Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (45 page)

Ty walked over and turned off the lights in the room. Now the only light came from the walls of monitors the two controllers had. Connors didn’t say anything, but he did chuckle and Ramirez smiled.

“Hey, every little bit counts,” Ty said. “Ramirez, shift the hovercraft west, it looks like the enemy armor is heavier over there.”

“Sir, we have detonations to the north, in the mine field. Sensors aren’t registering anything out there!” Ramirez said, confused.

“Give me a visual,” Ty asked. One of the bigger monitors in the center of the wall switched to a view of the empty desert, with the settling dust from the mines detonating. As he watched, two more mines exploded. In the dust, he thought he saw a geometric form.

“Connors! Swing guns five and seven around and fire on that spot. Keep shooting until I tell you to stop. Hammer the hell out of it!” Ty ordered.

“Cloaked ship sir?” Ramirez asked. “Shouldn’t we have detected it?”

“Not if they were moving really slow, it’s the distortion they make that we can detect. If they didn’t make any, we couldn’t see it,” Ty explained. As he watched, the two guns began firing, and he could see that they were hitting something, but so far, the ship was remaining cloaked. At each impact, he got a flash of the ship that was cloaked.

Ty activated his comm. “Colonel Petrie, we have a cloaked ship in the outfield. So far they’re tangled up in the minefield. But I don’t know how long they’ll be delayed.”

“Lovely! I was hoping we’d have more playmates!” the colonel replied sarcastically. “Any count on them yet?”

“No, they’re still cloaked, but I’m hammering the hell out of them with two of the guns. As soon as the cloak fails, I’ll be able to tell you how many there are,” Ty replied.

“Okay, I hope you can take care of it with the guns. If I pull any troops out right now, it’ll be like opening the flood gates!” Petrie replied. “They brought a lot more troops and equipment this time.”

“Sir, the engineer reports that he’s done all he can. The reactor is still critical, and threatening shut down,” Connors reported.

“Tell him to piss on it if he has to, if that reactor fails, we’re all gonna die!” Ty said, “Ramirez, is there still power going to the shields?”

Ramirez typed a command into his terminal, then swore and shut down the now destroyed shield generators. “Sorry sir, I should have checked that.”

“You got it now, that all that matters. Check and shut down all power to non-essential surface buildings,” Ty ordered. “Tell the fighter base to shut down the launch tubes, open the doors to the landing area, and shut down all life support systems. If we have any ships down there, try to patch them into the power grid and use them to help supply power. Connors, contact Star Dancer operations and tell them to be ready to assume command if we lose power.”

The men didn’t acknowledge his orders, but they did act on them. Ty was thinking rapidly on what else could be done to unload the power grid. On the monitor displaying the minefield, Ty saw the smaller assault ship uncloak and try to raise shields. On the ground, forty Caldarian troops and two of their big hover tanks sat, unmoving. Nearby, the smoking wreckage of three tanks was surrounded by the strewn bodies of other Caldarian troops that didn’t survive the mines.

As he watched, small missiles launched from the ship on a short arc. In midair, they exploded filling the air with smaller, sub-munitions. When those small bomb-lets hit the ground, they detonated, triggering the mines under and around them. The ship was clearing a path for its remaining troops.

He had just figured out what was going on and was about to call Colonel Petrie when the monitors and computers shut down, plunging the command center into darkness. The main reactor shut down from over-load.

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F
.S.S.
Star Dancer

Earth Orbit

Sol Sector.

Combat location:
Dark Palace

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A
s if the Caldarians had been waiting for it, they threw everything they had at the community once the power failed. Ian was sick when he saw the amount of destruction that was being done to the small community.

“Operations, drop our Marines in the outfield. They are to eliminate the surprise force, then move to reinforce the rest of our troops. Send Silver squadron down to attack the heavy ground units,” Ian ordered. “E.T.A. on the Super Nova?”

“Twenty-nine minutes, sir. We’ll be in missile range in five minutes,” Operations reported.

“Sir! I think we got programming!” Gordon said excitedly. Ian had almost forgotten about them.

“Execute immediately!” Ian ordered.

“Aye, sir!” Gordon replied. “Flight, we are ready to resume hyper-missile launch sequence.”

“’Bout flippin’ time! Gimme a sec, so we can get them back in position. I had to move them for fighter recovery,” John’s voice said over the comm.

Ian thumbed the comm. “Quickly, John. That beast will be tossing heavy missiles at us in three minutes.”

“Understood Sir,” John replied. “No! Set them in the cats, dammit!” he said to someone else before his comm shut off.

Ian could imagine the scene back in the landing bays, deck hands scrambling to push the large missiles around by hand, while others worked to move the damaged and destroyed fighters off the deck. It was a full minute later that John called back. “The birds are loaded, and awake, Navigation. I got my finger on the button.”

“Understood, Flight, Initiating launch sequence,” Gordon said. “Hyperspace event forming three kilometers aft. Portals are stable, launch when ready!”

“Launching! Bird one and three away!” a short pause, then he said. “Birds two and four away!”

“Comm, tracking. We’re showing a hyperspace event forming inside the Super Nova! She has come to a dead stop and is showing heavy damage due to gravimetric sheer.”

“Visual!” Ian ordered.

Again, an image of the big ship was displayed for him. As he watched, the monstrous ship seemed to shudder, and fold slightly as if it had a tummy ache. The hull along the centerline began to wrinkle and fold up like an accordion, and the huge bay doors on the bottom blew completely off, and went flying away from the ship like they were small hatches instead of three-quarters the size of
Star Dancer
herself.

“Missile re-entry in three, two...” Gordon called out, but didn’t reach ‘one’ as the image on the screen blew up so spectacularly that it was seen clearly from Earth. The plasma wave from its destruction, even at the distance the Super Nova had been, still rocked the ship when it washed over her shields.

Gordon turned around, smiling. She was at attention and saluted Ian. “Sir, target is destroyed.” Beside her, Ensign Eischens was grinning like it was Christmas.

“Good work, both of you, but we’ve still got a battle to win. Both of you please go see if there is anything you can do in Ops to help out,” Ian ordered, returning the salute.

The two grinned at each other, and ran for the door into the CIC.

Star looked up at Ian, and she had a look of utter shock on her face. “Sir! The two drones we lost control of have just launched fighters to intercept the carriers! I am receiving IFF information for the Heavy Cruisers T.D.F
Prometheus
and the T.D.F
Pegasus
! Those two ships that jumped in are Talosian!”

“They’re
what
?” Ian said looking at her.

“I can’t explain it Sir, but those two ships are Talosian Heavy Cruisers and they are on their way in system!” Star replied.

“Sir, we are being hailed. They are asking us if we need assistance!” Star replied excitedly.

“Accept the hail, on screen please,” Ian replied, stunned.

An image of an older woman appeared on the main screen, and she bowed her head to Ian. “Greetings Commander. I am Commander Serena of House Aphilian aboard the
Prometheus
. Do you require assistance?”

Ian stood in shock for a moment before he remembered how to greet another Commander. He bowed as well and spoke in Talosian. “Greetings Commander Serena, I am Commander Ian Williams of uh, House Cronos. Yes, we could definitely use your help here,” he paused and blinked a couple of minutes. “No offence, Commander, but why did you wait so long to reveal yourselves?”

The woman smiled. “No offence taken, Commander. Your ship is not supposed to exist. Our records show her destroyed at the Battle of Darkness. We had no idea what we were getting into when we got here.” Someone off to one side got her attention for a moment. “I apologize, Commander, but more explanation will have to wait until we can meet face to face. We do, after all, have a battle to finish.”

“I understand, Commander. Could I borrow some of your Marines to assist on the planet? Even after all the fighting, I’m afraid we are still outnumbered two to one,” Ian replied.

Serena nodded. “They will jump to you immediately, Commander. I’ll have the unit commanders contact your operations officer as soon as they arrive. They are yours to use. We’ll follow as soon as these carriers are taken care of. We will also send our medical and evac shuttles. Do you wish for me to call for colony support?”

Ian had no idea what that was. “I think I should wait to answer that until I know exactly what colony support entails, Commander. This planet is... well, let’s just say that there are extenuating circumstances here.”

Again Serena nodded. “I understand. My troops are launching now, we should join you in orbit in about an hour. See you then, and Commander?”

“Yes?” Ian asked raising his eyebrows.

“What you’ve done here is remarkable. Many would say it’s impossible. You have done very well,” the woman replied. “
Prometheus
, out.”

There was a moment of awed silence on the bridge as they all struggled to adjust to what they had just learned.

“Operations, prepare to receive reinforcements for the planet. When they get here, send them straight down. There will also be medical and evac shuttles, have them hold position until the fighting gets under control down there.” He changed channels. “Medical, you’re going to be receiving extra help. Make sure your people can speak Talosian. You can launch your shuttles as soon as you’re ready. You can join the rest of the shuttles waiting to go down.”

“Who did we get help from?” Beth asked.

“Two more Talosian Heavy Cruisers showed up.
Real
Talosians. I’ll explain more later,” he paused for a moment. “Beth... it’s going to be bad down there. They took a hell of a beating.”

“I’ll tell my people, Ian. Thanks for telling me. I was talking to Diane until the power failed. She was starting to get overwhelmed then. I can only imagine how bad it got after the power failed,” Beth replied.

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T
alos, New Mexico

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I
t had indeed gotten bad. Casualties were very high among the Marines. Three hundred forty-two had been sent to medical. Most of them after the fighting stopped. Of that number, seventy-one had died of their injuries either before they got to medical, or shortly after arriving there. Those that had been killed on the field had been taken to one of the larger hangers in the base and covered. In the chaos, there hadn’t been time for identification of the fallen, and the drones handled most of the removal anyway.

The village of Talos itself was almost completely destroyed, only a handful of buildings still stood, and at least half of those were still burning. The community center, where the main entrance to the shelter had been, had been levelled, blocking that entrance. The civilian survivors had to be taken out through the base, or out through the landing strip entrance tunnel, since all the elevators had been destroyed.

When it had arrived, Colonel Petrie’s battalion had numbered seven hundred and forty-four men. After the battle, he had more wounded than able-bodied, and just over half of his command had been killed.

The Marines Ty had sent out had fared the same, as they had fought alongside the US Marines. Two hover craft and one landrail were still operational, although one of the hovercraft could no longer fire its laser, and the landrail’s power unit tended to overload and shut itself down.

The enemy had fought and refused to surrender, forcing the Marines to destroy them completely. Those that couldn’t fight back, killed themselves.

There had been too much damage to hide the weapons and the advanced technology before the American Military descended on the town again. Ty did have the shield replaced, and made sure none of the ‘investigators’ got get into the town and see things they shouldn’t.

Colonel Petrie and his men stood out in the open inside the shield, and removed all the advanced armor and equipment they had been given. They redressed in their normal battle uniforms and weapons, formed up, and marched back outside of the shield, returning to their ‘own’ forces. Ty saw them out, standing at attention and saluting as the small formation marched passed.

As the last of the men and women marched by, Colonel Petrie turned to Ty, and offered his hand. “It’s been a pleasure to serve with you, Colonel Anders.”

The loss of so many men and women shown clearly on both of their faces. “It was my honor, Colonel. Are you sure you should be doing this? You can stay with us you know.”

“I appreciate the offer, Ty, so do my men. Perhaps later, but for now, we still have a duty to the United States Marines,” Petrie replied.

“I understand. I’ll contact you when the wounded are ready to go home as well. Doctor Johnson tells me that should be in a few days,” Ty replied.

“Ty, it’s Luke, I need you to come to Medical right away,” Luke called over the comm.

Ty touched his communicator, “I’ll be right there.” He looked up at the man that had become a friend. “Duty calls. I gotta go. Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” Petrie replied, stepped back, and saluted Ty.

Ty returned the salute, and watched the man walk out the gate. Ty nodded to the guards, who closed the gate and closed the shield.

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W
ondering what was so important that Luke would call him down to the medical section, however, once he got there, it quickly became tragically evident. Lying on one of the floating gurneys was the body of someone he recognized immediately.