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Day 290/2548
Drake walked into Janicot’s office and stood at attention in front of the CSO’s desk. Janicot looked up from his data tablet and said, “Stand easy, Commodore. I’m not going to offer you a chair, because this will be a very short meeting. What’s the status of your five light carriers?”
“Lexington is on her shakedown cruise now, Admiral. The other four are ready for operational missions. Lexington should be back within 72 hours.”
“Good. When she gets back, I want you to prepare all five to carry 60 boats to Durendal shipyard for transfer to Coral Sea and Midway. You’ll also be carrying the crews for all five heavy carriers, so it’ll be a little crowded. Your orders are to deliver the crews to their new ships and then to conduct training exercises with the first two carriers somewhere in that star system far enough from Midgard that the locals won’t see you. Your carriers will take alternate aggressor and defender roles with half the boats. The other half go to Coral Sea and Midway. All five carrier crews will take turns operating the first two carriers during the training. When the other three carriers are ready, you leave all the boats there and bring your light carriers back here. Commodore Palmgren will be in command of the heavy carrier force, and he’ll have his own orders. As far as the training goes, he’s in overall command, so I expect you to co-operate.”
“Yessir.” Drake tried to hide his disappointment. He had let Janicot know that he would gladly trade his Commodore’s rank for command of one of the new heavy carriers, but the Old Man had apparently decided to reject his request.
Janicot leaned back and said, “I know you asked for a heavy carrier command. I rejected your request but not because of any doubts about your command ability. Just the opposite in fact. I think your combat experience makes you too valuable to be a mere ship CO. I’m now convinced that you can make a greater contribution to the war effort as a flag officer. Up to now your rank has been temporary. I’m now making it permanent.”
“Thank you, sir. The only thing better than commanding a heavy carrier is commanding more than one of them at the same time. I still have hopes of doing that someday.”
“I’d think there was something wrong with you if you didn’t feel that way, but I hope you understand that I can’t promise you anything. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go.”
“Yessir, I do understand that,” said Drake.
“Fine, then we’re done here, and you’re dismissed, Commodore.”
Day 005/2549
Romanov frowned as he checked the 3D tactical display, which had just updated itself after the Task Force emerged from its final micro-jump. He was puzzled by the fact that there were military-grade radar emissions coming from Midgard’s moon. His Task Force was too far away to be detected, but that was beside the point. The shipyard complex on the moon was a privately-owned, commercial venture. How the hell had it gotten its hands on military-grade radar equipment, and why would it need it? He noticed that the radar pulses were reflecting off five objects clustered together in a high orbit around the moon. A quick check confirmed two things. Those objects were high enough to be in a stationary orbit so that they were always above the same spot on the moon, and they seemed to be rather large.
“Can we tell what those five objects are yet?” he asked.
His Weapons Officer replied. “I can’t be certain, Sir, but if they’re ships, they have a diameter of at least 500 meters.”
“Hmm. Pretty damn large for transports or freighters wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”
The WO nodded. “Yessir, cargo-carrying ships that large would have trouble landing on a planet.” After a short pause he said, “They might be warships, sir.”
Romanov’s first impulse was to dismiss that suggestion out of hand. By decree from the Federation Council, no less, all warship construction was to be done on Makassar. Freighters and transports could be built elsewhere. If a Federation-chartered company was building warships, they were doing it clandestinely.
“Well, if those are warships, they’re certainly not ours, and therefore the question is whose are they?” He contemplated the implications of that thought for a while and then said, “Romanov to Task Force COs. There’s something unusual going on around Midgard’s moon, and therefore I’m going to alter our attack plan. Undaunted will move closer to recon the situation. I want the rest of the Task Force to hold position here. When I’m confident that the coast is clear, I’ll give the signal to move in. Romanov out.” With that out of the way, he turned to the Helm Station and said, “Okay, Sara, give me a parabolic trajectory that will bring us up behind those five objects to within 100 kilometers of the furthest one back. Are you clear on what I want?”
The Helm Officer smiled as she started manipulating her controls. “Clear, sir. You do realize that coming in that slowly will take a while.”
“Yes, I do, and that’s okay. Let it take a while. That’s the nice thing about having an invisible ship. We can take our time and get a good look before we unleash hell.” He heard a few chuckles from some of the Bridge personnel. They had practiced exactly this kind of maneuver in the simulators, and not having to worry about the enemy shooting back at them was a lot of fun.
It actually took almost six more hours before Undaunted was in position. The ship’s powerful optics were able to give Romanov a good look at the closest of the five ships. Son-of-a-bitch! Those are warships alright and damned big ones too. Six hundred meters diameter with neutron armor. Those things are Goddamned battleships for Christsake! No commercial company would be so stupid as to commit billions of credits to building warships for sale to the Federation without a guarantee that the Navy would buy them (with the subsequent risk of having them confiscated instead), and building them for their own use was an even more bizarre thought. What the hell have we stumbled onto here?
“They’re still scanning, Commodore!” said the Weapons Officer somewhat nervously. Romanov looked at him and smiled. If Undaunted hadn’t been detected approaching the moon, which it hadn’t, then there was no reason to suppose that radar would detect them now. As long as the Helm made sure that the ship’s orientation would continue to deflect radar energy away from the moon and the planet, the ship would not show up on anyone’s radar screens, and her jet black exterior made optical detection also highly unlikely.
“Is it possible that this is a rebel shipyard operation posing as a Federation-chartered company, Commodore?” asked the Helm Officer.
“My God, that has to be it!” Romanov shook his head at the audacity of the SSU building a Makassar-type operation right in the middle of Federation territory and right under everyone’s nose. Those five ships had to be destroyed. They were too close to being completed to leave them in orbit even if he did destroy the industrial and shipyard complexes on the moon’s surface. For all he knew, they might already have the capability of maneuvering and hyper-jumping. If he didn’t take them out first, they might get away to a Union planet to be completed. The problem was that armor. Undaunted carried a dozen Mark 1 warhead-equipped missiles that had been intended for use on the moon itself.
“Can our Mark 1s punch through that armor, Weps?” asked Romanov.
The WO shook his head. “I seriously doubt it, sir. If we can tell from this distance that those ships have neutron armor, then it’ll be thick enough to shrug off our Mark 1s. It does appear that they haven’t finished completely covering the hull with armor. If we swing around so that we can target their remaining unarmored hull sections, then we should be able to at least cripple them.”
Romanov turned back to the Helm Officer. “Let’s do that, Sara. Keep us at least 100 klicks from the nearest ship. As soon as we fire, let’s shift position so that they don’t track our missile trajectories back to us”
“Roger that, sir.” It didn’t take long to move to a position over the middle ship. Romanov looked at his Weapons Officer who nodded, which meant that the five ships had been targeted with a missile each.
“Fire,” said Romanov. The tactical display was zoomed in to very close range. Five new icons representing the five missiles appeared and diverged on different paths. The nearest target would be hit in less than 10 seconds. The two furthest targets would be hit in almost 16 seconds. Romanov held his breath. Ships still under construction typically didn’t have active anti-missile defenses manned by crew, but if this really was a rebel shipbuilding operation, then they just might take that precaution. The time from missile launch reached 10 seconds.
Midgard Industries Tower/Midgard:
Murphy looked over at the chronometer. He saw that it was almost two hours past midnight, but he wasn’t even close to feeling he could go to sleep any time soon. With a sigh of resignation, he got out of bed and shuffled over to the glass doors leading out to the balcony. It was a pleasantly warm night, and the sky was cloudless. He looked up at the crescent-shaped moon. He could just barely make out the lights of the shipyard complex on the dark side. Just as he was about to look away, he saw a bright light appear off to the side of the moon. It disappeared quickly to be replaced by another flash and two seconds later a third flash. Murphy didn’t wait to see if there were any more. Flashes that could be seen with the naked eye from this distance meant that he had just witnessed three powerful explosions. He ran back inside to the communications equipment beside his bed. He activated the unit.
“Murphy to Ops!”
“Ops here, sir. Can’t sleep?” The voice of the officer on duty at the Operations Center was so calm that Murphy was caught off guard for half a second.
“Are you in contact with Durendal?”
“Ahh...yessir. Everything appears to be...hold it! They’re signalling a red alert! HOLY SHIT! THEY SAY THEY’RE UNDER MISSILE ATTACK!”
“Sound red alert for the tower! I’ll be in Ops as fast as I can!” Without waiting for a reply, Murphy shut off the unit and scrambled to put on some clothes. The red alert tone sounded half a second later. Murphy knew that everyone in the tower at this time of night was part of the clandestine operation. Off duty SSU personnel lived in the tower and would hear the alert too. Murphy got dressed as quickly as he could, but he was confident that he’d have time to get to the Ops Center deep in the sub-basement. If the FEDs were attacking the moon, it was unlikely that they would land troops on the planet that quickly. What he couldn’t understand was how FED ships had gotten close enough to launch a surprise missile attack without being detected.
Undaunted:
“Fire!” ordered Romanov. The five missiles fired at the ships did their job to perfection. All five ships were blown apart as the Mark 1 warheads penetrated past the unarmored outer hull before exploding. Undaunted was now firing her remaining seven Mark 1s at the sprawling complex on the moon’s surface. At this distance, it would take 89 seconds for the missiles to reach the surface. Long range optical scanning had not revealed any defensive installations. Apparently the SSU had not considered a FED missile attack a serious risk. With the missiles now on their way, Romanov turned to his Communications Station.
“Com, order the rest of the Task Force to head for planetary orbit. Colonel Ericson can land his troops at his discretion. Tell the cruisers that Undaunted will rendezvous with them when they make orbit.” A minute and a few seconds later, he watched enhanced video of the missiles hitting the surface. The complex was obliterated. Even as the fireballs began to fade, Undaunted was already accelerating towards Midgard.
Midgard Industries Tower/Midgard:
Murphy, now dressed, ran to the private elevator that would take him directly from his penthouse to the sub-basement level where the Ops Center was. Once inside he grabbed the hand rails. Even so, he nearly lost his balance as the elevator dropped at almost freefall speed only to come to a very sudden stop at the bottom. He ran to the Ops Center and as he entered he yelled out.
“What’s the situation at Durendal?” The horrified look on the Duty Officer’s face told him the news was bad.
“We lost contact a few seconds ago. Radiation sensors on the roof show multiple detonations on the moon’s surface in the half megaton range. Video surveillance shows that the complex was hit dead on.”
Murphy’s stomach threatened to heave, and he knew why. With the shipyard destroyed, the Union had lost any chance of engineering a military victory that would end the war. Unless the R&D people on Zanzibar pulled a miracle out of their hats, the SSU was doomed. He waited until he was confident he wouldn’t throw up before speaking.
“Okay, tell all our people to head down to the escape tunnel. There’s no point in staying here to be captured by the FED troops that are undoubtedly on their way. When everyone’s ready to leave, you and I are going to set the self-destruct, and then you can join them.”
The Duty Officer’s face lost all its color. “Understood, sir.”
Murphy was glad now that he had taken the initiative to order the robotic equipment that had been working for the last year to tunnel out and build a maglev rail line deep below the city. It went all the way to a set of warehouses owned by Midgard Industries at the edge of the city. Under the warehouses was an emergency shelter big enough to hold all the Union people with enough supplies to let them hold out for several months. Once everyone had left the tower complex, blast doors would seal the tunnel and protect the emergency shelter from the destructive effects of the 100 kiloton fission device buried at the bottom of the lowest level under the tower. Engineered to vaporize the tower’s foundation and cause it to collapse, the device was low-yield enough that collateral damage to the rest of the city would be minimal.
Murphy headed down to the lower level where the escape tunnel was located. He would make sure everyone was accounted for before heading back up to Ops to set the device. It seemed to take forever before Union personnel started exiting the elevators. Murphy organized the first group and deputized several of his staff to check off people from the master list as they arrived. With that task looked after, he returned to Ops.
“Any sign of ships or landing shuttles?” he asked the Duty Officer.
The DO nodded. “We’re monitoring the spaceport Control Tower. They’ve spotted two ships coming in on a fast approach. They were queried and responded that they’re SSU ships and that any resistance by Midgard residents would result in massive retaliation! What the hell is going on, sir?”
Murphy groaned with sudden understanding. It was bad enough that the FEDs had destroyed the Durendal complex on the moon, but they also intended to add insult to injury by making this attack look like the SSU was doing it. He didn’t like the implications of that. The threat of massive retaliation sounded like an excuse to commit mass atrocities. He thought fast. By the time the DO had received word that all Union personnel except for Ops people were accounted for and waiting on the maglev train, the only idea that Murphy could think of to undermine the false flag aspect of this attack was to time the self-destruct so that some of the ‘rebel’ troops would be caught in the blast. Maybe their bodies or their equipment would then give the game away when the locals picked up the pieces after the attack. In order to time the explosion correctly, someone would have to go up to street level with a remote detonator and watch the tower entrance. Murphy looked at the Duty Officer and the other two Ops Center staff. They looked scared. He knew them well enough to know that all three had spouses and at least one child back on Sparta. No, he wasn’t going to ask any of them to risk capture or death up above. He would take on that mission himself. He hoped Cate would forgive him for getting killed.
He told the DO what he intended to do and ordered the other two to get down to the train. When he and the DO had finished arming the device and setting up the remote detonator that Murphy carefully put into his pocket, he told the DO to head down to the train and take it to the shelter. When he was sure the train had left, he activated the closing of the tunnel blast doors and then made his way to one of the emergency exits that consisted of a tube with a metal ladder that brought him to an alley across the street from the tower. Once he was at street level, he looked up and saw a round object pass in front of the crescent moon. That had to be one of the ‘rebel’ ships. He looked around. The city was still quiet. Most people were still asleep. As soon as he had that thought, he heard sirens begin sounding in the distance and then closer as well.
Stepping quickly to the alley opening, he noticed a doorway in shadow and went to stand in it. The shrill sound of the sirens was starting to get to him. He realized that he was trembling. He was a naval officer, not an army puke. He belonged on a ship, not here on the ground, yet here he was. The sirens died down and a new sound was making itself heard. It came from above, and as he looked up, he saw the entire sky blocked by the bottom of a large spherical ship. The sound was picking up in intensity but dropping in frequency. Now he could feel the vibrations in his body. His attention on the ship was diverted by something that moved across his field of vision. It started as a black dot that rapidly grew bigger and seemed to be coming straight for him. He instinctively pushed himself back against the door. The black dot grew into a long, rectangular shape that dropped down beside the tower until it hovered about a meter above the street. He recognized it now. It was a contra-gravity tank, about six meters wide, ten meters long and approximately two meters high with a vicious looking gun protruding from the front. A hatch on the side opened and a dozen infantry in combat armor jumped to the ground and ran towards the tower entrance. He realized that he didn’t have the detonator in his hand. As he moved his right arm to extract the device from his pocket, his elbow hit the door behind him and the noise attracted the attention of one of the soldiers. He must have been wearing night vision gear because he pointed his weapon at Murphy and fired. Murphy heard the shot and felt the impact at the same time. The pain in his chest was so great that he didn’t remember falling down. When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the ground, and the soldier was standing over him. Realizing his right hand was still in his pocket, he concentrated on finding the detonation button. Between the soldier’s legs, Murphy saw other soldiers entering the tower as more tanks descended from the sky. He pressed the button.
Undaunted:
Romanov heard someone shout and turned his attention back to the display that was zooming in to a scene on the planet. A bright flash was expanding from the base of the tallest building in the main city. Romanov stood mesmerized as he watched the tower start to topple over in what seemed like slow motion. When the tower hit the ground, he saw the concussion wave spread out like ripples in a pond. So much for recovering enemy data records. He would order Ericson to have his troops search the wreckage but doubted they would find anything useful.
“Ground Force Commander on Tac 2, sir,” said the Com Tech.
“Put him on the main display,” said Romanov.
The angry face of the Colonel appeared in front of Romanov.
“Those fucking rebel shitheads booby-trapped that tower! I’ve lost two whole platoons! My people aren’t going to take any more chances. I’m taking the gloves off! No restrictions! If we can’t find the fuckers who did this, then we’ll take it out on the locals!” The image dissolved before Romanov could say anything.
“Get him back, dammit!” ordered Romanov. After a few seconds the Com Tech shook his head.
“The Colonel’s not responding to our hails, sir.”
Romanov banged his fist on his chair’s armrest. The Colonel was reacting emotionally when he should be using his head. The collapsing tower would almost certainly prevent recovery of the bodies of some of his people. That left open the possibility that those bodies might eventually be found and identified as First Fleet/Army Force troops. If the rest of the ground force went berserk and committed who knew what kind of atrocities, then the potential backlash could undermine Trojan’s long term plans. With the Colonel’s face gone, the display head shifted back to the zoomed in ground image. Romanov looked closely at the ruined tower. Clearly the rebels didn’t want their data records falling into Federation hands, but why destroy the whole tower instead of just the computer equipment, and what happened to the rebels themselves? Did they just commit mass suicide, or did the explosion serve a dual purpose of hiding their escape?
He ordered a replay of the explosion and watched it carefully. It was clear that the center of the fission blast was below ground and not at the tower base. He tried to put himself in the rebels’ position. The tower was more or less in the center of the city. When your base of operation is about to be destroyed, how do you allow dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people to escape without being seen? The answer had to be underground as well. That implied some kind of tunnel. Undaunted’s radar equipment was powerful enough to penetrate a few meters into the ground. Romanov ordered a deep penetration scan of the city. If he could find where the rebels had evacuated to, then the infantry could vent their rage on them instead of the civilians. Within less than a minute, he had the scan results. There was a large flat warehouse on the outskirts of the city that had an unusual underground structure unlike that below any other building. Romanov was willing to bet it was where the rebels were hiding. He told the Com Tech to try calling the Colonel again. This time he succeeded.
“Colonel, I’ve found where the rebels are hiding. They apparently escaped underground before the tower blast went off. Your people have a few tactical nukes I believe. Blasting the roof of their hideout down on top of them would do the trick, wouldn’t you agree, Colonel?”
“Yes, that would satisfy me and my people. Where’s this building?”
Romanov smiled. “Not so fast, Colonel. That information comes with a price. You’re not going to have time to recover all your dead from under the collapsed tower rubble. That means there’s a risk that the civilians will find them and realize who they really are, and that means that atrocities have to be kept to an absolute minimum to avoid a backlash against General Trojan. I’ll tell you where the rebels are if you give me your word that you’ll rein in your people and that your forces withdraw as soon as possible. Your demolition team can come up last.”
There was a long pause. So long, in fact, that Romanov was beginning to worry that the Colonel would reject the deal.
“Okay, Commodore. I’ll order my people to head back to the ship, except for the demolition team. Now about that target?”
Romanov gave him the location of the warehouse and then added, “I suggest you finish this off quickly, Colonel. If I think you’re stalling, I guarantee you’ll regret it.” The Colonel nodded and the image faded.
The Colonel did act quickly. Ten minutes later, all the infantry were back on the transports or on their way up. Romanov watched as the suspect warehouse exploded in an atomic detonation. Before the Task Force accelerated out of orbit, Romanov saw the depth of the crater left behind by the blast and was confident that they had picked the right spot.
