First Admiral 02 The Burning Sun (30 page)

Standing up slowly, she moved over to the kitchen window and looked out over the weed strewn patch of pale green, drying grass that Billy had struggled valiantly to keep under control for the years that they had stayed in the house. With those memories of young Billy struggling with the old push mower flashing through her mind, Elizabeth switched on the kettle and found herself smiling and feeling nostalgic about the old house. There had been good days in the old house, and it had been the first real stable home the family had known since John had left the Police Force. The constant change of stations every two years had left Elizabeth feeling isolated and cast adrift in the world. But, now, the new house beckoned and Elizabeth felt that she could really start to put down roots. Her nomadic days were finally over, she considered. If only she could stop arguing with John, she chided herself. Turning to watch the kettle, Elizabeth heard the telephone trill in the living room.

Quickly, she dashed over to the stairs and lifted the cheap plastic receiver.

“Hello?” she tried to sound bright into the apparatus.

“Missus Caudwell?” a polite, male Scottish accent began the conversation.

“Yes, speaking,” Elizabeth, mindful of the kettle, replied.

“Missus Elizabeth Caudwell?” the voice continued.

“Look, if you’re trying to sell me something…” Elizabeth sighed and was about to replace the receiver.

“No, missus Caudwell; this is mister McLetchie at Gilfillan Academy calling with regard to your application for young William,” the voice interrupted.

“Oh, mister McLetchie,” Elizabeth responded, taken by surprise, “how nice to hear from you,” she said and instinctively smoothed her hair.

“We’ve received your application missus Caudwell, and we have been most impressed with young William’s grades, especially in mathematics and sciences,” McLetchie indicated.

“Well, yes, Billy, I mean, William takes after his father in that respect,” Elizabeth had to concede.

“Yes, most excellent grades,” McLetchie expanded, “he also seems to have a passion for History and Political Science. We like our students to have a much more rounded education here at Gilfillan.”

“Oh yes, he has a lot of interests,” Elizabeth lied not having the slightest idea what Billy did in his spare time these days.

“That’s just the ticket,” McLetchie replied as Elizabeth quietly prayed that he wouldn’t ask what Billy’s other ‘interests’ might be, “I wonder if you would be free to come up and visit us at Gilfillan on Saturday?”

“Erm, Saturday of this week, mister McLetchie?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, if that would be possible, we could meet yourself, young William and your husband, the Head of Science is particularly keen to meet William,” McLetchie invited.

“Well, I’m sure we can manage,” Elizabeth said optimistically hoping that she could convince Billy to curtail whatever it was that he did at weekends.

“Excellent, can you make it up to us by, shall we say, two o’clock?” McLetchie asked speculatively.

“I’m sure we can,” Elizabeth replied equally speculatively.

“Splendid,” McLetchie replied, “now if I may be so bold, are you the Elizabeth Caudwell who wrote that rather fine book?”

“Do you mean ‘My Lost Little Angel’?” Elizabeth replied, blushing at the compliment.

“Yes,” McLetchie replied.

“Guilty, I’m afraid,” Elizabeth had to concede proudly.

“Then I really must congratulate you on a very fine piece of prose missus Caudwell,” McLetchie praised, “My good lady has read your book three times,” he added quietly.

“Well, I’m delighted that she has enjoyed it,” Elizabeth replied.

“Oh, she did, and we shall look forward to seeing you and your family on Saturday,” McLetchie began, “Oh, by the way, have you considered which University William would like to attend, missus Caudwell?”

“University?” the idea finally burst into Elizabeth Caudwell’s consciousness, “erm, well, no mister McLetchie, he’s only fifteen.”

No one in either Elizabeth’s or John’s family had ever gone to University and the horizons that seemed to be opening up to Billy were a whole new country for Elizabeth Caudwell.

“Missus Caudwell, if I may say, students from Gilfillan usually matriculate after their fifth year of Secondary, when they’re seventeen; so, I would urge you to get young William to consider what he wishes to achieve with his future,” McLetchie sounded insistent without seeming to domineer.

“I’ll certainly be discussing it with him this evening when he gets home from school,” Elizabeth said with a degree of uncertainty.

For all she knew, Billy still wanted to be an Astronaut or a Rocket Engineer or something.

“Yes, please, missus Caudwell,” McLetchie insisted, “we like to tailor our learning programmes to the needs and ambitions of our students,” he added, “and time is of the utmost importance at young William’s age.”

“I shall make it my number one priority,” Elizabeth said shakily, “thank you for calling mister McLetchie.”

“Missus Caudwell, a pleasure to speak to you,” McLetchie said and hung up.

Wow, Billy going to University, Elizabeth mused proudly, hanging up the receiver. Then the real world impinged on her daydream. With a start, she bolted towards the kitchen.

“Kettle!” she said urgently.

Chapter 36

The Praxos System

An angry and deeply frustrated Turthus Chulling stood at the War Table, fists clenched, as he watched the piecemeal destruction of his Eagle fighters on the Alliance’s left flank. Outnumbered nearly three to one, not even the superior speed and manoeuvrability of the wedge-shaped single-seat fighter could compensate for the sheer weight of numbers that they faced. On the War Table image, Chulling watched the isolated individual battles between the Alliance Eagles and the Bardomil Harpoons and Flying Devils grind to their inevitable fatal conclusions for the brave Alliance pilots. With their line of retreat cut off, with no hope of rescue and with no chance of surrender, the Eagles just had to fight on and try to take as many Bardomil with them as they could. The heroic futility of it all, and the waste of lives, angered Chulling, especially as he blamed himself for the disaster that was playing out before him.

From the moment Chulling had seen the new Big Wing formation appear, he had known that his gamble, heroic as it had been, had failed. The Fighter Controllers had tried, desperately, to extract as many Eagles as they could from the hideous swirling scrimmage of the dogfight, but it had been far too late. When the huge left flank of the Bardomil Big Wing had struck, the Alliance centre had simply caved in. The Eagles trying to contain the deadly M-Cruisers had been overwhelmed with the survivors being driven into the main fighter battle on the Bardomil right. And, with the Alliance centre gone, the Bardomil left flank had swept round to cut off the Alliance’s line of retreat before pushing into the main fight. Meanwhile, the M-Cruisers, freed from the attentions of the Alliance fighters, were regrouping.

Now, the final ‘dance of death’ was taking place close to the planet of Valnarim. It had been a strategic victory for the Alliance. The Bardomil strike force had been fatally weakened and would never be able to support a full scale invasion. Tactically, it would be a defeat for the Alliance. Chulling’s rag-tag flotilla would be pinned down by the First Admiral’s orders and ground to dust by the M-Cruisers.

Forcing himself to watch the demise of the Eagles, a penance for his failure, Chulling gritted his teeth and suffered the mental agonies of a commander facing defeat. He knew that his mistakes had been costly and that it was those errors that were now losing Eagle pilots their lives out in the battle area.

“Sir,” the Scanner Officer called out in the heavy oppressive atmosphere of the War Room, “enemy M-Cruisers are forming up for an attack.”

Switching the War Table image to where the Alliance centre had once struggled and harried at the M-Cruisers, Chulling could see the Bardomil ships congregating.

“Well, here they come for the big finale,” Chulling muttered to himself.

With the main fighter battle still raging, Chulling knew that there was nothing to stop the M-Cruisers launching their attack runs at the Alliance Star-Cruisers. There was no fighter cover to keep the Bardomil ships away from his weakening formation.

“Very well,” Chulling shook off his feeling of despair and started to issue orders, “let’s circle the wagons, WATO,” he ordered.

Rather than abandon the Praxos system, Chulling planned to form his Star-Cruisers into a rectangular box formation for his last stand. In the box formation, each Star-Cruiser could protect the other with both force-shielding and weapons fire. And, whilst that formation stood its ground, the Bardomil couldn’t move through the Praxos system to the neighbouring Terran system. The Bardomil commander dared not risk his supply lines by avoiding Chulling’s flotilla, they had to be removed.

“And, order New Thexxia and Leonidas to get away from here,” Chulling added.

The Alliance could ill afford to lose the Star-Cruisers of Chulling’s formation, but any counter offensive that First Admiral Caudwell could deliver would need every Eagle and Fleet Carrier that he could scrape together. The two Fleet Carriers were just too valuable to be lost in a futile last stand.

“Yes, sir,” the WATO acknowledged and slowly dragged his feet to his duties.

The infection of defeat had now taken hold of the entire flotilla and there was nothing that Chulling could do about it. Given the choice, he would have formed the Star-Cruisers into a huge ‘V’ formation and ran them straight at the Bardomil guns in one last blaze of glory. But, Chulling didn’t have that luxury. He had been ordered to buy time with his ships and the lives of their crews. Every second that he could buy for First Admiral Caudwell’s counter attack was precious. Every Bardomil ship that he could take out made Caudwell’s task that tiny bit easier.

“M-Cruisers attacking, sir,” the Scanner Officer warned.

“Continue move to box formation, and open fire when they’re within range,” Chulling ordered, as he turned once more to the War Table image.

The fighter battle close to Valnarim was still raging with the hopelessly outnumbered Eagles being gradually whittled down. It was a savage, uncompromising fight where the fighter craft tore at each other in brutal no-holds-barred combat. And, sweeping around the flank of the fighter scrimmage, the formation of M-Cruisers, in a ragged skirmish line, was there to push home one last devastating attack.

As Chulling watched the M-Cruisers began to form their trio combinations before opening fire. The Memphis, taking a direct hit on her force-shielding shuddered and lurched under the impact, rocking Chulling unsteadily on his feet. Other Star-Cruisers in the slow moving formation were also hit by the first salvo, creating damage and casualties.

A few seconds later the first Alliance pulsar-bolts streaked downrange towards the M-Cruisers in answer to the first Bardomil salvo. Three M-Cruiser trios disappeared in balls of red roaring flame as their formation advanced. But, as Chulling quietly celebrated, the Memphis was struck once more by a powerful laser blast.

“We’ve lost power distribution to the force-shielding and weapons!” an Engineering Technician announced.

“Get it sorted Engineers!” Chulling ordered, reeling from the last impact, “order Calypso and Thunderchild to cover us with their shielding while we get repaired.”

Without force-shielding and weapons, the Memphis was a sitting duck in the middle of the Bardomil attack.

“Negative, sir!” a Comms Technician called out, “Calypso has lost her force-shielding generator; she’s pulling out of the line.”

“Tell her to keep her weapons firing,” Chulling ordered switching the War Table image to that of the Alliance formation.

On the image, the lumbering Star-Cruisers seemed to be hobbling into place in a three-dimensional, roughly rectangular formation. Already, some of the vessels, having lost force-shielding, were slowly drifting into the centre of the formation where other ships could protect them. Streaks of light, the laser streams from the M-Cruisers, slammed against the Star-Cruisers at the front face of the box formation. But, whatever damage seemed to be inflicted on the shuddering and lurching Alliance ships, the pulsar-cannons still seemed capable of replying. The domed turrets on the top of the Star-Cruisers kept sending the white-hot pulsar-bolts against the advancing Bardomil.

As Chulling continued to watch, the Star-Cruiser Aurora, her middle three turrets a twisted, tangled mass of scorched metal also began to drop out of the firing line. With each withdrawal, Chulling knew that the formation would contract leaving those craft with functioning force-shielding no choice but to weaken their own defences to protect their sister ships. The Alliance formation was slowly shrinking under the Bardomil onslaught, and Chulling knew that all he could do was to try to hang on as long as possible.

Switching the War Table image back to the advancing M-Cruisers, Chulling watched as the trios began to form once more whilst Alliance pulsar-bolts streaked downrange towards them. But, suddenly, some of the expected M-Cruiser trios began to split up. Stunned for a split-second, Chulling watched the pulsar-bolts, which should have reduced these trios to exploding devastation, miss their targets entirely. Again, he saw the same pattern with another trio of M-Cruisers. The three craft would approach each other for an attack run, then, at the last possible moment, would veer away from each other. The Alliance gunner anticipating a weapon firing trio to form would let loose and then find that the pulsar-bolts would miss. With the Alliance pulsar-cannons then having to cool, the M-Cruisers would form trios with other craft and fire their weapons.

“They’re learning how to draw our fire,” Chulling mumbled, a wave of hopelessness sweeping over him as another Bardomil laser struck the Memphis.

With no force-shielding, a great gouge of metal was torn from one of the three Eagle Landing Bays that was facing the Bardomil attack. Debris and people were flung out into space as the Memphis lurched like a wounded animal under the impact. All around Chulling, alarms blared and air tight bulkheads were secured, trapping terrified crew members in the damaged areas. As the damaged and isolated areas de-pressurised, those crew members would also be hurled out to their deaths.