Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (14 page)

Kraag could not help himself and interjected again “Surely they can wrest control of Q2 back from any hostile force that is likely to be there?”

“That may well be but we have given our word to your people on Q2 that in the interim we would protect them.”

“Well then you’re going to have to choose” said Kraag.

There were a few moments of awkward silence. Finally it was broken by Meelanda. “Commodore we too value commitments. I think a compromise can be reached here. What is the minimum force you can leave at Q2 to honour your commitments there?”

Julian realised he had to offer up something here. “I suppose we could get by with just two of our frigates there.”

Meelanda looked to Felis. “Good, then can you send the two caps and the Mailon here straight away. The Phantom can stay cloaked till they arrive. How long will it take your ships? I know the Mailon could do it in five days.”

“Yes five days” said Julian (he had no intention of giving away the fact that the Resolute and Tenacity could do it in less – there was some things you did not convey to a new and as yet untested ally) “plus two days for the message to get there and for them to respond to it.”

“So we need to hold out for a week” said Felis. “Please Commodore send your order.”

“Well it’s not that simple. I can’t countermand Admiral Yomoto’s direct order but I can make a recommendation to Captain Warner. It will then be up to him.” Julian was yet to receive notice that in fact Dave had been promoted to Commodore.

“Don’t you outrank a Captain?” challenged Kraag.

“Yes” said Julian feeling a little exasperated “but I am a political officer not an operational commander. I can recommend that Captain Warner changes his plan but it will be up to him to choose to do so.”

“Well then Commodore you had better be convincing” said Meelanda.

“Indeed.”

Chapter 53. Phantom over Cheklin 2000, 15 September

“At last” said Aubrey as she received Julian’s signal. When she opened the message she exclaimed out loud from her seat in the command centre “It’s a veritable tome.” She knew it would take her several minutes to read right through it.

She had stood the ship to as soon as they detected the imperialist fleet warping in. With only two missiles she knew she would have little to do but be a spectator. That fact grated in her craw.

She had initially assumed she would get a signal from the Commodore telling her to warp back to Q2 for resup, but as she read on she was surprised to see that instead he was going to be asking the Resolute et al to come here and that she would have to hang around and pray she remained undetected.

The Phantom was in geo above LZ Alpha and she assessed that the enemy fleet would probably arrive within effective range in seven or so hours. With that many ship and a coordinated ladar sweep there was a risk of being detected and she had already asked Alice to prepare two contingencies that would see them moving out and further away.

She finished the message wondering what Dave’s reaction would be when he received this message tomorrow. She remembered the last time Dave had deliberately disobeyed a direct order. But over Zuon it had been all his decision. At least now it was at the request of a Commodore. ‘No he’ll come’ she said to herself.

Part 2
Close Encounters

There comes a time when the dancing must stop

When to get a result you must commit the lot

Don’t hold back anything

Give it your all

It’s all or nothing

Winner takes all

Chapter 1. Batlasan in Sturam 2400, 15 September

For the last four hours Admiral Puros Titlun had been subjected to one broadcast after another detailing the statistics from his long career. The death toll of the latest campaign he had conducted in the conquered realms had now topped the 7 billion mark and they were attributing it all down to him.

Puros knew that it had all been necessary, all authorised and in his eyes justified. He had never been subjected to such indignity in his long and illustrious career. He couldn’t understand how he was not being afforded the respect he deserved from his own people, the people he had been fighting for all these years.

He had intended to take a few hours’ sleep before battle would be joined. But now he barked “How long till we get within jamming range?” He did not like the ‘three hours’ answer.

“Enough” he stated “Order the Clipsoon to stay with the transports. The rest of us will close at max impulse. I want this finished.”

Chapter 2. Neeblo 0005, 16 September

Felis was sitting on the bed in Evie’s room when he got the call that the enemy has split and all the combat ships bar one were now racing towards them. “ETA?” he hailed back.

“0210 to effective range of our flotilla” replied Selinta.

“OK, I’m just having a break. I’ll be back in twenty.”

Selinta was surprised at how casual Felis seemed to be taking it all. It was true Felis had some other preoccupations right now – nice ones in the form of Evie Plentun – but Felis also knew that everything important had been decided upon. The civil defence measures were well underway. He had seven fighter squadrons on standby, the Dogon and his flotilla were ready and his batteries had already received extra stocks of missiles.

So there were no more decisions for him to make just yet. There was time for him to make other plans of a more personal nature. He put the communicator back down and picked up Evie’s hand. He began stroking it. Evie closed her eyes when he did it and he could tell from her expression that it gave her pleasure.

“Can a poor officer like me hold out hope of claiming this hand?” he asked in a soft voice that resonated with tenderness. She opened her eyes. They seemed to shine at him.

“I think you’ll find it’s already yours” and she leaned forward and kissed him gently. As she pulled back she could see that his face was lit up with a huge smile. “And I think you’ll find that Admirals get paid very well.” Felis broke out laughing.

Chapter 3. Phantom over Cheklin 0015, 16 September

“OK I believe you” said Aubrey to Alice (referring to the splitting of the enemy force). “Now that is very interesting” Aubrey tilted her head sideways while she focussed on the icons over the holo. Her analytical brain was functioning like a series of blades dissecting the factors. She brought her head back up into its normal vertical orientation and with a wry smile said “I think we have a golden opportunity here to actually hurt these bastards. Alice plot us an intercept course against those tail end charlies. Make sure it avoids the oncoming main enemy force.”

“How close?” asked Alice.

“Effective beam range of that lone frigate.”

“Here you go.”

Aubrey checked the route as Tola came into the command centre. “What’s up?” asked Tola.

“Check this out” said Aubrey.

“Why have they done that?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. We need to take advantage before they change their minds.”

“And what, we beam the frigate?”

“Too right we do.”

“And the transports?”

“We’ll beam them too. If need be we’ll pull into gun range. We have a chance here to destroy a significant enemy capability. They look to be big transports, probably altogether they carry an entire Brigade of troops or a shit load of missiles and stores. Either way that Fleet will be deprived of them. It’ll hurt them.”

“They’ll be too far away to engage us” said Tola referring to the main enemy force. “But they may send a cap back to hunt us down.”

“So we impulse further out, draw them away from the main action.”

“Works for me” said Tola.

“OK Alice, do it” ordered Aubrey. “Neo, get a message ready for the Commodore. We’ll send it as soon as we engage the enemy. Tell him we’re engaging the second group and that we may have to move further out or even warp away. Alice, plug in a contingency for that.”

“OK” said Alice.

“And Neo, add that we will definitely be back.”

“On it” acknowledged Neo.

“Phil, we keep our missiles for defence unless I say otherwise. You have to line this beam attack and make sure you hit them. We probably won’t survive if you miss.”

“No pressure then” said 2
^nd
Lt Phil Turnbull, the ships battle systems (BS) officer, rolling his eyes.

Tola smiled.

“And Neo, cue your cyber-attack on that enemy frigate with Phil.”

“Yes Maam.”

Unknown to anyone in the 1
^st
RIF and anyone in the Resistance forces, the Phantom was accelerated to max impulse speed of 79 kps. It was heading for the outer rim of the system and climbing to almost half a million clicks (500K) above the system plane. As the speed indicator passed 67 kps Aubrey recalled the time in the Hermes over Klaster when the sleth caps were chasing them. Then they could only sustain the burn at 67kps for a limited period. But this was no problem for the Phantom.

As the main enemy force headed towards Cheklin at their maximum speed of 58 kps, the Phantom reached its waypoint and vectored down toward the system plane and on a heading designed to intercept the second enemy force. Phil was doing a few simulation runs to get his eye in. He was not happy. “Alice, can we slow her down on the run in? Ten kps, one minute out, would be good.”

Alice made the adjustments to the route. It would mean an intercept closer in. Alice let the AI do the calc and lock in the intercept location. She double checked the timings, gave Aubrey a nod, who returned her nod to let her know that she approved. “OK, locked in Phil, we’ll start to decelerate in seven.”

“Thanks. ETA to engagement?”

“Twelve minutes” advised Alice.

“You ready Neo?” asked Aubrey.

“Yes Maam. The message is waiting for you and the cyber’s ready to go.”

Aubrey gave a quick scan of the message, digitally signed it and the icon representing it in the message queue changed to orange. Neo didn’t bother to use an automatic timer on it as he had to ensure it went after the beam attack.

“Phil, set the guns to automatic” ordered Aubrey. I want you focussed solely on the beam.”

“Roger…done.”

“Decelerating now” advised Alice. “ETA in five. No change to target vector or speed.”

Phil stopped his practice runs, cleared his screen, save for the beam weapon system controls, and took in some deep breaths, breathing out long each time till he found himself becoming more centred. He knew he had to get this right but he also knew that he had to put that concern out of his mind.

He visualised the lead in, lining up the scope onto the passive radar location for the target, waiting for the light in the scope to turn yellow, which was the go ahead for him to activate the active radar, locking on the target, syncing the beam and then initiating the beam attack.

“ETA in three” said Alice.

He had opted to go for an automatic cut off of fifteen seconds because he didn’t trust himself to release it in time and he didn’t want to drain all their power. That could prove fatal. Fifteen seconds should be enough to mortally wound an enemy frigate. He knew that in theory, if he got it just right, it would tear it apart.

“ETA in one, no detection so far, no changes get ready.”

Phil concentrated like he had never concentrated before. No one spoke. It was his ship now.

“They’ve seen us, banking down, accelerating” called out Alice.

Phil didn’t respond. He needed to focus. He banked the Phantom in an even steeper dive and just as he had pictured it in his mind’s eye, the engagement unfolded and in the blink of an eye he had fired. By the time he had finished saying “Firing” it was over.

Neo called “I’m in” referring to his cyber-attack. But then he called out “she’s gone.” On the big screen there was a momentary flash from the external cameras but other than that and the absence of an icon on the holo, there was nothing to indicate the destruction of a frigate and its 90 crew. It struck Neo how quick it was to destroy all that life and that it could so easily be him. But it wasn’t. “Message sent” he called out.

Phil forced himself to focus on the other craft. He had the ships controls from the pilot and slowed the craft to 5kps so he could target the other craft before they fled out of range. He set the cut off to just five seconds. These were not heavily armoured. He pushed out of his mind that if these were troop transports he would be killing thousands.

“Firing…Bogey 2’s gone…firing…Bogey 3’s gone…firing… Bogey 4’s gone…firing… Bogey 5’s gone. We’re done.”

“Nice shooting Phil” praised Aubrey. “How long before we can recloak?”

“Eight minutes” advised Alice. “No change in the main enemy force.”

“OK pilot the ship is yours” directed Aubrey “bring us back up over the plane 250K, nice and slow. Let’s wave our digital butt at them and see if they bite.”

Chapter 4. Batlasan in Sturum 0105, 16 September

“How the hell did that happen?” demanded Puros, but he knew the answer. What he didn’t know was whether there were any more human stealth ships. He knew he was in shock and that he had to get control of it. He shook his head and breathed in deep. He still fumed as he exhaled.

The loss of the 2
^nd
Timpotium Bde was a bitter blow.  But he still had the 1
^st
Bde dispersed amongst his ships. ‘We can still do this’ he said to himself. But he had a decision to make as to whether or not to send any ships back to deal with the marauder. He had read the reports about the enemy stealth ships and he knew that one on one they would prevail over his ships, even his caps. So he opted not to send anyone back. ‘Concentration…always concentrate your force’ he reproached himself.

And so the 1
^st
RIF continued to race towards Cheklin.

Chapter 5. Neeblo 0106, 16 September