The Tactics of Revenge (3 page)

The two Humans stepped outside of the shuttle and into the damp night air. Adam knew where the nearest spaceport was located, but he also knew that getting in and securing another spacecraft wouldn’t be easy. And then there would be the minutes-long transit from the surface and into space, which would leave them vulnerable to any number of assaults from either the Hyben or the Juireans.

He sighed deeply, an expression not lost on Sherri.

“Yeah, not lookin’ too good, is it?” she said.

“Let’s just hope that the invasion is going according to plan. If not, then we’re really screwed!”

Chapter 3

Even though Nate Allen had been in space for over four months already, he had yet to see anything like the Barrier. He stood on the command bridge of the huge Klin flying saucer and stared dumbfounded at the kaleidoscope of colors before him – just as all the rest of the bridge crew was so enthralled.

From his education and natural scientific curiosity, Nate was aware of the deadly turmoil that was taking place within the hot nebular gases of the Barrier, as stars were bursting into existence from forces of heat and gravity that defied imagination. But nonetheless, the scene before him was an awesome sight to behold.

But now it was time to get down to business. Fleet Admiral Nate Allen knew that the Barrier was the line of demarcation between the Far Arm and the Fringe. This was where they would first enter enemy territory, and the conflict that had been four months in the making, would now begin.

Allen’s fleet of Klin-built warships numbered one-thousand forty-three strong. Originally, the Klin fleet had consisted of well over eleven hundred, but then the Klin had inexplicably pulled seventy of them from the fleet, saying they were to return to the main Klin base for other assignments. The Klin refused – politely – to divulge the location of this base or say what these other assignments might entail, which only added to the suspicions most Humans now carried for the Klin and their surrogates, the so-called
Saviors
.

Klin-Human relations had become a complicated political dance of late, with each party suspecting what the other was doing, but just not willing to discuss it openly. By now, the powers back on Earth were convinced that it was the Klin who were ultimately responsible for the Juirean attack on the planet, and they were equally convinced that the Klin knew of the Human’s suspicions. But in light of the reconstruction and military assistance the Klin were providing, the leaders couldn’t come right out and accuse the aliens of setting up the entire Human-Juirean conflict.

And the Klin, for their part, were just as pragmatic. They needed the Humans to wage war against the Juireans, knowing full well that if they pulled their assistance, the Human race would be annihilated. If this occurred, then any hope the Klin had of ever exacting revenge against the Juireans for the destruction of their homeworld would be lost as well.

This strange, unspoken dynamic was not lost on the population in general. In whispered conversations around the world, more and more people were beginning to question the timing – and convenience – of it all. Once the initial shock of the devastation had passed, Humanity began to look at the events surrounding the Juirean attack, and questions began to be asked.

Nate’s reverie was interrupted by an ensign seated at the forward monitoring screen. “It’s Schwartz again, sir.”

Nate looked at the screen and saw an out-of-place contact light creating a corkscrew pattern far away from the static line of contacts, which signified the location of the main Human fleet.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Schwartz was one of the best pilots in the fleet – and his nephew – he would have long ago had the brash, young Navy Lieutenant-Commander thrown in the brig….

A Klin Fleet Vessel Series-A (KFV-A) was much smaller than the massive Juirean Class-5 warships the Human fleet would soon be up against, but it made up for its diminutive stature with remarkable speed and maneuverability. LCDR Lee Schwartz had found his dream machine in the KFV-A, and once out of the atmosphere of Earth, he had found he could do things in the Klin ship that he could only dream about in his F-35 Lightning II. It was a remarkable craft, yet only one in a series which the Klin provided.

The Klin ships were all divided into various grades, based upon their size and function. The KFV-A’s were the smallest with a crew of twenty-five. They were the fighters of the flight, outnumbering all other classes by a factor of ten. And even though the ‘A’ only referred to its size, the crews preferred to say it stood for ‘Attack,’ which more appropriately described its mission. It also tended to bring out the machismo in the crews. And whether the crewmember was male or female, it really didn’t matter. Fighters in this war came in every gender.

Next up the ladder were the KFV-B’s; larger and fewer in number and carrying a crew of forty. Then came the C’s with a crew of ninety, followed finally by the behemoth D-Class ships. The D’s could carry forty KFV-A’s in their holds, however they did not serve as carriers. These ships were used primarily for the three R’s – repair, refit and relaxation. They were literal floating cities in space, with large ship’s stores, a movie theater and even a two-lane bowling alley – all improvements added by the Humans, by the way. With travel through space often covering months at a time, the warriors of the Fleet needed their down time, too.

Lastly there were the supply and support vessels, the largest of which were the energy ships. These were flying nuclear power plants that supplied the power modules for all the other ships. Even though most KFV’s could cover hundreds of light years between rechargings, the vast distances required for interstellar travel made these ships critically important.

Yes, the KFV was a remarkable craft, yet its only downside, in Lee’s opinion, was the fact that it required a crew to operate. With his F-35, it was just him and plane, with no one else to consider. Now he had a crew….

Even though the internal gravity wells aboard the Klin ship fought continually to compensate for the inertia tied to his wild maneuvers, the computers always seemed to be a moment or so behind him. The maneuvers had very little effect on Lee, since he already knew where he was going. But for his crew, it was a different story.

He chanced a glance back at Tim Carlson, the young
Savior
assigned to his ship, and saw him turning green. Carlson was the man who had trained Lee in the piloting of the KFV – although ‘trained’ was not quite the right word for it. When the time had come, Tim had more-or-less just showed Lee the controls, and the cocky, young fighter-pilot had taken it from there. The controls of the starship ended up being wickedly simply for the veteran pilot, and in no time, Lee – along with the hundreds of other pilots recruited for the Klin ships – was running circles around his instructor.

At first, Lee had found this to be a dichotomy: that the trainees could so quickly surpass the trainers. But later, when his uncle, Admiral Allen, explained more of the situation to him, it all suddenly made sense.

Looking at Tim Carlson now, Lee could see the pale hue to his skin and the concerned look in his eyes. Lee pulled the ship out of the spin and leveled out. He would return to the line and let his crew recover. After all, it wouldn’t help morale aboard the ship for his crew to have to clean up vomit from the decks –
again!

“Captain to crew,” Lee announced through the 1-MC. “Secure from battle stations. Drill complete. We’re returning to the line.”

Lee heard Carlson babble something under his breath and he turned to face the younger man. “The Klin sure know how to build a spaceship; I’ll given them that.” he said with a smile. Carlson still wasn’t in any condition to speak.

Lee felt sorry for his friend, watching him struggle mightily not to vomit in the direction of his captain. However, Lee just smiled a little wider, thinking about just how close he had come, only few months ago, to ripping the young man apart, limb by limb, with his bare hands….

Tim Carlson was what was commonly referred to as a
Savior
, a Human who had supposedly been taken from the Earth and taught to help Humanity recover from a potentially devastating attack by the Juireans. He had returned to the planet just after the attack and immediately set about doing what he had been trained to do. While most of the returning Saviors assisted with the reconstruction and recovery efforts from the destruction wrought by the Juireans, Carlson was to train the pilots and crew for the Klin starships, a force that would lead the revenge assault against the evil Juireans. As such, Carlson knew all the systems aboard the Klin ships like the back of hand, as well as attack and defense strategies that he would pass on to his fellow Humans.

The life of a Savior on Earth at this time was one to be envied. After all, here were a group of adventurous and selfless young men who had volunteered to leave their homes and families and live among the aliens, all the while learning to help Humanity recover from an unimaginable tragedy. Everywhere they went, the Saviors were adored and honored.

And the fact that all the Saviors appeared to be healthy and genetically perfect young studs did not go unnoticed by the female segment of the planet’s population, either. Women waited in line to meet – and to date – a Savior. After all, these were men who had been in space and who associated with aliens, for Christ’s sake. Now they were welcomed back as heroes.

Yes, life was good for the Saviors. At least initially.

Tim was 23, an American, born and raised in Queens, New York. The neighborhood he grew up in, along with the schools he’d attended, had all been wiped clean by the Juirean energy bombs and the resulting conflagration. All his family and friends had died in the attack as well; now all Tim Carlson had left was duty to his race.

Lee Schwartz first began to notice that Carlson was a little strange right after he was assigned to his training squad. In just normal banter around the hangers and in the barracks, Tim appeared to be very defensive about his background, often mentioning that reminders of his past were just too painful to speak of. That was understandable, but Lee soon found other inconsistencies as well.

It seemed Tim couldn’t carry on a conversation about any past T.V. shows or movies, or any memorable moments in sports, for example. And even though he had left Earth at the age of 18, he could not – or would not – talk about any past girlfriends he had in school or neighborhood friends when growing up. It was as if his entire past was one deep, dark void; as if his memory had been wiped clean.

Lee’s suspicions grew even stronger once flight training began. Carlson was supposed to be the expert, better than all the others at instructing the military pilots on the intricate operations of the Klin flying saucers. Yet Tim Carlson could barely execute a loop maneuver, let alone anything more complicated. Sure, he could tear the ship apart and rebuild it while blindfolded, but he was no pilot.

Lee began to reason that the young Savior must have been trained by the Klin to operate the KFV’s as the Klin did. If this were the case, then the aliens weren’t using their craft for even a tenth of their potential, and as such, Carlson was not to blame for his obvious lack of skills.

But still, there was something very odd about the young man.

It was about this time that Lee’s uncle had called him into the Admiral’s office at the Joint Military Command base in Fallon, Nevada – and revealed to him a set of facts that would change his perspective forever.

Fallon had been the U.S. Navy’s Top Gun training base before the attack, located in the mostly-arid desert southeast of Reno. Because of its remote location, the base had been completely missed by the Juireans when they hit all the major population centers around the world. Since then, the base had been greatly enlarged and its mission enhanced. It was now the main base for the Klin Fleet, growing large enough to accommodate the over 1,000 Klin saucers, along with all the support and training staff that went with them. The population at the base soon swelled to nearly 85,000 men and women, making it the largest military base on the planet at the time.

The original Klin Fleet had been manned by Saviors, with men like Carlson serving as the pilots and the Recovery Saviors as crew. However, once the reconstruction efforts began, the fleet had lost its crewmembers, which now had to be replaced quickly with freshly-trained men and women, pulled mainly from the four major armed services, and mostly by Americans. Also, the Savior-pilots were not to be assigned as line officers – as the actual pilots of the ships – but rather as counselors to the newly-trained pilots and crews. Skilled pilots, such as Lee Schwartz, were in great demand by the combined Human/Klin forces.

And this was just the beginning. Already, there were massive shipbuilding efforts taking place at facilities like the newly-rebuilt Newport News Shipbuilding yards in Virginia and the Boeing plants in Washington and South Carolina. The existing Klin Fleet was only the first. Soon a whole new fleet of Earth-built starships would be taking flight and heading off to join the fight against the Juireans.

Chapter 4

“So what do you know about this
Savior
, this Tim Carlson guy?” his uncle had asked after calling him into the inner sanctum of the Human High Command at Fallon. Lee could tell the Admiral hated to call these men
Saviors
; it was a sentiment shared by most people these days. But still, Lee was taken aback by his uncle’s odd question.

“He’s pretty strange, but not any more than the others I’ve met, sir.” Lee didn’t know the purpose of the summons; he and his uncle had always tried to maintain a certain level of professionalism and distance regarding their familial relationship.

“You can dispense with the ‘sir’ Lee. We’re all family here.”

Lee was caught off-guard by the comment, and knew instantly that something very serious was in the works.

“Lee, I’m going to tell you a story and you must promise to keep it strictly top secret. Can you do that?”