Couple of notes:
The story is happening in X2: The Threat time setting so the technology is limited to that of that game (but I did not follow that game slavishly). One example is that of Wasp missile. Swarm missiles did not exist in X2 and back than Wasps were launched one by one and not in groups as in X3. Since I have not damage models for X2 missiles, I am using the ones from X3 (so if anyone here is confused by the fact that Highway robber’s crew is scared by incoming silkworms this is the reason so don’t complain
)For references on Mandalay or Bayamon for those that have not played X2 check the glossary.
I also plan on wrapping up the first part of UH in about two chapters, finishing the first part before my summer holydays. The second part of UH may be expected in August, perhaps earlier.
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Links to other chapters:
Chapter 17: Shades of Grey
Chapter 16: Pieces of Chessboard
Chapter 15: Machinations
Chapter 14: Sins revealed
Chapter 13: Cargo to die for
Chapter 12: Demons in Paradise
Chapter 11: The Elysium
Chapter 10: The Khaak
Chapter 9: New Player
Chapter 8: The Hunt Begins
Chapter 7: Among the Rogues
Chapter 6: Anger of the Giants
Chapter 5: Awakening of the storm
Chapter 4: Trade run to Hell
Chapter 3: Old connections
Chapter 2: Means for revenge
Chapter 1: First kill
The glossary of Unknown Heroes
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Soldiers and Pirates
The men and women of all ranks serving aboard the Argon Federation carrier “Resolution” were in awe of their new Group Captain. The man himself was sitting in the Operation Room, sipping his morning coffee and resting his artificial left arm on the table. He knew that everyone was casting looks of admiration at him and he hated it.
Wolfgang Lüth* was one of few survivors from the Khaak attack on Presidents End and was hailed as hero across entire Federation. But he did not feel like one. Instead he felt guilty over loosing so many man and woman under his command. The images of fighters disintegrating and screams of help came to him whenever he closed his eyes. He tried to resign but the Admiralty wouldn’t hear anything of it. Wolfgang was hero and Argon Federation needed heroes. Instead of being discharged as he expected, a medal was pinned to his chest, promoted to Group Captain and placed in charge of fighter component of the Task Group 21.2. From time to time he was forced to do a TH show. The top brass thought that it was important for the moral.
Wolfgang adjusted his cybernetic arm. He had lost his left arm when the Khaak missile got through the shields of his Nova. The metal had bent and gone through his left arm, reducing it to the bloody mass that froze in the space. The emergency systems in his suit released foam that prevented the loss of suit’s integrity but Wolfgang could still feel the excruciating pain. Later, after he had been rescued and hospitalized at Ringo Moon’s Veteran Hospital, he had been informed that his arm had to be amputated. He also was informed that they couldn’t regenerate new arm for him. Apparently he belonged to the one percent of the population whose bodies rejected regenerative therapy. Instead he got a cybernetic arm that no matter how much he adjusted it did not feel right. It felt too heavy despite Wolfgang knowing that it was not possible because the arm had been modeled to resemble his original arm. Deviations were less the thousandth of a percent they have said to him. Phantom pains is what you feel, doctors said to him. Still the arm did not feel natural.
“Sir?” Wing Commander Sorensen said, trying to get his attention. He turned towards her and saw that her eyes wandered briefly to his arm before rapidly being turned towards his eyes.
“The preparedness evaluation report Sir,” she said handing him a DSD.
“The one you asked for yesterday Sir,” she quickly added when seeing his confused look. He placed it in his PDA and quickly scanned the main topics.
“We would be hard pressed to hold the Omicron Lyrae if Khaak decide to invade,” he said looking at the status report.
“Yes, Sir. The new fighters are rolling of assembly lines too slowly and Argon Prime and Jump Fleet are being prioritized”
“Yes, well if we loose Omicron Lyrae even fewer fighters would be available,” Wolfgang commented. The Omicron Lyrae system produced over fifty percent of Argon Federation’s fighters and almost thirty percent of its warships. But apparently the leadership at Argon Prime found it more prudent to assign extra carriers and destroyers to Argon Prime sector than to Omicron Lyrae. The sector had only protection of an anemic task group that had been stripped of its corvettes and frigates. Even the Sector Militia had been stripped of its fighters as they had been needed to protect strategic factories in Aladna Hill sector. The only bright point had been appointment of Rear Admiral Narazawa as acting commander of systems defenses. Youngest Rear Admiral in the Navy, he was widely considered to be the most able naval officer of the Federation and Wolfgang agreed with this assessment. The few meetings he had with the guy had given him a good gut feeling about the Rear Admiral. The man knew his job and more importantly he knew how to make the men and women below him do theirs.
Wolfgang turned his attention back to the Wing Commander Sorensen, “Ok, we have to do the best we can with little resources we got. This is what we are going to do. I want you to set up the plan for joint drills with militia. Furthermore I know you have the thing going with the commander of Sector Police”
The Wing Commander nodded affirmative.
“Could you pull any strings with him about being rigorous enforcing the laws that would allow him to impound ships, especially ships that can be converted to fighters?”
“I can ask…”
“Excellent. I want to make sure that we have maximum numbers of fighters available for the Rear Admiral. Mark my words: Khaak will come”
The two Caiman freighters arrived at same time as Erich docked with Black Gang base. Erich watched curiously as the teams of workers began unloading the two freighters. Four torpedoes were carefully unloaded, followed by scores of missile boxes. Finally variety of beam weapons and missile launch systems were unloaded.
Just as Erich was about to leave, workers began cutting the hull. Puzzled by their actions, Erich was about to ask them what their were doing when Ni Lan arrived.
“This Boron is pleased that you arrived back safely. I hope that unpleasant work is over with?”
“I will fill you in later. What are they doing?” Erich asked pointing towards the workers.
“Building warships. My idea by the way,” Ni Lan explained proudly.
“Warships?”
“Yes. Hidden warships”
“Hidden warships?”
“That is what I said, yes. Is this some kind of Argon game? Repeating the last words of a sentence?”
“Ni Lan I have spent last fifteen stazura in a cockpit, constantly checking the scanners for any pursuit since Argon Prime. My bones are hurting from using the boosters for long periods of time. I am sweating like a pig…”
“That is true, I can see your forehead shining…” Ni Lan began but was silenced by a very stern look from Erich.
“Now explain to me, slowly and carefully how does the two ships there,” he pointed to the two freighters, “become two “hidden” warships?”
“Q-ships,” voice behind Erich could be heard. Otto clapped Erich friendly on the shoulder and explained, “We are putting all these weapons in the “Cutpurse” and “Highway robber”. Outside they would appear as normal freighters with slightly modified engine suspension”
“Stereotypical names,” Erich commented.
“The men insisted,” Otto said in his defense.
As they started walking towards Office, Otto further explained, “We figured out while you were away that Credits are few and far between here on the station”
“Rusty color of the walls gave that away”
“Yeah, well anyway we figured out with everyone starting using convoy system nowdays we don’t have fire power to get our hands at some fresh capital. So Ni Lan came up with idea of Q-ships. The Police use them for hunting pirates; we can use them for hunting convoys…”
“By coming near enough the convoys and opening fire on unsuspecting escorts before they can react”
“Correct. Both ships will be equipped with four missile batteries, revolver type, PSG and type two particle accelerator turrets. In addition each will have two torpedo tubes for taking on any pocket cruisers or corvettes.”
“Of course if they get discovered too early or don’t take out all the escorts…”
“We loose big chunk of our savings”
$
For the first time in long time, Olav Lie saw Senator McCarthy Senior furious. Senator was not one of those men that get angry and irrational easily. Senator was usually above such things. Not this time. And that made Olav Lie uneasy.
“How could that idiot get himself killed!? Where were the bodyguards!?”
“The Academy would not allow any armed men inside,” Olav Lie explained.
“One got in!“
“Obviously, Sir”
“You know what this means!? We needed NSM to whitewash the Nividium! Without Nividium - no Credits!”
And no political carrier for McCarthy either. Money was the oil in senator’s political machine and large portion of it came from NSM’s donations. Only three men knew the full truth of that and now the key man was dead. Senator McCarthy never wanted Boris Gellar in that position. In fact he rather wanted Boris dead. But assassination of Max Rudel forced the senator’s hand. Boris was needed to take the control of the NSM. Nobody would believed that Olav Lie had become so rich to buy the NSM and senator himself couldn’t take control of NSM without stepping down as senator and running again as senator of some outlaying sector. No it had to be Boris. And now the obnoxious man was dead. Which meant that the Syndicate as they called themselves, back in times when they were ten, lost control of NSM for the last time.
“Sir if you can just calm down…”
“I don’t want to calm down!”
“Sir I think I have solution for this,” Olav Lie tried again.
To Lie’s relief, the senator immediately calmed down and focused on Olav.
“How?” he asked.
“Legally Mr. Gellar never died”
“Say again?”
“Officially Mr. Gellar is at home recovering from serious poisoning…”
“So we are now faking his life?”
“Yes, Sir. It is the only way.”
“Yeah…It might work actually. It will get complicated though…”
“Yes, Sir. But we may pull it off”
“We have to. We have no choice”
“How many men?”
“Little under half, Master. I am sorry,” Professor said. During the last two tazuras the work on the “Cutpurse” and “Highway robber” had slowed to crawl and then finally stopped. Douglas had been convincing people that they were building death coffins and those that he couldn’t convince he threatened. The atmosphere on the station was getting tense and pirates were polarizing in two camps. The tactic of Douglas was obvious. He was not fool. Seeing how quickly Erich recovered from grave wounds and hearing stories of how Erich defeated Sergey, Douglas did not opt for classical “challenge of leadership” that would involve one on one combat. Instead he chose to undermine Erich’s position among the pirates.
“We still got enough manpower but we are lacking the men with experience. We got enough mechanics to work on one of the ships and only enough crew to barely man one of the ships.”
“Experienced or inexperienced crew?” Otto asked.
“Experienced. The young ones are the most easily impressed by Douglas’s tales”
“If we allow this to continue, the situation will explode in our face sooner or later. I have seen it before,” Otto said.
“What do you suggest?” Erich asked.
“Let us pour all our efforts on completing one of the Q-ships. Then let us take it out on a raid. We coordinate with Suad to pick a juicy target…”
“You think that it will solve the situation?”
“On short run –yes. We bolster our authority and undermine Douglas’s. On long run, the problem with Douglas and his clique still remain.”
“Professor, do tell me how does the men react to losses of their colleagues on a raid?” Erich asked.
“It depends. If you Master are not to blame, they usually drink to dead men’s honor large amounts of Space Fuel and go on with their lives”
“What do you have in mind?” Otto asked Erich.
“I just think that in future we would be forced to weed out the disloyal elements…”
Ni Lan enjoyed exploring the old ship. Every time Otto or Erich did not put him on any task, Ni Lan would wander off exploring corridors and rooms of the ship that now served as station. Usually he found nothing, but now and then he would find a treasure, often enough to keep him interested in exploring new section. Today he checked the old engine room. To his sadness it had been stripped for anything useful just as other sections of the station. He did find few manuals on the floor and he picked them up. He cleared the dirt from the front page and turned few pages. They were old and made from translucent material so that Split letters from pages below merged with letters on the page he was trying to read. Perhaps Ha’nt would explain how this is supposed to be read, Ni Lan wondered when he heard sound behind him. He turned and saw Drr’kt Kaltrka one of the Douglas’s men. The Split must have followed Ni Lan. The Boron could not think of any other reasons why he was in here. The two of them were alone in the engine room and Ni Lan had bad feeling about what would happen next.
“You pathetic Borons are always covering behind Argon backs. Too weak to stand for yourselves I guess…”
The Split waited for Ni Lan’s response. When none came, he closed the door behind him and turned back to Ni Lan.
“And now you wander away from your friends…Bad idea,” Drr’kt said with mean grin on his face. He pulled out large triblade from his belt, weaving it menacingly around.
“See the blades? When they go in they stay together. When the blades are inside you, I push this button,” he said pushing the button resulting in blades spreading from each other in thirty degrees angles, “and then when I pull the knife out you guts follow. I am told that Borons die very slowly when their gut is spilled out. Although, as skinny as you are, I do wonder if you would instead be cut in two when the blades separate… That would be very disappointing for me…”
“I politely wonder if we can discuss this”
“We Split prefer action,” Drr’kt said jumping over Ni Lan. He threw Boron on the floor. Luckily for Ni Lan, his helmet withstood the impact. With horror he watched as the Split lifted his knife, deliberately doing it slowly so to savor the fear in Ni Lan’s face.
Then the Splits face contorted in pain and he fell over Ni Lan. Someone lifted now dead Drr’kt and the always angry face of Ha’nt greeted Ni Lan.
“Stand up. Do I need to baby-sit you every freaking mizura?”
“Thanks Ha’nt,” Ni Lan managed to stutter, sill in shock from the near death experience.
A snort was the only response he got from the silent Split.
“There is the murderer!” Douglas said pointing to Ni Lan. Behind him a large crowd followed. Few of them were calling for blood. Most of these were Douglas’s supporters. Most of the people were silent, waiting to see which way the wind will blow.
“Is there trouble here?” Otto asked. His hand rested on a SLR*. From the other side Erich causally entered the bar having a heavy PMD* balanced on the shoulder. Someone whistled with appreciation. The PMD was intended to be handled by two men crew and yet Erich carried it as if it was made of paper. The crowd stopped, leaving Douglas and his henchmen in the front.
“That Boron murdered my friend,” he accused. “You yourself said that whoever murders someone has to swim in the space without EVA suit,” someone else added.
“You saw the murder?” Erich asked Douglas.
“No but I...” the pirate began but stopped when Erich pointed the PMD in his direction, using only one arm.
“I did not even know that your friend was killed. Did anyone saw the murder,” he asked the crowd. The crowd remained silent.
Erich continued, “Well if nobody saw the murder of any kind, I can only presume that your friend is probably somewhere on the station very much alive.”
“He is dead!”
“So you say. Nevertheless, Ni Lan couldn’t have done it. He was working on our Q-ship designs with Ha’nt. Does anyone here claim differently?” Erich asked the crowd.
The crowd remained silent. Nobody was willing to make that claim, not with Erich wielding a heavy PMD.
“Well then, the “Highway robber” is ready to be deployed and I have received intel on slow juicy convoy making its way through Independent space. So if you don’t mind I have a raid to plan”
“Few ships follow us,” Ni Lan remarked to Otto. He was talking about the pirates that have decided to join the raid. Three Mandalays and three Bayamons undocked with the station and fell in the formation with “Highway robber”. One more ship, an Orinoco, undocked and matched its speed with the group.
“More than enough,” Otto commented. The most of the pirates were waiting to see which side in the conflict between Erich and Douglas would win. Erich was unknown to them while Douglas was someone they knew and grudgingly respected. The result of this raid may go long way in convincing people that Erich was truly a man deserving the leadership of the clan. Professor had informed Erich and Otto that many older pirates had faith in them and their plans with Q-ships. The trouble was that most of the Black Gang was younger men since older and more experienced pirates left the clan and offered their services to other clans when Sergey took over. Most of the young pilots were unfamiliar with concept Ni Lan had purposed and wouldn’t risk their ships on a raid using unfamiliar tactics.
The tension aboard the station was such that Erich and Ha’nt stayed behind to hold the fort. Professor had warned them that if both Erich and Otto left, Douglas may stage a coup. No point in having a successful raid if you had no station to return to.
Luckily, just enough men volunteered for “Highway robber” to have full crew. But the Q-ship still lacked PSG turrets so it fell on Otto’s Bayamon to provide cover. Ni Lan was placed in command of the “Highway robber”. If the raid succeeded and his tactics proved successful, Ni Lan would be redeemed in the eyes of those that thought Boron being murderer.
“This is “Dark Mistress” to rest of the group. The Master have held the plan secret because let us be honest, operational security is foreign idea to most of you, especially after few glasses of whatever that Teladi snake serves. Our target is in Thurok’s Beard, makings on the way towards the Independent space. Its destination – Boron Kingdom. We are talking about three freighters escorted by a pocket cruiser and eight fighters screen. The reason behind the pocket cruiser escort is that freighters are in fact illicit weapon smugglers posing as Teladium paneling shipment”
What Otto did not mention was that entire operation was run by Split intelligence. The weapons were meant for pirate clans operating in Boron and Argon space. The thought was to undermine the Argon and Boron alliance without risking retribution from the alliance. Mentioning that fact would ensure that every pilot turned tail. There were some organizations that you never messed with and intelligence agencies of the major powers in space were in that group. Erich reasoned as long they sold the weapons in Boron and Argon space they would avoid the wrath of Split intelligence bureau. After all, that was their original plan.
“Five of us will wait for them in the Hatikvah’s Faith, among the stations there. Three ships will position themselves at the East Gate, cutting off any retreat in that direction. They will also have task of harassing any reinforcement from there. I want Mandalays to handle that. Disengage if overpowered. The “Highway robber” will wait until the convoy is four kilometers away from the stations cluster before setting after the convoy on intercept course. It will pose as freighter traffic. 900 meters from the pocket cruiser it will engage the escort. The five with us will rush in immediately in support. It is critical for mission that “Highway robber” removes cruiser threat and cripples as many fighters as possible. Does anyone understand their task?”
The short clicks of acknowledgment from the group arrived quickly on the com.
Suad’s intel was on the mark. The five fighters preceded the three Cayman freighters coming through the gate. Soon after the pocket cruiser, a modified Cayman freighter followed with three fighters, forming the rear guard of the convoy. Immediately the convoy accelerated to top speed with two Jaguar scouts detaching to scout the space ahead. The escort ship wore marks of a mercenary group, one of the thousands operating in the Independent space. Split intelligence must have hired them for the job, Otto thought powering down “Dark Mistress”. Other pirates did the same, reducing the emissions convoy sensor could pick up.
Ni Lan began emulating the lumbering undocking procedures of a freighter. In fact the ”Highway robber” was equipped with cross-section engines, giving it maneuverability of a heavy fighter but Ni Lan wisely behaved as if he did not have that advantage. He slowly turned the ”Highway robber” around and just as the convoy was four kilometers away placed the Q-ship on intercept course. There was nothing suspicious in this. Many freighters preferred to travel in groups and trailed a well defended convoy whenever given the chance to do it.
”Highway robber” traveled at a speed slightly above that of convoy, again not revealing it full potential. Two standard Split engines had been replaced with six Argon ST1300 engines, giving the ”Highway robber” an excellent acceleration. Top notch inertial dampeners gave the ship a high stable top speed too. In fact it outclassed the opposing cruiser in everything except weaponry. Otto hoped that it would be enough.
Ni Lan gave short commands to four men serving him. The “command bridge” was totally silent as everyone’s eyes were on the sensor readings. Tension could be felt.
“Do we have passive readings?” Ni Lan asked the man working the sensors.
“Yeah, want me to feed them into the targ comp?”
“Yes, please”
“Wait a sec…Ok, the targets have been assigned. How many stings do you want to throw at them?”
“Thirty at the big ship and two each at escort fighters, please. Mosquito 2. And please launch a silkworm at each fighter.”
“As you command captain.”
The convoy was rapidly approaching and escort did not react. Instead whoever was in command of the convoy decided to support the two scouts with two Scorpion medium fighters, further spreading the escort.
“With any luck captain, those four guys are going to be out of position to intervene if we slow down our speed by ten percent to give them time to finish their mistake”
“Do it!”
The speed could be immediately felt, despite the inertia dampeners. Too sudden to Ni Lan’s liking but the convoy did not seem to catch on what had happened.
“Target distance 1500 meters”
“Prepare for active scanner marking on predefined targets”
“Target distance 1200 meters captain”
“Start “filling” up the particle accelerator chargers,” Ni Lan ordered. His voice shook from excitement but luckily he had remembered to set the translator to not interpret his feelings but to instead translate his voice in cool and deep voice he had seen on TH.
“Distance to target 1000 meters captain”
“Prepare to turn on rest of the shield projectors,” Ni Lan said. ”Highway robber” had only turned on the front and rear shield projectors, the two 25 MJ shields. In addition the ship sported two 125 MJ projectors placed opposite from each other on hull’s vertical 10 and 16. They were however both driven by same power plant. Elysium, where they got the plants from, simply did not have the military type shield recharge power plants and two civilian power plants would simple have taken away precious missile storage space.
“950 meters, captain!”
“Full speed, active scan, missile launch!”
The ”Highway robber” doubled its speed and its four revolver launchers started launching modified Mosquitoes while the port and starboard missile launchers spew out the more potent Silkworm missiles. Within four sezuras ”Highway robber” had created the so-called “missile wall” that split in five directions.
“Place the cruiser on our ten horizontal,” Ni Lan ordered. Otto had instructed him that while that presented the largest target to enemy fire it also gave ”Highway robber” most time to flee. The 25 MJ shields in the front could not withstand much plasma fire.
However, the crew on the ”Highway robber” did not need to worry about pocket cruiser’s return fire. As soon as Mosquito 2 missiles started hitting the pocket cruiser, large chunk of the ship simply detached leaving impression as if someone had taken a bite of the cruiser. Many missiles did not detonate but enough did to take out the pocket cruiser out of the equitation permanently. The escort fighter did not fare better. The four fighters that remained in the convoy all blinked out from the sensor screen one by one, barely ten sezura from attack’s start, resulting in loud cheer from ship’s crew.
Two Scorpions and two Jaguars immediately turned around, setting full speed towards the ”Highway robber”. They too started launching missiles, an assortment of Wasp and Silkworm missiles.
Just as Ni Lan was about to order the full speed away from the missiles, communication arrived from Otto’s “Dark Mistress”, “Don’t run away, bait them into launching all they missile ordinance!”
“What!? We can withstand maximum four or five of silkworms before we are sucking vacuum!” one of the crew commented.
“Calm down! Use boosters to disengage safely when nearest missile is 400 meters away”
“Ok, do it. Turn the ship at 90 degrees from missiles and prepare to launch the booster rockets at my command”
“You sure about that captain!? We got to shut down shields if we are going to do that and I know the guy that installed these rockets. You don’t want to put your life in his hands,” the old pirate that had manned the targeting computer commented.
“He is your own brother…” someone behind Ni Lan said.
The old pirate turned towards the man and angrily yelled, “What’s your point!?”
That resulted in laughter and tension somewhat eased.
“We are doing it,” Ni Lan said.
“You sure captain?”
“Yes, I am sure”
The men nervously waited, watching the incoming swarm of missiles on the screens as the ship turned.
“Start boosters on my command”
“Primed, ready and itching to do it, captain”
Ni Lan watched the incoming missiles on the screen. They seemed to gain on speed, coming in incredibly fast. He turned his eyes on sensor display, reading the distance to nearest missile. It was 1000 meters away, next moment 860 meters away then 632 meters away.
“NOW!” Ni Lan said. Nothing happened. Men exchanged glances of fear. Then the ship started shaking as it was accelerated ten times its original speed over a distance of 100 meters. Every joint was hurting in men’s body and Ni Lan could hear curses and screams as the three sezuras burn time ended. One man coughed blood while another simply slumped forward in his seat, unconscious, only held up by the safety belts.
But they were alive. The missiles, having lost their target, wandered aimlessly before self destructing.
With ”Highway robber” safe, rest of the raiding group struck with “Dark Mistress” leading the attack.
“Two wave attack, me and Orinoco in the front with rest 400 meters behind,” Otto ordered. Seeing the Q-ships tactics being so effective, they now immediately obeyed and did as Otto instructed. He opened a channel to Orinoco, “You got missiles?”
“Yeah,” the reply came.
“Use all of them on the first pass. The Master is paying”
“You got it,” Orinoco pilot said.
As they approached the four fighters they launched twelve missiles at each fighter, forcing the mercenaries to abort their attack and loose aim. One of Jaguars swirled out of the control as one missile struck one of its engines. Its pilot ejected.
“Dark Mistress” and Orinoco passed the four fighters and the mercenaries turned on their tales only to have their sixes presented to the next wave of three pirate fighters. Caught between expertly flown “Dark Mistress” and a heavy fighter such as Orinoco on one side and three Bayamons on the other, the Jaguar and two Scorpions had no option then trying to disengage. None of them managed to do that. “Dark Mistress” got the remaining Jaguar while the two Scorpions were easily dispatched by concentrated fire of the Orinoco and the Bayamons.
The freighters’ captains got the message and started evacuating their ships with few pods and EVA suits leaving the ships and setting course for nearest stations.
“Should we take prisoners,” one of the Bayamons’ pilots asked.
“No. Concentrate on taking those freighters as fast as possible out of the system,” Otto ordered. He looked satisfied at the battlefield. Eight fighters and one pocket cruiser taken out within two mizura of the time the first missile was launched from “Highway robber”. Without prior training and poorly disciplined pilots flying ships that barely withstood the vacuum, the mission could be considered the raid of the century, Otto thought satisfied as he watched Ni Lan remotely take the control of the first freighter.
“I want every cubic meter of the sector scanned and then scanned again,” Wolfgang insisted to the commander of sector militia. The man had warmed up to idea of “his” militia training together with Navy but he opposed anything he viewed as encroachment on his turf. Group Captain had to several times pull out the relevant piece of law from the database to convince the man to follow his lead. This seemed to be one of these times.
“I don’t insist on this because of me wanting to command you around. I insist because the thousands of children down there,” Wolfgang said weaving on the image of Omicron Lyrae planet, “depend on us. Just tazura ago a Khaak installation was found in Ore Belt. Forty mizuras ago one of the patrols was engaged by Khaak cluster. Only the fact that nearby weapon platform was in range saved them from destruction. Please understand the peril the system is now in”
The man’s face softened and finally he gave in, “You convinced me Group Captain. I will redirect the militia from their duties and instruct them to do a system wide search for any hidden installations”
“Thank you Sir,” Wolfgang gratefully said and he really meant it too.
The frequency of the Khaak incursions was in sharp increase in the system of Omicron Lyrae. Not single tazura passed without at least two clusters jumping in. It is as if they are probing our response times and our defenses, Wolfgang thought as he escorted his visitor out. The incursions all followed the standard procedure. A cluster would jump in with smaller ships which Intelligence thought to be scout ships attached to a larger ship that Intelligence thought to be mainstay fighter of Khaak forces. That was happening all over the Known Universe and was nothing to worry about, top brasses in Argon Prime claimed. But Wolfgang noticed that always a third ship type could be found nearby when incursions occurred - intel called them “Interceptors” but Wolfgang thought them to be more of a advanced recon unit. The probes detected strong emissions coming from those ships and Wolfgang guessed that those were the active sensors probes detected. These “Interceptors” never behaved in sense a classical interceptor did, performing the anti-torpedo duty for any Khaak destroyers Argon Intelligence managed to get a glimpse of. Rather that particular ship operated alone and avoided fights until detected. Wolfgang was willing to bet mazura’s pay that Interceptor had sensors that were far superior to that of Argon Federation. Wolfgang wondered whether the Interceptor observed the combat results of each incursion and then reported the results to Khaak Hive. Undeniably the observations of Interceptors around and in Omicron Lyrae sector had skyrocketed last wozura without anybody raising the alarm before the reports landed at Wolfgang’s desk.
“Mathews,” Wolfgang called the ship’s A.I.
“Yes, Group Captain Wolfgang Lüth?”
“Has Rear Admiral Narazawa read my report?”
“Such information is not available for one of your rank.”
Wolfgang sighed. Every A.I Wolfgang ever came in contact with was such hair-splitter.
“However, I am allowed to inform you that the matter will be taken up in your scheduled briefing with Rear Admiral Narazawa in 15 Stazuras, 23 Mizuras and 12 sezuras from the end of this sentence.”
In other words the report had reached the Rear Admiral and he deemed it important enough to take it up in joint briefing, Wolfgang thought. With little luck he can convince couple of decision makers that attack on Omicron Lyrae is imminent…
“Mathews is Wing Commander Sorensen available?”
“She is currently working out in section FW 410A.”
“Is she alone?”
“Yes, Group Captain Wolfgang Lüth,” the A.I. answered.
“Excellent. Patch me through to her”
A ringing sound signaled that connection had been established.
“This is Group Captain Lüth to Wing Commander Sorensen. Can we talk for a moment?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Did your boyfriend manage to procure some ships for us?”
“Yes, Sir. Twelve ships to be exact. Eight smugglers and four ships that belong to a Teladi independent trader that have dodged his docking fees too long”
“What type of ships are we talking about?”
“Five M3s, four civilian crafts and three freighters. He thought that you could convert the freighters in minelayers or at least use them to as decoy ships for Khaak missiles. He also has a Teladi that you may use for target practice, Sir.”
“I will pass on that opportunity,” Wolfgang said with a smile before he added, “Rear Admiral has in fact asked for few freighter to ferry missile batteries and laser towers around so they will come in handy. Will save Navy few bucks”
“I thought so too, Sir”
“Ok, I leave you now alone Sorensen. Bring my thanks to your boyfriend,” Wolfgang said.
“Will do Sir,” Wing Commander said before the link was disconnected.
The meetings Rear Admiral held were always brief affairs, seldom lasting more than fifteen mizuras at most. He spoke fast and his sentences concise – he was never using the rhetoric of the type “this is the historic moment” older Argon Admirals were so fond of.
“I believe that Group Captain Lüth is correct in his assessment. Any opinions on this? Good. Let us move on. What can we do about it? Group Captain?” Rear Admiral Narazawa asked turning to Wolfgang.
“At moment we can muster 47 Navy fighters and further 54 Sector Militia fighters. With our passive defenses we will be capable of holding out against two destroyers and one carrier that Khaak task groups typically consist of which High Command predicts Khaak will use in eventual attack on the sector”
“I see on your face that you do not share that opinion,” Narazawa said with a smile. Wolfgang was taken aback for moment – he always thought that he hid his feeling rather well.
“Well, Sir at the moment the Khaak had only attacked one sector that was much smaller than Omicron Lyrae. And even at President’s End, a refitting station for the Navy of semi importance, the Khaak Hive was willing to waste their hardware without caring of their losses. The task groups our intelligence had observed operated in Khaak sectors may as well have been rear guard units or raider groups Sir. In my opinion when Khaak invade this system we may easily face several destroyers and carriers”
The Rear Admiral nodded and looked over the officers present.
“Commodore Ney do you want to add something?” he asked the officer sitting on the other end of the table. Ney had been recent arrival to the sector, commanding the corvette “Nestor”.
“I disagree with the Group Captain on his projections about enemy’s force distribution. I believe we would face a “fighter heavy” invasion force. But Group Captain is right about the fact that invasion will come”
The Rear Admiral said nothing for few moments, digesting the ideas that have been presented to him the last mizuras. Then he lifted his head, looking each and everyone present in the eyes.
“Well gentlemen, I too agree with Group Captain Lüth. However as you are aware, the problem we face in the defense of this sector is the fact that we have to protect both the planet and the factory cluster in the space, particularly the shipyard complex. Those two objectives are mutually exclusive gentlemen. We can only do one of these tasks effectively. Spreading our forces over those two objectives would invite the defeat in detail. But there is a third, overreaching objective – Preserving the Task Group. If Khaak jumps in with forces that can overwhelm us we will retreat out of the sector with Militia providing the cover for fleeing civilians”
Now Wolfgang had to wonder whether the Rear Admiral was not that smart after all. His decision was a smart one but it was also carrier suicide. Especially if the Sector Militia was left with task of defending the fleeing civilians. The repercussions for the Rear Admiral may even be a trial by Military tribunal.
“If this is not the case,” Rear Admiral continued when the shock of his last statement passed, “we will concentrate on defending the shipyard complex as the more strategic objective of those two”
Well, good luck getting that accepted by the Omicron Lyrae Senators, Wolfgang thought. Rear Admiral must have read his thoughts because in that moment he offered a brief smile to his Group Captain.
The large crowd gathered watching the captured cargo being unloaded from the freighters. Otto watched the gathered men as they visibly impressed inspected the captured goods. 560 Kazulh A missiles, a Teladi variant of the venerable Silkworm missile, were in stored in the first freighter, along with dozen of boxes filled with energy cells. Many Teladi small arms were found in the second freighter. Already, couple of pirates were taking contact with Professor, which now was considered as semi-official spokesmen of the new leaders, offering the tips and contacts that could unload the weapons.
The third freighter contained the food rations and engine spare parts for Boron and Teladi ship types along with 10 brand new Split Twrgta Akhash engines used in their heavy Mamba fighters.
Next, Erich called for the men that participated in the operation, four crewmen of the Highway robber and the seven fighter pilots, to take whatever they wish from the captured goods. The three crewmen choose to pick a weapon from the captured stock, while one crewman and all of the pilots all went for Twrgta Akhash engines.
“Excellent PR-stunt,” the Professor commented silently to Erich, “this will boost your rating among the men, Master”
“I am counting on it,” Erich smilingly said.
“And diminish Douglas’s own,” Otto added.
“I am sure of that. Already number of men is asking when you will need volunteers for the next raid,” Boron happily reported.
Erich was satisfied. The threat of coup was removed and Ni Lan was now considered fully fledged member of the clan once again. But Erich did not forget that those that planed a potential coup were still alive and very much still a threat to him. He looked at the people that were present in docks and saw that Douglas and those close to him were not present. He wondered what they were up to.
Continue to next chapter
Yes.... Such unfortunate incidents do happen you know...
... Anyway I am having some free time now so I am going to massproduce chapters so that chapter 20 is finished before beginning of july.