Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (36 page)

Alan put his hand to his ear, to show he was calling someone. “Control, this is Smith, I need a couple of passenger carts out at the Marine command tent. There is a General here that would like to see what we’re doing in there.”

“They’re on their way, Alan. Make sure you avoid building twelve until the last, they’re still getting everything set up,” Carl replied from the command center.

“That’ll be fine, Control. Thank you, Smith out,” Alan replied. He looked at the General. “We’ll have a couple of go-carts out front in a couple of minutes, General.”

The man nodded. “Is anything in there dangerous, Agent Smith?”

“Only in building twelve Sir, we’ll be stopping by that building last since they are still inspecting it to make sure nothing was damaged,” Alan replied. “There is a large hydrogen production and storage facility in there.”

“Ah, I understand. I take it then that the research being done here is based on hydrogen as an alternative fuel source?” Keller asked.

“Not exactly Sir. Hydrogen is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, however, production, and storage, both after production as well as when it’s in the vehicle are an issue. Most of what goes on here is along those lines. Imagine filling a tank with twenty-five gallons of water, and maybe have to add more in a year or two,” Alan explained. A beep from outside let them know the carts had arrived, and the tour was on.

––––––––

A
pproximately forty thousand feet

Wyoming, USA

Earth, Sol system

––––––––

E
arlier, just before the Caldarian landings at Talos began, Ghost Squadron was heading for intercept of the Caldarian fighters and bombers. On their way north, they caught up to a flight of F-22 Raptors heading for the same place.

“Corvis, let me try to talk to these guys, maybe I can warn them to stay back a little,” Ghost Three, Fireball, asked.

“You can’t honestly believe it’ll do any good, do you?” Corvis replied.

“No, but it’s worth trying. I can catch up to you guys when I’m done,” Fireball replied. “Please Sir? I used to fly with these guys. I know their families.”

Corvis sighed. Sometimes he really hated command. “Okay, but you can’t let them know who you are, and you need to make sure no one on the ground can hear you. If they turn on you, get the hell out of there. You have two minutes, after that, we’re going to need you out front.”

“Roger, Ghost Three, breaking formation. Be back before you know it.” With that, Fireball dropped out of formation, and flew to the Raptors. He dropped in beside the lead plane. Reading the name under the cockpit, he smiled. It was his old flight leader.

Setting up the comm, he made sure that only this wing could hear him. “Banshee Four-Three, this is TDF Ghost-Three. You guys are heading for a serious ass-whooping.”

“Who is this? Get off this frequency right fucking now!” Colonel Johnson, A.K.A. Banshee Four-Three, replied.

“Colonel, look to your left.” Fireball said.

“Holy SHIT!” the veteran pilot said. “Who the hell are you?”

“I actually can’t tell you that, Sir. But I meant what I said. The targets you are chasing are alien fighter craft. I know you’re proud of the Raptors, but you are way out-classed here. They will blow you out of the sky, and not even slow down. We need you to keep your distance, and let us handle this,” Fireball said.

“Who is ‘us’? And why does your voice sound familiar?” the Colonel asked.

“We are a top secret agency that protects Earth from this type of threat. The rest of my wing has already gone ahead, but I stayed back to try to warn you. If you engage those ships, you will die. It’s that simple Sir.”

“
Bishop
? What the hell are you doing up here flying something like that?” one of the other pilots asked.

“Sorry, I don’t have time to explain any better, I need to get back to my wing. Please Colonel, think about what I said. With that, Fireball pushed his throttle forward, and shot ahead of the fighters so quickly that he was out of their sight in seconds.

“Bishop, wait!” Colonel Johnson called.

“Banshee flight! Come in Banshee flight!” the radio suddenly came back to life.

“This is Banshee Four-Three, what’s up, Command?” Johnson replied, looking ahead, trying to catch a glimpse of the strange craft that had been beside him.

“You disappeared for a few seconds there. It must have been a malfunction. Good to know your still out there,” the controller said.

“We didn’t go anywhere, Control.” He paused. “Say, are the hostiles still the only targets on your scopes?”

“Affirmative, Banshee. Isn’t that enough for you?” Control asked.

“No, they’re plenty. I was just making sure we don’t get surprised by anything,” Colonel Johnson replied.

“Aren’t you going to tell them what just happened, Sir?” his wingman asked over the plane to plane radio.

“What’s to tell them? They wouldn’t believe me anyway,” Johnson replied. “When Bishop was with us, he was a good pilot, and usually knew what he was talking about. We still have to go check this out, but be careful, let no one get too stupid. Copy?”

He got five replies, and felt a little better. He was certain that no one else knew it, but the Colonel had heard that ‘Bishop’ had passed away three months ago in a car accident. The warning the man delivered haunted him like a message from the grave.

––––––––

"G
host Three returning to wing," Fireball reported as he accelerated to catch up.

“Just in time, Fireball.” Corvis then addressed the whole wing. “Okay, boys and girls, this is the real deal. Arm all weapons, and raise shields heavy front. The bad guys are still twenty thousand feet above us, so we’ll come up from under them, and blow them to hell. Execute in fifteen seconds. The Bombers are the primary target, everything else is dessert.
G’due Vreen
everyone!” Covis said, wishing everyone good luck in Talosian.

Although in the atmosphere of a planet like Earth, the laser weapons had a diminished range, the Caldarians were still well in range of Ghost Squadron’s lasers, however, they didn’t fire them for one simple reason, they didn’t want to shoot down the missiles they all launched at the bombers.

The Caldarians couldn’t detect the fighters of Ghost Squadron, but they could detect the missiles. Once those deadly weapons left the racks, the Caldarian fighters reacted quickly. They immediately broke formation, and moved to put themselves between the inbound missiles and the bombers they were locked onto.

The move did manage to break the locks of a good share of the missiles but enough of them got through, simply flying around the enemy fighters, to cause considerable armor damage to two of the four bombers. It wasn’t enough to make them turn back, but it would make killing them easier later. The rest of the missiles switched targets to the fighters, and the fight was on. Three missiles managed to impact the shields on their targets but did little physical damage. The rest of the missiles were either lured off by counter measures, or shot down by another fighter.

Lasers blasting away, Ghost Squadron flew through the enemy formation, so closely that, for a moment, they could all see each other. It was enough of a frustration for the Caldarians, that they broke formation to pursue this new enemy. It was shortly after that they discovered that they could not get a lock on the strange craft. On the heels of this discovery, they also realized one other very important fact.

They had left the bombers unprotected.

Ghost Squadron flipped around and, on the next pass, blew two of the larger ships out of the sky. From there, the melee quickly degenerated into a straight up dog fight, with the last two bombers trying to sneak away to complete their mission. They hadn’t gotten very far when they ran into something that actually delayed them for a moment – Banshee flight had caught up.

The reason Banshee delayed the bombers was because the bombers thought it was another squadron of super ship like the ones that had drawn off their fighters. Because of earlier battle damage, and expecting to be destroyed at any second, the two heavy ships dove for the planet. When they did, they presented the hot plasma exhaust from their engines to the heat seeking missiles carried by the US Air Force Raptors.

Banshee flight dove after the two fleeing enemy ships, if for no other reason than to keep track of them. However, when they got a lock on the two craft, the fighters launched sixteen AMRAAM IV air to air missiles.

Under normal circumstances, the missiles would have done no damage to the bombers. However, both of the Caldarian ships had sustained moderate to heavy damage in the earlier combat. The first two or three missiles did little more than finish destroying the aft shields, but the rest of the missiles, either through luck or because of previous damage, managed to destroy the engines in both ships. One of the ships took enough damage to overload its reactor, causing it to detonate, which in turn set off the warheads they were carrying.

Luckily, the EMP emitted by the explosions did, relatively, very little damage; however, several people on the ground were blinded and a few badly burned by the high-altitude blasts. There was extensive damage to crops and livestock. The state of Wyoming, parts of Nebraska, Colorado, and Montana lost all unshielded electronics, resulting in a multi-state power outage.

Of the fighters of Banshee flight, none of them returned to base. Colonel Johnson died when his fighter blew up from the heat of the initial blast. A couple of the other pilots managed to eject before their ships exploded, but only three made it to the ground alive, and one of them died on the way to a hospital. The other two were blind and severely burned. Another died three days later from radiation sickness. But the last pilot somehow stayed alive.

––––––––

W
hile Banshee flight turned to pursue the two bombers, Ghost squadron was finishing up with the last of the fighters. Fireball and Hera disengaged the fighters to go after the bombers. They didn’t get very far before the bombers exploded. Of the pilots that had eject, only one of their chutes actually deployed, and that pilot was already dead.

The two Talosian fighters ‘caught the other two pilots, and made sure they made it to the ground in a place where they would be quickly recovered. Then they returned to the rest of the wing. With the fighters and bombers destroyed, Ghost squadron wanted to go after the carrier, but their base was still under attack.

––––––––

F
.S.S.
Star Dancer

Selene (Earth’s moon) Orbit

Sol Sector.

Combat location:
Dark Palace

––––––––

A
s the attack on Talos began, Ian silently wished them luck and looked to see where he could hit the Caldarians again.

“How is the shell game doing?” he asked.

“It is certainly causing the enemy no end of heartburn. They’ve gotten more cautious, and at the first sign of trouble they have taken to backing off to see if they can figure out where the weapons are. I think they’ve figured out that what’s hitting them are drones, but that doesn’t lessen the damage they are taking,” the tech answered.

Ian grinned. “Shut down ‘shell game’ at the end of the next attack. Wait thirty minutes, then light up the whole system for ten minutes, then shut it all down again. During the fireworks, bring Cobalt home.”

“Yes Sir. So far, there has been no response from the Super Nova,” Chloe informed him.

“Be thankful for that. Once that big bitch gets involved, a lot of people are going to die, we want them to sit it out as long as possible,” Ian replied.

“That we do Sir,” Chloe replied.

‘Sir, one of the carriers is preparing to jump. Confirmed, jump point is forming... exit point forming a hundred thousand kilometers to port!” One of the techs said.

“Fuck! That’s going to complicate things. All wings stand by to launch. Gun and missile crews to the ready!” Ian replied. “Hold fire and passive lock until we see what they are up too.”

“Understood Sir,” Chloe replied. “Shields?”

Ian shook his head. “No, they can detect those. Let’s just see what they’re doing first. It could be that they were sent here just to make sure the ‘wrecked hulk’ has nothing to do with the shit going on in the system.”

“What if they decide to just go ahead and blow it away and eliminate the possibility?” Eischens asked.

“Then we blow them out of the sky as quickly as possible, and hope the Super Nova doesn’t notice,” Ian replied. It was clear he didn’t have that much faith in the big ship not noticing the destruction of yet another of its carriers.

“It might work, we are obscured from the Super Nova for another week,” Eischens replied, but was very skeptical.

“Where are our fighters?” Ian said glancing back to the big holo-tank.

“In route to the jump point. If that carrier is still here, they won’t be able to land without the base being seen,” Chloe said.

Ian was silent for a minute, thinking. “Okay, light up the drones again when those fighters get back here. The fighters can scrap the carrier, before the base lets them land. That should maintain cover.”

“Sir, we don’t have any drones that close, won’t the attack be noticed?” One of the techs asked.

“Only if the Caldarians know where we put all the drones.
You
didn’t tell them, did you, Ensign?” Ian asked.

The tech blushed. “No Sir.”

“There ya go, then. The enemy will think it’s just more of the same,” Ian said grinning.

“Carrier is emerging,” the tech that first reported it said. “Its shields are up, but none of its weapons are armed yet. Target is at eighty thousand kilometers and closing.”

“That’s going to make things interesting if we have to scrap it. Just before the attack, raise the shields for both the moon base as well as us, but make sure they get lowered again as soon as it’s safe to do so afterward. Tell our gunners that they can play too, but make damn sure of their target. At this range, we could easily blast the moon base before the rounds self-destruct.”