Retreat And Adapt (A Galaxy Unknown) (44 page)

"That might be a death sentence for many if the ship they're in is destroyed."

"Yes, it might come to that. But without any idea of where they're being held or even if they were still alive before we attacked the mother ships, a search and recover operation would have been pointless."

"Okay. I agree completely, but I had to mention it. As you say, there was nothing we could do."

* * *

"Where is everyone?" Kilburn said. "We've been lying on this deck in total darkness forever."

"Quit complaining," Rondara said. "At least you don't have a bed on your back."

"Yeah, sorry, Corporal. Hey, I wonder if all the aliens on this ship were killed."

"I don't want to think about that."

"Why not? After what these bastards have done to us."

"If everyone is dead, we'll starve to death. It's not a nice way to go."

"I'm still hoping that this thing in the deck between us is a torpedo and that it blows up."

"It's not a torpedo, Kilburn. I've seen enough torpedoes to know that."

"Maybe it's a new type. It appeared when those explosions began and we were knocked onto the deck. I was
really
hoping one of those explosions ended our misery here."

"No more than me. No such luck. Now that the explosions have stopped, I guess the battle is over. I wonder who won."

Seconds later, the pain and suffering of Marine corporal Beth Rondara and PFC Vincent Kilburn was finally ended as a bomb destroyed the warship where the experiments on their bodies were being performed.

* * *

"Still up?" Gavin said as he entered Jenetta's office at 0136.

"I'm anxious to listen to the debriefings. It shouldn't be very much longer."

"One hundred bomb runs, probably averaging about ten minutes per run, means more than sixteen hours plus a half-hour out and a half-hour back. We may not see them until after 0300."

"I couldn't sleep anyway. What kind of commander could simply go to sleep while his or her people are involved in a known combat situation?"

"We've had periodic reports from the team leader. Everything was going well. The enemy hadn't been able to mount any kind of a defense. Our people should all be safe."

"In battle, the situation can change in a heartbeat."

"You have trouble letting go."

"Yes, I admit it. I've always had a problem with sending people into combat situations, especially where I can't be with them. I do my best to make sure they have the equipment and information they need to do the job, but I have this overwhelming desire to be there to help keep them safe if the situation changes."

Gavin chuckled. "That's one of the things I've always appreciated most. And the thing that inspires such loyalty in your people."

Jenetta smiled. "I once had an officer say that my crew would 'follow you down the cone of an active volcano on Io.'"

"I think that's true. And they'd know you wouldn't ask it of them, so they'd have to do it on their own."

"Perhaps it's related to an overinflated opinion of my ability to handle any situation. That's gotten me into trouble a couple of times."

"Perhaps," Gavin said with a smile, "but don't knock what works."

* * *

"Chairman Strauss has disappeared," former Lower Councilmember Erika Overgaard said to the council members assembled for the day's scheduled meeting. With Strauss's seat vacant, there were only seven members around the table. "Today's meeting is canceled, as are all meetings until a new Lower Council Chairman is selected. You'll be notified when that happens and meetings resume. I don't anticipate this taking longer than a week."

"Is there going to be a service?" Councilmember Flora Iversen asked. "We had one for Chairman Andrei Gagarin when
he
disappeared."

"No, no service. Chairman Gagarin didn't disappear. He— retired. Strauss has simply vanished. We have no idea where he is. He returned to his apartment after work on Friday and wasn't there this morning when his bodyguards arrived to pick him up. A lot of his clothes are gone, and he cleaned out his bank accounts last week. This appears to be a planned absence. That's all for today."

Later that afternoon, Overgaard reported to the office of the Upper Council Chairman. "I briefed the Lower Council members. Have you decided on a new chairman, ma'am?"

"Not yet. I've been too preoccupied with the search effort. This is so unlike Strauss— to just disappear like this."

"He seemed pretty upset that he wasn't chosen to sit on the Upper Council."

"We couldn't promote him. We need him to run the Lower Council. He's done a better job in that position than any other chairperson we've ever had. He was too good at what he did to promote."

"I understand, but that kind of business policy often fosters ill will in the people not promoted for the good of the organization without regard for the career of the individual."

"We doubled his salary and increased all his expense accounts. What more could he want?"

"A seat on the Upper Council, obviously. Now that we have the Age Prolongation formulas, there will be almost no chance for promotion."

"I want him found."

"Yes, ma'am. He knows all the secrets and where the skeletons are hidden. We shall retire him with extreme prejudice when we find him."

"Absolutely not! I want him found but not harmed. I want him returned to his job here. We need his firm hand on the Lower Council tiller. We'll find a way to make it up to him and make him want to stay in that job."

"Yes, ma'am. We'll find him."

~ March 26
^th
, 2288 ~

"We clobbered them again," Commander Katherine Jameson of the
Ohio
said during her debriefing session. "The warships were everywhere, milling around what was left of the mother ships and, I guess, trying to rescue trapped personnel. There were so many it made it hard to pick out a target. We've estimated that we took out at least four hundred warships during the day, but there were at least a thousand left. We might need three more trips to get them all."

All of the officers echoed essentially the same message. They insisted that the main threat from the Denubbewa mother ships seemed to be over, and all they had to do was keep attacking until all of the Denubbewa ships were destroyed. The images provided by the bombing groups seemed to confirm their statements. Many of the enemy ships never moved during the bombing run, leading to speculation that they were already dead. Analysts would examine the images carefully before the next attack and try to determine if certain ships should not be targeted because they had already been destroyed by the Denubbewa's own small missiles.

It was almost 0500 by the time the process was completed and the crews were allowed to retire to get some sleep after a very long day. The crews would stand down for the day and resume their bombing attacks with first watch tomorrow.

Jenetta had remained awake and listened to all of the debriefing sessions, which had been conducted by teleconference, although she didn't participate and was off camera the entire time. The official log noted her presence even though she was never observed during the recording. So it was with a heavy head that she finally turned in. Sleep should have come easily now that everyone had returned safely, but she couldn't get the images of the Space Command and Marine personnel taken prisoner by the Denubbewa out of her head. She kept telling herself there was nothing she could have done to rescue them before the attacks began and finally drifted off to sleep after several hours of tossing and turning.

"Going to feed the new kid?" Eliza asked as she encountered Jenetta in the corridor at the end of the first watch.

"Yes. And you can't come," Jenetta said.

"Why not? I want to see him."

"I'll send you a picture."

"I've already seen a picture. I want to see
him
."

"It's too early. I don't want to confuse him. I've barely begun to bond with him myself. He seems to trust me now and does whatever I tell him, but I want a little time to reinforce that before he meets someone who looks identical to me."

"You’re afraid he may not know the difference?"

"Of course he would. My girls always know which of us is which. And he'd certainly know why one of us seemed different if he saw both of us at the same time."

"Well, when
can
I see him?"

"Perhaps in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know."

"Have you decided who's going to get him?"

"Is that what this is about? You want Thor for yourself?"

"Yes, I'd like to take him. You can't keep three of them for yourself."

"Who says?"

Eliza simply made a face at that remark.

"Okay, I agree. I can't keep all three on a continuing basis. But until I make a decision and I trust Thor to be around other people, I'm going to keep him isolated. I, alone, feed him twice a day, and my girls haven't even seen him since the first day he came aboard. I'm sure Thor smells them on my clothes, and they must detect his odor on me also since I groom him regularly. But neither has made a fuss yet. In time, I'll bring them down to see him again, and then you can see him."

"Okay," Eliza said with a grimace. "But make it soon, okay?"

* * *

The bombing groups left again the next day at 0900 with a full rack of standard payload bombs in their cradles. Fifty minutes later a message arrived from the bombing leader, Commander Jameson of the
Ohio
, that the battle site seemed to be clear of all ships still able to travel.

The one-half light-year distance meant that messages on the IDS band took just over ten minutes to travel between the RP and the battle site, so an interrogatory communication was impractical. Gavin, on instructions from Jenetta, immediately sent a message to the
Ohio
to have all ships begin a search for the missing enemy ships. The message also stated that the other five SD's and the
Duluth
would join the search as soon as they could reach the site.

The first report from the searchers was received seven hours after they began their efforts to track down the missing alien ships. The
Zambezi
had located a group of thirty-six Denubbewa warships headed away from the battle site at their top speed of Light-462. The
Zambezi
was ordered to perform a flyby every hour to verify their continued flight and course.

The next report came from the
Purus
. It had located another forty-three Denubbewa warships. As with the ships in the other group, they were not headed out of GA space.

Over the next twelve hours, the search teams located a total of seven hundred forty-two warships. Estimates from analysts aboard the
Ares
who had studied images of the battle site were convinced there could be as many as seven hundred more that were unaccounted for, but all available ships other than the
Ares
and the
Ferdinand
were busy tracking the groups they had found.

A tactical team put together aboard the
Ares
formulated a plan of attack that would produce the highest possible number of kills with a minimum waste of time and resources. Jenetta issued orders for the ten bombing groups to rendezvous and commence the attack on the first group whenever they were ready. The ships that were not part of the bombing groups were assigned to watch the largest six groups not targeted for the first attack. When every ship was in position, the attacks began.

Six hours later, the
Ares
received a message that the first group had been completely destroyed. According to the report filed, ten Denubbewa warships had been destroyed during the first run, but then the others had scattered in every direction. It had taken hours to chase them down and destroy them, but the final count was one hundred sixteen enemy warships destroyed.

The bombing groups headed to where the next closest group should be, but they had changed course and were nowhere in the area. That was consistent with what the six ships still trailing Denubbewa warships reported. After the bombing group had made their first run, the enemy ships being tailed had changed course, no doubt the result of communication messages from the attacked group.

Since there was no danger of losing the six alien groups being watched, the bombing groups took a break to eat and relax a little before attacking the next group.

Over the course of twenty-eight days, the Space Command bombing groups destroyed seven hundred three of the Denubbewa warships that had fled the battle zone. A full day had been spent with the
Ares
and
Ferdinand
while the bomb cradles were reloaded, and the bombing groups had been allowed to stand down for two days while the
Duluth
and five SD's searched for new targets. When several more groups of Denubbewa warships had been found, the bombers went back to work.

After two full weeks had passed without locating any more enemy ships, Jenetta ended the searches. The
Artemis
, the newest
Ares
-class battleship in the fleet, had arrived with the transport ships
Winston
and
Sebastian
, plus additional SD's and DS destroyers. They would begin the massive cleanup effort at the original battle site and the multiple locations where the warships had been destroyed. Intelligence personnel who would try to learn everything possible about the Denubbewa were still on the way. But before that work could even start, the battle areas would have to be cleared of Denubbewa missiles. Some of the ordnance engineers were estimating that the complete cleanup could take years, but Space Command couldn't simply leave the broken hulls and loose missiles that could destroy SC ships for scavengers.

Believing that her job was done in that part of space, Jenetta decided to return to Quesann. She was looking forward to the downtime during the sixty-day trip.

Two weeks into the trip, Jenetta invited Eliza to her quarters for dinner at the end of the first watch.

"I don't smell anything cooking," Eliza said as she sniffed towards the steward's kitchen. Cayla and Tayna busied themselves sniffing Eliza and she bent to pet them.