Solbidyum Wars Saga 6: Defeat of the Tottalax (15 page)

“Marranalis, do you think the Brotherhood has developed some means of detecting our cloaked ships?”  I asked.

“No sir.  I’ve been looking at their firing patterns, and if you look, you will notice that they are firing rapid bursts of fire in a given arrangement right after our ships fire on them.  I think they are using a computer system that tries to predict, based upon the position from where shots at them originate, the course of our ships, and they fire a volley of patterned shots in that general direction.  It seems to be about 17% effective,” he answered.

“If that’s the case, order our fighters that once they have fired at the enemy to initiate a sharp turn away from their course, so they aren’t heading into a firestorm.  Let’s see if that works.

“Is there any word from Commander Cefvoux on the surface?”

“He’s calling in right now.  Would you like me to put him on the vid screen?”  Marranalis replied.

“Yes, put him on the screen,"” I ordered.  Almost instantly the Commander’s image appeared on the screen.

“Commander, what is the status there?”  I asked.

“We’re getting a lot of resistance, sir,” he replied, “We had hoped to take a number of facilities without doing too much damage and with few fatalities, but they just aren’t giving up and are fighting back hard.  They have so many supplies here ready to ship out that they have everything they need to withstand a long siege.  Plus they had thousands of troopers prepared to ship out as well.”

“Don’t try and spare anything on their end, Commander.  If you need to blow up the buildings with enemy troops and supplies, do it.  We’re fighting a war here.  We're not asking them to a dance..."

“Right sir, I just thought perhaps you wanted to preserve some of their facilities,” he replied.

“No, this is a surgical strike.  The idea is to shut down this Brotherhood stronghold and make it so they won’t want to try to use it again.  I want all their factories and bases on the planet destroyed.  Spare any civilian communities that you deem not involved with the Brotherhood; anything Brotherhood-related I want demolished.

“How are your troops holding up?” I asked.

“We’ve suffered a few casualties, mostly foot soldiers, and we’ve had a few pieces of mechanical equipment destroyed, but nothing beyond what we had anticipated.  However, we’re going to need fire support from some of our ships as soon as they can break free from assaulting the Brotherhood ships in orbit.”

“If you provide us with coordinates I can have the
DUSTEN
blow up just about anything down there you want,” I said, “The captain of the
BELLAS
was kind enough to blow up his own ship, so that frees us up to take on other targets," I replied.

“I’ll have the coordinates sent up to you immediately,” Cefvoux responded.

The battle raged on for two more days.  Several enemy ships tried to flee the area, but they were tracked and destroyed.  Only two of the brotherhood frigates had RMFF shielding, and less than half the Brotherhood fighters and smaller ships had cloaking.  Our fighters quickly eliminated the ones not cloaked, however, the enemy refused to surrender.  It was the first time the enemy had stayed for the fight without running off, and I have a suspicion the reason was Ming.  Obviously this planet played heavily in the Brotherhood supply chain.  With the slower communication system the Brotherhood was using, it was unlikely that word had reached Ming and Roritat of what was happening at Windsor.  I wondered what they would do when they did find out.

It was about the middle of the second day of the battle that Commander Cefvoux contacted me.  “Admiral, we’ve been seeing a reduction of Brotherhood assaults and counter offensives.  We’re not sure where they are going, but they definitely are pulling out and going somewhere.  I’m sending out cloaked recon teams to try to see just what’s going on.”

“Do you need me to send more men down to assist you?” I asked.  “We’ve pretty much mopped up the ships here.  We have only had a small handful of ships surrender.  Most of them kept fighting until they were destroyed, or they blew themselves up.  As a result, all of the troopers we had here that we planned to use for boarding ships are sitting around with nothing to do.”

“I can use some of them,” Cefvoux said, “We need to secure some of the bases we took, but I’m at a loss to explain where the enemy is disappearing to.  You don’t think they got their hands on a Cantolla Gate, do you?

“I doubt it,” I replied, “Have you asked any of the local villagers about it?  I would suspect some of them might have an idea where they are going.”

“No sir, I haven’t asked any of them.  However, there are a few who are quite pleased at our arrival that might be willing to help us.  I’ll have them questioned.”

As the battle for the planet raged, it was becoming apparent that fewer enemy troops were being seen.  More Brotherhood facilities and bases were captured. However, we were finding fewer troops protecting them.  Where was the enemy going?  If they were leaving the planet with ships, we should be detecting them, however there was no sign of them departing.  If the enemy had managed to get hold of the Cantolla Gate technology, why weren’t they bringing more troops through as reinforcements?  Finally after several hours, Cefvoux came to me and reported that one of the local natives related the Brotherhood had a huge underground facility on the planet, and they were retreating there.

He said he knew of the base because he had been forced to help dig it out of the mountain, and that he knew of some old construction tunnels that led to ventilation shafts.  He thought we might be able to gain access to the facility through them.  He stated the main access the Brotherhood used was heavily fortified and had many traps and ambush points along its route, making it deadly to try to use.  There were other accesses, but he wasn’t knowledgeable about their locations and said that everyone he knew who had worked building them had been killed by the Brotherhood.  He had heard from a friend working on the accesses while they were being built, that one access was in a valley nearby, but he didn’t know exactly where.  One day, his friend told him the access was nearly completed, the next day he never came home.  When we asked him how large the base was and how many men it held, the only thing he could tell us was that it was multi-levels, and the tunnels went on for kilometers.  We asked if the Brotherhood had more than one such facility on Windsor, but he said he didn’t know.  With a little coaxing and assurances we would see to his protection, he agreed to show us where the ventilation tunnel was he had helped to construct.”

The tunnel was well disguised.  It was at the base of a cliff, and large rock boulders were piled up in front of it like a landslide had deposited them there.  Air could easily pass around the boulders, admitting fresh air while disguising the location of the tunnel.  There was sufficient space among the rocks at locations that small troupers could crawl through.  Commander Cefvoux selected two teams of his smallest troopers and sent them in to do a recon.  Each team member was equipped with a personal cloaking device.  The goal of Team 1 was to do a preliminary recon up to the point where they discovered the main tunnels and signs of Brotherhood men.  Team 2 was to advance further into the facility using stealth technology and discover as much information as they could in 24 hours.  In the meantime, we had our informant show us the valley his friend had indicated as being the location of one of the accesses to the underground facility.

The valley was large, and we searched most of the day trying to find the access.  We had assumed that as with the air access tunnels, the main accesses would be located on the sides of the mountains or hills and we exhausted a lot of time searching those locations.  It was quite by accident one of our troopers noted a lot of vehicle tracks going into the center of a field in the valley and abruptly disappearing there.  Closer examination of the site revealed a large hatch, nearly twenty meters square beneath the surface, that apparently rose to reveal access to below.  Using the data we got from this site we used our scanners on our ships in orbit and located six other similar locations in a 36 square kilometer area.

The first recon team returned after 10 hours, reporting they had found other underground tunnels and large numbers of Brotherhood troopers.  They noted numerous supply areas that seemed to be well stocked and indicated the Brotherhood seemed prepared for a siege.  At the 24-hour mark we expected to see Team 2 return, but no one showed up.  We waited, hoping that perhaps there was some obstacle preventing their return we didn’t foresee, but that they still were safe.  Hours rolled by, and soon it was twenty-six hours.  If they had been captured, our hopes of surprising the enemy underground were lost, and it would be a terrible battle.  I began planning with Commander Cefvoux as to how we would assault the tunnels by blowing the main hatched covering them, when we received word that Team 2 was on the surface several kilometers away and requesting transport. 

Cefvoux dispatched two patrols, one to pick them up and one to provide protection if needed.  Both ships flew to the location, cloaked, and the men were retrieved without any action from the enemy.  I had Commander Cefvoux and Teams 1 and 2 transfer to the
DUSTEN. 
Using the 3D holographic display system in the War Room, with the information collected from recording devices each trooper carried, we had the computer construct 3D images of areas of the underground base the troopers had accessed. At several locations in the underground base, the teams had come across wall-mounted diagrams showing how to get to other areas.  Images of this data which had been recorded by the troops were fed into the computer.  Using that information, coupled with the other data recorded from the troopers, we were able to construct the remainder of 3D model of the underground base.  It wasn’t all there; that we knew; but it showed the main tunnels and rooms.

Sergeant Tills, leader of a squad in Team 2 explained to us why they were unable to return to their original entrance point.  They had traveled deep into the underground strong hold using their stealth cloaking, and at one point had passed through a large unoccupied chamber.  When they tried to return, they found the room filled with Brotherhood troops assembling gear and other materials.  It would have been impossible for them to pass back the same way and they began looking for other ways out.  They discovered a small ventilation shaft they hoped would lead them to a similar location and situation like the one they had entered through; instead they found an old abandoned access tunnel that was probably used in the earliest stages of the base’s construction.  They didn’t encounter any sensors or booby traps in the tunnel, and it appeared to have been forgotten by the Brotherhood entirely.  Sergeant Tills said that while this tunnel didn’t lead completely into the facility, it came close enough that properly placed explosive charges at the tunnel’s end should be able to break through one of the main corridors and through the second level of the complex.  Wall charts indicated the base consisted of four layers with the top layer most heavily fortified and guarded, and the lower levels were strictly for supplies. Levels two and three were personnel and supplies.

“I see a lot of these smaller shafts on the model,” I said as I pointed to long vertical shafts about the display, “I’m assuming these are ventilation shafts?”

“The ones we checked out were, but if you want to use those for access, you will be facing a lot of problems.  For one thing, they have automated lasers and other protective gear in them,” Sergeant Tills answered.

“We could always poison the air going in them,” I said.

“We noted special filtration equipment at the shaft ends that look to be capable of filtering out any poisons we might try to use,” Sergeant Tills replied.

“Let’s try it anyway,” I began, “I want major assaults on the main accesses we know about with the fire power coming from our ships.  We'll have them blast away enough so we can get into the tunnels below.  At the same time I want poison dropped into all the ventilation shafts we can find, and then 30 minutes later I want bombs dropped down those shafts, knocking out the ventilation system.  Wait, make that some kind of sleep or knockout gas, just in case they are holding prisoners.  We don’t want to kill any prisoners if we can help it.

“Commander,” I addressed Cefvoux, I want four heavily armed teams to enter the old tunnel Team 2 used to leave the base.   When you get to the end, use laser-cutting torches to cut a way into the facility.  I want you to begin cutting at the same time we begin assaulting the main accesses.  The Brotherhood will pull most of their troops in to protect the main accesses, thinking we will be coming in from there.  The area where you will be entering is a good distance from away from the main complex.  Once inside, I want you to find their power units and place charges on them that will knock out their power.

“Tell me, do you think it’s possible to get components for a personnel-sized Cantolla Gate down there through the access tunnel you found?” I asked, looking at the Sergeant.

“Yes sir, if it's dissembled and in pieces,” he replied.

“Good, I want you to take two with you; one set up in a secured location within the Brotherhood base near where you enter, and the other as close to the opposite side of the base as you can get to and secure.  As soon as both gates are in place and operational, I hope to have troopers from our base at Plosaxen pouring through them and into this facility.”

For the next several hours, we went over the details about the plan.  Commander Cefvoux, using the data gotten from the recon teams, issued orders for troops on the surface to find the air accesses and prepare for the assault that was to come.  Our ships in orbit targeted the main surface accesses of the base, but held fire waiting my orders.  Admiral Regeny and Admiral Wabussie found their ways to the War Room and watched as I prepared the battle plans with Commander Cefvoux.  Neither of them said anything, they just sat quietly by, watching events unfold.