Fleet Action (27 page)

The Emperor smiled. Both he and the Baron knew the real truth, yet neither could admit it.

"I expect, Baron, that you will continue to keep them divided as long as possible. Even now they still argue, though, before they shut our embassy down and arrested the staff, we had information that they were mobilizing."

"What of our spy?"

"We have lost touch with the embassy and thus no longer have direct contact. It is assumed that she is gone."

"And what of the human embassy here on Kilrah?" Vak asked.

"I ordered their throats torn out this morning," the Emperor said coldly. "In public we are blaming them for the bombing of my cruiser. It is a convenient excuse now to treat them all as they deserve: total annihilation, total destruction of every world they inhabit."

Jukaga looked up at him in shock.

"That was in violation of the rules of war and of the agreement," Jukaga snapped.

"What rules of war?" Vak retorted. "There are no rules with such beasts who have lost whatever shred of respect we once held for them. They are lower than prey and should be exterminated without thought or mercy."

The Emperor laughed coldly.

"I am sick to death of this human scum and the potential for corruption that they present to us. I am therefore issuing the following order: all human prisoners that we still hold as well as slaves are to be slaughtered. Secondly, the new fleet is to be armed with thermonuclear weapons that are clad in strontium. These heavy weapons, when detonated in the atmosphere of a planet, will make uninhabitable. They shall be annihilated."

As he finished speaking he looked straight at Jukaga while the others in the room roared with delight.

Jukaga looked around at the clan leaders and for the first time truly felt as if a distance had opened up. If his plot had succeeded, even now they would be turning to him for guidance. Now instead they were eager to close in on him for the kill. But there was more. He felt a cool distaste for what the Emperor now proposed. Though he wanted to see the humans humbled and defeated, he found that of late he was feeling something far more, what could almost be called, if not a fondness, at least the beginning of a respect. He knew he was falling into a trap, that if one studied his enemy long enough, and came to know him, in the end one would find things, beliefs, and individuals one could identify with. What the Emperor was now proposing was monstrous.

"Such an action will arouse them to a frenzy," Jukaga said. "They will fight as they have never fought before."

"They are animals to be hunted," the Emperor replied.

"No, my lord."

A stunned silence filled the chamber at his direct contradiction to the Imperial word. He did not care. How could he even begin to explain what he knew, the countless examples of humans, motivated to fight without thought of self, fully willing to die fighting rather than submit.

"Terror will not breed submission as it did with others," Jukaga said quickly. "It will instead create a wish, as the humans put it 'to take one of the bastards with me.'"

The utterance of an obscenity, which to the Kilrathi was the most foul of insults shocked the other clan leaders.

"Do what is assigned to you, Baron," the Emperor replied sharply. "Convince them to submit. Now leave me!"

Baron Jukaga backed out of the room, barely inclining his head.

Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky opened his eyes as the distortion field from the transit jump settled down and looked over at his navigation officer.

"Alignment correct, star lock confirmed, jump was on the mark."

"Tactical," and he turned in his chair to look at the officer hovered over the holo display of the sector.

"Bannockburn in position eighty nine thousand clicks dead ahead. Too early to tell yet, sir, on passive optical sweep. At jump transit our pursuers, three corvettes and one frigate, were forty-two thousand nine hundred clicks dead astern and gaining at eight point two clicks a second."

Jason nodded. There was time to scout around before worrying about the back door.

"Flight deck."

"Doomsday here, sir."

"How are the birds?"

"All fighters ready and armed, just give us the prey."

"What about munitions?"

Doomsday gave his usual glum look.

"Enough for one more strike, sir. Eight torpedoes are all we have left for ship busters. The fighters will have to sortie with half standard missile and mass driver round bolts."

"Standby."

"Paladin on laser lock, sir."

Jason looked over at the communications officer and nodded for her to put it on the main holo.

"How goes it, laddie?"

Jason smiled. Even though he was technically the commander of this two ship fleet, he knew Paladin would never follow protocol of address and the fact was refreshing.

"Fighters are up and armed. Damage control's repaired the hull breech in the port engine room."

"And Vance?"

"Madder than hell. Seems Sparks broke one of his computers moving it out, said something about the machine costing just under half a billion. Sparks frowned, then said he could dock her pay if he was upset, but she had fighters to service."

"Good for Sparks. She's a rare lass," Paladin laughed and then his features went glum.

"We've got some trade up ahead, lad. Another cruiser just came through from the jump point leading back to Kilrah with two destroyers leading. Looks like standard tactical for more coming behind. I tapped into their comm channel and they're madder than hell and lookin for blood."

"Can we run past them to our jump point?"

"Just barely."

Jason punched into the engine room.

"Shovel on the coal back there. I want full thrust, fuel scoops closed."

"Close the scoops and we'll run her bone dry by the next jump.

"Just do it."

He switched back to Paladin.

"Let's get the hell out of here, and hope they don't have more waiting at the next jump."

"Laddie, from the looks of It I think the whole Empire is gonna be stirring to fry us."

"Let's just hope Kruger figures a way to get us out of here.

Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn stood up and walked to the front of the room. He looked down the length of the conference table and felt a cold twinge of pain. So many familiar faces were gone, killed in the bomb attack. It felt strange now to be standing before this group; after all it was Banbridge's job to run Third Fleet. He suddenly felt old and very lonely. He pushed the thought aside.

"Good morning."

He paused, reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an envelope and opened the letter. A paper letter such as the one he was holding was a wonderful gesture out of the past, part of the old traditions that the military still hung on to.

"By order of the JCS, Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn is appointed commander Third Fleet as of this date, with the primary mission of meeting, engaging, and destroying any hostile invasion into Confederation space which is directed towards the inner system of worlds. You are authorized to employ any means necessary as outlined in Emergency Decree 394 issued this date by the President of the Confederation. Your command will include 3rd Destroyer Group, Commodore Polowski commanding . . ."

He paused and looked back up at the group.

"Anyhow, all of you are listed here," he said quietly, "and if you aren't listed, I'm taking you anyhow," and the room echoed with nervous laughter.

Geoff activated the main holo screen which displayed the new Kilrathi heavy carriers, while a side screen displayed the surmised position of the fleet and its possible route into Confederation space.

A low murmur of voices filled the room as the dozen group and squadron commanders, representing the ships and Marine assault regiments under his command examined the data.

"Our task is to meet and stop this force before it gains the inner worlds of the Confederation."

"Just how many fighters will these ships carry?" Lyford Beverage, commander of the First Cruiser Squadron asked.

"We're working off of only one intelligence sweep, a long range optical examination followed by a translight radar burst, so our data is sketchy. Our evaluation team believes they carry four launch bays, and perhaps six. It's hard to tell, since all the ships were aligned identically at the time we swept them so we don't have a full examination from all angles. Given the mass of the ships, our best guess is two hundred and forty fighters, scout and bomber craft, perhaps three hundred. Close analysis of the scan detected five of the ships emitting infrared signatures for functional reactors. The other seven were cold."

"Good lord, Geoff, if five of those things are coming at us that means we'll be facing upwards of fifteen hundred attack ships," Rear Admiral Allen Zitek growled from the back of the room, his speech computer making him sound almost robotic. Zitek had been badly burned years before leading a squadron against a Kilrathi carrier. It still amazed Geoff what the surgeons could do if a man could be brought in while still alive.

"Don't forget that the Kilrathi had a minimum of nineteen other standard carriers and at least twenty heavy cruisers that carried thirty fighters each. That comes to over three thousand seven hundred additional strike craft."

There was a chilled moment of silence.

"What about logistical support, supplies, and training from the Kilrathi view point?" Duke Grecko asked from the back of the room.

"That's the one hope," Geoff replied. "We now understand the mystery of their transport shortage and their occasional shortages of missiles. They were straining their system beyond the max to keep the war going and at the same time building this new fleet in secret. I've handed this data over to intelligence analysis, and I'm stilling waiting for the full report. My gut feeling on it is that they couldn't fully do both. I think they stripped some of their best squadrons off their front line carriers during the armistice and shipped the personnel out to the new ships, replacing them with new recruits. The burst signal from Tarawa already indicated a thousand fighters transferred off ships that had been put into their inactive reserve. I'm certain we'll see their best shot from the new carriers, which will be fully loaded for combat. The rest of the fleet will be held in a secondary support role or open action on other fronts as diversions."

"That still would leave a minimum of fifteen hundred strike craft on five carriers coming straight at Earth, not to mention what looks like close to a hundred escort ships," Zitek replied. "And just how many fighters will we have to meet this?"

"We can have five carriers fully on line within two weeks, with forty one escorts, carrying a total of six hundred and eighty-nine strike craft."

"Just five?"

"Actually, only two are on line and fully operational at the moment, Geoff said shaking his head.

"With crews working around the clock and cutting a lot of corners, I expect to see three more carriers ready to join the fleet by the time the Kilrathi penetrate into Confederation space. It'll be forty-five days, more like sixty, before our remaining carriers will be on line again."

"Jamison was brilliant pushing that deactivation through," Grecko snapped and Geoff could only nod his head in agreement.

The political arena with Jamison standing in the center was now one of absolute chaos. Less than twenty-four hours ago Rodham had announced the existence of the Kilrathi super carriers and the assumption that Earth had been directly targeted for attack. He then called for the Confederation Senate to renounce the armistice and to mobilize for a renewal of the war, closing with his resignation as president. Minutes later the vice president was sworn in and delivered a sharp rousing speech, demanding that the Kilrathi open their border for full inspection of the new fleet or face offensive action. It was all a bluff on Quinson's part, but it at least sounded good. The Confederation had been thrown into a state of panic by the announcement, with every holo reporter scrambling to put their spin on the issue, which ranged from "we've been stabbed in the back by the Cats," to "the evil military was pushing for a war." The situation was further stirred up by the Kilrathi reply that the bombing of headquarters and the attempt on the Emperor's life were part of a military coup by pro-war officers and that they were totally innocent of any wrong-doing.

At first Geoff had naively assumed that this had closed the deal, that the Senate would vote for war and that the new president's declaration of a full military emergency would be observed.

Jamison had triggered near chaos instead. First she refused to resign, even though Quinson had appointed a new Foreign Minister. Next she accused the military of conspiring to renew the war, a position that the Kilrathi were pumping out through their propaganda agencies.

The result was that the Senate had still not declared war, wavering, some even adopting the Kilrathi line, and demanding that the military unilaterally disarm.

Quinson had stood firm, however, evoking executive right to order the military to mobilize for emergency action. The one restraint, however, was that such an emergency did not give the fleet the right to take offensive action. Tolwyn had actually fallen into a shouting match with the senate military committee over that point, wanting to free his two light escorts that were operational for a spoiling and recon raid into Kilrathi space, but he had been held back.

Sometimes it really bites to be in the military," Polowski snapped from the back of the room. "I'd just love to get Jamison onboard my ship as a forward turret gunner's mate when we charge those carriers and let her see what her peace loving friends have done while we slept," and there was a chorus of approval.

Geoff held up his hand for silence.

"Remember, we are the military. Civilian politics is outside of our control and like it or not that's a tradition we must observe. It's our job to defend the Confederation from the attack we all know is coming, and I'm counting on you to give it everything you have. Some really big damn fools got us into this fix. The hell with them, push them out of your minds. I want you to focus on the billions of innocent people who will be under the Kilrathi antimatter bombs and the survivors who will face their knives if we fail. The existence of the human race now hangs in the balance