Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (29 page)

However, such histrionic displays would only buy the Republicans time. With sheer industrial might, the Coalition had assembled an armada that could take down all the Earth Republic had to throw at them. If it wasn’t for the interference of these beasts known as Darians this battle would have been over long ago and he wouldn’t have had to have his dinner served to him on the bridge like a barbarian.

No, the brilliant strategist and tactician he faced could only hold back the inevitable for so long. As he wiped the corners of his mouth with a white linen napkin, he called back, “Understood, Helmsman, carry on.” He began a little scheming of his own as he thought, “Let’s see if he’ll see this trap coming.” It would take his opponent’s ship a long time to slow down from his present speed and his current trajectory had opened up an opportunity to rid himself of this minor annoyance that Admiral Watkins planned to take advantage of.

“Inform everything below a Battle Fortress to place themselves directly in line with the Republic Super Dreadnaught’s trajectory and concentrate their fire upon her,” he ordered his officer in charge of ship to ship communications. “Sir, understood, sir,” the man replied. Watkins allowed himself the luxury of chewing on a small bit of roast beef and buttered roll before he gave his next order. “Then, while the Republic Super Dreadnaught is playing with them have the Friedman and the Von Mises close in behind her and finish her off.” The admiral’s voice box to the fleet did as instructed with proper protocol and Watkins allowed himself a small smile.

As the Athena hurtled through the heavens, Admiral Casa, after congratulating his bridge crew on a job well done, ordered Malkini to slow their speed. However, it would take some time for that to happen. As he scanned the tactical display, he saw that if they continued their present course there were a lot targets of opportunity along the way.

“Weapons Officer, let’s see if we can’t take out a few of these Coalition cruisers who are being so accommodating as to line themselves up for our forward Ceramics,” he ordered Beson, who answered, “Aye, sir.” It seemed to contain just a hint of relief that they hadn’t crashed into Earth with that last little maneuver. Admiral Casa hid his smile at the source of his Weapons Officer’s discomfort as he took a long drink of coffee. He would see that Malkini got her own commission if they survived now!

Perhaps it was his own fatigue or perhaps it was his excitement at seeing cruiser after cruiser fall before them as Malkini slowed their forward momentum to keep them in the fight and not halfway to mercury, but he failed to notice the two Battle Fortresses slowly creeping up on his aft side. The Helmsman herself was kept busy with dodging the areas of debris they were leaving behind as they crashed through the last Coalition cruiser when she called out, “Sir, two Battle Fortresses closing from our aft side.”

“Damn my hide. She’s right,” thought Casa he should have known this had simply lined him up to where his opponent wanted him to be and now holy hell was going to start raining down upon them. He also noticed that their course had taken them out of the range of any Republic ships that could lend their support. “Weapons Officer, continue firing everything we have on the aft side till it melts or we run out of ammo,” Casa barked.

“Helmsman, roll us about. With the time Beson buys us, it just might be enough,” Admiral Casa ordered. However, when Malkini looked back at him, he knew he was being overly optimistic. “Aye, sir,” Malkini responded with a look that seemed to convey what she would never say as it would demoralize the rest of the crew. That look had told him that it had been an honor serving with him.

“Sir, message coming in from First Warlord Sattar,” Com officer Johansen called.

“Put it through,” Casa answered him

“I see you are having some difficulty with two Coalition Battle Cruisers, Admiral Casa,” came the familiar voice of Sattar.

“I’m not going to lie to you, First Warlord, it does not look good for the Athena. We cannot bring our better armored side to bear fast enough and the weapons we have on the aft are not enough to take down both targets, but we won’t stop fighting until we can’t fight anymore! It has been an honor hunting with you, Sattar.” Admiral Casa stood to his feet and smiled down at his bridge crew as he gave them all a silent salute. “We’ve done all we can to win this battle, First Warlord. It will remain to the survivors to determine the ultimate victory.”

“You speak the truth, Casa. It has indeed been good hunting with you. Tell our kinsmen that we fought bravely. Sattar out.”

Sattar killed the channel to the human fleet and opened up a broadcast channel to all ships left in the Darian fleet. “The human flagship Athena is about to be destroyed by our mutual enemy. What I do now I do for all of Dar. May your next First Warlord have as brave of warriors as I have had the honor of fighting beside.” With that, he changed course and increased his speed to maximum thrust his destination was the engines of the Battle Fortress closing in on the Athena from the port side.

“Sir, four dozen of the Darian fighters have changed course and are closing on the Battle Fortress,’” Malkin reported.

“Understood, Helmsman.” He knew that their limited firepower could not destroy the Battle Fortresses in time but he appreciated Sattar’s gesture all the same.

“Weapons Control, continue to fire the aft Leap Frogs as soon as they are reloaded. Let it not be said that the Athena went down without a fight.”

“Aye sir,” came his Weapon Control officer’s response.

“Sir, I don’t understand. The Darian fighter craft are in range but they aren’t moving to swarm the Battle Fortress. They’re firing but they are not altering their intercept course. In fact, they are increasing speed,” Malkini reported.

“Show me on the Virtual Array!” ordered Casa as he leapt to his feet. Then he silently roared, “No! Not for us, Sattar. We are almost done for already. Not for us!”

He watched on the V.A. as all forty-eight Darian craft plunged into the hulls of the Battle Fortresses behind him. Each one with their mass and velocity causing massive damage until the Coalition ships were nothing more than pieces of once mighty hulls drifting in space. “Tell our kinsmen that we fought bravely,” Sattar said. At the time, Casa thought he was asking him to carry a message into the beyond with him, not about to sacrifice his life for the life of Casa and his crew. That sacrifice would not be in vain.

“Swing us about, Helmsman. Order the Oblivion and the Solomon to finish up what they are doing and defend our aft! Those brave Darian’s sacrifice will not have been in vain,” Casa ordered, collapsing back into his seat.

Preparing for the End

Admiral Clarkson collapsed into a chair in the otherwise empty Control Center of the spaceport. His men had cheered his arrival when he had exited the battle-scarred hull of the Bowman and he had stood in silent salute with a broad smile on his face. As the roar died down, the Admiral had bellowed over its fading sound, “We have shown the Coalitionists what the citizens of the Republic are made of! Now it is time to prepare for their friend’s arrival. I asked that you make sure you have plenty of ammo and if you have more than you need, share with those who have less. Our hardest fought battle is yet to come but we will show them once more that the Earth Republic will never be destroyed by the likes of them!” Another cheer had gone up as the Infantry, which had joined him in charging the enemy lines made their entrance behind them. The Clarkson had allowed them their moment and then walked towards the Control Center.

He wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week on a remote desert island somewhere, just him and his fishing pole, but there was too much to do yet for such thoughts. He tried to collect his tired mind as he stared at the rather small room considering all that would normally take place within it. What would normally be a bustling hum of activity was silent. The power here, as in almost all the city, had been shut down. The only light inside was coming through the transparent plastisteel windows and from his field lamp.

“They would need a larger fusion generator than the portable ones they had with them to power the control system,” he pondered as he tried to guess at what exactly the power requirements of the launchers would be. He knew that the port’s defensive guns had their own independent power supplies, so perhaps he should be thankful that the Coalitionists in their haste to take the port had disabled them. However, if they could not find enough power soon, then without power there would be no launch of Earth to Orbit missiles and creator only knew how the fight was raging overhead.

However, he knew all too well how the fight was about to rage down here. There hard fought victory had not failed to go unnoticed. Some Coalitionist, somewhere, who was now among the dead that now lied over under or in the fallen debris of almost half a city block had managed to get a signal out that they were under attack and as they had made their way back to the spaceport Ben’s very impressive Bowman had detected at least three companies of armor inbound and who knew how many Coalition soldiers followed after them. They had been playing a game of cat and mouse down here, It was forcing the Coalition to split its ground forces in the area on finding them but they had made it well known where they were Unfortunately, the situation demanded that they stay right where the enemy could come and find them. Ben had summed it up pretty well when he had been informed by Miller about the strange readings he couldn’t interpret and had had to tell them what they were he said, “Admiral Clarkson, sir, I’m none too sure that the Bowman could take them all in a fight. A company sure,” Ben said with a grin, “maybe even two but three? Well, sir, that’s just pushing things a bit too far even for my old girl.”

However, there was also some good news. Ben and his team of technicians, with the help of a few of the more mechanically minded of the civilian volunteers, had gotten most of the powerful defensive weaponry back online on three sides of the spaceport. However, the emplacements on the wall that contained the entrance the Coalition had made had to be used for scrap, as they would never fire again themselves. So that meant putting man and mortar to face armor and high explosive tank ammunition rounds. “The odds are not lining up in our favor,” the admiral thought as he unscrewed the top of his canteen and took a long cool drink. “No, no we can’t win this battle,” he said aloud as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

It’s all a matter of time now and who knows how much of that we have. Maybe they’ll approach cautiously expecting us to have rigged similar traps along their route to us. That was the best they could hope for as Ben and his team were also furiously working on getting enough power hobbled together from the assembled ships in port to operate the power assembly. However, they hit a snag as they were having a hard time finding enough cable to run from the fusion engines of the ships docked to stretch the power junction of the Control Center. Colonel Miller informed him that the men were on the wall and that if he was reading the Bowman’s sensor array correctly, they had at least thirty minutes before their unwanted company arrived.

Clarkson said a silent prayer that it would be otherwise his beloved Earth Republic would fall. Not all in one stroke of course. The colonies would fight on but as more and more of them fell under the Coalition’s dominance, it would become harder and harder to resist. Humanity was meant for so much more than what the Coalition offered.

There was a knock at the door and the admiral cried, “Enter.” In stepped the Infantryman with the red hair that reminded him of his granddaughter. What was her name? Oh, yes Dinah Ridge. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, private?” The admiral asked offering the private some water from his canteen. He noticed as he did that, his hand was trembling ever so slightly so he reached into his pocket for another one of the pills that the medical officer had given him.

“Thank you, sir,” Dinah took two swallows worth of water and handed the canteen back. As the admiral swallowed the pill with a swig of water, Dinah continued, “Colonel Miller wanted me to report to you that the men are set in defensive positions along the wall but he sent me to ask you if you had seen Drake, sir?”

“Why, no, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him since before the battle started. Tell the Colonel that I haven’t sent him off on any secret missions without him but I’ve no doubt he’ll turn up.” Looking up he could tell the young lady was worried for her friend, so he said,

“Look, private, there are three options here. Option one is that he died in the battle. We both know he’s too damn tough for that. Option two, he’s measured the odds and decided it’s time to leave us to our devices, but I very much doubt that one. Finally, option three is that he is off working on something so devious and so underhanded, something that is just so crazy it might work, in other words a plan to save our bacon. From the short time I’ve known the man, I’m going with option three. Aren’t you?” Clarkson asked with a reassuring smile.

“Yes sir, and sir? Thank you. The Colonel also wanted me to remind you about what the two of you talked about earlier,” Dinah said sounding confused.

“Alright, alright tell him he wins. I’ll be out in a moment. Just run along and report that to him, if you would please.”

Dinah delivered a crisp salute to the admiral who had returned a much more tired one in return when two unexpected things happened at once Ben nearly knocked the doors off their hinges as he made a mad dash to get into the small room. Just as he did, the power to the vids in the control center flickered back to life. Ben yelled, “Gangway! ‘Scuse me, ma’am.” He nearly knocked Dinah over in his rush to get to the right vid screen as the admiral opened his mouth to ask just what the hell he was doing. Ben said, “Sorry, Admiral sir, no time to explain. I’ve got some buttons that need to be pushed and they need to be pushed now.” He practically dove from vid station to vid station, his fingers a wild blur as they flew over the screens. When he finally reached the end of the hallway and the last vid station, he tapped it just two times and that’s when they began to feel it.

A rumble grew from deep in the belly of the earth beneath their feat that erupted into a bellowing roar powerful enough to shake the small plasticrete building they were in. Dinah rushed to the windows and cheered exuberantly, “The missiles are going up, sir! He did it!” The rumble and roar continued outside as Ben slowly stood and managed to gasp out, “Sir.” He was cut off by an even mightier roar. At this, the admiral jumped to a window to see for himself what was going on. His only thought was that one of the missiles had blown itself up in the tube and that the sight of his men burning alive would greet his eyes or blasted to bits but instead his eyes were met with a much less gruesome sight.

A single tower shaped cargo vessel of a design he had never seen before was slowly rising into the sky. It was solid black and had cube-like angles that reminded him of the skyscrapers all around the port. Admiral Clarkson looked to Ben for an explanation as he wondered who could be on it and why. Such a lightly armored craft would be destroyed up there. Then the answer came to him. The only person left unaccounted for. Well, whatever damn fool notion Drake had gotten into his head, he hoped it was a good one.

“You, sir, are a worker of miracles,” the admiral congratulated Ben. “No time for that either, sir.” Ben pushed off against the wall he had been leaning on. “Sir, I need you to come over here and order the Fleet to make sure their IFFs are on. Even the Darian’s, sir. It’s important and there’s not a lot of time,” Ben said pleadingly before the admiral cut him off. “I told them to do that hours ago when we first thought of launching the missiles from this very port. You were there, Ben, don’t you remember? Now will you please tell me what’s this all about?” The admiral asked genuinely curious as the power to the vids all around him went out again.

“A little plan of Drake’s, Sir. I think you’re going to like this one,” he said as he quickly filled the admiral and Dinah, who too curious to leave, was just standing there listening to what Drake had discovered about that particular craft and what his plan was to do with it was.

“But before any of that happens, sir, we have ourselves a few tanks to pick off. It seems that they decided to pick up a little steam, which was one of the reasons why I was in such a hurry to get in here and get this done before they could stop us.” Ben paused and said in a voice filled with a tinge of sadness, “Sir, I’m sorry to say I had to take the Bowman out of commission for this fight too. It was the only thing I could think of that had just enough power to get done what needed to get done and the only thing I could get close enough with the power couplings we had. I’m sorry I didn’t consult you first, sir, but I thought you would want the missiles up there helping the fleet more than the Bowman helping us down here on the ground so I had to go and fry her fusion reactor to get the power I needed. At least I parked her in the breach, so maybe her armor will do us some good there. Oh, and the Colonel also just yelled right before I made it in here that everyone with a rifle or a rock is needed on the wall. Lucky for me, sir, I’ve got a rifle, but if you’re missing one I’ll trade you for a rock.’ Ben finally stopped to take a breath, grinning from ear to ear.

Clarkson couldn’t remember a time when Ben had said so much in so short a space of time and even with three companies of Coalition armor almost at their doorstep. He couldn’t help but start laughing as he pointed towards the door and shouldered his rifle. Trying to control himself, the admiral couldn’t help grinningin. “Move out soldiers! Those tanks aren’t going to kill themselves.”