Chapter Twenty Six
Colonel Theil came out of the office and stood in front of Major Ross, who immediately stood and moved to the left of the command chair. “Where are my interceptors?”
Sevin spoke up, “Sir, they are moving to attack the boats and will do so as soon as they are also in range of our rail guns, so that the attacks are coordinated, augmented immediately with 240mm gun fire. My estimate is—”
“I want them back here right now. Order them to come back and land and put them in their bunkers.” The Colonel sat in the command chair and stared at the main screen, which showed the approaching drop boats. “Give me a view of the Mosh fleet.”
Galen moved to the office, opened the door just a crack and peeked inside. The Mosh prisoner was back to being chained up in his chair, slumped over. Galen caught a whiff of strong whiskey and saw a bottle on the desk, about two thirds full with the lid screwed back on. He closed the office door and made his way over to Tad, who sat with his elbows on the table, balled fists supporting his chin. Galen tapped Tad on the shoulder and leaned in to his ear and said, “Let’s get some fresh air.”
Tad stood and followed Galen outside and around the command tank and into their shared tin shack. Galen sat at the desk and turned on the flat screen and logged on with his personal account and brought up the recording he had made of the Colonel conspiring with the Mosh Chief. He stood, pointed and said, “Check this out, I recorded it about thirty minutes ago.”
Tad watched and slowly stepped closer to the video and placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned forward and watched. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s tell Sevin.”
A knock came at the door. It was Major Ross. “What are you two clowns up to? Don’t you know there’s a war on?”
Galen knew that the longer he waited the worse things would get. He decided to take a chance. He re-started the video and stood behind the Major, prepared to subdue him if necessary. “Watch this.”
The Major watched, jaw dropping, shoulders slumping. Finally he turned to Galen and said, “You know the terms of your contract, the difference between commissioned officers and enlisted?”
“I know my first duty is to the unit’s mission and taking care of its troops.”
“Well it’s different for commissioned officers. Our highest loyalty is to the Colonel. But this violates that loyalty. I have no choice but to buy back my contract and resign from the unit.” Ross sat at the table, logged on and did just that. He stood, removed his pistol belt and handed it to Galen. “Good luck.”
“Now what?” Tad said.
“Well if I were you, I’d get control of this battle. The Colonel’s plan right now is to let the Mosh land unopposed, on the pretext the Mosh fleet will stop firing to avoid hitting their own warriors, so that we can drop the shield and knock their ships out with laser cannons. I thought it was a stupid plan, but it makes sense if you plan to surrender.”
“Right.” Galen sat at the desk and drafted his assumption of command orders. Right after the other three officers resigned and the Colonel was taken into custody he would invoke them. “Let’s get back in the TOC and show this video.”
Tad said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Move in quickly and shoot the Mosh prisoner and then as soon as the video starts you shoot the Colonel with your tranq gun. Go inside the TOC, I’ll come in a few seconds later.”
Tad left. Galen took a deep breath and locked eyes with Ross for a moment, spun on his heel and marched off to the TOC. His pulse pounded, his breathing was deep and fast, huffing a bit. He hardly felt in control of himself as he entered the conference room and pushed the Guns technician aside so he could use the terminal to put the incriminating video on the main screen. Quite by accident, the volume was louder than necessary.
Tad stepped out of the office and shot the Colonel in the base of the back of his neck with the tranq pistol. Colonel Norbert Theil, former commander of the Jasmine Panzer Brigade, slumped forward in the command chair. The leaders in the conference room watched the video, first with disbelief and then awkward comprehension. Galen still had a high level of adrenalin coursing through his body and fought it for enough self-control to take charge of the situation. He stood in front of the main screen and said, “I understand that you officers have to resign and buy back your contracts. The rest of you, we have a battle to fight.”
Galen went to the command chair, grabbed Theil by the collar of his jacket and pulled him to land face down in a heap on the floor. He sat in the command chair and said, “If you former officers would, do me the favor of getting the Mosh Chief and Mr. Theil out of here and take them to the brig.”
The former infantry commander said, “You got it, Smaj.”
Galen invoked his assumption of command orders and gave Sevin a nod, knowing Sevin would send his interceptors back up to attack the boats. The Guns technician was already typing furiously at his keyboard and the public affairs Chief began drafting an official statement for Galen to read to the troops to explain the events leading to the change in leadership. The former infantry officer dragged the unconscious Mosh Chief by the length of chain shackling his feet and the resigned public affairs officer carried Mr. Theil slung across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Galen felt better with them out of the TOC.
The fleet commander said, “What do you want from me, boss?”
It took Galen a moment to realize that the fleet officer was not part of the brigade, but was still contracted to support it. He wouldn’t resign and was still obligated to this mission’s contract. “Take the command jump ship, get back up to your battle cruiser and coordinate the space battle from there. And see what you can do about that Mosh jump point, I really don’t need any more of them showing up.”
The fleet officer nodded with a smile and left the TOC.
Galen lost his color vision, felt weak, and fainted.
Galen woke up feeling refreshed and warm all over. He sat up slowly and realized he was stretched out on the couch in the office. Then he remembered and wondered how long he’d been out. He got up and went out to the conference room and saw Tad sitting in the command chair. Galen sat in the chair to his right.
“How long was I out?”
Tad switched the main screen from a view of the Mosh fleet to a view of the north beach. For as far as the view showed, Mosh drop boats were sloppily lined up, belly down on the sand, some of their cargo ramps with their ends in the water but most on dry sand.
“About an hour.”
“Tell me what I missed.”
“The interceptors went after the boats and targeted the heaviest ones first. The sensors can estimate mass and Sevin figured the heaviest ones would have infantry support vehicles and larger weapons, so he took out about half of those in one pass. Things got hot for the Interceptors but not before they had mass estimates on all the boats. Then the sky batteries used that information to knock out the rest of the heavily-loaded drop boats. As they got closer, fire control ignored the boats that were obviously empty. Still, those bastards managed to land over nine hundred troops.”
Galen looked at the screen and saw evidence of combat in the distance.
Tad swiveled the camera to face the buildings. Mosh warriors lay on their stomachs in the sand, occasionally firing a weapon at a building. “They’re working their way in slowly. In the first ten minutes they attacked aggressively but our troops stuck it to them pretty well.”