“We’re pretty limited here, Otis. Let me think for a minute.” Mike thought hard, his mind discarding some options, retaining others. He would have to flesh his plan out with Josh, but he knew the direction they would take, the only direction they could take if Brodor was to survive.
“Switch to general transmission, Otis.”
Otis’ visage disappeared instantly, to be replaced with a normal video link. “Hail, Stardust,” Otis called.
“ Stardust here,” Mike replied coolly.
“I think you’d better break it off, Stardust. Looks like we may have a little fight on our hands here in a week or so.”
“I’m here to recruit Guardians. Can you deal?”
“No deals now,” Otis replied. “We’ve plenty of them here, in fact we’re overloaded for a change. We’ve had a general recall with this rebellion, but this time we need them for ourselves. A lucky break if I ever saw one.”
“My purchase agreement states that I don’t get paid if I don’t bring back at least three of them. I’d offer to help, but I’m just a lightly armed trader. Maybe we’ll stick around to see how things go.”
“Your nickel, Stardust. Brodor out,” Otis replied, signing off.
Stardust continued inbound while Mike held a conference right there on the bridge. As he spoke, he noticed that Sergeant Jacobs in particular, the man who had led the unmerciful hounding Mike received during daily physical training, seemed different for some reason. When Mike looked into his eyes, he instantly saw the reason why: training was over. They were operational now and all part of the same team. Mike explained the situation as he saw it, then turned to Voorhees.
Voorhees wasted no time. “We’re a fast ship. We can micro jump into them without warning. They’ll never know what hit them.”
“How’s your armament?”
“You know the answer to that, Sire,” Voorhees answered. “Serge has outfitted us very well.”
“Yes, but a squadron?”
“No, Sire, it’s not a squadron. It’s a standard light squadron. There’s no frigate, thankfully, and only half the fighters of a full squadron. I don’t want to sound overconfident, but we’re good. The odds are very much in our favor against the fighters. It would be a sure thing if we took them on one at time, but we can handle several without too much risk, and we can micro jump out when the going gets too tough, then come back at them, maybe even singling them out. It will take a while, but we can do it.
“The cruiser worries me, though. We’ll be like flees on a dog against it. We’ll worry it and we’ll bother it, but we won’t be able to take it out. We can, however, micro jump away when the going gets too tough, then come back to bother it again if we so choose. And I have some confidence that we can limit the number of shuttles reaching the ground. We can make it hard for them.”
“How likely is it that these Rebels can take out all, or most, of the cats without ground fighting?”
Jessie answered. “Not likely at all. Compared to most worlds, Brodor is primitive. Otis is prepared, Sire. I’m certain everyone is going native. They’ll be spread out, some holed up in small defensive positions and the rest just roaming free. The cities can be reduced to rubble without any loss of life at all. It will have to be a ground fight. You’ll understand better after you’ve been on the planet.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Mike replied. “No one in their right mind would attack Brodor on the ground. They wouldn’t stand a chance. Those are Rebel ships, and they’re carrying Chessori to reduce the cats’ effectiveness.”
Voorhees paled. Jessie’s expression did not change, but she made a simple comment. “They might be carrying gleasons, Sire.”
Mike thought about that, but it didn’t add up. “Your people stood against the gleasons two thousand years ago. Do you think it makes sense to send only one group, knowing the others failed all those years ago?”
“No, Sire, I do not. I state it only as a possibility. It would take many more gleasons than one squadron could carry. In fact, there would be massive numbers of troop transports if gleasons were to be landed. I withdraw my comment.”
“Could they have Chessori and gleasons?” Mike wondered aloud.
“Not likely, Sire,” Jessie answered. “The gleasons would suffer from the scree just as much as my people, and I do not see the gleasons fighting beside anyone, least of all a Chessori who is causing them pain.”
“So we rule gleasons out. Not that it matters: this will be a space fight, not a ground fight. If the Chessori are involved, the Rebels in front of us are not concerned with us in the slightest,” Mike summarized. “I’m a little surprised they haven’t come after us, though. They know we’ll see whatever they do. Does it make sense they’d let us get away to tell the rest of the galaxy?”
Jake answered.›I could argue that one either way. You know there will be survivors to tell the story, there are always survivors. But maybe they’d prefer we got away to tell the story. Politically, their cause would be strengthened by taking out the Empire’s Protectors. The Great Cats have made no secret of whose side they’re on. It’s probably a good move politically. And Mike, it’s just a small attack group. They can’t have the resources to defeat the Great Cats. They’re here to isolate the planet, to keep the Great Cats from helping Ellie.‹
Mike informed the group of Jake’s judgment. To Voorhees, he said, “Captain, I’d like you to keep a close lookout for other ships that might be here to reinforce them. Agreed?”
“Aye, Sire.”
“You know that all of your passengers are immune to the Chessori’s scree and that your crewmembers, including yourself, are not?”
“I do.”
“Okay, men,” he said slapping his hands together and rubbing them together briskly, “we’re going to attack. Captain, you and I will develop the attack plan. Josh, your men will man the weapons. You have a week to learn. Reba did it in an hour. Think you can manage?”
Josh grinned in reply. “How many weapons stations, Captain?” he asked.
“Twelve stations, each with dual weapons,” Voorhees answered.
“Twelve!” Mike exclaimed. “We only had two aboard Resolve, and we managed quite well.”
“Surely not against six fighters and a cruiser,” Voorhees prompted.
“Well… no. What do we do about the cruiser? Can we even take it on? Does it have a tractor beam?”
“The cruiser will not consider us a problem, just a nuisance. Have you ever seen one of these ships up close?”
“I spent some time aboard one. I’ve never fought one.”
“They’re impregnable. It’s why they were built. No one goes up against a cruiser, Sire. They’re close to half a mile long, and they carry ships like this in their belly.”
“You mean there might be more ships showing up to fight?” Mike asked, stealing a quick glance at the screens.
“No, those fighters were probably carried here by the cruiser. I doubt if there are more, though I can’t be certain.”
“And the tractor beam?”
“It most likely carries a tractor beam, though I would not expect it to be used during a battle, only afterwards. The beams don’t serve any purpose other than to move things around or to bring them aboard, and they’re a weak point during battle. Once the shooting starts, we’re the enemy; they won’t want to bring us aboard, they’ll want to destroy us.”
“How is the tractor beam a weakness?” Josh asked, immediately latching on to the one positive thing he’d heard, even though he knew next to nothing about tractor beams.
“A direct hit on a charged tractor beam capacitor would destroy the ship, Colonel. The capacitors are heavily shielded, but no captain would take a chance. You just don’t go into battle with a charged tractor beam. Period.”
Mike asked, “What if it’s already charged up? Or partially charged?”
“Highly unlikely, Sire.”
“Hmm,” Mike wondered aloud. “When we left Earth, a cruiser attempted to take Resolve aboard before the fighting even started.”