Time Commander (The First Admiral Series) (7 page)

BOOK: Time Commander (The First Admiral Series)
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With a great triumphant victory roll, the Alliance Eagle emerged from the devastating run over the hull of the Cruiser just moments before the warship erupted in one last, huge destructive convulsion. Ganthoran and Alliance vessels in the vicinity were either destroyed or scattered like a child’s toys in the face of the avalanche of debris. With that act of unimaginable bravery and ambition, the Eagle pilot vanished back into the melee of battle. The battle computers would have recorded the pilot’s exploits and, if he survived, he would be decorated for bravery.

However, the astonishing courage of the Eagle pilot was simply a morale-boosting and amusing distraction for First Admiral Billy Caudwell. As the brave Eagle pilot disappeared back into the fray to join his hard-pressed comrades, Billy noticed a further tactical development in the three-dimensional image of the War Table.

Whilst the Eagle pilots were being hunted down through the Ganthoran formation, the Ganthoran General was starting to deploy his forces after the initial shock of the Alliance attack. The General had lost patience with the annoying Eagle fighters snapping at his formation from within. He had come to conquer the surrounding Star Systems, not get embroiled and tied up in a minor skirmish with a few thousand impudent single-seat fighters.

For the Ganthoran General, it was time to move on from this distraction to the main purpose of the invasion. The Ganthoran Cruisers, Destroyers and Axe-Blades had been mauled by the Alliance Eagles, but they could afford that level of losses. The Ganthoran military had no qualms about sacrificing large numbers of personnel to achieve a particular objective. It was now time for the Ganthoran General to cut his losses in Cruisers and Destroyers. There was enough wreckage and debris to provide the remaining Axe-Blades with a happy hunting ground to finish off the Alliance fighters. It was now time to start dealing with the formation of larger Alliance warships that stood between them and the Tergus Star System.

On the War Table image, Billy Caudwell could see the deployment taking shape. The Destroyers and Cruisers to the rear of the Ganthoran formation moved forward. They circled past the continuing fight with the Alliance Eagles and began to take up station to the front of the formation. Meanwhile, the Cruisers and Destroyers that had originally been stationed directly in front of the “Six-Cigar” Carriers began to withdraw to form a defensive screen around the Carriers.

The Cruisers and Destroyers forming the backdrop to the fighter-on-fighter battle were also being withdrawn. The Eagles and Axe-Blades would be settling their differences in the great jungle of debris and disabled Ganthoran warships. Like a single-cell organism under the scrutinising lens of the microscope, the Ganthoran formation split smoothly and neatly, not into two parts as Billy Caudwell had hoped, but three.


How long until Trion Drive?” Billy asked.


Four minutes, sir.”

Doing the math in his head, Billy worked out: four minutes to Trion Drive, then a further two minutes to regroup First Fleet, then, perhaps, another three minutes to reach Third Fleet’s position and another four or five minutes to launch Eagles and mass them for an attack. All told, Billy estimated that it would be around another fifteen minutes until First Fleet was able to make any significant impact on the battle unfolding on his War Table before him. Fifteen minutes was a long time for Third Fleet’s surviving Eagles to hold out in the cramped passageways between the towering Ganthoran warship hulls.

Every minute that those Eagles could buy would keep the Ganthorans away from the vulnerable larger ships of Third Fleet’s defensive formation. Slowly, the Ganthoran formation seemed to be dividing into three distinct parts. On the War Table’s three-dimensional image, a large group of Cruisers and Destroyers were gathering in front of the Ganthoran position to make an attack on Third Fleet. Admiral Parbe’an would, no doubt, also be monitoring this particular development closely. In the ruined centre of the Ganthoran formation, the Alliance Eagles were fighting the desperate battle for survival against the hordes of Axe-Blade fighters.

However, it was the developments around the Ganthoran “Six-Cigar” Carriers that drew Billy Caudwell’s attention next. Having split up the large vessels in the invasion force, the Ganthoran General was now pulling back Axe-Blade fighters to form part of the defensive screen around his Carriers. Having damaged or destroyed almost a quarter of the attacking Eagle force, the Ganthoran General seemed confident enough to consider that the main threat from the Alliance Eagles had been contained. For the loss of over one thousand Eagle fighters, the Ganthorans had lost ten times that number of Axe-Blades.

This new development presented Billy with a whole new set of circumstances. The Ganthoran General was completely unaware that another Alliance Fleet was less than thirty minutes away from joining the battle against him. With the Alliance Eagles apparently contained and with a large force developing to his front to attack the rest of Third Fleet, he was feeling confident enough to leave his Carriers slightly more vulnerable. Looking at the defensive screen around the “Six-Cigar” Carriers, Billy could see five Cruisers, a dozen Destroyers, and around two thousand Axe-Blades. It was still an impressive defensive screen, but Billy Caudwell was sure that they could not fend off a large force of Alliance Eagles.

In his mind, Billy Caudwell began to work out the permutations for a full-scale Eagle attack on the Ganthoran Carriers. There were still, however, too many variables for him to consider at such an early moment in the battle; however,the germ of an idea was already forming in his mind.

On the three-dimensional War Table image, Billy could see over two hundred Cruisers and five hundred Destroyers forming up. More importantly, Billy also saw the twenty-five thousand Axe-Blades that the Ganthoran General was about to commit against the Third Fleet formation.

Working on the correct assumption that Admiral Parbe’an had committed all of his single-seat fighters to the first attack, the Ganthoran General was using one of the fundamental maxims of aerial warfare. The Ganthoran General was following the universal maxim, that if you have a fixed defensive position to attack that does not have fighter cover, then you deploy your own fighters to soften up the defences. When the defences are sufficiently weakened, you send in the heavy bombers to finish it off. Admiral Parbe’an was well aware of that particular maxim, and had deployed full Force Shielding all along his front.

Watching both the War Table image and the Timekeeper numerals at the side of it, Billy Caudwell was aware that it was just over two minutes until the Alliance First Fleet would be able to use the Trion Drive to reach Third Fleet. Already in the Engine Rooms of the First Fleet’s warships, the huge amount of power required to initiate Trion Drive was being drawn from the Proto-Star reactors. In a few minutes, the Trion Drives would be generating the massively energy-expensive Trion Fields that would blanket the entire warship. With the correct Trion frequency generated, the ship would slide effortlessly into the Trionic Web. Less than a heartbeat later, it would emerge just as smoothly and effortlessly at the new location.

For that split second, when the Aquarius was in the Trionic Web, Billy knew that he would lose the image on his War Table. Already, he could hear the soft, steady drone of the Star Cruisers’ engines increasing in pitch and volume to indicate that the energy build up for the Trionic Web was taking place. At one minute before the Trion Drives were engaged, Billy took one last look at the three-dimensional War Table image. The huge demand for power from the Trion Drive required that non-essential systems were to be shut down for the energy-hungry mechanism.

Looking at the image, Billy recognised that the fate of the battle was very much still in the balance. The Ganthorans had contained the first Eagle attack, and were still trying to hunt down and destroy the Alliance single seat fighters with their own Axe-Blade fighters. Over half of the original contingent of Eagles had now perished in the running battles between the looming and oppressive shattered hulks of the Ganthoran warships. Despite the losses, the Eagles were still fighting. The Ganthoran losses had been appalling; almost thirty thousand of their Axe-Blades had been crippled or destroyed.

In containing the fighter-on-fighter battle, the Ganthorans had, in Billy’s eyes, weakened the defensive perimeter around their Carriers. A more vulnerable Carrier formation was exactly what Billy Caudwell wanted, but he needed the Ganthorans to keep their Carriers vulnerable long enough for the Alliance to deal with them. For that, Third Fleet had to hold out as long as possible. With a large Ganthoran formation about to attack the main body of Third Fleet, the odds of that eventuality were starting to lengthen considerably. It was a large Ganthoran attack formation, and, to the untrained eye, the attackers should be able to sweep forward and brush the impudent defensive line away with considerable ease. Admiral Parbe’an would, no doubt, have other plans in mind for this large scale attack.

Billy Caudwell had promised Admiral Parbe’an that First Fleet would move to support Third Fleet. True to his word, he was moving First Fleet to the battle area. But the doubt still gnawed at Billy’s mind as he stared at the War Table image.

Was it going to be in time?

Chapter 5: The Caudwell Home, Planet Earth

 

The dark coloured car drew up smartly at the front door of the Caudwell house.


There you go, sir,” the driver said.

Having opened the door for his fare, the driver sprang with the same agility to open the boot at the rear of the cab an extract the heavy suitcase. Setting the heavy brown leather suitcase on the doorstep, he claimed his fare of over three pounds. The traveller handed over a nice crisp new ten pound note, thanked him for his help, and told him to keep the change. With a broad beaming smile, the driver thanked the traveller, clambered back into his cab and drove off as quickly as he decently could. With almost seven pounds as a tip in his pocket, he wanted to be away from here before the traveller changed his mind.

And, as the cab drove off down the winding driveway, John Caudwell stood on the doorstep of his home. He was glad that the trip to London was over, and that his business successfully concluded. It was a large house, set within three acres of its own grounds. To the front of the house was a large ornamental garden, complete with a fish pond and fountain. On either side of the house, large paddocks stood witness to the stables that had long since been torn down to build the extension to the rear of the house. He wasn’t particularly fond of the house, and with the money in his new bank account, he would be purchasing something bigger and more in keeping with his wealth and new business needs. If Elizabeth wanted to keep this place as a second home, or for her writing, then she was entirely welcome to it. John had plans, and he was going to need a much bigger property for his new workshops alone.

Looking at the stone façade of the building, it reminded John more of a fortress than a home. With grey stone walls over a metre thick, it kept the heat inside in the winter, but became a sauna in the summer. The four large double-glazed windows on the first floor would not help matters, either.

Opening the door slowly and gently, John announced his arrival to anyone who was home. That, he expected, would be Elizabeth. Billy was still at that hideously expensive private school up in the Highlands toughening up. Having announced his arrival, John lugged the heavy suitcase over the threshold of the door and retrieved the two boxed gifts he had brought from London. Hearing no response to his original announcement, he set the gifts on the reception table to the right of the door, and pushed the door closed with his foot.

With a contract worth over fourteen million pounds in his pocket, John wanted to celebrate. Normally he would have phoned ahead from Carlisle; the last station he changed trains at, but today he had such good news that he wanted to surprise Elizabeth. He wanted to see her eyes widen and her face light up with delight when she read the financial settlement clauses of the contract. He wanted to hear her squeals of delight; to see her long, fiery-red hair catching the light like finely-spun gold, bouncing as she danced for joy around the living room. He wanted to hear her inane, pointless babble of what she would do with their newly-earned wealth. Most of all, he wanted to hold her in his arms, and tell her that the hard times that they had struggled through in the past were now over. They were a dim and distant memory, because now they had more money than they could ever dream of.

His call to his wife remained unanswered. Calling her again, John stepped over the pale-green rug that ran through the middle of the checkerboard marbled hallway floor. Stepping into the warmly decorated and richly furnished open-plan living room, he called out once again, this time with slightly less conviction as it dawned upon him that his wife wasn’t at home. Feeling more than a little annoyed and disappointed, John stalked over to the large oak drinks cabinet that stood behind one of the two sofas that Elizabeth had installed in the centre of the living space. Pulling down the front flap of the large drinks cabinet, which he could use as a table or bar, John took a large glass from the rows of sparklingly clean tumblers that smiled from the three shelves in front of him.

Bending over, he opened the door to the refrigerator that was built in below the bar shelf. With his belt slightly too tight, John winced as he felt like he was being cut in half by the gripping waistband of his suit trousers. Yes, he’d have to do something about that too, he made another mental note to himself, as he lifted a large bottle of cola from the tray on the refrigerator door. The bottle was cold, ice cold to his touch, and misted over instantly on contact with the warm air of the room. With a sharp twist, John opened the screw-top of the bottle which gave way to the pressure with a satisfyingly loud hiss. Turning to his left, he adjusted the small white wheel of the air conditioning control to cool the room down before pouring a generous glass of cola.

BOOK: Time Commander (The First Admiral Series)
3.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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