Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (17 page)

Kelly turned away from the growing armada and crossed the A’Ngarii frontier. He ordered his operations section to turn on long-range sensors and find the A’Ngarii before they found him. Energy readings led them deeper into A’Ngarii space.

* * * * *

The Scout ship M’Ort shadowed the rear of the Human Taurus fleet, within 5,000,000km, and there was no reaction to its presence. The medium scout ship was the pinnacle of K’Rang stealth technology. Shadow Leader G’Dok, the captain, looked at the extensive data they were acquiring and saw an opportunity. There was a gap he could exploit between the assault landing group on the right side of the formation and the support ships. He ordered his gunner to program ten missiles to take out five of the support ships. He started his run into missile launch range and was just preparing to fire when two frigates ahead of him and two to the left turned their guns and fired. The M’Ort took a glancing blow, which destroyed his top turret, but he kept going. Missiles launched at him, but they would not arrive before he fired and turned away.

He had only 50,000km to go to be in launch range. More missiles left the fleet headed in his direction. He crossed the range line and fired his ten-missile salvo, then turned away, watching the missiles reach for their targets. Enemy suppressive fire took out six missiles, and defensive missiles took out three more. One missile continued on toward its target. That missile was destroyed only 1,000 meters from its target by the ship’s close in defensive system.

G’Dok considered a second run at the fleet after completing a large circle around the rear of the formation. Ships sent to hunt the M’Ort down never came close – its stealth coating saved them from destruction. Human ships appeared unable to resolve the M’Ort when more than 1,000,000km away.

G’Dok looked for an opportunity on the fleet’s port side, calling up the 3D view of the human fleet, where he found a hole from the bottom of the fleet up to the support ships between two of the assault landing groups. He made a wide sweep and came up under the fleet, providing a clear shot at the support ship. He closed to firing range and let loose five missiles at this ship, then peeled away and ran head long into a squadron of Human fighters. He saw their missiles leave the rails and knew his ship was doomed. Diving away from the fleet, he tried every evasive maneuver he knew to break their missile lock. Nothing worked. Every time he caused a missile to lose lock, the fighters fired another two. Eventually G’Dok ran out of tricks and luck. Three missiles struck the M’Ort amidships and split her in half.

Back at the fleet, two of the missiles made it through the defensive missile fire, but a flight of four F-53's came in from above and shot them apart a mere 500 meters from the support ship.

* * * * *

Admiral Levi loosened his grip on the table edge when the fighters shot the last two missiles. He sat down heavily. That support ship was his ring ship. Its loss would have been catastrophic to his mission. He ordered the three assault landing groups to adopt a triangle forward formation, stacking one group above the other two, and to tuck the support ships into the center of the triangle. His heart couldn’t take any more surprises like this.

* * * * *

K’Lott, governor of the K’Rang main world M’Rau, saw the human fleet approaching on his long-range sensors. It took up his entire screen at minimum scale. He had lost communications with home world two days prior, and suspected Human scouts had destroyed the FTL comms hub between M’Rau and home world. He did not know what he should do. Communications were always lost just before the Human fleet arrived at a world. Did this signify destruction, occupation, or worse?

His citizens were rioting: half wanted to man the abandoned fleet ships in orbit, repair them and defend M’Rau to the death, the other half counseled surrender. Bloody fights had broken out in the assembly as the debate raged on.

The argument became moot when the fight faction boarded the ships and found them stripped of many critical components. Despair fell over the populations when they saw they were powerless. The despair was so deep that even ground defense was not prepared.

The Human fleet arrived and a message in K’Rang standard came in saying to evacuate all FTL shipyards, the space dock, spaceports, and any FTL ships on or above the planet by midday over the capital city. One minute after that time, three frigates destroyed the abandoned ships, the space dock, the planetary shipyard, all six ships being constructed, and the seven spaceports around the globe. All planet side FTL facilities had been reduced to smoldering rubble no higher than a K’Rang female.

As they departed, they destroyed every satellite in orbit around the planet. M’Rau was blind, deaf, mute, and planet bound. K’Lott was stunned when he realized an invasion and occupation force was not coming. The Humans were not interested in his world. He called in his advisers and asked how long it would take to reconstruct the shipyard and satellite constellation. Estimates of four to six years floated around the table.

* * * * *

The Orion drove deeper into A’Ngarii space. The worlds closest to the frontier were uninhabited, even though they would support human life. That could be because of the threat from the K’Rang, or because the A’Ngarii need a different environment. Kelly had brought environment suits, but now wondered if they would be enough.

He called in Connie, Thorson, and Alistair to discuss first contact procedures. It would be best if they were all on the same page if things blew up in their faces. First, Kelly was unsure how they were going to convince the A’Ngarii they weren’t the K’Rang. He was pretty sure the GR expected him to get this ship back, so he wanted a better than even chance that they wouldn’t get destroyed in a case of mistaken identity.

He began with a synopsis of their situation, “Folks, we are proceeding into unexplored territory, literally and figuratively. We have no idea what we will encounter. We have no information on the A’Ngarii beyond the fact that they are listed as a hostile race by the K’Rang, themselves a hostile race.”

“We’ve passed two habitable worlds with no indication of any type of civilization. This could be because they’re too close to the frontier or because the A’Ngarii require a different environment than we do. I brought environment suits, but they have their limitations.”

“I am not saying this to frustrate or discourage you, but to provide a base for our discussions on first contact procedures. I searched out the record on the Moose and K’Rang first contacts. The Moose were easy. They had been monitoring us and knew we had no sinister intentions. They were ready for us when we were technically able to contact them. They had their negotiation strategy ready when we sat down with them. They wanted trade and secure borders, as did we. The negotiations were simple and quick.”

“The K’Rang were the opposite. They wanted secure borders several light years inside GR space. They claimed several worlds that had already been settled and had up to 500 million in population. Naturally we said no and the result was the Capricorn War, which we fought to a draw.”

“Ambassador, that’s the history. How do you see us handling the present?”

Ambassador Thorson shifted uneasily and said, “Until we have some sort of information on the A’Ngarii, we really won’t know how to proceed. The only language we probably share in common is K’Rang standard, not something I want to be broadcasting indiscriminately, for obvious reasons. I’m hoping that we come across an A’Ngarii inhabited world first and not one of their warships. Anything you could do to get us to the former versus the latter would be appreciated.”

Alistair said, “Just because we found uninhabited worlds doesn’t mean much. We have uninhabited, but habitable worlds in our space, too. We need to keep pressing inward to see if we can find an inhabited planet and not run into a warship unless we have to. A politician will be more disposed to negotiating with us than a cruiser captain.”

“Alistair is right about the uninhabited worlds,” Kelly said, “it really doesn’t indicate anything. We just have to keep pressing forward until we run into something. Ambassador, what is our negotiation strategy once we do run into the A’Ngarii?”

The ambassador fiddled with his data tablet and said, “We first convince them we are not the K’Rang. There are a number of ways we can do that. If the A’Ngarii and we have compatible video technology, we could establish a feed and I could talk to them through my interpreters and they could see we are not K’Rang and hear Galactic Standard spoken and translated into K’Rang. My other translator will be attempting a translation of their language into Standard so we might be able to speak with them directly before negotiations are completed.”

“After we convince them we're not the K’Rang, we start jockeying for contact with their highest authority. We don’t want to be talking to some provincial governor whose agreements will be cast aside by the big boss. Of course this all may be moot if the A’Ngarii have no central government. Then we find the biggest warlord and negotiate the best deal we can get.”

Kelly sighed, “Thank you all. I will continue to play blind man’s bluff until we locate the A’Ngarii. Then I’ll turn it over to you, Ambassador.”

The meeting broke up and Kelly had a slightly better feeling about the mission, but not a great feeling. He would just have to find the friendliest A’Ngari he could.

* * * * *

Baron N’Gana, Chief Secretary to the Elders, was called before the Council of Peers. He rushed to put on his official robes, then entered the great hall and strode to the dais at the front of the great room.

“Members of the Council, how may I serve the Empire?”

The Council Chairman stood, strolled up to Baron N’Gana and said, “Baron N’Gana, we wish to confer here with the Elders. We wish them to enlighten us on their strategy, goals, and expected outcome of this war with the Humans. A number of our members have lost all contact with their constituents. All contact is lost after the Human fleet overtakes one of our main worlds. We understand that our Fleet is marshaling to deal with the Humans, but that leaves us with no way to know what has happened to our worlds. Are they all dead? Are they just out of communications? What has happened to them? In many cases, our members’ families are there. We would like to have a joint session with the Elders to know what they know.”

Baron N’Gana winced at the thought of the Elders being summoned to the Council of Peers, no matter how sweetly worded, but he would carry the message to them.

“I will carry your request to the Elders, Mr. Chairman.”

The chairman thanked him and dismissed him.

* * * * *

Tammy flew her ship out of the 1st Combined Fleet ring ship and turned onto the vector provided by the scout ship Victorious. She flew until she could see the ships on her sensor screen. Per the Victorious report, there were 12 K’Rang ships in double line formation, running from the planet in the fleet’s path. As her CO brought the squadron through, she recommended bringing in a second squadron. The K’Rang task force was heavy with new ships and could survive just one squadron attacking. Commander Tanaka agreed and called for a second squadron to assist. They used the time waiting for the second squadron to get ahead of the task force. Twenty minutes later, a second squadron came through the ring ship and lined up on a vector to come up behind the task force. Tanaka let the 112th fly in until they were well within the task force’s sensor range before launching their missiles. This brought the K’Rang’s attention and most of their defensive missiles to their front. The second squadron waited until they were well within sensor range before firing their missiles, which overwhelmed the K’Rang defenses, turning the task force into so much scrap metal. Commander Tanaka thanked the other squadron CO for the assist, then all headed for the ring ship and home.

* * * * *

Shadow Force Commander (Baron) G’Rof pondered over the best way to divide the forces of the Great Armada. He had over 400 ships to organize for combat against two human fleets. With the Elders’ beneficence, he would have the addition of 20 drone ships and 30 torpedo ships. The drone ship crews were being trained to attack Human carriers, and the torpedo ships were being re-equipped with the new faster torpedoes. They might give him the edge he needed to meet the Humans in open space and win.

He desperately needed to find a way to defeat the Human carriers. He would need to attack with his entire fleet to fire enough missiles to saturate the Human carriers’ defenses. There would be more than 15,000 missiles in flight at once.

He needed a way to match velocities of 500 ships and brake them all on the same line in space so that when they dropped below FTL speeds, they were in three stacked lines and ready to fire, a most difficult feat. It also excluded some of his older ships, whose stabilizers wouldn’t stand the strain of such a sudden drop from FTL power 3 to 0.1
c
. He could chance it, hoping they would survive to increase his ship strike numbers, but how would he face the families of the warriors who died, crushed inside the hulls from stabilizer failure or from sudden explosive decompression as the hulls’ integrity gave way under the strain?

He would need to get the opinion of each ship’s chief engineer as to whether their ship would survive the stresses. The captains may be too eager for combat glory and ignore their advice. He could always organize them as a force to come in after and kill off any wounded ships or survivors.

His plan required four high commanders: A cruiser and specialty ship commander for the top line, a destroyer commander for the middle line, a frigate/corvette commander for the bottom line, and a follow-on force commander for the remainder. He had four Shadow Leaders in mind that had the requisite experience and background to lead these ships to victory. He summoned them to his flagship.

* * * * *