“Aw crap!” said the fleet commander.
“What is it?” asked Major Ross.
“The Mosh fleet. A cruiser and two destroyers are moving toward our Interceptor.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Tell the boat to start moving in to pick up the rail guns so it can get out of there before the Mosh ships show up.”
“Roger.”
All attention went back to the main screen. Galen was nervous, knowing that the video feed was delayed by at least two minutes because of the distance the signal had to travel. Any commands to change the view and the zoom from the TOC took at least that long to respond, so Chief Spike and the rail gun crews had to manage the video transmissions as well as the battle.
The scout ship moved toward Spike and the Mosh pilot used a clear channel to say, “You have fought with honor. Now prepare to receive terms. You will be treated well.”
Spike remained silent. The grounded rail guns fired, each slicing a propulsion nacelle off the Mosh scout. The projectiles continued in three round bursts, carefully destroying the sensors and the weapons of the Mosh scout to leave it like a fly with its wings pulled off and eyes poked out. Galen grinned because he knew Corporal Tushar was in charge of the rail gun detachment. He was just the right sort of person to do that to an enemy because he had just the right mix of sadistic humor and consummate skill to pull it off. At the mercy of a kinder or less skilled troop, the Mosh pilot would have been killed. Instead, the Scout ship was disabled and helpless.
Spike moved his interceptor in close to the Mosh scout ship and then gave it a gentle nudge. “I’m going to give you a hard shove that will put you on a trajectory to hit the planet. If you choose to eject in the atmosphere, there is a good chance you’ll survive.” Spike gunned his engine and then halted. The crippled Mosh ship was sent on a course to hit the planet about 10 kilometers away from the base. “Have a nice day.”
The boat came in and picked up the ground-mobile rail guns and Spike’s interceptor. With its tail shot off, the Interceptor would be very difficult to land so Spike chose the safer option of riding inside the drop boat. The view switched to the Mosh side of the rings. A light cruiser and two destroyers approached the area where the other Scout ship had disappeared into the outer ring, shrouded deep in its frozen ice-fog material.
The first destroyer entered the ring, the material revealing the egg shape of the ship’s energy shield. The destroyer moved in cautiously, its shield gradually shrinking as it moved forward. Much of the ring material passed through it but lost kinetic energy as it did so. Soon the destroyer was no longer visible. After half an hour, the second destroyer entered the ring and also sank out of view. Then the light cruiser nudged as close as it dared. Over the next few minutes, three dozen escape pods came out of the ring and attached themselves to the cruiser. Then the cruiser pulled back and fired. Several secondary explosions blinked brilliantly but briefly inside the material of the rings.
The Fleet Commander said, “That’s it, scratch two destroyers.”
Major Ross smiled. “Not a bad day’s work, two scout ships and two destroyers down.”
“And a prisoner,” said the Public Affairs commander. “The Mosh pilot ejected and is drifting on a raft in the sea. He is less than eight kilometers from here.”
“Good, bring him in. I want to talk to him.”
Tad entered the TOC five minutes early for shift change.
Galen got up and met him at the door. “Wow, you missed everything.”
Tad looked around the room. “Figures. So what’s the story?”
“The Colonel is coming soon, that’s why all the commanders are here now. And the Mosh lost some serious firepower. But you’ll hear all about it on shift. These guys will be talking about it for a while. Later.” Galen turned to leave.
“Later.” Tad waved at Galen as he left.
Outside the TOC, Galen suddenly felt drained of energy. He skipped chow and went straight to bed and slept soundly until a series of explosions woke him. He emerging from the shack and looked toward the air field and saw half a dozen columns of black smoke rising, yellow flames at their base.
Galen saw Tad standing outside the TOC. “What happened?”
“They bombed the airstrip with 36 ground attack bombers, sent in low and slow. We stopped most of them but three got through and took out eight of our Interceptors on the ground. But they’re all gone now.”
The sirens sounded the all clear. With less than an hour before his shift, Galen quickly showered, changed and ate breakfast. After relieving Tad in the TOC he sat next to Major Ross. “Guess I missed the raid.”
The Major took a deep breath. “The bombers had to come from a carrier in the second group, meaning they came in from maximum flight range and couldn’t possibly have made it back to the carrier. The bombers could have made it back on autopilot but the crews would have died for lack of life support. Then we realized the bombers were unmanned, sent in on a one-way mission. That would account not only for their heavy losses but the greater impact of the raid as well. Bombers without crews can carry more explosives; three bombers actually lasted long enough to attack and did considerable damage. We lost eight interceptors, 23 air wing personnel and ten Mandarin civilians.”
Galen let that information sink in. “So they don’t have enough pilots. They need them for something else.”
“Very good, my little apprentice. I might have to promote you to protégé. I’ll add that they wanted to get rid of obsolete bombers. Piloting one of those things against our air defenses would be suicidal. The Mosh learned from previous combat operations elsewhere that those things were complete junk, best used as a missile. The second part of their fleet is coming around to join the first group and form up to launch a ground invasion, so I think they saved their pilots to fly the landing boats. They thought they would get rid of all our interceptors but we still have four left.”
Galen looked at the main screen. It showed the air field. The flames were out and repair crews were already patching the tarmac. “They really know what they’re doing.”
“Yes. They need to get that air field repaired before the Colonel gets here, in about five hours.”
“Ahead of schedule.” Galen looked back at the main screen. The view changed to the approaching Mosh fleet, all the ships linked up as a single formation and moving outward.
The Major said, “So are the Mosh. Almost as if they coordinated it on purpose. The Colonel will be here about two hours before them.”
“Any new information from the prisoner, that Mosh scout pilot?”
Major Ross shook his head. “He’s a complete ass. He keeps insisting we surrender. He also claims to be their commander and demands we bring him food and drink and entertainment, which will guarantee us humane treatment after their inevitable victory. You want to talk to him?”
“Sure, why not.”
The Major jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “He’s in my office.”
Galen got up and went into the office. Two armed guards were in there. The Mosh pilot was chained hand and foot to a sturdy metal chair bolted to the floor. In a gruff voice he said, “Who in the name of Odin are you?”
Galen ignored the question. The Mosh was easily seven feet tall, Galen’s height. Muscular, wearing synthetic lightweight chain mail over a thick wool shirt. ing white hair, braided into a single pony tail that hung halfway down his back, pulled some of the wrinkles out of the ruddy forehead of his leathery face. A yellow mustache and ing beard covered his lower face and made it hard to read his expressions. Yellow teeth showed in his disdainful grimace, teeth stained from years of eating under-cooked red meat and drinking rot-gut red wine. Galen wondered how such barbaric people dared take the field of battle against professional mercenaries.