Steven Gordon 3: The Modloch Empire (34 page)

Amanda scowled at them as she regained
possession of her own consultation room.

‘
Do you know what
surprised me the most Charlie?’

‘
No, go for
it.’

‘
It’s how much you
swear inside your own mind.’

‘
Really?’

CHAPTER 40

Commanders John Logan and Alfie Lloyd
sat at their ease in the officers’ lounge. The tedium of the
journey was beginning to fray their nerves. For the first week they
had caught each other up on the news from home and then fallen into
a strange funk. For days they wallowed in their own thoughts. From
there they began to talk shop and criticise various alien fighter
manuals.

Alfie tossed down the magazine he was
reading. John looked up from his kindle. ‘Don’t say it again, I’ll
scream.’

‘
Oh man, why don’t
they shove us in one of those cryo units they got from the Black
Planet and let us sleep until we get there.’

‘
Stop whining for
God’s sake! We are on the fastest transport ship they
have.’

‘
It’s got to be more
fun on the home fleet. We have been sitting round Modloch for the
better part of a year. A few patrols, the occasional exercise with
the Modloch fleet. At least at home they do real patrolling, and
you can go home at night.’

‘
Only if your based
on world.’

The tannoy blared. ‘Commanders Logan
and Lloyd report to the bridge please.’

They passed a look. ‘Sounds
interesting.’ Alfie offered.

‘
Maybe they got sick
of your whining and are going to toss you out an air
lock.’

‘
Yeah whatever man.
Let’s just go see.’

When they reached the bridge they were
shown into the tactical briefing room just off it. It wasn’t big,
but this was a transport ship and not a fighting vessel.

The Captain was waiting. ‘Gentlemen,
take a seat please.’ They obeyed. ‘Your orders have been cancelled.
We are changing course to meet the Earth Defence Force Battle Ship
the Sir William Wallace. The William Wallace is a training ship.
However, the whole of the home battle fleet has been put on high
alert. We are expecting an imminent attack by hostile forces. I
have no other details. All I know is that you two are to be
transferred, where you will both take command of a training wing.
Go grab your gear. We will dock briefly and you will cross
deck.’

Just over two hours later, they were
both waiting by the airlock. They felt the shudder as the ships
docked and within a minute the crewman was opening the airlock.
They stepped aboard into a whole new world. The air was fresh and
clean. Everything shone as though it was straight out of the
factory. The crewman at the airlock was as smart as a new pin and
saluted.

‘
If you would like to
follow me gentlemen, please.’

With a glance at each other they
followed the young crewman. The door had a name plate, Captain J
Wilson. What they didn’t expect was the electrifying red haired
beauty behind the desk. Both men felt as though they had been
punched. She stood and offered her hand.

‘
Welcome to the Sir
William Wallace gentlemen.’ Still a little stunned they shook her
hand. ‘Take a seat please.’ Her body was full figured, her voice
feminine. ‘I have to say I am tickled pink to have a couple of real
astronauts on board.’

Logan couldn’t help but smile. ‘It is a
pleasure ma’am. A bit puzzling, but a pleasure all the same. How
can we be of service?’

‘
We still aren’t sure
of all the details yet. What we do know is this: the Albany are
planning to fire asteroids at Earth, causing an extinction level
event. They are going to be powered to faster than light speed by a
pair of engines that they can retrieve once the asteroid is at the
required velocity. We don’t know how many asteroids they are going
to launch but we do know there are thirty-six engines completed.
That means they can fire eighteen asteroids at us
simultaneously.’

‘
How the hell are we
going to catch asteroids going faster than the speed of light?’
Alfie blurted out.

The Captain took a deep breath. ‘I was
hoping you would tell me. The William Wallace is a basic training
vessel. We teach troopers to fight in space and pilots to fly. We
teach navigators to navigate and officers to command. We were
involved in the battles with the Albany and the core crew,
including myself, are experienced veterans. We could, if necessary,
fight with the ship.

‘
At this point we
have enough qualified pilots and pilots that have soloed to make up
two squadrons. Our training team will make up a third squadron,
commanded by my own man. You two will take command of the other
squadrons.

‘
When our recruits
leave here they go on to advanced training groups. Our recruits are
mainly from Scotland and the rest of the British isles. However, we
also get many from Canada and Australia along with the commonwealth
countries. We don’t know how much time we have to prepare. I would
appreciate it if you could begin training with your squadron this
afternoon. Just take them out, evaluate them. Think tactics. Meet
our training team. Settle in. You will be here for the duration of
the emergency.’

She looked them up and down, ‘I can see
your uniforms are well worn in. I don’t care about your flight
gear, but I insist that you visit the quartermasters today at some
point and draw a new uniform. The standards of smartness are the
same for any training unit. I expect such seasoned officers to
appreciate that and act accordingly.

‘
I will update the
senior staff every morning at nine sharp, and will call an
impromptu meeting if anything new or valid comes in. Now, Ensign
Shewan is waiting to show you to your quarters.’

CHAPTER 41

A single star shone brightly at the end
of the long dark tunnel. A familiar trembling could be felt through
the Star fighter’s controls. The display in front of him lit up
with a strange rose hue. His eyes flicked over them. He pressed
himself back against the head rest and activated the launch
sequence. The star fighter snapped out into the deep black of
space. He throttled back and waited. His radar screen activated and
small dots began to form up on him one at a time.

He took a moment to look around. The
beauty of it all was breath taking. They were much closer to the
milky way, in fact it now had definition. Strange colours glowed in
its deepest depths. There was a familiar bleep in his ears as the
last ship joined the formation. He scanned his radar. With a stylus
he marked three fighters that were out of formation and sent an
automated signal. On board the wayward fighters the students were
being told by a metallic voice to pay more heed and get back into
formation. He watched as they struggled with the task and took note
of the fighter’s designations.

His stylus danced over the screen. He
chose to do a twenty degrees turn to port and sent the signal. Once
all of the students had confirmed he tapped the execute and his
ship turned automatically on to the new heading. Behind him the
students’ ships followed their leader automatically.

Throughout the flight he keep feeding
the students instructions. His biggest problem was keeping them in
formation. At the end of the hour, he plotted the course back to
the base ship and sent an automated signal. It was received and
landing instructions were sent directly to his computer. He
confirmed all instructions were uploaded to his squadron and led
them home. During the whole flight not a single word had been
spoken.

The lights of the landing bay were
bright by comparison and he had to shield his eyes until they
adjusted properly. He downloaded data on the flight to his tablet
and undocked it from the fighter.

‘
How did it go sir?’
Asked a member of his ground crew.

‘
It wasn’t great, but
better than I had hoped for.’

The two squadrons met in the debriefing
room. They had to wait until the two new squadron leaders collated
their information in a small room next door. When they came out the
noise levels dropped to a strained silence. They also found the
Captain leaning against the wall at the back of the room.

The two sat down together. Logan
started. ‘We have already been introduced so I will just begin the
debriefing. I am aware that, up until now, none of you have
executed a tactical launch before. You are more used to your flight
instructors screaming in your ears. It is a bit disorientating and
you may even feel a little lonely. I don’t care – suck it up. We
are now tactical. Radio chatter will give away your position to the
enemy, and they are out there. If we run head first into an Albany
warship, and you have been talking on your radios, I can guarantee
that you will die. As will the whole squadron. We would run
straight into an Albany broadside. Commander Lloyd...’

Alfie stood up and began drawing on a
whiteboard. ‘When we attack an enemy ship, we do so as a single
formation. The aim is to put pressure on the enemies shields and
try to overload them, so the main guns from our base ships can
penetrate them. Our combat jumps will be coordinated by our base
ships, with every squadron from the ship attacking simultaneously.
We will deploy decoy squadrons. Instead of half a dozen squadrons –
or in this case, three – the enemy will have two dozen squadrons to
target. They will not be able to tell the decoys from the real
squadrons, unless of course someone speaks on a radio. Your
commander may not have the time to cancel the attack. It is
immaterial anyway. Once the enemy have your position plotted they
can simply follow you around until you do attack. You would have to
jump to a point outside the enemy detection range and be redeployed
with the following wave. We were both delighted by the fact that
everyone managed to follow the orders we sent without using their
radios. Commander Logan...’

Logan stood up and began drawing. ‘The
system we are using is directional ship to ship communication. I
can type a message or select one. A selected message is a simple
binary code of a few digits. Your ship will pick it up and relay
the selected message. Typed messages, of course, would be longer,
which means there is more chance of the transmission being picked
up. Don’t make me do that. Orders from our base ship are
transmitted to me the same way, as are all major transmissions
during a battle. During a major engagement our base ships can, and
will, take control of our ships and their firepower. Why do they
need pilots then? Because it doesn’t always work out as planned.
Shit happens in combat, ladies and gentlemen, that require input
from a pilot.’

The had a small chuckle at that.

‘
Our major problem
today was formation flying. You have to get it right. If your nose
is one degree off when we perform a manoeuvre you could end up
thousands of miles away. You do not want to become lost in space.
If you are in the middle of a formation and flying on the wrong
vector, you could just as easily end up colliding with a fighter
turning on a correct vector behind you.’ He demonstrated on the
white board. ‘It is also another way the enemy can tell the
difference between us and a decoy squadron. I know those that fell
short today have just completed their first solo flights and have
had no training in formation flying. Get into the simulators and
stay at it until you can do it blind folded. You will not get a
second chance. If anyone is not up to par on the next flight they
will be dropped from the roster.’

He sat down again. ‘We have no idea
what we are going to be facing out there. The worst scenario is we
meet a fleet or a battle group. There is no best scenario. Neither
do we know if we will be crossing the barrier or how long we are
going to be going at it. Right now your instructors will be flying
CAP patrols. It will be their job to keep all of us safe while we
give you an advanced crash course on fighting tactics. As we will
be traveling at speed to our patrol area, most of the training will
be done in the simulators. However, the Captain has promised that
we will stop for an hour every day to practice what you have been
learning.’ He nodded to the Captain, who came off her perch and
walked down in front of the two men.

She looked over the young faces. ‘We
are privileged to have Commanders Logan and Lloyd with us. If you
don’t know who they are then you probably shouldn’t be here.’ They
all laughed at that. As astronauts and heroes, they were well known
to every pilot on the planet.

‘
You have an
opportunity to learn from the best. It is a very rare opportunity.
I sincerely hope you will all make the best of it. To keep you up
to date, we are to help patrol an area of the great barrier ten
thousand square miles across. We have assets in the area trying to
pinpoint the enemy, but intelligence at this time is sketchy. We do
know it is an asteroid attack against the planet Earth. We know
there are three races involved: the Albany and two of their closest
neighbours. They are going to launch asteroids at Earth that will
travel faster than the speed of light. Where they are going to
launch them from, or the makeup of the forces involved, we simply
do not know. We don’t know if we are going to cross the barrier or
try to stop the attack from this side. What we do know is that they
only have a short window of opportunity to make the
attack.

‘
We know the Albany
have ships that can reach the Earth in just a few short weeks.
Their next fastest ships would take about seven to eight weeks, and
after that months of travel. Only the first two options are open to
our enemy. In about seven weeks time our bid to become a member of
the galactic community will be passed by the great council.
However, it will not be ratified until Earth changes its laws to
reflect that of the galactic federation; our representatives have
to read and sign all the paper work. We will have to appeal one or
two of the laws, or so I am led to believe. So our enemy probably
have a window of two to three months to hit us with everything they
have. If they hit our planet after the treaty has been ratified by
the council then it will have severe consequences for the three
parties involved. From what little intelligence we have been able
to gather, each asteroid has the potential to cause an extinction
level event on Earth. That’s just one. We think they may well be
throwing hundreds of them at us.’