Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (25 page)

Unable to close with neither their targets, nor those insulting little tormentors just ahead, the Rak were yowling in frustration! To make matters worse, their long-range scanners also showed the other half of the Rak fleet assigned to finish off the human’s assault fleet had been decimated, and the majority of that seemingly indestructible enemy fleet had reversed course and were now in pursuit of them!  

These human’s cowardly hit-and-run tactics infuriated the Rak OverFleet-Masters. Now there were dark, disturbing rumors circulating that several hundred Rak warships had actually
fled
the human assault fleet, but that couldn’t be true… Rak warriors simply did NOT flee from combat. Combat was exhilarating and glorious. Billions of Rak warriors competed all their lives for the honor of experiencing it. Death held no terrors for Raknii warriors. The Raknii were bred from birth to spit in death’s eye when it came for them.

Still, there was that disturbing prophecy.

* * * *

“Commander, the enemy is turning away!” shouted Lieutenant Jessica Anders, manning
Defiant’s
main scanning station. “New bearing, 017-mark 6, by 249-mark 4.”

Commander Lance DeSalle thumbed on his internal comm from the captain’s chair he was occupying and answered, “Very good, Lieutenant. Astrogation, plot us an intercept course and advise. Helm, prepare to change heading on my mark.”

DeSalle then thumbed on the internal intercom to Admiral Stillman’s cabin: “Bridge to Admiral Stillman.”

After only a few seconds delay, Stillman responded. “Stillman here, what’s up, Commander?”

“Admiral, the enemy fleet has just altered course, veering away from our carriers to 017 by 249. I am plotting an intercept course and with your permission, will advise the fleet to change course when we do.”

“Very well, Commander, good thinking. Permission granted. I’ll be right up… and Commander, don’t bother waking the captain. I think you and I can handle this.”

There was a noticeable pause before DeSalle responded, “Aye, aye, Admiral.”

Ben Stillman was again in his command chair in CIC within six minutes of DeSalle’s notification. The entire flotilla executed a flawless group turn at DeSalle’s order and was continuing to pursue the withdrawing aliens at best speed. DeSalle came over beside the admiral’s command chair and, in a low voice, said to him, “She’s going to skin me for not notifying her, you know.”

“Don’t worry, Commander,” Stillman replied. “You were under admiral’s orders to let her rest. That should keep you out of the dog house.”

DeSalle looked surprised and said, “Do you really think
that’s
going to make a difference when she finds out?”

Ben laughed and said, “No fear, Lance…You just let me handle Captain Fletcher.”

DeSalle snorted loudly and Ben suddenly reddened, realizing what he’d just said.

“Well, maybe ‘handle’ wasn’t really the most appropriate word…”

DeSalle lost it.

* * * *

War does not determine who is right… only who is left.   
— Bertrand Russell

Millions of pieces of debris from shattered cat ships littered the entire star system. It was going to take a decade or better to finally get all of the navigational hazards from the scattered wreckage of over 70,000 alien ships of all types, and the remains of the gigantic alien station, collected, cut up and dumped into the maws of a space foundry that had already been sent for. 

The
Battle of Kitty Litter
, as the fleet had already taken to calling this system, was over. Between their inability to gain ground on Thorn’s withdrawing carriers, continuing attacks by successive waves of her fighters and Turner’s courageous little destroyers taunting them from just out of range, evidently the cats finally realized the futility of further attacks. Obviously, they detected the other half of their fleet was decimated and fleeing with Kalis in pursuit, and Stillman’s victorious flotilla turning to pursue them. Faced with the prospect of being sandwiched between the hammer of Thorn’s fighters and the anvil of Stillman’s ships, the surviving cats evidently decided to cut their losses and their entire surviving fleet made the jump into hyperspace shortly after turning away, abandoning their troops and settlers down on the planet.

Human casualties had been incredibly light, especially in comparison to the ghastly amount of alien DNA and larger chunks of organic materials that were now orbiting the primary, like an incalculable number of microscopic new satellites. Two heavy cruisers took bolts that had cascaded up through their propulsion systems, taking out both engines and reactors. Without power, both had to have their crews evacuated. One battlecruiser and one battleship had each lost a single engine, but both still retained power, could still maneuver and reach hyperspace on their remaining engines, albeit at reduced speeds. A Sextus light cruiser, had been hit by from behind by 3-4 bolts that penetrated into the crew spaces, killing 32 and injuring 57, constituting the worst casualties suffered by the fleet during the entire battle. All in all, it was yet another miraculously bloodless victory for the old
Gray Fox
— very probably his masterpiece, as far as damage inflicted vs. damage suffered, further enhancing his legendary reputation, inspiring awe and incredible levels of confidence among the combined fleet. 

Nothing was planned for the actual taking of the planet itself yet. Analysts studying orbital scans and photography estimated there were nearly 200,000 civilian alien settlers, and over 750,000 of their assault troops down on the planetary surface. It was unknown how long those aliens could manage without additional supplies arriving from space. 

Kalis had a bit of a quandary on his hands. No doubt, the planet had to be secured at some point, as in-system fighter bases on the planetary surface made for one of the most cost effective system defenses they could leave behind them, when the fleet moved on to new targets deeper within alien space. The planet had to be taken, and taken quickly, but how? 

The primary difficulty facing the combined fleet was their inability to communicate with the aliens. There was no way to negotiate, threaten, implore or even make their desires known to the aliens. Kalis was loath to butcher defenseless intelligent creatures by simply bombarding them into oblivion from space, yet he also had no desire to lose hundreds of thousands of Fleet Marines taking out all three-quarter million of those assault troops piecemeal, either. 

At a subsequent admirals’ meeting, Admiral Jim Hunter from Sextus and Vice Admiral J.T. Turner from the Alliance had been understandably curious about what might have caused the destruction of the gigantic cat station, at the onset of the battle. Kalis, Thorn and Stillman all knew of the existence of the Confederacy’s stealthy intelligence vessels, of course, but only Kalis actually knew the details of their participation in the attack, as it had been his idea. The Confederates’ hesitancy to speculate on the exact cause of the station’s destruction left both Hunter and Turner suspicious that the Confederacy possessed a secret weapon of some type… something that Turner didn’t hesitate to believe for a second, after his personal experiences against them during the war. The loss of CSS
Phantom
was only now being suspected and, like everything else concerning the exotic intelligence vessels, was being kept tightly under wraps.

* * * *

Planet-Master Mral was faced with quite a conundrum of his own. Planetary scanners showed the space above their heads was filled with confusing masses of millions of small returns that could only be interpreted as massive debris fields. As there had been no incoming communications from the Rak fleet in the turns since the human aliens launched their surprise attack, the source of all that debris was distressingly clear. Also dismally clear was the fact that the massive
Golgathal Station
was just… gone. With Quadrant-Master Drix away at the imperial planet Raku and Sector-Master Bast stationed aboard the missing and presumed destroyed station, Mral was the senior Rak master in the system and therefore charged with defending the planet against the human invaders. 

Defending
against invaders… the concept boggled the mind. Never in history had the Raknii been forced to “defend” anything from anyone, except each other, of course. And with
what
exactly, was Mral supposed to “defend” the planet? It was known that whoever controlled space, controlled the planet, and the Raknii definitely did NOT control space in this system any longer. The power of these aliens was simply unimaginable. Even the information brought back from Tzal’s raid on the human planet, as incredible as it had been, never implied the ability to destroy 43,000 warships with but 200 of their own.  It was inconceivable. 

Obviously, the bitter truth was that Rak had bitten off a
lot
more than they could swallow, when they’d attacked that human planet a couple of cycles ago. Mral was thoroughly familiar with the dire prophecy concerning these aliens.
Ultimate predators
, who would cull the Raknii like the Rak culled herd beasts, indeed. 

So, just what was it that he was
really
expected to accomplish with 750,000 assault troops and 200,000 civilians against these
ultimate predators,
who had just destroyed the largest concentration of Rak military power in history? Hopeless… his people merely awaited death to begin raining down on them from above. The only question was
why
the humans hadn’t already begun their bombardment of the Rak planetary installations and settlements with those incredibly powerful energy weapons of theirs? Could it possibly be concern for the well-being of the human prisoners that had been transferred down to the planet, holding the alien onslaught at bay?

Human prisoners. We have some of Drix’ Rak/Human translators the Trakaan assisted us in developing at the prisoner compound.  I wonder…

* * * *

“Well, gentlemen,” said Arlene McAllister, president of the United Stellar Alliance, to the assembled group of her most senior military advisors. “Kalis’ attack on the aliens forward base should have gone off by now. I wish to God I knew what happened out there.”

“Madam President,” said Secretary of Defense, Douglas Campbell, “I know we’re all antsy for word of what’s happening out there, but I truly don’t believe there’s any great cause for concern. We all studied Admiral Kalis’ basic attack plan and could find no fault in it, based on the Confederacy’s incredible intelligence reports.”

“I just hope they had enough medium-yield missiles with them,” observed Admiral Simon Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“That was the only major concern I had.”

“He left Minnos with 90,000 of them,” responded Admiral Enrico Melendez, Chief of Fleet Operations. “The thing that worries me is that one-third of them were stored aboard the transports he took with him. If somehow the enemy managed to close, having to transfer missiles under fire could have been a disaster.”

“Kalis would have withdrawn to the emergency rendezvous point, if it became necessary to replenish his missile supply,” said Campbell. 

“I agree, Madam President,” said Bradley. “Fleet Admiral Kalis is much too smart to attempt transfer operations under fire. They don’t call him the
Old Gray Fox
for nothing.”

“I know,” sighed the president.  “He kicked my ass good at
2
nd
Ginia
.”

“That was hardly a situation by which to fairly judge your combat capabilities, Madam President,” said Bradley. “You’d already lost one-third of your fleet due to reassignment after
Stillman’s Raid
and lost most of your attack carriers to his surprise, short-range attack on Waston. I’m still in awe he didn’t lose half his task force, emerging such a short distance from Discol. That move was just insane.”

“What was insane was that idiot Marrot caving to political pressures and insisting I go ahead with that attack anyway, in spite of the drastic reductions in the forces available to me,” said McAllister. “The attack plan was totally shot to hell, and doomed before we even cast off.”

“Yes, it was,” replied Campbell. “So try not to judge yourself too harshly, Madam President. At least you were smart enough to withdraw and didn’t lose your whole damned fleet like Bishop did at
1
st
Ginia
.”

“Speaking of Bishop,” mused the president with a sour expression at the mere thought of the man. “The Judge Advocate General’s office has informed me his defense team is appealing for a new court-martial, and requesting his release pending a new trial.”

“On what grounds?” asked Bradley.

“They say they can now prove reasonable doubt, arguing the movement orders found in the commanding officer’s safe at
Haven,
authorizing release of those ships into Bishop’s custody, were forgeries.”

“That would change everything, if they can prove that,” said SecDef Campbell. “That hard copy of those movement orders constituted the primary evidence against Bishop and Monahan in obtaining convictions against them, for their participation in the theft of those assets and treason, when they showed up in Confederate hands later.”

“If the validity of those orders can really be called into question, the Fleet’s case against both men falls apart,” said Melendez.  “Is there really probable cause to suspect they might be bogus?”

“Evidently Bishop’s high-priced civilian defense team got to digging around in unclassified Fleet records and earned their exorbitant fees when they discovered the identity of the Alliance Fleet officer in command at
Haven,
at the time those ships were actually moved,” said the president. “Then Alliance captain… and now Confederate Admiral Benjamin Stillman.”

* * * *