Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (49 page)

He brushed the thought aside. He could only do what he could with what he had at his disposal, and prepare his forces as best he could.
One battle at a time …
his instructors talked about this scenario at the War College, such as Orville Wingate’s treatise on the subject. Evidence from the captured alien battleship showed these people were at war with someone just as powerful as they were, so a similar situation as Wingate outlined existed. All the lizards’ major frontline units were engaged in fighting the other enemy, necessitating the need for a constant supply of food, materials, equipment, and workers. That meant his supply lines were guarded by second-rate, or reserve units, as they’d seen in the first two fleets to arrive in Earth space. The lizards couldn’t afford to pull any frontline units out of the battle line, so their second attempt was to send second-tier units back to reestablish his supply lines and discover what was causing the interruption. Now that fleet was also destroyed, they’d have no choice but to pull a frontline unit out of combat and send it back to eliminate a potential threat in their rear. The enemy commander couldn’t keep on sending his second or reserve troops, since that would weaken his line at the moment he needed those reinforcements the most. The question was, how much bigger and stronger would this fleet be, compared to the others? As Wingate predicted, once pressure diminished in one section of the front, the enemy would take advantage of it. It was one of the major drawbacks to fighting a war on two fronts.

The lizards needed to eliminate the threat in their rear as quickly as possible, with minimal losses, and get the units back into the front line quickly. The longer the Terran Defense Force could keep any major force tied up, the better. If they could inflict massive damage on that force, so much the better. The question of whom the lizards were fighting would have to wait for later, once they could use one of the warp points.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
might still be true out there. Any imbalance or weakening of their front line forces could be exploited by their enemy, and the balance of power could change drastically. With those thoughts in mind, Scott increased the training schedule of his fleet, on occasion driving them to the point of exhaustion and beyond. His stony expression during those times forestalled any questions, and his command staff held their peace. Only Kat understood the fear driving him, and more than once, high command wondered if the pressure of command was getting to him.

Brock, Pete, Jeff, and the rest of his senior staff worked on their respective projects, while their subordinates organized upgrading the base defenses, training schedules, and weapons production, all with an eye on the clock.

Within a month, Scott saw the first three prototype units of the new space tank, as he came to think of them, delivered and begin their shakedown. Kat piloted the first unit, and reported back that even for their size, they handled well in combat training situations. While not as nimble as her fighter, pound for pound they packed a far greater punch and payload in missiles. This added up to a powerful weapon system, and definitely a lot more survivable than the more fragile fighters. Point defense, and even the main guns had to recalibrate their sims, since the flying tanks fought their way through everything thrown at them. In the end, it took several blasts from the main particle beam cannon to take one of them out. The mass-drive units didn’t fare much better, since only a direct hit would take them out. A glancing blow just kicked them away and shook them up a little. The shakedown only brought a few glitches to light, all solvable within a few hours or days at the most. She did give the design staff a verbal report, and a few suggestions for improvements. These they incorporated into the first production models, while Kat used the three prototypes to begin training pilots and selected crew to handle them. Production of the new class of ships, the gunships as they came to be called, swung into full production under the relentless demands from Scott.

In many ways, this was one of the easiest ships to produce, due to its simplified design. With its limited combat mission, in-system only, it didn’t need a warp generator or a huge environmental system. It was just like a large flying tank, and expected to perform like one in battle, then return to a base for repair and refit. An air-recycling system for each of the crew compartments worked very well, as it did for the regular fighter units, with much of the same equipment as used in the fighter craft. That saved on research and design time for the enviro system, not to mention manufacturing. Now they were ready as they could be, and every additional unit that came on line was an added bonus, especially the gunships. It was inevitable that the crew would get the nickname “gunslinger,” with the usual accompanying elitist attitude. That wasn’t bad, since they had one hell of an assignment, but Scott kept an eye on it, just in case it got out of hand. Curiously, the unit seemed to draw many of the new people, which surprised him.

Andy Ross grumbled a lot about losing his best pilots to the new unit, but as Kat observed, it was more sour grapes that he couldn’t transfer himself. Kat pointed out, not unkindly, that the moment he trained his number two to take over his slot, she’d find a wing for him to take over once she had sufficient gunships.

Another suggestion the weapons people worked on was a space mine: wrapping a five-megaton nuke with an antigravity shell. Each had a six-point station, keeping drives to hold them in position once placed. They could be triggered remotely, or they would seek and detonate against any ship not carrying the identified-correct IFF,
identify friend or foe
. This caused some alarm with the ship’s captain; he envisioned damaged ships, whose IFF had malfunctioned, being hunted down by their own mines. A definite possibility. To Scott, this was a trade-off. Since the mines were only going to be used to saturate both warp points, he had no plans as yet to penetrate beyond; he felt it wasn’t worth the risk. All ships were warned of an exclusion zone around the warp points, and if they stayed outside that, the mines wouldn’t activate.

Within the month, five thousand mines were in place, but even with that many, spread out over the volume of space where the aliens were known to have exited, they were spread very thin. Two mine-laying ships worked around the clock, adding more mines as they came off the assembly line, thickening up known areas of intrusion. As an added element, Scott had Alpha base techno staff come up with their own battle scenarios. By using the last two battles as a base for alien ships, shields, and weaponry, they programmed the simulator to throw variations at Scott and his people. Much to his surprise, he lost the first three battles. He hadn’t limited them to the current alien weapon, but suggested they increased them proportionally as to type and power, and this they’d done. It was rather humiliating to be beaten so easily and so often, but it did kick his staff out of their comfortable niche and make them think.

“All right, people. Don’t look so glum. This is only a simulation, and by the time the lizards get here we’ll have worked out new tactics to use against them.” Scott opened the floor to discussion, since this was an informal session, not a formal briefing.

“What about a box barrage system, such as the German and British triple-A used against bombers during WWII?” Sergeant Mack suggested.

“Good point. Do we have the sufficient missile capacity to sustain it yet?” Scott asked, looking around the table to his tactical officer.

“Yes, sir, we now have the missile ships in numbers,” Pete said.

“My last count was one hundred and twenty, is that correct?”

“Yes, skipper. Now it’s just a question of how soon they can get those underground missile depots ready, and how many missiles they can produce and deliver.”

“Good point, Pete,” Kathy Reinhart put in. “But, by stationing them around us, we can protect and control them better. Farther out, and the time lag in delayed transmission could hurt us.”

“Why so, Kathy?”

The comm officer, Kathy Reinhart, smiled, thinking it a bit dumb of the admiral not to remember that radio signals only travel at the speed of light. “Physics, Admiral.” The comm officer, Kathy chuckled softly.

Scott looked at her and grinned back. “But, if I remember, we have a way around that, don’t we?”

“What?”

“Lieutenant, what’s wrong in using a small ring gate, one in our comm shack and the another in the missile ships? No lag then.”

“Durr …” she muttered, “why didn’t I think of that?”

“Don’t sweat it, Kathy, it just came to me.” His words took some of the sting out of her self-incrimination, but it did show that people have a blind spot where developing tech was concerned.

“How soon can we expect these new gunships, skipper, and how many?” Akari Hirota asked.

“I’m told by the powers that be, we should have the first two hundred within two months, at the most. After testing, they’ll be shipping them up to us as fast as possible.”

“Two months! Have we got that long, skipper?” Akari asked.

“I bloody well hope so, but it’s not the units that are the holdup, it’s crews.” Scott saw the puzzled look on more than one face. “What?”

“Aren’t we going to use our tank crews for that job, skipper?” Akari asked. Scott looked blank for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

“I should’ve seen that.” He chuckled. “We have over a thousand tanks now, with fully trained crews. I’m sure some of them might like to volunteer.”

“Don’t think you’re going to be to popular down on the marine deck, skipper. The commander is going to hate losing any of his men,” Akari observed with a grin.

“Tough, I’ll just tell him to suck it up like a good marine. Rank doth have its privileges.” He chuckled louder this time. “By the way, Pete, how are we coming on setting up the remote launch sites?” He saw the glum looks and knew the answer before anyone spoke. “That bad, huh?”

“Not good,” Pete answered. “We have ten set up so far, and missile production is at full capacity, but I wish we had more sites.”

“We’ll just have to put them in places where the local population and government officials don’t know about them.” Scott sighed. Even if they did build them on the QT, the locals were bound to find out, what with all the traffic flying in and out. Even if it was just to install the ring gates. Once they were in place, excavation and disposal of the mined rock would exit via the ring gates with none of the locals being wiser.

“You mean find a good place and put them in anyway, skipper?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Pete. We can’t afford to waste time. I have to have those sites ready by the time the lizards come calling again.”

“I still think it’s a crazy idea, Scott.”

“The Ellises said it can be done.”

Pete chuckled and pulled his nose for a moment. “When those two walked into my hangar, I thought they were a couple of teenagers, holding hands and laughing. Hell … Mrs. Ellis was almost skipping along beside him, she was so happy.” Scott nodded, remembering his meeting with them after Doc Chase removed them from the regeneration chambers.

At first, they couldn’t believe what had happened to them, and stood looking at themselves in the mirror in open-mouthed wonder. Maddy Ellis had run over and kissed him, tears running down her face. He’d shown them around the camp, and the town, all the time seeing the look of wonder and joy on their faces. He’d also kept his promise, and they did run down the beach together without fear or worry. His last gift was a small house on a low cliff overlooking the beach, and instructions that they weren’t to do anything other than relax and enjoy themselves. A security detachment discretely watched over them, as it did other guests and force members on R&R.

Much to his surprise, they’d only stayed there for two weeks before returning and asking what they could do to help. As Maddy pointed out, playtime was nice, but they needed to get back to work to make it all worthwhile. Scott understood, and sent them over to see Karl and his R&D team. Maddy was the first to point out that they weren’t using the rings to their fullest capacity, after seeing the number of rings in the production facility. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that with the right programming, one ring could address any other ring, or that multiple rings could access one particular ring.

With that stunning revelation, the weapons research teams began working out different possibilities, and quickly developed plans to use it. That triggered a rush program to build and launch the ring ships, as they became known. Thankfully, Scott was sitting when they proposed the idea to him; otherwise he would have dropped in shock. It was so audacious, the possibilities were almost overwhelming. Between that and the gunships, he now had a chance, no matter what the lizards threw at him, and it didn’t take long to find sufficient tank crews crazy enough to try out for the new gunship. They proved surprisingly good once the drivers got used to working in three dimensions instead of two. It did help shorten the deployment time for the gunships by a month, and by adding these two new elements to the war games they started winning the battles. Without a similar unit, the techno nerds couldn’t come up with a decent defense against them.