Chapter 12
Lords of War
Col Stoddard, Jim Roper, and Kynan Whelan all sat in comfortable high-backed leather hover chairs in their conference room, looking at a large, split Visi-screen showing two highly decorated officers. On the right was Colonel Tommy Stark, commanding officer of an Athena carrier, and on the left was Lieutenant Colonel Jeb Epson, commanding officer of an Artemis battleship.
“Gentlemen, I know I’m putting you into a difficult position, but I hope you can trust me when I say that this mission is for the betterment of the Federation,” Stoddard told the two men.
“Of that I have no doubt,” Stark said. “It’s just a dangerous game you’re playing. You’re balancing sedition and patriotism, and the President seems to think you’re leaning more towards the sedition side.”
“Oh, gawd, he’s a buffoon!” Stoddard countered dismissively with a flick of his hand.
“Yeah, well, that buffoon has accused you of abducting Congressman Silkwood. They suspect he’s been assassinated, but they can’t find his body. And Lewis and Maize are also missing and presumed dead. Every one of your congressional handlers is gone.”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but General Gains has ordered anyone who comes in contact with you to either apprehend you on the spot or relay your coordinates to him personally. Epson and I could be court-martialed for attending this meeting, let alone for helping you.”
“Yet here you are.”
“That’s because Gains is an effing white coat who keeps butt’n his head into everyone else’s business,” Stark replied. “I know you didn’t kill Silkwood, and I said as much, but why would they believe me? Gains hasn’t trusted me since I pitched a fit after they denied you that star. He’s the one who blocked it because you beat his ass all those years ago. And it’s not like he didn’t deserve it after what he did to you.”
“Well, it was just an eye,” Stoddard said reflectively. “He’s always maintained that it wasn’t his fault he got bad intel and passed it on to me.”
“Right, bad intel,” Stark said disdainfully. “It was flat-out laziness and incompetence on his part, and everyone knows it. The problem is white coats stick together, and they brownnose their way to the top. It’s a luxury we don’t have.
“Did you know that he actually put himself in for a Bronze Star and a Gold Medallion with Honors Wreath back when he was a major for leading a convoy into the DL?”
“What?” Epson asked, jumping into the conversation. “I’ve never heard this. I thought he’s never been to the DL.”
“Yeah, true story,” Stark continued. “The thing is, he led them there by mistake. He typed in the wrong coordinates. They popped in less than half a light year – HALF! – and only for twenty minutes! He said it was the most ‘nerve-rackingly traumatic experience of my life.’ Can you believe that crap? And the only thing they came in contact with was space. It’s so terrible, I still feel like crying for him.”
“That guy’s a real prick,” Epson said. “Obviously, he didn’t get the awards.”
“Yeah, and he’s been butthurt ever since. Effing white coats. He wouldn’t know a laser if it shot him in his arse. But my point is that the man has a habit of being incompetent and lazy. I’ve never known you to be either, Todd. We’ve known each other for a long time. If you say that this is important, then it’s definitely worth me listening to.”
“The same goes for me, Colonel,” Epson agreed.
“For that, I thank you both, gentlemen. We can’t do this op without either of you. And I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this with me.
“That Alliance pilot we have has given us a load of useful information.”
“He cracked, did he?” Epson asked.
“He did, and it didn’t take long. As you know, we were concerned that the Alliance was building a new forward operating base in the DL called Sanchu, and they did. But this isn’t an ordinary FOB. It’s a staging point. And that’s only the beginning.”
“What do you mean that’s only the beginning?” Stark asked.
“Kynan, why don’t you take over from here?” Stoddard directed him.
Kynan then displayed a holographic image of Crucis One and said in his thick Irish accent, “I was sent to investigate the Alliance’s activities on Crucis One, and I ended up being stranded there for several months. My daughter and a Jack crew recently rescued me. I lost most of my research when I lost my ship, so I have little of substance to offer the President or our congressional handlers. And they won’t act on my word alone. But what I found warrants immediate action.
“The Alliance has not only been abducting people from Crucis One, but they’ve also been doing horrific experiments on them reminiscent of the experiments done on the Jews by the Nazis during World War II in the middle of the Twentieth Century. I saw a video of them transporting indigenous people to the edge of the world’s gravitational pull and then sending them through the airlock so they could see what happens to the human body as it falls back to the planet. This is what they consider to be perfectly acceptable science.”
“Oh, my God!” Stark blurted as he saw the horrid images.
“It gets worse. Physical experiments aren’t the only experiments they’re conducting. They’re also conducting radical social experiments. They’ve been sending teams down to integrate into their societies with the intent of pitting them against each other, forcing them into wars. They want to learn how these people develop battlefield strategies, and they want to see how those strategies evolve from one enemy to the next. They’ve introduced a number of different diseases, and they’ve started a couple of horrific famines that have killed scores of people. They have completely corrupted the purpose of science.
“And if conducting grotesque scientific experiments wasn’t enough, they’ve been using these people as slave labor on Sanchu. Imagine the horror they must be going through. One minute, they don’t even know what electricity is, and the next, they’re on a spaceship being transported to a faraway planet where an exploding neck collar is squeezed around their neck, and then they’re forced to do hard labor using machines that not even their most artistically creative thinkers could dream up.”
“Why use slave labor? Why not just use citizens from the Alliance?” Epson asked.
“Because they defect. And people who defect talk. The slaves from Crucis One have no one to defect to.”
“That actually makes sense,” Epson agreed. “There’s been a noticeable spike in refugees recently, too. People want out.”
“I’ve seen that trend, too. Did that pilot corroborate this information you discovered, Kynan?” Stark asked.
“He’s done more than that,” Stoddard replied for him. “He’s given us the coordinates to Sanchu. And he’s provided us with troop estimates and a rough description of the base.”
“What’s its purpose? You said it’s a staging point. A staging point for what?”
“I can tell you that this is the first of several planned bases that they have in the DL. We believe that it’s a staging point for an all-out attack against us.”
“You can’t be serious,” Epson said. “We have a far superior fighting force. And quite frankly, their technology doesn’t even come close to ours.”
“Be as it may, they’re building staging points in strategic locations. They’re going to attack us at some point – all indicators are pointing to it. Yes, it could be years off, but we can’t sit back on our laurels while they build these bases and wait for the day they attack just because we have a superior fighting force. We don’t want a war; even if we know we can win it.”
“I agree,” Stark said. “It’s better to lose a thousand troops now than to lose hundreds of thousands of troops later. Speaking of which, how many enemy forces are we looking at?”
“They have approximately five thousand human ground troops and one hundred Accipiter I fighters all stationed on the planet. There’s an unknown number of robotic troops, but based on the size of their other ground forces, we’re estimating that it’s close to fifty thousand. The pilot said that the only ship that’s permanently stationed above the planet is a Sol battleship. But he did say that other military ships come and go.”
“What about hardened defenses and the base’s schematics?”
“Some of that’s unknown. The base is about 50 kilometers in diameter and expanding. There are at least a dozen batteries of six anti-ship guns at various locations on the base, and each one takes up close to a city block, so they’re quite massive, which they’d have to be to reach space. There’s a nuclear generator near the southeast corner of the base and another one in the northwest corner to supply the base with power. I imagine that during an invasion, most of that power will be diverted to those anti-ship batteries.
“Living quarters, training grounds, and facilities are scattered about. And the main command post is near the center of the base. We sent a few probes, but we haven’t received any imagery back yet.
“Something else – that pilot says that there’s a second star close by, so the planet has constant sunlight. It’s habitable, but desolate. It means we won’t be able to conduct a night assault.”
“Todd, if what you’re saying turns out to be true, the dimensions of this base are massive,” Stark observed. “This is easily five times bigger than anything they’ve built before in the DL. Why risk it?”
“Like I said, it must be a staging area. According to that pilot, they’re building four massive platforms there, each one easily a thousand kilometers long and wide. I admit that I’m not entirely sure what they’re for, but it’s another red flag.”
“How old is this information that you’re telling us about right now?” Stark asked.
“Less than five hours. Meaning that the pilot just told us five hours ago. The last time he was at Sanchu was over a month ago. So, it’s quite possible some things have changed.”
“Does he know where the slave quarters are at?”
“Near the nuclear generator on the southeast corner.”
Colonel Stark nodded his head and then said, “I have more ground forces, but they have more aerial fighters. But that’s not saying much.”
“No, it’s not. You won’t have any problem gaining air and space superiority. As for you, Jeb, your Artemis could easily take out three Sol battleships. Right now, you’re only contending with one. What I really need you to focus on is keeping their reinforcements out. You know how they like to hopscotch their gates during a fight, so you have a lot of space to cover.”
“I can do it,” Epson confirmed.
“We shouldn’t have any problems leaving our Battle Force,” Stark began, “but as soon as we go ‘communication dark,’ there’s going to be suspicions. It’ll only be a matter of time before red flags are raised at the Pentagon.”
“I’d be more worried about how you’re going to explain your casualties,” Stoddard replied.
“Yeah, well…provocation sucks,” Stark concluded sarcastically. .