Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (18 page)

“The newly developed Shadow heavy fighter surpassed the proposed benchmarks during its trial runs and has been ordered, by the commander, into full production even though some additional testing is needed. The fighter, in the form it will be deployed in, will be safe and very effective. The additional testing are for its jump capability, as well as the thought assisted flight systems. Until that testing can be accomplished, those two systems will be disabled. For the time being, the new fighter squadron will be based out of the lunar facility since it is the only facility currently equipped to handle their unique needs.”

“Excuse me, Major, but the lunar facility is only set up for
training
combat flight operations. I would have to split my teams to man the lunar flight operations system,” John said. “Not that I can’t do it, but splitting a team is never a good idea.”

Chloe nodded her agreement of that. “We understand that, Major. For the immediate time being, consider the lunar facility a third landing bay under your control.”

John nodded. “We’ll make it work, Major. Thanks for clarifying that for me.”

Chloe smiled at him before continuing. Operations taking place in the Martian area have been suspended, and those resources have been returned to Earth for use in their preparations.

“Although not directly under our control, the folks down at Talos have not been idle either. The defensive wall surrounding the community will be finished by nightfall. I’ve been given the design for the wall, and I must say I am very impressed. It has been equipped with sniper nests, firing ports, and even shields. While not impregnable, it will be a formidable obstacle for any attacking force to overcome in order to get into the community be land.

“The addition of several new platform based weapons systems will make getting to the community by air also very difficult. I should mention that the original mass driver design given the community for their defense has been modified for use on the ground. It is now capable of horizon to horizon multi-role attack, with multiple target capability. The design has been passed on to the lunar facility, but none of the systems could be installed before the arrival without pulling resources from another, critical projects.

“The main shield protecting the community has also been added to and augmented, making it more difficult to breach. Finally, the Marine compliment for the community has exceeded three hundred trained Marines. The underground training facility at Talos Base was completed a week ago, and Major Anders has already begun training all the Marines using it. Tomorrow, Marines for the lunar facility, as well as for the ship, will be arriving by shuttle from the training facility. The Lunar facility is slated to receive five hundred, while the ship will be getting two hundred.

“Janet Laskar and her department have been working overtime to recruit the people we need, but military personnel are notoriously hard to recruit. However, seven hundred new Marines, and three full classes of pilot trainees are nothing to sneeze at. She has asked me to once again reiterate the fact that some of these soldiers and pilots are from other nations. A few are from nations that can be considered hostile to the United States and her allies, so commanders should be on the lookout for potential trouble between soldiers,” Chloe said, this time she was interrupted by Ian.

“Excuse me, Chloe, but I was unaware we had begun recruiting from potentially ‘hostile’ nations.” He made quote marks in the air when he said the word hostile. “How long has she been working those, and do you know which countries she is working in?”

Chloe had to look up the information, but she had it. “Mrs. Laskar expanded operations into the middle east countries last month with Saudi Arabia, Iraq the UAE and Kuwait. She has since moved into Jordan, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Libya. A week and a half ago, she began operations in the far eastern nations of Japan, and South Korea, She has also visited Australia a few times, but I don’t believe she has had any luck finding recruiters there.”

“Damn, has she slept at all?” Jenny asked. “I think I might need to have a talk with her.”

“Colonel, I think the information might be a bit misleading. Mrs. Laskar herself has not been to all these places. She has ordered expansion to these countries by members of her teams. For example, she recruited a man that was from Iraq for the initial contact is the Middle East. While I do know she has been there once, most of the work being done there has been done by this man, and those he has recruited. The same goes for the Asian operations, although I don’t believe she has actually been there yet, I do know she went to Australia personally,” Chloe explained. “I think she said she
wanted
to visit Australia, and I can’t blame her, I’d like to go myself.”

Jenny looked at Ian. “I’ll talk to Mom and see if Janet’s been pushing herself.” Ian nodded agreement to Jenny and thanked Chloe for the information.

“That about covers it for my briefing. I would like to take the opportunity to let all of you know once again that if you need anything, or could use help with a project, please contact us, and we’ll see what we can do to help. After all, that’s what we’re here for.”

“If I may ask, why is Selene getting five hundred Marines, while Talos is only keeping three hundred? Will not the Village have need of the greater protection?” Amal Punjab asked. “Not that I do not appreciate the additional protection, but our main defense is to stay hidden during this.”

“Dr. Punjab, I allocated that number to the moon for a couple of reasons,” Ty began. “Firstly, I am not sending all the trainees out, only the ones that are fully trained. I will still have an additional force in addition to what I have trained, in addition to that, most of the men on the surface have volunteered for and been trained as a form of militia. In total, I will have a force of almost eight hundred if I need them.

“The second reason is, if you’re going to be hosting the shadow fighters there, it won’t take long for the Caldarians to begin to wonder exactly where those ships are coming from. If it were me commanding the enemy forces, I would want to take a closer look at the wrecked ship just to make sure it wasn’t a ruse of some sort. I fully expect the enemy to locate your installation eventually. When that happens you’re going to need the marines to fight them off.

“Chloe, Ian, I didn’t get a chance to make a report on this yet, but one of the eggheads that worked on the new design for the mass driver has come up with a man-portable version. It doesn’t have the replicator, because that would make it too bulky, but we will be using a generic ammunition that has a variable distance fuse on it. The computer in the weapons will alter the projectile based on the range to target once it’s sited. It uses a magazine of fifty ‘rounds’ and each person carrying one of these new rifles can carry at least four extra in pouches. Sammi tested one of them in a sniper role and she claimed the accuracy was far superior to her regular sniper rifle, with a much higher damage potential.

“If you’re interested and would like to have these distributed, I can ask for one of the downside replicators to begin cranking them out. They don’t really take that long to fabricate once the computer has the design loaded,” he finished.

“In your opinion are they superior to our existing pulse rifles?” Ian asked. “What disadvantages do they have?”

“Like a pulse rifle, they are one shot, one kill against soft targets. However, the mass driver takes two or three shots to penetrate a personal shield, where a pulse rifle can breech in two shots. The mass drivers bring velocity damage to the table where pulse rifles do not; there is no mass to a laser beam. A pulse rifle doesn’t use ammo, only power packs, a mass driver uses both. The list goes on,” Ty shrugged. “All in all, I would say that the weapons are different, but about equal. I have recommended a mix for my troops. If for no other reason than to give the Caldarians something else to think about.”

Ian nodded. “I’ll take your advice on that then, and order the same for all the rest of the deployed troops. If you can outfit them before you send them out, it would help. However, I don’t want the ship troopers to have the mass drivers, it would be too easy for them to penetrate the hull if we get boarded. That assumes that the lunar troops wouldn’t use them internally either.”

Ty nodded, “No Sir, these are most definitely external weapons. I’ll make sure the lunar troops understand that, and are equipped accordingly.”

Ian nodded. “Thank you, Major Anders. Major Julie Laskar, and Dr. Punjab, I would like for you to get together and work out a plan for the total and complete evacuation of Talos. I would like multiple plans, but the goal should be to get as many of those folks evacuated either to the moon or to the ship as quickly and safely as possible. They will need to take into consideration evacuation during a full attack, as well as an evacuation after an attack. I have already received emergency aid plans from the ESAR and Medical facilities. Basically, I want you to think up worst case scenarios and create a plan to deal with them.”

“I understand Commander Ian, but why would they need to be evacuated after an attack? I should think that they would need emergency services, but not evacuation,” Dr. Punjab asked.

“If the Caldarians openly attack the community on planet, and we are successful in repulsing it, federal government will be all over them, trying to find out how they survived and how they fought back. Will may need to pull our people out of there if that happens because the government won’t stop, and we’d be forced to fire on them to defend the secrets housed there. I would rather not do that if it can be avoided. I would rather evacuate everyone, and completely destroy the community before letting it fall into government hands,” Ian explained.

The meeting continued for another hour, at which point the replicators began producing food for the attendees that was delivered to the conference table by domestic drones without interrupting the conversations. Ian was pleasantly surprised to discover a big piece of Prime Rib and a baked potato sitting in front of him as well as a refill of his cappuccino. A drone rose up and moved to the center of the table and began placing butter, napkins, salt, pepper, and any other condiment that might be asked for within easy reach of the diners. When it finished, it left the table and quietly returned to its small recessed closet in the wall.

Ian cut a piece of the steak while he listened to Chief Dommer report on the auxiliary shield and power units he was installing in the interior of the ship in order to minimize the damage of hull breaches. When he was finished, Beth, as chief medical officer, got John’s attention. “Major, I would like your permission to have another couple hundred floating emergency units fabricated and assigned to each of the landing bays.”

“I would love to accommodate you, Doctor, but we simply don’t have room for them. With that many, we’ll be tripping over the damn things,” John replied.

“I thought of that actually,” Beth said, grinning. “We could program them to hover along the ceiling, out of the way of the cranes and other equipment. My medics can call them down as they’re needed, and we can reduce the time to get the wounded to the medical center by almost five minutes.”

John looked interested. “Did you have a spot in mind? Can you show me?”

As the two ate, a hologram appeared between them and Beth pointed to several places in the bay where extra medical units could be stashed. John looked thoughtful a moment. “You know, I think that would work really well, at least for now. We’ll have to revisit this layout after the modifications for the shadow fighters are done, though.”

“That’s fine, I was only thinking of doing this for this battle anyway. If we need the extras it will help us get them loaded into a shuttle faster too.” Beth said. She took a drink of her milk and reported on the dispositions of the special medical shuttles that had been built on the moon base for her. Each one of the small ships was basically a small flying trauma hospital capable of almost everything that could be done in the main medical on
Star Dancer
.

When the conversations began to wind down, Ian asked Ty, “Have you been getting anymore visits from trespassers trying to get on the property?”

“No Sir, nothing since the last attempt by the fake federal agents. It’s kind of creepy actually, we got used to chasing off someone every couple of days. I’d say it was the calm before the storm,” Ty replied.

“How’s Tommy doing?” Ian asked.

“Recovering, the loss of his eyes scared him more than the burns did, but he’s relaxed now that the doctors have begun repairing them. He’ll still be in medical for a couple of weeks, but I’ve been assured he’ll have a full recovery,” Ty replied. “He appreciate the flowers and card you sent, Sir, and he hopes to actually see them before they wilt.”

Ian nodded. “I hope so too. I’d heard that some of the folks down there are planning a barbeque in his honor when he gets released.”

“That’s the plan,” Luke said. “Everyone topside knew what he did for them before the end of that day. He’s had no shortage of visitors wishing him well. I think the attention is more embarrassing to him than his injuries. Tommy’s not used to so much attention.”

“I’m glad to see he knows what he did was appreciated. I’d planned on pinning a metal on him for it, it sounds like that barbeque would be a good place to do it. Let’s just hope that it’ll take place at Talos and not the moon base,” Ian said. “If no one else has anything, I think we can call it quits for tonight. You’re all doing a great job. I can honestly say that the Caldarians will have no idea of the can of whoop-ass they kicked open by coming here. This meeting is adjourned.”

As they all were dispersing, Ian walked up to John. “I never did get to ask you, since we sent Silver Squadron down to the moon for the shadow fighters, and pulled that training squadron up here, how are they doing? Are they going to be any help in the coming fight?”

John nodded. “I think so, Sir. They’re very close to graduation right now; in fact, by now, only six of them haven’t had their final tests. By the time the big bad gets here, I’ll have them all certified, but I don’t think we’ll be able to officially graduate them until after the Caldarians are dealt with.”