Star Wolves (The Tribes of Yggdrasil Book 1) (23 page)

Artman wanted nothing more than to get into the fight herself, but
Gungnir
was her flagship and she needed to stay out of the fight and retain operational command until all hope was lost, only then would the
Gungnir
enter the fray.

She and Willms watched silently as the under-strength force of SID vessels valiantly battled the Hrymar flotilla. The three Alfar battleships were wreaking havoc on the enemy. The Hrymar hadn’t expected the Alfar to loan battleships to the human’s cause; they were wrong.

The
Gullinbursti
,
Bedwen
and
Gwerner
, hammered the Hrymar flotilla, focusing on the enemy’s only carrier. The Alfar battleships had point defenses which could withstand wave after wave of fighter attacks, and at the same time dish out serious harm to the carrier itself. The SID destroyers and corvettes were dealing with the other smaller vessels approaching Earth.

“High Commander, the
Gwerner
is in trouble,” Willms said. They watched as the
Gwerner
vented atmosphere, several holes visible with fires burning hydrogen fuel or oxygen. “They’re reporting all drives down.”

Four Hrymar ships closed and pummeled the
Gwerner
. Life-pods began launching omni-directionally from the
Gwerner
, and one of the Hrymar vessels started intercepting a few of them, tractoring them in.

“Sons of bitches!” Artman cursed.

Then, in the biggest explosion Artman had ever seen, the
Gwerner
was gone.

“At least some of them escaped m’am,” Willms said.

Artman was not in the mood for consolation. She wanted the fury to feed her determination for vengeance.

“Captain, it looks like thirty-plus Hrymar ships have made it into Earth atmosphere. Several are firing projectiles at the planet,” the combatives officer reported.

They could see the Planetary Defense Force launching nukes into orbit and firing the few ground-mounted beam weapons they had; it wasn’t enough. Finally, the PDF had exhausted all its physical ordinance and had only intermittent coverage with beam weapons left to intercept the enemy.

Willms watched as the Hrymar fired missiles down to Earth. “Those are very slow missiles,” Willms said. They were flying at about half normal speed, while the ships that launched them vectored away to other locations. The corvettes and atmospheric fighters vectored to intercept the missiles.

“They’re a diversion,” Willms stated flatly. “High Commander, look,” he pointed to the vessels that had launched the missiles, “they’re headed to the soft targets we had identified earlier, the largely populated, under-defended cities. The missiles are intended to divert fighter cover from them so they can land, and presumably harvest our people.”

“London is gone,” announced the comms officer.

“Helm, military acceleration to Earth, let’s intercept some of those bastards,” Artman said. There was little she needed to coordinate now. The remainder of the battle was going to be a free-for-all, and few SID ships would survive. But she could help protect a few civilians before she went.

“New York and Shanghai are gone, and I’ve received a report the destroyers,
Sharur
,
Hrunting
and
Naegling
are destroyed. Some life-pods were launched though.

“Thank the gods we evacuated some of the people in those cities,” Artman said. “It seems like the Hrymar are trying to cripple us; taking out all the dense residential infrastructure will make recovery a nightmare. We’re going to have millions of refugees with nowhere to return to.” Artman shook here head. “But I can’t worry about that now. Let’s kick some ass, Captain Willms,” Artman said.

“Aye aye, m’am! I would love to.”

A
s the
Gungnir
sped toward Earth, the sensors officer spoke up, “High Commander, Captain,” she said with a squeak, “we have ships launching from Earth! Friendlies!”

“What?” Willms asked.

“Friendlies, sir! I’m receiving valid IFF signals from them. Five ships in total sir. There’s a frigate called the
Halifax
, launching from Eastern Canada, the cruiser
Diana
launching from the UK, the battleship
Sam Houston
from the Southern USA, the destroyer
Kee Lung
from Northern China, and the cruiser
Sergey Kirov
from Siberia!”

“What is going on? Nobody but the SID is supposed to have built warships.” Artman was confused.

“M’am, sir, they’re engaging the enemy,” combatives said.

Artman was smiling. “Well, good for them! I’m not sure it will be enough, but damn their hides, I’m glad they disobeyed the treaty.”

The
Sam Houston
was a 90,000 tonne battleship, bristling with weapons in true American style. He (couldn’t call Sam Houston a she), reminded Artman of an old Western movie where the hired gunslinger comes to town and kills the bad guys.

Artman flinched as reports of the destruction of Tokyo, Chicago, Toronto, Geneva and Singapore came in. They would go down fighting, she thought. “Valhalla or bust,” she murmured.

“Ma’am?” Willms asked.

“Sorry, just thinking out loud, Steffen.”

The
Gungnir
was now in weapons range and skimmed through the atmosphere, firing her various beam weapons at any Hrymar vessel she could target.

Three more SID destroyers were out of commission, but not destroyed: The
Brisbane
, the
Frankfurt
, and the
Cannes
, followed shortly by the Alfar battleship
Bedwen
.

“They’ve lost about half their fleet m’am, but we’ve lost eighty percent of ours, and all planetary missile defenses are exhausted.”

“To the last, Steffen,” she said sternly.

“Absolutely m’am.”

“Captain,” the sensors officer said, “several of the Hrymar ships are lifting off the planet’s surface and leaving the atmosphere.”

“Hold your fire!” Artman yelled. “There is a high probability they have human captives on board. Combatives, tag every ship that has landed and has taken off again. Comms, let all remaining fleet ships know these are
not
to be fired on.”

“What do we do with them?” Willms asked.

“I don’t know yet, Steffen, but I don’t want to kill our own people. We’ll have to figure something out. For now, focus on trying to prevent anymore from landing.”

“Aye, m’am.”

P
erth’s
senior engineer
, O-3 Mac Thompson said, “Captain, we can’t have the reaction drive back online in time to stop re-entry. We’re floating down now, and shields are off-line.”

Captain Molly Coogan nodded. She couldn’t ask any of the other ships for help; they were busy saving people on the surface. “Understood, O-3. Crew, this is the Captain. Evacuate the ship, I repeat, evacuate the ship.”

An orange evacuation light now flashed in every room and corridor throughout the
Perth
.

Molly let the crew evacuate, but stayed on the bridge. She wasn’t trying to be noble and go down with the ship, but if there was any final opportunity to fire on a Hrymar vessel, or do anything to assist another ship, then she’d stay to the end. There were few working systems, and she had only five minutes before the
Perth
was a glowing cinder in the atmosphere.

She pushed the curly blonde lock of hair out of her face, and flicked a switch which activated a small picture of her little sister on the display in front of her. It reminded Molly of family, and devotion to loved ones, keeping her strong. Her face was stolid, yet a single tear managed to make its way out of her eye and down her cheek. She reached into her inside jacket pocket, pulling out a small plastic box. From it she took two small white pills and popped them in her mouth. She closed her eyes and let new sensations wash over her. Her whole body relaxed.

As she let out a deep breath, Molly noticed the display screen register the
Perth
firing several laser volleys at passing Hrymar ships. Not killing blows, but she was sure it helped. As she resigned herself to meet her maker.

Suddenly the bridge display screen lit up with dozens of blue dots—friendlies!

O
n the Gungnir’s
view-screen a familiar face appeared before Artman.
“I heard you folks might need a hand with some bullies?”
Haldor Olsen said, across the fleet wide comm system.
“I brought friends.”

Artman’s mouth was literally hanging open as she got a count on the number of Dvergar warships: Two-hundred and twelve, various battleships, cruisers and destroyers.

“My gods!” Artman said.

“Mind if we start mopping up?”
Hal asked.

“Go ahead, Captain. The ships tagged Orange may have human hostages though.”

“We can take care of that, High Commander,”
said the stout Dvergar Admiral standing beside Hal.

Dozens of the smaller Dvergar ships broke off and intercepted the vessels with possible human cargo. Each enemy was hit with some kind missile employing an electro-magnetic-pulse warhead rendering the ship dead in the water, then they had a tractor beam pulling the smaller ships into their cargo bays. Larger ships would have to be boarded.

Within ten minutes the remaining Hrymar threat was quashed. Dozens of enemy ships had been captured, and the rest fled to parts unknown. Unfortunately a few of the ships with human cargo had evaded capture.

O
n the
Perth
, Molly Coogan watched in amazement as the Dvergar fleet completely destroyed the remaining Hrymar threat. Then it occurred to her there were enough friendly ships for her to be rescued.

“Mayday, mayday, this is the
Perth
. We are burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere. We have less than three minutes. Please respond.” She had the comm system re-broadcast the message constantly in a loop.

“Perth, this is the Dvergar Senior Dense Force Vessel SD877. Message received and we are on our way. ETA sixty-seconds.”

That would be cutting it close, but they might make it.

In minutes she felt a jarring, and heard a booming metallic clanging as what she assumed was a grappling hook, engaged her ship and pulled it out of the atmosphere.

“Thank you so much, SD877!” she said.

Her main view screen flickered to life and she saw Captain Haldor Olsen standing on the bridge beside the Svartalf Admiral.

“My pleasure, Captain.”
Hal said.

Molly was giddy. Near death experiences heighten a persons emotions, and when she saw Hal, he appeared like her knight in shining armor.

“I’m Molly,” she said, “I- mean, Molly Coogan- Captain Coogan,” she stammered.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Captain Coogan,”
Hal said with a warm smile.

Gods, he was incredibly handsome, she thought, then nearly passed out from the adrenalin.

“Hey, stay with me, Molly, take a breath.”

“Yeah, I - I’m ok.”

“Good, we’ll tractor your ship up out of orbit, then dock and pull you out of there, ok?”

She nodded. Molly closed her eyes and fell asleep.

H
al met Molly
at the airlock and offered a hand as she boarded. She took his hand, enjoying the warmth of another human’s touch, a wave of relief washing over her, as if confirming she was indeed alive. She held his hand quite a bit longer than required, but Hal stood patiently until she was comfortable letting go.

“C’mon, I’ll get you to the medical bay,” Hal said.

“No, Captain Olsen, I’m fine. Just shook up a little.”

“Call me Hal.”

“Hal, coffee would be great though.”

“Sure, let’s get to the bridge and I’ll have their steward bring you up a cup.”

Hal escorted Molly to the bridge and sat her down beside the Admiral after a brief greeting. The bridges on the Svartalf ships small and very neat; not luxurious, but highly functional and in keeping with the smaller stature of the Dvergar.

The display screen on the bridge lit up with an image of High Commander Artman.

“It’s good to see you, Hal,”
she said.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner m’am. We pushed the engines beyond capacity.”

“No need to apologize for saving our asses, sailor,”
she said,
“late or not, we are very glad you got here.”

“The Dvergar should have the Sol system locked down within two hours. We have use of this fleet for a week, and then half will remain for another month until we re-build.”

“Gods, Hal, it’ll take years to re-build. Have you seen Earth?”

He nodded. Hundreds of millions were though dead in nuclear attacks on her major cities, and Earth’s infrastructure would be crippled for decades; it would be like Germany after years of conflict, first in WWI, then in WWII. And all this was after one battle.

“Let’s talk privately, High Commander. How about I come to the Gungnir in an hour?”

“Alright, Hal, see you then, Artman out.”
The display went black.

They won, he thought, but at what price? A pyrrhic victory to be sure.

H
al entered
the
Gungnir’s
war room as he had done weeks before. The room looked so much larger than it had before, strange, he thought. Then it occurred to Hal why; more than half the Captains filling the room previously, were now dead.

The faces of the men weeks ago, had been filled with angst and tension; these men were bone-weary, spent, if not beaten.

He sat at the long table and gave a nod to his fellow Captains. Momentarily Artman entered the room, and the men and women attempted to stand. She motioned for them to sit.

She stood for a moment and gave them all a caring smile, a smile that spoke of a mother’s love for her child’s pain. Each of these Captains had lost friends and family in the battle. Artman sat.

“Thank you all for coming over in person. I know we’re all exhausted, but I wanted to have one face-to-face meeting before we get some rest. We need to take stock of our situation and make sure everything is in order for the days to come.”

Hal noticed only one Alfar captain remaining, Captain Caradoc. The battleships
Bedwen
and
Gwerner
had been lost defending Earth. He heard there were some survivors though, which was a small blessing at least.

One thing you all noticed, I’m sure,” Artman continued, “five countries fielded warships in the defense of Earth. And - ”

Captain Brian Malloy of the destroyer
Carnwennan
, interrupted her. “What the hell does that mean, High Commander? Why were they building warships? My understanding is that the Treaty of New York forbade
any
individual country from re-arming after the formation of the SID.”

Artman’s face revealed no impatience at the interruption. “That’s a very good question, Captain Malloy, and I was getting to it,” she said with a smile and eyebrows raised.

“Apologies, m’am,” he said.

She nodded. “I would have been surprised if one country had been building a ship secretly, but five?” She shook her head. “That was shocking. Frankly, I have no answer. This is going to be the purview of the politicians to sort out. The upside is, these ships helped save lives. The downside is, they’re in violation of our SID membership treaty. I want to be extremely clear. No hostile action is to be taken, but, unless I tell you otherwise, these ships are to be treated as neutral,
not
friendlies. They are
not
, I repeat,
not
, part of our military organization, and therefore not privileged to any sensitive information. They are however, citizens of Earth, and will be treated accordingly. If they need assistance, help them, like you were helping civilians. This is a touchy situation, we have heavily armed ships in Earth orbit of undetermined political affiliation. My main message here, is be careful.”

Artman took a drink from a glass of water sitting on the table in front of her. “Further complicating things, is a whole fleet of mercenary warships; which by the way, are now under my operational command. So if there is a complaint or problem with them, speak with me first. Any questions so far?”

Shockingly, none raised a hand. Most of them were just beyond exhaustion.

“Alright then, I’ve issued a patrol schedule which does
not
include any of our ships. Your crews will stand down and get some rest, and let the shipyards patch-up what remains of our fleet. Our Dvergar
friends
will be earning their pay and running system-wide patrols as well as orbital pickets around Earth, the Moon and Mars. That’s it, dismissed.”

The room slowly emptied as the men and women shambled out of the war room, many expressionless. Hal and High Commander Artman remained. For a few moments they sat in silence.

“The President wants to speak with you. I told her I’d contact her once we were done,” Artman said. She tapped a button on the table’s comm controls and President Dalia Rukundo filled the screen. Wearing her traditional brightly colored African garb, though the expression on her face decried the joy her outfit communicated.

“Clare, Hal, thank you both for speaking with me,”
she said,
“I need to update you on the ships fielded by the five countries. Those five nations have sparked a political disaster, which could not have worse timing. Clearly they had been planning something for years. Those kinds of ships do not get built in weeks. What they are, or were planning is unclear. At least a dozen countries are crying about how the SID cannot protect Earth against these new threats, and are talking about seceding. I’m sure if the Hrymar attack had not come, they would have done so within a year anyway. Then they would have had fleets to rival ours, and there would have been no diplomatic solution left. Essentially there would have been no way we could have stopped them without a civil war. And now, because they were forced to show their hand early, we might have been in a different bargaining position, but after the decimation of our existing fleet, I don’t think that holds true. What’s most disturbing, is their warships are virtually identical in design to ours; that tells me we have spies deep in our military. Worse yet, I feel strongly there must be widespread collusion between members of their militaries and ours. How else could we not have detected the construction of huge ships with anti-matter reactors under our noses? Clare, you and Hal are probably the only two people in the solar system I trust right now.”