Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (16 page)

He turned to Admiral Minacci and asked, “Have any of your scouts found any large concentrations of K’Rang ships?”

Minacci responded, “We aren’t finding any concentrations larger than task forces, but not all ships are on station yet. Some of the deep sectors won’t be covered for a few more days.”

“Good work, admirals, I’ll let you get back to your commands now.”

 
Chapter Eight
 

 The scout ship Voracious entered its patrol box and initiated the patrol plan. It made a run down the longitudinal axis with maximum sensor sensitivity, finding no inhabited planets after days of coasting. Toward the end of its longitudinal run, it detected faint ship-to-ship communications just over the boundary into the next patrol box. Intelligence took priority over territory and Lieutenant Commander Bentine planned to return to his patrol plan right after he reconnoitered these comms.

He moved into the adjacent patrol box and tried to recall who had this box, if anyone, as there were three times as many boxes as scout ships. As he drew closer to the center of activity, his sensor operators started calling out specific known K’Rang ship designators and several never before recorded. The Voracious sensor specialists read out designators for 17 K’Rang ships. The known designators were for three heavy cruisers, three destroyers, and four frigates. The seven unknowns were probably the new K’Rang ships. Bentine pressed in closer and had his sensor operators gather as much data on these new ships as possible.

After he found no more ships in the patrol box, he headed back into his designated box. He had to get word back to Fleet Intel on the concentration of ships he’d found, and set a speed course to get within comms range of the 2nd Combined Fleet or to relay through another scout ship between his location and there.

* * * * *

The Elders met again for a briefing by the Chief of Fleet.

He entered their presence, saluted, and said, “Excellencies, I am here to provide information on the two marauding Human fleets.”

“It seems the Humans have assembled two vast and equal armadas. I shall refer to them as the Taurus and Pisces fleets, as those are the Human sectors from which they originated. They are both built around two battle fleets, each with five carrier battle groups. Each fleet has three battle cruiser groups, a supply group, and three assault landing groups. Opposite our armada in the Eridanus sector are at least two battle groups, reinforced with at least two wings of the small fast attack ships and two wings of the heavy slow attack ships. This force is not large enough to drive our fleet out, but would be difficult to impossible for our armada to defeat.”

“There are a number of small scout ships operating throughout our space. These small scout ships launched the attack on the space dock at H’Lang, the nearby commercial shipping attack, and the attack on our Task Force 152. In addition, we have seen reports of an extremely fast large unknown type of scout ship operating in our rear area. It has yet to conduct any attacks and we’re unsure of its mission. Possibly they are attempting to locate our grand armada, but we cannot be certain.”

“We believe that the two large Human fleets are aimed here at G’Durin and they aim to split the Empire into three parts. We recommend that we assemble the Grand Armada. This will take a minimum of two weeks. After we have assembled and organized the Grand Armada, we attack the Taurus Fleet in two weeks. We should pull back the Eridanus Armada to attack the Taurus Fleet like fangs in a jaw. After we have dealt with the Taurus Fleet, we can turn on the Pisces Fleet. By the end of next month, the Human threat will be neutralized.”

The middle Elder asked, “Where will the Human fleet be in two weeks?”

The Fleet Chief looked at his notes and said, “Just between the main worlds J’Tag and G’lab, Excellency.”

“Where will they be the next week, if undisturbed?”

The Fleet Chief looked again at his notes and said, “They will be between J’Tag and G’Lok, Excellency.”

The left Elder said, “Attack them in three weeks. The distance between J’Tag and G’Lok is greater. There is less chance our citizens will be affected. One other thing, Fleet Commander, deploy the drone ships.”

The other two Elders nodded their approval and the Fleet Chief said, “As you wish, Excellencies. Long live the Empire!”

* * * * *

The Verity sat in the charged gases of a planetary nebula and waited. It had been raiding commercial shipping in the area and four missile corvettes had been sent to investigate. These were familiar models known as darts for their long sensor probe off their nose. Four of them were sniffing around, looking for the Verity. One of them was about to stick his nose into the nebula near where the Verity sat watching.

The inquisitive corvette entered the charged cloud of plasma, which made up the nebula, and the Verity pounced. All guns were aimed forward and nine disruptors set on wide beam made the ship literally disappear into a cloud of smoke and gas. Verity waited. Pretty soon a second ship entered, looking for the first. The Verity pulled back until they could circle around behind the dart and it, too, disappeared.

The disruptor guns were exceeding expectations. Designed to break the molecular bond and disrupt the structure of solid objects, it literally made objects, like the corvettes, disappear into a cloud of disparate gases.

Now the remaining two darts moved forward, within supporting distance of each other. Lieutenant Commander Volmer could hear them calling to their two lost ships. He moved Verity to the side of where they would enter the nebula. Both came in, and as the nebula blinded their sensors, trusted their glass ports to give them a sufficient view of their surroundings to navigate.

They were wrong. They didn’t even see Verity closing in on them and making them disappear, as did their friends. Lieutenant Commander Volmer marked down four missile corvettes and moved to the next hide site on his patrol plan.

* * * * *

The scout ship Volatile, providing flank security for the 2nd Combined Fleet, spotted a concentration of K’Rang new ships moving not quite parallel to their track and 60,000,000km away, like they were trying to get by unnoticed. Two cruisers, two destroyers and three frigates made up the task force. Volatile called for attack ships.

On Sirius, Tammy rushed to her ship and was spacebound in less than 20 minutes. She transported through the Sirius Ring and exited the 2nd Combined Fleet’s ring ship. She flew along the vector given by the Volatile until she saw the first indications of ships on her sensor screen. The task force was traveling in line formation in class order: cruisers in front, destroyers in the middle, and frigates in the rear.

When Commander Tanaka called her, Tammy recommended attacking them from the rear. He agreed and she flew to her position in the formation. They divided the targets among the squadron and locked them in. On Tanaka’s command, 432 missiles left the attack craft and headed toward the task force. The missiles travelled 45 seconds of their 65-second flight time before the K’Rang task force detected them. Twenty seconds was not much time to react. They fired all their defensive missiles to no avail – the defensive missiles barely had enough time to orient on the incoming missiles before the missiles started destroying the task force. In 35 seconds, from first explosion to last, the task force ceased to exist.

Commander Tanaka keyed his mike and said, “Head for the barn,” and the formation flew for the ring ship and home. Mission accomplished.

* * * * *

Shadow Leader K’Pol looked over his command. He commanded 100 pilotless ships and 30 female Shadow Warriors to fly them. Shadow Leader H’Tani ran the ship. K’Pol ran the drones and their pilots. He walked down the racks of drones ready to launch and ignored his pilots standing in formation for the moment. Each ship had three particle cannons, could carry a dozen missiles, and had an antimatter warhead capable of taking out a destroyer or below. Multiple strikes would take out a carrier. K’Pol ran his hand over the fuselage of the nearest drone before turning to his Shadow Warriors.

“Shadow Warriors, I am Shadow Leader K’Pol. I am your Commander for this campaign. I do not care that you are female. I only care that you carry out your duty to the Empire. We have not yet been unleashed from our defense of the home world mission to help defeat the Human marauders invading the Empire. If we are, we should be exclusively devoted to attacks on their carriers. Our mission should be to reduce the numbers of carriers in the Human fleets to zero. That is the mission for which we will train. It is a mission worthy of us. Pilots, to your controllers!”

Thirty pilots broke formation and ran to their controllers, small cabins designed to mimic the cockpit of a fighter and provide a sensor enhanced view of the space around the drone fighter. Thirty consoles powered up at once. Drones moved from the ready racks to the launch tubes. Upon K’Pol’s command, 30 drones left the Drone Carrier J’Fet.

K’Pol moved to his command center, where screens provided all around views of the space surrounding the ship. Individual monitors provided views from selected drones. Other monitors provided pilot name, drone load out, and ship/weapons status.

The pilots would be training against a T’Pok fighter squadron today. They had defeated every simulated threat thrown at them, but today they would take on living, breathing pilots.

The drone pilots formed up in three 10-ship formations and moved out in the general direction of the threat. Suddenly, 36 T’Pok showed on their screens, coming in at max speed. K’Pol ordered the lead 10-ship flight to fire missiles. Simulated missiles left the lead ships’ rails, heading to the inbound fighters. Simulated strikes took out 12 T’Poks. Missiles from the T’Poks answered back. The drone pilots applied radical evasive maneuvers that no K’Rang could survive and only one drone was lost. The drones closed on the T’Pok and engaged guns. Another dozen T’Pok were designated killed by the simulation computer. Twelve T’Pok were all that remained of the original 36 fighters.

The drones were now in range of the notional carrier and defensive missiles were launched against the drones. K’Pol ordered the 20 rear drones to launch their anti-ship missiles. 240 missiles notionally flew at the enemy carrier. More defensive missiles were launched to ward off the missiles. Barrage jammers in every fifth missile threw off the lock of the defensive missiles and 130 missiles reached through the cloud of defensive missiles to strike the notional carrier.

The carrier was damaged but not destroyed. K’Pol gave the order to ram. 29 remaining drones launched at the notional carrier and bore in, jinking, twisting, and turning as no living pilot could. Fifteen drones were destroyed on the run in, but 14 made it into the target and their antimatter warheads tore the ship apart. The last image before the simulation shut down and the retrieval command was sent to the drones was the burning carrier pin wheeling through space.

K’Pol ordered his pilots to fall in. As they rushed to form up in three rows of ten, he saw looks of triumph on some of their faces. He needed to build their warrior spirit, but he also didn’t want them too cocky. He had read the studies that showed among K’Rang prehistoric ancestors the females were the better hunters, hunting in cooperative prides. They needed to provide protein for their cubs on a regular basis, while males only needed to hunt for themselves every few days.

This supposedly made females better at this mission than males. Test after test proved this to be true, but there was still resistance to deploying females in combat. This would be their first test as drone pilots in combat.

As the formation settled down, he strode forward to the front of the formation, “I congratulate you on your victory. Remember that there are layers upon layers of defenses around a carrier and it will be much harder to attack than the simulation today. We will work tomorrow to peel back these layers and ensure you can accomplish your mission. Dismissed!”

* * * * *

Candy stepped out by her pool and looked up, wondering which star her husband was near. She liked the sound of that, her husband. Pushing the thought he might not come back way deep in her mind, she refused to contemplate that eventuality. Kelly had to come back. She wanted children and she wanted them to be hers and his.

She thought of other things to clear the bad thoughts from her mind, like finding someplace to take all the gifts that violated ethics regulations. There was a certificate for a ground car, which they didn’t need and couldn’t accept. A jewel-encrusted saber from some planetary governor had to go, even if it didn’t push ethics rules. Two pulsar pistols from another governor may have been legal on his world, but were quite against the law here. One of the planet’s representatives hand carried them from his world, but already said he wouldn’t carry them back. A number of gifts from people with a contract interest had to be returned.

Candy wished she still had Carol the wedding planner, who could take care of these things while Candy was at work. She made a note to call Carol and find her price for a week’s help.

She looked up at the stars again and wished her husband good luck and good hunting. Sleep came surprisingly quickly.

* * * * *

Kelly slowed down as he approached a major K’Rang fleet base, only thirty-two million kilometers from the K’Rang-A’Ngarii frontier. There were three space docks with major combatants on each docking arm. He could see other ships as far back as his short-range high-resolution sensors could range. He could make out transports jockeying from ship to ship. Supply ships ran through the massed formation, stopping seeming randomly at ships. Kelly counted at least 300 ships.

He instructed his sensor team to glean as much as they could, then told Connie to use the ring to deliver the data file to the mini-ring at Scout Force HQ. Connie was gone and back in 30 minutes.

“Sir,” she said coming up behind him, “Admiral Minacci has a message for you. He says thanks for the info, now go find the A’Ngarii.”