Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (20 page)

Ian saw nothing in the newsletter that would let anyone think anything strange was going on at the community if they somehow managed to get a copy of the newsletter. It was a perfect way to get the news out without letting any secrets out about what was really happening.

There was a brief synopsis of the minutes from the last council meeting, and the birth announcements as well as betrothal and marriage announcements. The newsletter closed with the contact information of the team that published the newsletter with a request that anyone with something they felt was newsworthy or corrections to the articles listed in the newsletter to contact them.

When he finished reading the newsletter, he sighed. It was amazing what they had built. He reminded himself that, while it was indeed amazing, it was his job to protect them.

He quickly typed an instruction on his terminal, and a live feed from the hyperspace tracking computer appeared on the big monitor. At the bottom of the screen was the data relevant to the inbound track.

He knew his people had a lot of heart, and if anyone could defend the planet against a Caldarian Super Nova, than it was them. But a Super Nova was a very formidable weapons platform. One Ian didn’t feel capable of over-estimating. The information that Star had on the Caldarians was, at best, dated. It was clear that the big blue hexapods had learned a few new tricks since Star had crashed on the moon. The ability of the Caldarian freighter to not only cloak, but to travel in hyperspace underscored that. He was dreading learning what other tricks they had figured out and adopted.

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F
.S.S. Star Dancer

Selene (Earth’s moon) Orbit

Sol Sector.

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I
an looked out the cockpit screen at what remained of the
Star Dancer
. The bow section drifted silently through space. Occasionally, a small explosion erupted as a pocket of atmosphere blew out enabling a fire to burn until it was exhausted. Smoke and debris surrounded and trailed the piece of the ship as it tumbled though space. There was no sign of the rest of the ship, and Ian knew that it had been destroyed when the power core went critical and exploded.

Turning back to the moon, Ian flew over the glowing crater that had once been the base where over two thousand people had lived and worked. Unlike the skeleton of the ship, there were no sudden explosions of air pockets, there was only glowing, molten rock, and the debris that had yet to fall back to the surface of the once again quiet satellite.

With tears in his eyes, he pushed the thrust control all the way forward and raced to Earth, eager to find any other survivors. In minutes he was in orbit, and began his decent onto the planet of his birth. As the North American continent came into view, he knew there couldn’t be much left, even from this distance and altitude, he could see the huge plumes of smoke and dust that marked the places where cities once stood.

Quickly he headed for the community in New Mexico, they had a bunker and strong defenses; someone had to have survived. While not a glowing crater like the cities and the moon base, there was little left on the surface that could be identified as the once thriving community. He landed outside of the town, and walked to where the surface entrance to the bunker was still standing. He immediately noticed that the doors had been blown apart, and he rushed in, down the steps to the second set of hardened doors into the bunker itself.

Through that blown apart entry he found hell. Bodies were strewn around on the floor like some giant child had crushed her doll collection and thrown them about. Some of the bodies had obviously been hit by weapons fire, but other looked like that had been literally torn limb from limb.

He walked slowly through the entire bunker, looking for any signs of life, knowing that there weren’t any. He bent down, and picked up the broken body of a child. The look of utter terror in her eyes was too much for him and he...

Woke up, sweating profusely and panting. Blinking several times to clear the images from his eyes, he gently got out of bed and quietly walked out to the living room. He got a cold beer from the replicator and manually set the panel of one wall to a view of the stars outside the ship. He often found comfort looking out at the stars.

He set his beer down on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch to stare out at the twinkling, bright stars.

“Ian? Are you alright? Do you need a sedative?” Beth asked from the hallway to the sleeping rooms.

“I’m sorry, Beth, did I wake you?” Ian asked, ignoring her question.

She shook her head. “I woke up to check on the kids and heard you out here. Are you alright?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah, I just had a bad dream is all.”

“So you want to talk it out? Maybe we can scare the demons off?” Beth suggested smiling lightly.

“I wish that was all it would take to get rid of these demons. But they haven’t actually arrived yet,” Ian replied.

Beth nodded. “It must be contagious. Cindy asked Jenny to sleep with her tonight because she kept having night terrors last night.” The girls didn’t sleep together normally, except in situations like tonight, when someone just needed a little extra comfort.

“I hope it works for her. I’d be afraid of keeping the other person awake from all the tossing and turning,” Ian said. He shook his head. “I just need to make damn sure what I've seen doesn’t happen. I have to be smarter than the Caldarians, and stay the hell out of their way.”

“What do you mean? Are you going to let them take over Earth?” Beth asked disbelievingly.

“No, I won’t let that happen either. But if we assault them directly, we will die,” Ian said. We’re going to have to be smart and sneaky. We’re going to have to keep them guessing and focusing on us instead of the planet. We’ll have to whittle them down, destroy their fighters and carriers, then isolate the capitol ship, and work her into the ground as well. All without ever giving them a solid target.”

“That doesn’t sound all that hard. The solar system is a big place, we should be able to stay hidden,” Beth said.

Ian smiled at her. “I’m afraid it isn’t that easy, you see, if we move, even a little bit, there is a chance that they’ll see us. We have to assume that they have sensors at least as good as ours. They’ll know we’re here, but the trick will be to keep them from knowing where we are. We can’t very well destroy all their fighters and carriers without them knowing something’s out here. We’ll need to keep them busy enough looking for us, that they leave the planet alone. If they shift their focus entirely to the planet, we are going to be in serious trouble.”

“Oh, so if they’re capable of doing both at the same time, how are you going to keep their interest away from the planet? It sounds like if you fire a weapon or launch a missile, then they’ll come after us with everything they have,” Beth asked.

Ian took a drink of his beer, and sat it back on the coffee table. “That’s going to be the hard part. We do have a few decoys capable of making them believe we are in the outer system, or on the far side of the sun depending on where they decide to park. We have other gadgets spread all over that should also confuse them. But all of those toys are only capable of getting their attention, they don’t have the ability to do anything else, and once they discover that it’s a decoy, there is a chance they will stop falling for them,” Ian explained.

Beth shrugged, “So make it so some of those decoys can shoot at them and do some damage. Even if it’s only minimal damage, I would think they would have to take every one of them seriously,” Beth suggested. “Or you could set up an ambush for them once they begin to figure out that what the decoys are.”

“What do you mean?” Ian asked.

“Well, like those decoys you said that could make them think we are in another part of the system, have fighters or something floating in space nearby, and when they go to investigate, they get jumped by our ships or whatever you put out there.”

“That would be a great idea if we had more people. I don’t think we could even get any drones out there at this late date, but I’ll pass it along,” Ian replied. ”Thanks for the suggestion.”

“Ian, don’t look at this from a defensive point of view. Look at it as if you were the one doing the attack. What would be the worst thing you could find here once you arrived? What could the defenders do to you that would make your life a living hell and make you pull out your hair? Get sneaky, underhanded, cheat like crazy. Do things to these assholes that they would never think you could do,” Beth said reasonably.

“Really, do you have any more ideas in the pretty head of yours?” Ian asked.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t know enough about what we can and can’t do or what the enemy can do to even make any guesses. I do know that you need to dump that dream you had, and realize that these fuckers coming here don’t stand a chance in hell of killing our babies.”

“They’ll kill more than our kids, Beth. That’s what has got me so worried,” Ian said.

“Forget about that. Just think of our kids. Your children in the room just down the hall. Think of it as keeping those four little people safe, and you’ll do just fine. Saving the planet is too much for you, it’s too much for anyone. So instead, do it for those four wonderful little people,” Beth said.

“You watched that movie again, the one with the line that goes, ‘We’re not trying to save the whole world, just three of them!” right? Ian asked.

Beth grinned and shrugged. “It’s a good line, and it applies here. Why should it matter if I stole it from a movie?”

Ian sighed. She was right of course. He needed to think like a criminal, and he needed to do it for four wonderful little bundles of joy that he didn’t get to spend as much time with as he wanted.

He looked at the clock displayed in the lower right hand corner of the image he asked for. It was four in the morning. Suddenly, ideas began to form in his mind.

What about using missiles as mines? Drop them in space, and then activate them remotely to make the Caldarians think there was a ship out there launching missiles at them. Build a small platform with a power system and a laser turret or other weapons system then drop it out an air lock? Fill small missiles with chaff or randomly igniting heat sources, or power sources, or anything that would mess with their sensor readings. He grinned at her. “You’re a fucking genius, you know that?”

She sniffed pompously. “Of course I am, I’m the doctor after all!”

He gave her a loving kiss and pulled her up from the couch. “You go back to bed. I’m going to wake up the rest of the ship and the moon base. We have some stuff to do!”

“Well, you better get your ass in gear. Unless you can slow down the Caldarian, we’re going to be hosting them long before you get finished!” Beth said teasingly as she headed down the hallway to the sleeping rooms.

Touching a control that activated a holographic terminal in the coffee table, Ian put in a call to operations.

“Operations, What can we do for you in the middle of the fucking... uh, Sorry Sir,” a young ensign replied blushing when he realized it was Ian on the other end of the call.

“No problem, I’d be pissed too. But, I need you to wake up Chloe and get her moving toward her office. Then I need you to recall all of the Centurions in the system for a mission change. I’ll throw some clothes on and head for my own office. Tell Chloe I’ll call her once I get there. This is urgent, Ensign,” Ian said.

The ensign nodded his head. “Right away, Sir.”

“Thanks,” Ian said and closed the connection. He ran to his room for duty coveralls before heading up to his ready room.

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G
etting to his ready room, he called Star to join him, which she did immediately. “I noticed you were awake, Sir, so I was ready when you called,” She said. “Is everything okay?”

“About as okay as it can be with the pending arrival. We’ve got work to do, and I’ll need your help. Please just wait a moment while I call Chloe,” Ian said, taking a seat at the conference table instead of his desk.

She nodded and made the connection to the Operations Chief for him.

“It’s a tad early, Commander, Something new happen?” Chloe asked with bleary eyes. “Just ideas, Major. I’m sorry for getting you out of bed, but we need to get moving on some of this right away.”

“Quite alright, Sir,” Chloe replied, as she yawned. “I’m sorry, I needed to get that out of my system.”

“Forget about it, I imagine we’re all going to be yawning for a little while,” Ian said and turned to Star. “Major, please get me Chief Dommer and the Debbie in the Armory. I’ll need Major Eischens and Major Borhiem on the moon base. You might want to ask whoever’s handling operations down at Talos to attend as well. This is going to take all of us. Chloe, I don’t know if your ensign told you, but I ordered him to issue an emergency recall on all Centurions in the system, we’re going to need them for seeding missions as well as any shuttles we can spare,” Ian finished.

“He told me Sir, but what are we going to need them for? What are we going to be seeding?” Chloe asked.

Ian winked at the pretty blonde. “All sorts of stuff, provided we can get them built fast enough to get them out there.”

“What did you have in mind, if I can ask?” Chloe said, raising one elegant eyebrow.

“Ship killer missiles, small maneuverable weapons platforms, and sling-shot ammo,” Ian said, grinning at the look on her face.

“Sling shot, Sir?”

“Yeah, basically an impact explosive that can be towed behind a fighter or a Centurion with a tractor beam, then ‘flung’ at the Super Nova from a distance. No power signature to lock onto, no way to track it. Basically an explosive, ballistic rock,” Ian said, smiling. When she looked incredulous, he chuckled. “Just think about it, Major. But remember, there is no air friction in space. An object in motion and all of that.”

“Same principle as a mass driver, but slower!” Chloe said.

Ian nodded. “Pretty much, there is also a lot of other factors in calculating its trajectory, but the theory is sound.”