Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (4 page)

“Hey, gorgeous, could you put a sailor up for a couple of weeks? I caught a hop and I’m here on Antares a little early. I’m worried someone from Scout Force will see me and make me report in, so I’m hiding out in Flight Ops. Can you come get me?”

Candy shouted, “Yes, stay hidden, I’ll be right there.”

She dried off, threw on some clothes, and made a speed run back to the base. She snuck Kelly into her car, threw his bags in, and they were off. They left the base, climbed to 1,000 meters, and started another speed run back to her mountain home.

Turning on the auto pilot, she turned to him and asked, “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

“Transportation told me that it would be two weeks before I could get out to Antares Base using their shuttle service, or arrange my own transportation and be reimbursed. I called an old buddy, Lieutenant Commander Steve Guilford. He commands a flight detachment of Fleet logistics transport ships. He was able to get me a flight here if I could leave today. I signed out of Fleet HQ, hopped on an S-700, and here I am.”

Candy melted into his arms and said, “I’m so glad you did. I’ve been miserable here with all my friends gone. Do you really have two weeks before you have to sign in?”

Kelly pulled out his orders. “See right there? Report no later than 2328.09.27(Armstrong). Two weeks, even allowing for Armstrong’s eight day weeks.”

Candy expertly landed her air car and moved Kelly’s belongings into her guest room for the remainder of his leave.

* * * * *

Shadow Leader G’Motta had fought off his fifth attack of the day. The Humans were up to something, but he didn’t know what. Every time they attacked, he lost a bit more capability. They never attacked in force; only single combatant ships ran at him, fired a barrage of anti-ship missiles at max range, then retreated. To keep his force supplied with defensive missiles, his supply ships were making constant trips back to their base on an uninhabited world.

So far he had not lost a ship, but four had partial weapon losses. The cruiser and destroyer damaged during the initial battle were repaired by a mobile repair station and returned to him. He sent two ships damaged by missiles to the repair station when they arrived. At this rate, he could hold the line indefinitely, but he knew this would not continue forever. The Humans would gather their forces and come to remove them from their territory. Even with their new ships, they could not match the Humans’ ability to mass forces quickly. G’Motta thought of how long it had taken them to bring the Shadow Armada into this sector, even at max speed.

His musings were brought to a halt when his sensor operator reported a massed formation of what appeared to be small ships coming right at them. G’Motta ordered battle stations.

* * * * *

Tammy flew her A-100 at the sensor blips indicating the K’Rang picket line. Commander Mark Tanaka, her squadron commander, led the lead section of nine A-100's. She led the trail section of nine. Her mission was simple: fly at the K’Rang picket line, fire four of her ships’ medium missiles at the K’Rang flagship, apportion the rest of her section’s missiles at other ships, and return to base. After the K’Rang fired their defensive missiles, another squadron approaching from another angle would fire all their missiles at the same targets. The goal was to saturate the K’Rang defenses so some of the missiles got through. Tammy counted the blips. The flagship was the ninth ship from the right as she looked at the line, on the basis of the last recon flight.

Tammy watched as 108 missiles left the lead section’s internal bays. They banked up and right to clear the way for Tammy’s section. As they cleared her firing line, Tammy ripple fired her 12 missiles and watched them accelerate away from her. When all ships reported missiles away, she keyed her communicator and said, “Lets go home, boys and girls.” She pulled up and left to head back to base.

Tammy felt pretty good. She had just flown her first combat mission. It was just like training, only easier. That was a function of how hard Commander Tanaka had trained them. She accessed her rear sensor view and saw a cloud of defensive missiles reach out for her missiles. Moments later, she saw another cloud of missiles launch from the right side of the screen. 216 missiles were inbound to the K’Rang task force from the 123rd squadron. The K’Rang load of defensive missiles would not be enough to stop them all. Some of those ships were doomed, because their commander had them spread too far apart to effectively support each other. They were about to be taught a lesson.

* * * * *

Shadow Leader G’Motta recognized too late what the Humans were doing. He ordered his flagship to turn to bring his close in defense system to bear. Fifteen surviving missiles of the original barrage of over 200 Human missiles sped in through the cloud of defensive missiles, to be taken out by guns and close in defensive systems. Other ships’ defensive missiles took out some of the second barrage of missiles, but not enough. He notified all ships to prepare to recover escape pods.

His close in defense system destroyed three of the missiles but the others penetrated to turn space bright as day. A dozen anti-matter warhead missiles plowed into the Shadow Cruiser V’Gol, next to him in line, totally obliterating it. G’Motta wondered what twist of fate saved his flagship from that fire. As he reviewed his fleet disposition after the attack, he saw it was fortunate that he had put the recently repaired and returned light cruiser on the port side of his formation.

* * * * *

Captain Edgar Timmons was called into Admiral Paolo Minacci’s office. Admiral Minacci, commander of Scout Force, wanted to know the whereabouts of one Commander Kelly Blake.

“Sir, he signed out of Fleet Headquarters on Monday, then I lost track of him. I suspect he caught a hop and he is probably on Gagarin with his parents, or more likely, thirty-five minutes from here at Candy Craddock’s house in the mountains. His communicator isn’t on, but I can call Candy.”

Minacci grinned and said, “No, let him have his leave. Legislative Liaison is a tough job. I once thought it was as close to combat as you can get in peacetime. He probably needs to spin down. He’ll be here when his orders told him to be – probably not a moment sooner. Next topic: when’s Admiral Hasselrode getting in? Don’t tell me you’ve lost him, too.”

Edgar chuckled and answered, “Sir, he’ll be in tonight on the ring shuttle. I’ll pick him up and get him settled in VIP quarters. He’ll be in to see you first thing in the morning, right after your briefing.”

“Have him get here in time for the briefing. He might as well see what he’s up against.”

“Yes, sir, anything else, sir?”

“Edgar, you’ve been with Scout Force a while. Did you ever imagine we’d have enough ships to form a second division?”

“No, sir, but I also never expected us to have to mothball two squadrons four years ago. It hurt to have to put my old ship into conserved storage.”

“Wait until you have to turn one over to a wrecking yard. That’ll bring a tear to many a salty eye.”

“I imagine it would. When does this new ship come in, that we’re supposed to convince Kelly to take?”

“That will be up to Kelly. It’s having its guns fitted now. Then it moves to Shepard to have a mini-ring installed. If he takes the job, he goes to Leonov to space test it before it comes here.”

Timmons said, “Sir, don’t worry, I’ll bet my next paycheck he’ll take the ship over a desk job as a squadron commander.”

* * * * *

Shadow Force Commander (Baron) J’Kol reviewed his situation. He had three main task forces under his command, all with competent, able leaders, a combat force of over 250 warships and half that in new ships. There were small K’Rang occupation forces near the four inhabited worlds if maintaining order became a problem, but otherwise he would leave the population alone. He had a good picket line to provide early warning. Support facilities were on and orbiting the chosen uninhabited world, with supplies to last for over a year in sector and more on the way, when needed.

If anything was missing, it was aircraft and aircraft carriers. He never understood the Elders’ reluctance to build and deploy aircraft carriers. They would stop a lot of the sniping the picket ships were experiencing. The V’Gol, G’Fou, and K’Nar could have been saved if he had some fighters to keep those attack ships at a distance.

He would see if he could get Shadow Force to send him some attack ships to station at the logistics base on the uninhabited world. If he had four squadrons, he could rotate them to provide top cover to the picket line. If only he could determine from where the Humans were basing their attack ships. G’Motta told him they appeared from all directions. It must be that Human stealth coating he was briefed on.

* * * * *

Commander Jason Thomas, captain of the Resurgent, moved to his next set of coordinates. His ship was not the prettiest ship ever turned out by a Fleet shipyard, but she was sure useful. In twenty minutes, his ship could transform from a non-threatening, armed Fleet auxiliary ship to a fully functional transporter ring. His was the lead ship of the class of ten ships built or being built to employ mobile ring technology. Four other ships of the class were already serving with the fleet.

He had been moving from location to location in support of heavy attack ship strikes against the K’Rang picket line. So far he got support credit for a heavy cruiser, a destroyer, and a frigate. All he had to do was make sure he opened up at least 200,000,000km from the picket ships, aligned roughly parallel to the picket line, and in the right spot. The attack ships would take it from there. They left their base in Leonov, climbed up to their local ring, entered, and came out here. When they returned from their mission, he sent them back to Leonov and folded down his ring until next mission. At their speed, the attack ships were never in flight more than three hours. Lucky bastards were probably drinking in the O club an hour after they landed.

* * * * *

Rear Admiral John Hasselrode reported to Admiral Minacci bright and early. Minacci saw to it that he had a cup of coffee and dragged him into the morning briefing. The briefing covered all aspects of Scout Force Intel, operations, logistics, and administration. Admiral Hasselrode waited to ask questions of the admin briefer.

“What is the status of the personnel requisition for the ships at Glenn?”

The briefer pulled up another slide and said, “Ten officers and 257 ratings are already on Glenn, assisting the contractor with removing the ships from conserved storage. The full crews for all twenty-four ships on Glenn are expected over the next three months. The transfer of the 18th Scout Force Squadron is in process. Some personnel shifts between squadrons are being made to accommodate family issues, but the whole squadron should arrive at Glenn in three weeks.”

Admiral Hasselrode thanked the briefer and settled in for the rest of the briefing. Afterwards, he and Admiral Minacci retired to Minacci’s office.

Admiral Minacci refreshed his coffee from the thermos on his conference table and motioned John to sit opposite him.

“Admiral, what will be my mission in this? I can count hulls and all the squadrons here are out supporting the fleet. What will my four squadrons do?” asked Hasselrode.

“Chang is ticked that the K’Rang pulled this stunt. He’s pushing for more than just a counterattack in the Eridanus sector. He wants to take the fight to them, capture a few K‘Rang worlds, draw their fleet into open combat, and defeat it in detail. He wants to use some of our advantages like the ring ships, disrupter guns, and something Kelly Blake is going do for us, that he just doesn’t know yet.”

“John, it’s good to have you here. You can start getting ready for our independent mission in this campaign. I want you to train your captains to operate inside K’Rang territory. They are to perform intelligence and interdiction missions like Scout Force did in the New Alexandria campaign. The Fleet wants us to put a serious crimp in K’Rang internal trade, and identify their FTL ship construction facilities.”

“We’re going to return them to a non-spacefaring civilization, to convince them not to do these stunts. We should have counterattacked after New Alexandria, rather than let them build up like this. This is what we get for not following through. Now we have to listen to the war cries of politicians that voted to slash our budget after New Alexandria, because they were all convinced the K’Rang had learned their lesson. We had them on the ropes and let them go.”

* * * * *

Kelly reached for the wine bottle and the blanket dropped off Candy. She groaned at him in her semi-awake state and pulled the blanket back over her and off of him. Kelly got up, picked up the wine bottle, and filled his glass. He moved over to sit on the couch and looked down at her.

She was beautiful. He considered her red hair and fair skin to be her best features. They even topped her womanly features, which were spectacular, because no other words described them. She was smart, a great conversationalist, witty, funny – everything he looked for in a woman.

He looked up and realized she was awake and looking at him.

She asked, “What are you looking at, so deep in thought?”

Kelly replied, “A very beautiful woman.”

Candy beamed, throwing the blanket off and assuming a Tri-Vid glamour star pose.

“Do you really think so?”

He looked at her in all her glory and said, “Yes, because it’s true, sweetie.”

She beamed again and said, “Why, thank you, sir. I try to do my best with what nature gave me.”

Kelly dropped back to the floor and pulled her into his arms. She pulled the blanket about both of them and kissed him.

She grinned and said, “I think you're pretty special, too.”

* * * * *

Angie Shappelle was in her dress Fighter Force uniform. Her forest green waist length jacket topped a black mock turtleneck shirt. She wore a white scarf signifying a fighter pilot with no squadron affiliation. Her forest green trousers were worn tucked into calf high sturdy boots. She checked herself in the mirror and thought she looked pretty good.