by Ryan Krauter
She looked at the data, then turned to Loren with a grin on her face.
“I assume this is good news?” Loren asked.
“Yes, yes it is,” she replied. “Doubly so for me, though. It’s Torino and her sisters inbound.” She made a display of checking her wrist chrono. “Twelve minutes, by my watch. I do believe twelve is closer to ten than fifteen.”
Loren, acknowledging the loss of the bet, nodded with pursed lips. “Well, if parting with some booze gets reinforcements here faster than planned, I’ll take that bet any day.”
Torino and her two sister Assault Ships approached rapidly, having exited hyperspace as close to the planet as her drives allowed. Escorted by a screen of a half dozen cruisers, they took up station in high geostationary orbit above Carlor’s capital city. Primans tended to occupy the capital as well as the largest couple spaceports within a few hundred miles of the capital, and contented themselves with blockading the other major cities unless the situation dictated otherwise. At least it made it easy to formulate a ground attack plan.
At the same time, supply ships and tenders-as well as a collection of cruisers and even a battleship- appeared right behind them, units that had missed the jumping-off time for the assault but had been sent in as reinforcements to the Assault Ship division.
That appeared to be unnecessary, as the Priman fleet was essentially finished as a fighting unit and, in what might have been a first, had units that were actually surrendering. It might have had to do with all the ships that had been sending out coordinating signals being destroyed. Early thoughts were that, without the strong central control or presence of their theater commanders, the average Priman soldier wasn’t in a hurry to explore the afterlife any more than a Confed one was. With the remaining healthy ships safely in hyperspace, the ones that had held off the rampaging Confed fleet had called an all-stop and broadcast a surrender message. Admiral Illam was taking it slow with these ships on the off chance they were booby-trapped, but the opportunity for a large influx of prisoners and captured technology was too irresistible to pass up. The Ninth Fleet had taken losses, to be sure, for a cornered enemy was often the fiercest, but the Carlor System was in the hands of the Confederation now, no contest. There remained the details of patrols, pickets, the lifeguard duty of picking up survivors from both sides, and of course, securing the surface. That was the job of the Marines. They would find out if the Primans on the ground had a sense of self-preservation now that they could see their orbiting forces were gone.
Warfare on the galactic scale presented problems when it came to claiming a planet. It would be beyond the logistics of any army to occupy every planet they had claimed- the manpower required would simply be overwhelming. However, with warships orbiting the planet, the task became fairly straightforward. If your ships owned the airspace, the planet was blockaded. Once that was done, the occupying force needed to hold the capital city, more to show the inhabitants who was in charge than for any other reason. From that position, they really held the ability to control the overall disposition of the planet.
The Primans seemed to hold the same philosophy, Loren noted from C3. He stood statuelike in front of the large display screen on the starboard bulkhead. Pre-mission intelligence as well as current analyses of the planet showed a garrison of roughly five thousand Priman troops on the surface, concentrated in two bases on the North and South edges of the city as well as the primary spaceport. The three Assault Ships, orbiting high above the capital, dropped dozens of loaded dropships stuffed with troops into the airspace above the city. The Assault Ship’s huge surface bombardment guns had sanitized the area around the bases on the city’s outskirts, and now tracked the surface looking for Primans who wanted to keep the fight on.
The dropships trailed streaming wakes of fire as they plummeted through the atmosphere. Luckily, there were either no Priman anti-aircraft batteries intact or operating, for there was no ground fire during the entry. The ships leveled out at one thousand feet just outside the city limits and approached their targets at just over twice the speed of sound.
Upon reaching their targets, the ships used their retro thrusters, thrust reversers, and speed brakes to bring themselves to almost a standstill in just a few heartbeats, subjecting the Marines to several crushing G’s of force. They took it as a badge of honor, however, and often asked the pilots to try harder to make someone pass out.
Hovering over their objectives and then rapidly settling to the ground, the rear and side doors opened, releasing thousands of Marines. With their adaptive camouflage powered armor on, they stood over seven feet tall, and each carried the venerable HMR-12 assault rifle, some with guided grenade attachments underneath.
“Move it!” yelled the Marine Captain in charge of the spaceport landings over the comm net. He urged them on faster as his troops streamed out of the dropships and on to their objectives, which included everything from fuel farms to hangar areas. “Dammit,” he made a show of exclaiming to those hear him, “this place smells like ass! I blame the Primans.”
His XO, standing next to him, smiled and clicked over to their private frequency. “We are between a fuel farm and waste reclamation point,” she said with a smirk. “It might not be entirely their fault.”
“I still blame them, and you know I won’t be satisfied until the bullet train to the afterlife has a full load of Primans aboard,” he replied with a straight face, though they both knew he wasn’t as bloodthirsty as he maintained. Well, not quite as bloodthirsty…
The area of greatest contention was the Northern base, where apparently the largest barracks as well as a shuttle staging area was located. It seemed like many of them had been preparing to head out to the wilderness to set up shop far away from the landing Confeds, but between the Marines on the ground and the recently-arrived Intruder air cover, most of the Primans were contained on the ground in or around the base.
The Captain was surveying the operation on his large handheld datapad, and he decreed it to be good. The Primans were fighting hardest in the North, but he felt confident enough to send the encrypted ‘clear to land’ signal for reinforcements. He was under orders to get the occupation forces on the ground and operational as quickly as possible, which meant clearing the spaceport and setting up security so they could land the folks who would administer things in the interim.
“Captain,” his XO said over their comms as she walked his way. She was trailing a middle aged man wearing the uniform of the Carlorian security forces, followed by another Marine as an escort for the man.
“Yes, XO?” he replied.
“I have a Colonel Lawson of Regional Security here,” she began before she’d met up with him. Her powered armor allowed her to cover a lot of distance with each stride, and the Colonel was doing his best to keep up without resorting to the indignity of running after her. “His ID checks; we have access to a lot of the planetary records already.”
The Captain noticed the Colonel grimaced slightly at this, but the look passed quickly.
The Marine took off his helmet and armored gloves, holding everything in his left hand so he could extend his right for a handshake. “Colonel Lawson, I’m Captain Revell, Confed Marines.”
“It goes without saying I’m very pleased to meet you,” the man returned with the beginnings of a smile.
“Looks like you’re the senior Talaran military officer around here, so I’d like to keep you around to get some advice while we clean up this infestation of Primans you seem to have.”
“I can get behind that,” he replied. “Do you have any ideas what the plans are for Carlor in the near future?”
The Captain knew only what little he was told by his superiors, which didn’t include the authorization to tell local forces anything. Still, he couldn’t blame the man for wondering. It was understandable that he be worried about how long it would be before Confed would set up a new Talaran government on the planet.
“Not really. I know we’ve just called in our admin nerds
, who will work on straightening the place out in the short term. After that, I assume we’ll contact your government and go from there. That’s not really my area, though, so I don’t want to make any promises on anything.”
“Thank you, Captain. I wonder where you’ll even send a message to, what with our capital essentially in chaos.”
The Marine understood. The Priman operation against Talar had gone even better than it had against the Confed capital of Delos. Whereas the Primans had kidnapped the Confed government, they had engineered a complete meltdown of the Talaran economy, and most of their worlds were operating independently. He had no idea himself where they’d send the invite to.
It was nighttime on Delos. Rain fell from the skies, not in the gentle wash that helped one sleep and refreshed the air, but in a driving downpour. Sheets of rain pounded windows, thunder made buildings rumble, and the planet itself seemed to be upset. Hopefully it didn’t have anything to do with the actions of the man looking out of his window at this moment…
Zek Dennix considered that from his office on the Capitol building. Finally, after three weeks of tests, inspections, and everything short of a séance to ask the dead, the planet had been deemed clear of booby traps or other surprises left by the retreating Primans. He was now right where he was supposed to be- the senior Senatorial offices right in the heart of Capital City.
He thumbed the ring on his finger that had once belonged to Ples Damar, the Priman spy who had tried to turn him to their side. Though Damar was now dead, Dennix kept the ring and wore it on the middle finger of his right hand. It had gained him points with the public, showing the image of their Senator mourning the loss of a friend and colleague. He also knew that some sort of tech in the ring had helped mask Ples’s Priman physiology to cursory scans, and had decided to keep that information to himself. Considering Damar’s true identity as a Priman, it also served as a reminder to pick his friends carefully.
Three weeks had passed since Delos had been liberated, and three weeks of unrelenting planning, deal-making, and scheming had followed. With his aide Enric Shae, formerly of the Confed Navy, they had worked hard to solidify Dennix’s base of power.
With the leadership of Confed’s various worlds and organizations kidnapped or killed in the beginning of the war, Dennix had worked tirelessly to get new people in office who shared his point of view. Better yet were people who owed him favors and debts. Some places, he’d loudly endorsed a candidate in special elections held to fill open seats. Other times, he’d been able to get someone in office simply by vouching for them. Others took promises and deals, offers of favors and power to trade, but in the end, he was satisfied.
It all led to this, right now. Tonight, there was a special session of the Senate where one of his appointees would introduce a bill to form a short term Governing Committee. While normally Confed was governed by revolving committees of various power and different jurisdictions, tonight he would find himself and five others elected by emergency decree to form a Committee to be the short term authority, with the power to make all major decisions, while Confed fought not only the Primans but also to stabilize their own society.
Zek Dennix didn’t expect to be Dictator For Life or any such nonsense, but anyone who couldn’t see this opportunity was a fool. This was his one, shining moment, his chance to shape Confed into the form he’d always envisioned, to steer policy that would be carried out long after he was forced to let these impending emergency powers go.
And he did have a plan.
As if on cue, Enric Shae entered the office after tapping on the doorframe gently. There was only on person who had the access codes to enter the Senator’s inner offices, and that was Mr. Shae. He approached the Senator with a confident air and presented the man with a datapad.
“The operation at Carlor was a success, Senator,” Enric began. Originally an officer in Confed’s Navy, Enric Shae had accepted a permanent detachment as the Senator’s aide just after the man’s rescue off Callidor. The man’s ambitions and intentions were clear, and he was now the Senator’s go-to man.
“Wonderful news, Enric,” Dennix replied pleasantly. While the idea to take Carlor hadn’t been his own idea, he had heartily endorsed it for reasons which were no doubt very different than those that drove the Navy.
“The Navy is wondering about arrangements, sir,” Shae continued. “They have some Talaran military personnel on Carlor, as well as some of their government people. The Admirals are wondering about occupation details. Specifically, they want to know how long it will be before we hand the planet back over to the Talarans.”
“We aren’t going to give it back.” stated Dennix simply.
Loren stood at attention in the port side shuttle bay, flanked by a squad of Marines in shipboard assault gear. Avenger had hangar decks for its’ fighters, but there wasn’t a lot of room to spare, so the Crusader design had a side-facing shuttle bay on each of its’ large sublight engine pods for just this purpose.
He checked the large chrono displayed on the primary systems monitor near the hatch, then looked closer at the display itself. It showed the region immediately surrounding Avenger, and the sensors were tracking an inbound shuttle.
Right on cue, Loren turned to watch the forcefield that was holding out the deadly vacuum of space just in time to see a Freedom class transport appear alongside. The shuttle matched speeds with Avenger, then rotated to point into the bay and accelerated slowly until the computer-controlled tractor beam took over. The pilot dropped the landing skids as soon as the ship was inside the field.
Loren nodded to the techs manning the hangar’s systems, and the blast door closed, after which the forcefield was deactivated. The forcefield was pretty and seeing out into space was awe-inspiring, but Loren had never met anyone who trusted their lives to the temporary nature of an electromagnetic field instead of the solid safety of thick armored blast doors.
The shuttle settled on its’ gear, then powered down. Immediately, the rear hatch opened and the boarding ramp dropped, revealing the guests within.
Escorted down the ramp by another squad of Marines were half a dozen Priman prisoners. Marines lugged along several large crates and equipment containers that didn’t strike Loren as Confed in design.
The Marine in charge marched up to Loren and saluted, a gesture Loren returned.
“Captain Taya Skobra, requesting permission to come aboard.” the Marine identified herself dutifully.
“Welcome aboard, Captain,” Loren replied with a smile as he dropped the salute. “I’m Commander Stone, the XO. I hear you have some gifts for us?”
“Sure do, Sir,” she replied. “System pickets found a number of ships like the one these guys were on, though this is the only one that was actually captured. Most had self destructed or had crews that suicided, but it looks like these guys had a malfunctioning demo charge, and the only weapon we could find was a knife, so I guess nobody wanted to slit their own throat.”
“Too bad,” Loren muttered.
“Actually, it’s great news, Sir.” The Marine was in good cheer, and Loren hoped he would soon know why. “This unit was doing all sorts of data analysis, everything from analyzing the Talaran equipment on the planet to comparisons of their stuff versus ours and their own.”
“I’m imagining the possibilities,” Loren conceded thoughtfully. As someone approaching a possible interrogation, knowing about their choice of capture over death was useful as well.
“Anyway, we plugged our computers into their gear in those crates there and ran the standard diagnostics, and it sent up a few flags. There were hits on search strings involving the terms Commander, Delos, Dennix, and DNA, to name a few.”
Loren stopped breathing for a second when he heard the phrase DNA. There was nothing more important in this life than finding a cure to the DNA virus that had infected his wife and everyone on Toral, and if these Primans had any information at all in that regard, he would find it out.
“They thought t
heir computers were scrubbed clean,” the Marine continued proudly, “but our computer techs managed to dig out some material. The problem is, even the deleted files are protected. Since Avenger is one of the Ninth’s ships tasked with data mining, we figured you’d like a crack at this bunch.”
How true that was, Loren thought. Avenger, partly because of the reputation she’d earned in the role of discovering the secret documents and transmissions from Admiral Bak’s computer, was among a handful of ships specifically tasked with processing any new intel discovered in the field. Her operational orders gave her some leeway in how to respond to new developments, which gave Loren the slim hope that if anything ever developed from their efforts, Avenger would also take part in any operation to solve the DNA virus problem.
“Thank you, Captain, this is good news,” Loren said gratefully. There were some officers who would have made a bigger deal of making sure their name was attached to something like capturing potentially useful prisoners, but not Captain Skobra. Whether she knew it or not, she’d get a heaping plate full of praise in Loren’s report for her timely judgment.
Loren turned and looked at his own detachment of Marines. “Take these jokers to the brig, and prep the interrogation rooms. The usual procedures.”
The Marines took the six Primans, who were quiet but had an air of professionalism and maybe even a little defiance. Good, Loren thought, that will hopefully make it easier to shock them into coughing up what they know once they start to appreciate the gravity of their situation.
The standard procedures involved separating them, stripping them of anything other than their basic uniforms, and lacing the air in their cells with a very mild combination of several drugs. Confed scientists, due to a relative lack of prisoners, were only marginally sure of the exact Priman physiology. They took their best guess, however, and brewed up a concoction that was supposed to make a person a fun mix of tired, despondent, and less inhibited. Truly effective interrogation took weeks or months and involved everything from drugs to sleep deprivation , altered circadian rhythm, and more, but Loren only had until Avenger reached the Ninth Fleet’s current homebase system, which left him with about five hours to work before he’d have to turn them over.