, “How could they be finished when their four operatives were still on the surface?”
They approached Barataria carefully and called for planet clearance long before they came into defense system range. At first the Baratarian controller told them to go away, they had entered a war zone. Alden told them he had 26 warships and four fighters to add to their defense, courtesy of Mr. Friedrich Debran, and their tone changed dramatically.
Maynard himself came on the circuit and granted them permission to enter planet orbit and did they need to land. Captain Alden said they did as some of their ships lacked true living quarters. Maynard turned them back over to the controller and thanked them for their timely appearance. The controller guided them into Lafitte City’s spaceport where four operatives, alerted by coded transmission, awaited a ride off planet.
First Command kb-2 Page 27