Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (31 page)

“Hello Cam,” Vice Admiral Bunting said as he stood up from behind his desk. “It’s good to see you.”

After walking around the desk to shake hands, he gestured to the small sitting area in his cramped office. “Can I get you some of our famous Navy coffee?”

“Coffee would be great,” Cam said. “I would characterize it as ‘infamous’ and not ‘famous’ though. We have solvents in the factory that are less potent.”

Cam had been here many times in the past, but he still couldn’t get over how small the office was for one of the Navy’s top officers on the moon. This entire office would easily fit into the sitting area of his office over at AMC.

Just then, the door to the office opened again, and Lieutenant Hartman delivered two mugs and a carafe of steaming hot coffee to the table in the sitting area.

“How does he do that?” Cam asked as the lieutenant closed the door behind him on the way back out of the office. “Thirty seconds ago he was sitting at his desk, and before I accepted your offer for coffee, he was already delivering on your request.”

“Never question the ways of a good aide,” the Admiral said. “Jim has been with me for almost two years now, and I think he knows my needs better than I do! So, how can I help you today?”

“I have an unusual request. As you know we’ve already started the field trials of the first Scorpion coming off the line. Because these new fighters are based on an already tested frame, we have not had any real structural problems. We are in the middle of three full weeks of rigorous testing to find any problems that can be corrected before we complete the next four fighters. Assuming all goes according to schedule, we should have five fighters ready for our first coordinated fighter test within eight weeks.”

“That all fits with my understanding of the current status of the program,” Bunting said.

Cam nodded. “Here comes the unusual part. I need Sted here for the coordinated testing. These are his test plans based upon his design of the fighter. Unfortunately, he is still aboard the shuttle that is just rounding Mars on its way back here. The shuttle will arrive a full three weeks after the tests have already started. Is there any way you can task one of your fast naval ships at the Mars orbital station to rendezvous with the shuttle and pick up Sted, Jessica, and any other people critical to our efforts and get them here sooner?”

Bunting sat back to ponder the request. “I see what you mean by unusual. I agree with you that Sted should be leading the testing of the fighters. In fact, he should be aboard the lead fighter during the coordinated testing. His insight from the testing of the converted fighters out at Rickover would be invaluable. Let me see what I can do. The Navy has pretty much a blank check from the Council to get these fighters operational as quickly as possible.” He pushed a button on his desk. “Lieutenant Hartman, please check with Admiral Holcroft’s office and see if he is available now to meet with Cam and myself.”

“Right away sir,” the lieutenant said over the office speaker.

The destroyer
HMAS Perth
had been in position for the last twenty-four hours along with its sister ship, the
HMAS Anzac
, at a distance of ten nautical miles west of North Island. The
HMAS Darwin
was on station at nine nautical miles off the island between the alien pyramid and the two destroyers.

Just two hours before, the depleted uranium shells had been delivered to the two destroyers by helicopter. Each ship had just four shells, but each ship would be able to make four direct hits, because the shells were self-guided. The shells had been placed in the autoloader, and then the crew had cleared the area. There was no sense in taking any chances with radiation poisoning just in case the ship survived the attack.

All of the men aboard had volunteered for this mission. Men with families had been excused even if they volunteered, so the average age of the crew was lower than normal. The captain of the
Perth,
Marcus White, made up for this, as he was the most experienced captain in the Australian Navy.

“Okay, gentlemen,” Captain White, said, “Commence firing!”

The rounds were timed to be fired at three-second intervals, a much slower rate than the guns could handle but timed so that all of the shells would be in the air before the first shell struck its target. With the two destroyers a nautical mile apart, north to south, the shells would approach the target from slightly different angles but hopefully close enough to confuse any defenses built into the pyramid.

Captain White had his binoculars trained on the pyramid during the firing sequence to judge any response. What he saw was the retraction of a section at the pyramid’s tip, exposing some kind of device. Immediately after opening, the device began emitting laser bursts at the incoming shells.

“Good luck trying to stop depleted uranium with a laser,” he said almost to himself as he watched eight direct hits on the side of the black pyramid. The explosions were pyrotechnic in nature, and the hot debris falling from the side of the pyramid ignited the awful slick that the pyramid had been disgorging for the past several days.

“Well done, gentlemen,” Captain White said. “Now, let’s see how the cruise missile fares after we so artfully knocked on their door!”

What the Captain had missed during the short duration of the shelling was the burst of laser light heading in the opposite direction from his ships. The pyramid’s defenses had picked up the track of the cruise missile and shot it down just as it cleared the Australian coast. The laser fire fried all of the missile’s sensors, and the missile went into auto-destruct mode.

“Damn,” Captain White exclaimed a minute later when it was obvious that the missile was not going to detonate over the pyramid. “Get me Fleet Base West on the horn.”

“We have Admiral Westcott on the line, sir,” Lieutenant Jeremiah Smith said a few seconds later.

“Give me a sit rep,” Westcott said as soon as White got on the line.

“We had eight direct hits with the DU shells,” White reported. “The only visible response from the pyramid was an attempt to shoot down our incoming shells with laser fire. Right now, we have visible damage on the western side of the pyramid, and the slick around the pyramid is on fire. There was no, I repeat, no secondary explosion indicating that the tactical nuke reached its destination.”

“The cruise missile was shot down by laser fire just as it passed over the coastline,” Admiral Westcott said. “Your orders are to commence firing standard shells at the pyramid as rapidly as you can to try to multiply the damage inflicted by the DU shells.”

“Yes sir.” Captain White handed the mike back to Smith. “Get me the
Anzac
. Commander Blaine, get a crew back to the six-inch gun and commence firing our standard shells at that damn pyramid as fast as the gun can handle. We’re not bringing any shells back to port if I can help it.”

The master chronicler received the signal from planetary re-engineering module four while halfway between modules one and two on the opposite side of the planet.

“Get us to module four on a least-time path,” the master chronicler trilled to the master navigator.

The ship began a dive into a lower orbit at maximum acceleration.

“These locals are proving bothersome,” the master chronicler said to no one in particular. That was when the warning lights began to flash. They were under attack from above.

“Destroy the ships that fired those missiles!” the master chronicler ordered.

Six sets of three missiles each were disgorged from the stern of the ship in the direction of the attacking ships. The incoming missiles would be handled automatically by the ship’s laser defenses and were of no concern to anyone aboard.

As the scout came over the western horizon above module four, flying just above the layer of air surrounding the planet, the master chronicler got a clear picture of what was occurring on the planet’s surface. Module four had been damaged severely by something fired at it from the ships floating on the planet’s ocean. Smoke was rising from the module, and the layer of choke oil flowing northward from the module was on fire from the explosions.

“There are three local ships near the module. Wipe them out,” the master chronicler said.

Again, six sets of three missiles disgorged from the bow of the ship and headed directly for the three surface ships.

The master chronicler watched as the first two salvos were destroyed by missiles rising from one of the three surface ships. Seconds later, the remaining missiles tore apart those ships as well as a great deal of water surrounding them. When the smoke and steam cleared, the only evidence that those ships ever existed were the concentric circles of waves racing away from where the ships had been.

“Prepare a replacement module for number four,” the master chronicler told the master engineer. “We can’t afford to get behind schedule. We must be done before the crèche ship arrives.”

“They swatted two destroyers out of space as an afterthought!” Fleet Admiral Brooks exclaimed.

“I know,” Secretary Miller replied. “What happened to the missile defenses aboard the destroyers?”

“They were overwhelmed by the number of missiles fired by the aliens in such a short time. Each ship had to contend with six consecutive missiles coming at it in five-second intervals. The defenses on the
Eisenhower
were able to take out the first three in the salvo, and the
Reagan
actually got the first four. None of the ‘distracting’ missiles that they fired at the alien ship got through their laser defenses. They didn’t even get close to that thing.”

“So, what have we learned that can help us in the next encounter?” Miller asked.

“We’re running an analysis of both the space and surface missile encounters right now. Even without the analysis, we learned that the aliens have potent offensive missiles and missile defenses. We are also seeing the repeating pattern of threes and sixes, which I’m sure has a deeper significance than we can see right now. As far as preserving our space-based assets, we have been woefully inadequate. Our destroyers were completely outclassed by this one alien ship.”

“Okay,” Secretary Miller said, “I want our intelligence analysts working hand-in-hand with the Australians. They lost three ships off their coastline, but not before doing some real damage to that black pyramid. They may have some insights for us. We need that analysis completed before the coordinated attack on the pyramid off the Philippines. I want your forces to stand down for that attack, but I want you to gather as much intelligence from the attack as possible.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Brooks replied. “I’ll get the Naval Intelligence Division to set up proper monitoring assets. We especially need better data on the speed and power of their missiles. We can make estimates from what we’ve just experienced, but getting actual numbers would be extremely helpful for planning future engagements.”

The destroyer
Defender
had matched the course of the shuttle
Endeavour
and then detached one of its lifeboats for the short hop between the ships. The lifeboats were designed to sustain life in space for up to two months in case of a disaster aboard any of the Space Navy’s ships. They were also designed with universal docking gear for any spacefaring vessel. This made them ideal for their new duty of moving the ten passengers from the shuttle to the destroyer.

As Sted and Jessica exited the lifeboat back on
Defender
, they were met by the ship’s captain and Sted’s former classmate, Captain Richard Thornburg.

“Welcome aboard Sted,” Thornburg said as the two saluted one another and then gave each other a big hug. “And who might this be?” he asked, looking pointedly at Jessica.

“Richard, this is Jessica Browning. Jessica, this is Captain Richard Thornburg, my former classmate at the academy.”

Jessica offered her hand. “I am certainly glad to meet you, Captain Thornburg. If you’re anything like Sted, I’m going to have my hands full on our short trip back to Luna.”

“Well, we will certainly try to make your stay aboard as comfortable as possible. The XO has given up his cabin for the two of you, and we short-staffed the crew before leaving Mars orbit to make room for the other eight civilians in our crew’s quarters, so nobody should feel too cramped. Meanwhile, Sted, I expect you to bring me up to speed on this hot mission of yours. The admirals have been tight-lipped lately, so I’m expecting a little quid-pro-quo from you before we reach Luna.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Sted replied. “After we get settled and on our way, why don’t you invite us to one of your captain’s dinners and we can get you caught up over a nice meal?”

“Deal,” Thornburg said, smiling. “Be at the Captain’s Mess in an hour. Meanwhile, let me see if I have any of your favorite wine in stock.”