Once he had them arranged and briefed on his plan, they were ready to go. He came up on his communicator and said, “Tally Ho.” He didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded cool to say it.
The formation accelerated slowly and entered into the star cluster. He had given instructions to the missile boats to kill the early warning sensors as the came up on them. They did their job and the first dissolved into a cloud of debris.
One of the lead missile boats called out, “We got company — twelve ships dead ahead, coming in fast. These are probably those torpedo ships. We’ll launch on them when they come in range.”
Ben looked ahead, but saw nothing. He saw one of the missile boats turn into a fireball.
Another called out, “They have active mines deployed out here on the flanks. Keep your eyes open. Range on the torpedo ships in five seconds. Prepare to fire.”
Ben saw twelve missiles streak away from the missile boats ahead of them.
One of the missile boats reported, “Missiles away, but they have fired on us, too. I count 22 torpedoes inbound. I’m switching to guns.”
All the missile boats switched to guns and fire bursts reached out toward the speeding torpedoes. Ben added his long-range fire to the missile boats’ gunfire.
Success against missiles and torpedoes was measured in black clouds of smoke, failure for manned ships a short blossoming of orange flames, before the breached atmosphere dissipated in space’s vacuum. Ben counted two missiles boats taken out by torpedoes and 16 torpedoes destroyed. He saw that the two destroyed boats had ripple-fired their missiles before they were hit. Those had been good pilots. He kept up his fire and looked over to Captain Mac’s ship, whose corvette was matching fire with his. He watched the massed missiles hit the torpedo squadron and saw eight ships burst into orange flames, as their internal atmosphere fueled their demise. That left only two missile boats to sweep the path clear and four torpedo boats left in their way.
Ben saw one of his long-range bursts take out another torpedo ship. He swung right and killed another. Captain Mac took out the other two. Ben ordered Captain Cho to launch her fighters and get the operatives on the ground before the next torpedo squadron got between the planet and his fleet.
Ben watched the four fighters accelerate past him and streak forward to the planet. Now all they had to do was hold on long enough to recover the fighters.
The message from Alistair caused quite a stir in the 3rd ALG flag country. Kelly’s communicator buzzed during CPT Chen’s briefing. Several scowling eyes stared at Kelly until he read them the message that Alistair thought he had located the Debran women. Kelly interrupted the briefing to take over the holographic projector controls. He found the house that Alistair referred to and centered it in the hologram.
Instantly the concept briefing became a planning meeting as the admiral started looking for the best place to land the Vigilant. In fifteen minutes, the concept had gone from a plan to an execution order. Kelly instructed LTJG Cortez to dock the Valiant to the Yellow Jacket and prepare to embark a platoon of Marines and their equipment. He instructed her to clear out the starboard stores locker and consolidate anything in it to the port storage locker.
Just as quickly, everything came to a screeching halt when his emplaced sensors showed combat taking place in the star cluster. No one could figure out just who the pirates were fighting. Admiral Minacci ordered Kelly to get in there and figure out what was going on. Kelly ran for the admiral’s gig’s airlock and made a speedy trip back to the Vigilant. When he was on board and the gig was away, the Vigilant was already moving. LTJG Cortez had taken Kelly literally when he said get us moving as soon as I’m aboard. By the time Kelly sat in the command chair, they were already at FTL Power 3 and accelerating.
In an hour, the Vigilant was in amongst the brown dwarves, parallel to the main avenue of approach. Their sensors showed the hulls of destroyed torpedo ships, spent torpedoes, and the burnt out hulls of ships Kelly had never seen before. With the exception of a squadron of torpedo ships, no other ships were within sensor range.
Chief Johnson called to the bridge that he could identify them and he was enroute to the bridge.
Chief Johnson pulled up his pocket tablet and showed Kelly data and images of an obsolete commercial missile boat. He said they were mostly parked in bone yards or melted down, but there were still a few used by fleets for hire.
Chief Johnson said, “Kind of makes you wonder who would have the need and enough credits to hire a private fleet, doesn’t it sir?”
Kelly had already made the connection. It had to be Debran working both ends against the middle. Bastard probably didn’t care about his family. He only wanted to make sure the pirates paid for their affront to him. Kelly considered him a sick individual.
Kelly had the Vigilant held at their current position while they prepared a report for the admiral and waited for Alistair’s latest report. When Alistair’s report came in and the admiral’s report went out, Kelly made another high-speed dash across the sector.
A beat up transport ship badly in need of a paint job and TLC moved slowly into the Rigel Aldebaran sector. Its pitiful exterior did not match the interior, which was K’Rang state of the art. The K’Rang research vessel H’Gou moved toward Rigel, having been ordered to provide data on this sector. Its twin, the T’Rak, concentrated on Aldebaran.
Between the two, they catalogued every vessel within sensor range. The captain of the T’Rak was attempting to resolve a cluster of ships between Aldebaran and the star cluster that he thought might be Fleet warships. The H’Gou was attempting to resolve what appeared to be a dispersed small fleet of corvettes and smaller combatants. Both captains agreed that there were enough warships in this sector for it not to be a backwater. In their judgment, the Humans considered this to be a frontline sector. Their independent reports to the K’Rang Imperial Analytical Cabal and Fleet commander read almost word for word.
After they fought off another torpedo ship squadron long enough to recover the four fighters, Ben Alden retired his reduced fleet from the Pleiades star cluster. Upon rallying above Rigel Prime’s pole, he had the ships disperse as before. He had accomplished his goal at the cost of three missile boats and many good men and women. He calculated their death benefit and thought that at least their beneficiaries would live comfortably, cold comfort that it would be for them.
While he waited for his operatives to do their job, he prepared his report for Mr. Debran.
Fleet Commander J’Kalt completed his personal inspection of the ships assigned to his command. He caught many discrepancies, improved his command knowledge, and it gave him something to do while awaiting the arrival of the two Shadow Force scout ships. He wouldn’t move without his eyes and ears. The K’Rang could ill afford to waste ships by barging into the unknown; the debacle at G’Dranu taught them that. He would move when he knew what he was up against. This could easily be another Human trap.
Mr. Debran read Captain Alden’s report with interest. Who would have thought that there was a habitable world in the star cluster? He had anticipated some type of pirate base, an asteroid or moon facility perhaps, but not a living, breathing planet. The scientists for years had said the star cluster was impenetrable. How wrong they were.
Friedrich Debran saw the possibility of a large profit here. Land equaled credits and an entire world would equal a world full of credits. He called Delphant to arrange for an armored executive transport ship to be brought to Rigel station and kept on stand by. He just might need to visit this pirate world soon.
Steven Maynard was not having a good week. Yesterday, a mystery ship came in and killed one of his torpedo squadrons. Today, a mystery fleet came in, killed a second, and wounded a third. Fortunately, the damage to the third was only superficial. His ships killed three of a ship type he’d never seen before. What was going on? He couldn’t keep taking losses like this. He only had six squadrons left.