All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (43 page)

      They cautiously entered the facility and, again, met no resistance.
 
They conducted a floor-by-floor, room-by-room search and found nothing.
 
The building was empty.
 
Captain Thompson ordered his soldiers out of the building and back to the vehicles at double time.
 
He contacted the brigade commander.
 
“The queen’s residence is empty.
 
There’s not so much as an old broken egg around.
 
Sir, if they aren’t here, where are they?”

      The brigade commander told him to look around some more and see if there were tunnels in basements or subway stations.

      After talking to the captain, the 1st Brigade commander called Division and asked to speak to the commanding general.

      “Sir, we found a ghost town, perfectly preserved, but nobody home.
 
Even the queen’s residence is empty.
 
My question is, where are they?
 
I can’t tell if they are hiding or waiting.
 
Unless the corps commander is in a hurry, I recommend we just wait a couple of days and keep the city bottled up.
 
They gotta eat.
 
If there is a population in there waiting to ambush us, let’s keep them guessing and hungry.”

* * * * *

      Commander Gibbons watched from the observation lounge, as the other four Behemoths transited the gate to go to Shepard for the 30th Mobile Corps.
 
The Behemoth herself was being reconfigured to accept the residents of three T’Kab ranches that were about to be liberated.
 
The unfortunate ones would be sorted out by species and brought up to the Behemoth to be cleaned up, medically treated, and transported to a compound donated by the K’Rang on one of their main worlds.
 
They were busily converting it to house the returnees until they could be acclimatized.

      With the other big ladies gone, Commander Gibbons returned to supervising the conversion, which largely meant closing off airtight doors and securing them to keep the unfortunate ones from accessing other areas of the ship, and limiting any exposure with the crew for psychological and physical reasons.

* * * * *

      Duke G’Rof was having a frustrating day.
 
Some minor party members in the Council of Peers were holding up his authorization to move the entire K’Rang Fleet from the four military districts to G’Durin for eventual transport to the T’Kab world.

      The minority party councilmen were filibustering to get the city limits extended out 100 kilometers, to make room for the deserving military members being appointed to the royalty.
 
Duke G’Rof couldn’t help noticing that the 100 kilometer annexation would move several council members’ hunting lodges into the city limits, giving them preferred tax exempt status.

      G’Rof had a battle to fight and these petty politicians were trying to reduce their tax burden.
 
He had a seat on the Council and called on the speaker for recognition, then gave an impassioned ten-minute speech on the greater good and the surety that it was not the party’s intention to interfere in the military’s prosecution of the war with the T’Kab.
 
The minority party leader replied that the matter would have been sorted out long before now, if the majority party had agreed to this simple annexation request.

      The majority party quickly put together an amendment to the authorization bill granting the annexation request, but not the special taxation exemption, then quickly called the question.
 
The authorization and the amendment passed with only three nays, by the members of the minority party with land in the annexed strip.

      Duke G’Rof had his authorization.

* * * * *

      Kelly’s communicator went off.
 
It was Shadow Leader G’Fin of the Treaty Compliance Office, in his official notification mode.
 
“I am Shadow Leader G’Fin, military aide to the Director of Treaty Compliance.
 
I am calling to inform you on the movement of all of our ships away from their bases and outside their normal operating zone in accordance with Article X, paragraph three of the Treaty of G’Durin, as modified by Article XV paragraph seven (Wartime Rules).
 
The entire K’Rang Fleet will depart their bases at J’Komu, G’Ret, S’Dil, and M’Reka and transit to G’Durin to transport through the ring ship in orbit above the planet to the T’Kab home system.
 
The mission of the Fleet is to conduct punitive actions against the T’Kab as may be required.”

      Kelly thanked the shadow leader and asked if he knew when the ships would arrive for transport.
 
He did not, but would call Kelly when he had an estimated time of arrival.

* * * * *

      One of Tammy’s squadrons was on strip alert for emergency support to the ground forces and Marines.
 
She was in the middle of an inspection when she received an order to put another squadron on strip alert and the remainder on one-hour launch.
 
She contacted base operations to pass on the Fragmentary Order and asked them to keep an eye out for the follow-up message with the full order.
 
She picked the other A-100 squadron to go on strip alert and waited for the message to say which weapons load would go on the A-120s.

      Tammy continued the inspection and ordered her A-100 to be prepped and armed with plasma bombs.
 
If these two squadrons went, she was going with them.
 
It was her prerogative as commander.

* * * * *

      The Reserve Fleet queen commander was disappointed.
 
Her scout reported there were only five of the large ships in orbit above the planet.
 
She thought she had observed one of them from before receiving significant damage and retiring, probably to a repair base.
 
She was nervous about where the other five might be.
 
To avoid a potential trap, she backed her fleet away and waited for the situation to resolve itself.
 
She was the last fleet and she could not afford to go blindly into battle against a superior foe without at least a better than a 50/50 chance of victory.
 
If she attacked now and those large ships were able to come in support of the bipeds, all would be lost.

* * * * *

      Lieutenant General Tsien ordered the 52nd and 68th Mechanized to move into the city and establish traffic control points.
 
He would use those positions to conduct cordon and search missions to find the T’Kab.
 
From his mobile command post vehicle, he watched his units spread out and occupy the city, then link up in the central plaza.
 
The two divisions quickly blocked off all major roads and key intersections.
 
Next, the barricades went up to close off the roadways and provide cover for the infantry operating the roadblocks, but with no traffic, it only blocked their view of things happening around them.

      The infantry established 360-degree security and waited for something to happen.
 
It didn’t happen until the next morning at dawn.

* * * * *

      In her underground shelter, the queen reviewed her plan.
 
She had twenty swarms sequestered under the city, ready to jump out of the ground and retake it.
 
Upon her command, they would pour out of their hide locations and kill every biped in sight.
 
When the star was five degrees below the horizon, she would launch the attack.

      Once she let her forces loose, there could be no turning back.
 
She checked her clock and her star chart.
 
When the two aligned, she touched antennae with her aides, who passed it on to two other who passed it on to two others and so on, until each swarm had been notified.

      Swarms erupted from secret hatches all over town.
 
Black living lava flowed over the streets, washing over everything in its path.
 
Some roadblocks were overrun almost immediately; others fought on for a time and were overcome; others held off the swarms, which had exited the ground far enough from the roadblocks for the bipeds to react and beat back the attacks.
 
The battle in the city within the first hour was a draw.

* * * * *

      Major Ronald Moore, executive officer for 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry of 3rd Brigade, 68th Mechanized Infantry Division, was no stickler for discipline and it was reflected in how his soldiers were sleeping.
 
Most were sleeping next to their vehicles on the open ground, in hopes of a breeze.
 
On this hot muggy night, the vehicles were parked haphazardly, as they had arrived well after dark, due to Major Moore’s map reading skills.

      The battalion supply officer, Captain John Hammett, tried to correct the situation, but Major Moore told him, “The troops are tired.
 
Let them sleep and we’ll make a fresh go at it in the morning.”

Captain Hammett argued, “Sir, it’s better to be tired and alive rather than rested and dead,” but the Major threatened him with a charge of insubordination if he persisted.
 
Captain Hammett retreated to his transporter and got it squared away, rotating a soldier on the main machine gun and commo watch overnight.
 
He had his soldiers sleep behind the transporter just outside the rear ramp.
 
It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was an improvement.
 
He lay awake for a long time, with a feeling of impending disaster.

      The only other leader with any sense of how things should be done was Sergeant First Class Penny Benson, platoon sergeant of the commo platoon.
 
Her people were going to be right and even the Major didn’t mess with her.
 
Her three vehicles were tactically parked facing away from the barrier wall and her people slept between the vehicles.
 
One person on shift was in the main hatch of the center vehicle, manning the machine gun and maintaining watch.

      One other thing the Major had no appreciation for was standing to before dawn.
 
He always thought it foolish, for in his experience the enemy never attacked at dawn.
 
Besides, waking the troops up early made them not like him and that was most important to him, for he felt if they thought of him as their friend, they would work harder for him.
 
He was asleep when a hidden hatch a half block away in an alleyway popped open and 100 shock troops of the 3400 to follow arose out of the ground, scurried around the corner, and attacked the mostly sleeping compound.

      They were over the barrier wall and among them before the gunner in the commo transporter realized what was happening and opened fire.
 
By then, twenty soldiers scattered about in their sleeping bags would never wake up again.
 
The yelling and staccato chatter of the machine gun got everyone up on their feet, some in uniform and weapons at the ready, others in their skivvies or less scrambling to locate their weapons, only to be broken in half in the mandibles of an elite soldier T’Kab.
 
Resistance to the attack was slow to form up.
 
The machine guns on Sergeant First Class Benson’s three tracks and Captain Hammett’s transport were doing a good job of holding back other T’Kab from scaling the wall, but nothing about those inside the compound that were extracting a terrible toll on the troops.

      Captain Hammett and four others dismounted from the transport and counterattacked to the northwest corner of the compound, where several soldiers were besieged, but fighting back.
 
They shot the seven T’Kab that were forcing the soldiers into the corner and added them to his counterattack force.
 
Hammett’s twelve soldiers then swept around the compound with the supply and commo machine guns firing over their heads, killing the T’Kab soldiers as they came upon them in the predawn gloom.
 
Captain Hammett found Major Moore’s mangled body still in his sleeping bag.

      When they had cleared the traffic control point of T’Kab, Captain Hammett organized the fires onto the 3,000 or more T’Kab still coming at them.
 
He got all the machine guns firing to hold the swarm at bay, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up without fire support or reinforcements.
 
He entered fire missions to break up the advancing swarm out beyond the range where machine guns were effective.
 
The battalion mortars first serviced this mission.
 
Plasma rounds landed in the massed T’Kab formation, blasting large holes in the advancing swarm.
 
It made a small difference in the pressure put on them by the front line.
 
Soldiers tossed grenades over the wall to convince the T’Kab to go around and not try to come into the compound, but the grenades only killed a few at a time.