by Terry Mixon
The woman blinked. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
Brad nodded. “Yes, I do. Chain of command is extremely important when the torpedoes are flying. Someone might be inclined to argue with Director Kernsky, but they’ll be less inclined to fight Admiral Kernsky. You’re not going to be sitting in an office or board room now. You’re going to be on the command deck of a ship, just like the last time you fought the Cadre.”
“Why Rear Admiral? Why not just Commodore like everyone else under your command?”
He laughed. “Have you seen how many mercenary companies are commanded by Commodores? You can’t throw a rock without hitting one. No, if you’re going to be in charge of units commanded by Commodores, you need to be an Admiral.”
She shrugged slightly. “Whatever works, let’s just do it.”
“Make sure you dig up something that will work as uniform, Admiral. You’ll also want to get the board to agree that overall command needs to be in the hands of someone with that temporary rank just to make everything legal.”
After she nodded, Brad turned his attention to the other officers awaiting his attention. “Information has come into my possession that indicates the OWA refueling facility is in the trailing Trojans. In addition, we may have a way to locate the base more precisely without looking like we’re doing so.
“It’s going to require a little trust on your parts because I’m not ready to reveal the details of precisely how were going to locate the facility, due to the classified nature of the source of the data. You’ll just have to take my word that it comes from someone I trust. Two someones, actually.”
“So, with all this secrecy, what exactly can you tell us about your plan?” Bailey asked, her voice mildly sarcastic.
“That we’re going to send a group into the trailing Trojans to await a signal. Scouting forces that you don’t know about will nose about, and when they find where the base is located, they’re going to summon us.
“The problem is that we can’t seem as if we’re focusing our attention there. The OWA can’t realize that were on to them or they’re going to bring in whatever defenses they have in the area. If they think we’re searching and won’t locate them, they’ll stay quiet and we’ll have the opportunity to smash them.”
Commodore Nuremberg’s eyes narrowed. “You keep saying we as if you’re going to be there. You’re not planning on going along on this mission, are you, Admiral?”
He nodded. “I understand that I’m responsible for the entire fleet, but if we don’t destroy the OWA refueling station, the Inner System is going to fall. I’ve got to oversee this operation and make certain that it’s successful, or everything else we do is for nothing.
“I’ll directly command this particular group of ships while the majority of the fleet remains here at Io. Just to keep from announcing our interest in the trailing Trojans, we’ll send a small group of ships to search the leading Trojans. That’s probably a good idea in any case, simply because we don’t know if they have something there as well.”
“Which ships are you planning on taking?” Commodore Jahoda asked.
“We’ll start with your ships, Commodore. We’ll add in half of Commodore Bailey’s units, commanded directly by her. Those numbers shouldn’t stand out too greatly.”
“And exactly how are you going to prevent people from realizing that you’re no longer here at Io?” Nuremberg asked.
“Sleight-of-hand,” Brad said with a grin. “I’m going to swap transponder codes with Commodore Jahoda’s cruiser. For all intents and purposes, anyone that looks at what ships are still here will see me parked in orbit.
“I understand that this is not what you want to see your commanding Admiral do, but this is what’s happening. We’re going to have one chance to find the OWA’s secret refueling base and destroy it. I don’t intend to waste it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The extraction from Io went off without a hitch. Brad had been worried for the first twenty-four hours that someone might have spotted the switch between the two cruisers’ identities, but no one seemed to notice.
Standard traffic between the forces headed for the trailing Trojans, and the fleet gave him the opportunity to handle basic communications with the people that needed to hear from him, though at some delay. He of course never participated in real-time communications so as not to reveal his absence.
Falcone had told Commodore Buckley that she would lead the way with her forces to begin the scouting mission and contact Brad only when she had something to report. The woman seemed pleased that she would have a way of detecting the location of the missing Doctors’ Guild ship but was rightfully worried that the responding signal would be detected.
Brad hoped that she was overthinking it, but past events had proven that they couldn’t count on luck alone. The chances of the OWA forces’ detecting the signals existed, and if they did spot them, no one knew precisely how they would respond or with what.
As the signals would be coming in on an unknown frequency, and in a band that was normally not monitored, a single pulse would likely not make them too suspicious. If they detected the response from the doctors’ ship, all that changed.
The settlements and stations in the trailing Trojans were spread out over a fairly wide area, so his forces could not be in a position to respond to all locations. He also needed to present the appearance of searching the area for himself.
To do that, he’d decided to keep his main force together and send out the smaller ships to look at the most remote areas. That meant that he could take the larger strength of his task force through the more central area of the Trojans.
The first two days of the search proceeded without incident or breakthrough. Then, just after breakfast on the third day, his flagship received a tightbeam communication with codes belonging to the Agency.
Once Brad decoded the information, Kate Falcone’s image appeared on his desktop screen. She was grinning.
“We found them. A mid-sized out-of-the-way station called Warren’s Folly. It’s listed in the database as a mining facility owned by a collective of miners.
“One of my drones passed by at a fairly high rate of speed and sent the signal when it was on its way past the small body that they are supposedly mining. The responding signal from the doctors’ ship was unmistakable. As per the plan, the drone immediately sent the signal to turn the transponder off and circled around to see if there was any reaction.
“It appears that the bastards didn’t notice the signal, or they decided it wasn’t intended for them. They certainly didn’t hear the beacon, or that would have set them off. My professional opinion is that we managed to get a clean hit on them without them noticing us in return.”
Brad smiled. That was excellent news. Still, it was only half of the problem.
As if she were reading his mind, Falcone continued. “I’ve called back most of the recon drones I had out and I’ve retasked them with searching the general area around this mining station. I haven’t had any hits yet, but I’m certain we’re going to find that the OWA has ships in the area to defend their base.
“The trick is going to be finding them without them spotting the drones. Admittedly, they’re not going to be using active sensors and the recon drones are damned stealthy, so I think we’re going to manage to get the jump on them. The only question is going to be how large their guard force is.
“This base is critical to their mission of attacking the Inner System. If it gets taken out before they refuel their fleet, it puts everything they want to accomplish in jeopardy. That means they’re going to have a force to be reckoned with.
“Once I get more information, I’ll send it to you. You can send a return signal via tight beam on the course that this transmission came from and I’ll get it. Falcone out.”
Her final words tempered Brad’s enthusiasm with a little realism. This was not going to be an operation where he could just attack the base by surprise and take it out. No. H
e’d have to take the ships that would respond into account as well.
That meant there would be two simultaneous operations in progress. Once he was in position to attack the base, he’d send his ground forces with as little warning as possible. That gave the best chance to recover any prisoners they might have and to take the facility in as good a condition as possible.
While that assault was happening, he was going to have to use his ships to come down hard on the OWA guard force. His attack would also have to happen from stealth.
The timing was going to be tricky, and if either group discovered his presence before he was ready to carry out the dual attacks, it could turn the entire affair into a bloodbath.
Sometimes, one just had to trust in the process. His people knew what they were doing. If anyone could execute their attacks in such a way that it took out both enemies, they could. Now all he had to do was wait for Falcone to tell him how ugly the odds were going to be.
The odds turned out to be tilted in the enemy’s favor more than Brad had hoped. It took Falcone twelve hours to locate where the OWA forces were hiding, and then another twelve to fully scout their positions and gauge their strength.
While it was difficult to determine the precise makeup of the enemy ships hiding in the darkness, they had as many cruisers as he’d brought with him and almost five times as many smaller ships, though fewer destroyers than he’d feared.
That would make a stand-up fight a chancy affair. If he was able to ambush them, he could probably take them out without too much damage to his ships. If they became aware of his presence, they could potentially beat the ships that he brought with him.
No matter what he decided to do, he was going to have to execute his plans carefully. Timing was going to be critical.
There were also a steady stream of ships coming from all over the trailing Trojan cluster, probably delivering things to the refueling station that was still under construction. Once the stealth drones had gotten a good look at the mining facility, they’d been able to determine where the hidden tanks were being placed and just how large they were going to be.
The size of the operation brought home to him that the OWA might just be bringing even more ships than he’d been preparing for. What had looked like it was going to be a difficult fight against the OWA might end up being a last stand against overwhelming odds before his inevitable death. Jupiter might just become his Thermopylae.
He summoned more of his fleet units to join him. They’d come in small groups so as not to be noticed by the enemy. With any luck, he’d be ready to strike in forty-eight hours. If he could hold out until then, he might be able to bring the hammer down without undue risk to his forces.
They now needed to capture the refueling station intact. Someone down there knew exactly what forces were going to be needing fuel.
For that matter, why just fuel? That base was probably loaded with munitions to rearm the OWA after the fight in the Jovian system. Its loss could be very painful for the enemy, but with the forces it implied, that might not stop them from conquering the Commonwealth. He had to know for sure.
Once he had his ships in motion, he sent a message to Falcone expressing his concerns and asking if they could meet. A few hours later, she told him to expect her shortly.
She arrived just after dinner in a small fleet shuttle that just coasted in out of the darkness, giving them the agreed-upon passcode. He waited for her in the landing bay after having shooed everyone else out. There was no need to blow her cover unnecessarily.
Falcone stepped out of the shuttle, dressed in the fleet uniform of a Lieutenant Commander, and saluted him sharply. “Reporting as ordered, sir!”
He chuckled at her antics and gestured for her to proceed him into the ship’s corridor. “I’ve already taken the precaution of clearing a direct route to my office, so there’s no need to worry that someone’s going to spot you, Kate.”
“I’m not exactly worried about anyone figuring out who I am,” she said after she stepped up beside him. “It’s more habit at this point. All the bad guys know who I am, since they had the Agency penetrated so deeply. It’s almost like I’m playacting at being a spy rather than being one.”
They made it to his office without any interruptions and he soon had her seated at the small table off to the side of his desk. Once she’d made her selection, he poured them both drinks and then sat across from her.
“This is going to be delicate,” he said after taking a sip of the excellent whiskey. “I’ve got more ships coming in to help us take care of the guard force, but the timing is going to be a royal pain. We’re going to have to hit the base after we get into position to ambush the OWA ships.
“If we don’t position everything just the way we need, the assault forces going to be in danger or the ships we hope to take out from stealth are going to bring their defenses online and give us a lot more of a fight than we’d counted on.”
She nodded and set her glass on the table after taking a sip of her own. “It’s more complicated than that. We need to get the assault forces down to the mining station and into position as quickly as possible while still keeping the enemy unaware that we’re doing so.
“Just looking at the size of the refueling installation, I suspect that your brother has a few more ships than he’s admitted to possessing. Somewhere down there, someone knows the exact force mix that he’s bringing into play. Having that information is absolutely critical to the survival of the Commonwealth.”
“It would be nice to have,” he admitted, “but at this point, I’m not certain that knowing it makes that much of a difference. I’m not certain that the fight is survivable, so victory in this case just means stopping them from obliterating Mars and Earth.
“Immortal and her battle group alone can very likely destroy the majority of our forces. All of the other ships that they’ll be bringing with them just guarantee their success in seizing the Jovian system.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Falcone said. “I have some information that you’re not aware of that might possibly give us a small chance at taking Immortal out of the fight.”
“If it involves bringing Amaranthine out from Earth, I don’t think that’s going to make any real difference. Yes, she’s a battleship, but she’s so far out of date that she’s not going to move the needle very far. We might have had a chance with Eternal, but that’s why they smuggled nukes aboard her.”
Falcone shook her head. “I understand that. No, I’m talking about a system on board Immortal herself. Specifically, an anti-mutiny override. That would basically take the entire battleship off-line.”
“It sure would’ve been nice if they’d managed to activate it when the mutiny actually happened,” Brad grumbled. “I’m not sure how it can help us now. Is it something that can be activated remotely?”
“No. It’s going to require physical access to either the Admiral’s office or the flag bridge. Based on what we know about Vice Admiral Wu, we don’t think he went over to the other side. That means they killed him quickly enough that he had no time to activate the anti-mutiny override.
“Based on his ego, it’s our assessment that Jack Mantruso has registered himself with the battleship’s computer as its new flag officer. That puts the override under his control.”
“That’s still not very helpful,” Brad said. “I doubt we can trick him into activating it.”
She smiled. “Probably not. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t found a way to trigger the override. All we have to do is get it on board Immortal, into the admiral’s office or flag bridge, and activate it. That would take the biggest piece off the board.”
“Is that all?” Brad asked with a tad more sarcasm than he probably should’ve used. “I’m sorry, Kate. That’s just crazy. If we try to get anywhere near that battleship to land troops, they’ll blow us out of space.”
“I never said it would be easy. I just said it would be possible. We believe that we’ve worked out a method to get a smal
l boarding party over to Immortal without being seen. Getting them back out again would mean winning the fight, though.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” Brad said grimly.
“Perhaps. There’s also another little twist. This mission is going to require your personal touch. Quite literally.”
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“The override is genetically coded,” Falcone said. “It’s designed to detect the appropriate flag officer before activating. That means that Jack Mantruso is the only one that can activate it under normal circumstances.
“We believe that we have a method that will allow someone with a close genetic link to activate it as well. Since the only other person that has the all-important genome sequences is you, that means you’re going to have to lead this ‘suicide mission.’”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brad listened to Falcone’s crazy plan and tried to see how it could be anything other than a long, convoluted way to commit suicide, but he just wasn’t able to do it. What she’d proposed was an act of pure desperation. He’d do it if he had to, but it would have to be his absolute last option before he’d agree to do it.
In the meantime, he had to deal with more realistic problems. Knowing exactly where the OWA forces were located at least made an ambush possible, but that didn’t make it easy. He’d have to maneuver his forces very carefully to avoid being detected on approach.
If the enemy spotted him coming in, the fight would be on. With their strength, he couldn’t afford to do this the hard way. He had to avoid giving them any warning at all if he wanted this to work, and that meant dealing with a problem that he knew existed, even though none of his people had spotted it yet.