Fleet Action (11 page)

"I ejected and made it down to the surface, mostly in one piece. Stranded for a couple of years," Vanderman said, "kind of wild and woolly down there, with the carnivores and such."

"I've heard of them," Ian interjected. "It was a famous hunting reserve of the Cats and used for the old rites of coming of age."

"Well, it sure as hell aged me," Vanderman replied, "dodging the local denizens and Kilrathi patrols until a raiding unit dropped in for a visit and I got picked up. I tell you it was an experience."

With that he unbuttoned his shirt collar and pulled out a chain. Dangling from the end of it was a gleaming serrated tooth several inches long.

"I heard the Cats take the tooth of a nalga as a trophy. I got one with a bow that I made and hung on to it, figured if I finally got captured it might make me look a bit better in their eyes. Actually I'm kind of attached to it now."

"It doesn't look like much of a tooth," Ian retorted. "Why it ain't much bigger than my little finger. Now on Farnsworth's World there, you'll get big teeth. I remember . . ."

"The owner of this little gem's got claws bigger than your arm," Vanderman interrupted, "and you got your choice out of which of four heads to pull the tooth from.

Ian, knowing he'd get outclassed in a tale swap, fell silent.

The Zephyr quickly boosted up on a high trajectory jump, so that the breadth of England, from the Irish to the North Sea was clearly in view.

The shuttle reached apogee over Scotland and then started its long curving descent over the North Sea, dropping down through a high bank of dark clouds. Buffeted by the wind the shuttle bounced in the turbulence as it crossed over the cliffs, circled to kill speed, and then touched down hard, kicking on reverse thrusters and jerking to a stop.

"Welcome to Windward, gentlemen," Johnston announced as he walked through the cabin and unlatched the rear hatch. "Move quickly now, lads, it's a bit of a blow out there, and besides, the Admiral's waiting."

As Jason stepped through the doorway the stinging rain lashed into him, the wind driving it in almost horizontally. Cursing he grabbed hold of his duffel and ran towards the dark building barely visible in the driving storm. A portal of light showed where a door was suddenly opened and he ran for it.

Sliding on the wet paving stones he nearly fell on his backside as he gained the door and rushed in, almost knocking over the man holding it open.

"Damn, what a blow," Jason said, wiping the rain off his face and then he realized who was holding the door open and snapped to attention.

"At ease, Jason, remember we're no longer in the fleet," and Geoffrey Tolwyn extended his hand.

The rest of the group came racing in behind Jason and all came to attention at the sight of Tolwyn who smiled and shook their hands.

"Gentlemen, our little meeting was waiting for your arrival. Would you follow me?"

He led them into a semi-darkened library room and Jason was surprised to see real books made of paper lining the walls, something that had not been produced in hundreds of years.

"It's the treasure of my family," Tolwyn said, "some of the volumes go back to an age when England ruled most of the world before the time of flying. This house is nearly as old, and was built in the style of manor homes from an even earlier time."

At the far end of the library a fireplace glowed, and again it caught Jason by surprise. Wood was far too precious on his home world to be used in such a manner, but even as he looked at it he understood the strange almost primal appeal of a fireplace, the smell of burning wood, and the comfortable feeling it provided.

Going through a wide double doorway, they stepped into a broad open room, at the far end of which was yet another fireplace, this one big enough to walk into. Dozens of chairs were drawn in a circle around the fireplace, each of them already occupied and Jason saw yet more familiar faces.

"Hey, it's Sparks," Doomsday announced and the chief fighter maintenance officer from the Tarawa got out of her chair and came up to Doomsday, shaking his hand and then Jason's in turn.

"It's like old home week here," she whispered, "pilots, a couple of maintenance officers like myself, ship's computer officers, there's even a commodore of a destroyer group over there in the corner."

"I'd like to get started," Tolwyn announced and he motioned for the new arrivals to grab some chairs.

Tolwyn turned away for a moment and extended his hands to the fire, rubbing them, silhouetted by the flames and Jason felt a flash memory of the hangar deck of Tarawa on fire. He closed his eyes and pushed the thought aside, knowing that it'd be back again tonight, one of the worst of the recurring nightmares.

"To start with the old familiar line. I guess you're wondering why I invited you all here tonight."

The group laughed politely.

"We heard about your stockpile of Scotch," Ian quipped.

"Afterwards, Hunter, but business first."

The group settled down.

"It has been four weeks since the formal armistice agreement between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire. Starting tomorrow, the peace commission starts its meetings to extend the armistice into a permanent settlement.

"All of us, especially we who fought so hard, and for so long, prayed daily for peace; for only one who fights can truly know how precious peace really is."

He lowered his head for a moment.

"And all of us know what the price might be if this peace proves to be an illusion, which I have feared from the beginning that it really is.

"What I'm about to share with you is level double-A classified information. Though we are no longer in the military I will invoke a military regulation regarding this information which is that the revealing of double-A-level classified information in time of war is a capital offense.

"We are not —" he paused" — officially at war, but I think that the level of classification conveys just how sensitive this material is. If this is something you feel might be over your head, Johnston will be happy to lift you back to London and you'll be back in town in time to catch the evening shows. If you stay, however, I expect a commitment from you to follow through on what I'm going to ask you to do. I called you here because I trust all of you. I'm asking in turn that you trust me and agree to this beforehand."

He waited for a minute and no one stirred.

"Fine, then we understand each other."

He picked up a small hand controller off the fireplace mantlepiece and clicked it. On a side wall a holo projection box hummed to life.

"The figures you see up there were only known at the highest level in the military and in the civilian government on the day the armistice was reached and, according to counter intelligence, were also revealed to the Kilrathi through an as yet unidentified mole."

He waited for that bit of information to sink in and then continued.

"As you can see, it shows actual fleet strength. The numbers in black are ships that were actively on line, the blue numbers were ships in for repair or maintenance and the green numbers new ships projected to join the fleet within the year.

He waited for a moment and then clicked the button again.

"The figures on the right side of the screen show the Kilrathi fleet size according to the highest level of intelligence and believe me it cost a hell of a lot of lives to get this information."

Jason scanned the figures. He knew the situation was bad, but he had no idea that the margin between Kilrathi and Confederation carriers was as large as indicated. He looked over at Tolwyn and realized yet again just how much the man risked when he took the Concordia a deep into Kilrathi territory to pull him out. The figures, however, for light craft, especially frigate class and transports were far better, with the Confederation having a significant lead in heavy transport capability.

A low murmur of voices filled the room as the group commented on the figures.

"Now I should add here, that in terms of quality, our technology in fighter craft was showing some significant edges, though they still had it over us in terms of sheer numbers and in firepower, which we offset with maneuverability and the ability to take more punishment, especially with our new upgrades which were just coming on line with the Broadswords and Sabre D class.

"But these are the key figures that I want you to take a hard look at."

He snapped the controller again, and columns of figures in red appeared alongside the Kilrathi column.

"Damn, look at that," Ian whispered, and Jason could only nod in reply.

"As you can see," Tolwyn announced, "from the day of the armistice and for roughly twelve months afterwards not one new fleet carrier was going to come on line for the Empire. Beyond that, it appears as if a significant portion of their carrier fleet needed to be pulled off line for major overhauls and refitting."

He paused for a moment

"This crippling of their carrier construction is thanks in part to a rather neat job by one of those present here tonight," and Jason nodded a thanks, but wanted to say that it wasn't him, but rather the nearly four hundred Marine raiders who gave their lives destroying the construction yards on Kilrah's moon that made the difference.

"Six carriers nearing completion were destroyed in the Tarawa raid and even more importantly their key personnel and construction equipment went up as well. Intelligence later ascertained that a high level design and engineering team was visiting the moon on the day the raid hit, wiping out some of their top brains. Tarawa also showed us a viable tactic for getting at the Kilrathi. You might recall that CVEs Enigma and Khorsan were reported lost, but no details were ever revealed for security reasons. The truth is that both light carriers were sent on deep penetration raids on carrier construction sites located in the Za'kathag region, killing three heavy carriers that were still being fitted out. Seven more construction sites were destroyed by other means that I'm not at liberty to discuss and in fact I'm not even supposed to know."

He turned away for a moment and reaching over to a wood bin he tossed another log on the fire and then looked back at the group.

"In other words, we had a window of opportunity which was starting to kick in and would have lasted for roughly six months to a year. For a brief period we would have, for the first time in the war, reached front line parity in terms of carrier strength and then the numbers would turn against us yet again. We might have been able to push them to the wall, though, during that time."

He sighed with frustration and lowered his head for a moment.

"Sir? '

He looked back up.

"Go ahead, Ian."

"Just how reliable are these figures?"

"I can t really tell you how we got them, but they're hard core. But now for the tough part, the classified information that only a handful really know about.

We suspect that the Kilrathi went for this armistice for two reasons, the first the operational concerns created by their crisis in transport capability, the destruction of heavy ship yards and the stand down of at least half their carriers for refit. If that alone was their reason behind the armistice, it would be bad enough. There is, however, the second issue."

He paused a moment for effect and the room was deadly still, except for the crackling of the fire.

"We have reason to believe that approximately five years ago the Kilrathi started the secret assembly of a major construction yard outside of their Empire's territory and at this site they are building an entire new class of ships. If this is true, we can expect that when the fleet is completed, it might be used to launch a preemptive and smashing blow to end the war in their favor. The key question concerning this is if indeed this fleet is real. If it is real and nearing completion, do the Kilrathi intend to use it to launch a preemptive strike while we stand down due to the armistice?"

"What kind of ships and where?" a commodore asked from the back of the room.

"It's called the Hari," a voice announced from the corner of the room.

"Paladin, damn me, I thought you got killed," Ian shouted, coming to his feet and running up to embrace his old friend.

"As usual, laddie, the reports of my death are a bit premature."

The group roared with delight as the old pilot came up to stand by Tolwyn.

"How the hell did you get out of that last scrape?" Ian asked. "They said you were reported long overdue and presumed dead. Hell, man, you owe me a drink because I bought a round at the Vacuum Breathers in your honor. Old Gallagher even gilded your mug."

"It's a wee bit tied up in all of this here talk the Admiral's giving."

"So what's this Hari?" Doomsday grumbled.

"The Hari Empire," Tolwyn said, "once existed in what was the realm of space on the other side of the Kilrathi Empire in relation to us. More than two hundred of our years before we first made contact with the Kilrathi, they fought a war with the Hari and annihilated them. So bitter was the struggle that the Hari, in their pride refused surrender and committed suicide."

"All of them?" Sparks asked.

"That's what we've been told by prisoners," Tolwyn said. "It is a vast empty reach of space, a good thirty jump points out from Kilrah. The Hari never knew of the jump points, and traveled at speeds slower than light. They made great ships that could journey between worlds in trips that took lifetimes. When they found a world with resources they multiplied quickly, in a hive-like manner. They quite literally wrecked the planet's biosphere with overpopulation and exploitation of every resource they could find. When the planet was used up, selected members were loaded back aboard their ark ships and moved on, leaving the rest to die. Thus there was little on their worlds worth the taking, the planets they occupied nothing but mined over and scarred barren wastelands when they were finished.