“Are there any questions? If not, I’ll turn you over to Captain Hasselrode to give you your individual patrol zones. Good luck and good hunting.”
The entire room came to attention as Admiral Craddock left the room. Captain Hasselrode activated a holographic display of the space in which the battle would take place. He highlighted the patrol zones of the ten scout ships that would be taking part in the operation. The Vigilant wound up with a patrol zone astride a major space route between two of the home worlds. Kelly brought this area up on his pocket terminal and started looking for places to ambush the K’Rang. He found a planetary nebula with an extended streamer of charged gases that would work for their purposes. This charged gas cloud from a long-dead star would hide them nicely. The only drawback was that the tendril was intermittent and extended deep into K’Rang space. It would be a long way back to GR space if they had to run for it. Escape might be difficult, if they should come to the attention of a large K’Rang force.
The three local planetary systems offered some hiding places from which to spring an ambush, but it would be tough to get in past any defenses. If they could, they would do some real damage. Getting out again would be the problem.
Captain Hasselrode informed them that the missile launcher would be mounted in their cargo hold and each ship would carry 20 anti-ship missiles, in addition to their turrets and guns. This would give them a significant standoff range, and make their task a little more survivable. Now all they had to do was figure out how to sneak through the K’Rang frontier defenses.
After the briefing, Kelly and LCDR Timmons walked back to the Vigilant in silence. This mission was not the thing to talk about in the open. Their success or failure would be decided by how much secrecy they could maintain.
When they got back to the ship, they went directly to the captain’s cabin. Chief Watson was waved in. The holographic projector on the conference table was activated. The captain quickly briefed Chief Watson on their mission. Kelly brought the patrol zone up on the star chart. He highlighted all the possible ambush locations and known defenses. The largest defensive obstacle was the frontier itself. There was an extensive web of sensors and space mines stretching for hundreds of parsecs. It couldn’t reasonably be gone around. It had to be gone through. How to do it?
The captain turned to the hologram and said, “The frontier will be the key to this mission. The device we got from the K’Rang couriers no longer works. The K’Rang probably changed the codes. We are going to have to find a way through the frontier that won’t get us killed or tell the K’Rang where we are going. Are there any suggestions?”
Chief Watson walked up to the display. “You know sir, there is a way we could blank out large sections of the K’Rang frontier. It would require some coordination and our timing would have to be precise, but it could be done.”
“What do you have in mind, Chief?”
“Well, I don’t know if there are any around because we have much more effective weapons now, but an old thermonuclear device could do it. When they go off they radiate an electromagnetic pulse that fries electronic circuitry. Most of our stuff, and I imagine the K’Rangs too, has circuit protection that shields the circuitry, but it shuts the system down and has to restart. This gives about 30 seconds to a minute to do what we need to do. If we could fire a nuclear warhead at the frontier and set it off in the midst of their sensors and mines, it would blind them for about a minute. We could be through and gone by the time they came back on line.”
The captain rubbed his chin and said, “Good thinking, Chief, but we need to get through in a less spectacular way. We need to use finesse, not brute force for this one. We want to be as unobtrusive as we can.”
Kelly looked at the display. He thought he saw a way to get through.
“Captain, remember our hiding spots when we were patrolling in the Scutum sector? These asteroids here. They were mostly nickel and iron and about the size of a scout ship. Why don’t we go in there and throw a few of them at the frontier until the K’Rang stop reacting? The best way around an alarm is to convince the guy watching it that it’s malfunctioning. It probably wouldn’t take but about three of them before they get tired of flying out and investigating. In addition, if we concentrate in one area we could probably take out enough mines to pass through them.”
“How do you propose we ‘throw’ these huge rocks at the fence?’
“We latch onto one of these big rocks some distance from the frontier with our tractor beam. We don’t have to get them going all that fast. We accelerate them slowly toward the frontier. Once we get them up to speed, we cut them loose and turn away. We then find a hiding spot to watch the reaction. If we do this in four or five places along the frontier, we could pick our spot after the K’Rang get tired and go home. Besides, they can’t have an unlimited supply of mines and sensors to replenish the frontier with.”
“I like it. Now as long as we don’t wind up with some overconscientious K’Rang sector commander, it should work. Let’s do it.”
The Vigilant went back into dry dock to have the missile launcher and guidance electronics installed. The upcoming mission energized the yard crew. Their past sleepy performance was replaced by a crisp efficiency. The Vigilant was in and out in two days.
Kelly went to his quarters and reviewed ship’s status. All sections were reporting ready for combat status but weapons. The missiles would not be loaded until the last minute and that would happen in space dock-the further from prying eyes, the better. The galley was fully stocked with provisions. All the freezers had been replaced with the new stasis lockers while last in dry dock. They gave the ship a full two months of fresh provisions on top of the dry storage. Kelly and Cookie had searched the ship for additional space to store dry rations. Every nook and cranny was crammed with cans and food packs. Kelly estimated they could stay out for three months with all they had aboard, plus the replicator. He hoped they wouldn’t need them, but it never hurt to be prepared.
The sensor section had fine-tuned their scanners and receivers. In addition, they had received their wartime viruses, trojan horses, and other malicious code to use against K’Rang computers. Fleet was going all out. As Chief Blankenship liked to say, “No more Ms. Nice Guy.”
Kelly made a note to check the cargo bay to inspect the mountings, electrical, and data connections for where the missile pod would be installed. He then got his dress uniform ready for tomorrow and turned in.
Tammy’s ceremony wasn’t until 1400. He got up, had a quick breakfast, and inspected the hold with Chiefs Miller and Blankenship. It took several hours and Kelly noticed toward the end that he had but a short time to change and get to Tammy’s promotion ceremony.
Kelly arrived in time to sit down next to Tammy before the Shuttle Detachment Commander entered and the room was called to attention. Commander Ellington told them to take their seats. He seemed to take great pleasure in introducing Tammy. He talked on at great length about her piloting ability, her stellar performance at transition training, and how she brightened up the detachment with her smile. Finally, he called her up and instructed the yeoman to post the order. Kelly joined her on the stage. While her promotion order was read, Kelly and CDR Ellington removed her ensign rank insignia from her collar and replaced them with LTJG insignia. CDR Ellington shook her hand. She turned toward Kelly. Kelly made to shake her hand. She pulled him close and gave him a big kiss. The room broke out in applause.
Tammy kept Kelly by her side throughout the reception and asked him to escort her to her quarters when it was over. Kelly found a waiting shuttle and the two went to the Q.