Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (4 page)

But such thoughts occupied only a corner of his mind as the two squadrons did their job. Like piranha they tore into their much larger prey, and their bites added up. The
Antelope
went down immediately, then
Adventure Galley,
and finally
Apache
.

“I'm never going to hear the end of this I suppose,” the admiral said, smiling. The pilots were going to be crowing for weeks he thought. He shook his head. They had performed well, but they shouldn't get too much of a swelled head over the win. They'd taken down three wounded opponents engaged with each other. Try that with prey in good condition.

“Admiral, um, sir, the skipper would like a word,” a tech said.

“I'd say she does,” he said dryly.

“Sir, the captains of …”

He held up a restraining hand. “Fleet conference in a half hour. I expected better of the warships; they were sloppy. They'd better improve on their next outing or heads will definitely roll,” he growled. “Order all hands to clean up. Rick, kill the sim,” he ordered. His chief of staff nodded and followed his orders.

He'd have to find a way to put Maya's people in their place. Eventually, he thought. For now, he had a lot of griping to listen to and some critiques to hand out.

---<>))))

“Sir, um, ma'am. There is a ship at the Gaston jump point,” a tech said, looking up.

“What is it?” the captain asked, punching up an echo of the sensor tech's feed. All they had to go on for the moment was the bright telltale flash of a hyperspace arrival.

“CIC isn't sure, ma'am. It's …, ma’am, update. She's got active sensors. They are sending out an omni ping.”

“All ship's silent running,” the captain barked immediately, tapping out the order. “Transmit that by whisker laser to the other ships now, Comm,” she ordered, turning to the comm rating.

“Ma'am, it's probably too late for the destroyers and other ships in orbit,” the comm watch tech said. “They are directly in the line of that ping.”

“Maybe, but not all,” the sensor tech said. “All eyes turned to him. “We're behind a moon and
Lingchi
is at the gas giant with the tanker refueling. If she goes into stealth, they might mistake her signature for the tanker,” he said looking up.

“It's worth a shot. With that sort of sensor sweep are we thinking a warship eyes?” the skipper asked as the lighting dimmed to nighttime levels. She sent a message to the admiral's steward to wake him and alert him they had a growing situation.

“I'm not sure, ma'am. It's powerful, so it rules out most civvies, ma'am. I'm wondering if they have a neutrino emissions detector. If they do …”

“Let's not jump to any conclusions. Besides, going to silent running will step down our emissions. We've got the extra shielding around the reactors for a reason. Anything on mass?”

“I'm still filtering out the light from the burst, ma’am. It may take …,” the tech grimaced. “She's a
Resolution
class, ma'am.”

“Ma'am, I think the Feds have a
Resolution
in their fleet.”

“We certainly don't have any out here,” the skipper growled. “So, it is a warship,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the open hatch as the deck sentry confronted the admiral and XO as they charged in. He immediately backed off after one look at them however.

“SITREP?” the admiral demanded.

“
Resolution
class tentatively ID'ed at the Gaston jump point. I ordered all ships to go to silent running,” Captain Bordou said, rising to her feet. She reached down and used her fingertips to call up an image of the jump point and as well as a plot of the star system as seen from the Z axis onto the main vid screen. Sensors and CIC had done their best to filter out the light burst and punch up the ship. They could just make out the basic shape. To her it looked like a grainy blob, but apparently it was enough to give someone an idea of what she was. She was definitely not a civvy.

“She went active sensors the moment she jumped in. I'm afraid the tin cans and support ships were in easy sight range of the unknown tango,” she said, pointing to the star map. “
Lingchi
was partially exposed. The tanker definitely. We're behind the moon,” she said, indicating their position.

“Right,” the admiral said with a nod. “Good thinking on the stealth, Captain. Comm, lay on a whisker to the other ships. Prepare them to receive fresh orders.”

Now that they had the target in sight on the ground he had to buy his people on the ground time to get them. They'd better not screw it up he thought darkly as he formulated a plan.

The tech looked up expectantly as the admiral temporarily took a seat at the captain's chair. He pressed a button and the microphone popped up. “Ready when you are, sir.”

The admiral nodded. “Very well. All commands,” he intoned. “We've got an unexpected visitor. We're going to prepare a warm reception for them. One that will hopefully singe them good and proper, if not cook them well done. Now, here is what we're going to do …”

Chapter 2

The Fourth Fleet raid hit deep into the new Federation. Once they secured the orbitals, the ships had proceeded to map and then bombard the planet. The Horathians couldn't take it all, so once they took what they wanted they destroyed indiscriminately.

At first they had focused their efforts on the two major industrial cities, Gotham and Metropolis. Once they were through with taking what they wanted, they moved on while the KEW strikes rained down behind the lifting shuttles.

Many cities and towns deemed lacking anything of value to the pirates were flattened and shattered by the rocks as the raiders made their way around the planet. There was massive damage to both the infrastructure, loss of life, and to the command chain as law and order broke down. It became an all-out fend-for-yourself situation within days in some places.

Despite his age and cloned limbs, Nohar Rajestan, ancient and rather decrepit looking Neotiger army sergeant turned private detective, turned planetary security head did his best to fight the good fight. His rebuilt body had helped in that regard. He at first tried to limit his involvement to hiding himself and others around him before the raiders got to them. The sewers and farms outside the cities were some of the best places to hide, as were the deep mines. The enemy was limiting their actions to the cities, industrial centers, and coastlines since they were concentrations of the booty they wanted, which sparked a mass exodus from those places by the native population.

Within the first week he, like others who were trapped on the planet, noted that the raiders stayed away from the inland areas—though they did tend to start fires on massive farms and forests out of some sort of sick fun.

But when he saw some of his friends and enemies getting rounded up and shot, he changed tactics. Maggie hadn't deserved that. Nor had she deserved getting skinned by the sick bastards either. He didn't even want to think about what they had done to Jerry or some of the others who hadn't gotten away in time. Sights like that had made him burn for revenge, but unlike the idiots who lost their cool and took pot shots or stood and fought without a plan, he had training and a small collection of weapons.

He'd had some dustups with pirates back when he'd been in the 501st before the Xeno war. At least the bastards then didn't give a shit about what species you were. As long as people gave them what they wanted, they took it and got out. They were more interested in the booty than the sadistic pleasure.

He'd never actually tangled with them though, just had seen the aftermath plenty of times when his unit was sent in to clean up the mess and assure the public that the military was earning its pay.

During the Xeno war, they'd fought hell on Earth. The Xenos hadn't gotten into taking and holding ground, not until they had been cut off from the galactic gate and their home galaxy. Most of the time they'd fought on the ground had been a ruse, a way to draw the Federation in, suck them in to defend the evacuating population while they set off nano weapons or seeded them into the fleeing population.

He managed to round up Hank McCoy and a few of the others and turn them into a militia unit. Hank wasn't worth piss in a combat situation, but he could monitor the enemy and do his best to keep their gear functional for as long as possible—what little gear they had.

It had taken three long weeks of training and leading volunteers to fight the enemy using whatever weapons, including tooth and claw, that they could find before he realized it wasn't enough and to realize they were deliberately driving people inland. Once large enough population centers were identified, refugee camps, whatever, the bastards bombed them into oblivion.

Hunting rifles that had been used for centuries to hunt for the table were employed to snipe at the enemy and their vehicles. Police weapons and handguns the security head had scrounged up were also used, though their power planet and ammunition were sharply limited. Nohar wracked his tired brain to come up with improvised weapons like IEDs and other traps. Hank constantly moaned about not having the tools to create EMP weapons to take down the enemy armor.

Nohar was just glad they didn't have a whole hell of a lot of it to go around. His people learned the hard way to shoot and scoot. Take a shot and get the hell out. Let someone else further back do the damage assessment. Fall back to a new position or hide. Don't run too far or fast or they'd spot you. Blending into crowds was out; they just mowed them down indiscriminately.

His ears flicked as his tired mind went over the numbers. They weren't reaping a lot, but they were getting some of the pirates every week. They paid in blood for each, normally losing three or four people in the process, but the enemy had a lot less numbers than he had to go around. Or at least they did at first.

To his sick disgust, people, all of them humans, ended up going over to the other side with too much frequency. They'd roll belly-up, get kicked around, kiss ass. He knew people were getting desperate, and there were always those who kissed a winner's ass to be on the same side, but damn! He snarled, flicking his claws in and out.

The resistance had spread the word. Anyone who seemed to be a quisling was also labeled a legitimate target. They might be just trying to survive and keep their own alive, but they were doing so by sacrificing others, some of them longtime friends or acquaintances. That could not be tolerated. It would definitely
not
be tolerated. Any that were caught were publicly executed, usually hung if they had the time and the Horathians were not in the area. It scared some into keeping a low profile or to not approach the enemy, but those who already had were even more tightly bound to the invaders.

The pirates didn't trust them of course. Those who could fight were given shoddy weapons and used as cannon fodder. But they had done what Nohar had hated, filled the pirate's ranks up with more fresh, warm bodies. Bodies with brains who knew the lay of the land and where people were hiding. Their losses went up when the traitors signed on in each area.

Did they really think the enemy would keep them? What, take them with them when they left? They were pirates. Some might despair when the occupation went into the fourth week, but he didn't. Eventually they'd leave. They weren't setting themselves up to rule; they didn't have the numbers. No, they were stealing anything not nailed down that they wanted.

And as frustrating as it was, he couldn't stop them. He tried not to think about what they planned to do to the planet once they had everything they wanted and left. The only, small, teeny tiny glimmer of black humor in that was the realization that the pirates would abandon the suck-ups to their fate and leave them to die by the hands of the resistance or by the pirate's bombardments.

He wracked his brain for lessons from Bedford Forrest, Phil Sheridan, his own training, and other lesson's he'd read about in guerrilla fighting. Some concepts worked; others he had to toss out immediately as untenable.

Their first spats of combat had been carefully scripted. He'd drilled into them shoot and scoot. Hit, then run. Don't celebrate. Don't pop up in the same place twice. They'd fought in the city, but when the enemy used retaliation strikes to take out entire blocks to run them down, he changed tactics.

Twice he'd used that to his own advantage, leading them to hit material and industrial equipment that he didn't want them to have. His standing orders were to get out of dodge before a KEW strike came in. If possible they warned the community to get out as well, but after one asshole ran to warn the enemy and got his block and a squad of militia obliterated, he'd stopped that practice.

Whenever possible he tried to fight in forests or in vacant areas of a city or town. Places where thermal imaging wouldn't be a big giveaway for his people. Business districts were good; there were a lot of ways in and out. Warehouse districts along the wharfs was also nice.

Two of the enemy's shuttles had been destroyed by satchel charges. He was particularly proud of his people. Butch had led the enemy into an attack, and when they'd pinned down the squad, the local commander had pulled off some of the security from the landing strip to act as a reserve.

When they had, two squads had gotten in through the wire and had blown the half-filled shuttles into wreckage.

It was a tactic he could only use once, but it had been a hell of a morale booster. Even with Butch's crew's sacrifice to allow it to happen.

Slowly though, they were being reduced as their ammunition ran out. The enemy weapons were geared for humans. Only the apes could use them easily and there were few of them left.

He had his teams picking off small groups stupid enough to lag behind to rape, plunder, and pillage for private gain. But that was proving dangerous; sometimes the enemy would use that as a trap, using their own people as bait.

Something had to break, and soon.

---<>))))

The red Neocat Solaximara tried to strike a deal within the first week. He was one of the only surviving leaders of the planet; everyone else was either dead or in hiding. He saw it as an opportunity, one he could use to his advantage if he played his cards right and if the enemy was reasonable. He brokered a deal over the radio. If they didn't bomb areas where his supporters were at, he in turn would give them the locations of where rich booty was including industrial centers and stockpiles.

In order to seal the deal, the Marine Commander Colonel Bericus only agreed to his terms if he came to a face-to-face meeting. Instead of getting what he wanted, the red Neo had been publicly humiliated and then executed before a crowd of horrified people.

The Marine in charge of his execution took great pains to make it clear the Neo had betrayed his own people, even broadcasting Solaximara's discussion over the speakers. “You see? You see what they are? Little more than animals! Animals who have outlived their usefulness,” he said, turning to spit on the cat's corpse. “The list of places he didn't want bombed have been moved to the top,” he snarled. He turned in a whirl of his cape to leave the podium and stage.

Within hours Solaximara's supporters in the area, entire neighborhood blocks in some of the surviving cities, had been wiped out. Mega city became a new priority target.

---<>))))

Bo looked at his cousins and then to the people at the farm. They'd opened the farm to everyone in the area, friend and foe alike just like during the plague a few years back. They were all in it together, and their late Uncle Jesse would have wanted them to help.

They did their best to work with Rosco and his surviving deputies to keep order and protect the civilians. The late boss Hodges would have also been helping … though he would have undoubtedly directed Rosco to protect his interests while also scalping people for everything he could.

It was just as well that he'd passed a few years before uncle Jesse, Bo thought.

“We've got another cow, Bo,” Daisy said to him as she came up behind him. He smiled wanly over his shoulder at that good news. He'd struck out. “Luke caught it with his bow. He's going to need help getting it back to roast it though,” she warned. “I don't want to roast all of it. The more we use for a stew the better. Stew will go three times as long as a steak. But he's got to get it here first,” she warned.

“On my way,” Bo said with a nod to her. His eyes turned longingly to the orange car under the tarp nearby before he sighed and went to gather a few people to help get the cow back to the farm so they could eat for the next several days.

---<>))))

Doctor, planetary medical officer, and reserve Commander Helen Richards organized her medics early on to deal with the incoming flood of wounded, but had them evacuate the hospital against the wishes of the local government when the first reports of bombardments came over the radio.

She didn't trust in the big red X on the roof of her building deterring the bastards from using it as a target. She wouldn't put anything past them. She'd rather have egg on her face than loose everyone.

They'd had an evacuation plan of course and had drilled on it annually. But the evacuation had been geared for a major storm or other natural crisis. It had been geared to be taken in stages, not rushed. She'd had them triage the military hospital complex, so many supplies were left behind in their haste to get out.

Most of her patients were well cared for. The nanites in their systems acted like regen tanks under her medics’ directions—those that still had them. A few had been flushed out over time. They'd had to downplay the existence of the nanites to keep the public from panicking. That had prevented her medics from just keying them, providing power and direction and performing miracles of life saving medicine, even though they'd all wanted to do so, badly.

Some superstitions just died hard she reminded herself.

She was glad she had when the invaders had landed and a squad of armored troops had taken a shuttle in to land in the quad to secure her hospital complex four hours later.

Some nurses who had stayed behind to attend to sick patients too sick to move were captured. The student dorms were raided; a few idiots who'd stayed behind or had been slow in packing had been captured. She had stupidly gone back because they hadn't gotten a hold of several staff members who had yet to have reported in. She tried to station a few people to intercept them on the streets leading to the complex but two got past her best efforts and into the complex to be captured.