All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (35 page)

      Brad and his wingman lined up on the vector to the company and screamed in at Mach 1.3.
 
They made a quick pass over the target and slowed as they turned back to engage.
 
Armored gun vehicles besieged the company like the ones Ingrid engaged, but these could shoot.
 
Brad saw the hulls in the wood line on his monitor and sent his wingman to hit the line from the other end while he worked his way from this side.

      He waited for his wingman to get in position and opened fire.
 
Missiles took out three vehicles and his gun accounted for five more.
 
A burst of machine gun fires damaged the tail of the other AG-122 and it had to retire to the spaceport.
 
Brad remained and methodically destroyed the remaining vehicles.
 
He watched the surviving crews hobble off to the northeast, carrying their wounded.
 
The mechanized company commander gave him a big thank you and told Brad and Sheila he owed them a drink or three.

      As they were flying to the spaceport to join their unit, the radar warning light came on.
 
Both heads went on a swivel as Brad jinked the ship hard to the left and Sheila fired countermeasures.
 
One missile went after the decoys; the other came after Brad’s ship.
 
He jinked hard left again and came face to face with a T’Kab fighter trying to line up for another shot at them.
 
Sheila activated the tank killer gun and shot the large slow fighter out of the sky.
 
It was time to head to the spaceport.
 
It was getting dangerous out here, now that the T’Kab were getting organized.

* * * * *

      At mid-day, Angie received a mission change to fly top cover over the advancing 30th Armored and 68th Mech.
 
She pulled her squadrons back, landed them, and had them reloaded and checked for obvious wear and tear.
 
She kept one F-53 squadron to provide CAP for the battle fleet and paired an F-53 squadron and an A-76 squadron to defend against air or ground threats over the 30th and 68th.
 
Her attack craft fired their missiles against a T’Kab column moving towards the spaceport.
 
Her fighters shot down a squadron of attack craft not destroyed during a medium attack ship strike to their airfield earlier in the morning.

* * * * *

      S’Tera, the commodore in charge of the K’Rang flotilla, watching the left guard system, felt left out of the epic battle as the K’Rang and allies finally destroyed their age-old enemy.
 
He felt the T’Kab on this world were too timid to come up and fight him like warriors.
 
They were insects with the intellect and morals of an insect race.

       He crept closer and closer to the inhabited world, violating his orders to not approach the planet until the five K’Rang unified forces landed.
 
Then the carriers could be spared to support reduction of combat power on the two planets.
 
S’Tera hated working for the Humans.
 
They always hid behind their fighters and very rarely engaged in a straight up ship-to-ship fight, like true warriors.

       He moved his flotilla in even closer, trying to get into sensor range of the planet.
 
He suspected the Humans were hiding something about this planet.
 
He didn’t know what, but he wanted to find out.
 
Ever closer his flotilla advanced towards the world, until he was in orbit around it.
 
He had all ships activate all sensors and gather data.
 
If the Humans knew some secret about this place, he would know it, too.

      Unfortunately for S’Tera, the T’Kab home fleet knew about him before he knew about them.
 
The T’Kab home fleet commander saw them enter the system as the fleet returned from a training exercise in the far reaches of their star system.
 
She had the fleet orbit around the next rocky planet outward and watched the K’Rang flotilla go into orbit around the occupied planet in this system.
 
The ancient enemy had found them.
 
She must destroy them.

      The T’Kab commander waited until the flotilla was blinded on the far side of the planet and jumped her fleet to the night side of the occupied planet.
 
When the K’Rang Flotilla came around from the sun side of the planet, they were hit by missiles, plasma bubbles, high energy lasers and pulse cannons.
 
The armaments were obsolete, except when used at close range, but the cumulative effect made them pretty useful against modern shielding and armor.

      Two frigates blew up before S’Tera even knew he was under attack. By the time he knew what was happening, he had lost one of his destroyers.
 
He called a hasty contact report to Admiral Conover requesting assistance, but before the battle fleet could react, he ran for it.
 
The T’Kab Home Fleet (with 23 combatants) was in hot pursuit and he was leading them right to the battle fleet.

* * * * *

      Vice Admiral Conover couldn’t believe this idiot was bringing the T’Kab fleet directly to his fleet.
 
He sent a message to S’Tera, telling him to bear off, but he was either too scared or too stupid to realize what he was doing.
 
Conover sent an emergency sortie call to move his escorts between his carriers, landing ships, and support ships and the approaching T’Kab fleet.
 
He got his senior fighter force representative working up a strike package.
 
Now all he had to do was decide on which target to aim them, the T’Kab fleet or the fool leading them to him.

Chapter Seventeen

      Vice Admiral Conover looked at the order of battle of the fleet coming at him.
 
He counted out five battle cruisers, eight cruisers, five destroyers and five frigates.
 
None of them were armed with anything considered a modern weapon.
 
They all had that peculiar girder box construction, with no thought to esthetics or an outer pressure hull.
 
Ugly or not, they had good engines and would be here in less than a day.
 
He watched his ships move into Defend Fleet mode and away from supporting the troops on the ground.
 
Conover hoped for a swift resolution, so they could return to supporting the troops.
 
He kept one carrier on troop support and moved them and the ring ship behind the planet, to shield them from the coming battle.

* * * * *

      Commander Gibbons heard the “Prepare to Defend Fleet” order come over the intercom system and hurried to the CIC.
 
The Behemoth class ships were some of the most heavily armed ships in the Fleet, but it was mostly guns – guns used for ground support, not for attacking combatants.
 
That was not a consideration in her design.
 
If the Behemoth had to fire her guns in self-defense, things were generally going to hell in a hand basket.
 
Whatever, the Captain would need his expertise.
 
He rushed to the CIC as General Quarters was called.

      The Captain looked up as he entered the CIC and motioned him over to the main plot.
 
Gibbons looked down as a red arrowhead of 23 combatants pointed at their fleet, moving at a good speed.
 
He estimated they’d arrive in time for lunch.
 
Gibbons had no formal combat training, but had sat in on every training cruise, exercise, and drill over the last 20 years, whenever the Behemoth was deployed for training or to test new equipment.

      He sidled up to the Captain, looked at the blue (or friendly) situation, and saw a screen of eight frigates followed by a strong defensive line of ten destroyers and ten cruisers.
 
They were all missile-heavy, so a good first line defense.
 
The remainder of the escorts were arrayed around the behemoths and carriers.
 
Gibbons looked over at the supply load out board and saw enough metric tons of beans, bullets, and black oil to require ten more days to offload onto the planet.
 
He looked at the gunnery board and saw fire missions ongoing in support of the corps as the T’Kab became organized.

      The Captain asked, “You’ve seen the situation.
 
Do you have any recommendations, Commander?”

      Gibbons asked, “Have the Angaerry reported any movement from the fleet at the other guard planet?”

      “No, not a thing.”

      “Hopefully, we won’t see any reaction.
 
The T’Kab have no long-range FTL comms because we took out their relays.
 
If I was that fleet commander and saw the K’Rang running like a scalded rabbit towards my home world, I’d put two and two together and figure he was running to where help was available and why would there be help near the home world, but an invasion was in progress.
 
I’d send my fastest ship to the other fleet and get them into the fight and not a frontal assault like this guy is heading towards, but a flanking attack.
 
If this guy slows down, you’ll know.
 
He’s waiting for the flank guy to get in place.”

      The captain looked at the plot and agreed with Commander Gibbons’ assessment.

      “Okay, Jim, but what would you recommend we do now?”

      “Now?
 
Nothing.
 
We have fire missions on the boards that we are supporting.
 
Those guys on the ground need us to bring fire down from heaven, but if it gets dicey up here we are going to have get out of here.
 
I would message Conover’s staff and find out under what conditions we should bug out.
 
We have a lot more Corps to bring in before we’re done.
 
We’re important to this operation.”

      “Thank you, Jim, “ the captain replied, and then he set off to do exactly what Jim suggested.

* * * * *

      Vice Admiral Conover was thinking along the same lines as Commander Gibbons.
 
He had his Flag Operations Officer send one of his scout ships over to make a close observation of the small fleet at the other system and another to scout out the expected path for a flank attack.
 
It was only ten ships, but ten ships hitting your flank when you are not ready can be devastating.
 
He contacted the Angaerry Fleet Commander and asked if they had seen any movement out of the planet’s fleet.
 
Their commander, Letoo Hinba, reported no activity from his vantage point.

      He studied the plot and read messages.
 
He came to the message from the captain of the Behemoth.
 
He saw the wisdom of his query and ordered Operations to prepare an emergency retrograde plan for the big transports and issue it as an on order mission.

      With that done, he called Lieutenant General Tsien to give him an update.
 
Ivor’s face showed on the screen and he looked tired.

      “Ivor, you may lose some support up here in about three hours.
 
I know the T’Kab are getting organized and coming at you, but we have a situation up here.”

      He explained the problem with the K’Rang leading the T’Kab home fleet right to him and the possible flank attack.
 
He laid out his pending orders to the Behemoths to bug out if the situation got messy and what impact that would have on the divisions.

      Lieutenant General Tsien said, “Ben, you do what you need to do and get those big ships out of here if it looks dicey.
 
We’ll be all right.
 
But don’t endanger those big transports.
 
We have a number of corps to bring in if we’re going to prevail, so keep those transports safe.
 
Send them to a rally point where they can be called back once you give the all clear.”

      Vice Admiral Conover agreed and promised to keep them safe.
 
He would send them through the ring ship to Gagarin, if need be.

* * * * *

      The T’Kab commander could not believe what she was seeing as the Human fleet resolved on her sensors.
 
Scores of ships appeared before her.
 
She saw a line of frigate-sized ships, a gap, then larger ships in a line.
 
What could they be protecting?
 
It was an hour before she saw the four carriers and five Behemoths targets resolve as large ships.
 
She wondered how much of the home world could be left if these immense ships were attacking.
 
She now came in range of the first distress call broadcasts from the home world defense council and understood the level of devastation being visited on her planet.