Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (35 page)

She nodded assent, a trait she acquired from Kelly, and closed out the videoconference.

* * * * *

Major Mary Chen read and reread the operations order. She saw no mention of a mission for the six Marine divisions tagging along on this mad race to G’Durin. An assault landing on the planet was not even an on-order mission. She had recommended an assault and occupation of the K’Rang home world, as a means to possibly slow down the K’Rang Fleet’s reaction times. If they were worried about their nobility, they might pause.

Mary wasn’t the only officer laying out a case for getting six Marine divisions out of the line of fire. It wasn’t as if the Marines could suit up and take out K’Rang ships with their blasters and disruptors. Mary hated to admit it, but Marines added nothing to the space battle. Ships were not grappled and boarded any more.

The Fleet’s senior Marine commander finally was allowed to plan for the occupation of the K‘Rang capital city. It got the Marines out of the line of fire, gave them a meaningful mission and got them out of Admiral Chang’s hair.

Work on the operations plan began at a feverish pace. They had three days to put together a plan for landing six Marine divisions and their equipment in a day, securing a hostile enemy city, and preparing to defend against an angry fleet that may not be too happy with their boots tramping over their capital.

Mary got a draft plan to work from in a day. She studied the maps and images of the K’Rang capital before she looked at the specific tasks.

The K’Rang capital was situated in a river valley running east to west between two mountain ridges. Twelve highly decorated and equidistant bridges connected one bank to the other. Ornate government buildings occupied the center of the city north of the river, with a ring road encircling them. Tree-lined, wide avenues radiated from this city center east to west and from corner to corner, faintly resembling an old Union Jack. Parks and stately homes lined these avenues. Minor monuments of some sort were situated at certain intersections. Other large monuments spanning the avenues looked like arches or rainbows.

Mary looked for hidden defensive positions or bunkers and found none. She had heard the K’Rang nobility didn’t want their warriors around, except for ornamental purposes, but didn’t believe it. She also couldn’t believe the K’Rang home world’s population was only eight million K’Rang. She now knew what exclusive meant.

She easily found the Shadow Warrior Regiment barracks on the westernmost fringe of the city, some twenty miles from the city center. The barracks was surrounded by six-to-ten-story office buildings, in an office park setting. It was cleaner than any barracks she had ever seen. Ornamental hedges divided the unit areas, parade grounds were meticulously trimmed. Shade trees lined every road. She saw no combat vehicle parking areas, no heavy weapons ranges, or even physical training facilities. In fact, she saw no military training facilities other than two small arms ranges. How combat effective could this unit be?

She scoured her images again and found the K’Rang military cemetery two miles east of the governmental center of the city. It was massive, easily taking up a fifth of the square kilometers of the city. Mary hoped her brigade was not given that to garrison.

She scanned the document, looking for tasks for her division, and found a map of the city divided up into six roughly equal boxes. The centerline followed the river and three relatively equal boxes were drawn north and south of the river. Mary’s division drew the center north box, giving them the governmental center, a large residential area, and a park running north of the governmental center to the mountains.

She zoomed into the government section and saw two-lane roads, instead of the wide avenues and boulevards in the rest of the city. The buildings were all four or more stories in height, with a six-story marble structure in a park-like setting occupying the center of the governmental center. She looked for potential bivouac areas and found only parking lots and the park surrounding the center building to be suitable. She could only imagine what a division of Marines would do to the ornate trimmed hedges and gardens. K’Rang gardeners would be weeping for generations.

The government center mystified Mary. Yes, the K’Rang only occupied 50 worlds as opposed to The GR’s 150 worlds, but where were the buildings for the bureaucrats? How could you run an empire covering as much of space as the K’Rang without a massive bureaucracy? She did a quick search and found the bureaucracy lived in the next system over. It seemed the K’Rang nobility had less love for bureaucrats than they did for the military.

She shifted her view north into the residential area and saw what appeared to be more modern looking houses on larger lots – by K’Rang standards. The north-south avenue halfway to the mountains wound through a large park. It was obviously meant to bring a taste of the wilderness into the city. Its expanse of about 1,000 hectares could easily hold the entire division. She looked left and right of this park and saw more houses on tree-lined lanes, with small parks situated periodically among them. None were large enough to bivouac more than a company. She saw what appeared to be village centers, filled with small shops, interspersed among the residential areas. Another office park with six ten-story office buildings sat just at the base of the mountain ridge.

She looked at the mission statement to occupy and subdue the capital city and saw a slight need for maybe putting company strongpoints in the residential parks, but would hate to be a company commander if the natives were armed with more than retractable claws and sharp teeth. Mary favored putting the main body of two brigades and division troops in the large rustic park and a brigade in the governmental center.

Mary was called to a videoconference later that day for all division operations officers. The division G-3 presented the division operations plan. Mary’s thoughts on how to garrison the area matched the division G-3’s concept. Her brigade drew the governmental center. The rest of the division would occupy the large forested park north of the governmental center. Governmental center parking lots and large clearings in the park would serve as landing areas for the AS-500s. Mary was specifically called out and told that damage to the government center grounds was not a concern. In fact, the bombardment frigates had orders to rubble these buildings as they left.

Mary left the videoconference and called her operations section together to pass out tasks and provide guidance. She briefed Colonel Maxwell on the plan and got his guidance. The brigade had a task to maintain a visible presence in its area of operations. He told her this would require vehicle and foot patrols, checkpoints, and possibly company strong points. She first had to divide up the governmental center grounds. A large parking lot adjacent to the park was allotted to the 1st of the 22nd Marines and brigade HQ for parking. The park was divided into quarters and each battalion was assigned a quarter for lodging, if none of the buildings were suitable. The remaining quarter went to the brigade HQ and brigade troops.

She had one of her staff pull up a brigade roster to find any K’Rang linguists. She assumed the only ones would be in the intel company and the S-2 would scream like a stuck pig if she laid claim to any, but this was war.

After several hours, she had a firm enough plan to brief to Maxwell for approval and then call in the battalion S-3s and brief them. They made a few modifications that made for a better plan, then took the draft plan back to their commanders and staffs to start work on theirs. In a day, they had a pretty good plan for the conquest of their part of the K’Rang capital.

* * * * *

Tammy’s squadron quickly became known as the best trained in the wing. The wing commander even restricted Tammy’s use of the simulator, as he badgered the other squadron commanders to make better use of their pilots’ time than reviewing threat documents and hanging out in the club. He almost restricted the club, but was talked out of it.

Tammy was called in to the wing commander’s office. Her pilots were all squeezed in his office and Tammy didn’t quite know what to think. Commander Tanaka pulled her into the center of the room.

“Tammy, I have something to present to you. Chief Johnson, will you read the order?”

“In accordance with Fleet Regulation 1001.2.3, Tammy Lynn Nielsen is authorized to assume the title and wear the uniform of a Fleet Commander. She is entitled to all the privileges of that grade except those restricted by law. Signed Franklyn J. Atwood, Rear Admiral, 6th Heavy Attack Division, Commanding.”

Her squadron XO and Commander Tanaka removed the Lieutenant Commander shoulder boards from her epaulettes and replaced them with ones adorned with three full stripes. Tammy was flabbergasted. She had been frocked to Commander, an old tradition giving an officer all the responsibilities of a higher rank, but none of the pay. The entire room broke out in cheers and applause. She shook hands with all and then cut a cake decorated with Commander’s stripes.

When the festivities died down and all the pilots and well-wishers had departed, Commander Tanaka (whose own frocking to Captain would take place the next day) sat her down at his conference table.

“Tammy, now that the good news is out of the way, let me tell you that I have chosen yours to be lead squadron on our first attack mission. We’ve been tasked to attack the defensive facility on G’Durin’s largest moon. It has four of those damn big guns that Admiral Chang wants taken out first thing upon arrival. The carriers will take first crack at it with their A-76's, followed by heavy missiles from the cruiser squadrons. Then, if they don’t knock them out, it’s our turn with the hypervelocity missiles. Your squadron is best trained on these and our best chance to knock them out. If you don’t get them, they send in the special operations Marines to do a ground attack. So you see, it’s important for all of us to do our best.”

“Thank you sir, for the promotion. My pilots will take out that damn facility and the gun emplacements, don’t worry.”

* * * * *

Kelly ran his third drill for the day and was very pleased. The last had been a damage control party drill to deal with a breach in the engine room hull. Lieutenant Commander Brown didn’t care for them tromping through his well-maintained engine room with their clumsy environment suits to notionally pound plugs into the hull to close the breach down, then sealing the remainder with a dome of hull sealant foam. He was impressed that they were able to get through all the steps in less time then called for in the manuals.

So far the crew was reacting well and Kelly had little faith he could improve much on their duty performance. He scheduled one drill a day until they made contact or they reached K’Rang space. Connie had monitored the damage control drill and reported to him, “Sir, Lieutenant Commander Brown is not too happy with you right now, but he is ecstatic about the performance of the damage control party.”

Kelly asked, “Why is he mad at me?”

She replied, “The damage control party scuffed up his floor when they dragged some of the heavier kits through his space. He'd be even madder if he hadn’t been so impressed with their professionalism. I designated him a casualty and two of the smaller women picked him up and carried him from the compartment after the compartment was judged re-pressurized. He wants to put them both in for an award.”

Kelly laughed and said, “Tell him to put in his recommendation. I’ll approve it.”

* * * * *

Alistair Bennett was next to call on Kelly. He came in, was offered a coffee and a seat, and Kelly asked what could he do for him.

“Kelly, I’m not doing much good for you, am I?”

Kelly realized that since they left orbit of the Angaerry Las Vegas world, he hadn’t had much need of Alistair’s knowledge and talents.

He smiled and said, “Alistair, what are you trying to say?”

“You have a pretty good handle on things going on here. I’d like to go somewhere I can be more useful. I’d like to join the Marines going into G’Durin. There are some K’Rang data files I’d love to rifle through.”

Kelly saw the wisdom in that. In fact, he thought that a special team should be constituted to do just that.

“Alistair, why don’t you take a stroll through the ring to Fleet Intel and propose that?”

He smiled wryly and said, “Good idea, why didn’t I think of that? Thank you. I’ll get right on it.”

Alistair’s idea was instantly approved and five reporting officers, five counterintelligence agents, ten computer specialists, and 30 K’Rang translators were assembled and put under Alistair’s control. Now he just had to find who had responsibility for the area he was interested in. He took another stroll through the ring.

* * * * *

Mary Chen was about to chew someone’s butt for standing in her light, when she looked up to see Alistair Bennett smiling down at her. She and Alistair had worked together in rescuing an industrialist’s wife from pirates, years back when she commanded a Marine Special Operations Company. Her Marines were enroute to conduct a forced entry rescue when Alistair told them to stand down, for he had already subdued their guard and staff and rescued them. She was angry with him for weeks, but respected his talents.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in – Alistair Bennett. What brings you to my humble office?”

Alistair laid out the plan to storm the K’Rang Intelligence HQ, seize their data files and transport them to Fleet HQ for analysis.

Mary pointed out, “My brigade doesn’t have the Special Operations qualified company. That’s second brigade.”

Alistair replied, “A SOC is not required – regular infantry will do just as well and I have faith in you.”

She replied, “This will have to come down from division before we could start preparing for it.”

Alistair pulled out his pocket terminal and showed her a document on the screen. She grabbed his hand and led him to see her brigade commander.

* * * * *